I never liked Arrested Development because they apparently spent all their Steadicam budget on whores and coke, and had to resort to filming it with a $400 Sony HandiCam. I hate The Office for a similar reason.
I find NBC’s Thursday lineup has ruined nearly all laugh-track sitcoms for me.
As for 2.5 Men, aside from the improbable gorgeousness of the women Charlie Sheen’s character gets from week to week, I can’t see any reason to watch it.
I think one reason Arrested Development failed to gain a sizable audience is due to the Police Squad Effect: any show that requires its audience to pay attention at all times is likely to fail.
While I’m here, I’ll throw in my 1.5 cents regarding Big Bang Theory laughs: after rave reviews from some cow-orkers, I started watching with an open mind (nay, even expecting to like it); within 45 seconds (literally), I was supremely irritated by the laughing. I don’t know if it is the way they mix it, or the character of the audience, or what, but it is so irritating that it was 75% of the reason I couldn’t make it past the five minute mark.
It’s an irrelevant distinction anyway. Live studio audience reactions are heavily edited. It might as well be a recorded track.
Audience reactions in sitcoms take away from my immersion in the story.
Audience reactions in talk shows (etc) add an immersive feel.
i must be horrifically desensitized, but i couldn’t tell you which sitcoms have a laugh track and which ones don’t.
You know what? That’s the smartest thing I’ve said in weeks.
I don’t have much to add to this thread – it’s been a while since I watched Arrested Development, although I suppose I found it funny enough at the time. (If nothing else, cooking up a reason for Henry Winkler to jump over a shark is A+ in my book.) But since we’re piping up to call things overrated and not funny, let me register my agreement with the above.
I tried to watch BBT. I really did. Just … derivative, unfunny, cheap humor. I’m simply dumbfounded that anyone has genuine affection for it, although I don’t begrudge anyone who does. I suppose this exemplifies those clichés about the idiosyncrasies of taste.
BBT has a lot of potential, but when I’ve tuned in on random intervals, it looks like the writers are too eager to go to the “Sheldon” well, basing a conflict on some brand-new obsessive-compulsion or neurosis of his. I like smart guys to be smart, not psychologically crippled. Frasier and Niles had their quirks, but they could also be witheringly sarcastic.
That’s because he can keep perfect time. Some call him “The Human Metronome.”
Me too.
How can you like 30 Rock and not like Arrested Development? It’s basically the same kind of humor.
My bolding above
I need to know, was that posted as a joke or are you actually serious?
That’s like saying “How can you like chicken and not buzzard? They’re both protein from birds.”
30 Rock is funny. AD wasn’t.
Arrested Development has enough of a following, not only among fans but also among television writers, that you must admit there’s a good deal of humor in the show. Whether you “get” the humor (or find said humor amusing) is another question entirely.
I would never say something like “Everyone Loves Raymond is not funny.” I would say something like “I don’t find it funny,” or “I find the humor kind of boring and predictable.” Its ratings spoke for themselves; you don’t remain one of the highest-rated comedies for years without tickling the funny bone of millions of people.
I’m not trying to cast aspersions on your sense of humor. I’ve known people who liked many of the same movies, TV shows, and books as I have, yet there’s always a work that’s near and dear to my heart that they find completely without merit. I would just prefer “it’s not my cup of tea” to “this sucks.”
See, I’m the other way around. I like Arrested Development, but have not been able to get into 30 Rock. I’ve tried many times, but the humor falls completely flat for me. Maybe I should give it another go. Another similar show in the same general area as Arrested Development, Community, I do like (and is probably my favorite currently running sitcom.)
Community rocks.
My main whinge about AD is that its fans are almost as annoying as Whedonites are about how great the show is and how if you don’t like it you are somehow lacking in intelligence, moral fiber or some other essential characteristic that they possess in abundence.
Well, Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin are funny when on screen together, and Kenneth is mildly amusing. The rest of the cast pretty much peels off of the wall. Tracy Morgan is painfully unfunny–even when his lack of humor is supposed to be the joke–and there is just seriously something wrong with Jane Krakowski’s face that makes me think she’s a mannequin come to life or some kind of alien trying to pass for human.
Stranger
I have seen some of those fans here, back when the show was still on especially. But aren’t you a *Whedonite? *
I absolutely love Community. I found this show this year On Demand and fell in love immediately. I already ran through all of season one from Netflix. I also like Big Bang Theory despite it being just another sitcom with standard sitcom humor but the Geek factor makes it work for me. I love Community as it does a lot that is not standard sitcom. It is not another Seinfeld, Everybody loves Raymond or Two and a Half guys clone. This is a lot of the reason I loved Scrubs. It was pretty different. So I did appreciate that part of AD and the Office but neither works for me. The humor just did not click.
Takes one to know one. That is, it takes an annoying asshole about a show to know an annoying asshole about another show.
See, that’s just bizarre to me. They both have the same meta, referential, densely-written feel to them. I consider them both in my top five all-time list.