The last laugh: is the television sitcom really dead?

From Friends to The Thick Of It, the TV sitcom has evolved – but it’s no longer in rude health. Enter offbeat shows like Stath Lets Flats, bringing joy and potential redemptionThe sitcom has a long history of being dead. According to the former NBC president of entertainment, Warren Littlefield, in the early 1980s many people believed the sitcom was over. In 1999, Entertainment Weekly noted the genre’s demise. In 2005, so did Victoria Wood. 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. Declaring the sitcom dead now seems more like an annual ritual than a convincing take on the state of comedy. But what if this time it’s actually true?There are a few reasons why the sitcom seems, if not comprehensively deceased, then at least less responsive than it has ever been. 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). Streaming giants increasingly shape our viewing habits, and they don’t tend to make sitcoms (their discrete episodic plots mean they are not very bingeworthy, for a start). The newly established National Comedy Awards, meanwhile, doesn’t include a sitcom category, while Bafta dropped its sitcom award in 2015 and replaced it with one for scripted comedy: this... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2021-10-26 14:35:04 UTC ]

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Pushing the bounds of form in ‘The Glorious American Essay’

Phillip Lopate's choices for this fine anthology may stretch the parameters of an essay, but he's made distinctive and evocative selections. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-12-23 21:36:26 UTC ]
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Read Harder: An SFF Anthology Edited by a Person of Color

In this Read Harder Challenge post, we're recommending books for the task asking you to read an SFF anthology edited by a person of color. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2020-12-18 11:31:00 UTC ]
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A never-before-seen Shirley Jackson story has just been published.

This week is a whirlwind for Shirley Jackson fans! On Monday we learned we’re getting a Jackson tribute anthology in 2021, and now, an unseen Shirley Jackson story has been published in The Strand Magazine. Jackson’s son, Laurence Hyman, found the story—“Adventure on a Bad Night”—among Jackson’s... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-17 16:17:13 UTC ]
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The best journalism of 2020: Covering the pandemic

A year has passed since the novel coronavirus first emerged. Even with mass inoculation efforts underway, it continues to rage on, with little sign of abating.  Throughout this year, we’ve relied on journalism to make sense of it all—especially as the virus’s spread frequently outpaced our... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-12-15 13:02:41 UTC ]
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Denver Indie Bookstore Launches BookBar Press with Debut Release

Independent Denver bookstore BookBar has launched its new publishing division, BookBar Press, with the publication of an anthology of micro-plays written by area playwrights. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-12-15 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham on Social Media, Black Futurity, and the Archive

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[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-11 09:49:52 UTC ]
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Announcing a New Publishing Project and a Call for Co-Editors: Best Translations: An Annual Anthology, by The Editors of WLT

News and Events Photo by Wendy Call / www.wendycall.com Deadline for Applications: Thursday, January 7, 2021 Call for Applications: Two series co-editors, one with expertise in Asian literatures and one with expertise in Middle Eastern and/or... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2020-12-09 14:16:34 UTC ]
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Announcing WLT’s 2020 Pushcart Prize Nominees, by The Editors of WLT

News and Events Photo: Quarantine portrait. Tulsa, Oklahoma. March 22, 2020, by Joseph Rushmore. This photograph accompanied the publication of Rilla Askew's "Cataclysm" in the Summer 2020 issue of World Literature Today. The editors of World... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2020-11-30 21:07:51 UTC ]
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Small Axe: what Steve McQueen got right and wrong about lovers rock

Centred around a Blues Party in London, the second film from the Small Axe anthology captured the excitement of setting up a party but missed things about sound system culture in the UK. Continue reading at The Conversation

[ The Conversation | 2020-11-30 15:04:41 UTC ]
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Inkandescent makes its mark with crowdsourced anthology

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[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-27 17:33:34 UTC ]
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Life Isn’t a Narrative: A Conversation with JoAnn Wypijewski

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[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-11-26 18:00:16 UTC ]
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Jeff Bezos’s thoughts on Big Business, outer space and The Washington Post

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[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-20 13:00:00 UTC ]
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What Makes a Great American Essay?

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[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-17 09:49:35 UTC ]
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Harlan Ellison's The Last Dangerous Visions may finally be published, after five-decade wait

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[ The Guardian | 2020-11-16 14:38:59 UTC ]
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A new Jane Austen anthology series is coming to the CW.

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[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-13 16:26:19 UTC ]
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A Monumental and Rapturous New Anthology of Black American Poetry

“African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song,” edited by Kevin Young, contains an overwhelming amount of variety and history. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-11-10 20:51:39 UTC ]
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America Starts Here: On “When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry”

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[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-11-09 18:00:17 UTC ]
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Higher education technology company Anthology acquires xRM software

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[ Silicon Valley Business Journal | 2020-11-09 17:38:19 UTC ]
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Dispatches from an Overheated World: On “Tales of Two Planets”

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On ‘herd immunity,’ vaccines, and pandemic whiplash

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[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-10-21 12:30:20 UTC ]
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