THAT Scene is a recurring feature that takes a closer look at a single scene that exemplifies a particular show, theme or moment in time. The scene might be good or bad, but it will always be memorable and worth talking about.
Many of the best sitcoms, both current and past, thrive on the strength of their ensembles. Happy Endings, Arrested Development, Cheers and Seinfeld are some of the best-known examples of half-hour comedies that work the best when they put their large casts in the same place and let them bounce them off one another.
Up All Night doesn't work the same way. The core ensemble of Will Arnett, Christina Applegate and Maya Rudolph is half the size of Community's or Friends' six- and seven-person casts. The show has also been hit-or-miss at developing its secondary characters; for every Missy or Kevin there's a Luke or B-Ro who doesn't quite fit. That alone makes today's scene - which comes from the show's season finale, "The Proposals" - unique; not only does it not feature Reagan or Ava, but it succeeds on the chemistry between Chris and two recurring characters, the aforementioned Kevin (Jason Lee) and Chris Diamantopoulous' amazing Julian.
Christine Baranski as Beverly Hofstadter and Johnny Galecki as Leonard in The Big Bang Theory. Photo courtesy of hollywood.com
The first four episodes of The Big Bang Theory's fifth season have exemplified the show's recent unevenness. "The Skank Reflex Analysis" was solid, "The Pulled Groin Extrapolation" was wildly entertaining, and "The Infestation Hypothesis" and "The Wiggly Finger Catalyst" were mediocre at best. However, these four episodes shared one common attribute: each explored the twisted, traumatic relationships the major characters have with their parents, making The Big Bang Theory a show about the many, many ways that our parents screw us up. I haven't seen this many dysfunctional parent/child relationships on a TV show since Lost.
The trope of overbearing parents and the children who rebel against them is hardly a new phenomenon, and sitcoms in particular have been mining those relationships for comedy for decades. The real difference between other shows that explore these relationships - like Everybody Loves Raymond and Seinfeld - and The Big Bang Theory is that the former always assumed a relationship that, at bottom, wasn't so bad. Ray Barone's parents may have driven both he and his wife absolutely crazy, but there was no doubt that everything they did came out of love for their son. Seinfeld showed a dysfunctional relationship between George Costanza and his parents, but it was balanced out by the fairly normal (by sitcom standards) Seinfeld family.
The Big Bang Theory, however, has never shied away from linking the characters' present-day difficulties to their twisted relationships with their parents. The first four seasons showed us that Leonard's desperate need for affection - a need that manifests itself in his constant desire to be part of a couple - is the direct result of a mother who was so cold and detached that the boy had to build a robot in order to ger a hug. Sheldon, on the other hand, rejected the affection of a mother who didn't understand him along with her evangelical beliefs. Penny clearly has a problematic history with her father, as she remains convinced that he wanted her to be a boy, and it has been heavily implied that her string of hookups and failed relationships is an attempt to validate herself to a replacement father-figure. And in case that last one wasn't Freudian enough for you, Howard has a stereotypical, unseen Jewish mother on whom he is completely dependent, and who he is currently trying to replace with Bernadette.
The current season, however, has taken the parent-bashing to new heights. The last four episodes have nodded at the strained relationships that six of the seven major characters have with their parents. (As of yet, Bernadette's family has been unexplored, as her character exists mostly as a way for Howard to explore his own maternal issues.) In these episodes, we've found out the following facts about the character's relationships with their parents:
Penny doesn't just have issues with her father. Her facial expression when Sheldon fires off a comment about her mother's weight after she takes the last pot sticker tells you all you need to know.
Dr. Beverly Hofstadter has not softened. Her instruction to Leonard to buy one of her parenting books from Amazon if he needs more relationship advice is cold, to put it mildly.
Howard, in attempting to marry the opposite of his mother, is now preparing to marry his mother. Also, his dependence goes further than we thought, since he can't even cut his own food.
Raj's parents will take away his money if he dates a non-Indian girl. (Odd that they don't care about Priya and Leonard, but that's inconsistent writing for you.) I feel like fear of parental disapproval has to be at the bottom of his inability to talk to women.
Amy is trapped in a state of perpetual adolescence by her repressive upbringing, in much the same way Sheldon and Wolowitz are. Her friendship with Penny is an attempt to escape from the mother who signed her yearbook, "Self respect and a hymen are better than friends and fun."
We don't get into specifics about Sheldon's upbringing here, but the man spends an entire episode playing with trains and another episode being unable to understand that "It's not what it looks like" isn't some kind of riddle, but rather Penny's attempt to cover up her one-night stand with Raj.
When you look at that list, you get a picture of a group of emotionally stunted people, trapped at different points in their development by terrible parenting choices. Raj is still in a "girls have cooties" phase, Howard can't wean himself from his mother (figuratively... we hope), Sheldon has no understanding of adult sexual relationships, Penny acts out in order to get attention, Amy just wants to be one of the popular girls, and Leonard enters relationships in a desperate quest for affection. This is some seriously dark stuff. Honestly, if it weren't for the laugh track, there would be moments here that would rival the darkest moments in Community episodes like "Mixology Certification," "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas," and "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons." These characters have moments that make George and Lucille Bluth look like good parents and Lindsay, Buster and G.O.B. look like well-adjusted people.
I'm not saying that I have a problem with this, or at least with the specific material presented here. And I'm not saying that family dysfunction and bad parenting can't be funny, because I love Arrested Development and Archer. I'm just a little queasy about the uniformly bad portrayals of parents that Chuck Lorre is giving us here. There is not a single parental figure on the show who appears to have effectively raised a child: the most normal person here is probably Leonard, and he was raised by Beverly Hofstadter (who, for the record, is one of my favorite characters on the show). If you can get past the easy jokes that these relationships provide, and get right down to the show's core, it's about a group of broken people trying to work out their parental issues with each other, a fact that might make The Big Bang Theory, of all things, one of the most depressing shows on network TV. Who would have ever expected that?
Jane Krakowski and Alec Baldwin in 30 Rock's live episode. Photo courtesy of tvgeekarmy.com.
Ever since the resurgence of single-camera sitcoms that began in the early 00's with shows like The Office, Scrubs and the late, great Arrested Development, a lot of the discussion of comedy on television has centered on the merits of a single-camera setup versus a multi-camera one. When the aforementioned shows premiered, the landscape of TV comedy was dominated by shows filmed using a multi-camera setup - a TV show staged like a play, filmed in front of a live audience with limited sets - including such giants as Seinfeld, Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond. These days, the landscape of TV comedy is much more divided between the two formats, with single-camera shows like 30 Rock, Community and Modern Family squaring off against multi-camera competitors The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men and How I Met Your Mother.
If you look at those lists of shows, you can probably guess what a lot of the dialogue surrounding the issue is going to look like. These days, single-camera shows have an aura of youth, cleverness and intelligence that multi-camera sitcoms just don't. When a single-camera sitcom falters in the ratings, viewers and internet commentators tend to react with cries of, "It's just too smart for most people," while multi-camera failures are greeted as a sign that the format is too "old-fashioned" or "dumbed-down." I have definitely been guilty of this; as a huge fan of Community's rapid-fire dialogue, willingness to venture into the absurd and sharply-drawn characterizations, I tend to explain the show's (painfully) low ratings by dismissing those who don't love it as unintelligent and old fashioned, viewers who wouldn't know originality if it bashed them over the head.
I should probably stop doing that. Because the thing is, a sitcom's use of the single-camera format doesn't mean it's automatically smart and funny, and the presence of a live audience and multiple cameras doesn't indicate the opposite qualities. I started to rethink my position after watching new fall offerings New Girl and 2 Broke Girls. Those who read my review of those shows will probably remember that I found New Girl to be grating and reliant on cliches, while 2 Broke Girls had a fresher perspective. (The second episode of 2 Broke Girls was less promising, but I think the kinks can probably be worked out.) 2 Broke Girls also happens to be a multi-camera sitcom.
That's not to say that the two formats are interchangeable. There are a lot of things that you can do with a single-camera show that just aren't possible with a multi-camera setup. The latter, by definition, features limited options in terms of sets - it's why Seinfeld almost always took place in either Jerry's apartment or Monk's Cafe. The difference in scope is nicely illustrated by comparing scenes featuring paintball from The Big Bang Theory and Community:
The BBT scene is certainly funny, and even features a nice moment of film parody in Sheldon's dramatic death scene. However, the scene is basically limited to the guys talking in a shed, and Sheldon being shot from offscreen, since the sets are presumably open to the audience. Now watch the Community clip:
Even ignoring the hopped-up opening credits, there is a lot going on in this scene. From the fact that the scene takes place in a hallway (something you rarely see in a multi-camera setup) to the way the camera angles are used to create suspense (is Annie going to catch Neil before he shoots her?) to the dramatic close-ups on both characters' faces, this is not a scene that could take place on a multi-camera show. Like almost everything that happens on Community, it wouldn't be possible. (Just think about the fact that most study group scenes take place with all the characters sitting around a table. Not going to work when you have a live audience to contend with.)
Another difference between the two formats is the comedic rhythm. Multi-camera shows shot in front of an audience rely heavily on a setup-punchline rhythm; the point is to make a joke, let the audience laugh, and then get started on setting up the next joke. Single-camera shows don't work like that. The jokes can come thick and fast, forcing the audience to break out of a particular rhythm and try to catch as much funny as they can. It's the reason you can watch any given episode of Arrested Development for the tenth time, and still pick up on new jokes and references. You can see the way the comedic rhythm alters if you watch 30 Rock's live episode. The episode was aired live, so it's considerably rougher than your average multi-camera sitcom, but it follows the same format, and the pacing differences are apparent. This isn't a time for a rapid-fire string of impressions or gollum-esque multiple personalities; instead, the episode sets up punchlines (Jack wearing a hand-knit poncho, Liz's continually dashed hopes that someone remembers her birthday), knocks them out of the way, and gets started on the next joke.
The thing is, a more polished version of the 30 Rock live episode would probably be a pretty great show, at least as long as Tina Fey was behind it. It just wouldn't be 30 Rock. That's the thing about debating the merits of the two formats; one isn't inherently better than the other, they're just different. It seems a little ridiculous to mock the multi-camera format as old-fashioned when it gave us a show like Seinfeld, which was not only groundbreaking in its time, but which holds up just as well today. Conversely, it seems disingenuous to argue that single-camera shows are smart and modern when that format gave us Outsourced. A show shouldn't be judged by its format, it should be judged by how the format is used to capture the spirit of a particular episode. One of New Girl's biggest problems (in addition to the shallow characterizations, lazy stereotyping and painful attempts to be cute) is that the writers are using a multi-camera, setup-punchline rhythm in a format built for rapid-fire jokes and sophisticated visual gags.
If a single-camera show is going to be worth the extra money (shooting in this format is much more expensive and time-consuming, because you have to shoot multiple takes of each scene and built much more elaborate sets), you have to know how to use the format to your advantage. Right now, Community is the best example of the sheer potential inherent in the format; the over-the-top movie parodies wouldn't be possible in a multi-camera setup, and the quieter, more emotional moments have more punch because the actors can play them more naturally, rather than having to perform them for a crowd. On the other hand, The Big Bang Theory takes advantage of the format by having long takes that focus on the interaction between the different characters and that feel organic in a different way; since everyone's coverage is filmed simultaneously, the scene can just be about the actors playing off each other and establishing a great give-and-take. BBT excels at this type of scene, and these interactions between the main characters are one of the reasons I keep coming back to the show.
The point that I'm trying to make (and that I may have lost for a while in the middle there) is that neither format is inherently better. The format of The Big Bang Theory plays to its strengths - a strong ensemble, a relaxed rhythm, and the kind of energy that results from performing in front of an audience - just as the format of Community allows both the grandiose parodies and the sweet, quiet moments to really pop. It's not about the format you use, its about what you do with it, and really understanding the merits and drawbacks of either format is the only way to end up with a genuinely good product. So let's stop calling multi-camera shows "stupid" and single-camera shows "weird," and just let them both be as funny as they can be. If we can put aside our differences, we can focus on our real enemy: reality television. Seriously, that stuff just sucks.
The cast of Seinfeld shakes on it in "The Contest." Photo courtesy of joyhog.com.
With all the talk about "sexposition" on Game of Thrones recently, as well as the return of the often-gratuitous True Blood last weekend, I've been thinking about the role of censorship in television. Not censorship of ideas or political views - I'm completely against that - but censorship of things like sex, violence and foul language. Now, I'm not for censorship in any way, as I was raised by parents who realized I was smart enough to figure things out for myself and therefore chose not to censor things; however, I do think that the inability to show sex or violence onscreen can often lead to increased creativity.
I started thinking about this issue while reading Nerd Do Well, a memoir by the incredibly funny and talented Simon Pegg. In the book, Pegg describes his early comedic leanings by describing a joke he told to a friend's mother. The punchline of the joke relied on a mildly dirty work that Pegg, who was in primary school at the time, didn't want to say in front of an adult. Instead, he just paused and allowed the mother to guess the word based on rhyme and context. According to Pegg, the fun of guessing the dirty word for oneself made the joke much funnier than it would have been had Pegg said it aloud.
Pegg's point - that something implied is often funnier, sexier or scarier than something that is actually seen - is one that has been backed up by many TV shows. With the exception of pay cable channels like HBO and Showtime, television is a medium that has to abide by certain guidelines as to how much sex, violence and profanity is allowed. While this can be incredibly frustrating - "nipplegate," anyone? - it can also lead to increased creativity on the part of showrunners and writers, who are forced to come up with alternative way to get their point across.
One of the best - and best-known - examples of this is the classic Seinfeld episode "The Contest." The episode, which was ranked as the single best television episode of all time by TV Guide, revolves around a contest between the four main characters to determine who can go the longest without masturbating. However, due to strict television guidelines, the word "masturbate" is never used in the episode, isntead being referred to by euphemisms such as the now-classic catchphrase "master of my domain." The episode would probably still be funny if the word could be used, but the heavy implication of the subject matter and the many amusing euphemisms used by the group make the whole thing much funnier, because it makes the audience feel like we're in on the joke.
Another example that I've always been fond of is the inclusion of marijuana in That 70s Show. The characters smoke pot in almost every episode, but it is never referred to by name and no joints or bongs ever appear on-screen. Instead, the audience sees the camera pan over the characters while puffs of smoke hang in the air around them, allowing viewers to pick up on the cues and laugh with the characters, while once again including the audience in the joke.
Dramas can also use implication and creativity to increase the impact of a scene without actually showing it. I'm not normally a big fan of Mad Men, but Joan's rape in the second season of that show was beautifully played, and all the more powerful because of how little was shown. It was far from gratuitous, showing no nudity and cutting away before the deed was actually done, focusing instead on Joan's glassy-eyed, resigned stare. Not showing the scene allowed the audience to imagine what is happening and project our horror onto the situation, while avoiding the fetishization of sexual violence that often comes with portrayals of such behavior onscreen.
It's not that showing sex, violence, drugs or profanity on TV is always badly done: The Wire showed characters doing drugs in order to illuminate the societal problems that plagued Baltimore, Tell Me You Love Me used explicit sex scenes in order to delve deeper into couples' relationships, and Deadwood elevated cursing to an art form. However, portraying these subjects on television is always dangerous, and difficult to do well. For every Tell Me You Love Me there are several True Bloods, a show that uses gratuitous sex to cover plot holes and that is often guilty of fetishizing violence against women. Shows like Seinfeld and Mad Men have shown viewers that censorship is not necessarily a bad thing; now, if only shows like True Blood would take that lesson to heart, and realize that ability to show something onscreen doesn't imply necessity.
