Not sure about spoiler policy here, so better to err on the side of caution for now
My wife and I were looking forward to the season premiere of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” yesterday, as the first two seasons of the FX comedy often had us in stiches.
But after watching last nights back-to-back new episodes, I have to say we were a bit disappointed. It seemed as though they were trying too hard for the wacky payoff. For example:
The ending of the first episode, where the gang ends up wielding a sword over a baby smeared with shoe polish in the middle of the bar, and the cops and child services walk in. Charlie ranting about his “baby brother” was ridiculous and non-sensical even for him. If this is all they were building toward, it wasn’t worth the effort.
The second episode somewhat redeemed the opener, but even here:
The whole “Frank takes acid” bit was out of left field. It also seems as though they wanted to get every single recurring side character from the previous seasons into one of the two episodes, and judging from the previews the McPoyle brothers and their newly-introduced creepy family will be around for a while–funny in small doses, but IMO making them a recurring nemesis will really detract from the humor surrounding the gang’s own immorality.
Just thought I’d start this thread to see some other reaction. Is the series wilting a bit under the extended hype? What do you think?
Somehow I managed to miss this show entirely, possibly because I seldom watched FX and never saw ads for it. I became aware of it recently, and set my DVR to record it last night, then watched it today. My immediate reaction was “what a pile of crap”; I found the characters annoying, the situations totally nonsensical, and the dialog unintelligible.
Based on your comments, CJJ*, I’m willing to accept that my judgment may be based on atypical episodes. Perhaps I’ll give it another chance next week. Are the first two seasons available on DVD? If they are, I could see if I can get them from Netflix when I sign up for it.
I, too, was somewhat disapointed. Compared to Season 2, the first two episodes of Season 3 were pretty weak. The “Frank takes acid” bit was just lame. Nothing all that funny about that. Obviously the show has a much larger budget now and they used it to full effect with the acid sequence, but it just didn’t click.
There were still some good bits. I liked the first episode where Charlie and Frank devolve into homeless men. That kind of thing is in line with their previous humor. But overall I was underwhelmed. Let’s see what the rest of the season produces, though. I hope it’s not a case of a show gaining some popularity and then going off the rails to try and become even more popular.
A DVD set with the first two seasons is available on Amazon.com, so I’m sure you could rent it by now as well. I haven’t seen all the episodes from the first two seasons, but the ones I’ve seen have been hilarious. However, the characters are extremely shallow, stupid, and mean (kind of like the Seinfeld crew, only late 20s/early 30s and much dumber), so if you don’t go for that kind of humor, you might not like it at all.
Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t, depending on my mood. I was never a big Seinfeld fan, but I did find some episodes amusing. I’ll probably give it another try, particularly since I do like Danny DeVito, which is what made me want to watch the show in the first place.
I was also a little disappointed with the first two episodes of the season. Compared to last season, it just didn’t do it for me but there were moments.
But, if anyone is interested, they put up a special pre-season episode on their myspace page (I don’t think you have to be a member to watch it) and I thought that was hilarious. So there is definitely room for them to get pretty good this season.
I don’t like the McPoyle character’s, and wish they got rid of them. I thought each episode had it’s moments, like Charlie and Frank’s spiral into homelessness, and Dennis and Mac throwing the bottles while tailgating had me cracking up.
Overall I love the vanity of the characters, but after each episode I find myself always thinking they could have done more…
This season started out kind of shaky, but the last few weeks have been pretty funny, I think. But I really only think that because I’m the fighter of the Nightman, champion of the sun, and master of Karate and friendship for everyone.
