Best of the tens?
Oct. 24th, 2020 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beer_good_foamySo here's a thing. A while back, me and some friends, all bitter old Buffy fans, decided to get drunk and put together a list of the best TV series of the 2010s. And to make it interesting, we used a format based on the podcast Screendrafts, which means that rather than vote together on a common list we all agree on (and which would be boringly predictable), each of us got to pick 4 pre-determined spots on the top 24 list which we then revealed in ascending order, which means this list gets a little... creative, and much more focused on personal favourites.
So, the list:
The criteria: The show had to have its first episode air between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2019.
...That's it. That's the criteria. Drama, sitcom, animated, reality, US, international, love all serve all.
24. Dark
23. What We Do In The Shadows
22. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
21. Pappas pengar
20. New Girl
19. Barry
18. Person of Interest
17. Orange Is The New Black
16. Justified
15. The Leftovers
14. BoJack Horseman
13. Mr Robot
12. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
11. Stranger Things
10. Fargo
9. Orphan Black
8. Vera
7. Derry Girls
6. Billions
5. The Americans
4. You're The Worst
3. Treme
2. The Good Place
1. She-Ra And The Princesses of Power
Now, the fun part of this format is that there are some dark horses here, some that ended up in positions they probably wouldn't on an aggregated list, and some heavy hitters that missed out completely. We had a lot of discussions afterwards and came to some conclusions, for instance:
- Nobody who'd seen the last two seasons really missed Game of Thrones
- Everyone loves Rick And Morty but hates the toxic fandom so much they left it off out of spite
- Most agreed Killing Eve would have been there if the third season hadn't sucked so bad
- Everyone's a fucking idiot, and how dare you play my #2 pick at #14, and are you kidding me, and...
- Everyone had a huge number of favourites they wanted to put around #10, nobody could say for sure they had a personal #1
- None of us had seen all these shows, but most of us thought we had some homework to do. (Which I'm ashamed to say I haven't done as much of as I should, hence putting this up here to kick my own ass a little bit.)
Questions? Comments? Guesses on which four spots are mine...? :)
So, the list:
The criteria: The show had to have its first episode air between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2019.
...That's it. That's the criteria. Drama, sitcom, animated, reality, US, international, love all serve all.
24. Dark
23. What We Do In The Shadows
22. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
21. Pappas pengar
20. New Girl
19. Barry
18. Person of Interest
17. Orange Is The New Black
16. Justified
15. The Leftovers
14. BoJack Horseman
13. Mr Robot
12. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
11. Stranger Things
10. Fargo
9. Orphan Black
8. Vera
7. Derry Girls
6. Billions
5. The Americans
4. You're The Worst
3. Treme
2. The Good Place
1. She-Ra And The Princesses of Power
Now, the fun part of this format is that there are some dark horses here, some that ended up in positions they probably wouldn't on an aggregated list, and some heavy hitters that missed out completely. We had a lot of discussions afterwards and came to some conclusions, for instance:
- Nobody who'd seen the last two seasons really missed Game of Thrones
- Everyone loves Rick And Morty but hates the toxic fandom so much they left it off out of spite
- Most agreed Killing Eve would have been there if the third season hadn't sucked so bad
- Everyone's a fucking idiot, and how dare you play my #2 pick at #14, and are you kidding me, and...
- Everyone had a huge number of favourites they wanted to put around #10, nobody could say for sure they had a personal #1
- None of us had seen all these shows, but most of us thought we had some homework to do. (Which I'm ashamed to say I haven't done as much of as I should, hence putting this up here to kick my own ass a little bit.)
Questions? Comments? Guesses on which four spots are mine...? :)
no subject
Date: 2020-10-24 10:11 am (UTC)On other news; recently found a complete version of a story I wrote almost forty years ago; computer printout of something I wrote on an actual ribbon-style typewriter; references to a couple of things that were gone within a couple of years are very amusing and it clearly needed some re-drafting but; given it was my first completed fanfiction (Blake's 7, btw) it doesn't read too shabbily to my far more perfectionist eyes, which pleases me more than I can say; almost as much as seeing the complete version I thought I had lost before I had ever even heard of t'Interwebz :-)
kerk
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Date: 2020-10-24 12:12 pm (UTC)And that's awesome about that story! I know next to nothing about Blake's 7 but I can certainly relate.A few years ago I found some stories I'd written in middle school and was surprised by how well they worked - derivative as hell of what I was reading at the time and full of references that make little sense to me all these years later, but it just goes to show how intoxicating inspiration can be when it strikes - you love something, you want more of it, you write it.
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Date: 2020-10-24 01:02 pm (UTC)But the first - has a great shoot-out sequence that defies description - and I laughed my head off during. And Billy Bob Thornton's best role in ages. Each season is stand-a-alone, kind of like American Horror Story. So you just watch the first and skip the rest.
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Date: 2020-10-24 12:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-24 07:36 pm (UTC)Stranger Things... I'm very ambivalent about that one. It's a very well-made series and I enjoy it a lot, but I can't shake the feeling that it just feels too much like a sanitized, safely nostalgic take on The Past, including horrors of the past. The scariest thing about it is how well Netflix managed to hit the zeitgeist.
My choices were Barry, Person of Interest, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and... She-Ra! I'm going to post some more about that in one of the comments below...
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Date: 2020-10-24 01:25 pm (UTC)- Everyone loves Rick And Morty but hates the toxic fandom so much they left it off out of spite
- Most agreed Killing Eve would have been there if the third season hadn't sucked so bad
LOL! That's hilarious. My morning laugh, thank you!
I have yet to see the third season of Killing Eve - I just can't get myself to watch it. And the reviews haven't exactly been motivating me. I loved the second season. I honestly think it should have ended there.
There are by the way, people who loved the last two seasons of GoT. A small, rather vocal minority - who feels the need to regale me with all the reasons they loved it and teach me the error of my ways. (Sorry not happening.)
I've seen or tried most of the ones on the list.
Regarding the ones, I'm flirting with:
* What's with She-Ra and the Princesses of Power? I seen the trailer - I may have to try an episode. Although my pickiness about animation styles may get in the way.
* Dark. I thought it first aired this year? A lot of people have rec'd Dark. My brother loves Dark, so too does James Marsters and the guy who played Lex on Smallville, and a lot of male critics.
My guesses regarding which four are yours:
1. The Good Place
2. What We Do in the Shadows
3. Barry
4. Billions
Those are the ones that I've seen you write about and review the most - heck you talked me into watching Barry.
On the list, the only ones that I've actually tried and been able to stick with seem to be The Good Place, Crazy Ex, Justified, Sabrina (kind of - I've made it to the third season), Barry, Stranger Things, and kind of still with What We Do in the Shadows. There's a lot on it that I either haven't watched or didn't get very far into, or watched the first two or three seasons of, and lost interest for whatever reason.
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Date: 2020-10-24 07:47 pm (UTC)What's with She-Ra and the Princesses of Power?
It's the one I put at #1. :) (The others were Barry, Person of Interest and Crazy Ex-Gf.) Partly because of aforementioned shenanigans that go with the the format; My top 3 would probably be The Americans, Treme and The Good Place, but they were already taken, and I had to put something at #1. Me and one other guy were the She-Ra fans here, he tried to play it at #8 and got veto'd by someone who thought he was joking, and so I let the devil take me and played it at #1. It's not the best series of the last ten years, but it IS a very good series - true, I'm not a huge fan of the animation style either, but it's so incredibly well-written, very deliberately building over 5 seasons to one of the best finale seasons I've seen in a long time, character arcs all lining up at the end... I may have some meta coming up. Basically, it's 2020s BtVS if Buffy and Faith were the central dynamic rather than Buffy and Angel and/or Spike.
Dark debuted on Netflix in 2017, at least in Europe. I haven't actually seen it yet, I keep hearing good stuff about it though.
I don't think I've ever seen Billions, but I did write about Succession last year, I keep getting those two mixed up as well.
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Date: 2020-10-24 10:32 pm (UTC)Yeah, I keep confusing Succession and Billions. In my head they are the same series.
I'll have to try She-Ra at some point. Avatar surprised me with it's tight ending as well.
Dark is a European series, I think? So it came to US later - possibly. I've not tried Treme.
ETA: After reading the comments...
*Expanse - is better in the second half of s1, and the second half of S2. Very odd show The Expanse.
* It is odd, but I've also seen most of these, but not all of the seasons, except for Good Place, Crazy Ex, Barry, Justified, Stranger Things.
Leftovers - I tried and gave up on, mainly because I'm wary of the writers (still haven't forgiven them for Lost), The Americans (it was too dark and then the whole Russian thing with the election happened and I just couldn't...I may try again, depending on what happens in November), Person of Interest (tried but lost track of),
Orphan Black (the third season lost me, kind of what happened with Killing Eve), Derry Girls (I can't understand what they are saying - I think I need subtitles or close captioning), Fargo (I saw the first two seasons, skipped the third, am not sure about the 4th - the first season was excellent.)
I've not heard of Vera or Pappas pengar.
I'm not sure I could rank them. I'm currently debating a re-watch of Haunting of Hill House. I figured out the twist for House of Bly, and prefer Hill House in some respects.
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Date: 2020-10-25 08:44 am (UTC)Exactly. Between Lindelof doing Lost, and Perrotta doing a number of books that are all about both-sidesing religious fanaticism, I just don't trust them with a story about mystery and religious fanaticism - so every time they set up something that seems interesting, I keep expecting them to mess it up. But I will finish it at some point.
Vera is a British detective show, Pappas pengar is a Swedish comedy. I haven't really watched either.
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Date: 2020-10-25 12:56 pm (UTC)I think that's why I gave up on it. I've been disappointed too many times. That and time-travel series. The religious fanaticism and the time travel bit.
There's a lot of television shows on, isn't there? I've watched a lot of television, and I've not seen roughly 75% of the shows on.
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Date: 2020-10-24 01:28 pm (UTC)Of those I've seen, I'd agree most belong, though that's only 9 of the 24 that I've seen some of. For comedies, I might put in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt over New Girl.
Interesting that GoT didn't make it. I expect before Season 7 it would have been a shoe-in. But especially after S8 I am not surprised.
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Date: 2020-10-24 07:53 pm (UTC)I really liked s1 of Kimmy Schmidt, I thought it lost a lot after that. But it's certainly a lot more innovative than (what I've seen of) New Girl. I'm saving that one (and a few other comedy series) for the next few weeks, I have a feeling RL stuff will require a lot of feel-good TV...
GoT was weird. Everyone had it written down beforehand, nobody bothered playing it, we just wanted to forget about it and move on.
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Date: 2020-10-24 03:31 pm (UTC)Very much guessing TGP and The Americans were your additions, bit unsure of the others. I never did continue after s1 of The Leftovers, but it was a great show and I've heard nothing but good things.
If I could sneak four on here, it'd be Bates Motel, The OA, The Expanse, and GLOW. Oh no, no. Actually Haunting of Hill House would bump off Bates Motel. A classic through and through.
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Date: 2020-10-24 08:01 pm (UTC)I'm making my way through s1 of Leftovers right now, and I'm... ambivalent. There's so much good in there, but I really don't trust either Lindelof or Perrotta based on past form, and my expectations of what they'll do with the material is colouring my enjoyment of it. But I'm told it gets even better in s2, so I'll stick with it.
GLOW should probably have been on there somewhere. Hill House is one of those I enjoyed a lot more on rewatch - both that and Bly House I think suffered some from being sold as something they were not. Once you know the twist, they work a lot better.
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Date: 2020-10-24 11:19 pm (UTC)I'm a couple of episodes into Bly Manor and having trouble getting traction. I didn't like Turn of the Screw that much when I read it, but I hoped that Flanagan would give it the HoHH treatment ie make it basically unrelated to the original. So far that has not turned out to be the case. :/
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Date: 2020-10-25 08:18 am (UTC)No spoilers, but I ultimately ended up liking Bly more than I thought I would a few episodes in. But it's even less of a horror story than Hill.
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Date: 2020-10-24 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-24 08:09 pm (UTC)I still have no idea how Vera got on there. One of us was determined to play shows nobody else had seen. (I did mention that we weren't sober, right?) :)
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Date: 2020-10-24 06:29 pm (UTC)Personally, I would put Gravity Falls and Steven Universe on this list. (For me, Killing Eve fell off three quarters into s1 and still hasn't recovered. I find it amusing that Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon is so angry that his series has attracted a legion of arrogant assholes. Pot, kettle.)
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Date: 2020-10-24 08:20 pm (UTC)I find it amusing that Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon is so angry that his series has attracted a legion of arrogant assholes.
I know, that was the plot of every single episode of season 4... :/ Sometimes I wish we could go back to a world in which you didn't have to keep track of everyone's opinions all the time and writers just flung their works into the cold uncaring void hoping it would connect with someone out there.
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Date: 2020-10-25 02:16 am (UTC)O.M.G., do I loooooove The Good Place ! I never knew Ted Danson had such a range! I mean, WO-OW! The series has also helped me move even further into healing past a trauma at the hands of a Nigerian named Uzo (Uzoma Onyemaechi), thanks to Chidi's former life friend!
Since you apparently have access to Netflix programming, I need to recommend a couple other shows based on your above likes: Black Mirror, Sex Education (OMG, so awkwardly funny!), Atypical, Hollywood, Call the Midwife, and--O.M.G.--Charité. So worth reading the German-to-English subtitles! (If you speak German, you can just ignore the subtitles and enjoy the show, as my former German-born housekeeper did! She LOVED that show, as she did Call the Midwife. Both are more character-driven series about hard work ethic in the healthcare industry of old.)
If you have access to Prime Video, I highly recommend Upload (wonderfully dark comedy), Outlander (major trigger warnings for sexual assault and loss of life to war), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (helps to understand the Jewish family dynamic, but not necessary), Downton Abbey (SO GOOD), Poldark (SO GOOD), and Farscape (sci-fi dramedy).
I hope someone picks up Seth McFarlane's sci-fi series The Orville soon because it's like Star Trek, The Next Generation with even more permissive plotlines--even a same-sex couple in a species that is warlike and generally converts all female children to males (i.e., progressive in some ways, horribly backward in others). The series is brilliant!
p.s. Curious: I'm considering the series Fleabag, but I'm not sure about it. Did you or any of your pals watch it? If so, what were your thoughts? I'm a bit nervous it will be too harsh or have too much gratuitous bad language in it. (I'm okay with realistic bad language, as you hear in series like The Ranch [also recommended, despite the crimes committed by Danny Masterson in RL and the fact that the show gave his character an "honorable sendoff"].) I just can't stand when the dialogue of a show uses "f***" for every part of speech--especially if they say "f***tard"--or if they use the words "retard" or "gay" to mean "stupid" regularly without any other characters correcting the behavior. I find those things highly offensive because A. I'm on the Asperger syndrome; B. my dad called my mother, my siblings, and me retards the whole time he knew us; C. "f***tard" is a completely made-up term and "retard" is an archaic classification of intellectual disability from the same time "moron," "imbecile," "idiot," "halfwit," and others were used as classifications (not kidding); D. "gay" originally meant "joyful, carefree, bright and showy," (quite obvious how it got transferred onto effeminate, flamboyant homosexual males but not how it came to be used interchangeably with "stupid" or "boring") and "retard" is quite literally an adjective meaning "slow (in movement or tempo)" or a verb meaning "to slow." It hasn never, among those of us dealing with intellectual developmental disorders in our loved ones or ourselves, meant "stupid."
(My brother and I both enjoy The Ranch because it reminds us so much of how growing up with our dad was, even though we lived in the residential section of a rural town--not on a cattle farm.)
Here endeth the opine/lesson.
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Date: 2020-10-25 08:36 am (UTC)I'm probably with you on that. It would have been perfect as a one-season stand-alone, but as watchable as it is, it feels like it bought into its own story and is just delivering as much 80s nostalgia as it can cram in.
O.M.G., do I loooooove The Good Place ! I never knew Ted Danson had such a range!
IKR? That scene in the season 1 finale, that laugh... I can't think of any show that did so well turning its entire premise upside down in one single shot, making you realise you've been watching a completely different show than you thought.
I do love Black Mirror, it's just so very uneven, especially the later seasons. I tried to watch Sex Education but then they cast a Swedish actor I just can't stand as the mother's boyfriend and... nope. Charité sounds interesting, I'll have to give that a watch, thanks! (I do speak German, so I'm always looking for good German content to keep the language alive...)
I haven't watched Fleabag, I don't think any of us who did this list have (it's kind of difficult to get hold of here), so I can't really say anything about the content of it. I'm really curious to watch it, though, especially considering how much I loved s1 of Killing Eve.
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Date: 2020-10-25 12:34 pm (UTC)*Fleabag is the main character. We never find out her actual name.
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Date: 2020-10-25 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-25 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-25 01:20 pm (UTC)But s1 is just a rock solid, brutally honest comedy. I have to find s2 somewhere...
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Date: 2020-10-25 12:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-25 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-25 01:15 pm (UTC)ETA: Coming back to this, I am baffled at the lack of Good Omens, The Umbrella Academy and Russian Doll. Those would be my top 3 I think. The Good Place would probably put up a good fight for #3 though. But yeah, am curious at the omissions.
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Date: 2020-10-28 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-01 08:33 am (UTC)Odd, but fair enough.
As for the Umbrella Academy, I've only seen an episode or two before my superhero allergy kicked in. I may pick it up in the future when that wears off.
I find this quite funny, since She-Ra is much more of a 'superhero' tale than TUA. Yes the characters on TUA have superpowers but they're generally just human disasters and TERRIBLE at saving the world. There is no good/bad divide the way there is on She-Ra. (I'm not putting She-Ra down, it's just a very very different kind of show.) Anyway, when you get there I hope you will enjoy.
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Date: 2020-11-02 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-03 10:47 pm (UTC)Re. superhero narratives, then I very much get what you mean. But when it comes to TUA, if you were to ask me what it's about then the answer is unquestionably family. Sure there's an apocalypse that they have to avert, but that's just... plot. Much like there's always an apocalypse on Buffy, but that's not the point of the show. I think what sets TUA apart (well, apart from all the other things) is that it has a large cast, and takes the time to develop them all in detail, and have them interact and grow etc etc. *ponders* I think the only thing that immediately springs to mind as a parallel is Firefly in how all the characters are immediately vivid and distinct.
Anyway, in case you're wondering about She-Ra, then S4 endeared itself due to having quirky episodes (the boys go off on their own, a detective episode) and then 'Hero', which hit alllllllll my kinks. I might need a Mara icon. <3
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Date: 2020-11-07 01:02 pm (UTC)And that sounds really good about TUA. I think it was mostly all the X-Men trappings of the first episode (and the talking chimpanzee) that made me go "...Not right now." I may really have to give it another shot.
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Date: 2020-11-07 01:53 pm (UTC)We're watching it because the 15 year old wanted to re-watch, and I can see why - I'm sure watching it all unfold, hidden in plain sight, is very satisfying. Yay for stealth-arcs! :D
And that sounds really good about TUA. I think it was mostly all the X-Men trappings of the first episode (and the talking chimpanzee) that made me go "...Not right now." I may really have to give it another shot.
Well it IS based on a comic book, and the origins/trappings are very visible initially. But it then takes a deep dive into what all that would mean to actual people. It's difficult to explain, because there is a lot of ~plot~ ('we have to save the world!'), but it's all character driven ('we are completely rubbish at saving the world, let's get drunk instead'). /OK, stopping now.
Have finished S4 of She-Ra (which ended... pretty much exactly how I expected it to), so S5 here we come!
It's local max but I forget my password I'll find it at some point
Date: 2020-10-30 02:45 am (UTC)Besides TGP, on this list I've seen BoJack, two seasons of Orphan Black, one of Derry Girls, and various episodes of the others.
Still local max
Date: 2020-10-30 02:49 am (UTC)I notice your "no miniseries rule" which may or may not have been re Good Omens and Russian Doll. I liked both but Russian Doll got to me more.
Re: It's local max but I forget my password I'll find it at some point
Date: 2020-11-02 09:51 pm (UTC)I do think that TGP's commitment to its Michael Schur-comedy tone hindered aspects of its moral worldview
Oh definitely. I mean, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to come up with things that are a lot worse than seeing the Red Hot Chili Peppers live. But on the other hand, and especially for a show so focused on moral what-ifs, I do love that they choose to play in that particular sandbox. There's an argument to be made that having spent the last 2,500 years (give or take) coming up with worst-possible circumstances where it's morally defensible to do horrible things to others ("Would you kill Hitler as a kid? As a newborn? With a dull butter knife?") has fucked us up as a culture. So I fell irrevocably in love with TGP when they spent an entire episode ripping the Trolley Problem to pieces, and a whole show starting a pop culture discussion on how we amplify good instead of defending evil.
I assume that "tv show which is the Return of a show from 1990 so it's sort of season 3 but sort of its own event" doesn't qualify
As far as I'm concerned, it's season 3. It works so well as one even if it's something completely different as well.
I mean, I really liked Good Omens, but Russian Doll felt more like something that was made now rather than an adaptation of something I loved then. Of course, now they're talking about season 2 of both those shows for some reason...
Re: It's local max but I forget my password I'll find it at some point
Date: 2020-11-10 07:42 pm (UTC)Yeah, I mean, I agree. The limitations of the show are really appropriate at this point because of the rest of the TV landscape: it's actually very daring to show that people are capable of change for the better, amidst everything else. Taking the Trolley Problem to task is a great example of that.
I find the idea of a season 2 of Good Omens really weird -- I mean, you know. There's only one book, right? I felt similarly about the idea about a second season of The Handmaid's Tale, which I didn't end up seeing (the second or later seasons of), and where I kinda sorta felt that most of what the show added to the book was mostly dumb (June joining The Resistance didn't feel earned to me, etc.). Russian Doll feels like they could expand on it in some way, although the show was also finished, right?
I also recently binged Schitt's Creek, after its Emmy wins -- I mean, gotta have some patriotism, right? And the Levy/O'Hara team is fruitful. Anyway it's...nice; it's sort of like The Good Place crossed with Arrested Development, reconfigured so that "hell that looks like heaven but might become a medium place stepping stone to heaven" is a pathetic small town for its four initially crappy formerly-rich protagonists. I say "nice" because, you know -- it's got a lot going for it, but besides being generally fairly gentle, it doesn't quite hit that hard, the jokes are sort of medium, and so on. After finishing the series I watched Best in Show (I've seen Waiting for Guffman and obviously Tap but that's it as far as the Guests go) afterward and it's a lot sharper while still being kind of gentle and nice, so I think that SC is okay and appreciated in the current TV landscape, and has some nice Canadian-ness, but still sort of maxes out at "decent."
Re: It's local max but I forget my password I'll find it at some point
Date: 2020-11-11 06:33 pm (UTC)Considering that I thought the first season's (can you call it that when it wasn't intended as a first season?) biggest problem was that it stuck a bit too closely to the book, without really updating the central cold war conflict, I'd be interested to see what Gaiman does with a season 2. Maybe not intrigued (especially considering how badly THT went off the rails), but interested.
I still haven't seen any of Schitt's Creek. But in terms of Canadianness, I really wish I'd found a spot for Wynonna Earp on this list.
I love Parks and Rec, flaws and all; B99 somewhat less so even if I'll watch it if it's on. But yeah, Parks and Rec definitely worked better when it was about civil servants rather than politicians, even if as an actual public employee I kind of like that it was willing to go there, willing to say that administration is an inherently political job and that at some point you're going to get involved. IMO, without having seen any new B99 episodes in a couple of years, that seems to work a lot more seamlessly than having a show about wacky cops tackle Very Serious Subjects.
(That said, some of my favourite moments on B99 come from those "Oh wait, right, we're investigating MURDERS" moments - the Backstreet Boys singalong, for instance.)
Re: It's local max but I forget my password I'll find it at some point
Date: 2020-11-11 09:46 pm (UTC)I am maybe being harsher on B99 than I should. I do enjoy it (and yeah, that Backstreet Boys moment is great). I think a lot of the issue is that I have a hard time getting past the way the show keeps going back to the "Jake wants to be John McClane" well, and IIRC the main way in which it manifests this is that "real policework" within the B99 is effectively *more* fake, rather than less, than in the movies, including when they are doing actual murder stuff, and that none of Jake's media obsessions get in the way except to make him interpersonally annoying. I think it's more a problem with focus and centrality than the idea itself, because I'm not really demanding that any genre-savvy characters be shown to be Andrew Wells-style delusional, but still there's something in the show's particular post-modern take that grates on me.
Re: It's local max but I forget my password I'll find it at some point
Date: 2020-11-11 10:46 pm (UTC)Jake strikes me (again, not having seen the show in a while, so YMMV) very much a carbon copy of JD on Scrubs, and much like JD, he becomes more and more of a hopeless manchild as the series goes on. It's one of those shows I watch in spite of the protagonist rather than because of it. But then I was never a huge Samberg fan to begin with.
Re: It's local max but I forget my password I'll find it at some point
Date: 2020-11-13 02:45 pm (UTC)I haven't seen that much Scrubs but yeah, the JD comparison seems to fit. LIFE STORY: One time in undergrad I was drinking with some program-mates I didn't know that well, and then a friend I did know well passed by, joined us, and said that I was a lot like JD, which I think he mostly meant complimentarily. When one of the colleagues said no, I tried to get out a "is this one of those 'I know Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy is a friend of mine, you sir are no Jack Kennedy' situations?" but was too drunk to get it out coherently. Which, I'm not clear that WOULDN'T happen to JD, particularly since either a voice-over or a cut-away to what was intended would probably be necessary to explain the joke.
Re: It's local max but I forget my password I'll find it at some point
Date: 2020-11-10 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-21 02:43 pm (UTC)And like... that's a very strong contender for the #1 spot.
(I know it's dark as hell, but it's ALSO beautiful, and composed entirely of murder, gayness and metaphors.)