That’s such a great note about Barry and Hader… Even Harder himself wasn’t sure he could pull off the role. So… surround yourself with amazing actors!
I get the dive into what a sitcom really is, fun conversation just by itself.
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That’s very interesting, makes me think of Seinfeld’s ending where they were found guilty of being assholes, refusing to learn and change.
That really narrows down the sitcom genre, a lot of the comedies today have some sort of redemption. Now I’m thinking of The Office (US) where it was mostly a non redeeming sitcom until the final season where they let most of the principals evolve into less quirky characters.
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Character development happens in long running sitcoms. But it’s generally unintentional on the parts of the producers. But when actors are in a part long enough hard character edges soften, identifying traits blur, sometimes series premises change.
Archie Bunker became less bigoted, Mork acts more normal, Bosom Buddies stop dressing in drag, Jack Tripper stops pretending to be gay in front of his landlord.
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I think the case of Archie Bunker, for example, was very intentional on the part of Norman Lear. I think he very much saw the sitcom as a vehicle for social commentary and even character development.
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Buffy developed stoicism as her defining character trait. She needed it to deal with Whedon’s bullshit.
I think that Seinfelds creators might have had a similar working definition. It’s just my way of distinguishing sitcom from comedy drama, but I guess lines aren’t as clear cut and they mix them up. And why not? All the better for it.
The Office though? I refuse to watch a version where the boss has any redemption whatever! He’s irredeemable!
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Very true about Archie… at the end of each show Archie would reluctantly succumb, with a slouch and a grimace, to “accepting” the social dilemma presented. But seven days later he once again is king of the assholes and has to learn to listen all over again. I don’t know the timeline, did Archie end up learning by the end? Or did he go to the grave yelling at the hippies?
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I couldn’t tell you that one way or the other, but I think the Lear did (does) see sitcoms as medium for social commentary and did try to have his characters evolve, somewhat, without losing what made them humorous. It’s a fine line he was attempting to walk… So there is some truth to the characters remaining static, but he did want them to do some evolving, as that’s what people do. You can maybe look at the original run of Roseanne as well, with many of the characters having some pretty well-defined story arcs. There are probably few sitcoms more indebted to Lear’s vision than that show…
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Agreed I feel like The Office redemption was more fan service, tear inducing, love note than actual character arc. But I’m actually ok they did it, I’ve cried over that last season numerous times.
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I think Caroll O’Connor was trying to soften the character as well. Especially when Archie was getting popular for the wrong reasons.
Zinger premises get stale after a while and seldom last after show stays on for a while.
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By the time of Archie Bunker’s Place, he was caring for a Jewish kid. His bigotry was either softened or not made as explicit as before. He was more willing to hear others out.
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The later episodes with Stephanie, especially after Edith died, he became quite the uncle to her.
No one saw this scene coming.
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Oh that’s great, thanks for posting! I don’t know if I remember that exact scene (and I was too you to know what is really happening anyway) but I do remember the sentiment I got from it. Well done Arch!
I guess it doesn’t really matter what a sitcom is by definition, and the blockbuster reviewer was more about quirky characters being funny or not. So I guess it is how well the quirky is done. Why do I love crazy, quirky, over the top, manufactured, and extravagant Moira Rose but couldn’t get through one episode of Blockbuster?
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I recall a long-ago TV discussion between Lear and Johnny Speight, the creator of the Brit TV series (Till Death Do Us Part) that AITF is based on. The discussion focused on their particular approaches regarding the series’ productions and intents. Things got heated – and exclusively so on Lear’s part; he pretty much accused Speight of consistently pandering to racists (no character development for the racist main character), while Speight just smiled the whole time and in effect stuck to “it’s all done in fun” argument.
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I started to watch Reboot and it started interesting but it is basically just a standard sitcom. They star off talking about how shitty old sitcom are and want to do a more gritty reboot and then after like the 3rd episode they have brought in old writers, learned they are right, and have a wacky episode about one of the actors trying to get their dog back from an ex. Ugh. no thanks.
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As ever, it’s really just Sturgeon’s Law (“90% of science fiction is crap, but then again, 90% of everything is crap”) combined with Goldman’s Law (“Nobody Knows Anything”) in action.
There are brilliant shows out there, but they are always more than outnumbered by the terrible ones. The interesting part is that we can all disagree about which is which. Apart from [“insert own bête noir here”] which is objectively crap.
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My wife and I enjoyed Blockbuster, but, like mentioned in the video, 10 episodes isn’t really enough. That’s usually when series hit their stride. For me, the first really good episode of How I Met Your Mother was episode 8, “The Duel.” It was this episode that I used as a entry point for friends into the series. That’s basically the end of a first season for streaming-only sitcoms and just wouldn’t be produced because it’s a throwaway episode that doesn’t move the seasonal arc, however loosely we can use that, forward.
The video mentions how the forced romance was also a problem, and it’s true. It’s there because it’s some sort of seasonal or series-long arc, and because shippers are a healthy part of an audience. The show would have been better off putting that on the back burner and just having more fun in the episodes.
I disagree that quirky characters and humor killed the show. It’s the fact that they didn’t get to have as much fun with them as they should have. Situation comedies were built around distinct characters – with the keyword for the past couple of decades being quirky – being plopped into different situations and seeing how those characters act. A show like Blockbuster didn’t actually take its characters anywhere, physically or otherwise. We enjoyed the characters, but they didn’t really get to do anything.
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I think that may be an example of the actor changing the character arc to some extent. I haven’t seen the US office but I could not stand one where Ricky Gervais was anything but skin crawlingly awful.
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A lot of these types of shows don’t have proper characters. Just multiple versions of the same bland idiot that shouts things.
Started out thinking you were talking about the Reboot carton and I was very confused, until I realised you were talking about something else entirely 
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What?!!
How is this saying anything about ‘quirky’?
I’m so lost; most of the shows mentioned in this thread are relatable and complex characters. Is Barry quirky?
Sitcoms are suffering the slow death of over production. Between streaming dropping full seasons and network putting out shows that maybe play for 19 minutes during 11 minutes of commercials, of course we are going to lose quality.
Who is ‘quirky’ in these scenarios and shows?
‘Jess’ from “new girl”? But that’s just a parody of a pastiche.
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