johnnymonsarrat

30 Rock has its moments, but it's overwritten. When you're watching, think to yourself, "Is this line of dialogue necessary?" and you'll see what I mean. Everything that is obvious visually from the actors gets stated in dialogue anyway. It's like the writers think it's a radio play.

This means that the setups get explained, the jokes get explained, and the reactions get explained. That makes the show less funny. Music is also overused and heavyhanded, as though they don't trust their own script and actors to tell the audience what's funny.

Like Saturday Night Live, they beat a joke to death. For example, it's hard to pronounce "The Rural Juror", which could lead to a comic misunderstanding. But is it funny? So funny that the same joke is repeated 15x and then explained, "It's hard to pronounce!... I don't understand what you mean!"

Now try watching Malcolm in the Middle, and you'll see better acting, better pacing, they don't saturate jokes with dialogue and music, and the plots are more character driven.

Why is 30 Rock like this? Perhaps the sketch writers and sketch cast from Saturday Night Live didn't adapt enough for a sitcom.

Finally, I guess the writers didn't know that the best way for a show to age poorly is commenting on current events. What's sad is that the topical humor is unnecessary to the plot, and could easily have been cut.

Wonderfalls has a great premise. It's original, it's fun, and it leads to a lot of comedy.

Unfortunately, the hero, Jaye, is supposed to follow an arc from a lazy person who doesn't like others to more of a true hero. At her starting point, which includes insulting others and being selfish and self-centered... that makes her unlikable. That's the fatal flaw.

Viewers want to root for good hearted characters who make bold, good choices. Wonderfalls could have made Jaye an anti-hero in some other way, for example making her too busy or too poor or too controlled by her parents and friends to do what the objects tell her to do. But they chose to make Jaye a petulant and petty woman-child who grew up rich and did nothing with it.

Also, the objects that talk to her don't take on much of a personality that would have supported banter. And there's not good chemistry between the cast.

Also, if this is a fish out of water comedy, why put Jaye in her home town? Put her some place alien, which also helps with exposition as she learns about her environment.

It truly could have been great and I can see why this TV show has a cult following. But I can also definitely see why it was cancelled.

A lot of TV shows have bumpy first seasons trying to figure themselves out, for example Star Trek: The Next Generation. I wonder how this show would have gone in Season 2.

Listening to some of the commentary tracks, the cast and showrunners didn't have regrets and weren't thinking about improvements. I wonder whether self-congratulatory group-think contributes to the show's rough edges.

A quirky show like this where it nearly all came together should give us awe about the quirky shows where it does come together, like Northern Exposure, Party Down, Malcolm in the Middle, Brooklyn Nine Nine, Community, and Psych.

6 stars.

The best thing about Beyond Paradise is the chemistry of the supporting cast. It is fun watching them go through mysteries.

But I quickly learned to skip past the hero's family drama. Viewers like to root for bold characters who make character driven choices. Characters who are anxious, can't communicate, and whose choices seem manufactured are unlikable.

To avoid spoilers I'll make up an example that's not in the show. The hero and his girlfriend decide to go on vacation together. But then she says, oh I can't, for no reason. She's too depressed or something.

But she doesn't tell him. Instead she tells her mom. Finally she tells him. He accepts this glumly. She gets him to admit that he's not happy. The mom doesn't have anything wise to contribute. Lots of sighing. They finally decide that they will go on that vacation. Who cares? Also, it's depressing.

It just lacks the comedy and cast rapport of the original Death in Paradise, and the mysteries and setting don't stand out enough to make up for it. It's too similar to the many other quaint countryside mystery shows.

I get it. You make everything look brown and dirty and that grounds your fantasy world in the real world.

But a TV show can't be monochromatic. And a plot shouldn't maintain a single dark tone for so long; there have to be variations.

In other words, congratulations; you just made the world's most drab fantasy show, with characters that I don't care about. I didn't sense any particular chemistry between the two leads, or really between anyone in the show.

There's nothing wrong with having a world that's complicated, but you have to add milestones and explanations, or it can't be followed. This show just wasn't for me.

I originally gave this film 10/10, but several years later, it feels like style over substance. I actually love dumb action movies, so I don't require substance in a film, but the stunts weren't enough to cover a lack of interesting characters.

The hero, Baby, is portrayed as a good person, but through his actions he's an accessory to multiple murders. Why should we root for him?

More importantly, his whole thing is that he doesn't speak much, doesn't react much. He lacks a personality.

The badguys are over the top in a way that upon first watching I found captivating, but on a second viewing found boring, overacting.

I recommend the book "Save the Cat", which argues that protagonists should do something good early on that bonds the viewer with them. For this film, I just didn't care enough about the characters.

That being said, the film has a good ending. Originally 10/10, now 7/10.

Andor is well acted with stunning scenes, but the writers took two wrong lessons from Star Wars.

First, I guess someone told them that conflict makes a plot interesting. Joseph Campbell famously inspired George Lucas that a hero must accept the task reluctantly. So Luke Skywalker at first doesn't want to join Ben Kenobi in Star Wars IV: A New Hope.

But Andor is full of empty conflict that's not driven by character. Wow! Everyone REALLY doesn't want to work together and they keep saying it over and over. It's boring. Luke Skywalker decided to join Ben Kenobi after just a few minutes of film time because of the emotional character arc of his parents dying. Character arcs in Andor are few.

The second rule of Hollywood is that plots should turn based on character. Luke Skywalker doesn't win in Star Wars VI because he's a good light saber fighter. He wins because he believes that his father still has good in him.

Andor is too full of plot twists that turn on irrelevant things. It's about character, people. Why are we rooting for these characters? Why is everything so grey and uninteresting?

Finally, I think to like this series you have to come in already knowing a lot about Star Wars. You have to begin watching hating the Empire and loving The Rebellion. Because the show doesn't really give you enough reasons to hate the badguys and root for the good guys. Cassian's allies are generic. Who is Bix to him, really? Bix's boyfriend, a tangential character, has more depth.

I have to say that I'm disappointed that some people feel this is a great TV show. I'm not some out of touch intellectual. If you want to make an action series where nothing makes sense but a lot of stuff blows up I'm actually fine with that! But Andor doesn't have the fun adventure of Rogue One.

Instead, Andor is a slow-paced drama. It's not fast moving enough to be powered by action. It rests on the plot and character and there is not enough of either. The whole world is grey and depressing. How does that have any connection to what we think of as Star Wars?

Why do women date bad men? Because they are drawn to confidence. Arrogant people and criminals aren't good partners, but they have confidence.

So why are TV audiences drawn to heist movies and gang shows? It's because the main characters have confidence.

This is excusable in shows like Breaking Bad, which show the ugliness of crime. But I really didn't like Pulp Fiction where we are drawn to love the characters though their witty banter and then find out they're horrible, sadistic, and cruel.

Similarly, with Tulsa King and previously with The Sopranos, I just can't stomach the show's portrayal of Dwight as a really good guy who cares about everyone but is also violent.

I can forgive this with con man shows like Sneaky Pete, who is non-violent. Or Banshee, which is like a comic book. Like Batman we know that they only hurt bad guys. Or with comedies that signal there will be no real pain.

Good-hearted people who are violent isn't a layered, sophisticated characterization. It's nonsensical. It means that the show doesn't make emotional sense. It also robs me of, why am I rooting for this character?

On top of that, the character choices of the supporting cast don't make sense either. A wimpy guy wants to join a rumble? Dwight breaks laws and nobody calls the police? The biker gang and Mafia family are stereotypes with manufactured conflict that doesn't come from character.

Finally, I don't know that this show is interesting or unique in any way, compared to shows like Banshee and Ozark and Justified, which are also set in rural communities.

I dropped out after one too many emotional scenes where Dwight is portrayed as wise and sensitive. I felt the same way about Yellowstone with its patronizing "wisdom" about cowboy life coming from murderers and truly awful parents.

I just refuse that human quirk that makes us want to respect abusers. Most people seem to love this show but it's just not for me.

The "Rule of Cool" in Hollywood says that if something is cool enough, it doesn't matter if it makes sense.

For example, Star Wars is so cool that you never stop to realize that The Force doesn't make any sense and that everyone who owns a droid is a slaveholder.

Yellowstone is full of cool. The acting, the scenery, the earnest yearning for nature and the past are aces.

But, especially after Season One, ugly writing builds up and the cool just can't cover it. The heroes of the show are murderers, and even the most innocent are violent and we're supposed to root for them, for example starting a bar fight for no reason.

The second rule they break is "Don't be preachy". It's like poison to a script. Yellowstone, especially after Season One, becomes too much about arrogant, terrible advice on parenting and life.

For example, to keep peace in a group "let them fight it out". Weak characters are brought it for straw man arguments about environmentalists and tourism. The show is drowning in overconfident pronouncements about tradition that lack nuance.

I guess Beth is supposed to be cool because she's tough. Actually, she's just violent and rude. Even the nicest character, Monica, is condescending and insulting to her students.

On top of this, plot points happen for random reasons instead of character arcs... for example car accidents. Everything with the farmhands is boring.

It's just too much. Yellowstone is not cool enough to cover the rising ugliness in its characters and the soap opera quality of its writing.

This episode includes time travel to a fictional future that we know will never happen. That undercuts the stakes, braving a rule of Hollywood.

Even worse, we are told in advance with time travel foreknowledge whether the mission will result in success or failure, further undercutting the stakes.

Even worse, this theme of accepting fate doesn't seem very Star Trek to me. Star Trek is optimistic and about possibilities. Come on, Pike, you've just been given foreknowledge of the future and you can't find a way to use that? Staying the course I'd the only path?

I also find this hand wringing about Pike's future overdone and depressing. Star Trek is supposed to be campy and fun, an adventure, not a death march.

Finally, this episode is full of fan service moments going back to an old episode of Star Trek. I'm a Star Trek fan so much that I'm about to join the Star Trek Cruise, an actual cruise ship with a Star Trek theme!

So nobody can accuse me of not respecting the original Star Trek series. And yet, this episode is so loaded with moments that, if you don't remember or haven't seen the old episode, either fall flat or are confusing. Not enough explanation is given as to the historical context of the Romulans, for example. Lots of lines of heavy dialogue that I guess must be meaningful only because of the connection to the old episode.

Friends, and I mean this with respect... Star Trek needs to remain accessible to new viewers. That's more important than tipping the hat to fans of the past. They did not do both in this episode. This is typical of time travel in TV and movies. They get too confusing, and the plot holes grow. We should not encourage this. Allow the new Star Trek to move on from the past.

Finally, I share the concern that the actor for James Kirk, or maybe it's the directing of this episode, doesn't have that "it" quality. What Kirk does in this episode (no spoilers) is epic but doesn't really land that way. Maybe it's because this episode has too much plot, at such a rapid pace, to have impact. When one character (no spoilers) loses command it should be devastating.

Ugly decisions. One guy's a stalker... even worse than what we're used to in other films as a persistent romantic. One guy's cheating on his wife. One guy fires an employee because he fancies her.

Ugly interpretations of love. A boy has no trauma from the death of his mother. A woman allows her abusive brother to destroy her personal life.

The film is flooded with fat shaming and people caring only about appearance, not character, like the father, the guy who goes to America, and the two characters who don't even speak the same language.

I used to love this movie but I just don't any more. I find it cringy and messed up. This is what love is supposed to be?

There's a rule of Hollywood: you can't tell a compelling story about boredom.

Or to rephrase that, you can't tell a story about a bleak grey world without the viewer feeling part of a bleak grey world. It's depressing.

Have you seen the political news lately? Who are these fans who want to spend 10 hours per season feeling like they're in a dystopia?

Look, the only reason we like a dystopia is to root for the revolution. Right? We want heroes who overcome. Except on a TV show that may stretch to 6 seasons... there can be no revolution. If the revolution comes like in Total Recall, the show ends.

So we end up just waiting and waiting. I put subtitles on and increased the speed to 2.5x, and I still found this show boring. Viewers want to see (a) clever mystery points solved by (b) compelling characters we can root for. This show has neither.

And it doesn't help that this show is visually bland, and its lead characters uninteresting. I just don't sense a basic goodness that makes me want to root for these characters, and I don't find the various plot twists interesting. AT ALL.

There's nothing wrong with a long story arc that spans many TV seasons. But you don't make that the main story. You need episodic, short stories and they should be character driven, not about what machine is broken this time. Then put the long arc in the background so that the season-by-season pace doesn't ruin, you know, the episodic pace.

After watching the first episode, if this is not a place you want to pretend to live in for a few hours, it's not going to get any better. I'm sorry, this show just didn't work for me, despite compelling performances and production value. 5 stars.

Marc Maron is brave in this series about his own flaws, and I found the early episodes a good combination of funny and thoughtful.

But the character Marc annoys his friends and resists changing into a good guy... At some point that becomes annoying to the viewers. Marc becomes unlikable. I get it that I think to keep up viewer interest in a character like that you need a lot of variety. The first couple of seasons have that variety, then the show seems to stall on new ideas.

Then unfortunately the drug addict and rehab stuff is darker and less comedic. I think there's a self-indulgence in this. The show could just as easily have shown Mark taking off to celebrity, but I suspect that he just wanted to share his struggles more than to make a compelling show.

Viewers like to root for a character who has confidence and makes bold and smart decisions. Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm is also acomplaining weirdo, but it's balanced with acts of friendship and the jokes aren't bitter. There's more a sense of fun, which seems lacking in Maron. I'm sorry.

Chuck Jones, who created many of the old Warner Bros. Cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, wrote an autobiography, and to me, the most interesting quote was this, paraphrased:

If the protagonist is a straight man surrounded by strangeness that's comedy. If the protagonist is the strange one, that's farce. Comedy works and farce doesn't.

I actually appreciate this show. It's stupid but it's also fun and has a big heart and it's written by White House insiders so has some realism too.

However, I see why others don't like it. Skip, the Josh Gad character, is a weirdo protagonist whom everyone must tolerate. That's farce. The joke is that he annoys people. But he's also annoying us, the audience! That's like poison for a TV show or movie.

Take a hint from Chuck Jones. Don't make your protagonist a annoying and weird, inaccessible to the viewer. Your protagonist should be an accessible everyman who's easy to identify with, and who reacts to the weirdness, like the White House Press guy in this show.

Also, the show isn't completely wacky like Arrested Development, where anything can happen. The show is mainly played straight. That's a tonal conflict with Skip, who is wacky. Skip would never been allowed in a straight White House world. Something should have been rebalanced.

Some episodes are sort of genius, but some are too cringy to watch. 6 stars.

I really wanted to like this movie, and previously had given it a 9 out of 10. I love science fiction and the premise that you don't really know if it's real or not.

But the casting doesn't quite provide for romantic chemistry or bad guy chemistry. A bad guy has to be fun to hate, to root against. Bryan Cranston is an accomplished actor but maybe too nice to be scary. He needed to go all out like Gary Oldman in Leon: The Professional (1994). And Cranston doesn't present as an expert martial artist at all, I am sorry.

More problematic, there's a lot of wide shots with CGI that leave the viewer feeling empty, not in awe. Compare that with a film from the same era, Star Trek (2009), where they tried to use practical effects as much as possible. Total Recall is one of those movies like Star Wars II in the Colosseum / arena scene where so much is happening that it's supposed to feel bigger than big but instead it's just so big that it's visually overwhelming and you lose the threat of the personal character arcs.

Finally, I couldn't overlook the plot holes. Gravity doesn't work like that. Some plot twists seem contrived. You can't fight a superhuman robot hand to hand. Various people in the plot win or lose based on how good they are at fighting, not in a way that's earned from the character choices and character arcs.

6 stars.

I understand that fleshed out characters will have flaws, but in Season 4 now that everyone on the show is a murderer, even Starlight and Homelander's son, who am I supposed to be rooting for?

The level of gore and violence keeps going up, like it's the main plot line to shock us, and meanwhile plot holes keep emerging, like the bad guys keep cornering the good guys but not killing them.

I loved this show in the first seasons because it was a cultural commentary on celebrity worship and use of political conspiracy theories and smear tactics. But I have to wonder, what exactly is the commentary? Except that smear tactics exist... does the show make any commentary with nuance?

And now the good guys, who want to stop Chemical V and superpowers... are also taking chemical V? Even Simon Pegg? I feel like the moral compass of this show has been lost, and I no longer care about the characters because they're all bad now. The plot is convoluted and seems to be going nowhere.

There's a little humor in the show, but it's black humor. I'm so tired of shows where the "humor" has to be ugly and depressing. Have you seen the political and covid news in the last few years? We've had enough bleakness. I'd like the goodguys to be good and for them to make progress in interesting ways where the plot points make sense to the characters.

I really have to question the people who champion this show just because they love the gore, or they're able to overlook the ugly morality. Is that what you want from life, ugly heroes and gore? I just don't think it's fun.

I'm sorry. I originally rated this show a 10 but in Season 3 and now Season 4 it's become unwatchable. I stopped watching.

I understand that fleshed out characters will have flaws, but in Season 4 now that everyone on the show is a murderer, even Starlight and Homelander's son, who am I supposed to be rooting for?

The level of gore and violence keeps going up, like it's the main plot line to shock us, and meanwhile plot holes keep emerging, like the bad guys keep cornering the good guys but not killing them.

I loved this show in the first seasons because it was a cultural commentary on celebrity worship and use of political conspiracy theories and smear tactics. But I have to wonder, what exactly is the commentary? Except that smear tactics exist... does the show make any commentary with nuance?

And now the good guys, who want to stop Chemical V and superpowers... are also taking chemical V? Even Simon Pegg? I feel like the moral compass of this show has been lost, and I no longer care about the characters because they're all bad now. The plot is convoluted and seems to be going nowhere.

There's a little humor in the show, but it's black humor. I'm so tired of shows where the "humor" has to be ugly and depressing. Have you seen the political and covid news in the last few years? We've had enough bleakness. I'd like the goodguys to be good and for them to make progress in interesting ways where the plot points make sense to the characters.

I really have to question the people who champion this show just because they love the gore, or they're able to overlook the ugly morality. Is that what you want from life, ugly heroes and gore? I just don't think it's fun.

I'm sorry. I originally rated this show a 10 but in Season 3 and now Season 4 it's become unwatchable. I stopped watching.

I absolutely support the points of this film, but it meanders. The viewer needs more milestones and takeaways.

I suppose the lack of a narrator is an attempt by the filmmakers to stand back and let the film speak for itself, but the viewer can easily get lost. I say this as someone who was NOT lost but only because I'm a topic expert, having worked for separation of church and state.

Ultimately, who is the audience for this? The film is too hard hitting to convince religious people, and it's not accessible enough to draw in new secular people.

So I'll give a 10 for the topic, but dial it down to 8 for the actual impact of this film.

So Dan is risking his life saving people, and he constantly gets grief from his wife and brother. This is repetitive and makes the characters unlikeable. It's like someone told the writers that they have to inject lots of conflict.

But conflict that doesn't go anywhere doesn't work. And we like conflict to come from bad guys with an agenda, making smart decisions. We don't need soap opera style conflict from supposed loved ones. We love to hate a malicious bad guy. A protagonist's loved one just can't be malicious or hated. Complaining isn't an agenda and it really isn't a plot point either. It's filler. It also weighs down the joy that should be felt at the end of each episode's successful mission.

The plots with the newspaper editor and the ex lover work for me, because they are allies. The plots with the family home life go nowhere and have nothing to do with the main mission of each episode. It undercut this series for me, taking it from 9 stars to 7, even 6.

I get it. There's the gem of a great show here. I loved Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, I love musicals, and I really wanted to like this show.

But I also value my time. The standard network treatment crushed the life out of this, at least for me.

Sets have to be brightly lit and basically unreal. Actors have to be bizarrely attractive and wonderfully dresses and basically unreal. The dialogue needs clunky put-downs and it's all sort of dumbed down, unreal relationships. Like why her rude neighbor is suddenly her friend. The show plays into stereotypes. The mood varies from joyful to suicidal but not in a natural way, more like they're not sure what the show's desired emotional direction is. Instead of trusting the audience with nuance they throw the plot points at us. Anything can happen in a comedy, but the comedy isn't smart enough to be the reason why the plots and relationships don't gel.

Oh! It makes my brain ache. I'm just the sort of person this show was made for, except I guess I'm not. I need nuance. I reject generalisms. It's too bad. I can see that there's a truly great show somewhere in here. But it would have gone to a streaming service.

I love this series. It's original, laugh out loud funny, and because the guest star is genuinely expected to try to solve the mystery, that means we have a shot at doing so also. It's the perfect combination of structured and improvisational.

Unfortunately the clues are not shown clearly.

In s01e01 we're supposed to notice that an e-cigarrette is not a real cigarette, but there are no closeups to help with this.

In episodes 2, 3, and 4 we're supposed to notice an item in the room, which I'm sure was there, but but the way the scene is staged and shot, it's not shown to the viewer! No, really. I went back to each scene to check!

So that undercuts the feeling that hey maybe I should pay attention and actually try to solve the murder myself as a viewer.

Well, I'll still give 8 stars. It's excellent and such an original idea.

To me, the American version Murderville is better.

To understand this film, you have to get it on 3 levels.

1. It's an action / comedy. Because of Hollywood's "Rule of Cool", if it's cool enough, a few plot holes are allowed.

2. There's a real story. There's heartache, there's love.

3. It's a love letter to stunt people, and the audience gets to join in.

Towards the end of the film, #1 and #2 are completed. That's when the plot gets silly, because we're still wrapping up #3.

The purpose of the last 20 minutes isn't the love story. It's "hey, everyone, let's make a movie!" It's straight up a celebration of filmmaking. It's joyous. It continues straight through the film's conclusion to the credits with outtakes.

Anyone criticizing the film for plot holes just doesn't understand its actual purpose.

Actually, The Fall Guy is genius. It's somehow both a well-written, thoughtful movie, but also a powerful action flick. It doesn't take itself seriously but is also very moving. It's a tribute to stunt people and can be appreciated culturally the same way that other films bring you into other cultures and peoples.

It is similar in its joyousness but a far, far better film than Drop Zone (1994) with Wesley Snipes, which celebrates skydivers.

What a wild ride, and a great homage to the original The Fall Guy, which started Lee Majors, whom you may know better as TV's The Six Million Dollar Man.

When I was a kid, my father let me stay up "late" (8pm) to watch Lee Majors. It was so thrilling to be up past my bedtime and sharing an adventure that just washed away all my little kid troubles.

The new film did the same for all my adult troubles. Just go see it and let yourself experience joy in a way that (as a planet) we've had rarely in the last few years with covid and politics and war.

To me it's the first film since Top Gun: Maverick that I've wanted to see more than once. It's a party. It's a celebration. It's got world record setting stunts. Stop complaining. Go see this film and join in!

I used to love this film, and of course I respect revolutionaries fighting a police state. If you live in Russia, this film may give you inspiration.

But that's not what the filmmakers intended and it's not how it's perceived in society. In society, it's a shorthand for political outrage instead of debate. It's about the United Kingdom, which is not a police state.

Alan Moore, creator of the original comics, is a self-described "anarchist" and a conspiracy theorist who admires cultist and con man Aleister Crowley.

I find it curious. Some of the most "liberal" people who believe in social justice admire Che Guevara, who was a murderer and wannabe dictator. Now in V for Vendetta we're supposed to admire Guy Fawkes, who was a religious fanatic and wannabe murderer who wanted a new monarch.

I get it. It's only a movie. And I love movies like Batman. Batman is a vigilante but it's okay because Batman is so clearly a fantasy, and he's written so that he's never wrong. V for Vendetta, with its earnest poetry about "ideas", is not so much a fantasy as a call to arms.

If you actually live in an Orwellian nightmare, fine. But for the rest of us, debate and peaceful protest are the only moral tools in a democracy. If you're angry but uninformed, full of self-righteousness, and you think this justifies illegal acts, that makes you part of the problem. That's not liberalism. That's populism, a mental and moral dead end.

Stoking hatred and fear is what's getting society into trouble. Showing empathy and reason is the only thing that gets us out.

If you love this movie, grow up. When you're a teenager it's fine to wear black lipstick and pretend to embrace death like a goth and think you can pull violent stunts like blocking a highway because there's some moderate injustice in society, but when you're an adult, you have to reject Alan Moore's ideas entirely. The way to rid ourselves of injustice in a democracy is through debate and peaceful protest.

One of my favorite quotes is this line: For every complex problem, there is a simple solution, and it is wrong.

So I'm reducing this from 10/10 to 4/10 because I am no longer a child and I don't think like children do.

Wow! I'm shocked by the reviews saying that Obliterated isn't intelligent.

Folks, it's a comedy. Silly, off-the-wall antics is part of it.

In fact, as a writer I have to say that the script is actually genius. Do you have any idea how next level it is to write a story that works both as a comedy and as action?

And have it all take place in one 12-hour period, and it's an ensemble cast, but every character is fleshed out and has a story arc. And the plot has lots of surprises, and the plot is character driven?

The comedic bits are silly and fun because they're supposed to be. But actually, the crew doesn't have a comedic moron who makes deliberate bad choices just for effect. Instead, it's amazing how all the characters manage to get through the 12 hours with mainly sensible motivations, given that they're all high, and without as many coincidences and you would think.

To me it all comes together as a next level version of the TV show 24, which was full of mechanical plot for plot's sake and obvious plot direction, plus laugh out loud comedy. It's stunning. Most comedies, except for rare cases like Austin Powers, just don't work as action. Most action films, even the Die Hard films, don't have much genuine humor.

Please show respect. If you didn't like it, fine, but this is a genius series that is well written, well acted, and a huge amount of fun. Don't call it brain dead. It's just not.

10 stars! Even better than FUBAR.

Rule 1. Have likable characters. I loved the pilot episode, but the main character lies and cheats her friends. I can't root for that.

Sure, Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy lies too, but by the end of the episode she is genuinely sorry. There's no sorry in Extraordinary. Instead there's real pain and sometimes deliberate cruelty. That deflates comedy. It robs the audience of the feeling that everything will be okay in the end. The show's premise is too wacky to be a dramedy.

Rule 2. Viewers want characters to make bold choices. Three of the main characters are just useless. We don't like to root for weak characters, and we can characters don't drive the plot. The plot goes nowhere. I get it, in a dark comedy it's okay for the protagonists to ultimately fail and get nowhere. But this sure doesn't feel like a dark comedy. It feels like it's trying to be a real comedy.

Rule 3. Stories must have an arc. Story arcs require character arcs. Character arcs require character change.

The show is too heavily plot driven, without the characters changing. The plot hints at character changes, but then they always just reset. For example, in the story two characters who are dating break up. But then they continue hanging out together.

I get it, Jen is resisting growing up. But when characters don't change, the plot just seems to be running in circles. If you don't want to have long story arcs, that's fine but then make your show episodic with some resolution at the end of each episode.

I really don't understand people who like this show. This is not Breaking Bad, where it's fun to root for the bad guy because the show is so clearly not reality. The lies, cheating, and abuse of this show are all too real from the worst parts of normal life. Do viewers who like this show really think it's okay to act like that? To be petty and to celebrate hurting other people and scoring points in this way?

This show has a very interesting premise, and good acting, but it just runs into a wall with the quality of the writing. I'm sorry. Five stars out of ten.

Okay, this wasn't made in Hollywood. :)

Season 1 had a lot of antics. The characters are always trying to deceive each other, with crazy spirals and really great acting. Season 2 was pretty good too, but then they broke a rule of Hollywood.

The rule is, in a comedy, even a dramedy, everything has to be okay in the end. You can't have real pain. This show began as a dysfunctional family but ultimately they love each other. Then it just became fighting, real pain, and if characters are willing to cause each other real pain, that makes them unlikable.

Of course the mother should complain. She has a lot to complain about. But she's also the normal one, the "everyman" that the audience can identify with. If she's complaining, the audience feels like they're unsatisfied too.

I'm sorry. I absolutely saw the genius of this show, but after a while it became repetitive to me and it just didn't cheer me up to have them go through so much heartache. By the middle of season 3, it seemed to be a pretty straight drama with essentially no comedy remaining.

6 stars, a pretty high rating considering that I stopped watching the series.