Saturday, December 22, 2012

Stumbling To The Alter

One of my favorite teachers ever taught me (and the rest of the class) that the best comedy comes from the "stumble to the alter" phase of a person's life. He meant that other than "family" sitcoms, the best time for comedy in a person's life is the time when they're old enough to potentially get married to the time that they're actually married.

This is why so many sitcoms have died or ended once it's "single" characters get married. This is why so many sitcoms have kept their characters in a perpetual state of immaturity.

In an ensemble sitcom, you can of course have one married couple, but as the other characters begin to pair off, the sitcom will sooner rather than later come to an end.

This is the looming fear of How I Met Your Mother. The whole premise of the show is leading up to the moment when Ted gets married. It can happen at any time. Now, on top of that, we have Robin and Barney paring off. Soon, the whole cast will be married.

Also, when characters in a sitcom begin to pair off, usually the "drama" starts to increase and the "comedy" starts to decrease. This happened to Friends. It's happening to HIMYM. However, it never happened with Seinfeld. Seinfeld was aware of where the comedy came from. He knew about the "stumble to the alter." He never messed with it.

The 2012 winter finale of HIMYM was really good. Despite Robin and Barney being officially paired off, despite the ramped up drama. I don't know why, but I really feel like HIMYM might just be able to break the mold and still be good after all their characters are married. With it's continued quality use of flashbacks we can always get a good dose of Barney running a ridiculous scam from his playbook, or Ted getting into ridiculous circumstances.

HIMYM has had its ups and downs as its characters have aged. There were times when I was really pissed off at the show and on the verge of giving up on it (hello three episode arc about Marshall's father dying), and yes it was in its prime during season 2 and 3 and hasn't been as consistently funny since. But dammit if I wasn't sold on the 2012 winter finale. I have hope that this show can do what no other similar sitcom has ever been able to pull off. 

Thursday, December 6, 2012

It's A DVR Word

For me, it has become a DVR world. And now, for millions and millions of others the television landscape has changed. We are no longer tethered to getting to our TV's at certain times or on certain days. We are no longer forced to program our VCR's or DVD recorders and then hope and pray everything works out perfectly. I still have a picture of me and my college girlfriend wearing the tape from a VHS on our heads from the night the VCR ate said tape in the middle of recording the new episode of Seinfeld. Never again does this have to happen!

But before DVR's started catching on, television networks started bumping the ending of one show to the beginning of the next show closer and closer. This my friends, has done nothing but screw with my DVR. The DVR cuts off the final ten to thirty seconds of a show week in and week out. If I don't tape the next show, I never get to see the ending, or if I watch the shows out of order, I see the ending before I see the beginning and middle.

Yes, I know the DVR has a nifty little function that allows you to continue taping a show for one minute after the show ends, but this doesn't work on days when I'm taping lots of shows, and that wouldn't solve the problem of watching shows out of order.

For me, the DVR has brought back the joy of great sitcoms on Thursdays. I watch New Girl, Happy Endings, Suburgatory and How I Met Your Mother. This is what makes the DVR so great. It allows the viewer to create their own television schedule and watch shows on their own time frame.

So please, for god's sake, can we just contain a show within the time frame it's scheduled for. Is this too much to ask for?