As far as I'm concerned there are two "Nostalgia Critics" those that were before "To Boldly Flee" and those that came after. Whereas not all the ones before TBF were gold or necessarily all that good, they were a far sight better than what we got afterwards. Let me take a few steps back.
Doug Walker was a man with a dream. He wanted to be the next Stephen Spielberg. He went to school to study filmmaking and when youtube was still new he came up with the idea of being an internet reviewer. His first reviews were fresh, a little raw around the edges, but they were reviews as done by a screaming, sarcastic, angry guy. But as time went on they became more polished and, dare I say it, enjoyable. I genuinely started to enjoy this and through him I discovered other that I still watch to this day. But time changes things. Whereas before he would have small asides, snide comments and short little skits, as time went on they practically became the driving force. Too much time was devoted to them and less on analysis or just having fun with it. And while reviews like "The Room" are still among one of my favorites they're just not like that anymore.
But Doug got tired of the whole NC shtick and wanted to move onto different things. So he killed the character off, started up "Demo Reel" which was unwatchable, tried his hand at a game show called "Pop Quiz Hotshot" which was equally painful and because the fans wanted it he went back to being the Nostalgia Critic.
It wasn't the same. Now the skits took up a good portion of the review. In some cases they practically were the review. And it became less about the movie and more about Doug and the Chicago Crew, all of whom are community theater actors at best. The show just got to be unwatchable. And then came the whole Change the Channel bit.
if anything this served to sour me on the whole NC show and the cast of characters that seemed to grow with each passing month. Too often there would be recurring characters with no hint of subtlety. It was all in your face obvious and there was literally none of the magic that the show used to have, It was reduced to a paint by numbers set and I finally signed off forever.
I would love it if he went back to his old way of doing things. One camera, short asides, maybe a thirty second sketch and actual care taken to review the movie whether it was good or bad. But sadly he seems stuck on this new way of doing things. Sadly he will never really achieve his dreams but will be playing this character until it stops being profitable and then will fade into obscurity having accomplished very little.
