I've been listening to the Gravity Falls commentaries a lot recently and one thing that keeps coming up that I really appreciated is how important it is that change be possible in that show; Dipper gets a new hat at the end of Tourist Trapped and he keeps that hat for the rest of the show, Mabel gets a pig in The Time Traveller's Pig and she continues having that pig, Dipper apologizes to Toby Determined about framing him for murder the episode after Headhunters, etc.
I think this is also a very important element of BoJack Horseman and especially the earlier episodes of the show that people don't really acknowledge as often.
As we all know, BoJack sees life as a sitcom. As a result of this, the show is a deconstruction of the type of show that BoJack loves, and one of the most important rules of a classic sitcom is the idea that Status Quo Is God; no matter what happens in an episode, there will always be a return to equilibrium at the end. As this show isn't a sitcom, however, BoJack has to actively make this happen, instead of it Just Happening as it were.
The first proper example we get of this is in Zoes and Zeldas, where BoJack is faced with the realisation that Todd might actually leave him forever, and he has to do everything in his power including literally hiring an actress to make the status quo remain. The interesting thing about this is that in the episode itself, we (the spectators) are tricked into thinking this works! Because we know what happens in a sitcom, we know what Status Quo Is God is, even on the most implicit level! When I watched this episode with my mum, halfway through she turned to me and said "this episode is sad" because she knew what was coming. Of course she did. Of course Todd wouldn't actually leave BoJack and follow his dreams. Why would he?
It doesn't work, of course. Todd spends the rest of the season becoming more and more emotionally distant with BoJack as soon as he finds out that BoJack betrayed him. Because this isn't a sitcom, and change is possible. Before this happens, however, the show has to first establish that this show has continuity unlike the average sitcom. How does it do this? In Our A Story Is A D Story, there's a one off bit that suddenly establishes the lengths this show will go to for its continuity:
Just like Gravity Falls, this show uses subtle bits in the dialogue like this to show us that change is possible! Side note: me and my mum both thought this bit was SO funny.
Like Gravity Falls, BoJack Horseman is designed specifically to subvert your expectations of a sitcom by trusting you to pay attention, that this isn't your average show you can tune in and out of. Unlike Gravity Falls, BoJack Horseman does this in a much more meta way; by using a sitcom backdrop, the spectator is drawn into a false sense of security within the status quo, before having the rug snatched under them at the last minute.
