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Favorite NETFLIX shows


JDLefebvre

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These days, any show that needs to have a laugh track in order to cue the audience in on when something is funny tells you that they're catering to the lowest audience they can.  The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, The Ranch... What about those shows suggests strong writing?  A laugh track also suggests cheap production done on sets, which tells you they aren't spending a nickle on the show. 

Additionally, it's a recording.  It's not genuine laughter.  It's pre-recorded laughter, thus it's fake and not genuine. 

It's a constant reminder that you are watching something filmed on a set.  It's different from non-diagetic sound because it draws attention to the fact that the actors are performing for an audience instead of building suspense with music or conveying humor or drama through music.  Actors have to pause for laughter, which looks and feels unnatural, and it sets the timing of the events to the laughter of the events.  It creates performances and dialogue that look and feel rehearsed and fabricated.  When you watch a show with a laugh track, it's painfully clear that you are watching a buildup to a wise crack.  It leads to horrible acting and formulaic acting.  It looks and feels like you are watching a rehearsal.

And that is further reflected in the writing.  Instead of writing funny scripts, they're writing formulaic plots meant to lead to those deliveries.  Altogether, laugh tracks are a product of a bygone era in sitcoms and television and a reminder of how and why television is an inferior product to film.  It's designed to be familiar, to be simple, to be easy to digest for people who are winding down their night after work and don't want anything challenging or anything other than what they know. 

Finally, what does having a laugh track suggest?  It suggests the humor is awful.  If it was live, it would serve a purpose.  It's always nice to laugh with others, and if you're watching genuine laughter it might amplify your laughter.  But this isn't live, this isn't genuine laughter.  When it's not live or genuine laughter, it suggests that the jokes are so bad that the show literally has to tell you when something is funny. 

People like me hate laugh tracks because they're proof that things aren't really changing and that television isn't evolving.  It's staying exactly the same.  It's proof that people contribute to television never doing anything new or inviting or dangerous, and that leads to the same damn thing available every week.  Arrested Development was perhaps the funniest show of this century, and it lasted only three seasons.  Why?  Because you had to dig for the jokes, you could watch the entire series two or three times and still find new jokes each and every week, and when you found them they were hilarious because you didn't notice them and you had to WORK for them.  There wasn't an audience laughing to cue you in on what was funny. 

Firefly was different.  It had an overarching story that the characters were working towards.  It was confusing to people because it wasn't formulaic, it wasn't the same thing they'd seen every single day when getting home from work.  They couldn't just sit down and watch if they missed last week.  It wasn't Star Trek where the characters remained the same and every week was a new self-contained story. 

It took the British to give us The Office.  They pioneered something new.  A television series that was a documentary, which allowed for direct looks into the camera to convey emotion or humor without having to rely on a laugh track.  What happened because of it?  We lost a new and funny sitcom (My Name is Earl) so we could get Parks and Recreation, which would now be familiar to audiences.  "Okay, it's one of those shows where we know and they know they're being filmed."  I'm not trying to crap on Parks and Rec because it was a great show, but it became the new familiar, and the new familiar is just as bad as the old familiar.  Instead of shows capitalizing on the fact that there are people who want new, they retread over the same tracks paved by inventive show creators. 

Look at literally every cop drama or serial out there.  My dad raved about The Blacklist, I told him it was network, wouldn't watch.  He kept saying how different it is, it's not like all the rest.  I watched 4 episodes and then lost my damn mind because it's literally the exact same thing as everything else.  It is a monster of the week television show that begins and ends the exact same way except for MAYBE three episodes a season.  Criminal Minds is the same way.  Bad guy discovered, bad guy subdued, quote on an airplane. 

The Walking Dead.  Know why I quit watching The Walking Dead?  Because literally every episode is an hour long preview to the next week.  It built up to a cliffhanger, to something major every episode, and in a lot of cases they'd find ways to have an in-between episode just to extend the cliffhanger.  They literally spent a whole season on a villain only to bring the exact same villain back and go through the EXACT SAME STORY ARC for that villain, effectively getting two seasons worth of material out of the same villain.  Why?  Because it's familiar.

TL;DR

People like me hate laugh tracks because it's a hangnail that won't come off, it should be a last vestige of a bygone era, it's proof that television isn't changing, isn't adapting, isn't improving and isn't getting better.  It's a reminder that the TV show in question was made for ease of viewing, and that shows won't get better as long as decades of viewers become content with what's familiar. 

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On 7/25/2017 at 8:59 AM, JTagg7754 said:

Just started watching Ozark last night. Pilot episode was legit!! If you like Jason Bateman, it doesn't look like you'll be sad.

Binged the season last night. Found it at 10 pm and stayed up to watch. They really throw you in during the pilot. I enjoyed it a lot. Not sure what to turn to next.

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1 hour ago, I_GET_SAX said:

Binged the season last night. Found it at 10 pm and stayed up to watch. They really throw you in during the pilot. I enjoyed it a lot. Not sure what to turn to next.

I'm on the flashback episode. Really like the show so far.

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