One season too many…
Whatever happened to good sitcoms? It seems that the older a show gets the more style, characters, and laughs disintegrate. They say a sitcom always seems to have one season too many before it goes off the air. I am convinced this is true.
For example, NBC keeps a show like Friends on the air when it should have been gone three or four seasons ago. It was still funny back then. It seems as though the writers are playing musical chairs with characters, trying to squeeze out whatever charm left from the originals. It’s a number one show for NBC, and they are dragging it out because ratings are hard to come by.
Another one of NBC’s offsprings, Will & Grace, has gotten to the point where the characters have become the mere one-dimensional caricatures of their former selves. Grace has now been reduced to stereotypical Jew, Karen–a drunken buffoon. I have a few gay friends and not one of them is as loud a flamer as Jack. And Will doesn’t seem to have any character as all, he just has a snide remark (and not a very funny one) for the craziness that goes on around him. The scary thing is that the writers realize it. The marketing campaign for the show’s new season premiere is no different from a Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon narration. I am doing a great injustice to both Rocky and Bullwinkle for the comparison.
Whatever happened to characters we used to love? Why is it so hard for the networks to keep funny shows around for more than one season? There are so many shows that are premiering this fall and only a handful will survive. I can grantee Whoopi will not be one of them–too political, too extreme. Most of the shows remaining will not be interesting or entertaining. Perfect example of this is last year’s survivor Good Morning, Miami.
New and innovative shows are not even given a chance. Seinfeld didn’t become popular overnight. It took two or three seasons for the show to really find its’ audience. But in those days shows like that were given time. It doesn’t happen nowadays. The executives of the big networks are scrambling to find a quick politically correct big buck. As a result we are fed the same formulaic bullshit, and they think it will keep us happy. That’s what Coupling is supposed to do for us. I have seen the original British sitcom, and there is no way NBC would ever allow a show with so much sexual humour to be on the air. They just desperately want something to replace Friends. Same formula, different actors, and if you ask me it’s about as sexually free and risque as an apple pie (and not I am not referring to the movie franchise).
