I can’t recommend Arrested Development highly enough. It’s the first sitcom for the 21st Century, incorporating running subplots about corporate fraud and treason (with Iraq, no less!) in with the hijinx. It is filmed in a pseudo-documentary style, much like This Is Spinal Tap and the Christopher Guest “mockumentaries” that followed, there is no laugh track, and the jokes fly fast and furious (but often subtle, and so low to the ground that the show sometimes requires multiple viewings to fully appreciate). The cast playing the dysfunctional Bluth family is amazing, and to quote a friend, “You know you have an amazing show when David Cross is only the 4th-funniest person in the cast.”
I wish I could offer people something to give Arrested Development a chance–Sunday nights at 8:30 on Fox–but I can’t throw around money or offer rewards. I feel THAT strongly about it, though. I won’t hesitate to call it the best show on TV, and possibly the funniest show ever. If you like Scrubs, you’ll love it. If you hate most sitcoms, you’ll definitely love it. It needs all the ratings it can get, so I implore you all to watch it with an open mind.
I feel the same way at this point. Except for the most recent episode, and I’ll go watch that one again later since we’re having a snowstorm, I’ve seen all of them at least twice. It’s very important to do so, since you’re very likely to laugh through some of the jokes or just miss things the first time through. You can get new things out of an episode after two or three viewings.
These things move in cycles. Sitcoms are in a fallow period right now, mostly due to the ubiquity of dumb family shows based on the Raymond model. Reality shows have been the big rage lately, but they seem to be falling off. Procedural dramas like Law & Order and CSI are also overexpanding, so I bet you’ll see that start to drop soon, too.
Before the sitcom returns, we have to live through a bunch of Desperate Housewives ripoffs. This will be painful, but it can’t be avoided.
There aren’t any huge sitcoms right now (despite Arrested Development’s amazing quality, it’s not a hit). Eventually, when everyone’s tired of watching Despondent Homemakers (CBS), Forlorn Female Spouses (NBC), Despairing Stay-at-Home Partners (FOX) and Real-life Desperate Housewives (TLC), they’ll go nuts for the next Seinfeld. And the cycle continues…
Same here. Scrubs is great, and committed is OK. It has potential to be really good, I think. But God almighty I HATE that blond chick in it (the main one.) Her voice is so…offsetting. But I like the main dude (I remember hims from something else) and the writing seems good, so I’ll watch.
Committed was - well - pretty bad. I feel obligated to admit that I did find “I wanna get back in ya momma” hilarious, but that wasn’t enough to make up for the yawnfulness of the rest of that standard sitcom fare.
I can’t watch Scrubs, either. It’s really funny for the first 15 minutes - and then it gets all “Lookit what we’ve learned!” on me. I can’t stand it. Makes me wanna hurl.
So … Yeah, I’d have to agree that there aren’t any good sitcoms out there except Arrested Development and possibly Malcolm in the Middle (which would be good were it not, sadly, for the title character). And Family Guy when it comes back, if it counts as a sitcom.
I had lost hope, as you did, but I read (missed the episode, but saw the reports) that the episode last week got out of the apartment building and into an awards show set. This allowed for the addition of many other characters, including special guests, which of course juices the ratings. It also gives the writers something different to write about.
I just wonder when they will realize that people tune in for writing and not acting.
(Seinfeld was a terrible actor, but his show was usually worth watching.)
Personally, I try to keep up with a half dozen sitcoms, though my attention may wander (with the corresponding click on the FFWD button) during many of them.
Those that I never FFWD through parts of include:
Scrubs
Two and a Half Men
Still Standing (Call me crazy, but I like this show.)
And then come the ones where I occasionally FFWD through parts:
Grounded For Life
Listen Up
And finally come the ones where I often FFWD through large swaths, or am guaranteed to FFWD at least a little during every episode:
Everybody Loves Raymond
8 Simple Rules
I never got past the very first episode of Joey. Even without Survivor, there is no reason to watch it.
Arrested Development is great, because it doesn’t rely on a studio setting, a laugh track, and the fat dumb husband/petite pretty wife with smart quips/2.5 kids/plus pet dog formula that so many current sitcoms are based on. It’s also a smart sitcom because it has enough of a disregard for the audience that the writers/actors can get away with more absurd things that really reward the viewer. Andy Richter Controls the Universe, among a number of others, set a bit of a precedent for this too, and it’s too bad Fox didn’t try harder to promote it – maybe if it had won awards in time Fox would have woken from their stupor. But people seem to get all bothered without laugh tracks and a studio audience – as if it can’t be funny if they aren’t being told exactly when to laugh.
Monk is great too, because it’s one of those weird dramedy hybrids, and of course, no laugh tracks or studio audience. Desperate Housewives is the other hybrid that’s also part dramedy/part soap opera, making it even more confusing yet therefore new enough to attact a few different types of audiences who get different sorts of things from watching it.
I also think that as the reality/game show trend dies down, studios may be wanting more innovative narrative programming, allowing more off-beat sitcoms to appear. There’s pleny of innovative dramas popping up all over the place, so I’m sure sitcoms will follow.
I agree. I think Scrubs and Arrested Development are great for EXACTLY those reasons…not to mention, they each have their own little quirks. Scrubs, for example, has random moments of imagination, which are quite amusing.
These two sitcoms, I think, may usher in a newer, more contemporary era of comedy on TV. At least, I hope so. One without surplus family members having contrived, unnecessary subplots, and especially without laugh tracks (as well as those ridiculous “aww” moments that plagued shows like Full House).
While shows like “Arrested Development,” “Monk,” “Scrubs,” and “Malcolm in the Middle” are some of the funnier shows on television, I really don’t consider them “sitcoms.” Maybe they’re a new format that’s going to replace sitcoms?
