- Brooks ignores that the most successful, both critically and commercially, sitcom of the past few years is Modern Family, which is unquestionably a "family-based" sitcom, and the current top-rated sitcom on television is Two And A Half Men, which revolves around an admittedly unorthodox and dysfunctional family unit of its own. (He also overlooks that non-family-based sitcoms have a long and distinguished history--Mary Tyler Moore, M*A*S*H, Taxi, and Cheers all were not family-based, and even Dick Van Dyke had plotlines that were workplace-centric.)
- Inexplicably, Brooks, citing a Neal Gabler piece from the LA Times, asserts that new sitcoms Better With You and Raising Hope aren't family-based. Better With You is most assuredly about a family unit (mother, father, two adult daughters, and the daughters' romantic partners), and Raising Hope is largely based on a family unit (though has regulars from outside the unit).
- Brooks cites a lot of shows (past and present) that don't involve traditional family units--Friends, Glee, HIMYM, Big Bang Theory. However, almost every one of those shows is centered around characters who because of geography, family discord, or other reasons, may not have a family in the traditional sense near them, and how the group of friends become a family unit of their own (this is particularly true for Friends and HIMYM, and is perhaps the overriding theme of The Office).
Friday, October 22, 2010
BOBOS ON TELEVISION: Normally, David Brooks' pieces on the op-ed page of the Times are outside the scope of this blog, but when he talks about television, as he does today, it falls squarely within our bailiwick. Part of Brooks' thesis today is that sitcoms in particular have moved away from being "family-based" to shows about "groups of unrelated friends who have the time to lounge around apartments, coffee shops and workplaces exchanging witticisms about each other and the passing scene." Three issues I have with him here:
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