[QUOTE=astorian]
The actual show was structured and often had standard sitcom stories, characters and plotlines. But I think the original pitch was, “Let’s do a show where a comedian and his friends just get together and talk and break each other up with absurdist conversations. A show where the humor springs more from sitting around talking than from set-up situations.”
[/QUOTE]
Forgive the bump, but a lot of what’s been said here about Seinfeld also applies to The Young Ones. TYO had just slightly more of a solid premise than Seinfeld, in that Neil, Rik, Vyv and Mike lived in the same house. Beyond that though:
– Four main characters with nothing in common between any of them.
– Perpetual dysfunction and arguments about the most mundane things.
– Three of them totally nasty and self-serving, and even the one who’s not doesn’t really contribute anything to society.
– No goal, unless striving to do nothing is a goal. Ben Elton said in an interview that the characters were college students because that was the ideal excuse to have all four of them just hanging around all day.
– Definitely no hugging or learning.
– No overall story arc.