Culture 2 min read By Trevor Kendall
Michael J. Fox's Political Sitcom Deserves a Second Look Decades Later
A largely forgotten Michael J. Fox political sitcom is argued to be still worth watching, and to have helped pave the way for later political comedies such as Veep and The Thick of It.
A political sitcom starring Michael J. Fox, long overshadowed by the shows that followed it, is being urged back into the conversation as a comedy still worth watching. The case rests on a simple argument: the series helped set the template for the political satire that later defined the genre, even as its own reputation has faded.
The show is now often mentioned in the same breath as Veep and The Thick of It, two programs widely seen as defining the political comedy form. Those later series have dominated critical discussion of workplace political humor, with their sharp, profane portraits of government staffers and elected officials. The sitcom featuring Fox came years earlier, which is why its supporters see it as a precursor that has been largely lost from the record.
The argument for revisiting it is that political comedy did not appear fully formed with the later hits. Fox's series is presented as one of the early efforts to make the inner workings of city and government offices the engine of a half-hour comedy, rather than a backdrop for broader family or romantic plots. That approach, the case goes, gave later creators a model they could refine and expand.
The recognition of that role has faded over time. Shows that arrive first are often remembered less vividly than the ones that refine their ideas, and the sitcom has not been kept in regular circulation in the way some of its successors have. The argument now being made is that a fresh look can restore some of the credit it has lost.
The available material offers no further detail on the program's air dates, the network that carried it, its production history, its ratings or any awards it received. Those specifics would be needed to fully place the series in its time, and they are not supplied here. What is clear is the central claim: that a Michael J. Fox political sitcom, largely forgotten today, still holds up and deserves to be recognized as an early pioneer of political comedy.
Source: tvline.com
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