We haven’t watched many sitcoms this semester. Or maybe I should clarify; I do not think we have watched many sitcoms that are similar with the type we are comfortable with in America. We all have our favorite American sitcoms, as well as the shows we could stand to see leave the airwaves. But as far as I can tell, with my limited knowledge of British sitcoms, there are not many similarities between the “sitcoms” from each nation.
Benidorm provided me with a curveball at the end of the episode we viewed. I was not expecting there to be so much drama amongst all the families, especially in a “sitcom”. In American shows, such as The Middle, Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother and Parks and Recreation, the end of an episode usually results in some sort of cleanup of all the issues that had arisen. A touching voice-over, a new relationship or peace between two enemies often leave the viewer with a sense of happiness and wonder as to what might happen next, but this was not the case in Benidorm. British comedy, Benidorm included, seem to have a slightly darker sense of comedy. I am not saying this is bad, but just different than the family friendly comedy that would be seen on American broadcast networks. For example, the daughter deciding to leave the grandmother out in the sun after bickering with her throughout the morning was a funny incident but probably not the type of cruel humor one would find in America. This is not to say, however, that a more risky cable network does not provide this content, but ITV is a terrestrial station not a satellite one. This is what sparks my interest, a family could sit down to watch this and find marital troubles that would go beyond the understanding of an eight year-old.
Based on the other comedies we have screened, Benidorm is not much different from British humor in that it doesn’t slap you in the face with a joke like most American humor. I am not saying this is a bad thing, just not what I am use to. I found Benidorm to be interesting and I laughed a few times, but the ending sort of left a bad taste in my mouth because I was not expecting the drama. Had I gone into this episode with the genre of “dramedy” in my mind I may have reacted differently, but this, again, could just be my Americanized sense of humor speaking out of line.
Americanized sense of humor is awesome. It’s basically what we fought the Revolutionary War to have the right to. That whole Boston Tea Party thing? Totally a joke that they just took too personally and blew way out of proportion. [End 1700s history jokes.]
I completely agree with your thoughts about how British humor works compared to American humor. From re-watching some old Office (UK) episodes and viewing the sitcoms in class, it has become very obvious that the Brits are much more subtle about their humor than the Adam Sandler/Jim Carrey/Steve Carrel icons of American humor. I have never really connected with that British humor nearly as much as our culturally accepted gags and jokes, and I knew that going into the viewing of Benidorm so I did not expect much. However, I REALLY did not like Benidorm and I think that you hit the nail on the head of my problem with this show by talking about the end of the episode. It seemed like the entire episode was centered around light-hearted humor and was a traditional sitcom in that regard. Then, all of a sudden, they drop this huge dramatic piece at the end. In traditional American sitcoms that would have been dealt with lightly but that was not the case here, and I hated it. I kind of see a similarity here to recent episodes of How I Met Your Mother. I was a huge fan of all the earlier seasons of How I Met Your Mother and find them to be first rate because of their focus on being a good-hearted, light-felt sitcom. However, as of late, the show has dipped into much more dramatic tones and I have lost alot of my adoration for the series. I think this whole “bait and switch” of getting a dramedy when I asked for a comedy is at the root of this problem.