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Write forty reviews over two months: get compared to hitler Write one review and be generally a smug rear end in a top hat over chat and in the forums: get called an agent of The Lord
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Jul 18, 2014 02:00
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 02:35 |
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:Write forty reviews over two months: get compared to hitler I'm just saying, watching 40 episodes (twice each!) of LMS sounds like a punishment for some pretty unspeakable crimes.
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Jul 18, 2014 03:17
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Kaninrail posted:I just finished reading the now-goldmine'd thread, and the mod challenge to close it had me in tears laughing. I'm pretty sure he's already lost it.
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Jul 18, 2014 03:31
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Kaninrail posted:I'm just saying, watching 40 episodes (twice each!) of LMS sounds like a punishment for some pretty unspeakable crimes. It was the most heinous of crimes: believing in a Community Season 6 oh wait
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Jul 19, 2014 08:47
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Last Man Standing "Last Halloween Standing" Season 1, Episode 4 Halloween isn't my favorite holiday- probably not even my second favorite (Thanksgiving takes that slot for me). However, Halloween episodes of television have the potential for being the best episodes of television, in my opinion. Halloween is a weird holiday that gets worse as you get older: As a kid, it's amazing because it's a great way to get a bunch of free candy for little effort, and as you get older and older trick-or-treating becomes more and more passé, and the holiday itself less and less interesting, until you have a brief period of time between your late teens and early twenties where Halloween parties are a great way to get very drunk and have some great sex. Eventually, though, the partying gets old, and it simply doesn't have any sort of permanence as you enter your late twenties/early thirties beyond vicariously living through your kids. I think part of that is because Halloween is a decidedly negative holiday. Most holidays celebrate something: Valentine's Day, it's love; Fourth of July, nationality; Christmas, general goodwill towards others. Halloween is all about defending against some sort of karmic retribution, either from oogie-boogies or by the decidedly more mundane monsters of "lovely teenagers with too much toilet paper and eggs". It's a holiday that is based around fear, and around fending off baddies that don't, objectively, exist; no witches will ever follow you, no ghosts will haunt you. But we all want the possibility of the unexplained and strange to occur, which explains why horror movies are so popular. It's in that same vein why Halloween television can be so good: It's the one holiday where all shows get carte blanche to, essentially, be as weird as they want without being worried about having to explain themselves. There's a sort of otherworldly, sinister aspect of Halloween that can justify any bizarreness from a Halloween episode of television with, "Well, it was the Halloween episode, what did you expect?" So it's a little disappointing that Last Man Standing plays so safe with its first-ever Halloween episode, "Last Halloween Standing". It's not in any way bizarre or spooky; it's a straightforward story about Mike struggling with wanting to go trick-or-treating, although Eve doesn't want to do it any more and Kristin won't let Boyd. There's not much in this episode that doesn't hit all the very obvious sitcom trappings: Mike wants to bring Boyd trick or treating, Kristin won't let him because "she doesn't want Boyd exposed to all of that pagan imagery" (Huh??), Mike does it anyways, he brings home the wrong kid, hijinks ensue. Forced emotional moment at the end, and we got a very, very traditional episode of a sitcom. That's not to say the episode is bad. Far from it, the writing is generally sharp if unimaginative and the jokes fly frequently. It helps, too, that outside of a really weirdly racist cutaway in the middle of the episode the show isn't really offensive on any level. This is the "bowl of soup" of episodes: It might not be the greatest thing in the whole world, but it gets the job done and tastes good enough to feel pleasant going down. If I were to speak positively about one thing in the episode, it has a neat plot structure of essentially having the Baxter house act as the "home base" where all of the main cast interact, then have everyone's plotlines spiral out from the center. This method means that the scenes centered around the same set are broken up by Mike taking Boyd trick-or-treating, but the base of the episode, at the Baxter house, gives the episode a narrative throughline to come back to to keep the plot on track. In addition, this essentially gives every Baxter family member their own little mini-story within the driving narrative of Mike and Boyd. This doesn't work as well as it should, since really only Mandy's sideplot- about wanting to dress sexily to attend a party -is the only one that really works, but it's a noble goal and structurally interesting. However, there are still myriad problems throughout the episode. Making Eve obsessed with a boy is doing her character absolutely no favors, and she's just sort of pathetic and uninteresting the entire episode. There's a kind of excruciating sidestory involving Vanessa dressing in a sexy pirate outfit and subsequently harassed by her male neighbors that feels, in turns, gross, creepy, and just completely tonally out of place. The fundamental plot of the episode is resolved by Mike eventually turning out to be right all along and Kristin coming around, which although it doesn't feel misogynist or patronizing (since, for once, Mike just seems like a sincere, if kind of out-of-touch and bullheaded, old man trying to show his grandson a good time), does set a tone of validating the main protagonist's views because he's the protagonist and the protagonist can't be wrong. We're kind of seeing the seeds being sown for allowing and, within the show, reinforcing Mike's actions due to his status within the show over whether anything he is doing is actually moral or justifiable, which creates some truly wretched episodes in seasons two and three. Still, though, the episode was funny and made me laugh a couple of times when watching, which is really all one can ask for from a sitcom, especially one like Last Man Standing. Grade: B Random Thoughts:
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Jul 19, 2014 22:55
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E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:There's not much in this episode that doesn't hit all the very obvious sitcom trappings: Mike wants to bring Boyd trick or treating, Kristin won't let him because "she doesn't want Boyd exposed to all of that pagan imagery" (Huh??)
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Jul 19, 2014 23:04
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Last Man Standing "Co-Ed Softball" Season 1, Episode 5 This episode was really not good! Really, really not good. A tedious, uninteresting slog from start to finish that doesn't even have the dignity to be aggressively terrible. The A-plot of the episode deals with how the Outdoor Man softball team, the "Master Batters" (uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh), in order to comply with the rules of the park in which they play, have to open up their historically men-only team to be co-ed. Here's issue one with this plot conceit: It has no stakes. Who in their right mind would look at a co-ed softball team as anything but a net positive? There's nobody who isn't a complete and utter piece of poo poo, and I'm talking "shaved head and swastika tattoo" level piece of poo poo, who would complain about a sports team being co-ed. This is such a pointless and weirdly regressive issue to raise that immediately it engenders no sympathy whatsoever, especially when Ed starts ranting and raving about how terrible it is that those loving women want to play softball on their team. It just feels completely and utterly manufactured as a source of conflict, just from how low the dramatic stakes are combined with the fact that it's such an obvious no-brainer of what the morally correct course of action is. In the year 2011, making an episode decrying gender mixing in sports is like making an episode decrying race mixing. It's just such a bizarre and backwards issue to raise from the get-go. Compounding this issue is the aforementioned bitching Ed and Mike do about the prospective gender mixing. It all comes off as really really sexist and petty for no other reason then some five-year-old's treehouse logic of "No Girls Allowed!" Further, the issue is apparently so divisive that Ed decides to open up the "decision" to make the team co-ed to a secret ballot of the employees as a whole, in which the co-ed vote wins by one vote. Here's a issue I have with this development solely from a plot perspective: In the beginning of the episode, the inciting event is the park declaring the team doesn't have the right to play unless they're co-ed. So holding a vote makes no loving sense, since if the co-ed vote hadn't passed the team would not have been able to play, period. This seems like completely sloppy writing that doesn't even take basic cause-effect into account, and anyone with an even cursory glance over the script should've been able to notice. From here, the A-plot proceeds with Ed instituting an almost McCarthy-like inquisition into who voted for the integration. (The amount of resistance Ed has towards the concept of his work softball team being co-ed, at this point, just makes him look like a giant rear end in a top hat. Who the gently caress cares this much? Ed, if you give this much of a poo poo about playing with girls, just quit the team then. Goddamn.) Mike worries since he privately voted for co-ed, which although a nice development doesn't make much logical sense, especially when taking into account the fact that Mike spends an entire vlog this episode complaining about women encroaching on "men's turf". If anything, Mike voting for co-ed just makes the plot of this episode all the more nonsensical, as there's no in-world justification for why he does it beyond "Mike has three daughters". Eventually though the issue is resolved, as it turns out Eve is a really awesome softball player or whatever so hooray for being co-ed or something. Nobody learns anything and there's no real stakes at any point of this episode so the resolution just comes off as trite and forced sentimentality. The weirdest part of this episode is the fact that none of it feels real. There's an air of joylessness throughout it, even and especially during the parts where Ed and Mike are decrying women or some poo poo. Every sexist line both men spew, every inappropriate joke about women, feels hackneyed and tired even as they're saying it. On one hand, it makes all the weird sexism and completely terrible underlying plot have no real impact, since it's so clearly a farce, but on the other it makes the entire episode feel completely pointless as even the actors don't believe in the lines they're regurgitating. Contrasted to seasons two and three, even the most mundane episodes of the latter seasons had a level of commitment to what was written that this episode, and season as a whole, simply does not have. Sure, it made the later seasons more offensive, but it also made them more sincere, as the complaining felt like it came from a real place. Even further, very rarely did LMS in seasons two and three address issues on this small a scope, so it puts an even finer point on how utterly inane this entire episode is. It's really just kind of bewildering how bad this episode is, on nearly every level. Absolutely none of it works or makes a cohesive whole and it's completely half-assed, lazy television at every turn. Ridiculous. Grade: D Random Thoughts:
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Jul 20, 2014 22:02
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I saw the s3 episode where Mike gets humliated at the war story session. It was alright, but there's a part in the beginning where the Baxters are deciding what to eat. At the mention of Greek food, Mike takes this opportunity to poo poo on the Greeks about their economic crisis. It felt so weirdly petty. Like come on. Chuck is the best and totally stole the show though.
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Jul 21, 2014 00:37
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Lycus posted:Was Kristin actually a liberal in the first season, or was her character just "over-protective mom" and they didn't settle on liberal until later? It's difficult to tell what with Kristin being played by someone totally different and them clearly not having a handle yet on what motivates Kristin as a character and all that but so far, I think youre more close with the latter prediction I think?
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Jul 21, 2014 11:43
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Last Man Standing "Good Cop, Bad Cop" Season 1, Episode 6 Usually I'm able to identify why, exactly, I like or (almost always) dislike a certain episode of Last Man Standing. So it's all the more puzzling why, objectively, I think this episode of LMS did everything right (or as close to "right" as this particular program can muster), and yet I still found myself desperately uninterested by the episode as a whole. It might be due to the fact that I've reached a sense of exhaustion in reviewing this show, but I don't think so; I've experienced fallow periods during my time reviewing this show, and although this feels in some ways close to that feeling of boredom and general Kafkaesque funk, I do think there's a separate reason for my general coolness to "Good Cop, Bad Cop": Although the episode had some decent parts, I don't think it coalesced into a complete whole so as a result felt generally tedious throughout. The episode deals with three separate, intertwined storylines: Mandy's desire to enter a teen modelling competition, Ed's feelings of uselessness as Mike takes over more of the day-to-day operations of Outdoor Man, and Mike's status within the family as the permissive parent. Again, individually speaking, each storyline works, I think: Mandy gets caught up in sending somewhat scandalous photos, to which Mike tracks them down and gets rid of them to save her reputation (and in the process, defends his daughters' honor in one of the few times in the show Mike is shown to be a decent, loving father to his children); Ed's general crotched-ness towards Mike is revealed to be his concerns over aging, having just hit the same age his father retired (and, coincidentally), died; and Mike confronts the realities of how being the fun, permissive parent can actually be very damaging to his children. Again, all of these plots have generally positive, morally complicated and relatable outcomes, that each help dimensionalize the characters involved. So it's with all that said that I was befuddled why I found this episode so tedious. The episode doesn't feel especially after-school special-y or generally preachy; even the Mandy storyline, which could've fallen into this trap, just felt like a stupid mistake a stupid teenager like Mandy would realistically make. The overall lesson of making sure to police your online footprint in this day and age seems especially prescient, there's really no problem with it as a whole. It's just the whole episode doesn't really go anywhere. Everyone learns their pat lesson, and I guess my dislike of the episode is that I have zero investment with the characters at this point. LMS tries for sentimentality and even, infrequently, nails it, as my (in)famous quote about the season 3 finale episode- wherein I admit to being emotionally invested with the characters -illustrates. But the season 3 Mike isn't the season 1 Mike, who is just an irritating bore who rants a lot, and season 3 Mandy isn't season 1 Mandy, who is a stereotypically idiotic teen, and season 3 Ed isn't season 1 Ed, who is so misogynistic and hateful in general that he's impossible to like on any level. Over three years, the LMS writing staff (to their credit) has been able to give these characters some dimensionality, so they make emotional moments that are supposed to endear the characters to you land- in theory, at least. The LMS writing staff expects you, the viewer at home, to buy that the Baxters and co. are real people with real issues to make this episode work, when in the preceding five episodes they've done nothing but show everyone at their absolute worst. It just doesn't work because the writers haven't laid the groundwork for these scenes and moments to work. And as a result, what you get is what I experienced- a tedious episode of television that demanded an emotional investment that I simply did not have, because the show previously had made zero effort to grab my emotional investment. To put a finer point on the emotional blackmail this episode was pulling, let's examine Mike's specific storyline this episode. It posits that we buy the idea that Mike is the fun, permissive parent of the Baxter clan. To me, someone who's seen two and a quarter seasons of this show, this is such a ludicrous idea to buy that it's nearly laughable; if there's one thing that Mike isn't, it's the permissive parent. But in order for this story to land in absolutely any way, LMS has to sell out Mike Baxter's entire character up to this point. It's just laughable, and simply does not work. And because of that, Mike's realization at the end of the episode that he has to be more hands-on with his kids don't land because that's all, well, he's ever been. And that's the problem with this episode as a whole- it builds to these specific character points, but only by selling out how these characters work, and then forcing the audience to not only buy these new characterizations but to be emotionally invested in them to the point where the string of emotional moments land. This is way too much effort in image rehabilitation to fit in a single half-hour, and as a result makes the entire episode a pointless waste of time. The irony of an episode like this, and season one as a whole, is that watching this season has made me appreciate in retrospect how much better seasons two and three are, especially in the area of characterization. Sure, they're not the greatest things in the whole word, but seasons two and three knew how to slow build this sort of awakening of character to have a moment like Mandy dating Kyle while going to college or Ryan deciding to marry Kristin work- because the writing staff laid the groundwork for those moments over entire seasons, not a single episode. This isn't to say seasons two and three are good- far from it -but at least they had a handle, in the broadest of strokes, of who the characters on their show are, and in what modes they should operate. So, I guess, thanks, Last Man Standing season one, for making me respect the latter seasons more. Grade: C Random Thoughts:
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Jul 23, 2014 03:21
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I kinda feel like getting you to do season 1 was a mistake. Although you're clearly trying your best (and the reviews are as well-written as ever) there's not enough meat on them bones to yield real positive dividends humour-wise. Can we just get him and Oxxidation to start the cross-talk NuWho reviews already? There's an evil dustbin in episode one. It'll be much better than this.
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Jul 23, 2014 06:47
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Bown posted:I kinda feel like getting you to do season 1 was a mistake. Although you're clearly trying your best (and the reviews are as well-written as ever) there's not enough meat on them bones to yield real positive dividends humour-wise. I don't think you're wrong, although we've already gotten at least one bewilderingly bad episode of television. More importantly though I'm already a quarter of the way through so at this point I'm finishing this stupid loving thing
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Jul 24, 2014 23:32
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Also I'm only pulling the trigger on that idea if nuWho wins whatever little ballot thing you've set up, so if it doesn't happen it will be the fault of you, the voters, and not my own irrational and capricious whims. Just like a real democracy.
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Jul 25, 2014 14:31
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 02:35 |
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I'm pulling the plug on this one. Save yourself for season four.
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Jul 29, 2014 19:30
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