Why is Rick and Morty such a successful show, despite its weak use of its characters? The reason: because most episodes have a "hook" to them, an idea or object that the viewer wants to think about. Lawnmower dog had the inception devices, anatomy park had the park, shaym-aliens had the simulation machine, meeseeks and destroy had the meeseeks box, something ricked this way comes had cursed items, close rick-counters of the rick kind had portal spam, a rickle in time had some made up time stuff, mortynight run had a big discussion about culpability, total rickall had memory parasites, get schwifty had a big discussion about religion, the ricks must be crazy had pocket universes, big trouble in little sanchez had clone renewal, and the rickshank rickdemption had the brainalizer. The weak episodes in rick and morty try to rely on the characters and their interactions, which is the weakness of the show (raising gazorpazorp, rixty minutes, ricksy business, auto erotic assimilation, interdimensional cable 2, and look who's purging now). Unfortunately, it looks like season 3 is getting rid of their hooks to episodes, and only giving us the characters, or "character-based hooks" (the mad max episode had divorce, the pickle rick episode had therapy, the vindicators episode had wasted rick, and the latest episode tried to hook the audience with the possiblility that jerry had the power to kill rick). Fundamentally, these "hooks" in season 3 just can't get peoples attention, leaving only the jokes and the sight gags as the main engine of the show. This can still work, season 3 might not be a complete wash, but season 3 just wont have any memorable episodes, all it will have are memorable jokes.
Why Rick and Morty has some good episodes
I agree. They've also been taking people way out of character, and episode 5 was definitely pushing a feminist agenda.
Roiland's improvised humor is also rare this season, while in the last 2 it was everywhere.
I blame the new feminist writers desu.
You telling me that Pickle Rick isn't the greatest hook in the history of media?
In all seriousness, I think you are on to something. The best episodes place the characters in alien situations and all the normal drama is given a bigger stake. In the worst episodes, the normal drama is in the forefront and the alien stuff seems less important.
Hey, it's no Futurama (pre-cancellation)
Anyway, how do you think it could be improved? Be as specific as possible, please.
I actually agree with you but I'd say the immortality-field (and maybe the wormhole) were the hooks to the latest episode. At least that's why I liked it so much more than episodes 2 - 4.
Well Justin, I'm not OP, but I guess the obvious answer is that the show should go back to being a sci-fi concept show instead of a character driven show.
What makes you think I'm Justin?
Also, which cartoons do work when character-driven?
WOOOAAHHH MORTY! CH-CHECK IT OUT! *burp* I'M A THREAD! I'M IN A THREAD ON Sup Forums!
I'M THREAD POST RIIIIIIIICK
Southpark maybe? I enjoyed season5~7 better than later seasons.
It's easy to blame femists all the time but I feared something like this was bound to happen even from the beginning of the show.
The driving force of the show, Rick's 'le scientific nihilism' might attract millennial viewership for sometime but will ultimately turn into burden as the show goes on.
Rick can be edgy as he wants because he never has to suffer the consequence of his action. Fucked up the entire planet with mutant virus? Let's just move in to alternate reality where I conveniently kill myself with unrefined experiment. My pal is dead? There's literal infinite version of him jacking off among different time lines. Whatever, I'm just gonna have fun till my life runs out.
He did show some signs of humanity and affection for current particular version of Morty but if Justin fails to convince viewers of his reasoning behind coming back to sense of responsibility and just leave his past and lore as mcguffin, there won't be much of substance to go on.
It is still ok scifi show tho
How about making it so that c-137 Rick can only travel to a new dimension a certain number of times, and after that, he has to stay in the last dimension he entered until he dies?
Well he still has knowledge to build portal gun from scratch so I'm not sure how they will introduce such episode.
Like I'm ok with portal game style usage of his gun but it's really hard to relate to anyone of the show with Rick's access to infinite timeline. Or maybe Justin can elaborate on Rick's statement from season 2 when he said "we can't do this(blend into other universe where both of us die) all the time" cuz I'm not sure what's stopping him from doing that trick if there indeed exist "infinite" version of universe.
What would you have done differently?
It could have been somewhat more 'fair' if Rick had ability to observe and communicate with other universes but do not have means to directly interact with them. Only citadel has access to technology that allows warping into different timeline (and maybe gov of Ricks too if they had shady deal with citadel).
Sure, that's a good idea.
Maybe someone can make an AU in which that's true?
the immortality field isn't really a hook because its completely irrelevant
you could edit the episode to get rid of the field, and everything would be exactly the same
rick would know something is up with jerry because jerry immediately knew the rear passengers were danger, and grappled rick to move him out of the way of the attack (totally out of character for him). I think the field was supposed to be a hook, but it ended up as a half baked plot device
>out of character for Jerry
So you think Jerry would rather let Rick die?
I mean, his competency is out of character for him
additionally, the guy jerry made the deal with brought it up to rick before passing out, so, rick would 100% know no matter what, removing any purpose the immortality field plot device could have
How would you have written the episode?
I mean, i wouldn't do that episode at all, the plot doesn't work at all. The immortality field isn't used for anything, and the ending is just an ass pull (accidentally shooting the circuitry caused the transportation system to fuck up time, so rick's drug can wear off?). The immortality field is not inherently interesting, so that needs to be changed out completely. Rick wanted a safe adventure for jerry, right? So, rick could make a bunch of robots to hang out with jerry as he searches for adventure (in whatever dimension rick drops jerry in). Of course, the robots need to follow rules to not let jerry get hurt, so, jerry has to write some laws of robotics to make sure the robots don't hurt him or anyone else. However, jerry is also a huge, pitiful pussy, so the (frequently updating) laws of robotics jerry comes up with gets more and more unwieldy, and the robots struggle harder and harder to follow the law.
Hmm... Sounds like a good idea, maybe someone can make a fanfic or fan-comic out of this?
>Not rick rolling while rick posting.
You had one job user, one fucking job.