It's 2004 redux here in 2024—only now it seems all networks are NBC, keeping low-risk shows on the air, year after year
It's 2004 redux here in 2024—only now it seems all networks are NBC, keeping low-risk shows on the air, year after yeararguably peaked around season five. It then had two or three more very good years and was pleasantly forgettable thereafter, aside from the occasional snappy episode or big event. Creatively, the show had more or less run its course by season eight. But that’s not whyshould’ve ended then.
, he describes the state of play for NBC circa 2004. For 20 years, the network had dominated Thursday night with an unbroken string of popular, Emmy-winning sitcoms . The NBC executives had built their whole schedule around that night, producing lineups that collectively outpaced their competition. Then ABC, CBS, and Fox started catching up at the start of the 21st century, with a mix of reality shows likeNBC’s Thursday night juggernaut had been challenged before. In the early ’90s, Fox took on.
So how about the creative side? Again, it’s hard to keep any TV show fresh for more than five or six seasons. Sitcoms are especially prone to ossification. Over time, characters stiffen into stereotypes and jokes get repeated so often that they become dryly liturgical—like the part of the church service where parishioners mindlessly mumble the creeds in unison. But also like a church service, watching the same sitcom week after week can be stabilizing, reassuring.
The ends of these shows—and the apparent lack of viable replacements—led to some think-pieces in 2004 about the demise of the sitcom as a major cultural force. And those essays weren’t entirely wrong, at least when it comes to the “’90s-style sitcoms” disappearing. NBC’s next big comedy hits were very different fromaired its last—consisted of “traditional” sitcoms, shot with three cameras in front of an audible studio audience, like a playlet.
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