I was watching the Philosophy Tube’s channel on youtube the other day, and saw his episode on “Rick and Morty” as an argument against Scientism: Link
The media landscape that I live in is a little constrained: I don’t have a TV or access to cable, and tend to avoid mainstream programming. This is not to say that I don’t have guilty pleasures: there are more than enough bad sci-fi films on youtube to keep me entertained– “Mutant Hunt” anyone? But, I hadn’t run into “Rick and Morty” before seeing this piece. It got me interested.
“Rick and Morty” is very much for adults: it’s dark, violent, and often handles sexual themes. But it’s also incredibly funny, or at least I think so. It follows a standard straight man formula–Rick Sanchez, a scientific genius–who is surrounded by people of limited intelligence. It’s kind of like “Blackadder” where the titular character is the only sane and intelligent character in the story. But, to call Rick Sanchez “sane” would be to use that word in a way not normally accepted: he is a functioning alcoholic and capable of profound acts of cruelty.
The story-lines are incredibly creative and engaging: take the episode where Rick makes Morty a love potion that proceeds to destroy the world. The jokes are infectious; I find myself quoting the series in everyday interactions…often to blank stares. And there’s an arc that goes through the whole series that deals with trauma and healing. Through the series we see Morty becoming increasingly traumatized, but, in the last episode, we discover that there’s a depth to Rick that we may not have suspected.
If you like dark humour, wacky sci-fi, with a well thought-out narrative under current, I highly recommend you give “Rick and Morty” a go. For those of you in the states, you can watch the first season on the main website–check it here–and for those of you outside the USA, you can find it here.
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