Whither the Good Network Sitcoms?

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mfunk9786
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Modern Family

#1 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri Feb 15, 2013 12:36 pm

Have you seen Modern Family? It's not my taste but it's certainly far from bland.

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Andre Jurieu
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Re: Community

#2 Post by Andre Jurieu » Fri Feb 15, 2013 12:40 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:Have you seen Modern Family? It's not my taste but it's certainly far from bland.
I have seen it. After the first season, it's become fairly bland. I'm making a comparison between it and the other shows that share it's style.

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Matt
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Re: Community

#3 Post by Matt » Fri Feb 15, 2013 12:50 pm

I don't think it's so bad. It's not "Arrested Development," but as far as family-centered comedies go, it has its inspired moments.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: Community

#4 Post by Roger Ryan » Fri Feb 15, 2013 12:58 pm

Matt wrote:I don't think it's so bad. It's not "Arrested Development," but as far as family-centered comedies go, it has its inspired moments.
True. I found the beginning episodes of the current season of MODERN FAMILY to be a little weak, but there have been some very good ones recently with Wednesday's Valentine's Day episode being one of the funniest.

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Andre Jurieu
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Re: Community

#5 Post by Andre Jurieu » Fri Feb 15, 2013 1:52 pm

Matt wrote:I don't think it's so bad. It's not "Arrested Development," but as far as family-centered comedies go, it has its inspired moments.
Just to be clear, I never said it was awful. Obviously, I watch the show - though certainly not as routinely or with as much enthusiasm as I did during that initial season - so I'm not just stating that it's quality is so poor that it's become unbearably offensive or tiresome. I do think that overall it's a significant improvement over other traditional network family-centered sit-coms. I just think the show has started coasting and rarely meets the standards it achieved during its initial run. Perhaps "bland" wasn't the most descriptive term I could have used to convey my opinion. Maybe I should have used "stale". The show certainly can be amusing and mildly witty at times, but it just feels as if it's on repeat far too often. Honestly, the only character on that show that has grown or changed in any significant fashion over the past 3 seasons is Luke, who has actually been surprisingly clever and delicately acerbic at times this season. Everyone else is basically the exact same as when they started off and the dynamics between the characters seem to be maintained rather than altered over time, even when a subtle shift occurs within an episode (it's like the creators are blatantly ignoring what actually gets accomplished within an episode when they move onto determining next-week's content). The show-runners seemed to have admitted as much this season when they conveniently concocted
SpoilerShow
a way to get Haley back under the same roof as her family, rather than continue at college.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Modern Family

#6 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri Feb 15, 2013 3:22 pm

The opening post of this thread is now me bizarrely asking the forum at large if they've seen Modern Family. Awkward threadsplit of the year award goes to

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Modern Family

#7 Post by matrixschmatrix » Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:47 pm

Haha, the recontextualization makes it sound like you're offering up some sort of weird pre-emptive hipstery damnation by faint praise, too

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Matt
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Re: Modern Family

#8 Post by Matt » Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:49 pm

I like it.

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Andre Jurieu
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Re: Modern Family

#9 Post by Andre Jurieu » Fri Feb 15, 2013 5:39 pm

Meanwhile, I find it to be bland.

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Roger Ryan
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Whither the Good Network Sitcoms?

#10 Post by Roger Ryan » Thu Oct 24, 2013 12:16 pm

All I can say is that if you gave up on 30 ROCK and stopped watching PARKS AND RECREATION after the first season, you can not possibly be enjoying any network television comedy this season. P&R is the one gem remaining...with MODERN FAMILY a very distant second...and everything else I've attempted to watch being fairly miserable.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Parks and Recreation

#11 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Oct 24, 2013 12:47 pm

I gave up on 30 Rock around the end of Season 4.

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knives
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Re: Parks and Recreation

#12 Post by knives » Thu Oct 24, 2013 1:38 pm

Roger Ryan wrote:All I can say is that if you gave up on 30 ROCK and stopped watching PARKS AND RECREATION after the first season, you can not possibly be enjoying any network television comedy this season. P&R is the one gem remaining...with MODERN FAMILY a very distant second...and everything else I've attempted to watch being fairly miserable.
Don't forget The Middle which is the closest we've got to a Malcolm type show.

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Matt
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Re: Parks and Recreation

#13 Post by Matt » Thu Oct 24, 2013 2:27 pm

knives wrote:Don't forget The Middle which is the closest we've got to a Malcolm type show.
Both of which are/were unbearably shrill and manic.

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Murdoch
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Re: Parks and Recreation

#14 Post by Murdoch » Thu Oct 24, 2013 3:43 pm

Outside of P&R, Fox is the only network with any watchable sitcoms at the moment. But I can't stand Modern Family so I'm in a different place from a lot of people.

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domino harvey
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Re: Parks and Recreation

#15 Post by domino harvey » Thu Oct 24, 2013 3:45 pm

As far as still running network comedies go, Suburgatory had promise at the outset but something went terribly wrong in the back half of the second season and it burned all its bridges for me. I don't like what I've seen of Modern Family at all but I just saw a GIF set from the show on Tumblr that was a lot funnier than anything I'd seen, so maybe it has its good aspects?

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Matt
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Re: Parks and Recreation

#16 Post by Matt » Thu Oct 24, 2013 3:50 pm

Modern Family is definitely hit or miss. It's very good at hysterically funny throwaway lines, but it can be very broad and rely on retrograde stereotypes (and I'm not just talking about the gay characters) for laughs.

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Koukol
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Re: Best TV Shows of the Decade and Maybe of All Time, Who K

#17 Post by Koukol » Sun Dec 07, 2014 6:14 pm

I don't have cable so I haven't seen all the shows people are raving about.
But I finally "get" MODERN FAMILY and love it.
I'm catching up with all the reruns right now but feel something is missing in this season.
Did they lose a writer?

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Andre Jurieu
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Re: Best TV Shows of the Decade and Maybe of All Time, Who K

#18 Post by Andre Jurieu » Mon Dec 08, 2014 3:38 pm

Koukol wrote:I don't have cable so I haven't seen all the shows people are raving about.
But I finally "get" MODERN FAMILY and love it.
I'm catching up with all the reruns right now but feel something is missing in this season.
Did they lose a writer?
I assumed it was mostly due to the fact that they realize the entire production is a cash-cow for everyone involved and they're content to just keep things on track so that everyone associated to the show keeps that income as stable as possible.

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domino harvey
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Re: Best TV Shows of the Decade and Maybe of All Time, Who K

#19 Post by domino harvey » Mon Dec 08, 2014 7:13 pm

I just read about how the series' two creators (?) alternate the episodes they work on because they can't stand each other. How can any show sustain itself with that kind of wonkiness?

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mistakaninja
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Re: Best TV Shows of the Decade and Maybe of All Time, Who K

#20 Post by mistakaninja » Mon Dec 08, 2014 7:18 pm

Think that kind of domestic strife only becomes a real problem when horses start kicking the bucket.

Noiradelic
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Re: Best TV Shows of the Decade and Maybe of All Time, Who K

#21 Post by Noiradelic » Mon Dec 08, 2014 8:02 pm

Page 2 of this article give quite a bit of detail on the arrangement. They've been alternating since the beginning of season 4.

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Re: Whither the Good Network Sitcoms?

#22 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Dec 09, 2014 12:55 am

Is Mom any good? I think I may have watched an episode or two when it was just starting and thought it was okay enough, but that's obviously not the best indication that it has maintained quality.

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