Word: sitcomming
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Bored might be a better word. As a genre, the big network mini-series has become as predictable and formulaic as the half-hour sitcom. This season's multiparters were mostly sprawling family dramas or historical sagas, with hackneyed plots spiced up with vaguely exotic locales (1920s Paris in Mistral's Daughter, turn-of-the-century New York City in Ellis Island). A.D.'s meticulous evocation of the ancient Roman Empire could not redeem a ponderous extravaganza that looked as if it had been conceived and directed by computer...
...parts An excellent dialoguesmith, Hauptman distributes juicy one-liners with admirable magnanimity (a prostitute recalling her decision to hit the street says "I realized I was sitting on a gold mine"). Hauptman's generosity keep the laughs rolling, but at the cost of reducing his characters to sitcom personalities. Hauptman's attempts to add a few moments of drama completely collapse; characters who whip out quips at the pace of a Noel Coward cannot carry a dramatic scene...
...miles; a later one had to be aborted when his ship became trapped in the Antarctic ice. But few dramas have told a more inspiring tale of man against nature or better conveyed the excitement of a great period of exploration. Another winning import is Solo, a wry sitcom starring the delightful Felicity Kendal as a single woman who dumps her boyfriend, quits her job and tries to start a new life...
Beck also plays the lead role in a Chicago comedy, "E/R", which inspired the television sitcom with Eliot Gould of the same name...
Rick and Lonnie are misunderstood teen-agers whose parents have forbidden them to see each other. The predicament may sound familiar, but Rick and Lonnie are hardly stock figures from a TV sitcom or sentimental drama in which love conquers all. In an upcoming ABC movie called Surviving, the youths feel increasingly beleaguered and estranged from the world. Depressed and hopeless, they take a drastic step. One night they sneak into her parents' garage, huddle together on the front seat of the family car and start the engine. The next morning they are dead...