10 Most Underappreciated TV Shows Of The Decade (So Far)
5. Rick And Morty
Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland’s misanthropic sci-fi cartoon might be wildly popular among certain online communities, but its success in comparison to juggernauts like The Simpsons and Family Guy is minimal. Despite the fact that those shows haven’t been consistently good in well over a decade, Rick and Morty averages half the viewership of FOX’s animated behemoths.
It’s a crying shame, because Rick and Morty is at least utilising the full scope of possibilities that animation has to offer, conjuring some of the most ridiculous concepts and shenanigans imaginable. If you’re unfamiliar, Rick and Morty is a legally-distinct reworking of Back to the Future, only Doc Brown is an abusive alcoholic and substance abuser, and Marty is a nervous and erratic loser.
Like the aforementioned Eric Andre Show, Rick and Morty manages to be both a smart examination of the human condition through deeply cynical eyes, and a wacky cartoon about whatever gross characters pop into Justin Roiland’s head at any given time.
The episode ‘Rixty Minutes’ perfectly encapsulates this. Half the episode follows Rick and Morty’s family as they peer through goggles into parallel universes, wherein their alternate lives are either more successful or less successful than their current ones. The other half shows Rick and Morty watching alternate dimension TV – which is essentially an excuse for Roiland and co. to improvise alien TV commercials and outlandish TV concepts, then animate them.