What is the benefit of doing a sitcom in a mockumentary format?
At one time it was very fresh. Rob Reiner’s THIS IS SPINAL TAP used the device as a novel and fun way to tell a movie story.
Ricky Gervais’ British version of THE OFFICE also used it to good effect. But it made sense there. There were only a few episodes shot. So you can understand that a documentary crew filmed them for a few months and distilled all the footage into just a few episodes.
The American version of THE OFFICE strained credibility. Why was this crew shooting for years and years? Still, you overlooked that because, at the time, THE OFFICE was a fresh way to mount a sitcom.
Not sure why a documentary crew would follow around the folks at PARKS & REC but the show developed into such a funny and charming sitcom you didn’t mind. At least I didn’t mind.
By the time MODERN FAMILY hit the airwaves the device seemed tired. It reached a point when the mockumentary style detracted from the series.
And then there are the logistics. Where are all these cameramen? In MODERN FAMILY there’s the episode where the kids catch their parents having sex. We see them bring up breakfast in bed and open the bedroom door. We see their point of view suggesting the parents are busily engaged. The kids are horrified, slam the door closed, and leave. Then we cut inside the bedroom where the parents are discussing what just happened. So wait a minute — for a camera to be in the bedroom to capture that exchange it already had to be there — when they were having sex. I brought that up to one of the show’s producers and he said, “Hmmmm. Never thought of that.”
The mockumentary formal causes limitations. How intimate can characters’ conversations be when they know they’re being filmed? And when you watch these shows, sometimes the characters know and react to being filmed and other times they act as if they’re oblivious to it.
This year we have ABBOTT ELEMENTARY, a well-written well-received new sitcom. But they too utilize the mockumentary device. And I ask the question: why? What added value does it serve? It’s certainly no longer fresh. And a lot of the jokes revolve around people squirming knowing they did something embarrassing that now is being seen by the world. They’re the same jokes THE OFFICE did a thousand times twenty years ago.
If there’s an organic reason why a series needs to tell stories through this device, that’s fine. Or if the characters are hoping this “documentary” will result in more funding or change in any way then I say great. But to do it just to do it — to me it’s the new laughtrack.
What do you guys think?
from By Ken Levine
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