In Praise of Sitcoms

(A few years ago, I wrote this article for the short-lived Irish Catholic magazine Leaven.)

One of the last shared experiences I had with my father, who died in May 2019, was watching the American situation comedy Frasier together. For more than a year, we watched three or more episodes most nights. We went through all eleven seasons several times.

Is this an unworthy activity to have as my last shared experience with my father, before his final illness? I suppose it would sound better if it was fishing, or building a model town together, or having long conversations about the eternal verities. A shared immersion in a particular piece of pop culture seems ignobly passive and consumerist.

And yet, I have very happy memories of this last phase in my relationship with my father. I wouldn't wish it to have been different. It deepened a conviction that I'd felt already; that the situation comedy, far from being a trashy and disposable genre by nature, can be a powerful vehicle for exploring the human condition and modern society.

I'm here talking about situation comedies which are, more or less, realistic. I'm not talking about surreal sitcoms such as The Young Ones, or fantastical sitcoms such as the science fiction comedy Red Dwarf. I mean sitcoms which concentrate on the daily lives of fairly ordinary people; shows such as Frasier, Cheers, Only Fools and Horses, Friends, and so on.

One great difference between the sitcom and other forms of fiction--such as the novel, the drama, or cinema-- is its episodic nature. Movies are one of the great loves of my life, but they do have this limitation: that, for the most part, they are confined to the great crises and dramas of human life. This represents a very small fraction of the whole. Most of life is lived on the plains, not in the peaks or the abysses.

The situation comedy can occupy itself with events that play a big part on human life, but that are rarely seen (except in passing) in movies and novels; sick days, traffic jams, a trip to the dentist, a pub debate, swimming lessons. One famous episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, a seventies British sitcom following two friends who live in the North of England, has them doing their utmost to avoid learning the result of a big soccer game, to the extent of hiding in a church and finding themselves in an uncharacteristic discussion of God and eternity. Another episode I think of in this regard is "The One with All the Thanksgivings", a Friends episode in which the characters are reminiscing about their worst Thanksgiving experiences, which we see in flashbacks. I find this episode quite profoundly evocative of life's journey-- holiday memories are something we are all familiar with, and they are generally freighted with bittersweetness and significance.

Television dramas which are lauded as great rarely represents ordinary life. I haven't actually seen many of the recent shows hailed as masterpieces, such as Breaking Bad or The Sopranos. But, from what I know of them, they tend to concentrate on extraordinary people in extraordinary situations. Although it's true that all good fiction speaks to the universality of the human condition in some way, the great strength of the sitcom is that it elevates ordinary suburban life as something interesting, something meaningful, something full of possibilities. It enchants ordinary life.

Another strength of the sitcom is that, in a strange way, it emphasizes the dignity of the individual. Each of the characters tends to pass through the full spectrum of human emotions and vicissitudes; each has their moments of humiliation, their moments of triumph, their phases and fads, their infatuations and disillusionments. Seeing them fall flat on their faces allows is to laugh at our own failures and idiocies, and takes the sting out of them. Seeing them get up again encourages us. Life, the sitcom reassures us, is episodic.

The sitcom tends to be a window into social and cultural history, in a way that entertainments which aim to be more enduring, and to appeal to international markets, do not. There are frequent references to current TV shows, popular songs, political controversies, advertising slogans, and so on. One example of this is a discussion about the discovery of North Sea Oil, in the British seventies sitcom Porridge. Another example is a passing mention of a pub shove-ha'penny tables in the British eighties sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles.

Finally, the sitcom is a sentimental genre. Sentimentality has a bad reputation in our time, but it is after all the glue which holds ordinary life together. We are sentimental about family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, pets; those we deal with most often. The sitcom tends to view its characters as we view those we deal with every day; exasperating, pompous, fickle, touchy, ridiculous, and, ultimately, loveable. At the end of the episode, equilibrium returns, friends and family are reconciled, and the world goes along on its old and reliable way. I particularly like, in this regard, this piece of dialogue from Only Fools and Horses, in which the wheeler-dealer brothers have a falling-out:

Del: Alright Rodney, alright, why don’t you do that small thing. You decide where you go, what you do and with whom you do it, because I’m finished with you– I’ve washed me hands of you– as far as I’m concerned you don’t exist, right? And Rodney?

Rodney: What?

Del: Been raining, them roads’ll be treacherous. Drive carefully.

All in all, I don't regret spending much of my last months with my father watching Frasier.