Thursday, September 24, 2015

Season Premieres for South Park, The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family.

The three most relevant sitcoms on television - in my opinion - are back so let's review their respective season premieres.

First, South Park (pictured above) had an episode about political correctness that I found to be relatively important. S19E01, 'Stunning and Brave' managed to make a lot of good points about how our society is becoming too "P.C", as they say.

In this episode, our South Park kids get a new principal who takes political correctness to an absolute extreme. Everyone who doesn't agree with his politically correct views gets abused and beaten up ("check your privilege!").

To be honest, when I saw it for the first time, "Stunning and Brave" wasn't an episode that I appreciated enough. I felt that it was too blunt and perhaps a bit too one sided. I didn't feel that the climax of the episode made enough sense either.

Yet, after taking another look at it, I think it became more obvious that the episode was much better written than I had thought at first. Even though there were some scenes that could have been better, as a whole South Park's season premiere managed to deliver.

The Big Bang Theory also had its season premiere. This episode started the show's ninth season, which is quite an achievement considering that this is a network show that is mainly supposed to be about nerds.

Nevertheless, I haven't found Big Bang Theory to be consistently funny in years. I feel that the show is past its prime and that the writers have run out of ideas. Despite the massive ratings, there's not much energy left.

Not surprisingly, the season premiere didn't manage to cheer me up. I've never been a fan of Leonard and Penny and I haven't really liked Amy and Sheldon together either. So when you have an episode that centers around these couples, one can't expect much.

It's pretty weird how lackluster the episode "Matrimonial Momentum" is considering that this was supposed to be the happiest day for Leonard and Penny. Yet, the episode is all about arguing and creating drama out of nowhere. It's no surprise that very few liked it.

The third show that had its season premiere is Modern Family, that last Sunday lost the best comedy series Emmy to HBO:s atrocious 'Veep'. (In reality category, 'Voice' winning over 'Amazing Race' was also mindboggling).

In my opinion the S7E01 "Summer Lovin'", was an okayish episode that had some genuine moments that made me feel for the characters. There were also some Phil moments that managed to land rather well.  

I liked how they took Haley's feelings towards Andy seriously. This was her 'last chance' before he would propose to another girl. I didn't have a problem with these two - and the same can also be said about the scenes between Alex and Sanjay.

At the same time, the usual problems with the show were also there too. The plotlines weren't elegant enough so there was too much stuff going on. I also didn't like how Andy 'overheard' about Haley's feelings. It's as if the writers took the easiest way out to solve the problem.

Yet, as a whole I'm pretty happy that Modern Family is back on tv. In my opinion, it's still likely the best comedy on television, even though in all honesty the show could be much, much better than it is right now.

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