Then you're missing out. TV was a hell of alot more creative and fun back then, something that ceased around 2000-2005.
But, to each his own I guess.
The next time you bemoan the state of TV today...
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Then you're missing out. TV was a hell of alot more creative and fun back then, something that ceased around 2000-2005.
But, to each his own I guess.
I certainly haven't missed out on TV in the 1990s or early 2000s. I did a lot of watching of TV in that period, certainly an unreasonable amount (and started posting here as a tragic consequence).
My observation vis-a-vis TV right now is it's not bad by any means, not a claim that it's better than TV in a previous period.
I was claiming the 1990s was a good decade for sitcoms, but that's part of the near past you're referring to there.
I'm not saying it was their premises alone that made them worthwhile. I'm saying they were highly creative overall, and the innovative premises and formats were a major part of that. Batman, as I've said, was a very funny and clever show for two years, though it really went downhill in the third. Gilligan's Island started out pretty dumb, which turned the critics against it and established its poor reputation, but it became a lot more solid over time and a lot more experimental, often delving into bizarre or SF/fantasy scenarios. The Monkees was just wildly inventive throughout. Then you've got Green Acres, which had a pretty basic fish-out-of-water sitcom premise, but which became highly surreal and fourth-wall-demolishing. Sure, they were all unapologetically goofy and absurd, but they were also inspired and daring and ambitiously creative.
TV itself is not dire (Though there is less and less scripted stuff, and TV is poorer as a result of it.) but there is little in the way of SF on TV, which is a great shame.
Didn't he do that just so he could get a date with Sally Field?
As for bemoaning the state of TV: I bemoan the fact that all my favorite shows - meaning, all the Law & Orders - are being cancelled. And don't even try to convince me that SVU is going to last any further than one more year with...
the loss of Stabler and Benson.
It's why I'm dropping cable altogether once the Los Angeles and Criminal Intent L&O's finish their run. I can always get SVU from iTunes...
I'm kind of ambivalent about 1990's TV. On the one hand, it WAS a good decade for sci-fi, on the other.....alot of what I dislike about TV now was starting to happen then. I don't know, it guess that time was really a mixed bag.
I can relate. I feel the same way about 1970's TV, which I grew up on, and 1960's TV, which I missed first run, but caught a good portion of it wile growing up in the 70's.
I'd like more sci-fi shows I'd be interested in watching. That's indeed my only real beef with TV right now.
You were also saying they were more creative than 1990s sitcoms. And while I'm no fan of, for example, Friends (or even Seinfeld, truthfully) I'm not going to say Gilligan's Island was a better program.
More than premise, sitcoms survive on the characters, the acting, and the writing. Red Dwarf may have been set in space, but Lister and Rimmer were a significant part of that show's success, etc.
I don't like sitcoms, but I do like How I Met Your Mother. The show is a story told by the lead character to his kids in 2030 about how he met their mother. But of course, being a story and a sitcom, it goes off on tangents about the everyday lives of the characters back in the day (our present). A lot of the fun involves getting closer to the identity and meeting of this mother who figures into the story once in a while as a hook. It's a good concept.
As for those reality shows of the past, shows like Love Connection seem cringingly lame now. Maybe they could revive it and hire Richard Burgi to play Chuck Woolery.
As for those reality shows of the past, shows like Love Connection seem cringingly lame now. Maybe they could revive it and hire Richard Burgi to play Chuck Woolery.
"Better" is a matter of opinion. I was just saying that '60s sitcoms were a lot more diverse and experimental in their subject matters than '90s sitcoms. I think that's objectively demonstrable and is a separate question from whether they were "better" or "worse." I was expressing a personal preference of sorts, but it was more about the entire range of situation comedies, not each one specifically. I like variety. And I found that, even though there were some excellent individual sitcoms in the '90s, sitcoms on the whole didn't seem to have anywhere near as much diversity in their subject matter as '60s sitcoms. I missed seeing wild, experimental stuff, exotic settings and situations and formats. Everything, even the good shows, seemed to focus on family or job or school or circles of friends or dysfunctional sex lives. I would've liked to see more variety, and particularly more adventure/SF/fantasy/surreal sitcoms. These days it seems to be hard to find those in American TV except in animation. (Although I did somewhat enjoy The Drew Carey Show, which had a rather mundane subject matter but often did surreal and fourth-wall-breaking things with it, sort of a modern Green Acres.)
IMHO, any sitcom that does not have a laugh track is automatically better than those that have them. 
It's why I refuse on principle to watch any sitcom that exists today. I hate canned, machine-generated laughter. If I need to be told when to laugh, then it's not funny enough.
It's why I refuse on principle to watch any sitcom that exists today. I hate canned, machine-generated laughter. If I need to be told when to laugh, then it's not funny enough.
Well, you did say:
Which is a more subjective statement. I mean, The Wire is just another cop show, and so on. It's implying how different the premise of a series is compared to pre-existing series is a baliwick of its creativity. If a series goes for an unusual premise and then sits around rehashing a rather stale form of comedy, though, is it in any meaningful sense more 'creative'?
Now if you want to say that 1960s sitcoms were more fantastical than their 1990s equivalents - one of the biggest hits was a superhero show, after all - that's certainly a pretty understandable viewpoint.
I'm not talking about A series. I never was. I was talking about the whole range of sitcom subject matters, the general rather than the specific. I was expressing an opinion, a personal preference, and if you don't like the choice of words I used, I can't help that. But there's no point splitting hairs over a difference of taste.
As for "bailiwick," I do not think that word means what you think it means. Did you mean "benchmark?" A bailiwick is a person's area of authority or expertise.
And so was I, rather obviously, I thought.
Ah, but one tinged with an air of:
The difference here is between a statement like 'I prefer romances to comedies', and 'Romances are more creative than comedies'.
Well, my opinion is that sitcoms as a whole were more creative in concept in the '60s. You make a valid point that the execution and the concept should be judged differently on a case-by-case basis, but there's always going to be a range of different qualities when it comes to the execution of shows in a given era, so when speaking collectively, that's gonna average out. So I stand by my opinion.
There's a big difference between canned laughter and live-studio-audience laughtracks. In any case, why would a show's quality be judged on the presence of a laughtrack? What about Red Dwarf, for example?IMHO, any sitcom that does not have a laugh track is automatically better than those that have them.
It's why I refuse on principle to watch any sitcom that exists today. I hate canned, machine-generated laughter. If I need to be told when to laugh, then it's not funny enough.
Any sort of laugh track, live or not, is distracting. It breaks the fourth wall. I can't tolerate it.
Then again, breaking the fourth wall isn't necessarily a bad thing where comedy is concerned. The Marx Bros., Hope and Crosby, Monty Python . . . they all did it.
"Well, all of the jokes can't be good. You have to expect that once in a while."
