But that's the buy-in. It's like a Mad Magazine look at real life.
Any Decent Sitcoms Anymore?
- Thread starter StarMan
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I thought the buy-in of Modern Family was that it portrayed gay parents who adopted a child and a man who married a Mexican woman with a child as part of normal life.
It's awesome that it did those things, but characters still have generally conservative values within those parameters and react like the characters in any other sitcom.
I haven't watched it enough to know if characters are allowed to grow more than they are in standard sitcoms (Where everyone learns the same lesson in every episode but everyone's life status maintains homeostasis), but characters still react to things emotionally in the quirk-driven conservative way they do in any other sticom.
Colombian. She's Colombian. There are tons of jokes about how Colombians handle problems. There are a bunch of other in-jokes and cliches that the vast majority of viewers get and laugh at, and that's why it's one of the most popular shows on TV.
At the end of the day, it's just a sitcom. Not a mirror of real life.
Only seen like five episodes, probably never saw her nationality referenced.
I'm not trying to bash Modern Family in particular but more that sort of sitcom. Shows that portray themselves as comic insights into the experience of everymen and everywomen. Like Home Improvement where the man is an intellectually helpless macho-fronting inept who ogrishly offends his wife, then has a realization about his behavior and apologizes to his wife of sage wisdom and saintly forgiveness. Characters in this sort of show are based on a contemporary definition of 'standard family unit' and every character happily plays their socially prescribed role. Any time a character has any kind of personal ambition or exceptional quality, it ends up being treated as a flight of fancy and the character gives it up by the end of the episode. Like in Full House, Jesse has an opportunity to have a tour of Asia and gives it up because he might be away from his family for a little while, or in Step By Step, Mark gets accepted to a difficult school and the moment he finds out it's harder than regular school he gives up and goes back. The message of these sitcoms, accept your socially prescribed role, reject your personal ambitions and just take what you're given and what's easy.
I'm not trying to bash Modern Family in particular but more that sort of sitcom. Shows that portray themselves as comic insights into the experience of everymen and everywomen. Like Home Improvement where the man is an intellectually helpless macho-fronting inept who ogrishly offends his wife, then has a realization about his behavior and apologizes to his wife of sage wisdom and saintly forgiveness. Characters in this sort of show are based on a contemporary definition of 'standard family unit' and every character happily plays their socially prescribed role. Any time a character has any kind of personal ambition or exceptional quality, it ends up being treated as a flight of fancy and the character gives it up by the end of the episode. Like in Full House, Jesse has an opportunity to have a tour of Asia and gives it up because he might be away from his family for a little while, or in Step By Step, Mark gets accepted to a difficult school and the moment he finds out it's harder than regular school he gives up and goes back. The message of these sitcoms, accept your socially prescribed role, reject your personal ambitions and just take what you're given and what's easy.
How is the Good Place not a sitcom? It's pretty much the definition of a situational comedy.
And what did I call it? A comedy...
Yes, but you distinguished it from a sitcom, too. Which makes it even more baffling.
Don't know if it counts as a sitcom or just a spoof, but I watch Jane The Virgin fairly regularly (though I would include the disclaimer that it's an acquired taste.) I'd also put in another vote for Veep and Silicon Valley.
Broad City technically is situational comedy, but doesn't really fit the sitcom 'mould.' Its crude as hell and aimed mainly towards women, but it certainly doesn't have JirinPanthosa's issue with the characters not seeming realistic. It's along the lines of a show like Louie.
Broad City technically is situational comedy, but doesn't really fit the sitcom 'mould.' Its crude as hell and aimed mainly towards women, but it certainly doesn't have JirinPanthosa's issue with the characters not seeming realistic. It's along the lines of a show like Louie.
Louie used to be a Honeymooners rip off.
Loving WW2 settings,
Dad's Army: British Home Guard antics and the struggles between the pompous, never served before Captain Mainwarring, and upper-class educated WW1 vet Sgt Wilson is a good time.
Goodnight Sweetheart: Another British show, Gary Sparrow finds a time portal connecting the present, 1990, with 1940 and tries balancing life between 2 women 50 years apart. Comedy ensues.
Dad's Army: British Home Guard antics and the struggles between the pompous, never served before Captain Mainwarring, and upper-class educated WW1 vet Sgt Wilson is a good time.
Goodnight Sweetheart: Another British show, Gary Sparrow finds a time portal connecting the present, 1990, with 1940 and tries balancing life between 2 women 50 years apart. Comedy ensues.
A sitcom to me has a certain feel to it. Like it needs to have a room or an apartment that most take place in, a certain way the camera works. Like The Big Bang Theory, or really anything on CBS. It just has a feeling that I can't explain. Sure 'sitcom' used to mean 'situational comedy', but isn't that everything? To me there is a comedy that 22 minutes but isn't in the mold of sitcom.
Sitcoms I'm liking right now are:
The Good Place
Black-ish
Fuller House
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Still enjoying but not as much as I used to:
Modern Family
Big Bang Theory
The Good Place
Black-ish
Fuller House
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Still enjoying but not as much as I used to:
Modern Family
Big Bang Theory
Yeah. I have to admit I'm really surprised with LW. The original film will always be one of my all-time favs. I went into it intending to whip out the MST3K bat, but was found myself saying, "Whoa, this is kinda not terrible."
But's really not a sitcom.
You're the Worst will make you feel like a decent uplifting human being.
You are reading WAYYYYY to much into sitcoms.
Just describing the things about them that makes it impossible for me to connect with the characters.
If the show is selling the cast to me as 'An average American family' but I don't believe a thing they do, and the show is trying to teach me moral lessons but all the moral lessons are stealth conservatism, how can I like the characters enough for their quirks to entertain me?
I used to love that sort of sitcom growing up, and they taught me that males should avoid classically masculine qualities if they want to get girls. These shows are warping the minds of children everywhere.
I really liked Legit.
Jim Jefferies being really caustically Australian in LA, but getting away with it because he has a sexy foreign accent.
Jim Jefferies being really caustically Australian in LA, but getting away with it because he has a sexy foreign accent.
Aside from others already mentioned, I really like Mom.
It's not a sitcom, but Shameless is pretty funny.
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