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 I've stared into the abyss for too long. I now feel nothing. I am nothing...there is no point. We live, and we die, and none of it has any meaning. There is no heaven, no hell, only an infinite silence stretching forever as our bodies decay and wither, as civilizations rise and fall, as the very last vestiges of humanity in any and all forms cease. Everything is temporary; everything is pointless. Give up and face to the truth of it all and perhaps you can find the peace you spend your desperate, lonely lives searching for. What is this? Last Man Standing is an ABC sitcom that premiered at the beginning of the 2011-2012 TV season. LMS was originally one of a trio of freshly-minted ABC comedies dealing with the "mancession"; the altogether idiotic and sexist assertion that there was something quote-on-quote "wrong" with today's men, that the culture as a whole was pussified and emasculated, with society as a whole dominated and controlled by women. The other two comedies that airead alongside LMS, Work It and Man Up!, were both cancelled by the end of the season. LMS, on the other hand, was renewed for a second, third, and eventual fourth season, which will begin airing sometime in September 2014. I will be reviewing the first season of this show. From everything I've read of LMS contextually, the first season of LMS is pretty bad and dull, so oh boy! Why are you doing this, Occupation? This...this isn't an ironic question is it? If this is sincere, you should probably just go read this thread, it'll explain everything you need to know. Why are you doing this, Occupation? Oh that time was definitely ironic. gently caress off. Plot Synopsis: Although I haven't seen this season, I have seen seasons two and three, so I can accurately summarize this show even retroactively: This show deals with the trials and tribulations of the Baxter family, a suburban family living in Denver, Colorado. Mike Baxter (Tim Allen), is the titular last man standing, an aging baby boomer struggling with the perceived emasculation of men. He externalizes this struggle mostly either via ranting or by making vlogs for Outdoor Man (a Colorado-based outdoor supplies chain, ala Cabela's), which he helped found alongside the owner Ed Alzate (played by Héctor Elizondo). The show frequently flits between scenes set in the interior of Outdoor Man with Mike, Ed, and one of Ed's employees Kyle (Christoph Sanders), who views Mike as a father and idolizes him, and the Baxter house, where Mike deals with his wife Vanessa (Nancy Travis), and his three daughters: his oldest, liberal daughter Kristin (Alexandra Krosney), who is in her early 20s and still lives at home with her son Boyd (Evan and Luke Kruntchev) due to her baby daddy, Ryan, running out on her after she told him she was pregnant; his airheaded, superficial, boy-obsessed middle daughter, Mandy (Molly Ephraim), who is roughly 17 or so at the start of the show; and his youngest daughter Eve (Kaitlyn Dever), who is roughly 14 or so at the start of the show. Eve is the "daddy's girl" of the bunch, sharing the same love of guns and military as her dad, and is generally a tomboy. The show is generally speaking, a traditional multicam sitcom in plotting and structure. However, the gimmick of the show is is that Mike Baxter is generally upset with the way modern men are currently acting (because he's the "last man standing", see), which permeates every aspect of his character. This is externalized via his somewhat-topical rants and deeply conservative views, so most-to-all of the humor of the show can be boiled down to the punchline of a Mallard Fillmore cartoon. From what I understand, the switch in showrunners for LMS and subsequent tonal shift doesn't happen until season two (which is when the show attempts (usually very poorly) to be a conservative, mid-2000s version of All in the Family), so this season in review should be more of just the mean-spirited sniggering at strawmen liberals and self-indulgent whining and less of the stuff I liked from seasons two and three: the character moments and infrequently-nuanced examination of all sides of an issue. Oh, goody. How This Works Really- I cannot stress enough. Seriously, if you want to read this thread and have it make sense, you should probably read my Seasons Two and Three of LMS in Review thread, because I'm going to spend a lot of time in my season one reviews referencing later events and contrasting this season with the latter two, especially since they changed a fair amount of how the show operated in season two and recast the role of Kristin after season one. Plus, you'll have a better grasp of my tone in these reviews from reading my prior ones. In either case, I'll be grading on an A-B-C-D-F scale for season one of Last Man Standing, no pluses or minuses. I'll be reviewing every episode in the Onion AV Club style. My update schedule tends to be "whenever the gently caress I feel like it", although I usually spend at most a week between episodes. Due to Deadpool's mod challenge, I'll have to review all 24 (uggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) episodes of season one before the time season four airs (which is sometime in September of this year), which gives me at most 7-11 weeks to review the entirety of season one, which means I'll have to average at least two reviews a week ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Then I'll have to make an OP for season four of LMS because I'm reviewing that in real time ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. A Note I'm a young, liberal, white, feminist male, so take my reviews with that point in mind. If your complaints about my reviews essentially boil down to "He's young, liberal, and feminist", you're an idiot who is incapable of gleaning that caveat in the 40+ reviews I've done. Review Archive: 101, "Pilot" 102, "Last Baby Proofing Standing" 103, "Grandparent's Day" 104, "Last Halloween Standing" 105, "Co-Ed Softball" 106, "Good Cop, Bad Cop" NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Jul 23, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 00:20
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Last Man Standing "Pilot" Season 1, Episode 1 A good pilot, especially a series pilot, should quickly establish who the characters are, create character dynamics, and set up some long-running plot threads. That's a lot to juggle in a pilot episode, and comedy series have it even harder: since sitcoms are based largely on understanding who the starring characters are and why a specific interaction is funny, most sitcom pilots are goddamn atrocious, especially when they're premise pilots. For instance, the Parks and Recreation premise pilot is loving unwatchable, with terrible characters, a complete dearth of comedy, and the whole episode reeking of being a complete ripoff of the show that spawned it, The Office. And yet, even so, Parks and Rec quickly turned into one of the best sitcoms currently airing, at least between seasons 2-4. Having seen the later seasons of LMS, there isn't that jump in quality from seasons one to two, but on the other hand this pilot wasn't anywhere near unwatchable, or even bad. It helps that as a pilot its reach didn't exceed its grasp: It doesn't really have a plot or throughline to speak of, which is to its benefit as it tries, and mostly succeeds, in establishing the main sets and characters we will be interacting with throughout the season. A traditional A-story B-story for the pilot would've been too much in too short a time, leaving the whole episode feeling like a schizophrenic mess, but instead this episode deals solely with trying to state who Mike Baxter is and why the show is centered around him. You see, it turns out that Mike formerly worked as the catalog scout for the show, flitting off to different exotic locations to take pictures for Outdoor Man's catalog, and has just returned from an Alaska trip to be confronted by Ed. Ed notes that web presence is more important than ever and as such is discontinuing the catalog until Mike, as the marketing guru, finds a way to build up the Outdoor Man website's online footprint. Eventually this leads, of course, to the Outdoor Man vlog, which then leads to Mike "nobly sacrificing" his frequent out-of-state trips so Vanessa can pursue her promotion at work. Meanwhile, Mike convinces Kyle to date Mandy, but in a hilarious sitcom mixup Kyle asks Kristin out instead which sets up the obvious romantic pairing. This episode resolves some issues I had with the show in seasons two and three; with Mike Baxter being established as such a staunch luddite and generally anti-technology, viewing it as emasculating the way most conservatives bizarrely view Web 2.0 stuff, it was always a strange character quirk that he was so strangely knowledgeable about vlogs. It just didn't really fit his character, and with the benefit of being able to view the very first episode of the show, it turns out Mike is just as confused and technophobic about the idea of creating a vlog as I'd assume he'd be, even joking about it being some offensive term for a private part. That's not to say the episode itself is problem-free: I'm so used to Amanda Fuller's portrayal of Kristin that I'm immediately against Alexandra Krosney's. Even without my bias, I have to say that the way that Fuller portrays Kristin, even though she operates mostly as the wet-blanket overprotective mom, is a far more interesting turn than Krosney's, which seems more impetuous and less cool-headed with more of a wild streak to her. The thing about the later-season Baxter girls is is they all have distinct personalities; Kristin's the mature and realistic one, Mandy the airhead, and Eve the tomboy. Especially in this pilot, and especially with Krosney's portrayal of Kristin, Kristin feels like sort of a blend between Kristin and Mandy, which throws off the balance of the three girls, even discounting how Eve has been regressed. I've written at length how the show has treated Eve's character both poorly and well, but this is the most bizarre version of Eve yet: she's boy-crazy and has very low self-esteem, when Eve's self-assuredness was her one bedrock trait. It was the one thing about Eve that was consistent throughout seasons two and three, even when she wasn't snarky and was just a mini-Mike: she had complete and utter confidence in herself. So it's somewhat troubling, and a somewhat troubling sign for the season as a whole, that Eve in the pilot is so obsessed with how other people view her, especially other boys (which even by the end of season three she didn't much care about). It's just odd. There's other odd stuff throughout the episode, as well: the Mike Baxter vlog, even by Mike Baxter vlog standards, was especially ranty and formless. Most vlgos are rants, but at least they're centered around some sort of point; this one, in contrast, is the aimless yelling of white man in his fifties about how much of pussies men are. I get that this scene is supposed to be the driving theme of the show coalesced into a single scene, but it just makes Mike look like an out-of-touch old coot as opposed to some cool old conservative guy "totally owning" today's men. The strangest part of the episode, though, is its complete lack of heart, both forced and unforced. This is, admittedly, to its benefit (it makes the show funnier since it doesn't really ever try to be sickly sweet or have a message), but it does sorta underline the issue of why people associate with Mike. His wife doesn't really love him, his kids all kinda hate him, and the one employee, Kyle, who respects him (whom Mike barely knows), Mike shoots at with a fuckin' crossbow. Yay! I can see why the show switched showrunners moving into season two, because even though its a funnier show as a whole right now, it just doesn't really work on any level as a sitcom. It's mean-spirited and nasty, full of snide quips and homophobic remarks. It's not a show suited for ABC, or indeed any network: the show in its current form is much more suited for FX or TNT, networks used to comedies full of terrible people who hate each other. But yeah, that wasn't anywhere near as bad as I was expecting it'd be. I laughed throughout the pilot several times, because despite its problematic nature there was some genuinely funny lines sprinkled throughout the script. That being said, though, this was a distinctly average episode by LMS' standards. Grade: C Random Thoughts:
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Jul 13, 2014 00:20
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It's good to be home isn't it?
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Jul 13, 2014 00:24
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Jesus died last night and came back as this thread.
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Jul 13, 2014 00:25
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hcreight posted:Jesus died last night and came back as this thread. Occupation  ed for our sins.
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Jul 13, 2014 12:51
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Deadpool posted:It's good to be home isn't it? You are a cruel cruel man, but i love these threads.
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Jul 13, 2014 16:50
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Just admit it. At this point you couldn't stop anyway. Deadpool just forces you to do it, so you can look past your pride.
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Jul 13, 2014 19:04
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Isnt the fact you are doing this proof there is something wrong with Men in society? Or just something wrong with you? Makes you think
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Jul 13, 2014 19:19
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When did this thread become the "make fun of Occupation" thread
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Jul 13, 2014 19:33
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:When did this thread become the "make fun of Occupation" thread Its inception.
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Jul 13, 2014 20:24
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:When did this thread become the "make fun of Occupation" thread When did you delude yourself into thinking that wasn't the entire point?
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Jul 13, 2014 21:53
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I enjoy your reviews, but you do have to admit, it's pretty funny that you keep getting stuck having to review more and more of it. Can't wait for the seasons five, six, and seven megathreads. Which just seem inevitable at this point.
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Jul 13, 2014 22:10
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Air is lava! posted:Deadpool just forces you to do it, so you can look past your pride. All irony aside, Eve really is the best character on tv. She's like the Maisie Williams of sitcoms.
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Jul 13, 2014 23:03
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I was actually at a taping of this show last year. They brought a whole lot of military in for that episode, which turned out to be the season 3 Christmas episode with the soldier in a box. The taping was a little odd as they had a comedian there to keep the audience warmed up for more laughs between takes. He was legitimately better than the actual show. They awarded headshots and signed scripts to the people who showed the most laughter or enthusiasm during the show, so they are doing a little bit of audience manipulation.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:19
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Informer posted:I was actually at a taping of this show last year. They brought a whole lot of military in for that episode, which turned out to be the season 3 Christmas episode with the soldier in a box. The taping was a little odd as they had a comedian there to keep the audience warmed up for more laughs between takes. He was legitimately better than the actual show. this is the best post this thread or this forum will ever produce
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Jul 14, 2014 00:24
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Did they let you build a mosque out of pillows with the cast after the taping? Because apparently this is a thing people do.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:26
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Informer posted:They awarded headshots My mind went somewhere else.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:29
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Informer posted:I was actually at a taping of this show last year. They brought a whole lot of military in for that episode, which turned out to be the season 3 Christmas episode with the soldier in a box. The taping was a little odd as they had a comedian there to keep the audience warmed up for more laughs between takes. He was legitimately better than the actual show. E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:this is the best post this thread or this forum will ever produce Informer being the best screen name possible for the post. Yeah, this whole "Last Man Standing" experiment has proven worthwhile.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:36
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Is it normal for scripted comedies to use warm up comedians? I know they do it for late night shows.
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Jul 14, 2014 00:48
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hcreight posted:Is it normal for scripted comedies to use warm up comedians? I know they do it for late night shows. Yeah, super common on all multicams
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Jul 14, 2014 00:50
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Quite a few well-known stand-ups got their foot in the door by warming up TV audiences.
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Jul 14, 2014 01:12
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I wonder how often the comic is funny enough that he gets laughs good enough to be edited into the show.
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Jul 14, 2014 01:14
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because this is relavant to the thread. http://www.avclub.com/article/how-keep-audience-laughing-sitcom-tapingeven-take--206337 Also the mod challenge in the last thread made me laugh
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Jul 14, 2014 15:05
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sbaldrick posted:because this is relavant to the thread. Way to beat me to posting that link! A bit more information on that taping since I was posting from a mobile device before. I had never heard of Last Man Standing before I went to this taping. Being a bumpkin from Virginia I was excited to be presented with the opportunity to go to a real live taping of one of them fancy Hollywood shows! My experience with Tim Allen had only been with Home Improvement and movies he had been in when I was a kid; Jungle2Jungle, The Santa Clause, fairly innocent stuff. I also had no idea of his cocaine smuggling past. Not only were there younger active duty military like myself there, but there were veterans from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam as well. On arrival to the CBS studio we were treated to a Meet & Greet with the cast which consisted of a lukewarm meal provided by craft services. After the meal, the cast came into the room to speak to all of us and to tell us that past and present, we were the best thing to happen to America, standard hero worship. When asked if he had ever done any military service, Tim Allen seemed to blush and said that there was no way he could ever be as good as the WWII vets there, the greatest generation, so way to dodge that one Tim. The guy who kept us warmed up between takes was Ron Pearson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Pearson). He was more entertaining than the show itself and did a great job of keeping people active during the taping. I probably have more to say on this but I have to get to work.
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Jul 14, 2014 15:29
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Last Man Standing "Last Baby Proofing Standing" Season 1, Episode 2 This show is...this show is goddamn garbage. Every time I think that I've seen the absolute worst LMS has to offer, the absolute bottom of that particular loving barrel, it's like they discover another sub-level of barrel to the bottom of that barrel so now we're miles beneath the surface of the earth, dangerously close to the molten core, solely via plumbings the depths of LMS' badness. I now know what the difference between this season and every subsequent season is: humor. And I don't mean, like "This show isn't funny", I mean that the show doesn't even attempt to be funny. Let me put a finer point on it: I've given F's to episodes of Last Man Standing for not having any humor in them, for "not being funny". This episode is not that. When I gave the low grades for lack of humor previously, I could still envision an audience to which those jokes landed. They'd be deeply conservative, of course, because the jokes skewed right, and the audience would be very, very stupid, because the jokes were hacky and poorly written, but I could envision someone laughing at the "humor" displayed (that theoretical someone probably in possession of many Larry the Cable Guy DVDs). They were punchlines. Bad ones, ineffective ones, dumb ones, sure, but they had a call-and-response nature to them. Someone who understood what comedy was, at least on a theoretical level, wrote them. In comparison, here's a literal verbatim laugh line from episode 102: Mike: "Oh, this is like 'We're not gonna buy a floral comforter unless we're both on board.'" Vanessa: "It's not floral, it's paisley." Mike: "Flowers that are shaped like sperm, are still flowers." This gets massive yuks and huge applause from the audience! There's no loving joke here. Nothing about this exchange is FUNNY. The closest "joke" I can see from that exchange is the word "sperm", and if you think the word "sperm" is inherently funny: gently caress you. gently caress off. Like...I have never loving seen a show be so violently anti-humor. Look at the title of this episode! It's not even a loving pun, which is considered the basest form of comedy. This is someone looking at the title of the show, and literally substituting the plot of the episode to call to mind the title of the show. It doesn't even make logical sense! What the gently caress does "Last Baby Proofing Standing" mean?! Jesus Christ, people were paid money, as in cash dollars, to write this episode?! Why?! HOW?! There's just so much that's insanely, aggressively unfunny about this show. It takes a special kind of badness to waste Paul fuckin' F. Tompkins, one of my favorite comedians and favorite comedic character actors, in an episode where he's featured as a doomsaying snake-oil salesman with a super sketchy-looking "house childproofing" service. If the entire episode had been scriptless and just had Paul attempting to convince Tim Allen as Mike to buy his house childproofing service, that would've more than likely worked. They're two great comedic minds, with a long history as comedic actors, they could've made it loving work. Instead, the greatness that is PFT is loving wasted in this godawful trainwreck of an episode of television, as he's fed bullshit, hacky, non-jokes from this embarrassment of a script, while flailing desperately onscreen to make them work. Plus, he's only in one subpar scene of the episode, as apparently all of the nothing else that happens in the childproofing "plot" (which I use in the loosest of loving terms, since the progression of it is "Kristin wants to childproof the house- PFT convinces them to childproof the house- Everyone decides childproofing the house was a Bad Idea (because the Baxters are so fuckin stupid they can't navigate childproofed doorknobs and cabinets) and decides to un-childproof the house"). There's so many poor decisions on display in this episode. I guess someone told Tim Allen to make the vlog segments "yell-y" in addition to "ranty", so we get a fullscreen closeup of Mike Baxter's blotchy face as Tim Allen loving screams into the camera about how childproofing is Destroying America or something, as he's waving a goddamn knife around to punctuate his loving point like some sort of more extreme Glenn Beck. It's supposed to come off as funny or something and instead is just genuinely alarming. Nothing in this episode works. Nothing. All of it is miserable, unwatchable garbage. It's astounding that people got paid to write this, that people got paid to shoot it, that people got paid to act in it, and people got paid to air this. On network TV. That is genuinely amazing, the same way that the Trail of Tears is genuinely amazing. This...this is a goddamn war crime. This is a new low not just in Last Man Standing, not just in ABC's lineup, but this is a low for the medium of television. The world's first joke-free sitcom. Fuckin'...just...christ. Grade: F Random Thoughts:
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Jul 15, 2014 03:20
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:Mike: "Yeah, I'm not an ATM. You know how I know? I only speak English. (hifives Eve)" "Good one, Dad" Your description of this episode made it sound so bizarre I decided to actually check it out. Calling it a joke-free episode was pretty spot on.
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Jul 15, 2014 04:30
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I almost thought I wanted to watch this episode because I love Paul F. Tompkins but then I realized that watching this episode might make me not love Paul F. Tompkins as much.
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Jul 15, 2014 04:36
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There was also a sub plot that Occupation didn't mention about Mandy getting a series of part time jobs at Mike's insistence. One of these is delivering pizzas, and when Vanessa finds out she says how that was a really bad idea and she's worried that something might happen to Mandy while she's going to strange houses. Mike gets worried too and there's a really drawn out and tedious scene with him and Kyle following Mandy on her job that ends with Mike getting pepper sprayed because Mandy thinks he's a stalker. This leads to Mike realizing that Mandy can take care of herself. It seems like this should somehow tie into the baby proofing plot like having Mike draw some kind of connection between the two instances about parents worrying for the safety of their children? But... it doesn't at all and the baby proofing just resolves because opening cupboards and toilets is annoying.
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Jul 15, 2014 04:45
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Regy no what are you doing to yourself. Regy stop.
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Jul 15, 2014 05:00
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If you get a role on the second episode of a show, I guess at that point you just have no way of knowing how bad it's gonna be. That finale episode that we watched with Occupation didn't have any of these Tim Allen blogs scenes, did it? Lycus fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 05:09
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Also the moral of the story is, explicitly, "mike hosed up by worrying that his daughter might get raped, but Vanessa hosed up more by baby proofing the house" which apparently has the underlying point of "don't worry about your kids, but especially don't worry about making sure babies don't die" Also I've literally never gotten delivered by a teenage female pizza person, which I imagine that that is a very real concern of getting loving attacked which is why most teenage women don't end up doing that job. Iunno, really no part of the subplot made any loving sense at all if you thought for even a second how dangerous it can be for teenage girls and how stupid babies are Babies are so loving stupid guys, there's a 15-year age difference between me and my youngest sibling and an 8 year difference between me and the next oldest sibling, so for essentially all of my childhood and adolescence the fuckin house was childproofed. It is NOT THAT FUCKIN HARD to figure out childproof stuff, and you would not BELIEVE how goddamn stupid babies are, they are basically suicide machines
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Jul 15, 2014 05:51
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:
I can't not read this in his Garry Marshall voice.
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Jul 15, 2014 06:35
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Wandered in to TVIV on a whim and marathoned the first thread. Legitimately one of the funniest things I've read on here. Can't wait to see how this season goes. 
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Jul 15, 2014 06:41
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The previous thread has now moved on to a better place. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3632901
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Jul 15, 2014 07:15
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Zaggitz posted:Regy no what are you doing to yourself. I won't do it again I promise. That episode just made me too curious to resist.
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Jul 15, 2014 13:08
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:
My entire life, which includes 6 years working at a pizza place, I've seen a pizza delivered by a woman once, and it was the owner of the place that we order from regularly and she was short-handed that night, and never by a teenager male or female. It's actually a pretty dangerous job, and even when I was a 21 year old in a relatively safe neighborhood, I'd get freaked out. One time I asked my boss to take a delivery for me because it was the last one of the night, and the guy specifically asked to make sure that the delivery guy could break a $100 bill. One of our drivers actually did get robbed at gun point a few months after I left (by a former employee actually). Not to mention that if the place she was working for provided her with a car, no insurance company in their right might would cover a teenage girl...they're not very good drivers. In conclusion, no parent should ever let their children deliver pizzas.
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Jul 15, 2014 13:45
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Last Man Standing "Grandparent's Day" Season 1, Episode 3 This is not bad television. I mean, it is, but not Last Man Standing bad television. It certainly isn't good television. It's nothing television. It is just there. It exists, it was written, and shot, and acted in, and produced. I assume at some point an editor took a look at the footage and made the necessary cuts. I assume at some point that the actors in this piece of televised...entertainment had to provide multiple line readings. I assume at some point somebody yelled, "Cut!", and people went to their trailers. What I'm trying to say is that this meets all the technical qualifications to be an episode of a sitcom, a sitcom with the title of Last Man Standing. There's a plot involving Mike deriding the preschool that Boyd attends, to the point where the liberal strawman who runs it expels Boyd from the preschool in retribution. There's a second plotline about Vanessa feeling old, so as a result tries to reclaim her youth. The A-plot resolves with Mike realizing how terrible it is to raise a child, so then he goes back and has to apologize for the in his mind, totally justified insulting he does. A ha ha ha ha ha. The same time, Vanessa realizes how important it is to act her age. Done. I think I figured out the biggest difference between season one and the subsequent seasons; this entire episode feels lifeless, deadened, completely incapable of engendering an emotion. It's kind of remarkable how stilted and vacuum-sealed this episode feels; in a sense, it's impressive, creating something so sterile. It's all so...formless. It has no voice, no raison d'etre, it just...is. It has no strong feelings about anything. Reviews are difficult things to write, because the entire content of it is reactionary. In all honesty, even the best written review of all time is in and of itself objectively worse than the hackiest, most derivative episode of television to ever air. It's something I constantly struggle with, in all honesty: why I put so much work and effort in attempting to entertain people, when it all turns out to be kind of pointless. Who cares what I think about an episode of television? Why do people read these things? Why do I try so hard to make people on the internet entertained reading a secondhand summary of an episode of television? I mean, I get it when the episode in question is good, or in some other way is entertainingly or at least interestingly bad; then I think I'm providing a service, because I think I'm, honestly speaking, at least somewhat decent at analysis of thematic conceit. I think I'm good at breaking down what, exactly, makes a good or bad episode of television good or bad, and I like to hope that at least part of the reason that I do all of this is that even though, ultimately, my reviews are worthless and don't further the creative medium in any significant way, providing an outlet, a dialog about the deeper themes and motivations present in even a puddle-shallow show like LMS is in some way useful. I like to think that in some minor, minute way that my reviews, in addition to entertaining people with the schadenfreude of watching Occupation slowly lose it at bad television, or how funny they are or whatever, at least make people think on a deeper level about television, even for a show that in no way deserves it. I guess that's where my frustration about an episode like this is most prevalent during this reviews process. To be quite honest, I'm fine with reviewing television that I get mad at, because despite all my hyperbole and my angry, foolhardy declarations that this is the "Worst thing...ever!" and that I'll "Never watch it again!", I know that I will. You know that I will. It's disingenuous to claim otherwise, when in reality it's episodes like this that'll make me stop watching this show. Why should I spend the effort to watch this dreck, I justify, and take the time out of my busy day, I excuse myself, for an episode when it's clearly uninspired and trite? Why should I write thousands of words about an episode of television that was broken in a day and written in, maybe, two or three? Why should I bother when they clearly didn't? And this might be a fair point, but it's still the wrong one. Because all I'm doing is providing even less than the nothing these reviews ultimately provide. I turn in half-rear end work because I justify that the show itself is doing so, so why bother? This review had a very different original ending to it, which I edited out and wrote in this one, because my original ending was me masturbating about how much I didn't want to write this review. Because it doesn't deserve it, see. It was smug and self-satisfied and everything I hate about LMS, but I ended up writing it in a fit of entitlement. In any case, I apologize to you, the readers, for writing a lovely review about a lovely, boring episode of television, because at its best I think these reviews can, again, increase the amount of dialog between audience and creator, to help illuminate the dark spots. Which I failed at doing. So again, apologies for that, and I want to make a firm commitment to do a better job, even when it's hard. Because you guys deserve that. Grade: D Random Thoughts:
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 03:24
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Postscript, I was the one who made Occ rewrite this, because the old one was butt. I make him do many things. He will never know how many.
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Jul 17, 2014 03:58
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This is somehow much darker than the worst, most bigoted or otherwise ignorant episode of this show's later seasons.
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Jul 17, 2014 11:29
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I just finished reading the now-goldmine'd thread, and the mod challenge to close it had me in tears laughing. Occ: You poor, poor fucker. Were you, by chance, Hitler in a past life? Oxx: You are doing God's Work, good sir. Is there a pool going for which episode cracks Occ's sanity yet?
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Jul 18, 2014 01:36
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