In terms of the comedy zeitgeist, the sadcom – a frequently bleak drama hybrid – continues to rule (see: I May Destroy You, Feel Good, This Way Up, Insecure). There are a few reasons why the sitcom seems, if not comprehensively deceased, then at least less responsive than it has ever been. But what if this time it’s actually true? Declaring the sitcom dead now seems more like an annual ritual than a convincing take on the state of comedy. The following year, the former ITV director of programmes, David Liddiment, made a programme called Who Killed the Sitcom? In the decade and a half since, similar questions have been posed repeatedly by publications on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1999, Entertainment Weekly noted the genre’s demise. According to the former NBC president of entertainment, Warren Littlefield, in the early 1980s many people believed the sitcom was over. All four seasons of the Emmy-winning series, each one better than the next, are available to stream in full.The sitcom has a long history of being dead. But transitioning back into the real world isn’t without consequences for Barry, who can spend an entire episode being hunted by a pint-size martial arts master. When a job takes him to Los Angeles, Barry stumbles upon an acting class led by Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler, in what may be the role that finally supplants Fonzie as his most memorable), a failed but charismatic mentor. Barry Berkman (Hader) is a traumatized marine whose newfound apathy toward the world and the very act of living makes him perfectly suited to work as a gun for hire. But what might sound like a played-out trope has taken on new dimensions of humor, darkness, humanity, and plain old weirdness, with its recently concluded final season serving as a brilliant crescendo of all of that dark weirdness mixed in with a little time jump. No one seemed particularly wowed when HBO announced that Bill Hader and Alec Berg were cocreating a series in which Hader would play a hitman with a conscience who attempts to go straight.
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