What do you think about ...
Question: What do you think about situation comedies this season? I gave up on them a few years ago. The canned laughter and over-the-top one-liners on
Will & Grace are excruciatingly awful, so I was overjoyed when shows like
Curb Your Enthusiasm,
Arrested Development etc. came to TV. The subtraction of annoying laugh track and the genuinely fresh and addition of talented casts made my week. As a big
Buffy fan, I looked forward to
Alyson Hannigan's
How I Met Your Mother, but after three tries, I can't make it through the first 10 minutes without being bored, put off by the sterile laugh track and the wasted talent of Hannigan and
Neil Patrick Harris. Will the situation comedy ever get good writers, talented actors and good time slots, or will I have to keep hoping Fox and HBO will keep good shows on the air even when they don't get stellar ratings?
Answer: Seems to me you've made up your mind that if a comedy is done the old-fashioned way, in front of an audience with laughter on the soundtrack, you check out. Which is understandable, if ungenerous to the handful of shows that still work well within that format. That short list would include, at present,
Two and a Half Men and
How I Met Your Mother (not to mention that loyal fan base for
The King of Queens that's always chiming in to wonder why this show doesn't get more respect). I like
Mother, though agree it's not quite the stylistic breakthrough of this season's other and more successfully sustained new comedies, UPN's
Everybody Hates Chris and NBC's
My Name Is Earl. I enjoy the characters and the sweetness of the romantic-comedy framework, and feel Hannigan and Harris are doing breakout work. But since your tastes go a different way, I'm fairly confident HBO in particular, but also Fox and (thanks to
Earl) maybe even NBC, will continue to develop sophisticated, offbeat comedies to suit a more discriminating palate.
