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Post by Jeremy on Aug 16, 2017 14:08:39 GMT -8
"Fish Out of Water" resonates with me not purely based on its visuals, but how it pays homage to the golden age of Western animation. It's a tribute to the "silent" cartoons that Disney and Warner Bros. churned out regularly in the 1930s, back in the days when adding/syncing speech with animation was often too costly and time-consuming, and could result in a lot of scratchy sounds.
Nowadays, we take sound in cartoons for granted. But there's still a lot to be said for the beauty and expressiveness in animation on its own. So I always appreciate it when a modern TV series (such as Batman Beyond with "Shriek," or the silent shorts on Animaniacs) play with a viewer's expectations on an aural level.
The emotions in "Fish Out of Water" are more potent than in other Bojack episodes because the story is limited on one level, and thus becomes all the more innovative and effective on another.
EDIT: I know the show's tendency to wallow in depression can make it tedious to some (I feel the same way about most other "depressed rich Californians" show on TV right now, and there are a lot of those), but the mix of drama and humor hits the perfect tone with me. And while some of the humor may seem shallow, the writers sneak in a ton of great background jokes that you need to constantly pause and rewind in order to catch. (Life the "run and coke" sign, which is probably my favorite TV joke from 2016.)
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Post by ThirdMan on Aug 16, 2017 14:42:51 GMT -8
I kept hearing people state that Bojack was a "treatise on depression", which made me think the show might be 50/50 in terms of comedy/drama. But most of the time, I feel like 75-80% of the show is carried by the Hollywood satire, which can vary from incisive to obvious. And the writers can't seem to decide if Mr. Peanutbutter is kind and supportive or glib and narcissistic: I think it's too much of a stretch to have a character contain both extremes. But as of late, they at least seem to be turning a corner, and leaning more towards the former than the latter.
Re: emotional potency, I think I prefer Downer Ending by a notable margin, though Fish Out of Water is still probably a Top 5 episode.
BTW, Flamepillar, I didn't bring up Legion here to compare it to Bojack. I just wanted to note that I'm not responding to it purely on a visual level, and that the characters serve the kind of story they're telling more than effectively, for me, anyways.
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Post by Jeremy on Aug 16, 2017 14:52:21 GMT -8
There are times when the Hollywoo(d) satire can overtake the characters, but even at those instances, the satire is done so well that I don't really mind. Better than Larry Sanders, better than 30 Rock, better than any other showbiz show I can think of.
Few shows hit me emotionally as much as Bojack, and few shows also make me laugh as hard.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Aug 16, 2017 15:03:12 GMT -8
I think that's kind of the point of the first three seasons. He makes half-hearted attempts to be not-shitty, but he's doomed to fail every time because that's Bojack Horseman. Whether or not it becomes tiresome is up to the viewer. It hasn't for me (I assume it hasn't for Jeremy either), and a large majority of the people who watch it. Though I will say if they do it again in Season 4 I might be inclined to agree with you.
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Post by ThirdMan on Aug 16, 2017 15:34:34 GMT -8
Yeah, once I'm done with Season 3, I'll be curious to see if the writers have more tricks up their sleeve in terms of the overall narrative. I certainly hope they move on from the Secretariat arc.
Jeremy, I think you're probably a touch more receptive to animation than I am, so if two programs -- one live-action, one animated -- are dealing in similar subject matter with similar style, I'll respond more to the former, you the latter. I think part of it, for me, is that, much like with CGI, creators can do pretty much anything with animation, which sometimes renders it less impressive in my eyes, because it can be more easily achieved, budgetary considerations notwithstanding.
I find Bojack (the series) touching at times, a bit too repetitive at others. And my enjoyment of the comedy can depend pretty heavily on how much Todd is involved: he's too self-consciously rendered, IMO.
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Post by Jeremy on Aug 16, 2017 16:57:34 GMT -8
I think the fact that animation has fewer limits is partly why I'm so drawn to it. I don't like it when animators go crazy for crazy's sake, but there's so much potential for creativity there. I've talked in the past about how The Simpsons outclassed every live-action sitcom of its heyday by utilizing its animated style for more ambitious and detailed storytelling. It's also easier to indulge in sci-fi/fantasy stories when you're not constrained by live-action limits (just compare the DCAU to the Arrowverse), not to mention easier to tighten the pace.
But still, I can understand the flipside argument. Legion is pretty impressive in part because it's live-action. (David's fantasies in the show are less visually striking than they are in the original comics, but that's because... well, what isn't?)
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Post by ThirdMan on Aug 18, 2017 1:50:59 GMT -8
That's Too Much, Man! is vying for my favourite episode of this series, with Downer Ending. Brilliant stuff. What is it about penultimate episodes being better than season finales (not that the finale was bad, by any stretch)?
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Post by Zarnium on Aug 18, 2017 2:43:08 GMT -8
It's unusual, but I like it. It gives some time to be contemplative about the big climax before the next season starts.
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Post by Jeremy on Aug 18, 2017 3:29:28 GMT -8
Putting the hardest-hitting emotional stuff in your penultimate episode allows time for some fallout, and for the energy to slowly taper off. It wasn't always a thing, but it's become a lot more common in recent years.
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Post by Zarnium on Aug 25, 2017 8:14:29 GMT -8
"That's a terrible thing to say to a baby!"
Just thought that line was really funny. Judging by the new trailer, this new season looks likes it's going to cover a lot of interesting topics.
Incidentally, I noticed there was a bunch of controversy in the comments over Mr. PeanutButter restraining Dianne in one split-second of the video, which is strange because this is Bojack Horseman. The characters do questionable things all the time, even assuming the worst, this wouldn't be the first time something bad's been depicted on the show. Doesn't mean it's being condoned, usually quite the opposite.
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Post by Jeremy on Aug 25, 2017 10:09:07 GMT -8
Weird how it's taken them so long to release a trailer, especially since the season apparently began production over a year ago. But it still looks pretty funny, straight down to some of those background puns. (Although "The Peanutbusser" is straight-up cruel.)
Netflix is releasing this the same day that Amazon is dropping Season Two of One Mississippi. I'll probably binge OM on Thursday night (Amazon always releases its shows a few hours in advance), so I'll be primed for a Bojack weekend.
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Post by Jeremy on Sept 8, 2017 14:30:49 GMT -8
I'll write more about Season Four when I have the time. For now, I'll just say that it didn't hold together quite as well as S3, but it still left the impact it wanted to. Lots of great moments, and "Tim's Arrow" is easily a Top 5 episode.
I now feel confident in calling Bojack the best animated show of this decade, and perhaps one of the best animated shows ever. When do we get Season Five?
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Post by Zarnium on Sept 8, 2017 15:17:41 GMT -8
I'll be watching it this weekend. Incidentally, Bojack is the only show I've ever felt the need to binge-watch so quickly in as few sittings as possible. I normally hate doing that and won't watch the same show more than two episodes in a row (four for half-hour lengths), but Bojack seems like it improves greatly from being watched in such a condensed timeframe. Not sure what to make of that, honestly. Could just be that I almost never watch streaming originals, so the shows I usually watch aren't intended to be binged.
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 8, 2017 19:13:04 GMT -8
I think it's because it jumps back-and-forth between full-blown comedy and drama, with some episodes being almost entirely one or the other. That way you don't get laughed out, or too depressed.
Anyways, like Jeremy, I watched all of it today. Very good stuff. Man, was the content involving Bojack's mom dark. I don't know if I necessarily found one episode that stood above the rest: there were more like four or five with similarly creative flourishes.
You mean Time's Arrow, Jer (heh)? Yeah, the same female writer wrote both the second and second-last episode of the season, both very ambitious.
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Post by ThirdMan on Sept 9, 2017 12:36:02 GMT -8
Oh, one other thing: I guess the dentist subplot was a pretty traumatizing experience for you, huh Jeremy?
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