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Rick & Morty: Season Two (TV DVD)



Yup, I hopped right into Season Two after wrapping up Season One. I guess that's a sign I liked it, if I wanted more so quickly?

And it's mostly more of the first season, down to some of the dodginess between episodes. One of the ore notable episodes is when the house is overrun with parasites that take the form of wacky characters, which is Rick and Morty's take on the "character out of nowhere the cast acts like they've always known" trope ala Poochy. It was mostly an enjoyable episode, but while not wishing to spoil anything the ending felt like a huge bait and switch by making you think something about a character then suddenly going "HA HA, WE FOOLED YOU" without bothering to explain what was really going on with him. The episodes with the hivemind planet and the fart cloud didn't do much for me. And I really hated that episode about the Purge world, but it's entirely possible I'm just biased against it for taking place on a planet of cat people.

But to express what I think is a common sentiment from fans of the show, Beth and Jerry need to get eaten by one of Rick's experiments. I don't care how realistically they portray a troubled marriage, their constant bickering is irritating. One episode has them finding a monster slug in the basement of Rick's workshop, and whenever the show switched to them arguing over why it was there I kept begging the show to go back to the interesting story. Another episode has them getting marriage counseling from an alien resort which I guess has a somewhat amusing Aliens reference, but it's still mostly just Beth and Jerry bickering. And the family watching telelvision from other dimensions makes a comeback (like it's Rick and Morty's version of Tales of Interest), framed with a story that amounts to "Jerry is a whiny bitch." I admit the Jerry Day Care was a fun idea, but that doesn't justify all the garbage these two are responsible for.

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Third Rock from the Sun: Season One (Amazon Prime Streaming)



Something tells me this show aging poorly extends beyond Dennis Rodman's guest appearance.

Third Rock from the Sun is a 90s sitcom about a team of space aliens who have taken on human form to live among and study them, and the wacky hijinx that ensue from their lack of understanding of human behavior. Admittedly this is the first season so maybe the show was just trying to get its bearings and I did laugh quite a few times, but a lot of the show was just uncomfortable. In real life, Dick would have been arrested by the third episode, or at least reported for misconduct by one of his students and fired as a teacher. And before anyone says "Wah, it's just a TV show, stop taking it so seriously", excuse me for finding Dick announcing to his class that he banged one of the other teachers painful instead of funny.

The season ends on a cliffhanger that extends into the first two episodes of the second season, so I went ahead and watched them. I... have no idea what was going on in the scene where Dick tricks his evil clone into not activating the spore dispersal machine. He mentions something about how Evil Dick has daddy issues but... where the hell did that come from? Also, using Harry as a communication device with their homeworld is a terrible idea for what are supposed to be advanced life forms. The incoming signal completely hijacks his body without warning, and Harry doesn't know what's being said. Did it never occur to them that a transmission could come in from the Big Giant Head when nobody else from the mission was around? Or when they're surrounded by humans? Or if Harry is doing something like driving a fucking car?

And Tommy's girlfriend can go join Beth and Jerry in whatever black hole they get thrown into. Her "I'm a strong, intelligent woman and anybody who doesn't fawn over me only cares about a girl's body" attitude would have been grating enough back when this show first aired, but nowadays she sounds like a straw-woman written by a Gamergater.

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