Jews, People with Mustaches, and Divorced People
October 31, 2011 1:44 PM   Subscribe

America in Primetime is a four-part PBS special on four character archetypes that define contemporary television and interviews tons of writers, producers and actors from a set of defining shows. The first episode, Independent Women (which you can stream from their website) aired last night, gaining measured reviews from Bitch and the AV Club. Future episodes: Man of the House, The Misfit and The Crusader.
posted by Apropos of Something (22 comments total) 35 users marked this as a favorite
 
This sounds fantastic and I totally missed that it was a thing. Thanks!
posted by shakespeherian at 1:50 PM on October 31, 2011


The four sitcom character archetypes: smarty, dummy, crazy, and grouchy.
Courtesy of Earth: The Book
posted by Paragon at 1:58 PM on October 31, 2011 [3 favorites]


"These people who make television, they’re like aliens. They don’t have any real-life experience or any values.” - Roseanne Barr

Amazing.
posted by roger ackroyd at 2:01 PM on October 31, 2011 [2 favorites]


I also have no idea how I missed this, but appreciate the heads up (and am glad to live here in the future where WTTW's digital channels re-broadcast everything a couple of times during the week they premiere)

Given that I loyally watch pretty much all PBS programs having to do with TV -- no matter how much they disappoint me (I'm looking at you Pioneers of Television), I look forward to seeing what they do when discussing things more in the abstract rather than strictly reporting historical facts that everybody with Wikipedia and a little knowledge that TV existed before it was color could have put together (see above)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:04 PM on October 31, 2011


Hey now paragon you forgot "Slutty"
posted by The Whelk at 2:07 PM on October 31, 2011 [1 favorite]


I missed the beginning of the show but I loved Mary Tyler Moore and Roseanne Barr was just fucking awesome. The others were good too but these two were a standout.

I disagree with Bitch and their comment, "do the people who create and play female characters on TV really think there's nowhere else to go?", is off the mark. I think the possibility for other places to go with complex female characters is possible now, especially with cable (Nurse Jackie, Weeds, Sex And The City - all of whom were included). Of course, there are others I would have liked to seen included - women of color, Buffy, Margaret Cho.
posted by shoesietart at 2:10 PM on October 31, 2011


The four archetypes are based on the humours, and are addressed here.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:11 PM on October 31, 2011 [1 favorite]


On the subject of archetypes, MeFites will probably be especially interested in this clip from the show where Mitchell Hurwitz describes his initial layout for the four siblings of Arrested Development.
posted by Apropos of Something at 2:13 PM on October 31, 2011 [1 favorite]


No Bea Arthur (either in Maude or Golden Girls), Gloria from All in The Family, no discussion about the changing nature of race and women...agreed that the Roseanne part was great but far too much screen time was devoted to Desperate Housewives, some vapid-looking Hospital show and a bunch of relatively new to TV actors. I couldn't see the arc from so many classic figures (Lucy, Mary Tyler Moore) to these characters and didn't feel convinced after watching this show.
Why not discuss why so many men are either the creators or writers of said shows (even today)? I wasn't necessarily expecting the history of women's roles in TV but this episode was too light for my liking.
posted by TomSophieIvy at 2:53 PM on October 31, 2011 [2 favorites]


I look forward to seeing what they do when discussing things more in the abstract ...

It was pretty good but not as in-depth as I had hoped. Being an obsessive consumer of TV and TV criticism I doubt any doc could be. Having watched this and most of Pioneers of Television over the weekend, I'd say prepare to remain disappointed. Actually, the segments on Mary Tyler Moore and Lucille Ball were better in Pioneers (and some anecdotes last night were retreads of those in Pioneers.) Aside from a few highlights already mentioned, it felt rather repetitive. I agree with the Bitch review, it might have been nice to have some outsider perspective. Having said that (haha) I'm still looking forward to the rest of the series.
posted by Lorin at 3:04 PM on October 31, 2011


TV has never been better but the Sit-Com has never been so uniform.
posted by The Whelk at 4:40 PM on October 31, 2011 [1 favorite]


How useful is the "independent woman" archetype if it has to cover all these different characters?
posted by wobh at 5:17 PM on October 31, 2011


I watched most of it last night. I was a lot more bored than I thought I would be, sadly.
posted by mrnutty at 5:25 PM on October 31, 2011


"Vietnam vet, short, blind, and large dog." —Norman Lear on pitching All in the Family
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 6:03 PM on October 31, 2011


Independent Women: Katara
Man of the House: Sokka
The Misfit: Toff
The Crusader: Aang
posted by DU at 6:07 PM on October 31, 2011 [2 favorites]


TV has never been better but the Sit-Com has never been so uniform.

Community? Parks and Rec? It's Always Sunny? Louie, for Pete's sake?

Don't get me wrong, I love the Dick Van Dyke show. It's hilarious. But it'd be hard to call it unconventional, in the sense that those four shows are.
posted by Apropos of Something at 7:53 PM on October 31, 2011


Should have said *network* sitcoms , my bad.
posted by The Whelk at 8:02 PM on October 31, 2011


Actually, it wounds like you meant "three-camera sit-coms."
posted by Navelgazer at 9:03 PM on October 31, 2011


I think I do mean that, I don't think that genre has a future unless they become nore diverse.

A good idea might be to embrace the advantage it has, a live audience. Maybe even more live broadcasts.
posted by The Whelk at 9:11 PM on October 31, 2011


I've watched the episode now, and in general it was very good. That said, I wish it had expanded more broadly on the women in television today. I agree with the AV Club that it was bizarre to have Elizabeth Moss on there and to not touch upon Mad Men (and I've barely even seen Mad Men myself.

And though I didn't expect it at all, I was sad that they didn't touch upon Britta Perry, for my money the greatest character on television at all right now. She is the truly independent woman who is also a fuck-up, but with the comedy coming from how much we relate to her in her fuck-ups. Treading a similar ground, though not IMHO reaching quite the same levels of heartbreaking-and-hilarious-simultaneously, but far more popular and also unfathomably talented... where the fuck were Liz Lemon and Tina Fey? i really, really wanted Gillian Jacobs on there, but didn't expect it. Fey's absence was conspicuous.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:04 AM on November 1, 2011


In defense of The Whelk's point, I think it does say something dramatic that (with the possible exception of How I Met Your Mother), the sitcoms that most discerning people of taste would mark as revolutionary are strongly disliked by the general public. Most groundbreaking sitcoms are pretty broadly enjoyed: Seinfeld. Cheers. All in the Family (after a while). M*A*S*H. Mary Tyler Moore. (Of course, there's lots of counter examples too: NewsRadio, Arrested Development, etc etc. Louie's pretty popular today, but Louie isn't even the most popular sitcom on cable; that's whatever Tyler Perry airs for 16 hours a day on TBS.)

To me, it also says something very cynical, about TV executives and the general public, that the most popular sitcom on television is one where the main character displayed morally reprehensible behavior without consequence, the actor who plays that character acted out basically those behaviors in real life, and the sitcom responded by firing him and replacing him with a guest star decoy.
posted by Apropos of Something at 1:33 AM on November 1, 2011


I agree with the AV Club that it was bizarre to have Elizabeth Moss on there and to not touch upon Mad Men (and I've barely even seen Mad Men myself.

I got the impression from the trailers that Elisabeth Moss emerges in later episodes to talk about her character on Mad Men. The Misfit episode, possibly?
posted by Apropos of Something at 1:34 AM on November 1, 2011


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