Sulphur on 31/10/2019 at 09:02
Quote Posted by Twist
I've been meaning to thank you, Sulphur. Your posts on BoJack persuaded my wife and I to watch BoJack Horseman and we're very grateful. We love it. She's a bit of a self-loathing introverted animal lover with a degree in psychology, so... yeah. In fact, several times over the last couple of years she's asked me if I had thanked you yet.
Netflix kept suggesting it to us. For something that looks pretty campy at a glance, though, we needed some assurance it'd be worth our time, so we lazily glanced at Metacritic... where the first season was poorly reviewed, so we kind of dismissed it. D'oh!
I'm really thankful Sulphur wrote about it as he did, because it was a huge mistake to dismiss this show and it's become one of our favorites.
Consider me thanked, Twist! :) I'm really glad you guys found your way to it. I ramble on about it because I think it's one the few stories that tends to be quietly meaningful; and, despite the the places it goes to, it's ultimately a hopeful show.
henke: you could start from the last half of S1 and not lose out on much, I think. Episode 6 is a good starting point, plus it also has a specific bit of hijinx that changes the landscape (literally).
Abysmal: it doesn't matter what I think. If that's what you believe and if it legitimately gives you some solace, then who am I to tell you differently? But, if it's a security blanket laying on top of things you really need to process, then perhaps you lose nothing in trying to see if there's a different way to go. In any event, FWIW: I don't believe the answers really lie in our perpetual consumption of media - that's part of the point.
Mr.Duck on 7/11/2019 at 06:42
<3
Gray on 9/11/2019 at 23:48
Quote Posted by henke
I've seen a few episodes of Bojack here and there but it's never really grabbed me. Should probably give it another go.
That's what I'm thinking right now. I saw pretty much all of season 1, half of 2, but I didn't quite get into it. Did I miss something important? Perhaps I should give it another go as well.
About the baseline thingy: I may have misunderstood the concept, but from personal experience, it does not seem to uniformly apply to me. Sure, when things are stable, perhaps it does. But my baseline has shifted vastly at least twice over the last 12 years, to the point where it is now tricky to even call it a baseline anymore.
Clearly, when I was watching BoJack, I must not have been paying enough attention, I was mainly annoyed by what an asshole the main character is, and didn't see deeper psychology of it. I might give it another go. Unless this is really a big massive joke and it's just a show about a talking cartoon horse-man. I'll caveat with my standard "I'm pretty thick nowadays and clever details may elude me". But I'll give it another go.
Sulphur on 10/11/2019 at 07:34
Quote Posted by Gray
About the baseline thingy: I may have misunderstood the concept, but from personal experience, it does not seem to uniformly apply to me. Sure, when things are stable, perhaps it does. But my baseline has shifted vastly at least twice over the last 12 years, to the point where it is now tricky to even call it a baseline anymore.
There are things that can affect it over the long term - point 5 in the link, for instance, posits that different people adapt differently, and an event like marriage may cause a shift if it's a great enough net positive. Keep in mind it's a generalised theory for a specific thing, and there are individual differences to consider too. Like I said, reality tends to be more complicated.
As for the show, it's definitely about a talking horse-man. That's the schtick. If season 2 didn't work for you, then it might be possible it's just not in the set of things you enjoy, and that's fine. It only really started to slide into place for me with the first episode of S2, when BoJack's mom tells him she read his book and what he thinks of her. The entirety of what she says, the entire 'you were born broken' speech, comes from a place of ambiguity: is it resentment masquerading as an apology? is it a twisted but ultimately accurate interpretation of his psyche? is she projecting her own brokenness? is it a complex mix of all of that? That's what made me sit up and pay attention. In my experience, no one can hurt you as much as the people who know you inside out, and those people tend to be family. It's something that rings with emotional truth, which is what the show really brings out as it goes on.
Gray on 11/11/2019 at 01:47
Hmm, interesting. Yeah, I'll give it another go, if nothing else but to prove myself wrong. I love it when I'm wrong.