Rrrobert

I am watching on DVD and am up to episode 230.

The show is well written with a mature modern sensibility that still plays well in 2023. The acting is very good and the characters are well crafted and seem believable. The storylines are well thought out and progress at a steady pace that allows the drama, intrigue and suspense to build.

Beside the workplace and interpersonal clashes and the romantic affairs are some comedy elements and these fit in well. It is always fun watching actors playing scenes about television production and actors.

The show looks much better once it switches to colour in episode 221. Later colour episodes add more comedy and more location-shot footage.

Mostly good cast and good locations are wasted in a derivative Halloween-type slasher. The makers of the film clearly intended to give a lot of time to the to-be-murdered characters which seems noble - except the characters that we spend so much time on are stereotypical college archetypes. In the event it is just many scenes of their pointless chatter and their trite, predictable situations like hazing rituals, dating, worrying about grades, cheating on tests. And some of the acting is pretty weak.

This is isn't helped by having so much of the film focused on Animal House-type hijinks that do not have any horror or suspense elements at all. When they do hint at horror there are so many red herrings it dissipates the suspense.

The nerdy Radish (Joel S. Rice) is the standout interesting character. Courtney (Cecile Bagdadi) seems destined to be the Final Girl. But really there is nothing that notable about her character, she is just shown to be somewhat shy and is more studious and styled more plainly than her pal Lisa, played by DeAnna Robbins who progressed to soap opera roles.

Connected to the extra time spent with the future victims is the lack of any revenge plot, opening flashback, police investigation, or even a whodunnit connected to the murderer. As it is the killer just shows up. It is never explained who it is, their connection to the location or any of the characters, nor the killer's motive. Really this just falls flat.

The murders are either off camera or are relatively prosaic, and avoid gore effects. A popular move here is the Psycho-style robotic stab. Even some of these kills look clumsily staged, which will disappoint slasher fans for sure.

There are many prickly relationship comedies, many wedding related comedies, many gross-out comedies, many my-life-is-a-mess comedies and many comedies that shoe-horn in a romance.

This has all those familiar elements but it works really well. It is well-paced despite the long run time, with a good mix of the various elements that keeps the entertainment and comedy value strong. Importantly the characters and relationships seem believable which makes the comedy parts so much more effective when they happen.

Kristen Wiig plays the lead character and co-wrote (taking care to include romantic associations with two really attractive guys). Wiig is really funny and effective in the role. I also really enjoyed the performances of Rose Byrne and Chris O'Dowd. Melissa McCarthy is good and her bit on the plane was really funny.