Sitcoms and poetic justice

[marnix]

Posted this in alt.tv.sitcom, but the group doesn't seem to be very active.

I am not American, but I have watched quite a few American sitcoms.
And I have asked myself why I cannot stand shows like King of Queens,
Will and Grace and the newer seasons of just about any sitcom.

As far as newer seasons are concerned, one can always say that the
writers run of out jokes or situations. Now that may be true, but I
also find that the characters tend to get really annoying, up to the
point of being complete *******s almost all of the time, even treating
their friends as dirt. I love Third Rock from the Sun, for instance,
but as the years pass, all main characters become more agressive, loud
and above all, egocentric. This makes it difficult for me to
sympathize with them, especially because they constantly seem to be
more or less succesful in their endeavours, despite their behavior!

So for me, a sitcom, like any story, should follow the 'rule' of
poetic justice. A character should in some way, always get what he
deserves. An interesting article that I found on the internet about a
similar concept, is this one about so called 'moral characters':
http://www.newsradioart.com/Pages/7....essiveArt.html. It
takes the sitcom NewsRadio as an example. A citation: "The Hawksian
hero is skillful at what he does, for the cinematic universe is
ordered to express inner desires in terms of outer behaviors and
relationships. Anti-moral characters betray this order of
professionalism and skill; when they are successful in their
professional endeavors in spite of their incompetence they become
destructively anti-moral characters..."

I think this is what makes it possible for people to sympathize with
characters, even with the villains! In my humble opinion, most
sitcoms, sooner or later, fail to apply this rule properly. It looks
like the Seinfeld writers tried... In the famous last episode, the
four friends are sent to prison, basically for screwing people over
all the time and refusing to help them. So somehow they get what they
deserve, but it still doesn't feel right. Why? I think it's because
they never cared and even now hardly seem to care... they just go on
with their lives as if nothing happened. It still *feels* as though
they are succesful in what they do, despite their behavior...

To me, all this goes for the complete series of King of Queens, Will
and Grace and probably a lot of others. It doesn't feel as if the main
characters care about each other or anyone else, even though they
might *say* that occasionally.

I feel that if the writers do succeed in applying poetic justice, the
show has 'heart'. You love every character, good or bad. Such a show
can still be bad, but it *is* the most important quality of a sitcom.
Then comes the rest: original situations, well thought-out characters,
etc.

What do you think?

Marnix
The Netherlands