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Did they break the comedy series mold after Modern Family? It seems that way as only one new family comedy, Fox’s Raising Hope made it to the schedule for next season. It’s all about relationships and couples this year and, by the end of upfronts, many of them start to blend together. The networks’ marketing people have their work cut out for them trying to get viewers to distinguish one new relationship comedy from another. NBC has Perfect Couples and Friends with Benefits, while ABC has Better Together and Happy Endings – all ensemble comedies about couples. Additionally, CBS has Mike & Molly, about an overweight couple and their friends, and Fox has Running Wilde, about an unlikely couple: a spoiled rich man and a passionate do-gooder. CBS’ $#! My Dad Says seems so dominated by the larger-than-life character played by William Shatner that the family element is deep in the background. Similarly, the family aspect does not appear to be central to NBC’s Paul Reiser Show, which too centers squarely on Reiser and whose trailer focused more on his career and on the interactions with his male buddies than on his home life.
Modern Family is a great series that is credited with reinvigorating the half-hour comedy genre. But is its success too intimidating for networks to try to launch other family comedies that would inevitably be compared to it? Or there just was something in the air this development season about relationships comedies and every network had to have a bunch of those?
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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There are two simple problems:
1) almost all the network execs making decisions are in serious relationships, just got married, or just had their first kid. So these are the stories that are interesting to them. What’s a new marriage like? What happens to the friend circle after people get married?
It’s sad that they can’t see outside of this box, but it’s the reality. They would be happy if every show was ‘Till Death but got better ratings.
2) most of the writers getting picked up to series have spent their entire adult lives on sit-com writing staffs, pretty much guaranteeing a lack of originality. oh yeah, and they’re also people just getting married, just having their first kid, etc. even if younger writers are giving a shot, they’ll be supervised by older writers that don’t have a wealth of ideas left.
Agreed. The best way to appeal to Yuppy TV execs learning how to be adults is to make shows about Yuppies (in any other equally well-paid profession) learning to be adults. Why are there so many shows and movies about workaholic parents learning to reconnect with their kids through incredibly contrived ways? Because workaholic Film and TV execs with kids can’t imagine how they could possibly spend more time with their children unless something amazingly magical happened to enable it. You want to break the mold as a writer/creator? Be bigger than anybody else. Cosby, Seinfeld and Larry David big. Until then, anything original you pitch will be watered down to resemble every other god damn thing out there.
Have you seen the trailer for “Better Together”?
You don’t call that a family comedy at all?
more interesting is the fact that no one is doing workplace ensemble comedies.
Are you kidding? If Modern Family had any more retro sterotypes (Goofy
Hispanics that can’t speak the language, aren’t they funny because they’re so gay? And the guy doing the Steve Carell impersonation) it would be on the Dumont network.
I’m pretty sure that “The Middle” is a family comedy, too.
The family comedies are a disappointment. Too many characters are just way way out there. Not funny at all. A bit sad.
I found it difficult to watch any of them.
The relationship comedies shows are as bad as the family comedies. The cougar stuff is bad taste. The rest are tired.
The Sci-fi, Supernatural, and Vampire series are much more interesting to watch.
Hmm, so there are three 20 something couples coms: Perfect Couples / Friends with Benefits / Happy Endings (with Happy Endings as more of a Friends update where ‘your friends are your family’)
But the rest of the new sitcoms DO seem to be family comedies:
Mike & Molly = two 30 something singles meet in OA, one lives with her mom & sister
Better Together = Modern Family without the kids: the 3 couples are 2 adult sisters in relationships & their parents
Running Wilde = a dysfunctional rich guy + a do-gooder AND her young daughter with a tone more like Arrested Development than couple rom-com
$#! My Dad Says = Shatner at the center of a a hipper Everybody Loves Raymond-style family
The Paul Riser Show = a family comedy about Paul, his wife and their 2 young sons
Most of those type of shows are on ABC Family now.
Nah, if there were a bunch of family comedies in this year’s crop we would be giving them shit about trying to ride on Modern Family’s coattails and saying they should try to do something original rather than repeat someone else’s success (which in the end never works). The reality is it doesn’t matter what kind of show it is, it just has to be good.
This will now allow for a more diversfied development of comedies. Watch for re-invented branded series.
I agree with Josh– the key thing is that the show is good. When all is said and done, TV is a very execution driven medium. Modern Family was the one really good sitcom that debuted last season. Not necessarily a huge idea but beautifully executed. I don’t think Cheers, Cosby, Friends, et al were big ideas either, just wonderfully done.
I hope no one copies this series. Modern Family is an incredible ho hum! I have tried to watch it several times and find myself getting up to do the dishes (I HATE doing dishes) after 5 minutes of this trivial, contrived show. I just don’t see the attraction to it or all the hype about how good it is. To me, it is just plain BORING! It should never have been on the air in the first place.
I think “Modern Family” is fantastic (if not as funny as fellow rookie “Community”) but the argument that it reinvigorated the sitcom doesn’t seem to be true after the upfronts.
NBC still has only four sitcoms on the schedule. CBS has 6 I think (same as last year.) ABC still four. Fox added two more than last year.
And so two more comedies on the schedule than last year is a revolution? I’m glad “Modern Family” is a hit (well deserved) but just two more comedies on the schedule is not a whole lot.
Does “Modern Family” take aspects of “Arrested Development” and the canceled before its time “Sons & Daughters” and make a great show? Yes. But still waiting for that new “Cosby Show” or even “Friends” to turn things around for sitcoms.
(Note: “Glee” is not a sitcom.)
Well we al know FOX doesn’t know how to handle a good live action sitcom since they dropped the ball on a great one last season- “Sons of Tucson”. What morons if you ask me. Totally Fox, and gets the same ratings as some of their others stupid shows.
“The Middle” is a family sitcom i think, right? .
The networks are too busy trying to come up with a hit and the next big idea to actually develop a well-written, well-acted comedy or drama series that appeals to a BROADCAST audience.
There is very little of interest out of this year’s crop. Most of it will be gone by December.
They seem to forget that TV’s biggest hits were based on simple premises, appealing characters and relateable storylines.
for we do not have a high priest is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but we have one who has been tempted in every way