Before watching series became a thing, people used to watch sitcoms on their TV and some have become memorable for more than 2 or 3 generations.
If you are reading this blog then you have not been living under a rock. You are aware of technological advancement and how it has impacted human life in every aspect you can think about. Letters have turned into emails and text messages. Going shopping has turned into ‘adding to cart’ on apps and so much more. The same thing happened if you look at the entertainment industry. From vinyl records to CDs, people are now solely dependent on digital music streaming platforms. From TV shows, they have switched to digital platforms that give them access to the sitcoms that used to be played on T.V. If you feel like the technological development is a bit too overwhelming and want to go back to the simpler time then try reading good books. But if you wish to stir things up then the best advice would be to watch old classic shows that never lose their shine. Do you have any ideas or suggestions about this? Keep reading as this blog will explore some of the best TV shows humankind has ever made.
FRIENDS
No matter if you are a millennial, Gen Z, or Gen Alpha, you are well aware of the name ‘FRIENDS’. This sitcom has won billions and billions of hearts due to its true, funny, and relatable depiction of people in their early twenties in the ’90s and 2000s. The hugely popular sitcom Friends ran for 236 episodes from September 1994 to May 2004. Twenty-five years later, the show has not just endured, it’s exploded, reportedly earning $1 billion in syndication revenue for Warner Bros a year. It is one of the most watched shows on Netflix, with viewers around the world spending 54.3 million hours (the equivalent of 62,000 years) watching it in 2018.
The show’s enduring popularity isn’t just down to a devoted fan base of nostalgic 30 and 40-somethings. It’s also due to a new crop of binge-watching Gen Z-ers around the world who see themselves in its characters and situations, even though Friends premiered before some of them were even born. Twenty-six-year-old Kristobel Ochuba of Nigeria is a Friends superfan who says she has streamed the entire series maybe ten times—as a teenager, a college student, and now as a married person. She says she’s found something relatable about the show at each point.
Given how dated the show has become by contemporary standards, its enduring appeal can be a little surprising. But for new viewers, however, Friends harkens back to a simpler time—before apps, social media, and smartphones dominated our attention, time, and friendships. For some, that’s enough to forgive its flaws.
The West Wing
Some of its main stars are Rob Lowe, Bradley Whitford, Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, John Spencer, and Janel Moloney. The show takes place in the West Wing of the White House, with President Bartlet — played by Sheen — and the key members of his staff. You cannot help but walk away from each episode feeling so inspired. There are undoubtedly high levels of idealism throughout the show. From the extremely wise and good-natured president to his always well-intentioned and thoughtful staffers, it can feel highly improbable that we will ever see a West Wing as dedicated and courageous as the one portrayed in the show.
However, that is also where the magic lies. It is a comforting thought to think that the people in the highest positions in the White House would care so deeply and tirelessly to work to find the perfect solution to some of the most challenging obstacles we face as a country. It is really interesting to consider the state of the West Wing when the show first entered the scene, on 22nd September 1999, in the wake of President Bill Clinton’s scandal during his administration. A major reason why the show was created in the first place was to restore some faith in the White House.
Another reason why the show seems to resonate with so many people and has had several revivals since its inception is because of the highly talented ensemble cast. The ensemble nature of the cast allows viewers to have a character that they relate to, whether that is the witty Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman, played by Whitford; the ornery Communications Director Toby Ziegler, played by Richard Schiff; the heart of gold President Jed Bartlet; the gentlemanly Chief of Staff Leo McGarry, played by Spencer; the good-natured Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn, played by Lowe; or the vivacious Press Secretary CJ Craig, played by Janney.
The Simpsons
As conceived by Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon, and continued by an endlessly repopulated writers’ room, with a brilliant voice cast (headed by Dan Castellaneta as Homer, Julie Kavner as Marge, Nancy Cartwright as Bart, Yeardley Smith as Lisa, plus Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, and other utility infielders, including Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, and the late Phil Hartman), The Simpsons is so ambitious, intimate, classical, experimental, hip, corny, and altogether free in its conviction that the imagination should go where it wants, that to even begin to explain all the things The Simpsons is, and all the things it does, you would need an immense Venn diagram drawn on a football field, each circle representing different modes of comedy.
And even then, summing up The Simpsons would be impossible, because the best gags, the best scenes, the best episodes, the best seasons, contain multitudes within multitudes within multitudes. Trying to identify any one aspect as the key to the show’s genius would be folly. The show has been on for far too long (so long that it now predates the existence of many of its viewers), has done too many amazing things, and has been through too many evolutions.
The Simpsons is the greatest show in TV history for all the reasons listed previously, plus so many more, that contemplating them all feels a bit like Homer’s daydream about a trip to the Land of Chocolate. It also found a deep reservoir of emotion in its depiction of the Simpson family itself, as well as the complicated dynamics between husband and wife, brother and sister, father and daughter, student and teacher, spike-haired brat and gunboat-footed, Gilbert and Sullivan–loving maniac.
Seinfeld
Seinfeld did ‘Nothing’. ‘Nothing’ is not actually nothing, but an aggressively hilarious reflection of universal self-obsession. When Seinfeld was being conceived, the decision to label it a ‘show about nothing’ was just a catchy way of saying ‘It’s not about anything else you assume TV shows are about, and our characters will haunt you with their everyday familiarity.’ The ‘80s saw a perfection of the sitcom formula, best represented by Cheers and The Jeffersons. And within that formula, the two major types of sitcoms people were accustomed to seeing were the professional sitcoms – shows like Murphy Brown and Frasier – and the family sitcoms – shows like Married… with Children, Family Matters, and Full House. Full House, being perhaps the cleanest and most idyllic show (‘whatever happened to predictability?’), was about how the Tanner family can overcome any kind of challenge simply by being a devoted family. If Seinfeld was the antithesis of any show, it was the one where every episode ends with a hug, a kiss, and at least one character learning something important.
Even though the ‘Nothing’ came from very specific creative origins, none of them was so pretentious or taken so seriously as to override the others or, more importantly, to override the central objective, which was to elicit the effect of laughter. The life story and career of Larry David is anything but a story about nothing. The standup comedy of Jerry Seinfeld is anything but nothing. These things do not automatically combine into nothing simply by coexistence. They make for ‘Nothing’ because neither is expressed in a way that is authentic or representative. Jerry Seinfeld’s standup exists outside the show, and if you want to know the real story of Larry David, George Costanza is not how you get it because if it ever became funnier to have something else happen to him, or to have him do something else, that’s what would happen.
Apart from these, there are more series like ‘Law & Order’, ‘How I Met Your Mother’, ‘The Big Bang Theory’, ‘ Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ and so on which not only take you back to the good old days but also provide you with a sense of comfort and familiarity. So if you are looking to maybe just kill some time or give your mind some rest by indulging in something nice, warm, funny, and full of reminders of the ‘Good ol’ days’ then these shows should be on top of your watch list.
