(no subject)
Feb. 14th, 2008 11:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2I finished watching season 3 of Futurama. For the last 2 days I've resisted driving up to Half Price Books in Tukwila after work to see if they still had season 1 available. I've also resisted buying it used from Amazon.com, or season 2, or season 4.
In the meantime I started watching season 5 of News Radio, which my sister got me for Christmas. This was their last season, after Phil Hartman had been killed. Longtime friend Jon Lovitz replaces him for the last season, but it's not the same. I remember thinking when I saw some of the episodes with him that the show just wasn't as funny as before. Watching them now, they're actually still quite funny, but...
One plot in particular bothered me. The show was always over-the-top, stretching believability to its limits, and like many sitcoms whatever happened in one episode didn't necessarily carry over into subsequent episodes -- a character might be revealed to be from Boston in one episode, and then much later there's a story where they're from Quebec or something.
But in the fifth season there is a plot that plays out over three episodes in which owner Jimmy James is revealed to have been the notorious hijacker DB Cooper. He's arrested, he breaks out of jail, he goes on trial and spins a yarn about having met the actual DB Cooper, who wasn't him, but was in fact... Adam West, the guy who played Batman. Then Adam West stands up and admits that he is, in fact, the real DB Cooper, although there's some suggestion that Jimmy James has probably paid him to do this.
Although funny, this whole plot was so completely ridiculous that I kept expecting the punchline to be that it was an elaborate joke by Jimmy James, known for other practical jokes. But no such punchline appears. Apparently Jimmy James was DB Cooper, and Adam West has willingly taken the fall for him. Even for a ridiculous sitcom like this, it makes no sense. It stretches the boundaries of believability well past the breaking point.
I just felt that this was one example of what was wrong with Season 5. Not just that Phil Hartman wasn't there, but the writing seems to be off, or trying too hard. I've always felt that News Radio was a show that never achieved the popularity it deserved, but by season 5 I think there were good reasons to expect it to be canceled. I just think it was in decline a bit, wholly apart from the lack of Hartman which was admittedly a huge blow to the show already.
In the meantime I started watching season 5 of News Radio, which my sister got me for Christmas. This was their last season, after Phil Hartman had been killed. Longtime friend Jon Lovitz replaces him for the last season, but it's not the same. I remember thinking when I saw some of the episodes with him that the show just wasn't as funny as before. Watching them now, they're actually still quite funny, but...
One plot in particular bothered me. The show was always over-the-top, stretching believability to its limits, and like many sitcoms whatever happened in one episode didn't necessarily carry over into subsequent episodes -- a character might be revealed to be from Boston in one episode, and then much later there's a story where they're from Quebec or something.
But in the fifth season there is a plot that plays out over three episodes in which owner Jimmy James is revealed to have been the notorious hijacker DB Cooper. He's arrested, he breaks out of jail, he goes on trial and spins a yarn about having met the actual DB Cooper, who wasn't him, but was in fact... Adam West, the guy who played Batman. Then Adam West stands up and admits that he is, in fact, the real DB Cooper, although there's some suggestion that Jimmy James has probably paid him to do this.
Although funny, this whole plot was so completely ridiculous that I kept expecting the punchline to be that it was an elaborate joke by Jimmy James, known for other practical jokes. But no such punchline appears. Apparently Jimmy James was DB Cooper, and Adam West has willingly taken the fall for him. Even for a ridiculous sitcom like this, it makes no sense. It stretches the boundaries of believability well past the breaking point.
I just felt that this was one example of what was wrong with Season 5. Not just that Phil Hartman wasn't there, but the writing seems to be off, or trying too hard. I've always felt that News Radio was a show that never achieved the popularity it deserved, but by season 5 I think there were good reasons to expect it to be canceled. I just think it was in decline a bit, wholly apart from the lack of Hartman which was admittedly a huge blow to the show already.
