British Comedy Guide

Similar to my favourite sitcom...

No show runs forever - and sometimes, when your favourite sitcom is not enough, you look for something similar to give you a fix.
This thread is for people looking for shows that compliment their favourite sicom - post your favourite here with others like it, and see if others can suggest similar ones that you might like.

Example: My favourite sitcom is "Absolutely Fabulous".

Similar shows that I have found include -
"High Society" - An american Sitcom set in the world of publishing about a flamboyant publishing maven and her boozy, man eating best friend who is a romance novelist.
"Cybill" - An American sitcom set in LA about an eccentric middle adged actress and her bitter, alcoholic divorcee best friend.
"The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle" - Another Saunders sitcom - this time focusing on a self-involved trashy talk show host and her sycophants.
"P.R" - A Canadian sitcom about a boozy P.R. maven.
"Ugly Betty" - Set in the world of high fashion and featuring many similarly superficial comic characters.
"Arrested Development" - Another wealthy family of unruly, self-involved characters and the sensible one who tries to steer them.

Can anyone think of any others?

Otherwise - post your own. It's interesting to trace the similarities and differences between sitcoms. :D

Anyone at all?

Pulling was the female Peep Show.

Quote: ToddB @ March 6 2011, 11:49 AM GMT

No show runs forever - and sometimes, when your favourite sitcom is not enough, you look for something similar to give you a fix.
This thread is for people looking for shows that compliment their favourite sicom - post your favourite here with others like it, and see if others can suggest similar ones that you might like.

Example: My favourite sitcom is "Absolutely Fabulous".

Similar shows that I have found include -
"High Society" - An american Sitcom set in the world of publishing about a flamboyant publishing maven and her boozy, man eating best friend who is a romance novelist.
"Cybill" - An American sitcom set in LA about an eccentric middle adged actress and her bitter, alcoholic divorcee best friend.
"The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle" - Another Saunders sitcom - this time focusing on a self-involved trashy talk show host and her sycophants.
"P.R" - A Canadian sitcom about a boozy P.R. maven.
"Ugly Betty" - Set in the world of high fashion and featuring many similarly superficial comic characters.

"Arrested Development" - Another wealthy family of unruly, self-involved characters and the sensible one who tries to steer them.

Can anyone think of any others?

Otherwise - post your own. It's interesting to trace the similarities and differences between sitcoms. :D

I'll add Will & Grace, Mad Men, and to a lesser extent, The Golden Girls, Frasier and Friends. All American, mostly New York I think, they have a love for this uptown city culture type stuff don't they. And Ab Fab was arguably more popular there than it was here.

"Golden Girls" pre-dated Ab Fab, and I don't know if I'd agree with "Friends".
The others certainly - I'd add "Sex in the City" and "Desperate Housewives" to that.
"Will and Grace" definitely bears a semblance to the earlier "High Society" - which was not given a second series when the writers refused to tone down its brittle, brutal tone. It broke ground for "Will and Grace" and certainly lives on in the Karen Walker character.

Friends is very New Yorky but I suppose it doesn't have the intrinsic commercial or art world glamour of Ab Fab.

Of course most of the above sitcoms listed are mocking this world, none more than Ab Fab.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ March 8 2011, 5:39 PM GMT

Friends is very New Yorky but I suppose it doesn't have the intrinsic commercial or art world glamour of Ab Fab.

Speaking of Friends, I always felt Coupling was its English counterpart, albeit ruder. Also, Friends had flashback eps a lot and similarly Steven Moffat tended to use flashbacks and different perspectives as a way of telling the story in Coupling.

I felt this too. Even though I was not in love with "Coupling", I did fnd it much funnier and franker than "Friends' - which seemd to avoid being either frank and mature or delightfully silly.
I just watched "Sensitive Skin" for the first time yesterday - my goodness! It was incredible. With specific relation to this topic - it reminded me of the bitter tone of "The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle" - but with warmer characters. Like her characters in Absolutely Fabulous, Dr. Willoughby and A Class Act, Joanna Lumley's character is a socialite and ageing beauty who struggles with change and getting older - but this is much more sober than the others.

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