Well, I'm flummoxed.
For the second time this season, I've read good pre-buzz on a show only to tune in and say, "Quoi?"
NBC's returned-from-the-dead Must See TV didn't exactly blow the doors off last night. The Office was as reliably funny as ever -- even if it did resort to a heart-to-heart moment between Michael Scott and Jim that the original would have never touched. Don't get me wrong, it was still funny, and the idea that Michael's the only guy in Dunder-Mifflin who doesn't know Jim has a thing for Pam is kinda sweet, and very true to his character. In fact, that scene pretty much summarized the basic cultural difference between the British and American iterations of the show. I dare say that for many Brits (and probably more than a few Canadians,) Michael's advice to never give up would seem -- unseemly. Maybe so. But also very American.
My Name is Earl was middling-to-solid -- I can't help but think that they've got to complicate the formula a bit more as they wear on. The twist with Randy was a good one -- and the little asides where Catalina references her dark childhood are getting increasingly twisted -- but I still think it's got a bit of mid-season sputter. Jaime Pressly is pretty gifted as a comedienne, though.
Which brings us to Four Kings. Oy.
You know, a few years ago, I sat in a session with Phil Rosenthal (Everybody Loves Raymond) at the Canadian Film Centre. We got talking about likeajokes, and how they were killing comedy.
Likeajokes are rife in the sitcom today -- it's the main force, in my opinion, that makes the four-camera soundstage sitcom so utterly moribund. We've gotten to the point now where we've all internalized the sitcom rhythm. We know the parry and thrust of the setup-punchline-topper form of sitcom writing, with the three-jokes-a-page and the snarky asides. But somewhere along the line it became okay to ape the form without the content. If you look all over the dial today you'll see shows where the actor goes into a rhythm, and, yep, there's the setup, and boom...there's the punchline. And the canned laughter goes wild!
Only one problem: the "punchline" wasn't funny. In fact, it wasn't even a joke.
Welcome to the wonderful world of the likeajoke.
A likeajoke is like watching an NBA player leave the ground, stretch toward the basket gracefully, place the ball nowhere near the basket, only to hit the ground triumphantly anyway, as we're forced to watch the crowd go wild and the team slaps his back-- for nothing. It's all rhythm, and no emotional payoff. The cathartic effect of laughter? Well, sorry, bub. The machine's cranked up to 11. Either go along with the fakey-fake catharsis, or...um...er...that's it.
Four Kings is chock full of likeajokes. By about four minutes in, I was wondering if I'd ever be able to watch a sitcom with a laugh track again. Time after time, I called out the "punchline" as the setup was being said. It was slow, abysmal, and mawkish. The pot-pill popping old lady was the only petit amusant in the whole show.
I read a lot of first scripts (perils of teaching) and I used to be amazed that people could get the feel of a sitcom without actually delivering any laughs. But now those people, apparently, have actual jobs on actual sitcoms.
Dana Stevens at Slate, who's seen more than last night's episode, seems to feel it gets better. I may give it one more. But to me, this is How I Met Your Mother all over again.
Maybe it is time to put the sitcom out to pasture.
3 comments:
1) I think likajoke is a very good description of a lot of what's wrong with sit-coms. Was it your term or his?
2) I beleive you also have to place some of the blame on actors. If you were to write out the lines Catalina spoke on Earl last night you'd laugh a lot harder than hearing her say them. I think Four Kings qualifies as well, the actors made no interesting choices at all. If your going to do comedy you have to be over the top, they were all subdued and it ends up looking like 4 shades of grey instead of 4 distinct characters.
3) Have you also noticed the rise of the vaguely ironic statement as a joke? If your in a rythim it can work, but if you start off a scene with it or expect to use it as a blow it fails every time. But you still see it all over the place.
4) I actualy thought The Office was a little weak last night. I beleive it's part of NBC's plot to make Four Kings look better.
Likeajokes are exactly the reason why I stopped watching sitcoms years ago, about the time Spin City made its debut. When was that? '99...2000? It's all so formulaic and artificial, the shows have been so over-analyzed by clueless network suits and their effing test audiences, there's nothing truly unique, creative or funny about them anymore. I have yet to see a single episode of Friends, Everybody...Raymond, or Will and Grace.
it was more a "Feh... out of ten" for me.
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