the death of the sitcom?

Just read a month-old blogpost describing the so-called "death of the sitcom" based on NBC's Thursday night comedy block, which they are now calling "Comedy Night Done Right." I guess they can't call it "must see tv" quite yet.

I didn't really agree with the article because I do really like The Office, Scrubs, and 30 Rock. (I never really thought My Name is Earl was funny.) But I did agree with one word they used, which is "self-satisfied." The Office, Scrubs, and NBC all do seem fairly self-satisfied in their semi-success lately. For example, the Jim & Pam thing is being done well in that the writers know they have to drag that shit out for as long as humanly possible. But NBC's summer promos where they played cheezy music while showing clips of every subtle glance leading up to their big season-ending kiss was incredibly annoying. And now, NBC realizes they have something good with these four shows and they have to be like "look at us! look at us! please, we have good shows on thursdays again!" Similarly, even the writers on the Office know how well they do the whole Jim glancing at Pam when she's talking to another guy/Pam doing likewise thing and where it used to be subtle, it's now SO FUCKING OBVIOUS.

The Office has had a strange success arc. At first, nobody was expecting them to do well. The series premiere was terrible because it pretty much just redid an episode of the British one. And when asked whether one liked the show, the only cool response was, "UK, yes. US, not really." But then with ITunes TV shows, they became popular when nobody was paying attention. And now, they seem a little desperate, although I still love the show. Nagasaki? classic.