Back to You: Sitcoms no longer making the NEWS

[Brian Damage]

With just six new comedies being launched, the fall TV season doesn't appear to be much of a laughing matter.
The broadcast networks will feature fewer than 20 live-action, 30-minute sitcoms, about half as many as five seasons ago. The decrease also could reflect the loss of viewers: No sitcom has finished in the top 10 since Everybody Loves Raymond in 2005.


MORE: Comedic stars anchor 'Back to You'

Hour-long comedy has gained a foothold with shows such as ABC's Ugly Betty. And the half-hour still performs well for CBS on Mondays with top-rated Two and a Half Men; on NBC Thursdays with critical darlings The Office and 30 Rock; and for Fox Sundays with animation. But none combine the ratings and critical firepower of such classics as Friends, Raymond, Seinfeld, Frasier, Cheers and The Cosby Show.

Networks haven't turned against comedy, says Fox entertainment chairman Peter Liguori. Fox is fielding the most high-profile new comedy, Back to You, starring Frasier's Kelsey Grammer and Raymond's Patricia Heaton. The relative lack of laughers is more a dissatisfaction with the programs that were developed, he says, than "a greater philosophical decision and strategy away from comedy."

Where are the great comedies, which once seemed like an annual crop? Back to You's stars and producers, who have harvested comic gold before, offer theories.

Executive producer James Burrows, considered by many to be the top director of the studio-audience sitcom (Will & Grace, Friends, Frasier, Cheers), says reality has replaced comedy for some viewers. They "would rather see real people fall down and hurt themselves than fictional characters."

Back to You co-creator Christopher Lloyd, who was a Frasier executive producer, says some comedies lack feeling, an important ingredient in the success of Frasier and other classics. "Writers have gone away from stories that make you feel anything," Lloyd says. "So you tune in, laugh a little, but you feel a little bit undernourished at the end of the show."

A comedy should connect with viewers, Heaton says. When she worked on Raymond, "Neighbors would say to me, 'You must have heard us through our window last night.' "

For Grammer, comedies fail when they don't embrace their humanity. "The two things I think that are vital to any really good comedy is that you play up to the audience and that (the show) has heart."

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