Nothing elevates a sitcom episode like a big emotional moment. It gives the show depth. The audience doesn't just come for the jokes; they become invested in the characters. They start to really care about them. Their problems are meaningful and you root for them to succeed.
Shows that can pull that off tend to have staying power with audiences. Especially if the problems are universal. That's why you can watch a DICK VAN DYKE SHOW from 50 years ago and still identify with it. The issues are the same. We're just no longer in black-and-white.
But those emotional moments need to be earned.
Some sitcoms will do 20 minutes of broad burlesque and then take a huge left turn and have a super sappy moment. And it feels bogus. Your teeth rattle. You throws shoes at the screen. All it succeeds in doing is reinforcing that sitcoms can be lightweight and disposable. In those cases, the moments only make the show worse.
So how to avoid that?
You ground the show going in. The tone has to be realistic throughout. When a character says something and another character says something no normal human being would ever say but it gets a laugh, there goes your credibility. When characters act like idiots or two-year-olds and sacrifice any shred of dignity for the sake of a joke you do so at the expense of true emotion.
What world do your characters live in? If it's heightened and cartoonish, fine. Just don't switch gears and suddenly become WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? At this point, some readers will race to the keyboard to point out exceptions. Of course there are exceptions, but for the most part this is the rule and it behooves a writer to try to do it right.
The litmus test we have in the writers room is that the moment must be earned.
And as for the moment itself, generally speaking, the more economical the better. Avoid cliches. Avoid going over-the-top. Often times the best moments are one or two sentences, not long overwrought speeches. When David Isaacs and I wrote GOODBYE RADAR for MASH we purposely designed the story so that there were casualties arriving when Radar had to leave. So his final goodbyes were all on the fly. Each character got a sentence or two. To me that was way more effective than long heart-to-heart speeches where each character revealed how much Radar meant to them.
In short, beware of sentimentality. Like a good spice, you need just a pinch.
Usually I find the shows that do moments that aren't earned are also the shows that do the least artful moments, which is not surprising.
Emotional moments, like I said, are worth striving for. But they require effort. Along the way, don't settle for jokes that compromise characters. Don't do stories so silly that they can only be called sketches at best. It's the difference in being a sitcom writer and a writer writer.
from By Ken Levine
Shows that can pull that off tend to have staying power with audiences. Especially if the problems are universal. That's why you can watch a DICK VAN DYKE SHOW from 50 years ago and still identify with it. The issues are the same. We're just no longer in black-and-white.
But those emotional moments need to be earned.
Some sitcoms will do 20 minutes of broad burlesque and then take a huge left turn and have a super sappy moment. And it feels bogus. Your teeth rattle. You throws shoes at the screen. All it succeeds in doing is reinforcing that sitcoms can be lightweight and disposable. In those cases, the moments only make the show worse.
So how to avoid that?
You ground the show going in. The tone has to be realistic throughout. When a character says something and another character says something no normal human being would ever say but it gets a laugh, there goes your credibility. When characters act like idiots or two-year-olds and sacrifice any shred of dignity for the sake of a joke you do so at the expense of true emotion.
What world do your characters live in? If it's heightened and cartoonish, fine. Just don't switch gears and suddenly become WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? At this point, some readers will race to the keyboard to point out exceptions. Of course there are exceptions, but for the most part this is the rule and it behooves a writer to try to do it right.
The litmus test we have in the writers room is that the moment must be earned.
And as for the moment itself, generally speaking, the more economical the better. Avoid cliches. Avoid going over-the-top. Often times the best moments are one or two sentences, not long overwrought speeches. When David Isaacs and I wrote GOODBYE RADAR for MASH we purposely designed the story so that there were casualties arriving when Radar had to leave. So his final goodbyes were all on the fly. Each character got a sentence or two. To me that was way more effective than long heart-to-heart speeches where each character revealed how much Radar meant to them.
In short, beware of sentimentality. Like a good spice, you need just a pinch.
Usually I find the shows that do moments that aren't earned are also the shows that do the least artful moments, which is not surprising.
Emotional moments, like I said, are worth striving for. But they require effort. Along the way, don't settle for jokes that compromise characters. Don't do stories so silly that they can only be called sketches at best. It's the difference in being a sitcom writer and a writer writer.
from By Ken Levine
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