It was one of those Emperor's new clothes episodes, that no one really enjoys, but they pretend to so other people won't think they were dumb for not being able to get it.

One thing I liked about Dan Harmon was his unwillingness to wear out the welcome of a surprise hit gag. On "Community", after the magic of the paintball episode in season 1, he did a sequel in season 2 expanding on the jokes. But then, in season 3, he did NOT go back to the paintball well. Instead, he did a clip show with clips that had not actually aired, referencing other episodes that season, as well as adventures the gang never actually had on screen. And one of the gags referenced another paintball game in an all new set of costumes. And then Brandon Sanderson David Benioff & DB Weiss Kevin J Anderson & Brian Herbert other guys were in charge of Season 4, and they had a paintball episode and it sucked. Like everything else in Season 4 without an Oscar-winning screenwriter guest-writing the episode's script. Season 5, I'm pretty sure had no paintball, and when they finally did a "no more paintball" episode in season 6, it was fresh and influenced by more modern references. And Christopher Tolkein produced Season 7, so there was no new paintball episode.

And it looked like he was doing the same thing on Rick & Morty, with Inter-dimensional Cable. Except Inter-dimensional Cable was not a brilliant and well-constructed homage to a genre of films, it was a Justin Roiland vanity improv project. And Justin Roiland is not that funny. He certainly is not enough to carry the show. He's a good voice actor (though I'm not a fan of the sound of his voice or his stammery, rambling thing; it might be how people actually talk but there is a reason Hollywood has refrained from doing it for the last century or so), but he is not good at just riffing out jokes for animators to make happen. But apparently, I'm in the minority on that one, because IDC was such a big hit they did a sequel to it in Season 2. And then in Season 3, we got a clip show of clips that had not actually aired, but these were way funnier than Justin Roiland's brief gags, because, as in the similar episode of Community Season 3, it addressed the characters, and took actual writing and planning and had a story, not just a framing device. And there was a brief shot of them watching Inter-dimensional cable, with a blink-&-you-miss-it-gag which is hilarious to anyone whose mother spends as much time watching HGTV as mine, and better than any gag from an Inter-dimensional Cable episode.

Except now, this week's turd is basically the substitute for Inter-dimensional cable. This is not a network TV show. You don't need to have a clip show every year in order to pad out a 22 episode order. There is nothing compelling them to do Inter-dimensional cable every season, or justify its lack. The whole metatextual theme of the season premier was pushback against fans insisting on rehashing the same things. Just write some actual fucking episodes. You have this many years and you can't even get ten out in a row without a five month break? Write a longer season if you want to do these indulgent navel-gazing commentaries on reality and commercialism and existential meaninglessness. Revealing the truth that we live in a consumerist society that programs us to be obedient drones and our lives don't have any real impact does absolutely nothing. Everyone already knows that, and your 24 minute cartoon is not going to offer a viable alternative.