tell da bishun

never did watch two & a half men or everybody loves raymond when these shows were on in prime-time, but sometimes do catch them now in syndication. if you have ever watched them, then you know that each is the same over & over again. i don't know how they lasted so long. two & a half men is about how the one brother's a playboy drifter and the other's a more-stable professional chiropractor, but ironically, the more-stable brother is the one who lost his home but won his son in a divorce and now the brother&son live with the playboy brother in his bachelor pad which is kept up by a cranky, smart-alec housekeeper and frequently visited by the brothers' alcoholic mother. the plot every week is that the playboy is the bad-boy who turns out to be the unexpected hero, and the more-stable brother is the neurotic loser who cannot hold his life together.

with everybody loves raymond, you've got ray & his wife & kids living within apparent walking distance of his brother [never able to determine for sure if this is an older or younger brother] and his parents. ray's italian, and his mother is domineering and emotional. ray's father is inappropriate & bitter. ray's brother's a cop. ray's a sports-writer, a profession which is not taken seriously. ray's wife is a long-suffering saint-martyr who puts up with all the foibles of her husband and eccentricities of her in-laws. the plot every week involves ray's wife & mother having a fight, ray's father hiding out either literally or figuratively to get away from said fighting, ray's brother being misunderstood, and ray not getting enough sex.

now, contrast these stereotypical shows with friends, seinfeld, and cosby - other classics. the characters in these shows are somewhat typed, of course, b/c sitcoms are not precisely about character development. sitcoms are about situation & comedy - hence: sit-com. the comedy that arises from situations. the problem with raymond and men is that the situations are the same every week. with friends, seinfeld, and cosby, the situations were different and the resolutions were different. i mean, of course, there are recurring themes in these shows. that's what gives the shows continuity and life, but each episode was not the exact same. also, with friends, seinfeld, and cosby, the characters do change, grow, develop... slowly - like people change, grow, and develop in real life. over the years, the characters change, the situations change. on raymond and men, the characters & situations do not seem to change at all.

in conclusion, some shows are better than others.