Be Excellent To Each Other

If you buy anything from Amazon it's also all over the parcel tape they use.

I saw it on the side of a bus the other day.

I assume at some point our illustrious mods will split the Grand Tour stuff out into another thread.

A friend on Facebook suggests the play here, for Amazon, is getting a large demographic of people who previously hadn't set up TV streaming (males over 40, basically) to set up TV streaming. Once they get past that barrier -- buy a Fire TV or install the app for a games console or whatever -- Amazon can more easily sell them more streaming in the future. Canny take.

Only if it ever becomes a different show.

Surely a thread title edit is all that is necessary

Then strip all the Top Gear stuff out!

Anyway, Episide 2. I liked the loud car and the helicopters. It seemed to be paced better, too. The it with the spinny cars wasn't great, but seemed to be there for local flavour.

I liked the bit with Joey from Friends.

I never liked Friends.

More fool you.

Nah, it just grated on me. All of it.

I'm comfortable on my Island of Right.

Mali's right, it was awful. The kooky one with the guitar, the laughter track, the emotional content. Terrible. Bleurgh!

You can stay there with Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump.

Friends was brilliant, fools.

Yeah, I enjoyed Friends too, despite myself.

No. No it wasn't.

Yeah, that makes sense. A whole chunk of people will want to watch this who aren't going to be interested Man in a High Castle or whatever. I get the impression that Netflix doing Gilmore Girls or Fuller House is sort of the same idea.

I think brilliant is maybe pushing it, but I think it definitely had moments of brilliance. There was a prolonged period where it was the biggest show in the world, was paying all the money, and attracted some pretty sharp writers because of it. It was certainly too saccharine and it was often focus-grouped to death. (It also took a while at the beginning to find its feet and move beyond reliance on cliche and trope, as do many ensemble comedies.) But there was still a deep well of very good jokes in there.

Oh, that's a very sharp observation.

I enjoyed Friends.

What thread is this?

The model plane one, I think.

We have Amazon Prime as Mrs H signed up for it, but no way am I watching that boorish thuggish oaf Clarkson or adding to his viewing figures.

Top Gear turned to shit years ago (and very much on his watch), so I have no desire whatsoever to inflict 'Top Gear With More Money' on myself.

It was far better when they actually talked about normal cars in relatively normal ways. When did I stop watching it? Can't really remember, it was when they had that star in a reasonably priced car thing going on though.

Fuck yes. Canned laughter. Nuff said.
That's time you'll never get back, watching that inane shite.

It wasn't canned laughter, though.

Maybe I'm thinking of Cheers.
It's all the same shite to me.

Cheers also had a live audience. They announced it at the beginning of each show, I think.

"Cheers is filmed in front of a live studio audience"

I remember that much from my childhood!

I imagine Hearthly and Cavey are better catered for by Mrs Browns Boys.

It almost never is.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... omplaining

Also, as that article has reminded me, both Blackadder and The Young Ones have laugh tracks. Almost all sitcoms before 2000 do.

Sitcoms are rarely ruined by laughter tracks. They're normally ruined by being shite.

But, y'know, humour is subjective and all that.

Ah well lol.
For me it was shit.

And in contrast, there is The Big Bang Theory. I was never a huge fan to begin with, but I started putting Season 9 (after skipping a few out I think) on through Netflix just as background and a few times, I've had to turn it off a few times mid-episode. It now seems to be just a regular sitcom now that it's all couples and they occasionally shoehorn some geek culture in there. However, it's still doing the same old jokes about Raj/India and Howard being Jewish, and for some reason, Stuart has now become the butt of everyone's jokes and seems to be universally looked down upon.

Not that this has much to do with Top Gear.

True. I can accept that Friends had some good writers and some alright jokes but it never had me actually laughing. I saw a few episodes and it made me just about smile once or twice per episode but mostly it made me feel very very bored. I think the laughter track jars when you're not finding it to be the single most hilarious thing you ever witnessed as the audience seemed to be at every single passable joke. Otherwise you don't notice it. Although with Friends I think it wasn't the laughing so much as the whooping or the "awww" noises.

Yes, I think sitcoms also suffer when longer-than-one-episode story arcs get put in, and then the humour drops away as the focus is lost.

Except for Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Because of the implication.

As I've always been a 'Frasier' fan (other than 'Sgt Bilko', the best US sitcom ever), one of my aims this year was to watch the whole of 'Cheers'. I've got to the middle of series five but am struggling as it hasn't aged very well. The scenes with Frasier and Lillith (and also, earlier on, Frasier and Diane) are about the only reason I might continue to slog through it. And you don't need to watch the backstory to watch and enjoy 'Frasier'.

Because rape jokes are funny?

I think this needs all splitting out into its own "Friends was absolute shite" thread.

I found this page helpful for if you don't know what's being talked about here.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/because-o ... mplication

Thanks for explaining

I have never seen it, but it doesn't sound very funny.

I love Always Sunny in general but it's quite problematic and these scenes make me feel deeply uncomfortable.

Because Dennis is a terrible human being, yet he sees this behaviour as above board. Sensing Mac's discomfort, he tries to make it sound better and reassure him, but then undoes it straight back to square one in tne next breath.

Well, never having watched "Always sunny..." That was quite a useful link, thanks Russ!

At times it is horrendously dark.

You're welcome.

Yep, doesn't mean I have to laugh at rape jokes though, ironic or not.

I don't think anyone has said what you should or should not laugh at, buddy.