I'm a huge fan of the show, but such was not always the case. At first, I'd always pass it up while scrolling the on-screen cable guide. The few times I did stop to look at it, I thought it looked a bit "low budget", as if it were made by indie artists in a basement somewhere. Anyway, this sentiment soon changed when I lost my cable privileges. Having very few choices in shows on broadcast TV to watch, I came across It's Always Sunny again. At this point, I thought "Well, there's nothing else on...whatever..." After giving it the time of day, it actually turned out to be a great show, and it's absolutely hilarious - a godsend among the other shows that broadcast TV provided. Now, I tune into it every night, and now that I have cable again, I watch new episodes when they're available on FX.
My favorite thing about the show is its crude humor. Every episode involves the gang's misadventures, and how insane simple things, like running an errand, can get. There's also a plethora of comedic elements tied into what most would consider "mature themes" by default, such as heroin addiction, abortion, death, and other such topics. Adding such elements to those themes is not easy to pull off, but It's Always Sunny manages to do it just right without being too excessive. There are times when it seems like the show is "trying to hard to be funny," such as Mac's apparent weight gain in season 5? - under the popular assumption that "chubby = funny" a la Zach Galifianakis. I've pardoned this, however, as it is but a small nitpick, and the show more than makes up for in other ways. By far, Charlie's my favorite character.
