Sitcom autopsy results inconclusive

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on September 17th, 2007

Barry Garron, writing about television for Reuters, reviews the new Fox series Back to You.

And now, our favorite paragraph:

The multicamera format adds to the show’s familiar, as well as conventional, feel. It’s what creators Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd know best, but it might be tiresome to a growing number of younger viewers. Only the superior acting and writing of Back to You will keep them from becoming bored by the format and annoyed with the studio laughter. Maybe we’ve reached the point where no comedy can revive the multicamera format and the best one can do is overcome it.

Emphasis ours.

Yes that’s right: the “multicamera format” is dead, says the TV reviewer who daydreams about being a television executive. Why, just the other day we overheard a gaggle of twenty-somethings complaining about how tiresome the multicamera format is! And how annoyed they were by studio laughter! Is it any wonder the multicamera format is toast?!?

Let’s see if we have this straight– Younger viewers are mesmerized by superior acting and writing? This is what will keep them from becoming bored? The same people who watch Survivor, Big Brother and any of the dozen or so shows based on people forgetting the lyrics to songs are utterly incapable of making such fine distinctions. They are un-bore-able! The execs and the reviewers give them far too much credit. They’ll watch a funny sitcom if someone tells them to or if they find it funny themselves.

The death of the sitcom is overstated and the coroner’s report is utter nonsense. It is the pack mentality of Hollywood gone amok. Up until just recently, the multicamera format ruled television. Who declared it dead? The viewers? Certainly not. The execs did.

Sure, Scrubs, The Office, My Name Is Earl, 30 Rock are doing okay. (But only okay. On last night’s Emmy broadcast, 30 Rock creator Tina Fey said she’d “like to thank our dozens of viewers.”)

On the other hand, Two And A Half Men is kicking ass. The New Adventures of Old Christine is a top ten hit. The recently departed King of Queens was a solid performer, as was Everybody Loves Raymond. But one cannot honestly say the format is “dead” or that viewers find it “tiresome.” The television execs, with their herd mentality (and helped along by the reviewers), are the sorriest gang of timid yes-men the planet has ever seen. And once a multicamera sitcom (inexplicably?!?!) reaches the top of the ratings, they’ll scramble to be the first to say they never believed the format was dead in the first place!

And Back To You might be the one that turns the ship around. It’s got Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton, Fred Willard, James Burrows, Christopher Lloyd, Steve Levitan, a classic backdrop, a simple yet ripe premise.

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