"Haven't you seen Big Bang Theory? Oh mate, you've got to watch it, it's hilarious!".
No I had not seen it. Yes, I have now, (sadly it's unavoidable as my wife loves it,) and no I don't find it funny, or awesome, or even good.
There seems to be a formula running through the vast majority of American situation comedies and I've now summarised it for myself, (and subsequently a few friends,) as SPL: "Setup, Punchline, Laugh".
It's nothing new. When I was in my teens I was often told I should watch Fraiser, then it was Friends and these days it's shows like Two And A Half Men, How I Met Your Mother and the aforementioned BBT.
To me these shows all follow a very simple and annoyingly repetitive formula:
Step 1 - The Setup:
A man walks through the door
Step 2 - The Punchline:
He calls out, 'Hi Honey, I'm home!'
Step 3 - Laughter:
Canned laughter is vomited over the soundtrack
This is all followed by a lot more of the same which, when sandwiched between opening and closing credits creates a show.
You may think that the above setup and punchline are not even funny... You'd be quite correct with that assertion. Not only do many of these shows use SPL, but frequently the laugh appears to be triggered based on quantity of previous actions/statements rather than whether anything funny was actually said or done.
As SPL is very easy to detect I use it as a selection criterion for my 'TV programmes to avoid' list.
No comments:
Post a Comment