Never thought about that before haha. I can't rank the seasons because they all have their own pros/cons. This most recent season had some average episodes but also included gems like the water park episode and "Hero or Hate Crime"
I definitely agree. Some seasons have more duds than others but all of them have at least a couple great episodes. I would say 3-5 is my favorite stretch. Hardly a single episode from those three that I don't find hilarious. 6-9 are not far behind. After that, I feel like they started to go more experimental and focused less on the straight up comedy so it's hard to compare.
Watched The Gang Gets Quarantined again today which is a goodin'. Any episode where the gang does their harmonies is already quality.
Motown Philly's back again... I'd say my favorite stretch would honestly be 9-11. The more recent episodes since 2011 in general have been awesome IMHO
"Frank's Brother" is my least favorite episode and maybe objectively the worst episode too haha. But "The Gang Cracks The Liberty Bell" is also near the bottom for me. I just think it's too gimmicky, personally, but there are funny moments in it.
Absolutely. I feel like it's pretty tough to argue against 3-5 being the golden era if you're talking about pure laughs. As many times as I've done it, it's still stunning to go back and binge those seasons and realize how many I-can't-breathe level hilarious plotlines and scenes they crammed in. I don't think any season of any other comedy can really compete in that regard. Starting with 6 onward, there was definitely more focus on experimentation and the comedy being more subtle/bizarre than the earlier "Seinfeld on crack" aesthetic. At first, I thought the show was just going downhill, but more recently I've accepted it was partially a conscious choice. Since I judge the show almost purely (like 90-95%) on belly laughs, I've continually looked back at 2-5 with longing ever since 6, even though I still love the newer phase of the show quite a bit. There are admittedly select elements of the recent era, like Dennis's complete sociopathy, that are incredible. Super underrated. Easily my favorite of that season. Had a lot of the vintage Sunny feel with all the good parts of newer Sunny mixed in.
I feel the same way. The past two seasons or so have not made me laugh consistently but I'm still super entertained. They're going for more experimentation and I appreciate it, but it's a pretty different show now. Overall though, it's hard to grasp how much quality content this show has pumped out for so long. It's unheard of.
I agreed with the consensus that Frank's Brother was the worst episode in the series until A Cricket's Tale from this most recent season aired Fucking horrible
At least with FB it's plausible that they were just trying too hard to experiment and switch up the pace. With this most recent Cricket abomination, it was patently obvious the core actors just didn't want to film a full season, even though it's only 10 flippin episodes anymore. That's pretty hard to forgive, even if I found it marginally funnier than FB. Plus, a Cricket-centric episode seems like it *could've* been genuinely decent if they'd just taken the writing more seriously.
Both Frank's Brother and A Cricket's Tale were written by David Hornsby and he co-wrote Liberty Bell. But he has written some good episodes too haha.
God damn, the episode where they attempt to go on that fucking road trip to the Grand Canyon may be my fav episode so far. When Mac hits that fucking cyclist with the beer bottle I was gone and the rest of the ep just didn't give me a chance to recover
There are some episodes like that where you have to watch multiple times. You'll be laughing at one thing and completely miss the next joke.
I think I just about caught my breath over the cyclist part when Dennis & Charlie passed out in the back of the trailer after burning the wicker furniture
Dee singing Soul Asylum to that kid while pissing in a jar and throwing it on Mac and his delivery of "IS THAT PISS" almost made me pass out from laughing when I saw it the first time.
Haha I didn't even catch the following exchange the first time because I was laughing so hard. "PULL OVER! PULL OVER YOU LITTLE DICK!" "You better pull over, or he's just going to keep yelling."
That part had me in tears the first time I watched that episode, Dee opens the trailer door and Dennis & Charlie are basically dead lmao
God, I really think S5 is my favorite by a hair, even though 3 and 4 are more popular picks. And if you consider the Christmas special (one of the best episodes of the series) part of 5, not even a question.
The Gang Dances Their Asses Off is an underrated episode, I never see it mentioned when people talk about the best ones.
That was actually the first full episode I saw of the show. Didn't realize it was the finale until I tried to watch again the following week, haha.
This is exactly how I feel. I'd even include season 1. 1-5 are the funniest to me, by a good amount. But seasons 6+ have still been great even though they're not as consistently funny and some plots fall short. I'm still surprised how underrated some of the early seasons can be around here, but I think it seems to be a trend with people who started watching the show later rather than at the beginning.
I feel like I started around the time Season 4 came out, so I went back and watched from the beginning. The first two seasons are definitely funny but there's just a much different vibe to those episodes. The lighting is darker and the characters were less...distinct? Before they had time to develop, they hadn't settled in to each character's personality quite as much. By Season 3, each of them were so much more exaggerated...so I think that's just when people generally feel like the fun started.
I love the darker, rawer vibe of those first few seasons. They seem like real people to an extent and that does start to get lost by season 3 and is completely lost by the later seasons. They aren't over-exaggerated caricatures of themselves. I think that's why I love those early seasons compared to the later ones. At the time, they seemed like genuinely horrible people, but they still seemed like people. Now, they just seem like characters. While still funny, it takes away part of the charm of what made the show such a huge success in the first place. I think it's also what made the writing so much funnier and interesting... the writers were challenged with making the characters funny and outrageous while still not going completely over the top whenever possible.