Sitcoms that set a new style trend, or standard? Page 2

Quote: Leevil @ July 21 2011, 2:29 PM BST

Really? But the trend wasn't noticed until after The Office was aired. It was then that the mockumentry became "mainstream" if you will. Sure there were others before it, but they were never picked up and rolled the same way The Office did.

There's also the fact that in and around 2000 documentaries involving people at work were all the rage. At sitcoms started to reflect that. Mainly because writers of the time wanted to be post-modern n stuff.

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He was talking about a sketch in The Day Today, a more well-known one being about the swimming pool.

So what Mockumentary type things were inspired by the Office?
Or that Peter Kay thing or Operation Good Guys or People Like us, or the Day Today or those bits that Victoria Wood used to do in her shows
Were there that many after 2000?

I think The Office influenced the growth in cinema verite style shows like Thick Of It and Getting On. Sure, it existed before that, but post-Office it became more dominant as a style.

Ah a bit more single Camera realism than Mockumentary per se.
That rings more bells.

My dad's the Prime Minister.

Quote: chipolata @ July 21 2011, 7:42 PM BST

I think The Office influenced the growth in cinema verite style shows like Thick Of It and Getting On. Sure, it existed before that, but post-Office it became more dominant as a style.

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In America we have Parks and Recreation and Modern Family both adapting the talking head style but otherwise losing all pretense of documentary. That said, technology also has to be credited here... surely smaller cameras and digital equipment make these things much more feasible.

I think the OP is just getting older and going through the typical "in my day!" phase.

"The Young Ones" set new standards in anarchy and surrealism in sitcoms. The humour came from the mania and increasing ridiculousness of the situation rather than from innuendo et cetera. Other shows in this vein followed including "Happy Families", Girls On Top", "Filthy, Rich and Catflap" and "Bottom".
"Absloutely Fabulous" set a new standard for the 'adult' sitcom with the maturity of its themes and it raised the bar for satire in sitcoms.

I'm surprised that The Royle Family hasn't received a mention. It was this show which first saw a trend towards more naturalistic comedies and was hugely influential in the move away from audience sitcoms. The Office followed on from that.

The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin was also important as it tackled a weightier subject and the episodes had to be put out in a specific order. Prior to that, shows would always just stick the weakest episode out 4th or 5th as there were no story arcs.

Yes, Royle Family. I have to admit to being one of the ones who sat there bolt faced when this thing appeared on TV but it did seem to usher in a new form of sitcom, yes, not just the non audience ones, but the banal room bound ones with that low, base sense of humour (not knocking them, just don't know how else to put it). RF was very influential, I'd say.

In sitcoms there were no story arcs before Perrin? Well Perrin's certainly the most prominent user of them, and it was a nice change, at the time, but I remember less overt arcs being used in Porridge, which had several double episode arcs and one or two more subtle series arcs I think. Pretty sure Steptoe & Son had some little arcs here and there too.

And series one of WHTT Likely Lads was built on an arc. If you count Budgie as a sitcom, another arc based show. Citizen Smith which started at roughly the same time as Perrin, maybe a month or two after, also had an arc. Perrin's was the most overt but there were arcs around, I'd say. Maybe someone else can confirm this? I am a big fan of the arc, btw. More arcs please.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ July 23 2011, 10:47 AM BST

In sitcoms there were no story arcs before Perrin? Well Perrin's certainly the most prominant user of them, and it was a nice change, at the time, but I remember less overt arcs being used in Porridge, which had several double episode arcs and one or two more subtle series arcs I think. Pretty sure Steptoe & Son had some little arcs here and there too.

And series one of WHTT Likely Lads was built on an arc. If you count Budgie as a sitcom, another arc based show. Citizen Smith which started at roughly the same time as Perrin, maybe a month or two after, also had an arc. Perrin's was the most overt but there were arcs around, I'd say. Maybe someone else can confirm this? I am a big fan of the arc, btw. More arcs please.

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You're right and I was over-generalizing. What I meant was that the vast majority of shows had no story arcs and so selected the order of broadcast later. This clearly still sometimes happens today but I think it happens rather less than in the past.

Well it's interesting because although there had been the odd arc based sitcom before, it does indeed seem that Perrin set a new fad for them, so you're absolutely right. At the back of my head I knew I'd read a book on sitcoms that said as much. Here you are, 'following on from the success of TFARORP came a number of sitcoms telling a story from first to last episode to get the viewers hooked. What worked for Reggie Perrin also worked wonders for Butterflies, To The Manor Born, Solo, The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Just Good Friends.' Yes I do like an arc in sitcoms.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ July 23 2011, 5:23 PM BST

Well it's interesting because although there had been the odd arc based sitcom before, it does indeed seem that Perrin set a new fad for them, so you're absolutely right. At the back of my head I knew I'd read a book on sitcoms that said as much. Here you are, 'following on from the success of TFARORP came a number of sitcoms telling a story from first to last episode to get the viewers hooked. What worked for Reggie Perrin also worked wonders for Butterflies, To The Manor Born, Solo, The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Just Good Friends.' Yes I do like an arc in sitcoms.

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Maybe To The Manor Born was like Hitchikers in that it was a radio series. I don't think To The Manor Born had a story arc, you know where it was heading, which is not the same thing at all. Butterflies went on too long for a story arc really-Ria stayed with her husband and didn't sleep with her boyfriend so where is the real story?

Yes, only the first two and last two episodes or so of To The Manor Born really need to be watched in order. The other ... 15 or so can, more or less, be watched in any order. It's a show with a story arc, rather than The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin et al, which are serials.

So was Operation Good Guys the first of the...mockumentary, camera realism, naturalistic thingee sitcoms? I suppose they used this style in sketches before that but not whole sitcoms.

So was F and R of Reginald... the first real serial UK sitcom then? Although I was only a kid when it was shown, I remember watching it and part of its appeal was the radical and funny changes that occured in Reggie's life week after week. Part of what made it serial was the mystery as to just where the sitcom was taking us. Where the series was taking us.

I suppose it also broke new ground in terms of its existential anxt, satire, absurdity, cynicism (but with 'Reggie' there was always optimism with it) originality.

Goons influence The Goodies then The Young Ones?

Do you think Steptoe was gound breaking due to its 'dark' moments and character-based nature? Was there new emphasis here that sitcoms can be about more than JUST making people laugh? Better quality writing too?

I think that the first mockumentaries were several decades ago but I'm not sure how successful they were.

I suppose Hitchhiker's could be said to have set a new style to a small extent in terms of sci-fi comedies. But I guess in the U.K. only Red Dwarf and Hyperdrive have really come since.