TV The future of sitcoms

[Her]

The sitcom is something that has become rather maligned in recent years - never again will it reach the might the network sitcom held in the '90s, the heyday of Frasier, Seinfeld, Friends, The Fresh Prince, etc, but it still struggles on today, to differing levels of success. The sitcom is a staple of television and the format will likely prove to be imitated for decades to come, but do you care? In the Golden Age of Television, do current day sitcoms still hold a place in your heart? How do you think they will be viewed & accessed in the years to come?

 

[Esper]

My impression of sitcoms is that they're successful when 1) they have big name stars headlining them, 2) appeal to a wide audience, and 3) people are feeling good about their lives. Not to get all Round Table, but I don't think people have been feeling as happy and secure since the 90s. (Chalk that up to whatever you want.) I also don't think it's as easy to grab a large share of audiences because there is so much more out there for people to watch, lots of it tailored to specific tastes. All the different streaming media options (youtube, netflix, etc.) isn't helping either.

 

[maccrash]

the future of sitcoms is Fucking Dire imo but at the same time there's still some good stuff being done in recent years, namely The Office and Parks & Rec imo. but most of the stuff they've got on major networks now on Wednesday nights or whatever is really horrible, even (and perhaps especially) the bigger names like The Big Bang Theory.

 

[Amore]

The sitcom is something that has become rather maligned in recent years - never again will it reach the might the network sitcom held in the '90s, the heyday of Frasier, Seinfeld, Friends, The Fresh Prince, etc, but it still struggles on today, to differing levels of success. The sitcom is a staple of television and the format will likely prove to be imitated for decades to come, but do you care? In the Golden Age of Television, do current day sitcoms still hold a place in your heart? How do you think they will be viewed & accessed in the years to come?

Unless you have a real affection for those, if you go back and rewatch them they weren't that great. We get a lot of things like Parks & Rec and Community (to name two of my favourites) which had limited audiences but to those audiences cannot really be topped in terms of general hilarity, whilst to people who they aren't aimed at it'll seem somewhere between boring and outrageous (in particular I can't imagine many right-wing people enjoying Parks & Rec). I re-watched some of Friends when I was in the US because you have it on netflix there and it just began to drag - same with the Fresh Prince recently, even though I love Will Smith and have great nostalgia for it. We act like they were these great things - they had great episodes but they were mostly just incredibly popular so it's become a joint cultural memory. Their modern-day equivalents (Except for Fresh Prince which is still so unique just for showing rich black people who aren't criminals on US television) would probably be things like HIMYM and the Big Bang Theory (which btw is incredibly widely viewed if you look at ratings rather than your Facebook feed).

So no the sitcom isn't "dead" or anything - a lot of us are just getting to an age to see it for what it is. Even in this "Golden Age of Television" where we've had great shows with varying levels of cultural impact like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Americans (criminally under-watched but FX's president likes it so they're getting six-seven seasons), Game of Thrones, The Expanse (another far less popular but good one) do you know what most Americans are watching? The Big Bang Theory, NCIS, and NCIS reruns.

I hate all that rhetoric about how the far-right is the fault of the left for being "in a bubble" (The far right is the fault of the less-far right for enabling them) - but people's perceptions of tv are very much due to that effect of social media and your social circle being filled with like-minded people. I think Esper kinda gets it about saying that everything's becoming filtered to people's tastes - I'm in my fourth year of university now, and in first year me and my best friends were watching a lot of the same things, now we're all watching different prestige dramas / sci-fis / fantasies so our talk is far less about tv and more about movies.

 

[Guest123_x1]

As much as I love the existence of such a genre, I don't care for the majority of sitcoms that are in first-run these days. Seems like every show now talks about sex this, sex that. I'd much rather watch the 'classics', such as what's found on classic TV oriented digital multicast (subchannel) networks such as Antenna TV and MeTV.

 

[Her]

Unless you have a real affection for those, if you go back and rewatch them they weren't that great. We get a lot of things like Parks & Rec and Community (to name two of my favourites) which had limited audiences but to those audiences cannot really be topped in terms of general hilarity, whilst to people who they aren't aimed at it'll seem somewhere between boring and outrageous (in particular I can't imagine many right-wing people enjoying Parks & Rec). I re-watched some of Friends when I was in the US because you have it on netflix there and it just began to drag - same with the Fresh Prince recently, even though I love Will Smith and have great nostalgia for it. We act like they were these great things - they had great episodes but they were mostly just incredibly popular so it's become a joint cultural memory. Their modern-day equivalents (Except for Fresh Prince which is still so unique just for showing rich black people who aren't criminals on US television) would probably be things like HIMYM and the Big Bang Theory (which btw is incredibly widely viewed if you look at ratings rather than your Facebook feed).

I wasn't really talking about whether they were great in terms of quality, I was referring to the heyday of their sheer ratings power - NBC's Must See TV was incomparable and no network could hope to attain their ratings during the '90s. Super Bowl excluded, nothing came close during that time period.

 

[Amore]

I wasn't really talking about whether they were great in terms of quality, I was referring to the heyday of their sheer ratings power - NBC's Must See TV was incomparable and no network could hope to attain their ratings during the '90s. Super Bowl excluded, nothing came close during that time period.

Oh yeah well no, in terms of ratings power nope. I mentioned TBBT and NCIS as examples of juggernauts that we might not think of if we don't watch them - The Big Bang Theory has averaged 19 million viewers the past few years - Friends had episodes of up to 52 million. Unless there's some sort of streaming service implosion where the sheer amount of them leads to none of them being profitable, rather than survival of the fittest, then peoples' options are never going to decrease to such an extent that one show will draw in that many people. There's going to be a lot more of shows hitting UK-type numbers instead. For example one of my favourite US tv shows of all time, Chuck, ran 2007-2012 for five seasons on NBC (I believe even at one point on those famed thursday nights) yet never hit double figure ratings - it wouldn't have made it past season 1 back then - and the likes of 30 Rock, Parks & Rec etc. struggled to reach 5 million yet all ran for over 5 seasons.

 

[Cay]

imo the reason why a lot of those sitcoms were really popular because they were some wacky™ situations that just seemed too far out, IE: roesanne. roseanne was groundbreaking in the world of sitcoms and flipped a lot of the traditional roles that were seen in regular. it was crazy to see that kind of thing on the air, so people paid attention. those kind of things are more commonplace nowadays so it doesn't really draw enough entertainment. i am very fond of shows a la parks and rec/the office/community etc etc, though i dont really think they fall under the same category as the ones aired a few decades back. cant really describe it but theyre definitely very different.

 

[Sirfetch’d]

Honestly I haven't enjoyed sitcoms since the death of Everybody Loves Raymond.

 

[ilookgorgeous]

Why not watch Three's Company? That show's great. I liked Jack Janet and Chrissy. Chrissy was changed to Cyndy then she was changed to Terry. (I think I spelled Cindy wrong but I don't care.) :)

 

[Cool_Porygon]

There aren't very many sitcoms I like. If they were actually deep and clever it would be better, but in most of them the humour is obvious and cringe-worthy, plus I hate laugh tracks and studio audiences. I did watch How I Met Your Mother. And The Big Bang Theory makes me laugh, although it has dragged along for too many seasons.

 

[Reyzadren]

In the past, I preferred watching those sitcoms that focused more on the family-oriented stories than on only comedy.

I feel that if a sitcom would be successful today, it would poke fun at topics such as generational gaps and social issues, of course, in a "funny and suitable for the whole family" way :P