17

 

There are some television shows, like Seinfeld and The Office, that are dialogue-driven.  They're great if you like clever wordplay or quoting lines.  They lend themselves easily to memes.  

But the shows I really like are ones like The Andy Griffith Show; big on heart.  Nobody even tries to create shows like that anymore.  It's a lost cause.

The problem is time.  The Andy Griffith Show had twenty-seven minutes of show and only three minutes of commercials; some episodes of The Big Bang Theory are only seventeen minutes long.  My favorite Andy Griffith episode, "Man in a Hurry," has a lovely scene where Andy and Barney quietly sing a favorite gospel song together while they relax on the porch.  TBBT could never do that-- with only seventeen minutes, they have to cut to the chase.  Recite your line, cue the laugh track, and cut to commercial.

You lose a lot that way.