There's a lot of cringe in the show, and that put me off, though of course the comeuppance is grand, and you get to like the characters. I'm on my second rewatch. I've written about the comedy an obvious narcissism (one, two three), and I don't really find it funny most of the time, but it can occasionally be. I first thought of it watching Archer. He's such an ass, so oblivious. But that is part of the point. Then Arrested Development. And then the Canadian version, and perhaps the best version, is Schitt's Creek. Six seasons with 13, and later 14 episodes a season, end up with 80 episodes. I've exhausted New Girl, Community, Parks and Recreation, Arrested Development, Corner Gas and 30 Rock, which leaves Netflix at the end of this month, and exhausts my digestible sitcom dietary needs, that I've seen before and I don't have to pay attention to. I used to be obsessive about making sure I saw everything in a narrative. I also like sci-fi, so I can do Star Treks, Battlestar Galactica, Orville, Star Wars, Cowboy Bebop, Altered Carbon, Umbrella Academy and a million other projections into the future.
The joke in Schitt's Creek is you're an oblivious sophisticated ass, and take away your money and you are not really of any value, impotent, irrelevant, easy to poke fun at. If the Kardashians were allowed to have wit and humor. Canada has this polite thing, but it also has a million ways to zing oblivious narcissists. It's a humbling, a comedown. It's helping you to be right sized. And it zooms away when it's not funny any more. It's not realism, or drama or anything else. Set them up with their pretensions and then knock them down. A family of narcissists in endless variety. The town folk play with them like a cat who has a mouse. And there's also a million setups for "Ew". And the undercutting of the dramatic moment.
I fell in love with Stevie the first watch through. It's weird that I fall in love with actresses, and then when I rewatch I wonder what I was thinking. They're attractive, they have a role somehow that I like, but when I come back I don't really feel it, I'm over them. It wasn't love. I'm aware that I fell in love with someone in a show, and that's all just imaginary, the drama I see, and the wanting a relationship with them. Somehow her nihilistic, sarcastic, fear based life appeals to me. I would also love her as a friend and acquaintance. Emily Hampshire's Cabarete number was amazing.
Dan Levy has the best facial expressions. Catherine O'Hara is wonderful, she looks surprisingly like Eugene Levy's wife. Eugene Levy is the straight man, trying to keep it all together, trying to be unflappable but actually brittle and the opposite.
I remember when Chris Eliot burst onto the scene as a production assistant on David Letterman. I just read his wikipedia page, what an interesting story. He has a bunch of books, but my library doesn't have any of them. I didn't know Sarah Levy, the waitress, is a Levy. When you look at the family photos, the mother looks like Catherine O'Hara, she could have been in the show.
I cried at the wedding in my second runthrough. I cried at the end of the documentary about the show on Netflix. It was so meaningful.
Some Quotes:
"I hate to break it to you David, but there will always be someone for me to boss flirtatiously around." Alexis
"I could conjure up the words to bedazzle your spirit, but no you need to be exactly where you are." Moira.
"Hey Alexis, another greens smoothie no greens." Twyla to Alexis
"What you lack in most things, you make up for in unsubstantiated confidence." Stevie to David S3E7
"He said he would never date someone with a toe ring, and yet..." Alexis episode 2.
"David, how long are you going to be doing this (he's shotgunning a beer in a funnel and tube). Just come and get me after you throw up."
"They're no name commentators. Tormentors. (A we having a bad day honey?) Anonymous. Ominous."
Later, "Don't let her out of your sight, we don't want her detonating in public."
Moira: "You date only pigs." Alexis: "Okay, I just remember that being a mother is not your strong suit."
"Perhaps it's this negative attitude that caused past relationships to oxidize."
"As the Irish like to say, it's a cinch to mash the Murphy where there's love." (explanation)
"[Moira scream] Don't start without me you little frippet. You don't have the media training." Moira is with Joselyn at the hospital about to give birth, and she's in the back seat while Joselyn. She's not going to make it, but gets a zinger in there to undermine her daughter.
Links:
Klair on wiki one of 248 pages.
1/14/24. Began a rewatch, reading what I wrote in the past.
I love Moira screaming, and David and Alexis telling each other to shut up. I think the Alexis character is absolutely genius. I love Moira's scream. Of course everyone is attracted to Stevie because she's sane, wholesome and centered, no airs. The Schitts are horrible but human. Everyone has a dramatic vector so I don't think, oh no, you shouldn't do that, because sometimes you're just moving the drama along.
Some people like Fawlty Towers, and some people quote The Office quite a lot, but somehow Schitt's Creek, despite it's klang skits, is the one for me, I think sometimes. I'm laughing the way my pop laughed at Fawlty Towers.
I really think they evolve past their narcissism in this show. It's really quite a character development, of 4 people in a family.
I low the way Moira can really "yes, and..." people, and flow with things. Nobody else can "yes and" like her. David actively resists it.
I have said so many oblivious things in my life, I'm uncomfortable watching other narcissists because I'm too much of one for my own tastes.
I'm realizing totally loving Stevie is part of my outsider schema.
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