Originally Posted by Straker:
“What's the alternative? That's he's the nicest man left on earth? Would that be funny?”
Unlikely.
But in the first series the character was in the mould of a classic cringe comedy character.
You rooted for him and wanted to like him despite his behaviour often being immature, selfish, manipulative, idiotic and self-destructive. Because each cringeworthy decision/moment was rooted in the sense that the character is deep down a decent guy who's just sabotaged by his own flaws and the awkward situations he's confronted with.
But as the second series has gone on, that style of comedy has slipped away to be replaced by Phil's endlessly self-centred whining and buffoonery.
And their attempts to utilize the rest of the (weak) characters while still revolving around Phil has merely resulted in increasingly unjustifiable and infuriating behaviour, as Phil's two-faced, anarchic egotism has become the foil for every other character's storyline, also resulting in Phil becoming more and more unlikeable.
Originally Posted by Straker:
“My issue with it is that it's never really lived up to the title and that it doesn't develop. It's essentially the same all the time which is just a bunch of ill-matched people forced to live together and the comedy comes from how poorly they rub along. Yes, that's the basis of many, many sit-coms but we deserve more from this. If they made better use of the post-apocalypse setting it would mitigate the sameness/repetition it's sadly fallen into.”
That is one of my biggest gripes too and I believe that is why, or perhaps down to, the show becoming too Phil-centric rather than garnering its humour from the situations the characters are faced with.
I won't go into a run-down of the whole first series, but if you analyze the events over the course of the series they were mostly based on the situations thrown up by the circumstances of the post-apocalyptic world. That was where the humour was emanating from, and Phil was the conduit for all the senses of awkwardness, inadequacy, loneliness, desperation etc. that it created.
At the end of season 1, where Phil and Carol went off together to travel America, I had hoped we were going to return to that style of comedy rather than the group/sitcom style they were slipping into with the introduction of all the other characters.
But then they pretty much skipped over all of Phil and Carol's travels and by episode 3 of series 2 they were back with the group and the narrative restrictions that places on the show.
As others have remarked in this thread, the best episode of this current season was probably the episode where Mike crashed back down to earth and was presented with the bizarre circumstances of seemingly being the last man on earth.
As you say, without that angle to exploit the show has become repetitive. And, in my opinion, far far too focused on Phil and his endless histrionics.
The fact that the next episode in the series is titled "Skidmark" I think tells you where the show is heading with Phil and Mike's reunion, and how the inventiveness of the first series has been replaced with a lazy and lowbrow style and tone.
