#i've never even seen the show (phineas and ferb? is that what its called?)

[lyriumrain]

"I love that the "If I had a nickle for every time..." has been so over used by the internet that it has literally inverted on its definition. No longer does it ever mean that we've done something a lot, it is always either 2 or 3 times depending on what kind of internet human the person is in to. Wild stuff lmao"

wow. i've never encountered someone who didn't know what the "if I had a nickel..." saying inversion is referencing. Bro thinks the internet just did that for no reason

[duran-duran-less-official]

I guess the Milo Murphy post really ties in with something I've been tossing around in my head for a while.

I've seen that post going around, don't remember who wrote it, but it was calling out bits from a Buzzfeed-esque article which waxed lyrical about how Avatar: The Last Airbender was the greatest TV show of all time (probably in celebration of it coming to Netflix or something), thoroughly deconstructing that line of thought and highlighting just how kids-show-y it could be.

And on the one hand I get that, absolutely, because it WAS overblown praise and superlatives are generally not well-employed in fandom circles.

But on the other hand, if I were to scale that praise down a tiny bit and say instead "Avatar: The Last Airbender is the greatest cartoon series of all time", you would understand what I meant, right? There isn't, like, one unarguably greatest TV show of all time, you have to split it up by fairly specific genres just to get a clear set of candidates. Is Breaking Bad the best TV show of all time? Probably not. Is it the greatest serial Tragedy drama of all time? There's a decent chance of it. Is Star Trek: TNG the best TV show of all time? Doubt it. Is it the best optimistic sci-fi show of all time? It's a strong candidate.

And the point of dividing such candidates up by genre serves two purposes. One, it lets a show in a particular category stand on its own merits. Suppose Breaking Bad was elected the 1 True Best TV Show Ever by a wide-ranging set of audience polls, whatever, that's some kind of informative, but Best TV Show Ever is such a broad category that it hardly matters. It doesn't reflect how integral Doctor Who has been to time-travel as a genre, nor what any given TV iteration of Star Trek has done for science fiction, nor how Avatar: The Last Airbender managed to blend simplistic moral lessons for kids with much deeper and more complex moral lessons about war, politics, death, and responsibility. If you tried honestly and unbiasedly ranking the top 10 TV shows ever, you'd end up with a hodgepodge of Winning Candidates from 10 specific genres.

The other thing, which I guess is the main thrust of this post, is that it allows you, the audience member, to adjust your expectations to the show you're watching. ATLA might win ATLA-shaped prizes, but obviously it could never compete with Breaking Bad for best TV show. Well that's very obviously true, but nobody ever seems to ask how Breaking Bad would fare in an ATLA-shaped contest for best TV show, with its complete lack of East-Asian-inspired worldbuilding, cool elemental powers, and slow-burning redepmtion arcs.

And if you sit down to watch something like ATLA, why would you expect Breaking Bad then be disappointed when you don't get it? It makes no sense, because you know what genre ATLA is and you have adjusted yourself to expect a children's show, albeit one with hefty amounts of lore and martial arts.

Portal is not a disappointing video game because it bears no resemblance to Undertale or Papers, Please. Nobody would criticise The Mandalorian for being insufficiently like Gravity Falls.

So when I say something like "Milo Murphy's Law has a really well-written season arc", I am only expecting you to interpret that in the context of similar children's cartoons with periphery appeal to adults, such as Phineas and Ferb or Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, not House of Cards. Obviously I'm not saying it's the new Prime Time Drama, and if I am then shame on me, but you as an audience member should be able to work out in advance what you expect from each genre and whether you personally could get anything out of it. If you aren't the type of person who enjoys kids' shows or campy sci-fi, then that's fine, but I'm not the sort of person who enjoys a show like Breaking Bad, so I wouldn't sit down in front of it and say "this is rubbish, it's not even a little bit like Moomin".