|
quote:Mike: "Quick, let's review. Yellow light means..." Eve: "Floor it." Mike: Stop sign?" Eve: "Look both ways for Johnny Law, THEN floor it." Mike: "Yield sign means..." Eve: "...nothing to a Baxter." This isn't even politically motivated bullshit. This is just proof Mike Baxter is an rear end in a top hat.
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 02:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 15:23 |
|
|
hcreight posted:This isn't even politically motivated bullshit. This is just proof Mike Baxter is an rear end in a top hat. But, as has been noted on many other political discussions, being a spiteful rear end in a top hat is the entire motivating purpose of the modern American Republican Party.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 02:20
|
|
|
Propaganda Machine posted:Really? I got a much more xenophobic read from that. Like, it was fine for his maid to be naturalizing and learning English, but it wasn't fine for his grandkid to be learning Spanish because the context indicates that native-born Latin US-Americans are learning Spanish first at home, even though MURCA. I came away with the impression that Tim was just running his mouth. Notice how the bilingual education topic was dropped immediately after that conversation and how he also ribbed his daughter for majoring in philosophy. Its clear he wasn't serious about either objection so long as his children were getting the best education available. Maybe I'm being too generous, but I don't think Tim's character is supposed to be a close-minded xenophobe. He just says the first thing that pops into his head, whether its what he truly believes or not.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 02:25
|
|
|
Irish Joe posted:I came away with the impression that Tim was just running his mouth. Notice how the bilingual education topic was dropped immediately after that conversation and how he also ribbed his daughter for majoring in philosophy. Its clear he wasn't serious about either objection so long as his children were getting the best education available. Maybe I'm being too generous, but I don't think Tim's character is supposed to be a close-minded xenophobe. He just says the first thing that pops into his head, whether its what he truly believes or not. You should really watch this show.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 02:33
|
|
|
 In all fairness - if we're supposed to be under the impression that he did the CGI - it's pretty good
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 03:07
|
|
|
That's some Reboot tier GGI, amazing.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 04:49
|
|
|
Zaggitz posted:That's some Reboot tier GGI, amazing. It's WORSE than the episodes where he got ticketed while grabbing Vaccine Autism Lady's breast whilst running a red light. Worse than 20 years ago, you guys. More than Allen has gown downhill.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 14:34
|
|
SoroScrew
|
If you had asked me yesterday "hey Nate, is Tim Allen still on tv?" I might have muttered something about I think I saw him on a promo for something on ABC, is that still on? Thank you thread for enlightening. As bad as this show sounds, this line made me legit laugh for several minutes: E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:[*] Kyle: "Well, let's see. We were watching TV for a while. There's a rat loose in my apartment...so my roommate got a snake to catch it. And uh...last night we couldn't find the snake, so now we're getting a mongoose. And- because we learned our lesson -a mongoose leash."
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 19:13
|
|
|
Last Man Standing "Pledging" Season 3, Episode 3 Episode 303 of Last Man Standing is an uncharacteristically tough episode to review. On one hand, it trades in the exact sort of casual misogyny, racism, and general xenophobia that makes LMS such a terrible show to watch, and yet on the other it is funny, clever, and strangest of all weirdly progressive in a way that finally seems to underscore the fact that, perhaps, the writing staff of LMS are themselves in on the joke. There's a lot to discuss here, which makes this an altogether tougher nut to crack; I'm not used to having to write discussing themes or subtext of the show. Usually speaking, the subtext of this show is its text, and that text is usually so obvious and poorly written that the subtext-as-text is, in fact, the show's dialog. This show is not a subtle one, which makes episodes like this all the more confusing. The episode opens to Mandy returning from a long day at college, Kyle in tow. Mandy seems to be encountering some doldrums in college, being that she's having a difficult time socializing with her peers. Vanessa quickly recommends that she join Vanessa's old sorority, Kappa Kappa Neu, to have an easier time adjusting to college. Mandy quickly agrees but soon has to put her new sorority above all other priorities, including Kyle and actual schoolwork. She goes to Vanessa, who in a bizarre turn is attempting to break up Kyle and Mandy (ostensibly so Mandy can meet new men in college, for no really adequately explained reason), who recommends that Mandy dump Kyle so she can focus more on her sorority...and college, I guess? The entire plotline reads just a bit weirdly, like a bizarro version of LMS. For once, Vanessa, not Mike, is the weirdly amoral one attempting to push an agenda on their kid. But it's not really... a conservative one, just a strangely facile and unimportant one. Who the gently caress cares about fraternities/sororities in this day and age? They were great back when affording housing while a student was impossible and you needed them to be able to live cheaply- not to mention them being a necessary social function in order to get laid- but nowadays they're less and less important and more and more inclusive and accomodating. The times of Animal House don't really exist any more, and the sorority displayed here- one that demands full time commitments from its pledge, essentially turning it into a second job -doesn't really functionally exist any more. Nobody has the time or, really, the desire to play into the dumb Greek system beyond using it as a way to get beer before you're legally allowed and/or get laid at parties. It makes the entire plot seem kind of unbelievable, even by sitcom plot standards. But even beyond that it's never really made clear why Vanessa seems so intent on making sure Mandy stick to her old sorority. It's been implied before that Vanessa, especially in college, was a hard-partying wild child who slept around a lot (which I think is some wonderfully interesting and out-of-the-norm character definition), so...I guess maybe it's a vicarious thing? It's never really made clear and I unfortunately don't know if it's just bad storytelling or an attempt at subtlety on the writers' part, but the mere fact that it could go either way instead of a clear writing failure speaks volumes to how much better the writing is in this episode than usual. The conclusion to the main plot of the episode is nice- Mandy confronts Kyle and tells him she simply doesn't have time to spend on him over school. Kyle readily agrees- and urges Mandy to drop both the sorority and him in favor of focusing solely on her schoolwork, recognizing that she has the potential to succeed in a way he never could. It's a very nice character moment for both Mandy and especially Kyle, and the resolution was remarkably sweet and progressive in a way I didn't expect LMS to be. Love means sacrifice, and for once having Kyle recommend that she follow her dreams over anyone or anything else, even him, was a really nice sitcom moment in a sitcom with scant few of them. It even makes the final credits resolution- where Mandy declares she's going to focus on school and keep Kyle around as a boyfriend -land. The B plot of this episode is a loving riot, as Ed goes undercover a la Undercover Boss to work in the stockroom to figure out who on the unloading team is "slacking off", since the team is demanding more people to cover the workload. As it progresses Ed gets more and more invested with the stockroom team and more and more emotionally attached until the final scene, where he confronts Mike, having been elected shop foreman, threatening a strike unless worker conditions change. It's both completely absurd, sweet, and a little progressive, not to mention start-to-finish hilarious as Ed recounts the tales of his alter ego "Troy"- whom he describes and characterizes in the third person even as he's pretending to be Troy. Just great comedic work and timing. So if I enjoyed the resolution to the main plot, and loved the B plot, why am I giving this episode a C? It all comes down to the weirdly regressive and sneering jokes the episode intercuts throughout. There's some absolutely fantastic writing in this episode from beginning to end- I particularly loved how Kyle described Mandy's sorority's newsletter, detailed below -but for every brilliant and funny joke, and there were a lot of them, there was a joke that read as completely cruel, sneering, and mean-spirited hackery. It makes the entire tone of the episode feel off and caused situations where I would literally be in the middle of laughing at a joke and come to an abrupt stop as a torrent of absolute garbage spilled out of Mike's mouth. The most bizarre part of this mishmash of tones is is that the writer's room itself seems to be aware of it. In one of the funniest jokes of the episode, Mike declaratively states about sororities, "I refuse to support any organization that makes its members wear certain clothes. (Eve walks into frame in her JROTC outfit)...Lookin' sharp, Eve." It's stuff like that that makes the show all the more confusing to watch. That joke, specifically, seems like the writer's room read the criticisms for season 3, especially the ones about how Mike is a hypocritical conservative douchebag, and decided to have the show itself recognize it. The entire joke lands because of how much of a chickenhawk Mike is where he glorifies anything the military does and demonizes anything he considers amoral, even when the two are using the exact same logic. So it's all the more bizarre when within the same scene you have: Vanessa: "So Ed made up a whole fake backstory about himself to trick people in trusting him?" Mike: "Yep, basically he's Obama." Who is this show for, LMS writing staff? Is it meant to be the new All in the Family? Because then you'll need more jokes like the former and the latter needs to be greeted with mocking jeers, not literal applause (one guy in the audience literally starts clapping in response to that joke). If you want it to be the Fox News version of Modern Family, that's also fine, but serving two masters poorly means that neither is pleased. Come on, LMS, be the show you want to be. Whatever that is. Grade: C Random Thoughts:
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Jun 10, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2014 19:39
|
|
|
Have you tried looking at the show's writers and seeing if you can find any pattern between who writes the scripts and which episodes are better or worse? You might be able to trace something that way, if episodes like that are confusing you.
|
|
#
?
Jun 8, 2014 23:55
|
|
|
Dolash posted:Have you tried looking at the show's writers and seeing if you can find any pattern between who writes the scripts and which episodes are better or worse? You might be able to trace something that way, if episodes like that are confusing you. Looking at IMDb the writing staff seems to be mostly new and inexperienced. If I had to guess, when the producers tell them to write an episode that supports their messed up conservative politics the writers phone it in, but when the instructions are vague enough (Like the Christmas episode) they have a little fun/put something they can use on their resumes.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2014 01:17
|
|
|
I love you, E. P. Anus. Please never stop. Please keep going. Review every episode they ever make, and continue. Never. Stop.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2014 02:17
|
|
|
Paradox Personified posted:I love you, E. P. Anus. Please never stop. Please keep going.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2014 02:27
|
|
|
A 20 minute sitcom should not confuse me as much as this one does just trying to figure out all the inconsistencies. You're doing the lord's work, Occ.
|
|
#
?
Jun 9, 2014 08:57
|
|
|
JohnSherman posted:I'm not sure he will survive season 3. He's already died twice. All taken care of, no worries, no worries.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2014 14:27
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:He's already died twice. All taken care of, no worries, no worries. Me irl http://vimeo.com/87962641
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2014 20:40
|
|
|
hcreight posted:Zaggitz just promised Occ perma ops in the IRC if he finishes LMS before coming in again.
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2014 23:02
|
|
|
E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:The entire plotline reads just a bit weirdly, like a bizarro version of LMS. For once, Vanessa, not Mike, is the weirdly amoral one attempting to push an agenda on their kid. But it's not really... a conservative one, just a strangely facile and unimportant one. Who the gently caress cares about fraternities/sororities in this day and age? They were great back when affording housing while a student was impossible and you needed them to be able to live cheaply- not to mention them being a necessary social function in order to get laid- but nowadays they're less and less important and more and more inclusive and accomodating. The times of Animal House don't really exist any more, and the sorority displayed here- one that demands full time commitments from its pledge, essentially turning it into a second job -doesn't really functionally exist any more. Nobody has the time or, really, the desire to play into the dumb Greek system beyond using it as a way to get beer before you're legally allowed and/or get laid at parties. It makes the entire plot seem kind of unbelievable, even by sitcom plot standards. This thread is great and I'd never even heard of this show before. But, in the interest of terribleness, I just wanted to point out that there are still totally sororities like this. Yes, they're in the south. And people even hire consultants to prepare for rushing them. One of my sister's friends went to TCU and everything she's ever told me about the greek life there makes it sound like another planet.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2014 04:17
|
|
|
door Door door posted:This thread is great and I'd never even heard of this show before. But, in the interest of terribleness, I just wanted to point out that there are still totally sororities like this. Yes, they're in the south. And people even hire consultants to prepare for rushing them. One of my sister's friends went to TCU and everything she's ever told me about the greek life there makes it sound like another planet. Honestly, that live-watch was one of the most memorable TV moments of the year so far. Right up there with the Hannibal finale, and 3 of Game of Thrones episodes this season.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2014 04:23
|
|
|
Some things I learned today: 1) Robert Forster, aka the guy who disappears Walt in the breaking bad episode "Granite State", aka living cinematic legend, played Tim Allen's dad in an episode of this season of LMS 2) Emmy nominations were announced this week, guess who DIDNT enter himself in guest actor in a drama series, but DID enter himself in guest actor in a comedy series 3) I just got a new full-time job with a very long commute, updates will slow down but I'll still attempt to do one a week. However the earliest my job wi start is next Wednesday and I hope to have at least five, aiming for ten reviews by Monday
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:1) Robert Forster, aka the guy who disappears Walt in the breaking bad episode "Granite State", aka living cinematic legend, played Tim Allen's dad in an episode of this season of LMS WHY? 
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2014 20:54
|
|
|
I think the second one depressed me more.
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2014 21:32
|
|
|
E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:Emmy nominations were announced this week, guess who DIDNT enter himself in guest actor in a drama series, but DID enter himself in guest actor in a comedy series
|
|
#
?
Jun 12, 2014 22:33
|
|
|
Last Man Standing "Ryan v. John Baker" Season 3, Episode 4 Oh boy what an awkwardly bad episode of television this was. I have felt many emotions while on my quixotic, borderline suicidal quest to review two seasons of this sitcom dreck, almost all negative: rage, confusion, bewilderment, generalized depression are all common reactions to an episode of Last Man Standing. But this was the first time that I ever felt genuinely embarrassed. I just felt bad for the characters; they were in such a completely unrealistic and so genuinely cringe-inducing sequence of events that at some point I expected Mike to remark, "None of this makes sense, nobody acts like this ever. Why are we? I can only determine one of two possible reasons for this: either A, we are stuck in some sort of Faustian hell such that I and everyone I know are forced to interact with each other in the most embarrassingly awkward and negative way possible, preventing even the slightest hint of emotional or physical intimacy in any way, shape or form- truly this is a nightmare from which none of us can ever escape, nor should we, or B, that this is a poorly-made ABC sitcom. Wait, did I say two possible reasons? Because from where I stand they're the exact same thing. And in both cases, it's Obama's fault." Freeze frame on Tim Allen's laughing face, applause break from the audience leading into cheers, as a mid 80s riff plays over the credits. In case you couldn't tell I didn't very much enjoy this episode. A Ryan-centered episode (always a bad sign), apparently the strike mentioned in the previous episode is now in effect as Ryan and the rest of his beer truck driving buddies are now on strike. This is creating some problems for Kristin as the (temporarily) lone breadwinner of the family. The plot meanders as Kristin and Ryan fight over his not caving to an, to his mind, unsatisfactory offer from management, then it all works out in the end as Ryan realizes he still needs to support his family even if that means getting a night job as part of the night crew at Outdoor Man. Hoor...ay. The problem arises from the titular scene of the episode as Kristin invites her family to the restaurant to eat at the restaurant she manages. The owner and her boss, John Baker (played once again by Jonathan Taylor Thomas), arrives to personally greet them, as Ryan stumbles into the scene, Boyd in tow. He needs Kristin and/or her family to watch Boyd as he has to attend a union vote that evening. Simple excuse to leave the scene, right? Not so for the LMS writing staff, as they felt the need to have Ryan engage in a bizarre and borderline sociopathic argument with John Baker. "Ugly" Ryan comes out in full force here, the liberal strawman with no sense of tact engaging the cool, self-possessed and charming job creator John. Venomous, easy barbs about waiters receiving pay below minimum wage, (which is still, you know, true) or the non-waitstaff runners not receiving tips to help counteract that (which is also usually true) just come across not as the triumph of the proletariat but as the socially retarded ramblings of that one way too political friend you have at the party. You know the one. The one who won't shut the gently caress up about Ukraine as you're attempting to chat up that hot acquaintance you barely know. The scene just comes across as unbearably awkward from beginning to end, as tactless Ryan is raced to the bottom of the barrel by Mike, who all but gives a dowry to John, so desperately does he want John to marry his daughter. JTT throughout it all even seems to break character and almost feels just as awkwardly embarrassed as the viewing audience, his body language all but screaming "A gig's a gig, but christ alive who wrote this scene. And have they ever engaged with humans." I really couldn't stand this scene, and it was supposed to be the clear centerpiece- heck, they even named the episode after it. This was some The Office season 2 level awkwardness. Generally I don't like awkward comedy- I suffer from an outpouring of fremdscham to the point where it makes me physically uncomfortable to watch it. Even for The Office, a show that does awkward comedy better than anyone and everyone else, I ended up skipping a third to a half of a majority of episodes. And in The Office's case, that was intentional, I think in LMS' case it was a pure accident. But I can't skip scenes here, so I had to suffer through five minutes of my own personal hell to accurately review this. So you're loving welcome everyone, look how I suffer for you assholes. Grade: D Random Thoughts:
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jun 13, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2014 21:07
|
|
|
If i wanted to make these reviews more pandery and also more niche I woulda included a joke at propaganda machines expense about why they included the Kristin/John meetcute scene, but i didn't because i'm above that, i just wanted to make it clear that I thought of one, so people should be awarding me according to my cleverness and my editing prowess knowing almost nobody would get it i'm the best is what i am saying
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2014 21:12
|
|
|
I loving knew this show would try to put Kristin and John together the second he was described as the Anti-Ryan, because liberals must be punished.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2014 21:18
|
|
|
E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:"Ugly" Ryan comes out in full force here, the liberal strawman with no sense of tact engaging the cool, self-possessed and charming job creator John. A liberal with no sense of tact? So basically every liberal. *high-fives Tim Allen*
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2014 21:24
|
|
|
quote:Here's how bad that loving argument scene was for me. I was gchatting with Oxxidation at the time, and here is the actual chatlog of my thoughts: I would like to state that I was not actually present in the chat during this time. So great was this nerd's anguish that he had to pour it forth to a hypothetical me.
|
|
#
?
Jun 13, 2014 21:25
|
|
|
Last Man Standing "Haunted House" Season 3, Episode 5 Hello, horrible television nerds. This is Oxxidation, Occupation's significantly more charming and coherent alter-ego. I have taken a brief sabbatical from filling Occ's mattress with arthropods to conduct a guest review of the Tim Allen Neocon Power Hour. Please take a moment to express your unmitigated delight. "Bullshit," says everyone, but mostly Deadpool. "The mod challenge specifically requires Occupation to review episodes. I am going to ban him and confiscate his plat account and whatever else he uses to make sense of the world." Well hold on, because Occ did, in fact, "review" this episode. Like a previous ep in the sitcom, it was evidently so boring that he had little to say beyond the fact that it was boring. Since he has a great big heart full of love and would not want to subject you people to a rerun, he instead decided to fill up the space by recounting the time he screwed an ex-girlfriend of his in a ratty abandoned house. He showed the post to me first and it was grotesquely uncomfortable, like a one-legged bird trying to feed its baby a rusty nail; combine that with his manically candid posting style and what you get is the kind of story that would make Tom Waits roll over in bed and dial up his therapist. So I am subjecting myself to this show, in order to prevent him from subjecting you to his own haunted house adventure. I am television Jesus on his flimsy rabbit-ear cross so make with the loaves and loving fishes and give the guy a mulligan, thanks I love you the end. Okay, review. Let it be known that I do not know or care about any of the characters on this sitcom or indeed any sitcom, so there will be two types of cast members in this synopsis - Fat Tim Allen and people who exist in relation to Fat Tim Allen. We begin with Fat Tim Allen and his wife batting conservative/liberal talking points back and forth; a Chinese outsourcing joke is made followed by comparing an unpleasant job to parenthood. Yep, this is going to be a long twenty minutes. We have what is presumably the central ideological conflict of this episode - FTA's skinnier blond relative is running a haunted house, and while some members of the household argue that kids are too sensitive for a full-blown grue show, FTA says Halloween is all about scaring the bejesus out of kids. FTA is on the right side of this argument, of course, but the opposing side is unsurprisingly one you rarely see outside of outrageously paranoid and primarily fictional soccer-mom tirades. Conservative talking points often exist in opposition to viewpoints which take place primarily in conservatives' whitebread heads, stop me if these revelations are giving anyone the vapors. FTA Bald Friend and FTA Goatee Friend enter the house. I enjoy Bald Friend's voice, it is like a warm quilt draped about my shoulders. Bald Friend has purchased a coffin at Costco (Goatee: "They have everything!") with which to decorate the house. This gives us the setup for the episode's first funny exchange: FTA Wife(?): "I love the coffin, but it has a scratch on it." FTA Bald Friend: "Yeah, it's a return." Ha ha haaa. Meanwhile FTA Daughter is some kind of high school ROTC who don't get no respect and FTA Young Son terrorizes people by popping out of nowhere with a Frankenstein mask. I like that kid's pepper sauce. We change scenes to the haunted house in which a number of younger female characters exchange lifeless banter about the dangers of wearing revealing clothing. Slut shaming is mentioned. This will probably lead to a hamfisted subplot in which I will have no interest. FTA Wife emerges from the haunted house in a witch costume with a silly accent. But this is a clever trick! The haunted house is actually scary as poo poo (and sort of looks it, too, I'm impressed by some of the props they have on display in this thing). FTA Son runs away from the place while shrieking, which is a young child's way of announcing to society that they have sustained some of the vital mental trauma needed to become a functionally neurotic adult. But no, this is a bad thing! FTA Wife blames herself for scaring the child, while FTA insists that no harm was done. He goes off on some petting zoo tangent that I assume is the coke talking, followed by a Hillary Clinton joke. Topical. FTA and FTA Blond Daughter strike an accord - if FTA can keep FTA Son from pissing himself, they'll take another crack at the haunted house. Now comes FTA's television program, which I take it is a regular thing? He makes a joke about how FDR was an evil socialist. I feel the need to digress at this point. Occupation has made it clear that Last Man Standing is often a painfully conservative show. Unlike him, I'm fiercely political (see that slapped-together semi-essay in his fracking review), with opinions on the right wing and the rich that may be channeled directly from Lenin's ghost. I've kept myself on a constant news drip feed since the 2008 elections and hate for conservative ideology is my morning coffee and my evening gin. And yet, this show's viewpoints don't seem to get my blood up. Maybe it's because the acting is so limp and perfunctory. Maybe it's because the lines themselves are so rote (though as we all know, conservative humor is an oxymoron to begin with). Maybe it's because I have such a low opinion of TV to begin with, preferring instead to glean entertainment from established cultural touchstones such as Salman Rushdie, Nabokov, and Homestuck. Either way, you can barely feel the stone-brained malice that typically comes from jokes like the FDR one mentioned above; the rushed acting and lazy writing make them about as sharp as a handful of wet spaghetti. Given Occ's fury in these previous posts, I am left disappointed in him and all of you, but not Tim Allen because that would imply he is able to inspire anything besides disappointment in the first place. Where was I. Now we get a Dune joke. Never read it, been meaning to. Now Mark Twain! Bitch, Twain could kill you in about thirty ways with his pinky finger, don't you quote him. Basically FTA is making quotes about fear and using them to sell hunting knives. This is possibly thematic. He tries to leech the fear out of FTA Son by showing him the catalog all those bitchin monster props came from. This is moderately successful. Back to the subplot. Two girls reconcile over toilet paper. This requires an explanation. I will not give you one. Heartwarming guitar riff. From here the episode seems to roll over and die with five minutes left on the clock. FTA Son re-enters the haunted house and conquers his fear by loudly reciting every single price that FTA read him from the catalog, complete with profanity. I love this kid. FTA accidentally suggests he was a transsexual and rejoins his son in the haunted house. Credits. Now, this episode was terribly dull, but maybe that's just a sitcom thing and not an LMS thing. Its theme has no clear follow-through to speak of, the subplots go nowhere, and Tim Allen continues to have a pulse which I just find unacceptably rude. It is in the weird position where the little kid characters are genuinely the most likable of the bunch, probably because they're not aware of the context for their "acting" and are instead content to walk around the set jubilantly displaying their lack of an indoor voice/bladder control. Either way, this clunker of a Halloween episode is done with and hopefully the next one will be far worse so that Occupation can actually review it instead of returning to the Tales From the Crypt tome that is his autobiography. Thank you, good night, Doctor Who fans are all misogynists. Oxxidation's Grade: I DON'T PLAY BY YOUR RULES MAN
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 05:06
|
|
|
Good job toxx dodging, Occ. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 05:51
|
|
|
Because I was amused by that review I'll allow it this once. But you've used your "Phone a Friend" and have no more lifelines left. No more gimmick or replacement reviews though. Just power on through the rest and be done with it!
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 08:31
|
|
|
Last Man Standing "Larabee for School Board" Season 3, Episode 6 This was a bad, bad bad episode of television. It seems like moving through this season, Last Man Standing is attempting to deal more in awkward, The Office-esque comedy. This is...a goal, I guess. Not an admirable one, but the writing staff have proven themselves to be generally inept at writing traditional sitcom call-and-response one-liner based humor, so at least they're trying to make up for deficiencies. The problem of course lies in the fact that the awkward comedy is just cringe-inducingly bad. It engenders no schadenfreude, it doesn't make the show funnier because you're watching a bunch of terrible people feel uncomfortable. Indeed, all it does is make you, the viewer, uncomfortable. It doesn't help that the episode in general is just a complete mess otherwise. The plots, for instance, of which there are three, are utterly unrelated on every level and don't even feel thematically appropriate. This is compounded by none of them receiving main plot focus or airtime, so the entire episode has a unfinished quality to it as it neurotically flits between these three stories, none of which receive plot closure. The, I guess, "main" plot of the episode is the one that gives it its title. Chuck and Carol Larabee, the black neighbors of the Baxters whom we rarely see, are having Carol run for the school board, and want Mike and Vanessa to put a lawn sign supporting her candidacy. The problem with this plot lies again with focus. There's a subplot that is so long it nearly qualifies as an entirely separate plot involving whether or not Mike and Vanessa are best friends or if being a husband and wife means you're not also friends. There's a subplot about whether or not Mike and Chuck are friends. There's a subplot about who is stealing the lawn signs the Baxters are putting in their lawn which is literally completely unresolved. There's a subplot with the traditional sitcom whacky misunderstanding that makes it look like Mike is throwing away the candidate signs, therefore unintentionally pissing off Chuck. There's a weird restaurant scene between Vanessa and Carol that seems to have no real point. This entire mess is just one plot of the episode, one of three. There's a "throw poo poo at the wall and see what sticks" ethos to this episode turned to 1000. There's no throughline or logical consistency to any of this, to the point where the episode borders on surreality since it's so incoherent. Through it all, the causal event- Carol running for school board- is barely mentioned at all. The two other stories of this episode are worse, if possible. The first involves Kyle and Ryan, who the latter now seems to work at Outdoor Man full time (I guess the strike was an excuse to give Ryan's character an excuse to interact with more of the cast more frequently. Apparently Ryan has been endearing himself to Ed, which makes Kyle jealous (since Kyle evidently views Ed as a father figure), because of course it does. This resolves as predictably and saccharine-sweet as you'd expect, and as a result is a complete chore to slog through. There's no real point to this story and it completely detracts from the overall tone of the episode, so I'm at a loss for why it was filmed in the first place, let alone kept off the edit bay floor. The final story involves Eve, Kristin and Mandy. Eve is apparently being hit on by a hot guy so is going to her older sisters for advice. The problem with this plot is one of importance and dramatic commitment. This story uses one of my most hated conceits of a plot, one in which all the action happened off-screen and has a character just recounting what happened. In this case, it's Eve telling her how her relationship is developing with the boy in question and asking her sisters for advice. What this means, though, is that the plot has no dramatic weight or resonance; all of the inciting events have already happened and all we are witnessing is one character, essentially, monologuing a story. It's a bad, inept way to tell a story as we can already see the results of how the event proceeded just from the way the character in question- in this case, Eve -is acting, via either body language or tone. It's also a terrible way to tell a story because it's the most authored. The reason this is a tv show, and not a book or a radio play is is because the medium itself- television -is visual. If all you're having is a character go "Well I tried this, then this happened", you're not utilizing the medium in a way that's unique from a book or a radio play. The fact that the scene is filmed seems rather superfluous and as a result the entire plot feels rather superfluous and a bit condescending, as this was obviously a cost-cutting measure and the writers just hoped the audience was too stupid to notice. The episode is an atonal, confusing slog, and the terribleness is intensified by Mike's frequent, racist, and awkward quips that make the entire experience feel unpleasant. It wasn't offensive, and it sure wasn't funny- it just made me feel really embarrassed from beginning to end. This was an episode I desperately want to forget, an episode that when looking back on my time reviewing seasons of this terrible show I hope my mind just skips over. It was a completely worthless half-hour of my life that just made me feel really unpleasant and confused. I don't know what Last Man Standing even loving is any more, besides bad. It's just this weird, Escherian nightmare from which I can't escape. Like, I used to hate this show. I used to feel things when experiencing it. I truly don't feel anything any more, and this isn't a joke, when watching this show. I feel dead. I, honestly, feel not-alive when watching this show, like I'm in purgatory for 30 minutes at a time. On to the next one, I guess. Grade: F Random Thoughts:
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jun 21, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 20:12
|
|
|
I love this thread so much. Grade: Real Good
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 20:14
|
|
|
Both those quotes at the end made me laugh. What's wrong with me? This thread is amazing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
E PLURIBUS ANUS posted:If i wanted to make these reviews more pandery and also more niche I woulda included a joke at propaganda machines expense about why they included the Kristin/John meetcute scene, but i didn't because i'm above that, i just wanted to make it clear that I thought of one, so people should be awarding me according to my cleverness and my editing prowess knowing almost nobody would get it Aww, but I love jokes at my expense! 
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 23:09
|
|
|
Propaganda Machine posted:Aww, but I love jokes at my expense! nobody was talking about your posts NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jun 21, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 23:34
|
|
|
Last Man Standing "Shoveling Snow" Season 3, Episode 7 This episode is just...troubling. I mean, it's bad, but at this point that's to be expected for an episode of Last Man Standing. A good episode of LMS is far more rare and notable than a bad one, and this episode falls right into the comfortable wheel well of "bad, but not offensively terrible" that Last Man Standing so adores to inhabit. So why is this an overall troubling episode? Well, it finally proves irrevocably true something I've been suspecting has been true for the past, oh, season or so: Eve Baxter is a broken character. What do I mean by this? I mean that Eve, as currently written and how her character has been developed, from the middle of season two until now, is an active negative every time she is on screen. This is extremely, extremely disappointing since Kaitlyn Dever is the no-contest best actress of the cast and early on, Eve was my by-far favorite character of the show and the only one besides Kyle that was even tolerable. So what happened? Well, unfortunately, LMS happened. Eve started out as an appealing character simply because of the fact she was the only sympathetic one in the group- Mike was a blowhard, Kyle a bordering-on-autistic socially maladjusted parody of a liberal, Mandy a bordering-on-mentally-retarded airhead...I could go on. Eve, in contrast, existed solely to poo poo all over the other members of the family, pointing out how much of idiots the gullible, reactionary morons that were her family were. This was great, because the writing for her zingers was, usually, on point, which was in stark contrast to the rest of the writing on the show. She quickly became an almost audience-insert character: she existed to point out the idiocy around her, and because of it was a rare breath of fresh air on a show in desperate need of them. Combined with Kaitlyn Dever's on-point acting and you quickly had an audience favorite on your hands. This mark of individuality was carried through her storylines: Eve rarely got focused episodes on even plots about her, but when she did they were usually about how she strayed from the pack of groupthink that was endemic to everyone else on the show. Ryan and Kristin, even though they were ostensibly in disagreement with Mike, were actually still playing by his rules: they had the exact same opinions presented in the exact same way that Mike's were, they were just the opposite. But a negative number is still a mirror copy of a positive one, and when both are added together they make zero- which is what these argumentative scenes in LMS ended up contributing to the show. Eve instead bucked that trend and attempted to leverage those scenes of conflict to a positive end. Most notably, in the fracking episode, she staged her own mini-protest over uselessly arguing with her parents about it for the entire episode. It was, finally, an example of a character doing what they were saying over just saying it. Unfortunately, all of this character development eventually stopped, and worse, started decaying: around the middle of season 2 (around where Eve joined JROTC), Eve stopped really showing any sort of individuality or a predilection for thinking for herself, independent of the hivemind of commonly accepted thought that was what everyone else engaged in. Moving on to the end of season 2, she stopped getting, really, any screentime at all: by the end of season 2 Eve was getting less screentime than loving Ryan. Ryan. This problem was exacerbated in the beginning of this season, as Eve was quickly refocused into the exact same conservative rhetoric-spewing loudmouth that her father was. Admittedly, Eve's role on the show has always been as "Mike's favorite", and her opinions have always skewed more right than her sisters, but there was some interesting shades of moral complexity within her political and social opinions that really helped dimensionalize her. Now, though, she's just a mini-Mike, to the extent that within this episode she even loudly complains about "Obama's America" with the same lack of humor. It's horribly disappointing. This is all a long-winded way of saying that this episode, which had an Eve A-plot, something incredibly rare and previously was treated as a golden gift by me, was borderline unwatchable. The only thing worse than having one Mike is having two of them, and that's all Eve is now- a straightfaced parody of a neocon with the heart of coal. The problem is exacerbated by the structure of the episode itself. Centering it around Phil Munroe (Larry Joe Campbell) being fired and thus in an escalating snow-shoveling "war" with Eve so he can provide for his family was just bizarre. It doesn't help that Phil's character is portrayed as a complete tool throughout the episode, only rivaled by Eve's relentless, borderline sociopathic desire to "beat" Phil. Her worship of capitalism and "gently caress You, Got Mine" is completely nonsensical...I mean, the guy needs to shovel snow so he can feed his family. And Eve takes glee in beating him, up to and including telling the neighborhood he murders pets. The...the gently caress?! There's just so many poorly thought out and poorly implemented ideas here, with such an ideologically unclear resolution and so many logical inconsistencies (Mike encourages Eve to screw Phil out of money to feed his family, for instance; a common question I had throughout the episode was "Why is a middle-aged man (Phil) competing directly with a fifteen-year-old girl for neighborhood shoveling jobs over just going somewhere else and/or starting an actual shovelling business?"), and it's resolved in such a tonally bizarre way (Mike just gets Phil a job at Outdoor Man, which makes one wonder why he didn't just do that at the very start of the episode and saved us all thirty confusing minutes) that completely undercuts the episode's pro-laissez faire capitalism stance (despite directly showing us the problems with such an awful ideology with the guy who's so desperate for cash he's, again, competing with a fifteen year old girl for shoveling jobs). What was the point of this episode? What was its message? Why? Why? WHY?! gently caress. Grade: D Random Thoughts:
NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Jun 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2014 02:57
|
|
|
"I have to say, I really loved season 1, but thought season 2 didn't really feel right. Sure you could argue that the first season was very one-sided politically, but actually that is somewhat expected in a tight-knit family. Season 2 it seems like it's everyone against Tim Allen. Including Eve, which I REALLY didn't like. They seemed to have balanced it out in season 3 though. Eve is once again daddy's girl, and the rest, while disagreeing with some of his views, are open-minded to him having a good point in his opinions. So I hope they make a season 4, and that it'll continue what we have in season 3." - A person who is apparently the polar opposite of Occupation.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2014 03:54
|
|
|
Regy Rusty posted:"I have to say, I really loved season 1, but thought season 2 didn't really feel right. Sure you could argue that the first season was very one-sided politically, but actually that is somewhat expected in a tight-knit family. Season 2 it seems like it's everyone against Tim Allen. Including Eve, which I REALLY didn't like. They seemed to have balanced it out in season 3 though. Eve is once again daddy's girl, and the rest, while disagreeing with some of his views, are open-minded to him having a good point in his opinions. So I hope they make a season 4, and that it'll continue what we have in season 3." - A person who is apparently the polar opposite of Occupation. As the actual polar opposite of Occupation I will argue that this person is just run-of-the-mill stupid.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2014 04:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 15:23 |
|
|
Why, Kaitlyn Dever? Why must you hurt us so?
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2014 15:50
|
|