The state of British sitcoms Page 3

Too much choice.

The thin spread of viewing figures.

When a "popular" comedy like Peep Show averages less than a million viewers, it just proves that the days of 20 million for an episode of a sitcom when we only had 2/3 channels will never return.

A sitcom is far from about just comedy. All the classics have all of human emotions within them; Steptoe And Son, The Good Life, Porridge and many others all had fear, love, unrequited love, poverty, stress, struggle, death, pathos, tragedy etc etc to make them classics, to make us empathise and root for the characters, and their struggles, real life that we can understand and belive in.

Try and feel that way about crap like My Family.

I reckon every generation has looked back and proclaimed "things are not what they were" so this is nothing new.

For every Outnumbered there is a Coming of Age just as for every Father Ted there was a 2.4 Children.

There will always be gems hidden between the huge swathes of rubbish.

2point4 Children is fantastic.

The car yes, the prog no, in my opinion.

Quote: nora @ January 10 2009, 4:58 PM GMT

Too much choice.

The thin spread of viewing figures.

When a "popular" comedy like Peep Show averages less than a million viewers,

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That's not right, is it? I'm sure Peep gets a couple of million on average.

I definitely read somewhere (may have been the sun or the star) that they struggled for ages to get a million.

I would agree that this is a good debate.

I agree with pretty much everything Lazzard is saying above, but I would add that there are other factors that go into the pot which have a lot to do with how we view programmes and how we remember them over time.

Show availability. Back in the 1980s another reason we rushed home was because that was the one and only chance to catch the show. I know that my household didn't get a video until around 1987 and so for me it was a case of see it or miss it. Repeats were at the discretion of the 3 or 4 channels of the time. Today of course technology is your pick-list and there is no reason to bother catching it on TV when it is aired. You have seemingly instantaneous repeats, you can catch it on the internet, the various satellite comedy channels, and of course give it a few months and the whole series is available on DVD for a cheap price from your favourite internet seller.

Viewing patterns have also changed. Back in the day I watched a show one a week for six weeks because I had no other choice. Today I prefer to sit down and view a whole series in one session. Because of this I am more inclined to wait it out and then just get the DVD.

Back in the 1980s as a teenager I only had to worry about spots, homework essays and seeing if I could pass for 18 in a pub. The rest of the time was my own and so I had a lot of it spare to catch the shows I liked the look of. I wish my life today was as simple as back then (cue violins!). My point here is that I think that as you get older and have more responsibility, the amount of free time you have can reduce quite a bit. This may not necessarily be the same for everyone of course so it may be a personal circumstance thing.

Do we remember things with rose tinted spectacles? I think this is a good point and it has been raised a few times already here. We tend to have some innate reason or ability to filter out all the bad things from the past so that we we look back our lives seem like something akin to the Darling Buds of May. Our schooling was better, crime wasn't as bad and of course our TV programmes were better - and our comedy funnier.

I would say that many of us do this without thinking and so something we loved in the past will always be amazing to us. I recently had a shock when I watched an episode of Kenny Everitt. I used to love watching this in my youth. I would go as far as to say it was one of my most treasured shows of the time, if not indeed of all time. But when I watched it recently - nothing. Not a single titter. Do I need to explain how gutting this was? I don't necessarily think this is a case of the rose glasses but more simply perhaps that my humour requirements have changed over time. I can still not say anything bad about the great Kenny.

I realise that for every great comedy mentioned there are a number out at the same time which were either poor or didn't get as big a following as others. That is the same now as it was then. In time to come we may look back at the 2000s and say; "the 2030s is rubbish for comedy, remember how good the 2000s were, what with Peep Show, Not Going Out, Extras, Pulling etc. There isn't anything today that can compare!"

All that being said my most treasured sitcoms are still from many years ago. Does this mean they are better than the cream of today? No, I don't think so but what they do hold is our memories and past within them to a large extent and I think that this can play a big part in how we both view them and hold them dear to our hearts. But saying that, a great comedy is simply a great comedy and I feel that the cream of every decade will nearly always rise to the top of the pile, whether it has 20 million views or just one million.

Def.

In my honest opinion, there hasn't been a funny sitcom since the eighties (and I'm not talking about the "alternative" stuff) - with the exception of One Foot in the Grave and dinnerladies.

Quote: Dave @ January 11 2009, 3:53 PM GMT

In my honest opinion, there hasn't been a funny sitcom since the eighties

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Oh come on now, really? There has been so many good ones that I find that sort of view kind of bizarre.

Quote: Mark @ January 10 2009, 12:34 PM GMT

We naturally tend, over time, to forget the bad stuff and only remember the good stuff. Rose tinted and all that.

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Ah! Rose tinted glasses! I remember those days. You never see them nowadays do you?

One point maybe worth making is that (my impression is) that back in the seventies there were more sitcoms in the schedules, so there were more sitcoms both good and bad; with an increasing number of flopped sitcoms in the eighties by the end of the nighties they had become squeezed out in favour of cheaper lifestyle programming and reality TV, particularly on ITV.

The reason we are seeing a bit of an improvement of late is the multi-channel environment - BBC Three, BBC Four and E4 allow broadcasters to take risk with out shedding ratings.

Quote: Deferenz @ January 11 2009, 3:46 PM GMT

I would say that many of us do this without thinking and so something we loved in the past will always be amazing to us. I recently had a shock when I watched an episode of Kenny Everitt. I used to love watching this in my youth. I would go as far as to say it was one of my most treasured shows of the time, if not indeed of all time. But when I watched it recently - nothing. Not a single titter. Do I need to explain how gutting this was? I don't necessarily think this is a case of the rose glasses but more simply perhaps that my humour requirements have changed over time. I can still not say anything bad about the great Kenny.

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Yup, that's definitely your taste that's changed! I found Kenny for the first time thanks to Paramount Comedy 2 just under a year ago, and it's quickly become one of my favourite sketch shows of all time.

Quote: Aaron @ January 11 2009, 5:02 PM GMT

Yup, that's definitely your taste that's changed! I found Kenny for the first time thanks to Paramount Comedy 2 just under a year ago, and it's quickly become one of my favourite sketch shows of all time.

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Don't worry Aaron, I have already beaten myself up over this. However, despite my recent hiccup Kenny's show still remains one of the cream from my comedy watching youth.

Def.

Quote: Matthew Stott @ January 11 2009, 4:00 PM GMT

Oh come on now, really? There has been so many good ones that I find that sort of view kind of bizarre.

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I'm serious. I don't like The IT Crowd. And I can't stand these "silent" programmes like Gavin and Stacey and Pulling and all those programmes. I didn't like the American-influenced After You've Gone. The Royale Family is boredom personified. I would say the only one worth watching is Lead Balloon, but even that isn't laugh a minute. The fact is, there hasn't been a sitcom which has been as funny as Fawlty Towers, or The Likely Lads, or Porridge, Dad's Army, Rising Damp in the 70s, and, in the 80s, Yes Prime Minister, Dear John, Blackadder, Just Good Friends, Three Up Two Down, Bread and Watching. The 90s produced some good stuff, namely The Vicar of Dibley, The Thin Blue Line, The Detectives and One Foot in the Grave and dinnerladies.

And US sitcoms, Frasier was the pinacle, and to a lesser extent, 3rd Rock. In this decade, Reba was great - probably one of the best - and 8 Simple Rules. Even more recently, The Big Bang Theory is enjoyable.

This decade has had plenty of time to get going on the comedy front, but for a multitude of variables, it just hasn't happened.

Quote: Dave @ January 11 2009, 6:43 PM GMT

I'm serious. I don't like The IT Crowd. And I can't stand these "silent" programmes like Gavin and Stacey and Pulling and all those programmes. I didn't like the American-influenced After You've Gone. I would say the only one worth watching is Lead Balloon, but even that isn't laugh a minute. The fact is, there hasn't been a sitcom which has been as funny as Fawlty Towers, or The Likely Lads, or Only Fools, or Porrigde, Rising Damp etc (I know these are all 70s comedies, but I'm being generious saying mid-eighties was D-Day) since that golden age stuttered to a holt sometimes in the early eighties (apart from Only Fools, which finished being good in '96). This decade has had plenty of time to get going on the comedy front, but for a multitude of variables, it just hasn't happened.

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In your opinion, and all that, it can't actually be fact as it's down to personal taste. For me, since the 80s, I'll list Father Ted, Black Books, Partridge, Red Dwarf, Coupling, Peep Show and Spaced, amongst many, many others, that have hit the mark for me.