» Breaking The Fourth Wall: TV Snobbery

- Breaking The Fourth Wall: TV Snobbery
  
  A post about Columns by yatesy on April 28th, '08
  
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- For the first time in many years, the situation comedy, or, the “sitcom”, is getting smarter. Yes, According To Jim is still on (I am not sure what pact with the devil Jim Belushi signed by it must be some good stuff), but shows Like The New Adventures Of Old Christine, 30 Rock and yes, even Family Guy are making us laugh while also not pandering to what some would call “the lowest common denominator”. The interesting thing tho, is that there is starting to become a weird phenomenon involving TV snobs and certain networks.
  
  Back in the early 90’s, if you watched 60 Minutes and Murder, She Wrote on Sunday nites, you were considered intelligent (or at least an intelligent television watcher). If you watched Married..With Children and any of the other fledgling Fox Sunday nite fare, you were considered not so smart and perhaps even lowbrow. Never would these viewers cross paths. The same sort of thing is happening today between viewers of CBS and NBC sitcoms.
  
  NBC has built a great lineup of smart comedies: Earl (believe it), The Office, 30 Rock and even Scrubs (which is making a network change to ABC for the fall). No laugh tracks, off the wall situations, and of course, low ratings, make for perfect storm of TV snobbery. Never would an NBC sitcom viewer sink to the low levels of watching the Monday nite lineup up Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Two and A Half Men and The New Adventures of Old Christine. This, of course, is not only hilarious, but also ridiculous and completely off the mark.
  
  CBS’s Big Bang Theory is a new Chuck Lorre (Dharma and Greg, Two and A Half Men) sitcom about 4 physics nerds. It references physics (duh), and pretty much every nerdly thing known to man while balancing the normal sitcommy things one would expect to see with 4 guys and a hot girl (who, funnily enough, isn’t a nerd, but a hilariously good sport). How I Met Your Mother is a story told in flashback from the fairly distant future about exactly what the title says. All at once it can be touching, raunchy, hilarious and funny as hell. That, my friends, is a mark of a good show.
  
  Two and A Half Men is where people get an attitude. Jon Cryer is a divorced weekend dad who lives with his brother Charlie Sheen, who, for lack of a better word, is a manwhore. There are a lot of sex jokes, a lot of naïve kid comments, but no hugging moments and no one really ever learns. It could, perhaps, be considered a modern day farce. For some reason or another, the high brow NBC watcher uses this show as a mark of lowbrow, too cool for school comedy. Perhaps they think it’s just full of dick jokes and toilet humor. While it definitely is, the layers are more complex and hilarious.
  
  Is it the hipster complex that keeps people from checking out highly rated shows? If the masses like it then it has to be crap? Perhaps. Two and A Half Men kill in the ratings. But it also has a great cast (with special props to my favorite TV actress Holland Taylor, who made me laugh when I was six years old as the boss on Bosom Buddies and continues to steal every scene here as well) and runs with the idea that there are no grownups living that house. Do CBS viewers find themselves intimidated by the lack of laugh tracks and all of the fourth wall breaking? Perhaps.
  
  Each network has some great shows that people might be missing because of preconceived notions as to what is smarter, or what they think makes them smarter by watching. Of course, shows like According to Jim are vomitous, but there are shows like the ones I have mentioned above as well as Samantha Who and Miss Guided on ABC that are quirky, silly and fun to watch that break out of the conventional sitcom script setups.
  
  If people don’t get out of the mindset of what is hipper, then we will end up with many more cancelled shows like Arrested Development that win awards and accolades and end up as season dvd sets because the ratings were awful.
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One Response to “Breaking The Fourth Wall: TV Snobbery”
1. twist'dsilver Says:
  April 30th, 2008 at 3:36 am
  Arrested Development was cancelled??? Good!! Now if only Daisies, Rock and Office would follow maybe we’d get more good sit-coms like Jim…
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