An Ode to Sitcoms

Illustrated by Sara Moana

I used to spend a lot of my time faking through conversations about shows like Breaking Bad, I’d tell people I’d never really gotten into it because I was worried it wouldn’t live up to the hype. The truth of it is that I didn’t want to see it because I have never gotten any satisfaction from ‘good’ TV. I’ve never really cared about acclaim or riveting plot lines. All I watch are sitcoms, often the same ones over and over.

There’s something deeply comforting about switching on a show where the plot is predictable and nothing that bad ever really happens. I just think TV should be fun, I’ve never understood why anyone wants to watch something that puts them through emotional turmoil. During lockdown I tried to sit down and watch the Handmaid's Tale. I respected the story and the depressingly accurate representation of how women are treated in society. However, I was also just fucking sad after watching two episodes, I genuinely just wanted to go lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling for hours thinking about how terrible the world was. Good content doesn’t need to make you question everything for it to be good content.

I’m embarrassed to admit where my love for sitcoms first came to fruition. It was after school when I was waiting for my favourite Disney Channel crossover event to come on, my multiverse of madness if you will. TV 2 used to play reruns of the most dated and Caucasian sitcom of all - Friends. Every time the episode with Monica and the turkey on her head came on, I would truly be filled with a joy like no other. I don’t want to spend too much time on Friends because I think its divisive, people love it or despise it.

The thing is, no one in my family really enjoys deep and serious TV, they’re pretentious in other ways but never about TV shows. My dad is a huge Ice Road Trucker fan, and my mum unashamedly watches Coronation Street every night. My girlfriend is a huge fan of dystopian and fantasy shows. I can maybe watch an episode before I get insanely bored and I’m just craving a bit of Courtney Cox with a turkey on her head.

I took journalism for two years in high school and we were tasked with writing an opinion piece. I’m extremely opinionated on a lot of issues, important issues that impact huge amounts of people. I cared about so much when I was 16, but instead I chose to write about Parks and Recreation. I wrote a full 900-word piece about the importance of the wholesome female friendship between Leslie and Ann. It was colourful and fully based on a Tumblr post I saw. I only got merit because I didn’t proofread - a habit I carried with me throughout my university career.

Parks and Recreation still has my heart, even if it gave me an unrealistic expectation about what working in an office is actually like.

You can’t talk about workplace sitcoms without mentioning Brooklyn 99. Its ranking on the best TV shows in the US sits at number 618. That might seem low, but it actually sits above Black Mirror and My Strange Addiction. I love Brooklyn 99; the no-nonsense introduction of an openly gay main character was seamless and set the right tone for a show that didn’t rely on offensive jokes to be funny and enjoyable. What makes it stand out from the rest is that it actually attempts to challenge real issues while remaining entertaining. It reached its end after eight seasons, and I can’t help but think that it was more complicated than the actors wanting to sign onto other contracts. Making a show that glorifies the work of police in America is obviously a little dicey.

The main thing I love about sitcoms is that it’s relaxing to sit down and have a chuckle, there’s nothing relaxing to me about watching a bunch of dramatic scenes play out after a long hard day of work. It’s so unpretentious and wholesome, I love knowing exactly what’s going to happen at all times. A reflection of me? Perhaps. I did some research about why people like to rewatch their favourite shows and apparently it allows people to ‘counteract loneliness’. What a sad reflection of my silly little life.

The point of my desperate rambling is that we should let people enjoy things, we’re all just filthy consumers at the end of the day. With Netflix allegedly cracking down on password sharing and considering bringing in midroll ads, it’s best to get all of your binge watching out of the way. If you’re going to binge watch something, make it something that isn’t horrifically depressing. Or, watch something horrifically depressing and then give yourself a palette cleanser by watching a dated, or contemporary, workplace sitcom.