History of the Sitcom

I thought this was supposed to be the history of sitcom. Instead it is a sloppy, quick run through some popular and lesser known sitcoms. It's basically a short interview, less than a minute, then footage from the show. The retrospective on the show are brief and poorly explained.

Each episode starts in the 50s and ends in present day. Each episode also complains about minorities, women, and homosexuals not being on TV or if they were it was shown in a very stereotypical form. I do agree with this idea, literally every episode devolves into this. They should have make one episode in the shunning of aforementioned groups. I would guess 60-70% of this series is complaints about how minorities were treated.

It's amazing that they had such an enormous body of work to comment on and they come up with this. Its not the worst documentary I have seen but given the production value and money behind the documentary It's amazing they go for such boring low hanging fruit.

If you are looking for any kind.

I'm enjoying these episodes. I grew up watching many of these sitcoms and like hearing from the actors and others in the business how they lived or viewed them. Yes they touch on topics that were affected during those years and you may or may not agree with it but that's their history.

This series follows the formula that most History Channel docs follow: Snippet, actor/critic comment, repeat, commercial. It's nice to see some of the old shows represented, as well as the grown up actors comment. We watched these shows because they were funny, that's it. Never gave two sh#ts if the actors were white or black. Those were the good times!!!!

With a series like this they could have done a marvelous job talking about society, the business, the actors, the networks, etc. Instead they do a half-based job on everything. Why do it?

This is an excellent and thorough examination of many of the most popular sit-coms and how the medium - unique in its widespread influence - interacts with society. The episodes are watchable and light, due to the presentation consisting of quickly interspersed clips of the sitcoms themselves, news clips showing life outside the TV, and interviews with people who have devoted their entire lives to the industry (sometimes from childhood).

I appreciate how it looks at the whole history within each episode, focusing on a particular facet of society (family, work, sex, race, etc.). The viewer is able to join actors, writers, producers, and critics of the shows we've all grown up with and hear stories explaining how the paths of shows were forged and how current entertainment is related to the very different earliest shows of 70 years ago.

People who don't like the diversity being explored in society today - and therefore within up-to-date popular culture - might not appreciate the value of this. This documentary series is acknowledging the ways our world has changed, not politicizing (unlike many of the reviews listed here). It's a valuable contribution to the history of popular culture.