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Have you ever watched a zeitgeisty show a long time after it finished? What did you think?
I live in the UK and Channel 4 got the rights to Seinfeld. I never saw them before, so I'm watching them all now.
It's weird, because people make (still!) a lot of noise about the show, and so far (although I'm only 5 episodes in) I don't get it.
I had a similar experience when I re-watched Allie McBeal -- I enjoyed it the first time around, but the second time it just felt tedious.
I watched Lost a long time after that finished, and I mostly enjoyed it, and I could understand why at the time it was so popular.
So, I was wondering, have you watched any of the zeitgeisty shows long after the buzz died down, and what did you think of them?
There's a tvtropes article about this: Seinfeld is unfunny
It's not even so much that it's zeitgeisty - a lot of its observations are timeless (airline food, amirite?) - but that it was groundbreaking for its day, but now everything that made it new or unique has now been incorporated into everything that's come since it. The novelty of "a show about nothing" and the type of observational humour it used have completely worn off, leaving behind nothing but a mediocre sitcom.
Someone once used the Mona Lisa to make this same point. Why is the Mona Lisa special? It's just a portrait of a lady. Except it is the first instance of a painting that demonstrates many techniques that are now so fundamental. So at the time, it was absolutely incredible. So incredible, that it's style and techniques have been adopted and adapted so much as to render the original seemingly mediocre. (Surely there's a German word for this)
There's a book that has a whole chapter on this. It's called Everything Is Obvious (Once You Know the Answer) by Duncan Watts.
I watched Twin Peaks this past summer. It was a real trip. Thoroughly enjoyed it while watching, but in retrospect I’m not sure I enjoyed the ending. The person who turned me on to the show explained that the last two episodes of the final season may have more impact if you play them back in parallel. I’ve been meaning to try this, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. If you like surrealist or campy stuff, there’s something for you. If you like horror there’s a little something for you. In short, if you like David Lynch stuff, you’ve probably already seen it, but if you haven’t, you’ll love it.
give it a few more episodes and everything will start clicking. Seinfeld is awesome and it only gets better until around the last season or so. It's still good at the end, but not as magical as the earlier / mid stuff.
Are you starting from the beginning? The first season is quite dated, and wasn't that good to begin with, but you can't give up. It might be tough if you're watching it on syndication, because it will take a while to get used to watching something that's about 30 years old. If you have the chance to watch in order, episodes 29-86 are the peak of the show and that stretch has about 15 iconic episodes that are all good enough to be the best episode if they were on another show.
This was how I felt about I Love Lucy as a kid in the late 70s/early 80s. It was always on (I imagine because they syndication rights were cheap), and it didn't seem very funny. Part of that was being a kid and not getting all the jokes between married adults and their friends, but part of it was also that it had been so iconic at the time that it had been copied (whether intentionally or not) so many times, it just seemed stale.
I'll be honest, I watched Seinfield when it aired originally and never really liked it. The characters were quite grating. It had moments when it was funny, but overall it wasn't my cup of tea. I remember liking Friends for a season or two, and then not liking it much after that. I've caught a re-run here or there and it seems pretty awful by today's standards. Same with Cheers, which surprised me. I really liked it when it aired, but it does not hold up well in my opinion.
I watched Seinfeld twice and I loved it, but I was already a fan a Curb your Enthusiasm. Seinfeld has a more homely feel though, you get more attached to the characters.
Cheers
Originally airing September 30, 1982 to May 20, 1993, I watched it on Netflix only a few years ago. At a daunting 11 seasons and 275 episodes, I was hesitant to invest, but am so glad I did. The characters are all multidimensional, flawed, genuinely good people tackling problems and topics that are still generally relevant to life today, almost entirely on the set of a small neighborhood bar. Frequent chuckles, a number of laugh out loud moments, and some real tear-jerkers. Even the theme song is delightfully catchy and heartwarming.
I hated the Diane Chambers character though.