Geek Chic
Monty Python is the subject in another "Gateway To Geekery" at the A.V. Club. Being a long-time fan, I don't have too many complaints, but there's this:
The group’s original claim to fame, the BBC series Monty Python’s Flying Circus, ran four seasons (or “series,” in Brit-speak), for a total of 45 episodes. None of these are outright horrid, but the quality varies especially in the latter half, when the writing loses steam and some sketches of questionable humor get stretched longer than necessary.
and
Though the third and fourth series grow increasingly hit-or-miss (with John Cleese actually sitting out of the fourth series almost entirely), there isn’t really a complete dud in the whole lot.
Okay, everyone agrees the Cleeseless fourth season doesn't match the earlier stuff, but who thinks the third season is a drop-off? Cleese might have been getting tired, but the troupe had figured it out by this point and was operating at the top of their game. If anything, they were experimenting more than ever with the form. We're talking about thirteen shows, their 27th through 39th--in America, most series are just getting started around then.
What sketches does season three have? Oh, to name a few, there's the fish-slapping dance, argument clinic, the merchant banker, a dull Terry Jones making everyone laugh uncontrollably, summarizing Proust, Mr. Smoke-Too-Much, the cheese shop, Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days, Mr. Pither, Olympic hide and seek, Dennis Moore, the Prejudice Show, No Time To Lose and the Oscar Wilde sketch. You may prefer the second season, but it's hard to say the third was a disappointment.
PS The article also comes down on the side of Life Of Brian. I've always preferred Holy Grail.
The group’s original claim to fame, the BBC series Monty Python’s Flying Circus, ran four seasons (or “series,” in Brit-speak), for a total of 45 episodes. None of these are outright horrid, but the quality varies especially in the latter half, when the writing loses steam and some sketches of questionable humor get stretched longer than necessary.
and
Though the third and fourth series grow increasingly hit-or-miss (with John Cleese actually sitting out of the fourth series almost entirely), there isn’t really a complete dud in the whole lot.
Okay, everyone agrees the Cleeseless fourth season doesn't match the earlier stuff, but who thinks the third season is a drop-off? Cleese might have been getting tired, but the troupe had figured it out by this point and was operating at the top of their game. If anything, they were experimenting more than ever with the form. We're talking about thirteen shows, their 27th through 39th--in America, most series are just getting started around then.
What sketches does season three have? Oh, to name a few, there's the fish-slapping dance, argument clinic, the merchant banker, a dull Terry Jones making everyone laugh uncontrollably, summarizing Proust, Mr. Smoke-Too-Much, the cheese shop, Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days, Mr. Pither, Olympic hide and seek, Dennis Moore, the Prejudice Show, No Time To Lose and the Oscar Wilde sketch. You may prefer the second season, but it's hard to say the third was a disappointment.
PS The article also comes down on the side of Life Of Brian. I've always preferred Holy Grail.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:12 AM
2 Comments:
I find it was best to watch the Python episodes out of order. No point in foisting a linear conception on a nonlinear product.
Each episode is fairly self-containted. Occasionally they have references to other episodes and running gags that would make a slight difference.
You can sort of tell the seasons apart (aside from the titles nad credits and the "It's" stuff). The first season, especially its first half, is the most conventional (for Python, anyway), offering fairly straightforward sketches with interesting links, but not too mindbending. When they do stuff like break the fourth wall, they sometimes feel they have to comment on it. By the second season they've pretty much got it down. By the third season they're so used to it it's almost second nature. The fourth season is an afterthought, only 6 and no Cleese.
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