In my opinion, it is not NBC's Thursday night combo of The Office and 30 Rock. It is CBS's Monday night combo of The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother.
Both The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother have what most quality sitcoms feature: unique, unpredictable characters and very sharply written dialogue. But they are also both unique, and it is their originality that makes them particularly entertaining.
The Big Bang Theory often relies on conventional sitcom situations. What it does, however, is thrust odd, eccentric, smart, and creative characters into these conventional situations, and observes how these characters will play out the familiar situations. The result is often an unfamiliar storyline, unexpected plot twists, extremely funny actions and reactions.
How I Met Your Mother often transcends the conventional "situation," though often has familiar features. And the characters are unique, creative, and funny--they drive the show. But How I Met Your Mother often operates with unconventional narrative form: frame stories, non-chronological stories, stories told in pieces and from multiple perspectives. These narrative styles are familiar to students of literature, but How I Met Your Mother brings them to the sitcom in original and entertaining ways.
The shows treat their audiences like intelligent human beings. The result is an hour of television that is unpredictable and authentically funny.
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I couldn't agree more, especially with The Office slipping a little bit this season.
ReplyDeleteThe characters on How I Met Your Mother are so realistic. I'm roughly the age of the characters when the show started, and I feel like I know each one of them personally. That reflects both excellent writing and effective acting. How I Met Your Mother is quickly becoming one of my favorite shows of all time. I re-watch episodes all the time, and they hold up really well.
The Big Bang Theory is good too, mostly because of the performances of the characters. What these two shows have in common is that they present very consistent characters. That is, the writers don't invent character traits in order to fit the characters into an episode's plot; rather, they write episodes based on their characters.