Quote: Tim Walker @ November 6, 2007, 7:47 PMPoint is then, don't sell it as 'comedy' as opposed to 'comedy-drama'. There is huge difference.
If you write a comedy with scope for drama, it must establish itself first as a comedy. Audiences forgave (and were sentimental for) the down-beat scenes in, oh, I don't know, 'Only Fools And Horses', once they knew that they were primarily watching an out-and-out comedy. Similarily were the emotional scenes in 'The Office'. Dramas are allowed comic elements, comedies have to be comedies before they can be anything else.
Yes, I agree entirely. What I saw was hopelessly muddled and wasn't "sitcom", which is why I'm sticking by the scientific fact that it bombed in preview and was rewritten with more dramatic elements. (I'm using Dr Fox's version of scientific fact here.)