'Schitt's Creek' Is a Great Show and No One Cares If You Don't Like It

Ever since Schitt's Creek won all of the Emmys last week, a new wave of people have discovered the show. And with that came a second, smaller, more annoying wave of people proclaiming that it isn't funny. The latest being case to cross my timeline came from this New York Times reporter.

Ew, Daniel. To make this relevant to a sports site, that's the equivalent of saying, "Tried to watch the first two drives of the Kansas City Chiefs' postseason and I have an idea: What if teams were good right away instead of making people insist you have to power through three drives ending in punts before it's worth your time? I dunno just an idea."

Enough about this particular tweet though. I'll move back to Twitter critics in general. Look, I'm sorry you spent 40 minutes on something and didn't love it. It is a real problem that every good show is not immediately the best show when it begins. I feel like I should point out that sometimes shows have great starts and tread water (Hi, LOST!) or struggle to finish (Hello, Game of Thrones!). Some are brilliant and perfect and get canceled for whatever reason. This complaint about a great show starting slow is just a version of "why don't they make the whole plane out of the black box?" Some of them are just bad start to finish. Why aren't all shows just great immediately and in perpetuity? Seems like a problem with the system itself to be quite honest.

Speaking of Seinfeld, you ever watch the first season of Seinfeld? It's not very good! Same for Parks & Recreation and The Office. I watched the first episode of Arrested Development the night it premiered. I thought it was horrible. I have since seen the original three seasons approximately 20 times. These are a handful of the best comedies ever. Even they needed time. The Wire is another show that people love to tell you they just couldn't get into. On rewatch it certainly isn't the show it became as the first season progressed or during its peak.

And then there's people who just don't get it. I started Mad Men once and only made it through a few episodes. I've heard it's one of the best shows ever, but why didn't it entertain me so thoroughly and immediately that I watched the entire series? Someone get the cast and crew of Mad Men on the phone so I can ask, "why show not more good?? I dunno just an idea."

With Schitt's Creek, I think the problem is that it's not American. It looks American. It won a bunch of Emmys in America. But it just showed up on Netflix one day and that's where most people saw it. And many enjoyed it. And some people who vote for awards agreed and thought it was worthy of those awards. Sorry if you don't find the first few episodes hilarious. Guess what? Five years later the show was one of the best on television. And I'm sorry if you're sick of the gifs with random words in yellow. They are wonderful in the show and can be applied to anything.

Shows change. They evolve. Not every show has the premise, tone and characters figured out from the pilot. Even with a decade of background work they can't all be Fraiser. Sometimes they're Joey. And sometimes they start slow, figure out what they're doing and become great. That's Schitt's Creek. If you don't like it you can lick rust.