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So I recently decided to purchase all five seasons of How I Met Your Mother because Netflix has, for the first time, irritated me. If any given TV show has more than one disc in a season, Netflix will only give you one of those discs at a time, unless you have a three discs out-at-a-time plan. I do not want to wait several days to get the next five or so episodes and none of my friends have any seasons of the show beyond the second one, so I figured I might as well get them myself. Problem is, each season runs you $30-$60, and fuck that, so I hit up Ebay.

I’ve learned my lessons about being a safe shopper on Ebay, and I make sure to check the location, shipping rates, and feedback of potential sellers. I stumbled across a brand-new collection of all five seasons of the show for only $70, which isn’t so bad. After investigating the seller, I purchase the set and get it in the mail three days later.

Every box was sealed in shrink-wrap, so it all looked legit, until I was watching a disc from the third season on my Xbox 360 when it kept freezing and the message, “Attempting to read media” was popping up again and again. This has happened before with legit DVDs, so I just assume my Xbox is being retarded, which isn’t an unreasonable assumption. Moving this operation to my computer, I realize things are not as they seem. First off, the print on the DVDs themselves look shady and faded. Then I removed them and noticed that behind the discs lay an image taken from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The fuck? Now, if anyone can confirm this is what is normally behind the DVDs that would be great, but I seriously doubt it. Moving on, I read the description of the show on back of the case. "Thity-yaar-old Ted is still looking for Miss Rights." Huh. Blaring typos there. I'm thinking this is a pirated copy.

The thing that strikes me as odd though, is that for the most part, everything else is as expected. The box art for the rest of the seasons are normal (thus far, I've only opened three), all of the content is in its proper place and accessible, and nothing is by default in another language. So even if these are pirated copies, whoever made them went through a lot of effort to make them look real. The only thing I can complain about is the quality of the video looks a bit blurry on my computer, but that may just be my monitor. All in all, this could've ended much worse, and I'm just glad I didn't get some Chinese knock-off that came in a "DVD box" made of newspaper.

My cousin had the whole 5 series on an external hard drive, so I stole them from him. I have to say, it's one of the best sitcoms I can remember seeing, and definately the best american one. Fawlty towers, of course, is and always will be the best sitcom ever.

Destiny wrote:My cousin had the whole 5 series on an external hard drive, so I stole them from him. I have to say, it's one of the best sitcoms I can remember seeing, and definately the best american one. Fawlty towers, of course, is and always will be the best sitcom ever.

What about Blackadder? I'd say that's just above Fawlty Towers.

But yeah. Beware of pirates.

Universezero wrote:

Destiny wrote:My cousin had the whole 5 series on an external hard drive, so I stole them from him. I have to say, it's one of the best sitcoms I can remember seeing, and definately the best american one. Fawlty towers, of course, is and always will be the best sitcom ever.

What about Blackadder? I'd say that's just above Fawlty Towers.

Blackadder? Really?
I've kinda been meaning to watch that for the last several years. It seems like it'd really be up my alley, given that I've thoroughly enjoyed Monty Python's stuff (Flying Circus, Holy Grail, Life of Brian, etc.), and now that you say it's better than the legendary Fawlty Towers I think I have to finally force myself to make time for it.

I find that claiming British comedies to be "the best" makes me look cultured and sophisticated. I may think that Chappelle's Show is the funniest thing ever made but damed if I won't tell people that I prefer Fry And Laurie.

Blackadder is fantastic, although coming at it from Monty Python and Fawlty Towers may be a bit jarring. Also, if series 1 of blackadder doesn't work for you, push on, as the style of humour changes COMPLETELY from series 2 onwards. Also, as a general rule, the quality improves with each series; I find series 3 and 4 to be preferable by a long stretch over 1 and 2.

Best sitcom? Father Ted, hands down.

And regarding Blackadder, keep in mind that it ends on one of the most horrifying notes a comedy has ever ended on.

Well, good news! After one of the DVDs that came with the set started skipping (it wouldn't play the end of one of the episodes which really irked me), I decided to take action. Initially considering just filing a fraud report with Ebay and PayPal, I decided just to contact the seller first. I sent a message quoting the Ebay policy prohibiting the sale of pirated DVDs and that I wanted a full refund otherwise I would take it up with Ebay. While I never received a message back from the seller, I did receive a full refund from PayPal. So it looks like a got my $80 back and still get to keep the goods! Hopefully the rest of the discs don't skip because I don't want to have to go out and find legit copies of the show after this ordeal.

Now, to talk about sitcoms: While I can't say I've ever really watched British television, I have greatly enjoyed the clips I've seen from various shows (such as A Bit of Fry and Laurie). As far as American TV is concerned, my absolute favorite is of course Arrested Development, followed by How I Met Your Mother.

The. Mighty. Boosh.

And anyone who thinks there is greater is a fool. Or possibly watching The Young Ones.

mintnut wrote:Also, as a general rule, the quality improves with each series; I find series 3 and 4 to be preferable by a long stretch over 1 and 2.

Totally agree with this.

mintnut wrote:Best sitcom? Father Ted, hands down.

Haven't seen it. I've heard it's amazing, so I must watch it.

Blackadder is pretty amazing, though i don't think it's quite as good as Fawlty Towers. Definately right up there though. The episode in series 4 (i think) with Lord Flashheart especially. That one was amazing.

squibbles wrote:The. Mighty. Boosh.

YES.

As I dislike making my second post one word, I shall elaborate: I fully agree with all three of those words, as well as the emphasis placed on them by the grammatically incorrect use of periods.

If you have a wii, and xbox 360, a ps3 or a pc I think you can buy a disc for like 8 bucks which gives you streaming to your tv

mauve wrote:If you have a wii, and xbox 360, a ps3 or a pc I think you can buy a disc for like 8 bucks which gives you streaming to your tv

<Obelisk> i think you can download a video card

The first two seasons of How I Met Your Mother are great, although the laugh track is terrible.

The Simpsons is the best comedy of all-time.

Despite only having had one and half seasons so far, I'm calling Community the best comedy of the last five years.

oughts wrote:The first two seasons of How I Met Your Mother are great, although the laugh track is terrible.

Well, shit. This is like when I learned about the Wilhelm Scream or how nearly every movie poster has a blue/orange theme. I still have two more seasons of the show to watch before I'm caught up and now this is the only thing I will be thinking of.

*Glass shatters*

squibbles wrote:The. Mighty. Boosh.

Noo. How anyone finds this funny I really don't know. Noel Fielding is seriously the most unfunny person on television. All he does is say stupid things which make no sense at all and gets cheap laughs from it

Despite only having had one and half seasons so far, I'm calling Community the best comedy of the last five years.

I would agree with this. As for How I Met Your Mother, I always enjoyed watching Rules of Engagement more.

oughts wrote:Despite only having had one and half seasons so far, I'm calling Community the best comedy of the last five years.

That belongs to Arrested Develo- oh, five years.

squibbles wrote:The. Mighty. Boosh.

And anyone who thinks there is greater is a fool. Or possibly watching The Young Ones.

Can I just say HELL YES. Either one equals one of the best shows to have existed.

oughts wrote:Despite only having had one and half seasons so far, I'm calling Community the best comedy of the last five years.

I've only seen one episode, but that one episode was only mildly funny. Modern Family is the real best comedy of the last five years.

xVxCrushloaderusSupremusxVx wrote:

oughts wrote:Despite only having had one and half seasons so far, I'm calling Community the best comedy of the last five years.

I've only seen one episode, but that one episode was only mildly funny. Modern Family is the real best comedy of the last five years.

Modern Family is what the standard family sitcom ought to look like in this (post-)(post-)modern single-camera era. It's solid and pretty funny and also pretty clever and much better than almost everything else out there, but when I watch Community I feel that it's something different. It's trying to be something different and succeeding in magnificent fashion, from the underlying narrative themes to the way it handles being meta and pop-cultural without being obnoxiously self-referential or rehashing Arrested Development. Really, though, the most important (but also most subjective) thing is that it's hilarious. (Also, Alison Brie.)

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia

for sure

Oh, and I've been watching The IT Crowd as well, which was made by Graham Linehan (Father Ted, Black Books). Also very very good.

I watched half of the first season of Community last night and it was very, very funny. I still love my 30 Rock, though, so I'm not going to go as far as maestro did and call it the best sitcom of the past five years. Unless we're saying sitcoms that started in the past five years? That might be true.