Fall sitcoms may amuse viewers
By Mike Duffy
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — If funny is money, network TV's Sitcom Bank&Chucklehead Trust is flat broke.
Over the past two years, such dependable, long-running mirth machines as "Friends," "Frasier" and "Everybody Loves Raymond" have signed off. And even before the Emmy-honored three departed, millions of disenchanted viewers and numerous industry experts had pretty much decided the sitcom was dead. Again.
"There's no freshness. There's no originality," says Joe Keenan, who as one of the creators of "Frasier" certainly knows funny. "It's all characters you've seen before, situations you've seen before, jokes you've heard before."
But there are encouraging signs in the networks' upcoming fall season that might have a reason to laugh again.
The happy buzz has been building for "Everybody Hates Chris" (UPN, Thursdays), which features comic Chris Rock narrating a sly, irreverent and, yes, funny, autobiographical chronicle of his own hectic teenage years.
Also in the fall sitcom boomlet:
But let's not get too giddy just yet. The fact that there are four promising new fall comedies — and a few more planned for mid-season — doesn't mean a sitcom renaissance. Not until we get a sitcom version of what ABC did last year by kicking new life into prime time with the dramas "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost."
But in mid-season, "Seinfeld" alum Julia Louis-Louis-Dreyfus will star in "Old Christine," as a newly divorced working mother (whose ex-hubby's new girlfriend is also named Christine). And "Dharma & Greg" star Jenna Elfman will anchor the mid-season romantic comedy "Everything I Know About Men," with Dabney Coleman as her father.
Neither of those has been seen yet by critics. Two promising mid-season sitcoms screened by critics are "Sons & Daughters" (ABC), a fast-paced, neuroses-laced tale of family relationships from "Saturday Night Live" producer Lorne Michaels, and "The Loop" (Fox), a wigged-out farce about a young corporate executive (Bret Harrison, "Grounded for Life") and his slacker friends.
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