Originally Posted by Draven (Post 14308312)

If I don’t get it right, do I have to drink from the firehose?

Originally Posted by milo bloom (Post 14308368)

Only if you didn’t find the marble in the Oatmeal.

Originally Posted by milo bloom (Post 14308368)

And Futurama is far more rewatchable than the Simpsons any day of the week. My wife and I haven’t really been interested in The Simpsons for years but we’ll rewatch Futurama all the time.

Originally Posted by Michael Corvin (Post 14308481)

Unpopular opinion but Friends is more re-watchable than Seinfeld. Seems like despite being the #1 show the world over for a handful of years, Friends reached a point where it gets nothing but backlash anymore.

I rewatched the whole series earlier in the year with my two teens and it's still as funny as ever because it's buoyed by phenomenal casting. They sold and just embodied their roles and had killer chemistry together.

Originally Posted by Jay G. (Post 14308378)

Goldberg74 seems to have eschewed all animated comedies, which is... a choice, I guess. However, there's a wide variety of content even within that narrow genre, and just not liking The Simpsons doesn't mean you'll dislike all the others. @Goldberg74 , do you just avoid animated comedies, or do you also avoid other types of animated shows

Originally Posted by TheAllPurposeNothing (Post 14308569)

Breaking Bad's first season was kind of a chore to sit through, so much so that I have never felt any desire to see any of the other seasons. It wasn't bad per se, but the characters and story never grabbed me. While my sons have both said that it starts really getting good around the third season, it's just not worth the additional investment of time to me to even get that far.

Originally Posted by Draven (Post 14308600)

My wife bailed on Breaking Bad after 6 episodes and I was right there with her. But I went back and powered on, eventually finishing and enjoying the series. I’ll never revisit it though - it has zero rewatchability to me.

Originally Posted by Jay G. (Post 14308629)

Did you also watch Better Call Saul? It may be more accessible, especially since I think it's good out the gate.

Originally Posted by TheAllPurposeNothing (Post 14308569)

The Big Bang Theory is one of the worst written comedies I have ever seen. While I liked the cast, I will never understand the appeal of that series.

Originally Posted by spainlinx0 (Post 14308951)

Parks and Rec is vastly superior to the Office.

Originally Posted by spainlinx0 (Post 14308962)

I figured maybe it qualified considering how popular the Office is for streaming, but I don't hear anywhere close to that regarding Parks and Rec.

Originally Posted by milo bloom (Post 14309157)

I get more people recommending me Parks & Rec over The Office. Just the other day I was checking out at the store and I had a Bob's Burgers t-shirt on and the cashier noticed and said she liked it and recommended I should also watch P&R. She even said it's a slow start so I should watching some later episodes then go back and start from the beginning.

My wife and I have tried but that first season is rough.

Originally Posted by Jay G. (Post 14308080)

I don't think that's an unpopular opinion, at least online.

I have a true unpopular opinion: audience laughter (not canned laughter, although I've seen both referred to as a "laugh track") is fine, and maybe even a good thing, depending on the show. SNL has had an audience for decades, as have a lot of sketch shows over the years. Late night shows have an audience, stand up specials have an audience. Even 30 Rock had a live audience for its two live episodes.

The key seems to be a live audience for a "live" performance, even if pre-taped. So something like the standard 3-camera sitcom stage setup, not for single-camera sitcoms. For me, the gold standard is the TV show Titus, where in the commentary on the DVD set, they go into how they wanted to keep the show as much like a live 1-act play for the audience:

• They kept the live performance limited to a single set per episode. This limited the amount of "down-time" between scenes due to set/lighting changes
• They pre-recorded any flashbacks/cutaways.
• They hired the director of the Emmys to direct the episodes, basically cutting the episode "live' by inserting the pre-recorded bit during the recording with the audience, to capture the audience's genuine reaction to those, in more-or less real-time.
• Limit the amount of retakes so the audience doesn't tire from hearing the same joke repeatedly.

I think it really works for that show, and if you removed the audience laughter, it'd be a lesser show. The issue is, most laugh-track shows, even those that record in front of an audience, are lazy, and play to the easy-to-please audience instead of making the show clever or interesting. Likewise, the audience can sometimes get obnoxious, like later seasons of Married with Children where there's like a minute of cheering whenever a cast member enters, before they even do anything. But largely the problem with laugh tracks isn't that they exist, but all too often they're done poorly.

Originally Posted by TheAllPurposeNothing (Post 14308569)

The Big Bang Theory is one of the worst written comedies I have ever seen. While I liked the cast, I will never understand the appeal of that series.

Originally Posted by tanman (Post 14309395)

That's not an unpopular opinion. It's very popular to hate on TBBT.

I really like The Big Bang Theory - now THAT's an unpopular TV Show/Series Opinion.

Originally Posted by Why So Blu? (Post 14308493)

Vinyl was a great show. Yeah, I said it.

Originally Posted by GoldenJCJ (Post 14309564)

They’ve resigned themselves to the same few hour-long dramas they’ve been putting on the air for 50 years - Cops, lawyers, doctors.

Originally Posted by milo bloom (Post 14309684)

The doctor ones are occasionally interesting when they're trying to figure out a weird disease, but all those procedurals create this false expectation in the viewers that that's how it works, especially the cop shows not getting evidence properly, or being able to track down someone by enhancing a cruddy picture.