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Series with huge character arcs


gmoney

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Very good shout with Always Sunny. I feel like typically character development in sitcoms is just making them a lot broader and stupider, but they really managed to do something a lot more interesting, Dennis and Dee especially. I can hardly describe my favourite moment because its all about knowing the characters, but when Dennis is not in on the deception in 'The Gang Broke Dee', the sheer amount of stuff going on behind his near break down is just amazing. 

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11 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

You can't talk character development in Sunny without mentioning Cricket! The way his life gets ruined is amazing.

I'm especially a fan of how by his third appearance he's already given up trying to introduce himself to anyone as Matthew.

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1 hour ago, gmoney said:

I feel like typically character development in sitcoms is just making them a lot broader and stupider

Yeah, that's something I detest. When you take a character who is a bit slow and it's funny and they end up special needs. Like Joey in Friends, Dave in the Royle Family or Trigger in Only Fools.

Trigger is especially annoying to me because he was brilliant as this low-level criminal who was a bit thick.

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Dave in The Royle Family annoyed me. He was never an idiot, just a bit simple at times, but he was clued up enough and had a sense of humour.

In fact, The Royle family specials post Queen Of Sheba completely skewered the characters to the point they became caricatures of themselves. Disappointing from a series which was brilliantly observed at the start.

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8 minutes ago, Factotum said:

Dave in The Royle Family annoyed me. He was never an idiot, just a bit simple at times, but he was clued up enough and had a sense of humour.

In fact, The Royle family specials post Queen Of Sheba completely skewered the characters to the point they became caricatures of themselves. Disappointing from a series which was brilliantly observed at the start.

That went in Series 3. The first series is fantastic. The second is pretty good and the Xmas special that follows is really good. Then in Series 3 Dave is a full-on vegetable, Jim says "My arse" a lot and they dance and shake their arses.

On-topic- Anthony in The Royle Family would count for this except it wasn't an arc but a start and an end point. Moron, Moron, Moron, Successful businessman.

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41 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Like Joey in Friends

It which point did the main cast of Friends stop becoming realistic and became full-blown cartoon characters? For that reason I really enjoy Series 1 more than the others now, and 2 as well. Perhaps it started to turn at series 3? By the time you get to the final series, they're all full-blown parodies of themselves.

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15 hours ago, Onyx2 said:

I nominate Leo McGarry in the West Wing. 

Although I found the story line of him and Jed Bartlett falling out about foreign policy really forced, I'd agree about this. I think the fact that Leo's character and health problems were so blurred with John Spencer's adds a special quality to his character arc and the conclusion to it after Spencer's death is more powerful than anything someone could have written. 

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On the topic of Friends, my brother's always argued that if you remove the laugh track, it's a series about the gradual mental decline of Ross Geller.

Ross is the best thing about later season FRIENDS. He's playing it insane. He turns into their Kramer

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Ross is solid throughout the whole run, except when he has a storyline involving Rachel. Their stories drag them both, and the whole show, down.

Jennifer Aniston is a really solid comic actress and I think she gets a raw deal in Friends and isn't given a lot to work with. When she has a good story she delivers.

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