For me if I had to pick a good contender it would be the UK version of The Office.
I know many tend to debate how Ricky Gervais really fell off and how he repugnantly acts like a whiny centrist edgelord but me personally IMO I actually don’t think he was ever funny not even a little.
His big break through television was just so painful to sit through it’s so charismatically boring the characters are completely generic at best (notably Tim) or straight up insufferably unlikable at worst (especially the protagonist David FUCKING Brent) and most importantly the humour is just embarrassing.
Always seemed like The Thick Of It but without the nuisance tongue in cheek and charming satire.
For me it’s Friends. I don’t get all the hype about it until today. I tried watching a few episodes but it was nothing special. It was just a sitcom, nothimg special about it.
It was special because “everyone” watched it. The meh or bad parts were whatever, while the exciting or good parts were something you could talk with all your friends about at school. This made the good parts uniquely good.
So unless you happened to both be alive and watch it when it ran, it just won’t be amazing.
Same here. Personally I thought the British comedy Coupling was so much better done.
Except the last season. That was bad.
A big part of why many of the things in this thread haven’t aged well, is because a lot of what made these shows original and unique was copied to death following the fame of the original.
If you weren’t there for the original release of a piece of media, there’s a good chance you’re not necessarily seeing it in the context where the accolades make sense.
Seinfeld basically invented the 3 camera sitcom and a lot of the key tropes in the format. If you go back today having not watched it before, the vast majority of it just comes across as a boring sitcom, because every sitcom to follow took notes from the way they did Seinfeld.
It’s the same with the UK office, it basically invented the modern mockumentary format as well as the cringe comedy era that followed (and gave us things like peep show). If you look back now without that context, it just looks like a generic combination of both those things.
Just to mention it, this is literally named the Seinfeld is Unfunny effect on TVTropes
I believe “I Love Lucy” is credited with inventing or popularizing the three camera sitcom. Not to dampen’s "Seinfeld"s contributions or the point of your comment, but I just wanted to add that small correction.
The US Office is unironically a better show because it understood what path it wanted to take as it went on and stop trying to rely heavily on cringe comedy to focus more on absurdist but still relatable scenarios.
There’s a huge regional and cultural aspect to what you’re saying. You’re comparing slapstick in-your-face American comedy to subtle cringe British comedy. The Office is an excellent example since it is exactly the same script used in both initially. Watching S1E1 for British vs American version is an excellent comparison of styles. I don’t like British comedy particularly and don’t even like The Office, but watching both back to back, I would prefer the British version.
There are a number of amazing British comedies. They are very different to American. British comedies are understated and a bit miserable. Try “I’m Alan Partridge”…such an amazing comedy.
Equally I’ve tried watching Curb Your Enthusiasm with British friends and a large portion can’t stand that for how cringe it is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
There’s no superior choice in matters of art and taste. Just different flavours.
There’s a big cultural difference between Curb and Partridge - cringe isn’t universal!
Specifically, Larry in Curb has a distinctly American sense of individualism. He does what he wants and doesn’t care if someone doesn’t like him for it. The cringe comes from his attempts to enforce his own set of unwritten social values on others.
Alan Partridge is the exact opposite - fundamentally insecure and desperate for approval. His cringe comes from lack of self-awareness and trying to fake social status, which is painfully obvious to a British audience with our deeply ingrained sense of class.
Ultimately, taste is taste, but I think that goes some way towards explaining why some people like one or the other but not both.
The James Cameron Avatar movies.
They’re so bad.
…well the first one was. Didn’t bother with any after that…
