For the love of television.
I've been spending a bit too much time in the toxic depths of the comments on my recent video about The Boys, and a single, infuriating theme keeps bubbling up: the idea that the writing is "bad" because it's unserious. There seems to be this strange assumption that once a budget reaches a certain level, creators aren't allowed to have fun anymore.
But The Boys is produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg—the same team behind Sausage Party. When people complain about "MCU-ification" or plot holes, what I see are creatives playing in an expensive sandbox, exploring how far they can push a rebel-sized middle finger using the budget of the evil empire itself. It’s a celebration of television as a medium, and recognizing the delight they have for their craft changes the way you perceive the show.
This isn't just about The Boys. It's about what happens when creators bake their love for the medium into the episodic DNA of their productions.
The Art of Having a Blast
One of the best examples of a production having a blast is Psych. It was a detective procedural that functioned as an endless tribute to the creators' favorite media, featuring shot-for-shot tributes to Twin Peaks and re-imagining its own theme song in styles ranging from Bollywood to a Boyz II Men a cappella cover. By hiding a pineapple in nearly every episode, they turned the audience into engaged co-conspirators.
We see this same endearing delight in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Despite being part of a franchise often suffocated by decades of "serious" canon, it embraces the episodic nature of TV to experiment with style and tone.
The episode "Those Old Scientists" featured a live-action crossover with the animated Lower Decks, even re-imagining the opening title sequence in an animated style.
"Subspace Rhapsody" delivered the first-ever musical episode in Star Trek history, complete with a brilliant a cappella treatment of the theme music.
Scenery Chewing and Title Card Gags
Even shows with "network slog DNA"—those that deliver 20-plus episodes a season, season after season—can demonstrate this love. Elsbeth, a spinoff of The Good Wife, uses a revolving door of guest stars like Keegan-Michael Key and Jane Krakowski to let brilliant character actors just have fun and chew the scenery.
Then there’s Cougar Town, which realized its own premise was a dead end and leaned into the absurdity.
It engaged in elaborate meta-commentary, like a "cameo loop" with the show Community.
The creators used the weekly title card to apologize to the audience for the show's objectively terrible name.
You can see this same playful DNA in showrunner Bill Lawrence’s later work, like Shrinking and Rooster.
Context is King
Bad writing certainly exists, but context is king. You can choose to hate-watch The Boys as if it were a failed high-concept logic puzzle like The Wire, or you can see it for what it is: a glorious act of diabolical creative mischief.
Television is more intimate than a two-hour film; we spend more time with these characters than we do with some of our real-life friends. When the people behind the camera love the medium, you can feel it through the screen. The best creators put playfulness and love into their art because that’s simply how art works at its best.
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