TL;DR: it’s better than people give it credit for, and it is low status because of the terrible fans.
Synopsis: crazy genius grandfather and a 14 year old boy go on adventures.
Rick and Morty has been one of the worst victims of what I call “bad fan syndrome”; other victims of this disease include JoJo’s Bizzare Adventure, Dark Souls, and Overwatch; what makes these particular examples of the disease sadder is that these titles are actually great. In theory, the quality of a fanbase and the quality of the content it revolves around should correlate highly because of human capital, but even with this high correlation, there will still be some outliers.
As much as I’d love to deny it, I am a fan of Rick and Morty and I think it is “funny”. Normally, I never appeal to rankings or popularity to articulate a point, but thinking Rick and Morty is funny can’t be that unusual, statistically speaking. As of date, Rick and Morty has been rated a 9.1 by 594k people, which makes it the 16th most highly rated television show on imdb. And it’s not like they were commending it because it was visually appealing…
Whether or not something is humorous is much more inconsistent between individuals in comparison to whether people find a story compelling. For example, there are few people who watched the Legend of the Galactic Heroes and thought it was poorly written. On the other hand, even popular comedies tend to have a vocal minority of people who do not think they are funny. Personally, I could never get into Monty Python.
There are some genuine critics of the series who argue that several of the episodes are quite weak (e.g. pickle rick, most of the Beth episodes), particularly in the recent seasons. I don’t dispute this, though having the odd weak episode is almost universal among episode series. Even solid episodic anime like Cowboy Bebop have the odd poor episode, and I doubt they would have been good if they carried on.
If I were to criticize Rick and Morty for anything it would be a lack of originality. It’s basically Dr. Who, but the Doctor travels through space instead of time. The characters are even worse offenders; besides Rick and Morty, the cast are blatant sitcom cardboard cutouts: the incompetent dad, the competent mother, and the slutty sister.
I think that I saw The Last Psychiatrist or some other blogger analyze the “American sitcom troupe”: men aspire to become characters, while women want their image of themselves to be represented in media. Therefore, having a mediocre father figure and a competent mother appeals to both sexes. The men can feel comfortable by not having anything to aspire to, and the women like to see their ideal image of themselves be represented in media.
Scoring:
Design (8/15):
Distinguishment: (3/5) - generic art
Animation: (1/2) - good enough
Sound: (1/2)
OST: (1/2)
Character designs: (1/2) - they work, I guess
Backgrounds: (1/2)
Script (41/50):
Character Investment: (8/10)
Character Realism: (2/2)
Character Complexity: (3/3)
Plot solidness: (4/5)
Plot complexity: (7/10) - it’s a comedy, after all
Ending: (4/5) - what ending?
Pacing: (4/5) - didn’t notice if it’s too fast, slow, or unbalanced, so it’s probably well paced
Stakes: (9/10) - high stakes
Value (11/15):
Thematic elements: (4/5) - millennial atheism/nihilism is dated, but the variant presented in Rick and Morty is at least genuine. I specify “genuine” because many millennial “atheists” and “nihilists” still subconsciously believe in the soul and are moralizers (see BAP book), but Rick and Morty does not make this mistake, at least not often.
Skill: (4/5)
Originality: (3/5) - setting is not original, but the individual episodes have their own flair.
Enjoyment (20/20):
Did I like it: (20/20) - it’s funny
have you considered not coming up with latent and factor scores for a TV show