Hey guys. What's new?

I quit Facebook, and then I dropped to my knees and bathed in the pouring rain. I know you would approve.

Good to see you. Life treating you well?

LKJ finally watched the room, loved it, and has devoted his life to being a Tommy Wiseau accolyte.

Life is treating me well despite this whole covid thing. You guys heard about this?

Been difficult as my SO lives 2000kms away and we haven't seen each other since December, but that's the way she goes.

Hope all is well with everyone. I've been following AEW pretty closely so I may end up sticking around this time.

Actually getting a good poster back would be a welcome change of pace. We’ve been slowly bleeding them forever.

Seems like it would make more sense to just move this entire subforum to a discord server, no?

Peanut Butter Falcon was a decent little movie. Nice Jake Roberts and Mick Foley cameos.

Wait: David Wallace called Michael Scott toward the end of season 3 to proactively invite him to interview for the job at corporate? And then it's made really clear from the transcript of this deposition in season 4 that interviewing Michael was basically the type of charity case that happens when an unqualified internal employee applies for a promotion?

I had forever just remembered the second part, and took it as Dunder Mifflin massaging Michael's delusions and/or granting him a meaningless interview as a matter of company policy. I see the start of Beach Games, and for some reason Wallace actively lured him into the interview. Weird.

That said, the fact that Wallace asked Karen about Michael during her interview makes me think that he was revising history in that later deposition. It makes no sense for him to ask her that if Michael's interview was pure filler.

Haha. I watched those episodes in the last 48 hours. First four seasons the last week.

I always think that Michael stopping David to say, "I think you're a nice guy too," is one of the underrated moments along the way.

Michael annoyed me often enough (beyond the writers' intentions, I think) that he was never my favorite character, but Steve Carell's acting on that show was just on a whole other level from everyone else.

In the honor of the unfortunately now-late Jerry Stiller...as a Mariners fan, I'm always tickled by the fact that Jay Buhner got this shoutout on Seinfeld courtesy of Frank Costanza.

Incidentally, regarding the Jon Bois Mariners series, I'm a little surprised this tidbit didn't get a mention: yes, we traded Ken Phelps for Jay Buhner, and in doing so absolutely fleeced the Yankees. However, immediately after the trade, Phelps turned up as a pinch hitter against the Mariners and promptly hit a 9th-inning home run to break up Brian Holman's perfect game. That was before the team ever had a no-hitter of any kind.

Obviously the trade was still very much worth it overall, but given the time spent on that Mike Blowers HR call, and given that they did take a second to mention the Phelps-for-Buhner trade, I'm surprised it didn't get a 30-second mention along the way.

This always seemed to be a consistent refrain about Jerry Stiller before today, so I don't think this is just some sort of post-mortem halo effect in action.

I’m still enjoying Office Ladies, but good ****ing grief do they need to unlearn the word “sass.”

I loved the Buhner mention too! Also, "how could you give X million dollars... to Hideki Irabu?!"

The #1 thing that I associate with Irabu was Steinbrenner calling him "a fat pussy toad," (pus-sy, not pussy) and newspapers imploding because they didn't feel they could quote it or even reasonably bring the quote across in censored form.

Wow, Ken Phelps was coming off 3 straight seasons with a .930+ OPS, and was in the middle of an even better year when traded.

Theres this youtube series that tries to pinpoint the exact moment a show "dies". The moment that the original show ceases to exist and it becomes a brand new show for better or worse (usually worse).

The Community one is easy: It's when Troy leaves.

The Office is a lot more complicated. The easy answer is "When Michael leaves" with a second potential obvious answer of when they head to Florida. That's when Andy becomes a total douche and Nellie gets introduced. They made the argument though that it was Jim/Pams wedding because that was when two of the most popular characters shifted to more of the normal relationships tropes: having a kid, finding a preschool, buying a house, looking for new work to make more money for the family, etc. It's also the moment that any of the normal will they/won't they tension that drove a lot of the show goes away.

I thought it was interesting and I think I like that answer. Previously I would have said when Michael left but now idk.

Jim and Pam certainly died as likable characters along the way, but it doesn't feel like it happened at the point of the wedding. I'm really not even sure that the wedding was the breaking point of their relationship as a worthwhile thing to watch. The proposal was probably more impactful than the wedding since the wedding episode was just a bunch of meh fan service, and by far the most enjoyable part of it were Dwight's escapades. However, it feels like Jim and Pam were still enjoyable characters past that.

Despite the fact that Florida Stanley was GOATish, I definitely feel like the Florida part is when the show actually descended toward being legitimately bad. It was very, very slowly bleeding out from years before, but it remained one of the best things on TV until late in the series.

My vote goes to Florida, with the runner-up being that there was no one jump-the-shark moment where it died. I don't think I'm buying the departure of Michael or the Jim/Pam wedding, just because it feels like there was still strong stuff directly after both.

This is a very enjoyable thread that further underlines why everyone should love Marshawn Lynch.

Good post. Just so happens I'm watching the wedding episode in my (5th) rewatch at this very moment!

Do you prefer to watch the episode and then listen to the podcast, or listen to the podcast and then watch so you catch all the tidbits they talk about? Or watch before and after listening?

I started off by going TV episode first; I've since switched to going podcast first so that I can then watch the TV episode and look for the Easter eggs they mention.

I stuck with it, and the show got quite a bit better in season three.

That said, this guy is pure nails on chalkboard and not at all funny in anything I've ever seen him in:

It took me years of effort to finally get one of my friends to start watching The Office. The effort finally paid off.