Sitcoms

SITCOM

Brief Definition
The British TV sitcom is a television series that derives humour from the same characters in a fixed location exploring a variety of comic plotlines including misunderstandings, suspense, disguise, and failed aspirations.

Simply, the sitcom is a close group of associated people gathered in one place relating to each other and reacting to external forces with humour.

The sitcom is one of the most popular and enduring television formats in Britain and at times has commanded larger audiences than soaps.

HOW DOES THE SITCOM WORK?

Successful sitcoms involve audiences with characters and plots that are both reassuringly realistic and comically exaggerated.

An average sitcom has to work in 30 minutes of television time. It has to have a beginning, middle and end, and conform to Todorov’s Equilibrium Theory.

This is a situation comedy so it has to have a happy ending.

The characters are at the centre of a sitcom. Each episode must have an intriguing and engaging plot often initiated by an outside event that is hostile to the group (Dad’s Army) or to the family grouping – we want to suspend our disbelief to know how Del boy will get out of this particular fix that he thinks has been thrust upon him.


GENRE
Sitcom is a genre on its own. It changes and develops like other genres in film and television. A sitcom can be merged with another genre to become a hybrid.

The Thin Blue Line mixes police drama with sitcom. Several sitcoms merge medical drama with sitcom to become what the Americans call comedy-drama, like Scrubs or the Channel 4 hospital series Green Wing which took the hospital sitcom to new heights of fantasy.

Third Rock from the Sun creates a very successful sitcom from sci-fi.

The Office manages to make documentary into a ground breaking sitcom. One of the best modern sitcoms is to my mind Ugly Betty. This is a hybrid sitcom, and in the US is known as a dramedy or drama/comedy but they hardly use the term sitcom. Friends was of course the classic American sitcom which reached huge audiences around the world and yet very little actually happens in terms of plot. The genre is pure sitcom conforming to the convention of a close group of people gathered in one place relating to each other and reacting to external forces.


PLOTS & STORYBOARDING

The best sitcoms interweave two types of plotting: episodic and ongoing. This is known in soaps as closed and open, but sitcoms are substantially different from soaps as there is no need for a cliff-hanger at the end of each episode. The audience is drawn to the next week’s instalment by a desire to see how the characters deal with a particular set of circumstances, sometimes brought on by their own fecklessness or character type (Only Fools and Horses).

The plot for each episode of a sitcom is fully worked out by the end of the episode - often in the last two minutes of the show, and the situation returns to the status quo. The narrative is circular. Ongoing plot lines may resolve gradually sometimes over 12 episodes or over a much longer period of years and many series. (The Vicar of Dibley finally got married in the last episode). Think of the marriages and relationships that could have developed but did not over the 13 years of Friends.

The driver of many plotlines is some form of conflict. This does not mean that characters fight each other – as this would mean possible death and casualties and this is not the idea of comedy.

The tension, or conflict based on the age gap and differences in values between Patsy and Saffron in Absolutely Fabulous offers countless opportunities for comedy as the two clash on so many different fronts.

Narrative conflict in sitcoms often arises where characters react differently to each other in typical situations, or react differently to changing circumstances. Conflict can arise from differing expectations, and characters with aspirations beyond their capabilities.

In a traditional sit com the relationships between the characters is an important aspect of the humour, and a driver of plotlines.

Triggers that can ignite a hair-raising plot are an element of suspense, sometimes enigma and sometimes one character’s transgression against the group or a perceived injustice – see Dad’s Army and Blackadder where Baldrick is always coming up with the suspense of a ‘cunning plan’ that of course never works.


SETTING

As the name suggests the setting or situation is a vital part of the sitcom. Most sitcoms are set in an enclosed or controlled environment creating dramatic tension from the entrapment of the situation. At first this was to do with the fact that a sitcom was recorded in a TV studio and for economic reasons there was just one set.

The ideal sitcom setting is the Fawlty Towers hotel.

The fixed cast of hotel owners Basil and Sybil Fawlty are the main protagonists with Manuel as the whipping boy or Fool. The antagonists are the guests in the hotel that week.

The main set of Fawlty Towers is the Reception area of the hotel, with all the main rooms such as the kitchen, dining room and lounge accessible from there. The number of doors and entrances resembles the set on the stage of a Whitehall farce. Much of the humour derives from the tradition of farce. Comedy arises from characters rapidly coming through doors and either just missing each other or bumping into other characters they would rather not meet. Much of the physical and farcical humour of Fawlty Towers is generated in this large multi entrance reception area.

The hotel setting offers a closed situation where any number of diverse characters can come through the door. There is a sense of claustrophobia. The hotel represents a microcosm of communal life.
Fawlty Towers is a metaphor for the prejudices and stultifying class structure of post Second World War England. The over weaning power of an individual in a non democratic situation warns of the dangers of a fascist state.

CHARACTERS

Sitcom characters are static. We expect to see each character remain the same in each episode and each series. There is a lack of character development because the inability to change is a source of comedy. Characters do not develop or learn from their mistakes. The fact that they are what they are drives much of the humour. Ben Harper in My Family is always a middle-aged father, a dentist whose main aim in life seems to be alone with his wife in an intimate situation even though he has a family and intrusive friends. He will always do daft and often stupid things. His family grow older but he stays more or less exactly the same, as does his wife even if she does change her hairstyle every series.

Stereotypes are common in sitcoms. Stereotypical characters can be successful if the comedy arises from the audience’s awareness of the stereotypical nature of their behaviour.

The bespectacled Betty with her tramline teeth braces and frumpy dress sense is the main character of the eponymous Ugly Betty. The sitcom plays with a variety of stereotypes including a very camp character, a domineering boss and a useless son who tries to run the cutting edge fashion magazine which is the setting for the sitcom. In many ways Betty is not a modern comic character.

She has very strong morals and values, which she attempts to import into the flagrantly immoral Mode magazine offices. Devoted to her Mexican family, ambitious, smart and very hard working she does not conform to the lazy Hispanic immigrant stereotype. She is taking things very slowly with her boyfriend. She does not sleep around and definitely no drugs and very little alcohol, she is a very upright citizen who is still a lot of fun. This is clever characterisation.

POSTMODERN

Sitcom has for a long time taken on postmodern elements. The Young Ones developed Intertextuality satirising a sitcom within its own sitcom format. Also The Young Ones subverts conventions by including digressions; stand up comedy routines and a musical interlude. This idea of other genres within the sitcom derived from radio sitcoms such as Hancock’s Half Hour. Modern sitcom developed in a self referential way, especially evident in Absolutely Fabulous, and The Vicar of Dibley.

Sitcom uses parody of itself in The Young Ones, and The New Statesman, and parodies the themes and conventions of the traditional sitcom. Blackadder parodies the genre of historical romances and TV period dramas, as well as satirising popular concepts and characters of English history. Its origins lie in the literary satire of Alexander Pope and the extravagance of restoration comedy.

The Office takes the sitcom to new audiences with its inventive postmodern ‘cool’ parodying the working life of white collar Britain. Intertextuality, self reference and a wide range of cultural sampling give this series a depth of 21st century resonance that can at times leave little space for laugh aloud humour.


REPRESENTATION

Characters in sitcom need to engage the viewer immediately using a shorthand of natural, recognisable and clearly defined characteristics. These can be based on stereotypes but the best sitcoms often subvert the stereotype.

Dawn French struggles to be the sort of person the audience would imagine as a vicar in The Vicar of Dibley. Comedy arises from the fact that she subverts audience expectations of the stereotype of an upright, non joke making, dignified clergy figure. She is a feisty, loud, laughing and charismatic member of the clergy who will not be bamboozled into doing anything she does not want to by the very traditional church committee. The comedy often arises from her outlandish ideas for the church or village that would seem to go against everything that is traditional, but may work.

The representation of family life is at the centre of many sitcoms not just BBC’s My Family. The relationship between parents and children can use stereotypical notions of family life to create comedy – impotent husbands, difficult teenagers, trouble with children’s unacceptable friends coming to the house or just the day to day business of family life.

The representation of neighbours is often fraught with tension. Neighbours are either represented as jewels in the human sea – The Good Life – or as stereotypically very obtuse as in To The Manor Born. Recent series of My Family include a revolving cast of neighbours who represent a big range of typically difficult, unusual or helpful neighbours depending on the plot.

Arguably representations in sitcoms highlight behavioural traits and personal failings that can be found in many people. Comedy arises from recognising these traits in yourself and your nearest and dearest, which is why the family is such a potent setting for a sitcom.

The sitcom can explore social issues in a comic way. Steptoe and Son explored what do we do about ageing parents. Gender issues are often central to a successful sitcom.

The representation of men is often contrary to the cinema ideal of the handsome lead character. Men are seen as inadequate like Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do Have ‘Em or as gay, or ‘put upon’ by women. The hen pecked husband is a popular theme from variety shows of fifty years ago, and later radio comedy.

In British sitcoms the dotty eccentric is a classic character who is often very popular with audiences. Think of the One Foot in the Grave characters, Baldric, Basil Fawlty, Steptoe and Ricky Gervais in The Office.


The way television represents different races and ethnic minorities can be changed by the sitcom.

The ground breaking Goodness Gracious Me not only parodied the British, but showed that an ethnic minority could laugh with and at itself.