started at the beginning (I don't think I've ever seen all of season 1 before?) and this holds up better than the vast majority of sitcoms I have no interest in watching. It's still formulaic and often stiff but I actually laughed, there's at least several well constructed jokes/lines/gags per episode even if idgaf about whatever "plot" is currently going on
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 27 April 2016 17:22 (eight years ago) link
quite progressive for an American sitcom in 1983
also per this I was not surprised that there's a reference/joke to a gay interracial relationship in season 3, but I was kinda surprised that it was resolved by the distraught father realizing he needed to accept his son as he was.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 27 April 2016 18:36 (eight years ago) link
I also started from the beginning recently (thanks, Netflix!). It's so casual and relaxed compared to most other sitcoms from that era. Danson is such a natural and so effortlessly likeable. I think I mostly missed the Coach era the first time around so he's been kind of a pleasant surprise. I can imagine that patronizing Cheers is a chill experience similar to watching Cheers.
― Your Ass Is Grass And I Will Mow It With My Face (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 27 April 2016 18:48 (eight years ago) link
it is weirdly inviting and casual, it feels like you are just hanging out there. the setting is so unusual, with this constant milling of background characters (who occasionally come to the fore).
also made me think that this kind of bar basically doesn't exist anymore, nowadays it would be filled with blaring TV screens all over the place
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 27 April 2016 18:53 (eight years ago) link
it is weirdly inviting and casual, it feels like you are just hanging out there.
It's almost as if... everybody would know your name.
― pplains, Wednesday, 27 April 2016 18:58 (eight years ago) link
the setting really liberates it from some of the most constricting sitcom conventions - you're not stuck with a relatively small and fixed set of characters interacting in a small setting (anyone could walk into the bar at any time, after all). People come and go and fade in and out of the show's focus, maybe interjecting themselves into whatever the central conversation is or staying out of it entirely, etc. It's very different from watching a family of four interact in a living room with maybe one walk-on guest character.
And in the fourth episode (I think?) there was actually a very unusual and long tracking shot that backs out of the back room where Diane and Sam are arguing, down the hallway past the bathroom where a couple patrons come out, back into the main room past Norm's seat and down the bar to an entirely different conversation. It was sort of jarring how nakedly cinematic it was, not like a standard sitcom shot at all.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 28 April 2016 21:02 (eight years ago) link
I hear ya.
I mean, there had been other ensemble shows like Andy Griffith or Mary Tyler Moore, but what if you had been able to see Goober Pyle or Gordy Howard in the background of every episode?
http://i.imgur.com/kelAgDu.jpg
― pplains, Thursday, 28 April 2016 21:35 (eight years ago) link
It was sort of jarring how nakedly cinematic it was, not like a standard sitcom shot at all.
Now that you mention it, I do remember them occasionally doing stuff like that (wasn't the final shot along similar lines?).
― clemenza, Thursday, 28 April 2016 21:40 (eight years ago) link
this was in the first season!
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 28 April 2016 21:44 (eight years ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChY3IN1UcAA_wR6.jpg
happy may day
― mookieproof, Sunday, 1 May 2016 18:21 (eight years ago) link
The funniest bit on the whole show is the one where Lilith goes on the talk show all glammed out with Frasier and the gang with Diane is watching the show in-between a game at the bar.
Of the earlier episodes, I think the one where they are holding the wake for the ballplayer that Coach knew had died and at the wake they all realize the guy was a bum sleeping with all their wives and bumming money. Coach gets the good punchline to paraphrase something like "Burn him in effigy, forget that let's burn him here in Boston."
― earlnash, Sunday, 1 May 2016 20:33 (eight years ago) link
AlbaniaAlbaniaYou border on the Adriatic
― just her neck. thankig u in advance (stevie), Monday, 2 May 2016 10:37 (eight years ago) link
god that episode w/ coach and the wake is something else
― balls, Monday, 2 May 2016 11:52 (eight years ago) link
AlbaniaYou border on the Adriatic
in my head i parse all four-syllable names either like this or like 'armenia (city in the sky)'
― mookieproof, Monday, 2 May 2016 12:55 (eight years ago) link
the Albania song is running through my head at all times
― just her neck. thankig u in advance (stevie), Monday, 2 May 2016 14:41 (eight years ago) link
also, and I've probs said this umpteen times on this thread, but Cheers is my favourite show ever. Maybe Larry Sanders is sharper. Maybe Arrested Development is funnier. But this show pushes every button I could ever want, and its characters are the greatest TV has ever delivered.
― just her neck. thankig u in advance (stevie), Monday, 2 May 2016 14:42 (eight years ago) link
My only qualm with the cast (in the midst of season one) is that the female characters are more broadly sitcom-y than I'd prefer. Carla's a little too "why I oughta..." and Diane's a little too "well, actually...". I guess most of the characters are still fairly underformed. Except Sam. Sam felt like a fully-rounded character right from the start.
― Your Ass Is Grass And I Will Mow It With My Face (Old Lunch), Monday, 2 May 2016 14:54 (eight years ago) link
oh man just got to the "what if Cheers becomes a gay bar?" episode
― Οὖτις, Monday, 2 May 2016 15:31 (eight years ago) link
I have belatedly come to the conclusion that Sam is the best.
― ewar woowar (or something), Monday, 2 May 2016 15:54 (eight years ago) link
xpost
Great episode. Feels progressive for the time, too, as the comedic target is entirely Norm, Cliff, etc. and not the gay characters.
― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko), Monday, 2 May 2016 16:18 (eight years ago) link
yes the switcheroo reveal at the end is the whole joke (which I saw coming a mile away but whatever)
― Οὖτις, Monday, 2 May 2016 16:29 (eight years ago) link
it is a little creepy to think about how charmingly benign Sam's blatant sexual harassment is portrayed
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 5 May 2016 19:56 (eight years ago) link
It's of its era, though later seasons play him less charming and more tragic in this regard. In fact I think he joins a sex addicts' group in the final season?
― Elvis Santana (stevie), Thursday, 5 May 2016 21:54 (eight years ago) link
he is charming! It's just weird in retrospect how Diane - an otherwise outspoken secular humanist lefty type - takes all of his advances with a good-naturedly humorous aversion rather than fear or discomfort or any number of more reasonable responses. Never once does she give any indication about worrying about losing her job because she's refusing the boss's advances, for ex.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 5 May 2016 21:57 (eight years ago) link
like, the inherent power dynamic is never addressed
Obviously the show is no model of workplace sensitivity, but I don't really think that there is anything ever expressed in Diane's character which indicates that she is intimidated or threatened by Sam's advances. And by the time Rebecca comes along--perhaps owing to newer cultural sensitivities (though only the last two seasons occur in the wake of Clarence Thomas, the first time I ever remember hearing the words "sexual harassment"*)--there is, as stevie says, attempts to address his womanizing as a "problem." Plus, with Rebecca being his boss, the dynamic is changed (though Sam's behaviour never would--nor should--still fly in the real world).
― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko), Thursday, 5 May 2016 22:15 (eight years ago) link
Oh, yeah...
*I was like 12 when this happened, so grain of salt, but I don't remember much widespread media discussion of sexual harassment prior to Thomas, unlike afterwards where it was unavoidable.
― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko), Thursday, 5 May 2016 22:16 (eight years ago) link
Never once does she give any indication about worrying about losing her job because she's refusing the boss's advances, for ex.
I think there were a couple of moments where this was hinted at, though not taken too seriously. The season where the pair are on the outs (but obviously about to get back together, either diane's final or penultimate season) it gets played with, but it's clear diane's really just fucking with sam.
the fight they have at the end of the 1st or second season, just before they kiss, where sam says he wants to bounce her off every wall in the office, and diane says he will be walking funny afterwards if he tries it, is properly dark imo.
― Elvis Santana (stevie), Thursday, 5 May 2016 22:25 (eight years ago) link
I don't really think that there is anything ever expressed in Diane's character which indicates that she is intimidated or threatened by Sam's advances
right and this is what I think is sort of odd because who wouldn't be threatened or intimidated by his behavior, no matter how charming? he's her boss
xp
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 5 May 2016 22:25 (eight years ago) link
yeah this is the end of season 1 (just watched last night) - I think past this point it's clear things are mutual and Sam's behavior from then on isn't really harassment, they both torture each other
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 5 May 2016 22:26 (eight years ago) link
Coach was brilliant and I too preferred Diane to Rebecca but both era's were great and they sure struck the jackpot when Woody replaced Coach as we all thought Coach was irreplaceable when he died.
Mark s promised me years ago he'd show me a scan of his Cheers cover story for nme. I need to ask him
― Cosmic Slop, Thursday, 5 May 2016 22:28 (eight years ago) link
magnificent pagan beast
― rmde bob (will), Thursday, 5 May 2016 22:35 (eight years ago) link
I think past this point it's clear things are mutual and Sam's behavior from then on isn't really harassment, they both torture each other
The power and gender dynamic can be really gross, but I do think this is what makes the show's early seasons so poignant. They're so drawn to each other but they can't stop hurting each other (and themselves). Those first seasons are really a five-act tragedy.
― Evan R, Thursday, 5 May 2016 22:51 (eight years ago) link
I still get choked when I think of the season 5 finale, Sam bidding farewell to Diane forever (!) and dreaming of their live together as pensioners.
― Elvis Santana (stevie), Friday, 6 May 2016 10:08 (eight years ago) link
I always thought the finality of that story was kinda poorly justified in-universe, because there's no reason given why Diane can't just come back after she's finished her book. It's framed so that Sam knows Diane won't come back, even if neither of them says it out loud, but the justification for all that seems to come more from the fact that the viewers knew Shelley Long was leaving for good rather than from any explicit or implicit character moment which would confirm this. (Maybe the writers even chose to leave it open-ended, just in case Long might return?) This is why I like the series finale, where Diane does actually come back, because the unexplored theme of the season 5 finale is finally properly explored, when Sam and Diane figure out they don't really work as a long-term couple.
― Tuomas, Friday, 6 May 2016 10:36 (eight years ago) link
Kelly my darling, you are my sunshine;When we're together I feel fine.Your smile is so lovely; your hair is so clean;You make me feel that the whole world is mine.Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly,Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, K-E-L-L-Y ... Why? Because you're
Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly,(pause) Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly,Kelly of mine!
(applause)
Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine,Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine,... Mine!
― Jeff, Friday, 6 May 2016 10:39 (eight years ago) link
― ewar woowar (or something), Monday, May 2, 2016 4:54 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
yep
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 6 May 2016 10:57 (eight years ago) link
I always thought the finality of that story was kinda poorly justified in-universe, because there's no reason given why Diane can't just come back after she's finished her book.
I think this betrays a complete misunderstanding of what a flighty kook Diane truly is
― Elvis Santana (stevie), Friday, 6 May 2016 11:17 (eight years ago) link
Sam knows it too. He's just spent a whole season trying to propose to her.
The finale would have worked better if there had been more emotional fallout from Diane's departure. Obviously there were financial repercussions (Sam sinks his boat and loses his bar), but he's processed the loss by the time season 6 starts. Ironically it was Frasier who never really got over the trauma.
― Evan R, Friday, 6 May 2016 14:16 (eight years ago) link
Oh, also, I got a kitten last month and named her Lilith
― Evan R, Friday, 6 May 2016 15:46 (eight years ago) link
so I take this back, actually. There's an episode in season 2, after Diane and Sam have started going out, where Diane is looking around for another job because Carla is complaining that Sam is favoring her. But after getting a bunch of interviews Diane complains about how every offer comes with "strings attached", sexual advances etc., which turns into an argument between her and Sam about whether or not that's why Sam hired her (which he deftly turns back around to her with the implication that *she* was sizing *him* up as a sexual conquest when she applied for the job). It's all done with the show's usual deft reversals and good humor, was cool to see it brought into the open.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 11 May 2016 16:53 (eight years ago) link
this show really took a dive when Kirstie Alley came on. Way more episodes with standard cliche sitcom plots ("oh no the boss is coming to dinner!", "oh no I'm caught in some outrageous lie, how do I keep up this pretense!" etc.) and without the central Diane/Sam conflict relationship driving things stuff seems to drift. There's still good stuff (Kellykellykellykellykellykelly) but it gets bogged down.
in other news apparently my wife played the CHEERS boardgame last night
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 29 June 2016 20:15 (eight years ago) link
Sam gets cartoonish around that time, and the rest of the characters and plots follow suit.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, 29 June 2016 21:30 (eight years ago) link
also not a fan of the "look! a smart, confident, takes-no-shit woman for Sam to have to...oh wait no that was just a front, she's a neurotic mess" arc for Ms Howe.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, 29 June 2016 21:31 (eight years ago) link
yeah and that revelation takes place within like two episodes of her being on the show
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 29 June 2016 22:15 (eight years ago) link
Some of the Rebecca stuff is undeniably goofy, yes, but in a way it is almost a different show once she comes aboard. Or maybe it's own spinoff: once the Sam/Diane plot is over, the show is able to become more about the social group as a kind of extended family, and as we are already comfortable and familiar with these characters by the time this happens, it works. It also allows for what I still think of as a remarkable series finale.
― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 29 June 2016 23:21 (eight years ago) link
I remember the finale being good but don't feel like slogging through 4 more seasons of Rebecca hijinks to get there. Her series of boss-crushes (Tom Skerritt?! I had totally forgotten about him) is p tiresome.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 29 June 2016 23:23 (eight years ago) link
I think there are a lot of great Kirstie Alley-era episodes, tbh, but yeah, it's about the larger cast by this point.
― Oh baby, if only you knew / Gabnebb hit a hundred-and-two (stevie), Thursday, 30 June 2016 13:56 (eight years ago) link
Sam as the rapping sportscaster (I think that's Kirstie Alley's second episode?) is an awewsome episode. He's like a proto Homer Simpson.
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 30 June 2016 13:59 (eight years ago) link