Prompted by the thread about shows that quit while they were ahead. I didn’t want to poop in that thread, so I thought I’d ask in a new one.
I had heard so much raving about Flight of the Conchords, that I was ecstatic when I saw it was being made available on Amazon Prime streaming and I’d finally get to see it. Boy, what a letdown.
The singing was bad, the songs were bad, the humor was non existent. Musical parody can’t hope to work unless the music is top-notch, even if the characters are supposed to be bad. It was like the anti-Spinal Tap. I gave up after 2 1/2 episodes, because it only seemed to get worse as it went along.
I’m sure someone was as disappointed as you. I thought the show was great; a nice mix of obvious and understated humor and the music was top-notch. I have a few of the tracks on my car’s MP3 stick.
That said, not all things for all people. Sorry you didn’t care for it but at least it was ‘free’ via your streaming account.
But the thing is, the vocals were horribly out of tune by any objective standards. A Mighty Wind worked because even when the songs were silly, the harmonies were spot on.
I don’t think they really compare. The songs in A Mighty Wind were pretty much straight folk songs. Some might have had a silly line or two but the humor came from the actors, not the music. The songs in FotC are very obvious parodies of styles or artists.
Loved The Conchords. It was worth it just for the Bowie and Hobbit parodies, and Rhys Darby was hilarious as Murray. I also liked that they used no-name actors for many of the bits.
There are probably plenty of people who don’t like FotC’s humor or music, but you won’t find as many here as in the population at large. For whatever reason, their humor is right in the wheelhouse of a lot of Dopers.
And I thought their music was great.
I had the same impression the first time I watched season 2, but on second viewings I think it’s just as good as season 1. I mean, epileptic dogs? Give it another try.
The music is very well done parody. The production values are high. The vocals are good, though often the music is talk-sung rather than belted out. As far as being funny, I and my family laughed our asses off, and it lead to some new family inside jokes.* YMMV.
*when my son called to tell me he was coming over unexpectedly, I told him to hold off for a few hours – it’s business time.
FWIW, I really enjoyed Garfunkel and Oates, and I really disliked Flight of the Concords. The characters were such ironic hipster characters (not that they were hipsters, but they were characters written by ironic hipsters) that it made my teeth ache.
But then, I couldn’t stand Portlandia either, so there’s that.
I was more disappointed than you, if that’s possible.
I found the humor nonexistent although it was obvious they were trying to be funny. I thought every single aspect of every song I heard was shite: shitty music, shitty lyrics, shitty arrangements, etc. If every episode were wiped from existence, the Universe would be a better place, IMO. I sat thru 6 episodes waiting for something, anything, to justify the praise the show received and finally gave up on it.
I think their songs are funny, but the TV series was sometimes hit or miss for me. I liked Murray but I wasn’t crazy about the groupie character, for instance.
I don’t understand why someone who was excited to watch the TV series after having heard it raved about wouldn’t have at least checked out a couple of their songs on YouTube first. I became interested in the show because I’d seen Flight of the Conchords perform on Letterman and then looked them up on YouTube. If I’d been as unimpressed with their music as the OP then I wouldn’t have bothered with the show (which I loved, although as others have said they lost steam in the second season).