12 Small Details You Only Notice Rewatching Bojack Horseman
2. TV Is A Visual Medium
In Season Five, BoJack rants on the phone that ‘TV is a visual medium!’ while on the set of Philbert. Considering the many, many visual jokes listed here and the tens, maybe hundreds more that didn’t make the cut, he certainly seems to have point.
However, what’s especially interesting about this quote is that it comes in the fifth episode of Season Five: one before Free Churro.
Free Churro is one of the most ambitious episodes in the history of animation, with the entirety of the episode (post opening vignette and credit sequence) consisting of a single monologue. No flashbacks, very little in the way of shot changes, limited physical comedy... all vocal.
If TV is a visual medium, Free Churro is about as big a departure as you can get. Coming just one episode after BoJack’s rant, it’s clearly deliberate.
Free Churro exists as a sort of sister episode to Fish Out Of Water; a largely silent episode where everything is communicated through visual mediums. BoJack is a show which has always tried to push the boundaries, and come January 31st next year, it’ll be sorely missed.