Maturity

Hello. Wondered if I could garner your opinion on something. Sitcom idea: mature students.

Now, I know the idea of university as a setting could potentially make many producers reach for the bin straight away - there must be a million students thinking it would be a good idea to pitch a sitcom about their kerazy lives.

But the twist would be that these are mature students. Let's say New Tricks meets The Young Ones, or Dad's Army meets Big Bang Theory. The settings would be probably be a shared house, a classroom, and a bar.

I know all this will be of no consequence anyway without good characters, plot set up, pay off etc etc. But I want to start with a good setting!

Done before? Unoriginal? Obvious poo traps to watch out for? I'm all ears.

And sorry if this belongs in critique!

Actually, I rather like that idea.

Actually I like that too. It's something that, if I saw it advertised, I would have a look at. Mind you, that's possibly because I've been one and my husband currently is.

Would just say re setting that, from the mature students I know, a shared house isn't the norm.

Quote: clueless @ November 25 2010, 10:31 PM GMT

Would just say re setting that, from the mature students I know, a shared house isn't the norm.

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That could be one of the reasons it works I reckon, a slightly unusual situation.

The American sitcom Community is about mature students, maybe check that out so you don't end up too close to it.

There is mature student housing at unis though.
But I don't know how many actually use it. Being surrounded by young students would be hell (reminding you how old you are, etc). But then comedy would come from that.

But you probably mean a shared house outside campus anyway?

It's doomed.

The vital ingredient in sitcom is the audience's wish to be with the characters in the sit, sharing the com.

What fan of The Young Ones wouldn't have wanted either to live the with boys or, at least, live close enough to drop in and out as a visitor whenever they wanted?

Same with Fawlty Towers, Seinfeld, Frasier, Friends, The Simpsons, Dibley, Green Wing, Only Fools, Men Behaving Badly and every other sitcom I can think of.

Now ask yourself how many people want to spend their lives with a group of mature students in a world dripping with sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll - and you and your mature friends are not only getting NONE of it, you and they have to watch the beautiful young things all around you wallowing in ALL of it?

Believe me. If there's a Hell after death, that's exactly what it'll be like.

It's doomed.

Doomed, I tell you.

Doomed? Not at all, it depends entirely on how it's done. As I've said, there is already a successful American sitcom about mature students.

Quote: DrVole @ November 25 2010, 10:20 PM GMT

Hello. Wondered if I could garner your opinion on something. Sitcom idea: mature students.

Now, I know the idea of university as a setting could potentially make many producers reach for the bin straight away - there must be a million students thinking it would be a good idea to pitch a sitcom about their kerazy lives.

But the twist would be that these are mature students. Let's say New Tricks meets The Young Ones, or Dad's Army meets Big Bang Theory. The settings would be probably be a shared house, a classroom, and a bar.

I know all this will be of no consequence anyway without good characters, plot set up, pay off etc etc. But I want to start with a good setting!

Done before? Unoriginal? Obvious poo traps to watch out for? I'm all ears.

And sorry if this belongs in critique!

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I think it's a good idea. But I would say that, because I have some scribbling about an as-yet unwritten sitcom Victor Mature in one of my notebooks.

Go for it, I say.

PS I'd hate to inhabit the world of lots of sitcom characters but that doesn't mean those sitcoms are doomed.

It sounds an intriguing idea that could work quite well. As with all these things it would depend on the writing, though.

It's tricky to comment objectively, tbh, because I'd be keen to watch something along those lines in anticipation of comic parallels with my own narrow experience as a mature student, which had way more to do with middle-aged pomposity v. beleaguered lecturers (+ the occassional mid-life crisis anarchic student wannabee*) than anything else. I have no idea how typical my experience was, that's the trouble.

(*they didn't venture outside of the Staff Common Room we were entitled to use at breaks, they just pontificated very loudly whilst they were there)

ETA - and today's challenge, BCGers, is to rearrange the above post into some sort of fluency. Many thanks.

Quote: Veronica Vestibule @ November 25 2010, 10:59 PM GMT

Now ask yourself how many people want to spend their lives with a group of mature students in a world dripping with sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll - and you and your mature friends are not only getting NONE of it, you and they have to watch the beautiful young things all around you wallowing in ALL of it?

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Sounds a lot like a little show you might have heard of called Peep Show.
A right couple of losers.

You've just described exactly why I would watch it. Who wants to watch a British sitcom about popular people who get everything they want? Sounds dire.

Quote: Matthew Stott @ November 25 2010, 11:10 PM GMT

Doomed? Not at all, it depends entirely on how it's done. As I've said, there is already a successful American sitcom about mature students.

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I don't know the American series but a quick Google search suggests it stars a slim, fit, handsome, 30-something guy who plays a recently disbarred lawyer and, as such, will certainly be a babe-magnet at the college.

Unless I'm much mistaken, your average mature student in Britain of somewhat homelier aspect.

If you're going to reflect that average mature student in your casting, it's doomed.

Quote: Veronica Vestibule @ November 25 2010, 10:59 PM GMT

It's doomed.

The vital ingredient in sitcom is the audience's wish to be with the characters in the sit, sharing the com.

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Yeah, that's what it is. We all want to be married to Alf. living with Vic, working with Basil, being a servant to blackadder, being a genie/witch serving their master, being a once rich aristo living next door to a european someone or other who has bought your old family pile, being a bank manager who seizes the opportunity of a war to get some credibility that nobody acknowledges.

Top tip: Don't let anybody tell you what not to write. Just do it and if it don't get made... hey

Quote: zooo @ November 25 2010, 11:32 PM GMT

You've just described exactly why I would watch it. Who wants to watch a British sitcom about popular people who get everything they want? Sounds dire.

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I wouldn't mind the repeat fees for Two Pints of Lager.