Comedy Writers on Episodic Orders, Tone and the State of the Sitcom

TV comedy vet Michael Schur (“Parks and Recreation,” “The Good Place”) is worried about the state of the sitcom. As he prepares to launch his latest series, Peacock’s “Dig,” he’s concerned about the industry’s focus on “completion rates.”

“That’s part of this new kind of ‘tech bro’ ethos that has seeped into our business,” he told the audience at Variety’s annual Night in the Writers’ Room: Awards Season Edition. “It doesn’t matter how many people sample the show. It matters how many people end up watching the whole thing.”

But in comedy, he pointed out, audiences often take time to bond with characters and understand what kind of people they are before they get in a groove and find them funny. Shows like “Cheers,” “Seinfeld” and “The Office” weren’t out-of-the-box hits; it took time for the writers and actors to find their show’s sweet spot — and gel as the megahits they became.

“I just wish that we were still in the world where you could fail in comedy for a while and because the failure is the R&D,” he said. “In the old system, you had a couple months to fail, and now you don’t. Because if people tune out in the first two episodes, the research shows that they never go back. That’s the part of this that really rankles me as a comedy writer.”

Schur noted that his “Parks and Recreation” only found its voice at the end of Season 1, and that’s when the show as we remember it really took off. “We only got there because we failed a bunch of times in a row figuring out how to get to that point,” he notes.

The old broadcast model of 22 or more episodes a season — which only a handful of sitcoms still enjoy — gave comedies room to find their groove, and then created the kind of legendary shows that viewers still go back and binge. “You get to tell a lot of story, and out of 24 episodes, there’s maybe three weak ones,” said “The Comeback” co-creator Michael Patrick King.

Even “The Comeback” co-creator and star Lisa Kudrow noted that “Friends” didn’t really take off until the summer after its first season. “Repeats were run after Seinfeld, and that’s when it exploded,” she said.

But now, with most streaming comedies topping out at eight or 10 episodes a season, storytelling has changed. And Schur is worried that the institutional memory of how to produce a hefty load, like those 22-episode seasons, has gone away. “There’s very few people left who have a muscle memory of how to actually execute that. And I don’t want it to go away. I think we need it back.”

And that’s why the panel was so encouraged by the news — announced earlier that day — that FX’s “Adults” had been renewed for Season 3 with 16 episodes. Creators Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw noted that the large commitment will allow them to expand into holiday episodes and storylines that are more character-driven without having to raise the stakes with so many plots.

“From a production standpoint, we’re, of course, very daunted,” Shaw said. “But from a storytelling perspective, it’s so exciting.”

Kronenberg and Shaw benefited from that rare dose of network patience that Schur was lamenting rarely exists now. In the case of “Adults,” FX suggested the pair go back and retroactively shoot a new pilot episode that introduces the series’ characters and universe more fully. They took on that challenge, and it has helped with more audience sampling.

“[FX boss] John Landgraf gave us a call and said, ‘Listen, the show is responding with Gen Z, which is great. We want it to be bigger. We think it can be bigger,’” Shaw said. “I think the metaphor that was used was, ‘we’re throwing a party, how do we put down a welcome mat?’ John talked about how there’s a reason that shows used to have a premise pilot.”

In this fickle streaming age, it’s also become more important than ever to quickly establish a series’ tone — and with just eight episodes, “Ride or Die” executive producer Matt Miller said that was a tall order. His series, starring Hannah Waddingham as an assassin and Octavia Spencer as her best friend (who has just been clued in to the truth), mixes action, adventure, mystery, relationships and comedy.

“We want the comedy to be a relief to the action, to the mystery,” he said. “If you bring that into the danger and into the thriller element of the show, it becomes silly. We’re always super conscious of, how would a person behave in this. What is the grounded version of this? To the extent that the show works at all the different genres, humor is the hardest part.”

In reuniting with “Parks and Rec” star Amy Poehler for “Dig,” Schur said the two of them quickly got back into their groove. “She’s been producing and directing for a decade now, and so she thinks differently,” he said. “She doesn’t only think like an actor, but had a lot of this stuff about the show figured out already by the time she called me. Tone is the hardest thing. No one can actually define it.”

But Schur tried: “People pitch jokes or come up with ideas, and for some reason, you’re just like, ‘I don’t think that’s right’ and you throw it away,” he said. “Then you keep removing the stuff that doesn’t seem right, and what you’re left with is the tone of the show.”

King said it might even be a trap to try to define tone: “It’s tricky because if it’s already recognized, the show might be dead,” he said. “The only reason we got to keep going [with ‘The Comeback’] after it went away and came back was because the tone was original and people responded to it. As Mike was saying, the tone is the people in the room that are removing stuff and adding stuff. So what’s really scary is as the rooms get smaller and smaller, you have fewer people [creating that tone].”

Speaking of “The Comeback,” are King and Kudrow absolutely, positively sure it’s over? They won’t change their minds and come back in another 10 years?

“No,” Kudrow said. “We’re both shaking our heads at the same time, right?”

Added King: “It was harrowing to do it again after 10 years. And it took 10 years because it has to be a thing to come back for. There was a lot of other funny stuff we could have done, but it wasn’t big enough. We kind of think we’re done.” (“Don’t say ‘kind of!’” Kudrow quipped.)

As for Miller, “Ride or Die” has been canceled by Prime Video, but producer Paramount TV Studios is still shopping the show for a new home. “Storytelling-wise, we did a 20-week Season 2 writers’ room. So we do have a good sense of where that’s going to go in the story. Without giving away too much, Octavia’s son is getting married and I don’t know how much I can give away … but wackiness ensues.”

“We wrote it with the expectation that we’ll get to shoot it, and we’re enormously proud of it,” he added. “Production’s really hard. Ideally, of course, if Mr. Bezos called and asked us to do Season 2, we would be delighted.”