Is the sitcom undergoing a generational change?

[waichingliu81]

Summer fare: the fluff you missed during TV’s more serious seasons

John Doyle

Globe and Mail Update
Published on Monday, Jun. 14, 2010 6:59PM EDT
Last updated on Monday, Jun. 14, 2010 7:30PM EDT

Summer is a time of the year when people take a casual approach to TV viewing. Sure, there exists a small number of smart, appointment-viewing series – True Blood (now back, Sundays on HBO Canada) and Mad Men (returning next month) – but it’s often a matter of dipping into light comedy as an indulgence. Just as summer movies tend to be mindless, eye-popping and utterly forgettable, the taste in TV tends toward silliness. The last thing we want is earnest.

It’s also a time of the year when a lot of viewers are catching up on shows they ignored during the fall and winter. Sitcoms that didn’t seem worth the time or effort to catch suddenly have an allure as comfort TV.

Tonight, in a two-hour block starting at 8 p.m. (on CTV), you can catch Hiccups, Dan for Mayor(both with new episodes) and, in repeats, Two and a Half Men and Big Bang Theory. Big Bang Theory is the cool comedy of he moment, something of a phenomenon. Two and a Half Men still does well, even as Charlie Sheen’s oleaginous character gets more tiresome. Over on CBS, starting at 8 p.m., you can catch How I Met Your Motherand then Rules of Engagement. How I Met is a sterling hit for CBS; Rules is toddling along on its coattails.

So, with sitcoms often the choice of summer, this might be a useful time to consider the state of the network sitcom and where it’s going. Yes, it’s trends-in-TV-comedy time.

Thing is, almost all sitcoms are derived from a rather small set of formats. They change every now and then, and any change is a seismic shift. Once, most sitcoms were either family-set or workplace-set.

Think back to the 1980s, which is now in vogue in terms of fashion and other aspects of popular culture. The family sitcom dominated. The Cosby Show and Roseanne were huge hits, each dealing in different ways with social issues tied to parenting. Later the family sitcom was replaced by the Friends-style show. With this genre, a group of singles acted as de-facto family. Seinfeld, though clever and progressive in its deadpan style, had much the same format.

Then came the single-camera, no-laugh track, deadpan, offbeat family shows such as Malcolm in the Middle. Modern Family (repeating ABC, CITY-TV on Wednesdays) is an example of that style still thriving. The key, always, is the eccentricity of the family. There’s laughter and bite in the madness.

But where’s the sitcom going? To earnestness, it seems.

Some new network comedies arriving his fall suggest that middle-aged characters and people stuck in a rut are the new key characters in network comedies. Consider CBS’s Mike & Molly. Here’s the gist: “Mike Biggs is a good-hearted Chicago police officer looking to lose weight. Molly Flynn is an instantly likeable fourth-grade teacher with a sense of humour about her weight. The two meet one day when Mike speaks at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, and they fall in love, thanks in part to their mutual love of pie and the desire to resist it.” Apart from the fact that Mike and Molly sound like the names of the producer’s cats, it has the odour of a terrible sincerity.

Then there’s ABC’s Better Together: “Maddie and Ben have been in a relationship for nine years. They call their commitment to each other a ‘valid life choice.’ But Maddie is thrown for a loop when her younger sister, Mia, announces she is marrying her boyfriend of seven weeks and they are having a baby together.” Hello? If there’s a comedy-killer, it’s the phrase “valid life choice.”

Uh-oh. What we can see coming is the sincerity-sitcom. Maybe it will work in the fall. Not the summer. For now, please, the silly and the slight.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1602488/

i miss the old days, as these multi-camera sitcoms are not doing it for me. the 70s, 80s, 90s we have seen so many traditional sitcom shows, but now not so many of them.

[Kimball342]

I will say yes.
It is making a change in the society.