Sitcoms in Crisis: Do We Expect Too Much of Them?

What should we expect from situation comedies these days? Must they make us laugh out loud, or is it enough simply to be amused or charmed or made to smile while watching?

This is a question that must be addressed, because the new comedy series on the networks this fall are doing little to alter the perception that the sitcom is dying, if not dead.

In yet another indication of how dire the situation has become, two of the six new series included last week in a poll on JackMyers.com that asked readers to indicate which new comedies they were most excited about barely registered with respondents. We’re keeping the poll up for another week, but those two programs, ABC’s Carpoolers and The CW’s Aliens in America, are being eliminated due to a clear lack of interest. ABC’s Samantha Who?, which debuted last night and is one of the better new comedies of the fall, has been added. CBS’ appealing The Big Bang Theory is currently in the lead. Showtime’s Californication, Fox’ Back to You and ABC’s Cavemen are still competitive. (You can find the poll and instant ongoing results on our home page.)

Those of us who grew up watching the sitcoms of the Sixties and Seventies, from the memorably silly (The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Get Smart, Bewitched, The Munsters, Happy Days, Three’s Company, Laverne & Shirley, Welcome Back Kotter) to the unforgettably sublime (All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, M*A*S*H, Sanford and Son, Rhoda, Maude, Taxi) can only sit back and wonder what in the world went wrong with this most cherished form of television entertainment. How did a genre that gave us such enduring staples of popular culture as I Love Lucy and Leave It to Beaver way back in the Fifties and, more recently, the likes of Cheers, The Golden Girls, Family Ties, Murphy Brown, Designing Women, Newhart, Seinfeld, Fraiser, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, Malcolm in the Middle and Will & Grace go so tragically and perhaps irreversibly wrong?