Sunday Browns and Disenchanted Disappointment – Blaugust 19

Today is not just an “I can’t think of anything to write” day, it’s an “I actively don’t want to write because I hate the way I write” day. I was working on a post about comments last night but it’s not finished and I don’t want to post it until it is.

It’s been, what, two days since I reported on Battle for Azeroth, so surely there must be a clamoring for news there. I finished with the Tiragarde Sound part of The Big Map On The Wall, then somehow I ended up on an entirely different continent in a place called Zuldinar fighting racially-segregated Horde forces, casually committing goblin genocide for the lulz, then I found my way back to The Big Map On The Wall and took a rowboat to Drustvar. I think I’m nearing level 113.

I’m enjoying the rather non-WoW-like style of the Survival Hunter class. I’m using a staff now, for some inexplicable reason, which is pretty interesting. However I have to say Hunter pets are getting on my nerves. It’s almost impossible to take a screenshot without your pet getting in the way.

Disappointed with Disenchanted

The Yoast plugin yells at me every time I fail to put a subheading in my posts, so there!

I watched Disenchanted on Netflix, the new version of the show from the team that brought you The Simpsons and Futurama. I was going to stop watching after the first episode, in which I don’t think I even lightly chuckled a single time, but I ended up watching all 10 episodes. In the whole course of the series, I only laughed a few times. I mean, it was supposed to be a comedy, right? I could see all the times when they were trying to be funny, but it just … wasn’t funny. The essence of comedy for me is surprise, and there were no surprises.

It had the look of a show that was created using a process something like this. Cue dramatic recreation:

Netflix Execs: Matt Groening! Here’s a billion dollars! Can you make us a show?

Matt Groening and Company: Well we have this script in a back drawer that’s been rejected by every network because all the sarcastic jabs are heavy-handed and unsubtle and not that funny, but we can draw it to look sort of like The Simpsons, but just different enough to make it look slightly new, and we can use some of the same fantastic voice actors from Futurama so there are recognizable names in the credits, but put them in background parts so they don’t upstage the mediocre unknown actors phoning in the main parts, and we can edit the whole thing together in a way that looks like we’re not trying very hard, but it will have the same funny puns in the shop signs in the background so it will be like a continuation of our signature shows that everyone actually wants to watch but aren’t available on your network anymore? Will that work for you?

Netflix Execs: It sounds perfect! Love everything about it!

I’m sure it was nothing like that, and everyone involved surely put a lot of work into it. But somehow it lacks the undefinable “spark” of a great animated comedy. Maybe it just needs four or five more seasons to “bake.”

P. S. You just can’t please this stupid Yoast plugin!