Why I Love Suburgatory

I'm not sure when it was that I fell out of love with sitcoms. It was probably somewhere between the end of Friends and the beginning of Joey.

Then The Office came on...and it sucked. At least, the first season did. But after that it got good, and I enjoyed it for a few seasons until Jim and Pam got engaged. I had a brief fling with How I Met Your Mother too. I watched the first 2 seasons but then it got stale for me.

But other than that, the sitcom genre was pretty much dead. Dramas ruled the day. After the reign of Seinfeld and Friends, we needed something fresh. I don't know if we ever really got it.

What we did get were a lot of shows that just felt like a barrage of one liners. Cartoons. There was no heart. The prime example of this is "30 Rock".

It's got the best jokes on TV. There's only one problem with that: there is nothing on the show that is in any way believable. There is nothing to relate to. But it has great jokes! Yeah, it's easy to write jokes in anything can happen-land. And I would argue, that makes them a whole lot less funny.

"We were on a break!"

That joke is made a lot funnier because you relate to Ross and Rachel, and are invested in their relationship. I don't think anyone can be invested in Tracy Jordan or Kenneth. They are cartoon characters.

During this time, I didn't even try to get jobs on sitcoms. The fact is I probably wouldn't have gotten hired anyway, but I really had no interest. Plus, there were hardly any sitcoms on the air and hence, nothing to get hired on.

Even though I was technically in "comedy", when I wrote specs I wrote one hour dramas. My favorite shows (at the time) were Friday Night Lights and Rescue Me. That's what I liked to watch. So I figured, that's what I'll write. Why write scripts that mimic shows I hate?

Slowly, sitcoms made a come back. There were more and more popping up on TV. Many of them were of the depressing variety, I'm looking at you, CBS. But Parks and Rec came along - it copied everything from "The Office", even a shitty first season. Then Modern Family. And others.

I still didn't like too many of them. But I got tired of sketch shows and the crappy money basic cable provides. So I threw my hat in the ring, armed with my 1 hour specs.

I assumed this would get me meetings at 1 hour shows. It did. But I couldn't help making the scripts a little funny, so I also got some meetings for half hours. 

I was wary about it. Most of the shows still do that zany joke world thing that I hate. But luckily for me, very luckily, I somehow landed on a show that had a mix of everything that I loved. That didn't live completely in crazy town. That mixed jokes with drama. That had heart. A show called Suburgatory.

Now, I know some of you love the show, and some of you don't like the show. And some of you aren't shy about telling me about it. Thanks for that. But this is about me, and about why I love show and feel so excited to be able to work on it.

Don't get me wrong - there is craziness. There is stuff that is over the top. But that's not all the show depends on. It's also about the characters, and their relationships. There are arcs. There is "will they or won't they?" stuff. Jokes come out of the characters.

Well, it (finally!) premieres tomorrow night on ABC at 9:30 after Modern Family. And I'm really proud of the first episode (well, all of the episodes, really). It was written by our showrunner, and the creator of the show, Emily Kapnek. Despite the fact that she has the power to fire me, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that she's a genius.

The episode has heart. But it's also ridiculously funny. It's a balance. A mix of both things. And I think it's the perfect example of what the show is and should be. And what I love, or rather, used to love about sitcoms. Sitcoms like The Wonder Years.

So if any of this sounds good to you, please check it out. And if you can avoid telling me how wrong I am and that I'm an idiot, that would be great. If you can't avoid it, do your worst. If you only want to watch the episode I wrote, which I do respect, it is airing on November 7th.

Thanks for all of your love and support over the years. I appreciate it. And it feels good to be working on a show that I enjoy working on every day. I hope you enjoy the results.