How Sitcoms Deal with Death
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 พ.ค. 2024
- Sitcoms are people too.
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Songs Used: pastebin.com/rhTvH90S
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:46 - TV and Time
3:48 - The Endless Loop
7:55 - A Slow Decay
14:29 - Patreon
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I love how poetic an ending Seinfeld is. The characters are trapped in prison, forced to act out their roles forever, but the audience is free. We pan out, we move on with our lives, but a sitcom can’t. It’s a product of it’s time, and will rot forever.
That sounds like a great concept for a phycological horror film or book
@@octopickle8True
bro added something to the show about nothing
that's a shockingly good take on what I never really saw as a good finale before now
I thought this video was about how Sitcoms deal with the death of characters and I was not ready to see Seinfeld first and foremost lmao
Yeah I considered that angle or having a section about this, but no major sitcoms have had someone die irl in the main cast that I could find, strangely enough. I like to have these sort of ambiguous titles since it lets me talk about several angles of the phrase, but this one just didn't work out that way.
@@TheCursedJudge A very famous sitcom from the United Kingdom called Only Fools and Horses had a actor pass away during filming of the 4th season; the character development through the funeral episode is amazing. To develop a character over the course of a full series is hard but over a 30 minute episode is almost impossible and truly testament to John Sullivans writing style, the last 15 minutes of the episode breaks down Del into what he is at his core and rebuilds him in front of the audience. Whilst Only Fools and Horses is incredibly dated now it still has some of the most poignant acting in a sitcom ever on TV.
@@TheCursedJudge Cheers had a major character death end of Season 3. The Simpsons had Ms. Krabapple pass away after the voice actress died. I think others like Phil Hartman only had their characters retired rather than dying in universe. Also 8 Simple Rules had to have the main character die after John Ritter’s passing.
@@ariner19 whilst the simpsons have had a couple of voice actors die, that's mainly due to the simpsons going on for 30 years, and it's not actually a big deal, in theory, since a different voice actor can just take over
@@TheCursedJudge it's not really a sitcom, more a drama comedy with that same kind of episodic sitcom-ey status quo over season long arcs, but... there was the actor Luke Perry who played Fred Andrews on Riverdale; he died in 2019. The showrunners made a full tribute episode and further restructured the show to include the death of the character, particularly as new motivation for Archie.
I actually really like the ending of Seinfeld. If nothing else, it is unexpected, it fits the show, and it has a bit of poetry to it. Of course people hated it, people love generic and expected things.
I like the ending of Seinfeld too
the last moment is fantastic. The last episode really dragged, though. I think Jerry's resisting commercial pressure to abuse the show's legacy solidifies it as the greatest work of the television era. It's shakespeare...except that last episode, and the (2?) recap episodes, really dragged. The poetry of the ending is ideal but the ep sucks.
I've grown to like it. It does what a lot of endings try to do now but a lot more subtley (The whoile lop premise where the show's ending mirrors the beginning.) Kinda sad this kind of ending has become a cliche, but atleast some shows pull it off well.
Somewhat related but I think the best example of what you said is waterfalls in video games. A treasure behind a waterfall is generic and expected, considered cliché. When there's nothing but a stone wall behind that waterfall though, we get disappointed.
I like the ending, the episodes where they parody the oj trial are always funny to me and I think its pretty funny to send the main characters to prison as a final farewell
Malcolm in the middle did a really graceful job of transitioning between seasons and periods. Even though you can sense time passing it's clear that the show does as well, and the level of production rises in a really natural way
Malcom in the middle was great
I would say seinfeld’s ending is a preferred one since you see them finally getting what they deserve from them being assholes but also since it’s a show about nothing and a sitcom that shows you life goes on, we get taken away from that window because do you really wanna see them do their jail routine for a year? They even showed in the credits with jerry doing jail standup and it felt like at that point it would be a serialized show with always seeing recurring characters and seeing the gang’s emotions and character changing with each interaction and that ruins the point of their characters because they need to be shown in the outside world for them to retain their asshole behaviors and how their mess ups connect to the other and being affected by it.
Spot on🎉
They go to jail and they continue to go about their lives exactly with the same attitude.
As if you say they didn't care what the critics and the naysayers thought.
They did a show how they wanted to do it. It ended it the same
Also fun to point out they went to jail for essentially doing nothing too
It' s not a show about nothing! People really misunderstood the meaning of that line!
The ending of Seinfeld felt accurate for the show. These people were always just people living their life and they were just these asshole people who weren't bad but weren't the best, they lived their life and the ending of the show was just more of their life happening. We don't get to see it because the group probably moved on from there, but we dont need to see it, because it wouldn't be Seinfeld anymore after that.
Honestly I am pretty sure I saw a clip were the cast reuitued to do an episode but it was in modern day. Cuz I think George and Jerry were talking about the new iPhone in Jerry's apartment.
for those who are curious, the text at 8:39 says "It's 3AM and I somehow missed the fact that I called "The Doctor" Doctor Who at this part in the script, please don't skin me alive if you're a fan of the series, thank you." now you dont need to press pause and play over and over again to catch that :)
You can pause videos and skip just one frame forward with the point key. You can skip one frame back with the comma key. You can rapidly press or just hold them down.
Thank you for your service
@@ThomasZTAight but mobile users?
What's the problem with calling him 'the doctor'?
@SerAbiotico late reply but in the video he called him "doctor who" which is the name of the show while the character is named "the doctor" there is no problem with calling him the doctor.
How does this man keep making such high quality video essays that I have no interest going in to the start of the video, but end up sticking around anyways. Great video as usual, absolutely loved it!
Always super underrated as well
Same,I despise sitcoms and especially sinefeld
Seriously! I waited so long to watch the “never play again.” Thumbnail. Six Voodoo Rangers in, and I’m hooked and I will share these videos until I’m blue in the face!
I really feel like the Seinfeld ending has aged amazingly. Of course at the time it’s sad that it’s ending and it’d be upsetting to know that the last time you see these characters is on such a note.
But it’s not the last time you see them. It repeats and I know just like me many others have rewatched the series countless times. It’s not the last time you see them, the cycle repeats in such a perfect way.
The best example of a sitcom dealing with the episodic loop has got to be The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. After a season and a half involving multiple summer breaks and winter holidays while no one seemed to age, it was revealed that the world is actually stuck in a time loop of the main character's creation. This effectively gave the series an end condition: it's all over when the time loop is over, because at that point, the MC's overarching goal will have been fulfilled.
Really like how you ended the video the same way you started it, emphasizes the idea of it all just looping well. Also that was a good video just in general.
I know its a little unrelated, but the Seinfeld finale ends with the Green Day song Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). This song is famously used at graduations, weddings, proms, etc because it sounds like a sweet, nostalgic song. However, the song was actually written as a sarcastic fuck you to the singer's ex-girlfriend who dumped him (thus the "Good Riddance"). I find this funny, since the ending of Seinfeld deliberately goes out of its way to not be a finale episode, leaving all the threads completely open and all the characters literally in jail. It makes the song choice seem deliberate.
gotta love billie joe!!!
I recently finished watching all 11 seasons of Frasier, and the ending confounded me. On the one hand, it's a perfectly fitting ending to Frasier Crane and his mentality, but it just didn't feel quite right. And I think this video helped put that in context, without specifically trying to. The final episode of Frasier ends in a place where the audience is expected to appreciate the events that led up to it, but not... remember specifically what those events are, which is something wholly apparent to me after binging it.
It's like the ending of the show lined up with major events seasons prior, but not the little events of each episode. Frasier is seemingly loved by his radio co-workers after years of alienation, mockery and low ratings that somehow coincide with annual award nominations. The cast of Frasier shrinking down to a select few by the final seasons who all see significant and satisfying outcomes, at the expense of each other's social lives to where you can't imagine life could go on happily for some of them. Yeah idk, it's a good ending and I like how he goes to Chicago. Also, Seinfeld's ending is perfect, and could only be made perfect-er if they all went to hell and had the jacket button conversation there instead.
Yeah, old shows really feel different when you can binge watch them instead of having to wait a week between episodes for over a decade. Makes it easy to see plot holes or forgotten subplots, etc. Makes it easier to see which seasons were the best and which were clearly running on empty.
Great video. You know it's funny a lot of people hated the Seinfeld ending but honestly I quite liked it. It does the exact opposite thing that the audience expects and yet this is the same thing that the show has been doing for 9 seasons, after all it's a show about nothing. There's something kind of magical in the fact that it was able to create such symmetry and yet still do something that so many people think is controversial and subversive. The problem with serialized TV and even non serialized TV shows like sitcoms is that it's almost a no win game when you get to that point. So many shows either veer into territory that doesn't make sense in the context of the original conceit of the show; the office for example ends on a very heartfeld ending and yet the show was supposed to be a comedy. Another show that comes to mind is scrubs, the scrubs finale (not counting that bizarre last season), was again a tonal shift away from what scrubs normally was. This isn't to say that Scrubs didn't have dramatic moments but obviously the ending was very much for the fans. If you think about these shows as episodes in the lives of these characters it doesn't actually make sense to have such a long dramatic ending. I don't know if the Seinfeld ending was planned out at any point before they knew that the 9th season would be the last but it did in my opinion the best job of closing a series in a way that is consistent with the rest of the series while also poking fun at the characters who for all intents are really bad people.
8:39 I’m more mad at you at this moment for making me spend so much time trying to pause the video to read the text than I am for the mistake of calling him “Doctor Who.” 😂
A useful tip if you're on browser: You can use "," to go backwards a frame and "." to go forwards. Incredibly handy for getting those 1-frame shots.
@@zachariahmerry2396 True, but it's much harder on mobile. Slow down to x0.25, double tab the play/pause button as fast as possible and it still takes me a dozen attempts to hold on the correct frame 😂
I was able to get it first try on mobile at normal speed 🤷♂️
Might you know who the woman is at 5:24 in the video?
Took me a bit on mobile as well, but he doesn't wish to be maimed by the Doctor Who fans for a 3 in the morning blunder 😊
I’ve never thought of Seinfield’s ending as a “non-ending.” Comedies like Friends and The Office end at a certain point when everyone seems to go their separate ways - didn’t Seinfield effectively do this? If we were to continue from this point naturally we’d have to follow the three men completely or share some focus with Elaine in a women’s prison… but then what? They eventually go their own ways. I think it was a fitting ending tbh
True and they kinda wrapped it up like by bringing back all the people they did wrong for the court sequence
"Everybody's dead, Dave."
"Yes, Captain Hollister, everybody. Everybody's dead, Dave."
"Everybody is dead. Everybody. Is. Dead. Dave."
"Gordon Bennet, should've never woken him up in the first place."
This made me want to see a movie about Wile E. Coyote after he breaks from his loop.
Call it "After The Roadrunner," and have it be an existential art piece about a clever coyote who's lived his entire life jumping from one goal to the next, now suddenly forced to stand still.
Just like how every episode resets, so does the entire show. A fitting ending.
Your videos touch on the feeling of existential dread that constantly gnaws at the back of my mind. I love it, and I hate it.
Becker was probably my favorite sitcom ending. The disgruntled doctor we've followed so long realizes that, with everything that has happened over the series and the changes in his life, he is surprisingly happy.
This is why The 70s Show was goated. Every episode was a refresher and it ended it's series by what started it, them being in the basement AND moving on into the 80s.
Super well made! What an amazing topic to talk about, I don’t typically like or watch video essays but I thoroughly enjoyed this. Keep it up!!
The ending of Seinfeld was ahead of its time
Nice! Love the inclusion of Don Hertzfeldt's Simpsons couch gag. You know what's up. That opening had me sobbing, and it's clear it stuck out to you in a similar way it stuck out to me.
Well they deal with it, but we never get past it, it's just sad, man 😔
This is a really good video
I never watched seinfeld and you did say people hated the ending but, the way you said it in the video made me completely fall in love with it
The idea of people just existing and be able to just live and be in their own world is nice, they dont need to have an ending if they have themselves
This is a weird connection but this reminds me of the anime cowboy bebop in a way
The characters of cowboy bebop (except for 1) all already had their story and had their lives of "sitcom" already done, their journey is complete and theyre now just living what their past brings to them now, but they dont change and they dont want to, because they already learned and lived all they needed when they were younger, they didnt have an ending before so why have one now? They just keep going with their lives now
Seinfeld's ending seems like it's exactly that too. The characters are just having a normal story, theyre being themselves and laughing, because what else would you do? These characters have enjoyed just being themselves and just having a story of silly and funny things, if we know the characters are still being themselves, the ones we the audience like, we wouldnt need anything else because we know how their world works, we had our fun with them but both our lives and the ones in seinfeld continue. It doesn't need to have a complicated ending or something that'll make you cry. You can choose your own ending, and if the one you want is as ending where youre just talking to your friends showing that they enjoy being there, its nice.
I like this ending of a sitcom i never watched, but I respect it now
I love these type of video essays. This deserves so many more views. Keep it up
From the title I thought this was goint to be a video about what Sitcoms do when their actors die in real life. Like how the actors are replaced or maybe written off the show or whatever.
Thinking too much about things people don't usually stop to realise is my favorite activity and that's literally your channel in a nutshell I love it
I like what they did with Everybody Loves Raymond, the final episode was just a normal episode that could be placed anywhere within the 10 seasons.
That was a video that gave food to thoughts. It was so well made, thanks.
Something that I always loved about Community is that it moved forward while still managing to keep the episodic style of the series, but you never noticed when will it moved the plot forward. It’s just like life, almost every day is the same, while some others your old friend dies and the group starts to change.
This is what soaps do. Only without nearly as many jokes. Shows like Eastenders and Coronation Street and the like.
Cracked. Great writing and fluently said, will subscribe.
Video about death with a chapter titled "The Endless Loop" and then 7:38 comes. This is existence, this is life, art imitates life/life imitates art.
amazing writing and editing and a fabulous view on not literal death, but rather tv death
Wow what a great video!!!! You had me actually clapping and cheering at that bit about The Simpsons. Couldnt agree more. Please keep up all your hard work! Grateful to have stumbled upon it. ^.^
Bro please do more of these, excellent work!
Dude, your content has quickly become my absolute favorite on the platform, I love your takes and your videos. Please keep up the good work!
Seinfeld is one of the few shows that you don't immediately think of the ending. Maybe they knew what they were doing
Glad I discovered your channel, rlly well made content
9:53 i was kinda waiting for the whole video for this specific moment to be referenced
that couch gag was insane
Found you recently. Your stuff is great
I like how adventure time had a simular ending, and in the show when they asked what happened to our main charicters, BMO said that they just kept living their lives. While we dont really see much of what happened in their lives after that, im glad with distant lands they gave some closure. I didn't watch Seinfeld, but the ending reminds me alot of that. Great video!
It's kinda insane how good these videos are. Proud of you, mate.
I love that you chose WKUK for the bit about sketch comedy. It’s always great to see another WKUKer!
Great videos man, I’m binging your channel
@@kylespevak6781 Aww, man… I envy you greatly
i LOVE this analysis. seinfeld is one of my favourite shows and i love what this brings to the table!
as a fan of the series you are forgiven :) great video
This guy is probably one of the most underrated TH-camr I’ve ever seen
Not where I thought this video was going but I’m here for it
9:45 love the editing here dude. This is what i would consider a bar to aim for.
A similar thing to Seinfeld happened to neighbours, iirc. I remember seeing a documentary that abc did on it before it was due to end after 30+ years. In it, the actors and writers were talking about how they didnt want to make a finále of sorts, but show that even if the audience isnt there to see it anymore, the residents of ramsey street would still be there, having their dramas, being friends, and stopping around to each others places for a chat. If they pulled it off, it wouldve been an touching ending. I didnt watch it- i only ever watched neighbours with mum when i was a teen. But I hope the ending was good. It sounds like it wouldve been. Neighbours is the kind of thing you dont get again, once its gone.
Great video man. Hi from Argentina.
i thought you meant like, death of the characters on the show or of their actors
rather thain the figurative death of the show itself
pleasantly surprised, you are doing great
You deserve a lot more subscribers
My new favourite youtuber ❤
For a long time, many shows both dramas and sitcoms would end like you stated for Seinfeld, essentially, closing that world off forever with no resolutions or finalities. That's why The Fugitive was famous for it's finale (once the highest rated of all time) in which the loose ends were wrapped up, the killer dies and Dr. Kimble is exonerated and left to ponder his next move as a free man. I like it if there is a finale to various shows. Some shows and characters need to be closed with a deserved and fitting finale, rather than just another episode as if it were coming back again next season. A decent show should have a plan in mind - like a book or a play.
in 60 seconds in and I can already tell that this one is a banger
this video was so good i was late to class bc i had to finish it
My parents had their wedding on the night of the Seinfeld finale and everyone was at the bar watching it during the reception, lol
The ending is there with Seinfeld. The joke comes full circle but it's the long game. The joke always comes full circle in Seinfeld.
I loved that wkuk shout out
so cool. you close the window. another banger judge
This is a really good video
Great video
Wow, this is a deeply interesting channel.
I love the Wkuk shoutout!!!
"You can’t have happy endings in sitcoms, not really, because, if everyone’s happy, the show would be over, and above all else, the show… has to keep going. There’s always more show. And you can call Horsin’ Around dumb, or bad, or unrealistic, but there is nothing more realistic than that. You never get a happy ending, ‘cause there’s always more show. (...) I guess until there isn't." - Bojack Horseman.
i thought this would be a video about character deaths in sitcoms, and what i got was so much more
Another epic video
i really like the seinfeld ending, it fits the show so well.
About MASH: Because the show ended up running longer than the Korean War was actually fought, you can notice a change in the pacing of the episodes. In the first few seasons, when the war was still new and the show still fresh, episode plotlines would take place over a period of a couple days, maybe a week. But by the end of the show, each episode took place within a single day, maybe two. Because in order to preserve some illusion of continuity and realism, you couldn't have a storyline of characters fighting in a war when the war technically would've ended 5 years prior. The entire show is amazing, don't get me wrong, and some of my favorite episodes are from the later seasons. The later seasons had some of the show's most emotionally meaningful episodes. But it's still interesting to note the pacing change as the show approached its inevitable end.
Also, MASH was conceived at the height of Vietnam anti-war sentiment. It ended as the Vietnam War ended, and people stopped caring about a war that was more or less over. Your time capsule metaphor is a super interesting way to analyze MASH like that
I thought this was gonna be about how they deal with deaths in the show. Non the less still a great video
i was suprised to see a world of tomorrow clip in a video like this lmao
Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful
The ending of Seinfeld is perfect. After watching the last episode watch season 1 to 9 and repeat. The loop will never end!
your description of The Simpsons 😭😭
Dude you are exactly how I wish to speak and explain things
To this day one of my favorite endings. It was genius. I'm glad someone saw it the way I did. I've had many arguments about this ending.
It's interesting that shows that do the will they won't they thing and then have them get married and have kids are usually always worse when they do. It's almost like the getting together of those correlates with when the writers didn't want to do it anymore. I think that's why friends is so beloved because they knew the paradigm shifts of Ross and Rachel finally getting together and Monika and chandler having kids would spell the end so they made it the end and didn't drag it on
I have a tendency to somewhat dread when two main characters actually get together, married, have kids, etc. because the writers never seem to know what to do with them after the will they, won't they ends. I've just always felt like, 7 times out of 10, the relationship between the two characters somehow, how do I put this, dips in quality? As if, like you said, the writers didn't want to do it anymore.
I find it interesting that Seinfeld ends with a showcase for why the show must end because Jerry ends up recycling his old material. The show ends right as it's about to enter it's zombie era, it shows us what we narrowly avoided by having the sitcom end at right that moment.
I like the ending of Seinfeld. How else could they give one last, quick appeare of every, popular character than on a jury stand? Getting the show Jerry comes full circle but then subverting that is a typical plot of Seinfeld. Leaving the characters on a drastically different note is like saying "Hey, we're not bound by the episodic forumla anymore."
really really good video!!! usually put on video essays as background noise but you made so many new and interesting points I was so interested the whole way through. brilliant mate :)
Well done agin
You are reinvesting me in video essays.
If you like my kind of video essay, I also suggest Jacob Geller, Patricia Taxxon, leadhead, and Super Eyepatch Wolf
Beautiful
It’s been talked about countless times - but the sitcom “Dinosaurs” had a very interesting/controversial end as well. It’s so neat to see the philosophies of different showrunners come through in their finales.
Talking about long TV shows. My mom's favorite show is The Young & the Restless which has 50 seasons, 12.5k episodes, & has been airing since 1973. She's watched this show before me, with me in her stomach, and now I watch it with her occasionally. The show is double my age & has actors that have celebrated 45 years of being on it
What a fantastic thumbnail
I never couldve thought the best way to end a sitcom is to end it full circle from the beginning of the show
@thecursedJudge others have mentioned Cheers after season 3 and 8 Simple Rules as major sitcoms who have had characters die. Barney Miller is another, Jack Soo who played Detective Yemana (sp?) died midseason, something like season four or five. But what I don't know is if any sitcoms had a character whose actor slowly was dying in real life so they had a chance to prepare which is what you seem to be talking about. The first were sudden, but I don't know about Jack Soo. From what I recall they immortalized the actor but also made it feel as if the character had also passed which was very nice. Of course I was about ten when I saw it. Yes I loved history current events and the news then and it was great for discussion in my family.
This brings a whole new context to that surreal fever dream of the infinitely generated Seinfeld AI
I’ve never watched Seinfeld, and that’s actually a funny and interesting way to end the show lol. If I watched the show, I’d probably be disappointed, but I’ve never seen an tv ending like that lol
I never watched seinfeld but from what I heard about it here and elsewhere the ending sounds fitting
1:04 world of tomorrow!!
Amazing show
I feel like i just got a existential crisis watchjnf this
beautiful
Everyone knows the canon ending for Seinfeld is when the FBI shoot Jerry after he became Kramer’s cable boy.
Damn. I should give Mash another watch
a drama of the ages!