‘Mythic Quest’ and the Doom of (Fictional) Men
The impossible challenge of sitcoms is that you have to give your absurd characters depth over time, but depth in turn ruins the show.
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There have been a lot of situation comedies produced over the years1. A lot. For every Friends or Community or Abbott Elementary that carves out some kind of lingering cultural impression there are literally hundreds of half-hour shows that made people laugh a little and then buggered off the the great pop culture graveyard in the sky. I mean, Coach was in the Top 20 in 1990, and it’s a perfectly funny show that no one—literally no one—has thought about in the last 20 years until I just did just now2.
So, most sitcoms just come along, make you forget the hellhole that is modern life for a little while, and then fade away into irrelevance. That’s probably where Mythic Quest is headed. It’s a perfectly cromulent show about a video game production company that arrived with a sheen of prestige thanks to Apple money3, but it’s just a mildly entertaining comedy most of the time. Currently in Season Four, it’s starting to show a pretty typical bit of wear and tear for a sitcom: Its characters are less absurd then they used to be, and it’s screwing everything up4.
It’s Not My Fault That These Watermelons Don’t Explode Like Real Heads
There’s a fun line in Episode Three of the fourth season (“Breakthrough”) where Ian (Rob McElhenney) describes his erstwhile creative partner Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicado) as having “the pH level of a car battery.” That’s a funny line ... for the version of Poppy that existed in the first season or two. Poppy was presented as a socially awkward, traditionally junk-food fueled developer, and he personal habits were frequent targets of humor5.
But as sitcoms age, their characters have to deepen. An absurd, weirdo character is great fun, but they wear thin. People demand that they show some emotional depth, reveal heretofore unsuspected aspects of their personalities, and offer up new, unexplored dimensions to mine for comedy6. So Poppy has matured—the current version of the character is much less chaotic and loser-ish than the original iteration. She’s in a stable relationship. She’s gained wealth and professional standing. She’s treated as an equal by Ian. Sure, she’s still a weirdo who loves candy too much, but she’s no longer the character who had a pH level of car battery, not really7. But the show wants to treat her that way, because that’s how sitcom engines work: There are patterns set for every character, and they don’t change easily or often8.
Like A Normal Person I Lost My Phone Ages Ago
Character development (hopefully) happens in every medium, of course—a character in a book series should certainly evolve and change over the course of their adventures9. But other formats are a bit more flexible than the sitcom, and can accommodate these shifts. Sitcoms are more rigid, and as Poppy becomes less ridiculous and more of an actual person it’s harder to sell the old jokes. There are essentially three routes open to a show when a character develops past their traditional joke patterns: One, the show can ignore this and just ramble on with a less-effective joke engine but a more compelling character; two, the show can revert the character by having them suffer tragedy—breakups, failures, any sort of life-altering moment will do; or, three, the show can bring in a new character who exhibits all the old tics and behaviors, transfer the old joke engine to them, and keep the original character in their elevated state as a kind of Character Emeritus on the show.
Mythic Quest looks likely to go the second route, having (apparently) disposed of her boyfriend and given her a shock pregnancy10. Watching Poppy Li fall apart as she attempts to bear and raise a child is a golden opportunity to make her a mess again, squeezing her back into her original shape and making all the jokes they’ve been workshopping since 2020 fit again11. Of course, there’s always the possibility of a combination, wherein Poppy remains on a road to normalcy in some ways but regresses in others, but that kind of subtlety is difficult to achieve in a sitcom.
Of course, chances are that no one will remember or talk about Mythic Quest in fifty years and I just spent a small but significant part of my existence thinking way too hard about a sitcom12, but them’s the breaks when you have a content hole to fill every week. What are the chances anyone remembers or talks about me fifty years from now? That’s just hurtful.
NEXT WEEK: Smile 2 and the Art of the Unlikable Protagonist
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And yet none based on my obviously ridiculous and hilarious life. It could be called Jeff Has Five Cats and a Mild Hangover.
And something called Davis Rules was in the Top 30 that year—it starred Randy Quaid and Jonathan Winters and it might be completely made up because I certainly have never heard of it despite being alive when it ostensibly aired.
The things I would do for Apple Money might shock you. Or, if you’re privy to my bank account, maybe not so much.
Is the title of my memoir Less Absurd Than I Used to Be? Absolutely not, because I am only growing more absurd with age.
My diet used to consist of microwaved burritos and buttered corn muffins. My blood was probably a thick syrup. How am I still alive?
Like the way my pantsless jokes were once hilarious subversions but have become sad cries for help. Wait …
It’s like when that one screwup friend in your social circle suddenly gets their shit together. You’re happy for them … but also sad that a reliable source of entertainment in your life has gone dark.
Just like my fashion sense, which has been consistent since I was eight years old.
Somehow every adventure I have just confirms that I’ve been more or less perfect since 1990.
Thye best joke they came up with for this is that Poppy’s shifting hormones have made candy taste terrible to her. That’s it, that’s the joke.
I also tend to have a “Jerk Store” approach to jokes, rehearsing them over and over again until an opportunity to unleash them comes along. It never works, but things never working has never slowed me down, not once.
You should hear the conversations I have with myself, which are out loud when I think I’m alone and likely resemble a Tyler Durden situation. According to myself, I’m brilliant.