Here at Flavorwire, we do our level best to engage in rational, reasoned, thoughtful criticism. But there are elements of our culture that are simply out of our analytical grasp: the films, music, authors, television shows, etc. that we hate with no reasonable explanation. Welcome to Irrational Hatred Week, in which your Flavorwire staffers share what we loathe in a variety of media, and do our best to figure out why. Today’s Irrational Hatred topic: TV.
The Office
Pretty much everyone turned on The Office in the past few years, but I’ve never enjoyed it. In fact, I tend to have a problem with most office humor, from Dilbert to Office Space. There’s something about the quiet desperation of self-identified drones, their euphemism-spewing middle managers, and the busywork on which they halfheartedly spend most of their waking hours that strikes me as profoundly depressing, not funny. I don’t want these people to form one big, happy, adorably dysfunctional family of corporate slaves; I want them to get the fuck out of there already, and do something they actually find meaningful. — Judy Berman, Editor-in-Chief
Curb Your Enthusiasm
I do not get the appeal of subjecting myself to irascible, old, disgruntled men unless I have to watch C-SPAN. At least there there’s some kind of public interest involved. — Michelle Dean, Editor at Large
Breaking Bad
I really want to like Breaking Bad, but I can’t. I just can’t get past the first season where he’s a guy supposedly dying of cancer, and I can’t get past the fact that I know he doesn’t die, but instead ends up becoming a terrible guy. I’m not quite sure why I can’t move past these things, but at least I recognize it’s irrational and possibly a little silly. — Jason Diamond, Literary Editor
Sex and the City
As a fan of Sarah Jessica Parker since L.A. Story, I was genuinely excited when HBO started airing ads for Sex and the City — and the title sure didn’t hurt. (I was 22.) I eagerly tuned in to the first episode, and if memory serves, I didn’t even make it all the way through. I would see bits and pieces of it occasionally in subsequent years, as it became some kind of cultural touchstone, and the show always just made me angry. I understand that it’s deeply beloved, and vaguely important w/r/t female sexuality in mass media and so on, but it is unwatchable television, filled with loathsome characters and smug self-satisfaction and the worst kind of “WOMEN BE SHOPPIN'” gender stereotyping. Fifteen years later, it still makes my skin crawl. — Jason Bailey, Film Editor
How I Met Your Mother
Granted, I’ve never given it much of a shot, but from the few moments I’ve caught of this show while channel-surfing (and the one full episode I attempted to watch), I can’t understand the appeal of How I Met Your Mother other than the notion that people missed Friends so much that they needed it replicated but with a high-concept conceit attached Also (sorry, everyone) I think Neil Patrick Harris is really, really boring. — Tyler Coates, Deputy Editor
30 Rock
In a way, 30 Rock is a victim of its own success; in the late ’00s, you could barely step out the door without someone bailing you up and raving about how funny it was and how great Tina Fey was and Alec Baldwin and zzzzzz. And, y’know, it was fine. OK. Average. Somewhat amusing. Genius? No, no, no, no, no. There were a bazillion great sitcoms made during the last decade — the UK version of The Office, Party Down, The Thick of It, Community, The Mighty Boosh, etc. etc. etc. And yet somehow this middling meta-comedy that just wasn’t that funny somehow comes atop every list that anyone’s ever written of best ’00s comedies. Mediocrity will win out, I guess. —Tom Hawking, Music Editor