The direct address format that worked for The Office and Modern Family has grown stale from overuse. By breaking the fourth wall, new series like The Michael J. Fox Show are holding themselves back.
John Krasinski on The Office.
NBC
It's tempting to blame it all on John Krasinski's face. But that isn't really fair.
While the U.S. version of The Office may have popularized the mockumentary-style sitcom for American audiences, the U.K. iteration had already been there and done that. Besides, before The Office, there were films like This Is Spinal Tap and Best in Show, iconic comedies from the master of the genre, Christopher Guest, that remind us how funny direct address, interview format can be.
For a while, Krasinski's mugging worked as a punch line: His reaction face was always perfectly timed, the ideal coda to a great line. But over time, that wore thin, and The Office was forced to expand its scope, and to eventually incorporate the previously unseen documentarians into its ninth and final season. The series should serve as a warning to other sitcoms: The mockumentary style has its limits.
And yet, TV writers still haven't learned. The format has persisted and in the process, become lazier and the framework. Who's filming all of this anyway? Apparently, it doesn't matter, as long as the audience gets to see an actor making Krasinski face right into the camera.
The first run of mockumentary series after The Office — Parks and Recreation and Modern Family — get a pass, if only because the trend wasn't totally played out when they began. But at this point, it's strange that either show has stuck with it: Who is still making a documentary about Pawnee, Indiana, and why? How long is this documentary about the today's "modern family" going to last? And how have the cameramen on either show followed these characters around for years without any sort of acknowledgement?
Michael J. Fox as Mike Henry on The Michael J. Fox Show.
NBC
These more established shows don't suffer greatly from the occasional interview break, but it does feel superfluous at this point — and maybe even a little cheap. (Hasn't anyone heard of "show, don't tell"?) What's truly baffling, however, is why a new sitcom would fall into the same trap of the mockumentary. The Michael J. Fox Show, for example, is actually quite good, but it's holding itself back with interviews and Modern Family-esque voiceovers.
In the pilot, it made sense, as daughter Eve (Juliette Goglia) filmed a documentary about her dad's resilience in the face of Parkinson's disease for a class project. It was also an easy (and again, rather lazy) way to introduce all the characters, explain the central conflict, and give us entry into the world of The Michael J. Fox Show. So why, nine episodes later, is the Henry family still talking to the camera? Unless Eve is gunning for some serious extra credit, it just doesn't make any sense.
More to the point, it's unnecessary to drag a potentially great sitcom into knock-off territory. Even when The Michael J. Fox Show is at its best, it remains hampered by a derivative device. And so, we get episodes that are very strong, for the most part — and then take a sharp nosedive in quality as one character offers a final voiceover explicitly stating the moral. Regardless of what Modern Family has led you to believe, people don't talk this way in real life. And when it happens on a sitcom, it undermines the humor. There's no reason for The Michael J. Fox Show to try to be Modern Family when it has so much potential to be its own unique and admirable series.
