Madp said it pretty well. Not much in this episode; by this time they already knew it was over and I think they were just completing the contract.
I liked the "canker on the buttocks of Hell" line. Also liked that the Devil has dead baby seals on his checks.
Final bit of local color: we get Bob's address on Addison Boulevard. There's no such street around here, but there is an Addison Drive in Southfield, just a few miles from me, and only about a mile from where my wife grew up. That matches some of the clues from an earlier episode, so I guess Bob's from Southfield. That's a middle-middle class area, just about right for a guy like him.
Madp, the show ended with Andy and Bob tossing around a baseball. I couldn't have ordered a better ending for your stint at the reins. (By the way, you should consider yourself fortunate that we're about to go on hiatus for a couple of weeks. The Detroit Tigers are in the World Series, so I could get insufferable. On the other hand, they just may be out of the World Series by tomorrow. Ugly. Very ugly.)
* * * * *
As for the post-mortem on the series, I agree entirely with Madp: lousy writing, lousy characters and a concept that was adrift. If you're going to try a series with God and the Devil, you'd better have strong characterization. But look at what we got instead.
God: Any resemblance to an actual Deity, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Not the kind of guy who seems in charge of the universe, or much of anything else for that matter. Just a slightly eccentric nice guy who occasionally spouts cryptic philosophy for Bob. Pretty much like Wilson from Home Improvement--who was pretty much annoying after a half-dozen appearances.
The Devil: This being a comedy, he can't really be evil (not funny), so you have to decide how to handle him. On Hogan's Heroes, the Nazis weren't evil, just bumbling, cowardly, and corrupt. Same sort of thing with crime bosses in other comedies. But here, they decided to make him whiny. Not funny, and there's not much you can do with "whiny", so we get the same sort of thing over and over. Smeck was very good and had about half of the good lines in the series, but by the end, they wasted him as the punching bag.
Bob: I think they were going for "clueless", but they got "jerk" instead. Donna was no better. Megan was worse. Even Andy was too cloying for my taste. As I mentioned several times before, this was typical sitcom stuff. We've seen it a thousand times before.
Aspiring comedy writers: Please take a lesson from this show. When you have a good joke, dragging it out makes it worse, not better. Make the joke, get the laugh, move on. How many times did they give us a laugh, then drag it out until it just wasn't funny anymore? And when you have a weak joke, dragging it out makes it not at all funny. "Smeck, hold this cable." (Gee, guess what's going to happen?) "OK, sir." (I'll bet I know what's going to happen.) "Now stand in this bucket" (OK, get on with it.) "Yes, sir." (Dammit, is this schtick going to be the rest of the episode!)
As for the big "controversy", I discussed that in an earlier thread, but as I said at the outset, I'm one of those Evangelical Christians who supposedly were highly offended. Nope. Not offensive, just not funny. Ironically, I think this episode contained the epitaph for the entire series:
Donna: It's a harmless comedy!
Bob: Well I'm not laughing!
Both true.
reply
share
madp
11 years ago
by - dtmuller on Sat Oct 27 2012 09:29:27
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Madp, the show ended with Andy and Bob tossing around a baseball. I couldn't have ordered a better ending for your stint at the reins.
Not sure what my "stint at the reins" is supposed to mean and by not sure I mean I'm clueless.
It's a beautiful image, I grant you that, but all the time I kept thinking, "the guy has a daughter too, right?" Why doesn't he try to connect with her for a change? Apart from the second episode in which he took her to a mall carousel and listened to her problems, he basically did nothing else to connect with her.
The dynamics in the Alman family are as follows: Bob <-> Andy; Donna <-> Megan; Bob <-> Donna; Andy <-> Megan (occasionally). And THAT'S IT! Bob has no daughter, and Donna has no son.
(By the way, you should consider yourself fortunate that we're about to go on hiatus for a couple of weeks. The Detroit Tigers are in the World Series, so I could get insufferable. On the other hand, they just may be out of the World Series by tomorrow. Ugly. Very ugly.)
Well, good luck with that! I hope this doesn't affect your sunny disposition.
Donna: It's a harmless comedy!
Bob: Well I'm not laughing!
Now
I'm laughing pretty hard! LOL!
reply
share
dtmuller
11 years ago
Not sure what my "stint at the reins" is supposed to mean and by not sure I mean I'm clueless.
Sorry. Just a reference to you taking the lead in starting the thread each week. I have to start using plain English.
In other news, the Tigers have now been humiliated in the first three games in the Series. One more loss and it's "wait until next year". Now all they need to do is win four straight. In the 108 year history of the World Series, no team has ever lost the first three, then won the next four. I keep telling myself they're just setting themselves up to make history. Yeah, right.
reply
share
madp
11 years ago
Sorry. Just a reference to you taking the lead in starting the thread each week. I have to start using plain English.
Don't worry. I get most idioms, really just about everything. Only sometimes I may have a problem, but then you explain and it's all right.
reply
share