I’ll leave it to James Gray to summarize my thoughts about people’s issues with the new season’s pacing. The episodes of the original Fox series were consistently at or around 21 minutes in length, and these new episodes range from 27 to around 35 minutes. Now for me, and I’m sure for many people, this offers a freedom the show didn’t have before, some extra breathing room, and some space for the show to let some jokes sink in and some moments linger, as well as packing in other details that would have been otherwise cut, details that may have been too obscure or hard to get but were left in because you don’t need to worry so much about everything landing the first time. For a show that has been praised endlessly about its refusal to make everything immediately accessible to audiences watching for their first time, it’s being criticized pretty severely for sticking to this same principle.
Yes, the show has mellowed the frantic pace that network constraints made necessary. No, this does not make it worse, only different. It’s not the same show with the same breakneck speed to its jokes. If that’s the only reason you enjoyed the show in the first place, because you like things that go fast, then you can go sleep with Marky Bark. I would rather have moments like Sally Sitwell and Tony Wonder taking a long pause after she reveals she has never shaved a leg before in her life, or Gob’s stuttering going on for about four times as long as it was allowed in the previous seasons, or Michael repeating “Look, listen, look” as many times as he damn well pleases. It’s looser, more meanderous at times, not as tick-tick-tick as the previous seasons, but “tightness” isn’t inherently a virtue, even in comedy.
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