Page 1 of TV Sitcoms that don`t work anymore

I don`t know about the rest of you, but for me, some TV sitcoms just aren`t the same anymore. For example, Heartbeat, just doesn`t work without Greengrass (Bill Maynard) crossing swords with the forces of law and order. The producers try new characters such as Vernon Scripps (Geoffrey Hughes), but I still think of him as that layabout in Keeping up appearances. Or The Last of The Summer Wine, now that dear old Compo (Bill Owen) has passed on, it`s not as funny. Again, the producers bring in new characters such as Entwistle (Burt Kwuok), but I still see him as Cato (sp?) in the Pink Panther films or even the Japanese camp commandant in Tenko. How about you, am I being nostalgic and over picky ?

JohnF

No, I totally agree. LotSW hasn`t worked for years, i think Shooting stars summed up a whole series with their 30-second skit `3 men in a bathtub`.

Wouldn`t call Heartbeat a sitcom as such, but obviously they makers thought it was dying on it`s ass, hence the spin-off.

At some serials know when to quit (One foot, keeping up appearences), but some we could certainly do with so much more

*cough*Blackadder*cough*

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Watched one late one night a few weeks ago that`s stood the test of time. Still as funny as ever.....although they probably wouldn`t let them make it nowadays, the PC brigade would put a stop to it.

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MIND YOUR LANGUAGE late at night on Granada Plus....knockout...lol :)

There are a lot of sitcoms that have overstayed their welcome; I don`t mean ones that have been repeated like the classics - Fawlty, Dad`s Army, Porridge, Blackadder, Good Life etc. I mean specifically stuff like LOTSW, which should have been wound up when Bill Owen died.

Frankly, I don`t think there`s anything currently in production that`s half-way decent and I blame the tv executives. The last decent comedy on tv was Father Ted, and let`s face it that was All Gas And Gaiters with the added dimension of swearing.

Nobody`s making the old-fashioned ensemble comedies any more - stuff with a strong cast, identifiable characters and good writing. Everybody runs scared of that word stereotype without considering the fact you can subvert a stereotype (which in itself is funny). Everybody relies on smartarse dialogue (rather than genuine wit) or falling back on bodily functions or shock tactics. Whatever happened to the self-cleaning joke? Too many bloody stand-up comics sabotaged that by making cracks about single entendres and those halfwit executives who recruit at the Edinburgh Fringe* because they`re too lazy to seek out real talent lap it up.

*Where do you think one trick ponies like Steve Coogan, Johnny Vegas, Caroline Aherne, Ricky Gervais and Stuart Maconie got their big breaks?

J Mark Oates

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MIND YOUR LANGUAGE late at night on Granada Plus....knockout...lol Yeah, I remember that, didn`t realise it was on Granada Plus though. It was in the same vein as Dear John I think, liked that one too.

PS. Shouldn`t have said Heartbeat was a sitcom, but you know what I meant.
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JohnF

I would say this has something to do with the triumph of US-style writer`s rooms and the consistent high-quality of comedy they produce, but we`ve recently jumped onboard with this as well and the results, `My Family` for instance, speak for themselves. So we may have lost the knack for the traditional 180-degree sitcom but the popularity of the likes of `Phoenix Nights` and `The Office` suggests invention has replaced reliability.

--Mike

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although they probably wouldn`t let them make it nowadays, the PC brigade would put a stop to it.

I can think of another one like that - Love thy neighbour , couldn`t see that working in this age .
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Wayne

I think the US-style writing team system has enormous advantages over the old single-writer-banging-out-six-episodes-a-year British model. I feel that the problem with modern comedy writers is too much of an inclination to "push the envelope". I find shows like "My Family", "Phoenix Nights" and "The Office" deeply unfunny. The latter two are inventive and original, but I can`t really call them sitcoms. Concept comedy, yes, but they break too many precedents to be called sitcoms.

I`m a firm believer in the unwritten contract between a writer and the audience. A writer can come up with almost anything (s)he likes as long as (s)he stays within the boundaries of the genre (s)he is working in. That means the pathologist in a murder mystery doesn`t break out into a huge song and dance number, a pie fight never breaks out in a horror movie, and nobody dies in a comedy show.

During the 1970s and 80s there was a huge "pushing the envelope" move in movies and tv. Writers were encouraged to try all kinds of things, and admittedly it was liberating for them, but a lot of them went too far. A large number of taboos about what you could and couldn`t do with characters and situations were broken. And these were taboos that had existed since the time of Aristophanes. The result was that the viewer didn`t know what was coming next. I reckon the lowest they sank was "Moonlighting"`s episode "A Womb With A View" where they set up a frothy little piece about Maddie`s (Cybill Shepherd) baby (played by Bruce Willis). For forty minutes they dangled this cutesy little piece of whimsy in front of the viewer, then in the last five minutes wham Maddie has a miscarriage. Funny as a f*cking funeral.

Tv critics, of course, lap this kind of thing up and that only encourages witless executives and talentless hacks to "push the envelope" further. Why can`t they make safe shows? Shows you can wrap yourself in like a comfy blanket? What`s so bad about that? Terry and June was harmless, so why did the BBC turn on its ilk with such savagery when tossers like Ben Elton arrived on the scene? They`re only interested in looking trendy - and nothing dates faster.

J Mark Oates

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I can think of another one like that - Love thy neighbour , couldn`t see that working in this age .

I thought of that too, after I posted that. I think it still works, but doubt they`d let them make it nowadays. Still funny though, and how can it be racist, when Rudolph Walker gives as much to the `white honky` as he gets....lol :)

In fact, when we were kids, you never hears the word racist, and didn`t have the trouble we have nowadays. We were just all people.

Love thy Neighbour was an example of using a comedy show to mock bigots and racists. Another example was "Till Death us do part", (if anyone was anti racist, it would have been Warren Mitchell, he being Jewish I think).

JohnF