It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia on FX

By Christopher Gildemeister

November 9, 2012

Pay-TV network FX is infamous for the explicit content on its shows. Programs like The Shield, Nip/Tuck, and Rescue Me buried viewers in graphic sex, endless profanity, and horrific violence. By contrast, the network's first (and for many years, only successful) "comedy" It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is almost never violent and only occasionally sexually explicit; but the same fetid film of FX sleaze clings to this program as to all the network's others. And while FX's dramas typically give pay-TV subscribers relief by concluding after seven seasons, Sunny is now in its eighth, and chugs merrily along with no sign of abating, spewing waste in its wake...which is why the November 1st episode of FX's It�' Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Thursdays, 10:00 p.m. ET) is the Worst Cable TV Show of the Week.

Sunny is a veritable celebration of bad taste. In its tales of five brain-dead, potty-mouthed losers the show has featured such deathless episode titles and themes as, "The Gang Gets Racist," "Charlie Got Molested," "Mac Bangs Dennis' Mom," "Who Got Dee Pregnant?" and, of course, "Who Pooped the Bed?" The gang on the show � mutually loathing siblings Dennis and Dee, arrogant buffoon Mac, dirty old man Frank, and idiot Charlie � glorify racism, crude sex humor and idiocy in an alleged attempt to be funny.

The current episode fits the template. In "Charlie and Dee Find Love," Charlie is continuing to stalk his crush, known to the gang only as �the waitress,� who loaths him. Dee, amused at seeing Charlie continually shot down, drives him around town following the waitress. When Dee�s car is hit, the duo befriend Trevor and Ruby Taft, an ultra-wealthy pair of siblings, who invite the two to join them in their mansion.

Dennis quickly cottons to the Taft's plan: they intend to humiliate Charlie and Dee, using them as the butts of humor among their sophisticated friends. While Frank works to convince the waitress that she needs Charlie back in her life (by putting rat poison in her shampoo), Dennis and Mac work to undermine the Tafts. Ultimately, it turns out that Dennis was right, and the gang has their vengeance on the wealthy � though Ruby, who has actually fallen for Charlie, is crushed to learn he was just using her.

The episode is a little too blatant about its inspiration, with Dennis dropping the names of multiple movies like Dangerous Liaisons and similar films with the same premise. But it is not merely the premise which is distasteful, it is how the show carries it out. Dee drunkenly trying to seduce Trevor; Mac and Dee mutually punching one another in the crotch; Mac miming anal sex with Trevor; the waitress run over and subjected to poison; and Charlie�s heartless use and betrayal of Ruby are just a few of the tasteless items to be found in the program.

Honestly, it�s hard to work up the same level of outrage over It�s Always Sunny in Philadelphia as other FX programming. Compared to Sons of Anarchy, which glorifies the ultra-violent world of drug-dealing, murderous criminal gangs, or the gory, sexually depraved bigotry of American Horror Story, It�s Always Sunny is nearly innocuous. Yet even this low-grade, insipid trash pushes the ideas of foul sex, extreme profanity, and casual drug use at viewers. In recent years, the program has also shown up in broadcast syndication, thus exposing millions more viewers � among them teens and children � to the program�s crude content. And, of course, everyone who subscribes to pay TV is forced to fund it. Get cable to see Nickelodeon�pay for FX. Not a very good deal for consumers.

For continuing to pollute TV screens � while forcing every cable and satellite subscriber to pay for it � FX�s It�s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the Worst Cable TV Show of the Week.

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