TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/090991/0909990.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 8.6 KB | 190 lines

                                                                                TELEVISION, Page 70

Is the Sitcom Played Out?


This fall's glut of gimmicky, grating new entries suggests it is,
but there's nothing wrong with the durable format that a good show
wouldn't fix

By RICHARD ZOGLIN


    Here's a game to play while watching the onslaught of new
situation comedies being offered by the networks this fall. Try
to imagine the original meeting between the shows' creators and
the network executives. For CBS's Princesses, for example, it
must have gone something like this:

    "O.K., here's the idea. Three single women in New York.
All looking for a husband. All living in the same fancy Fifth
Avenue apartment."

    "Yeah. Sounds like How to Marry a Millionaire. But how do
we make it work for the '90s?"

    "Lemme tell you the twist. We call the show Princesses.
One of the women is a Jewish-American princess. The second is
a wholesome, Middle American sweetheart -- sort of a Wasp
princess."

    "And the third?"

    "Are you ready? She's a real princess! The European kind."

    "Love it. How about Friday at 8?"

    Princesses is far from the worst new comedy of the fall
season. After a pilot episode that goes through ludicrous
contortions to set up the situation, it may turn out to be a
passably entertaining look at manhunting in the Big Apple. But
the blatant gimmickry of its premise is symptomatic of the
malaise that has descended on TV's most venerable format, the
situation comedy.

    In terms of numbers, sitcoms are riding higher than ever.
By the end of September, no fewer than 17 new ones will have de
buted on the Big Three networks and Fox. That fact, combined
with the cancellation of such serious-minded dramas as thirty
something and China Beach, has sparked a cry among critics that
the networks are abandoning adventurous programming for safe,
frivolous fare.

    The charge may be valid, but is it fair to blame the
sitcom? In fact, the format is the most durable, supple and, on
occasion, artistically perfect one TV has ever invented. That
23-minute package has housed everything from the homey morality
plays of Father Knows Best to the antiwar messages of M*A*S*H;
from the social incisiveness of All in the Family to the
scattershot farce of Police Squad! If the new TV season had
another Sergeant Bilko or Mary Tyler Moore Show, critics would
be cheering the revival of network TV, not lamenting its demise.
No, there's nothing wrong with the sitcom that a good show
wouldn't fix.

    The genre seems to be suffering from creative exhaustion,
and the problem can be blamed, at least partly, on two
pernicious developments. One is the tyranny of the gag line.
Egged on by live studio audiences and a fear of letting viewers'
attention flag even for a second, sitcoms have subordinated
well-told stories and plausible characters to a barrage of
one-liners. Another is the curse of "high concept." To stand out
in this crowd (nearly 50 half-hour comedies will be airing on
the networks this fall), you gotta have a gimmick. Typically
that means putting together characters who clash in some way:
an oddly assembled family, mismatched co-workers, or simply a
grouchy guy who throws insults at everyone who crosses his path.

    The trouble is that insults and oddballs do not wear very
well. To survive for the long haul, most sitcoms have to
reinvent themselves in more sympathetic terms. The regulars at
the Cheers bar were originally a collection of funny misfits;
now they're a family. Roseanne roared to the top of the ratings
on the strength of its revenge-of-the-housewife wisecracks.
Since then it has played down the gag lines and established a
nice rhythm as TV's best domestic comedy.

    This fall, however, battling and bickering are back in
style. In CBS's Teech, a black music teacher gets hired at a
snooty white boarding school, providing the occasion for a
predictable batch of racial wisecracks. ("I am only reluctantly
conforming to federal guidelines," sniffs the headmaster to his
token hire. "Shoeshine?" offers the teacher.) NBC's Pacific
Station pairs a hard-boiled police detective (Robert Guillaume)
with a flaky new partner (Richard Libertini), who brews herb tea
and spouts New Age psychobabble. Only the two stars'
professionalism keeps this from being a match made in hell.

    In Fox's Herman's Head, the discord has spread to the main
character's subconscious. As a young magazine researcher plows
through a typical day, his four inner "selves" -- representing
intellect, anxiety, sensitivity and lust -- compete for control.
The device generates some laughs but starts wearing thin before
the first episode is even finished.

    High concept goes totally over the top in ABC's Good &
Evil, an outre farce from the creators of Soap. The title refers
to two warring sisters. One (Margaret Whitton) is a medical
researcher so good-hearted that she tests a new vaccine on
herself rather than give it to lab monkeys. The other (Teri
Garr), who is scheming to take over her mother's cosmetics
empire, smears an experimental cream on her secretary's face to
see if it makes the skin peel off. Among the other characters:
a husband of one sister, who has just been thawed out after four
years frozen in the ice on Mount Everest, and a blind man who
totals a laboratory with his cane in the most gratingly
ill-conceived bit of TV slapstick of the year. Maybe ever.

    Not all the new families are as dysfunctional as the one
on Good & Evil, but few seem very happy together, at least
initially. In ABC's Step by Step, two single parents (Patrick
Duffy and Suzanne Somers) marry and merge their respective
three-child broods; the kids are at one another's throats
instantly. In NBC's Flesh 'n' Blood, a yuppie lawyer (Lisa Darr)
is visited by her long-lost brother (David Keith), a hillbilly
layabout, and his two unwashed kids. Much to her dismay (and
ours), they promptly move in. In CBS's The Royal Family, Redd
Foxx plays a sour Atlanta mailman whose sunset years with his
wife (Della Reese) are interrupted by yet another band of
unwanted relatives: their daughter and grandchildren from
Philadelphia. It's hard to know which is more annoying -- these
paper-thin pretexts for put-down jokes or the cavalier way they
are tossed aside in a headlong rush for the heartstrings.

    Even when family members get along, the gags often get in
the way. ABC's Home Improvement boasts an appealing star in Tim
Allen and a nuclear family with no obviously malfunctioning
units (at least no relatives from the Ozarks). But the show is
hampered by its originating gimmick: Allen, the host of a TV
fix-it show, is all thumbs as a repairman at home. There are
some amusing gibes at power-tool macho ("What is your problem
with the blender? It's the only blender on the block that can
puree a brick"), but dubious prospects for long-term fun.

    The few spots of greenery on the sitcom desert can mostly
be traced to the influence of one unlikely hit: ABC's The
Wonder Years. That nostalgic sitcom, with its first-person
narration, absence of a laugh track and eye for childhood
detail, has sparked a minor trend toward more sensitive,
autobiographical sitcoms. One of the most widely anticipated
comes from Gary David Goldberg (Family Ties), who has based his
new series for CBS, Brooklyn Bridge, on his experiences growing
up in an extended Jewish family in the 1950s. Judging from the
pilot script (the show is still being finished), Brooklyn Bridge
will have its share of TV sentiment but a good dose of ethnic
authenticity as well.

    The nicest surprise of the new season is a little-heralded
show from NBC called The Torkelsons. The series revolves around
a ragtag Oklahoma family of six: five kids and their poor but
resourceful single mother (Connie Ray). In Wonder Years
fashion, the central character is a sensitive teenager,
14-year-old Dorothy Jane, who mo nologizes from her bedroom
window about how her crude family embarrasses her.

    The season opener -- in which Mom tries to greet new
neighbors, rent out a room, fend off a suitor and keep the
washer and dryer from being repossessed -- is a bit too hectic
and overwrought. But the family is believable, and Olivia
Burnette is totally winning as Dorothy Jane. With a voice that
cracks charmingly at the high end, she can take a routine
wisecrack ("They're just an unsuspecting, innocent family.
Please don't turn into the Welcome Wagon from hell") and make
it a cry of adolescent anguish. A TV kid whose jokes are rooted
in real feelings and family tribulation. What a concept!