It doesn’t matter how you watch television: on TV or on a computer with broadband internet, we all know what a sitcom is and you’ve most likely heard of Cheers and Frasier. Have you ever asked yourself what made those sitcoms great? When you look at Cheers, most of it was about a bar where regular Joes went to complain about their everyday lives. It wasn’t tremendously dynamic in concept and most of the action happened in one room. Frasier, the popular spin-off, was the same way: a radio psychiatrist endures wacky antics with his family in Seattle where intellectualism clashes with the world at large. What made these shows so great and how do they compare to sitcoms today?
I’ll tell you.
Simple answer: complex characters.
If you look at any sitcom nowadays there is really not a whole lot to the characters. They all run the gamut from stereotypical to insultingly predictable and you aren’t challenged. There are no psychiatrists with cheating wives or mailmen with borderline sociopathic tendencies. Characters aren’t given nearly enough time to develop and open up to the audience and the audience isn’t given a moment to think about these characters and decide for themselves if they are worth cheering for.
Cheers and Frasier had tremendous roots in realism but managed to entertain without being overly preachy or maudlin. Much of it has to do with the writing but a lot of it has to do with what networks think you want and what many couch critics have ordained and condemned the rest of the public to. That’s why the sophisticated sitcom is dead and you’ll never see anything like Cheers and Frasier again. Because challenging the audience doesn’t guarantee a profit or a following.