The Sitcom Digresses: Or, Why I May Finally Be Able To Enjoy Television Again

This is a terrific article that chronicles everything that has become good about television. I've been out of the loop for so long that I've failed to see just how far the shows on TV have come.

I never pined for the old days of Friends or Seinfeld, and I never watched Frasier, nor cared to. These shows were examples of the traditional narrative of placing people in rooms and having them engage in prolonged discussions about a topic. Usually there would be some sort of arc in the basic seven act structure of television and we'd have a little bit of drama or a joke before the commercial break. About the fifth commercial break we'd hinge on the climax of some revealing thing: be it Ross' relationship with Rachel coming to fruition or finally disintegrating, or the tension of the Seinfeld characters waiting in line, hoping to get a bowl of soup from the Soup Nazi. Everything would go right, or totally wrong and we'd be left with a little hint of what was to come next week.

You always knew what was going to happen and where the situations were basically going. Anymore, it seems this just isn't true.

Nowadays, shows like 30 Rock, Scrubs, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office(we used to have Arrested Development but that's for me to vent about at another time), and even more so within avant-garde shows like The Mighty Boosh or Tim and Eric: Awesome Show, Great Job, all follow a different, contemporary and more interesting format: the post-reality-show sitcom; the digressive comedy. Where digressions ramble on with little or no substance or correlation to the actual plot or point of the show. But these characteristics make the shows what they are and we keep coming back for more.

So what is this new style? What qualifies as a digressive comedy, or show for that matter? Essentially, it's where we lose the laugh tracks and the live studio audience. Instead, we get a real documentary vibe through the use of single-camera techniques. A mocking of the Real World styling that jump started the reality show craze. Scripted dialogue with emphasis on dramatics and particular points are now pushed to include the awkwardness and discomfort of a natural dialogue where the characters might not actually know what to say; isn't that what real conversation is like? Instead of the typical narrative, we're seeing a smorgasbord of tangents and streams of consciousness ramblings that are more indicative of true thought rather than scripted perfection. All of this, coupled with the allowance of improvisation, create an effect that gives the feeling of a sketch comedy rather than a situational and traditional one.

I, for one, cannot wait to get back into the world of television.