I definitely started to realize starting from season 4 that R&M used to be a show that legitamitely made me crack up from the jokes. Not just fun and entertaining stories and concepts but also overtly funny. And while I enjoyed season 4 and 5 and think there are some really great episodes, I also find I just "enjoy" it, but I don't laugh and don't find the events to be that memorable.

And at least for me I think the reasonings are 2 fold.

1) General burnout.

Many people blame the new writers and the more "woke" parts of the show. I find this argument to be a bit artbritary and baseless. At least for me there are many hilarious shows that are woke or at least address these issues and still amazing. Bojack Horseman has always been sensitive to PC culture, making any not PC character to be in the wrong, but stayed brilliant and hilarious until the end. Brooklyn 99 as well always was very careful with this and was consistently great. I don't believe a show is good or not bc it's edgy (south park is brilliant not because it's subversive, but because of how it's subversive).

And in addition most of the best shows have brought in new writers and it can invigorate a show. Arguably the best Simpsons seasons were made with additions to the original staff. South Park (again) as well has had shifting writing staff and as well their best seasons were including writers that didn't start with the show.

I believe it has much more to do with a common occurrence in any creative media. The writers had a lot of ideas, energy, and passion in the beginning but as the popularity rose and the show became a profitable property, it had to continue regardless if the original spark was gone. Justin Roland for instance hadn't worked on a show before that lasted that long with that level of success and was always best at coming up with new fresh ideas. And Dan Harmon arguably as well has struggled with success with longer running shows (many may argue this but I think season 5 of community just didn't really hit the same as 1-3).

In a world were Rick and Morty was a niche cult show it may have lasted 3 seasons. But it's just possible that the cracks in it's foundation that have been there the whole time become more apparent and upfront as the creators have exhausted all their ideas and creativity but still need to make the show. You can even see this in just how Dan Harmon talks about the show, he

2) Lack of progression. I find myself consistently comparing R&M to Futurama. While Futurama definitely had a quality downshift in the comedy central revival what kept it still great was character progression imo. Growing Fry and Lela's relationship that was started from the very beginning. But furthermore it always focused on injecting pathos into most of its characters, so it could lean on emotion and character growth to make it feel like the show always had more stories to tell because it set up it's world and characters to have a level of depth that could always be expanded upon. And the later seasons had some of the best episodes in the shows run when it expanded on the characters and emotions.

R&M kind of used up its main emotional throughline at the end of season 3. Everything basically reset to status quo. And I think the show suffered for that. To go from a progressing somewhat non sereliazed story back to serialization I think just caused the shoe to stagnate. There wasn't enough there to restart and try to recapture the magic of seasons 1 and 2.

Comparing it to the shows I mentioned before most of them always had emotional and character aspects that changed and shifted with the events that keeps you engaged even if the humor or writing isn't as golden as it once was. And R&M kind of just lost that when they wanted to do a soft reset instead of moving forward with the dissolution of the family.

And I think the shows nihilism and edginess made the characters not really capable of having that depth to get into once the status quo was restablished. I find it hard to laugh because I find it hard to really care about these characters anymore. The formula has gotten old because it hasn't changed.

You can make the opposite argument with something like South Park, which suffered from lack of serialization. The show was the perfect set up to deal with current topics immediately and individually and then suddenly had to bring depth and continuing stories to characters built to have one of interactions with current events.

These are just my thoughts, what is your perspective or do you love the new seasons?