After a pretty spectacular score for Doctor Who (and a depressingly long hiatus for the blog) it's time to talk about three very different tv shows. Both different to Doctor Who and, to only a slightly lesser extent, to each other.
They are, from left to right in the picture, Rick & Morty, Archer and BoJack Horseman.
My History / That cartoon character just swore!
Animated shows targeted solely at an adult audience wasn't always a thing (not counting anime), at least not as far as I was aware. My first times encountering them were Happy Tree Friends and Drawn Together, both shows that were pretending to be something they weren't (an innocent children's tv show and a reality tv show respectively).
I didn't watch much Happy Tree Friends (it's really only one very gory joke over and over) and I don't think I ever actually watched an episode of Drawn Together (fake reality tv is still reality tv, or so I felt then), but they paved the way in my mind for shows that were just entirely aimed at adults. I just wasn't expecting one to come along that I'd like.
Plot summary / Broken Men Breaking Things
We'll split off into different triangles for each show in a bit, but I wanted to keep the three shows together for the plot summary because their premises aren't dissimilar.
We have the self-loathing titular character (Rick, Archer and BoJack), who treats his friends and family poorly. He drinks, he swears, he's inconsiderate. And yet we're supposed to be rooting for him.
Rick tries to get away with it by being a grumpy old man, a genius scientist that nobody understands. He lives with his daughter, her husband and their two children. One of which is the also-titular Morty who is usually dragged along against his will on sci-fi adventures that tend to go wrong / dark.
Archer's trick is to be a subversion of the suave secret agent, he has all of the espionage skills but fails entirely when it comes to women or really any social interactions. He's part of a barely defined government agency run by his mother where he makes life either more interesting or more annoying for all his coworkers, depending on whether you ask him or them.
BoJack, as his credits song reminds us after almost every episode, was in a very famous tv show. Back in the 90s, a saccharine Sitcom called Horsing Around. He hasn't done much since, and we mostly see him be a jerk to his friends, his agent and his professional contacts. So... I guess he doesn't really have an excuse.
A Slightly Closer Look: Vincent
This is slightly peeking ahead at the upcoming triangles, but I'm expecting very different scores for these three shows. And at the core of this difference are their titular characters and how they are supposed to be seen.
To illustrate this difference I want to pick a very specific example from one of the shows, I want to talk about Vincent.
Vincent is a character that shows up a season or two into one of these three shows as a potential love interest for one of the female characters.
The problem with this? Vincent very clearly appears to be three kids in a trenchcoat.
And here's how each of these three shows would treat this character. Obviously only one of them actually had this plot point, I'm making up the other two.
In Rick & Morty Vincent shows up as a new acquaintance of Rick's Daughter, Beth. They met through her work as a horse doctor but it's not entirely clear what he does at the farm he claims to come from. Rick appears friendly to Vincent coming over, always happy to drive a wedge between Beth and her husband Jerry who Rick strongly dislikes for a variety of reasons. Morty doesn't understand why nobody comments on the fact that Vincent is obviously three kids in a trenchcoat, especially Rick. At the end it's revealed that Vincent was in fact an alien snake-monster that just had the extremities of a child that was trying to con his way into Rick's lab. Rick saw through it from the start and was just playing along to frustrate Jerry. Once the cat is finally out of the bag (or the alien snake-monster is out of the trenchcoat, if you insist) Rick quickly steps in and shoots him in half.
In Archer Vincent is first introduced to the protagonist and the audience, Sterling Archer goes along with the clear attempt at deception, even when Vincent starts flirting with Lana... at least at first, but he quickly becomes jealous as Vincent starts to claim he is a secret agent as well. Going so far as to take him on a dangerous infiltration mission. Unfortunately his plan (or what passed for one) immediately goes astray when Vincent turns out to actually be three little people who legitimately are secret agents. They save the day, Lana is kind of weirded out by them which makes Archer do a full 180 back to liking him/them.
In BoJack Vincent meets Princess Caroline, BoJack's agent (and ex). BoJack sees through the disguise immediately but is waved away by the rest of the cast during the repeated attempts to point this out. Vincent becomes Princess Caroline's boyfriend and a guest star for most of the rest of the season, with each of his utterances and action very unambiguously hinting at him being a child. In the end he and Princess Caroline break up, with her never having found out (despite meeting his 'son', the top child, separately).
...did that help? Was it too obvious which ones I made up? Should I just shut up and get on with the first corner already?
In Archer Vincent is first introduced to the protagonist and the audience, Sterling Archer goes along with the clear attempt at deception, even when Vincent starts flirting with Lana... at least at first, but he quickly becomes jealous as Vincent starts to claim he is a secret agent as well. Going so far as to take him on a dangerous infiltration mission. Unfortunately his plan (or what passed for one) immediately goes astray when Vincent turns out to actually be three little people who legitimately are secret agents. They save the day, Lana is kind of weirded out by them which makes Archer do a full 180 back to liking him/them.
In BoJack Vincent meets Princess Caroline, BoJack's agent (and ex). BoJack sees through the disguise immediately but is waved away by the rest of the cast during the repeated attempts to point this out. Vincent becomes Princess Caroline's boyfriend and a guest star for most of the rest of the season, with each of his utterances and action very unambiguously hinting at him being a child. In the end he and Princess Caroline break up, with her never having found out (despite meeting his 'son', the top child, separately).
...did that help? Was it too obvious which ones I made up? Should I just shut up and get on with the first corner already?
Corner 1: Adventure / "Would you pick an accent and stick with it?"
Archer: 7.5/10
- 🚀 Grand spy missions to exotic places
- 📋 Some of the time anyway, sometimes it's the pleasantly realistic drudgery
- 🚀 Whole seasons that change up the premise of the show, mostly as direct homages to existing shows.
Rick & Morty: 7.5/10
- 🚀 Alien worlds, majestic sights
- 📋 Usually subverted to be revealed as something ugly, but still
BoJack Horseman: 6/10
- 📋 There are some trips and some sights, sure. But this is about the characters and how they grow, not about grand adventures.
- 🚀 Todd, just... all of Todd. Wacky antics with a twist that goes further and further beyond winking at the camera.
- 🚀 Grand spy missions to exotic places
- 📋 Some of the time anyway, sometimes it's the pleasantly realistic drudgery
- 🚀 Whole seasons that change up the premise of the show, mostly as direct homages to existing shows.
Rick & Morty: 7.5/10
- 🚀 Alien worlds, majestic sights
- 📋 Usually subverted to be revealed as something ugly, but still
BoJack Horseman: 6/10
- 📋 There are some trips and some sights, sure. But this is about the characters and how they grow, not about grand adventures.
- 🚀 Todd, just... all of Todd. Wacky antics with a twist that goes further and further beyond winking at the camera.
Corner 2: Smart / "What up my glip glops!"
Archer: 5/10
- 💤 There's only so far you can take a loudmouthed parody of James Bond.
- 💡 That's not a bad thing though, and the show does grow beyond it.
Rick & Morty: 8/10
- 💡 Clever sci-fi plots that are equal parts creative and subversive.
- 💡 But also insightful deconstructions about unexpected topics.
- 💤 Not always as insightful as the show thinks though.
BoJack Horseman: 8.5/10
- 💤 A show about making shows? That's not very creative, is it?
- 💡 I'm mostly kidding though, as long as it's creative in doing so it's all good. And wow.
- 💡 Princess Carolyn's tongue-twisting pitch descriptions are a linguistic delight.
- 💤 There's only so far you can take a loudmouthed parody of James Bond.
- 💡 That's not a bad thing though, and the show does grow beyond it.
Rick & Morty: 8/10
- 💡 Clever sci-fi plots that are equal parts creative and subversive.
- 💡 But also insightful deconstructions about unexpected topics.
- 💤 Not always as insightful as the show thinks though.
BoJack Horseman: 8.5/10
- 💤 A show about making shows? That's not very creative, is it?
- 💡 I'm mostly kidding though, as long as it's creative in doing so it's all good. And wow.
- 💡 Princess Carolyn's tongue-twisting pitch descriptions are a linguistic delight.
Corner 3: Heart / "When you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags."
This is the big one, where the paths diverge.
I talked about how the protagonist in each show is unlikeable, or at least thoroughly hard to like, and this is where the show's stance on that is judged.
Archer: 5.5/10
- 💖 Nobody is putting up with Archer's shit
- 💔 But nobody fires him either
- 💖 The whole thing is basically a love letter to other things, just a very weird one.
Rick & Morty: 0/10
- 💔 No. Just no.
- 💔 Everybody hates Rick, including Rick.
- 💔 With good reason, too. And no real justification, don't give me that "Ooh, he's too smart to be loved" crap.
- 💔 ...is [show creator] Justin Roiland okay? He doesn't seem happy if this is what he's making.
- 💔 Thoughtful deconstructions of destructive behaviour can be of immense artistic and societal value, this just really isn't it.
BoJack Horseman: 9/10
- 💖 A show about making shows! I love media that's about media.
- 💖 Nothing happens without a reason, basically everything is saying something.
- 💖 Specific episodes are just so much better than they have any justification to be. "Ruthie" and "Time's Arrow" especially.
- 💖 Pulls off the rare feat of showing messy relationships that both feel realistic and still have something meaningful to say about them.
- 💔 BoJack is a jerk, we know why he is one, we know why people put up with him, but he still is.
Whelp, that ramped up in differences nicely. Perhaps even more extremely than I expected myself.
That's not going to leave a whole lot of surface for Rick & Morty, is it?
- 💖 Nobody is putting up with Archer's shit
- 💔 But nobody fires him either
- 💖 The whole thing is basically a love letter to other things, just a very weird one.
Rick & Morty: 0/10
- 💔 No. Just no.
- 💔 Everybody hates Rick, including Rick.
- 💔 With good reason, too. And no real justification, don't give me that "Ooh, he's too smart to be loved" crap.
- 💔 ...is [show creator] Justin Roiland okay? He doesn't seem happy if this is what he's making.
- 💔 Thoughtful deconstructions of destructive behaviour can be of immense artistic and societal value, this just really isn't it.
BoJack Horseman: 9/10
- 💖 A show about making shows! I love media that's about media.
- 💖 Nothing happens without a reason, basically everything is saying something.
- 💖 Specific episodes are just so much better than they have any justification to be. "Ruthie" and "Time's Arrow" especially.
- 💖 Pulls off the rare feat of showing messy relationships that both feel realistic and still have something meaningful to say about them.
- 💔 BoJack is a jerk, we know why he is one, we know why people put up with him, but he still is.
Whelp, that ramped up in differences nicely. Perhaps even more extremely than I expected myself.
That's not going to leave a whole lot of surface for Rick & Morty, is it?
46.01 for Archer
That's a pretty respectable score, and the first time 'respectable' is used to describe Archer...
25.98 for Rick & Morty
Oh wow, that ended even lower than expected. Yet part of me still wonders what the next season is going to be about.
78.59 for BoJack Horseman
Without any shadow of a doubt though, this is the clear winner of this 'Battle of the Jerks'. It's smart, it's creative, and it's way better than it first appears to be.
I quite liked this comparative format, and had originally planned to do more, but I've decided to take a break from these back to back triangle reviews to focus on more free-form content.
EDIT: Break over, more Star Wars was reviewed. Click here to keep rolling.
Without any shadow of a doubt though, this is the clear winner of this 'Battle of the Jerks'. It's smart, it's creative, and it's way better than it first appears to be.
I quite liked this comparative format, and had originally planned to do more, but I've decided to take a break from these back to back triangle reviews to focus on more free-form content.
EDIT: Break over, more Star Wars was reviewed. Click here to keep rolling.Spoilery Footnote
Vincent was (hopefully not too) obviously from BoJack Horseman.
He is neither the weirdest nor the cleverest thing that show does.
He is neither the weirdest nor the cleverest thing that show does.
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