The fact that you still call him that tells me that you’re not ready.
Fine. I can elaborate.
One: A lot of the actions of the characters (that drive the plot) are irrational.
An overall example of this is the Narrator. I challenge you to do this - Watch an episode of Arrested Development, and whenever the narrator talks white out the noise so you can’t hear him. Do the actions of the characters still make sense? Can you follow the plot because it follows a logical path that you yourself (as a rational human being) would extrapolate? The MAJORITY of the time I try this, almost everything everyone does is counter intuitive to what I think they should do. The narrator HAS to step in to explain motives or what and why the hell everybody is doing ridiculous, convoluted things because the audience can’t figure it out themselves. Usually I think this is because the characters are all either very stupid or very selfish or a combination of both. And since most people are not that stupid or selfish, their backwards actions and thought processes have to be explained.
AGAIN I will say SOMETIMES it is ok for TV, movies, art, etc. to alter reality/rationality for the sake of humor, but when nearly everyone acts irrationally over and over it makes me wish for a person with common sense to walk in and slap them all silly. (I guess another of my problems with this show is that if I met any of the characters in real life, I would not find them funny at all rather I would want to be the one slapping them really hard.) Would you find them funny?
Two: There are no real consequences.
In the beginning I actually really liked AD, but soon I realized the world they lived in was absurdly fake with no real consequences. This is bad because anything the characters do in the show that would equivalently in the real world be hilarious or shocking or quirky, becomes lame in their phony world. A few EXAMPLES of things that happen without consequence: Sinking a Yacht, building a fake house that falls down while on Television, selling drugs that have horrible side effects, breaking out of jail, burning down a banana stand, EXTREEM FRAUD, sledgehammering holes in office buildings, stealing, wearing an army uniform all the time with absolutely no military bearing (ok thats just a personal one, but it’s kind of insulting to the men and women who actually wear that uniform), multiple examples of identity theft, and so on. See I don’t dislike that these things happen - they are funny! - it is just that there are no consequences to these actions thus subsequent actions like these loose their punch since you know everything is just fake shit and done to put in little humorous quips.
PLUS with no consequences, everybody continues to be selfish, stupid assholes whom I dislike.
See, I would like the show much better is perhaps everyone started off stupid and selfish but over time, learning from the consequences of their actions, they changed to be better, responsible people. Or at least if they TRIED. The show could still do the same type of humor, but at least the it could progress, it’s characters develop, and have some realism in the plot rather than just more fake crap. Unfortunately, true to it’s title, arrested development’s characters I think are suck forever as they are.
I can’t think of any sitcom, good or bad, where the plots or character motivations were entirely rational. If they were, they wouldn’t be sitcoms.
I voted “smart”. In fact, compared to every single sitcom on CBS, I’d consider it absolute genius.
This is probably the bit that gets my goat the most when it comes to arguing about Arrested Development. If I don’t think the show is the most brilliant piece of writing then it must be because of some sort of mental failing on my part.
For the record, I think AD is funny, and clever. However it’s far from being atop the pedestal that some people claim it is.
AD isn’t my favorite show ever but it’d probably one of the best at what it does. One thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve never developed a connection to the characters. Plenty of other comedies where eventually I’m thinking “Oh, he wouldn’t do that… so out of character for him” but, in AD, things remain so consistently absurd that almost anything can be twisted into plausibility. That’s really a credit to the sort of show they put on.
I agree you you - that, “fiction in general and comedy in particular is to take you out of your mundane world while you’re reading, listening to, or watching it, not to replicate the world that exists.”
I am not saying that AD should replicate the real world. It doesn’t, and I don’t think it should. However AD pretends take place in the real world with real world consequences, but it actually has close to zero real world consequences. Thus, for me it undermines the humor that stems from those actions because some of the humor relies on the premise that what the characters are doing will eventually have bad consequences. (Example - it is funny that Job sinks a Yacht and Michael is pissed off - but in a world where no body cares that you sank a yacht, money seems to be no object, and you can keep being a self absorbed douche, who cares? Not funny anymore.)
However I think you bring up a philosophical point about realism in fiction and/or humor. While I agree that fiction is definitely not supposed to perfectly emulate reality, I do think it must have some basis in what we know to be actual the workings of the world - a frame of reference to reality that surrealism can be built off of.
At the fundamental level, everything we see, hear, comprehend, is done from the point of view of a human being and we bring that frame of reference to everything we take in. At it’s core we understand that the world must operate on a series of rules and principals that are constant - whether it be the rules of physics, gravity, social interaction, or even the continuous passage of time. Rules like this create CAUSE and EFFECT. From one cause comes another effect thus there is action, suspense, and the surreal becomes real!
I agree with you. I guess where you just are like - ‘meh’ I just can’t connect with these characters I get upset that my friends make me watch a show where I wish I could slap common sense into basically all the characters.
I just think even the most avant garde absurdism must have some basis in reality that humans can connect to. Otherwise we should just watch shows about bloody aliens doing random things or something and see if that is funny.
I respect that. I guess it just comes down to the fact that I just don’t find that funny and you do.
It’s often helpful in these “why do people find X funny?” threads to give us an idea of what you DO find funny.
I guess some people just aren’t smart enough to get the jokes.
You’ve never read Hitchhikers Guide have you?
Yeah, and if you take an episode of Seinfeld and digitally remove George Costanza from every scene in which he appears, the show doesn’t make any sense, either. That’s because you’ve removed a major narrative element from the show without replacing it with anything else - of course that fucks up the narrative.
By this standard, there has never been a funny sitcom on television, ever.
TriPolar
-_____- I get the jokes. I think some people just don’t realize how contrived and unnatural the jokes are and laugh because haha bob loblaw sounds like blah blah blah. yea. words sound funny.
I actually have along time ago. I would say from what I remember that it has a strong basis in reality especially with the parallels drawn between earth and the extraterrestrials that start the narrative. As humans we can relate to what is going on.
You have 11 posts in a 35 post thread, and you still haven’t come up with an example of what you’re talking about. Could you please give us an example or two of what you find to be suspension of disbelief-breaking about it? Maybe it’s the “Mister X” stuff - that was awful. Maybe it was Martin Short’s character - that was pretty awful as well. The show had some misses - but it had a lot more hits than most.
I think the OP is trying to hard to get a rise out of us. Yawn.
TriPolar, we’re not in the Pit, knock off the personal insults.
twickster, Cafe Society moderator
Yes. Yes they do. And that’s part of the fun.
You’re thinking too much, Cassius.