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A NEW TWIST ON T.V
By Alison Jalbert
POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y., Oct. 11 - Sitcoms like “Cheers” or “Seinfeld” became part of television history during their lengthy runs, but the selection of sitcoms in the past few television seasons has tarnished the high quality of the past three decades by presenting audiences with an overabundance of mediocre shows.
Despite facing a decline in the early 21st century, sitcoms are making a gradual comeback as audiences re-embrace the traditional half-hour format, along with the popularity of shows that are reinventing the way comedy is presented on television.
According to a 2006 Entertainment Weekly article, only two sitcoms were in the top 30 most watched shows for the 2005-2006 television season, down by seven from the 2000-2001 season. This number is significantly lower than the 1990-1991 season, when 20 out of the top 30 shows were sitcoms.
The television industry is quick to blame everything from reality TV to cable programming for the deterioration of sitcoms, but sitcom writer and producer Christopher Lloyd acknowledges that most of the blame can be placed on the creative minds behind sitcoms.
“Writers have gone away from stories that make you feel anything,” Lloyd said in an interview with USA Today. “So you tune in, laugh a little, but you feel a little bit undernourished at the end of the show.”
The survival rate of sitcoms reached an alarmingly low rate in the early 21st century, with the end of veteran shows such as “Friends” and “Will & Grace,” along with the introduction of new shows that barely lasted to mid-season. Just as network executives, critics, and audiences began to give up on recreating the sitcom glory days of the ‘80s and ‘90s, the genre began to regain some of its former strength.
The 2003 premiere of the Charlie Sheen/Jon Cryer sitcom “Two and a Half Men” built a two-year foundation for sitcom fans to fall back on when “Everybody LovesRaymond” went off the air in 2005. This typically formatted sitcom fared well with critics and viewers, giving both groups hope that the sitcom was not dead.
It was not until the 2005-2006 season, however, that sitcoms emerged revitalized and prepared to push reality TV off the top of the charts. The 2005 premieres of “How I Met Your Mother,” “My Name is Earl,” and “The Office” presented audiences with three unique comedies. “How I Met Your Mother” was a traditional sitcom with a unique flashback premise, while “My Name is Earl” and “The Office” took a new approach to traditional storytelling, with narration and documentary-style filming, respectively. The shows eliminated laugh tracks and a multiple camera setup for a single camera and innovative plot lines.
Marist College junior Amanda Esposito feels that sitcoms have a future if they continue to create original ideas and move away from the traditional format.
“I think the sitcom has a future in its alternate state if it loses the sitcom stigma,” she said. “I think what’s important to realize is that these new shows are of a new breed, and it’s important not to compare apples with oranges.”
NBC found success in 2006 with another alternative sitcom - Tina Fey’s “30 Rock,” which debuted to critical success but poor ratings. After winning two Emmys, the ratings for its second season have increased. Tim Goodman, television critic from the San Francisco Chronicle, predicts that “[30 Rock] could be the beginning of the next great sitcom.”
Even though sitcoms are experimenting with their styles, they still face competition from dramas with comedic undertones, commonly called dramedies. Shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Desperate Housewives” have made the hour-long drama into an hour-long dramatic comedy, and ABC’s “Ugly Betty” demonstrated that comedy could be successful as an hour-long show as well.
Lauren Plante, a junior at Marist College, enjoys watching shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” instead of sitcoms because the comedy seems more natural.
“A show like “Grey’s” is more enjoyable to watch because the comedy isn’t forced like other sitcoms on today,” she said. “In the drama/comedy, the story lines are more developed and the comedy easily fits into conversation, like in real life.”
Given the growing popularity of alternatively styled sitcoms and hour-long comedies, six of the shows new to television in 2006 were traditional sitcoms, including “Cavemen,” based on the characters from Geico insurance commercials. The current television season is too young to determine whether these traditional sitcoms will fare well among innovative shows such as “The Office,” but the sitcom writers and producers are aware that this season may indicate whether the sitcom truly is a dying genre.
Christopher Lloyd, writer of Fox’s new sitcom “Back to You,” cast two sitcom veterans, Kelsey Grammer (“Frasier”) and Patricia Heaton (“Everybody LovesRaymond”) as the main characters, hoping to draw in fans of their past shows. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Lloyd acknowledged the pressure on “Back toYou,” as well as other new sitcoms, to prove the genre is still relevant.
“It’s not enough that our show is going to have to be compared to comedy classics before us,” Lloyd said, “but we also have the burden of saving the entire art form.”
Kelsey Grammer, in an interview with USA Today, said he is optimistic about the future of comedy on television. “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.”`