More Than Yuks Redux

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Still, pay cable's envelope pushing in story telling and content has upped the experimental ante at the networks too. ABC, whose last sitcom hit was Dharma and Greg four years ago, is staking its hopes on the decidedly un-Cosbyesque Denis Leary, star and co-creator of The Job (Wednesdays starting March 14, 9:30 p.m. E.T.). While playing a cop in the remake of the movie The Thomas Crown Affair, Leary hung out with a police adviser and was fascinated by the stress and mundanity of police life. "They don't catch the bad guy every half hour," he says. "I was attracted to how dedicated and screwed up they are." In The Job, cops chase a few crooks and a lot of demons. Leary plays Mike McNeil, an abrasive detective who drinks heavily, cheats on his wife (and his girlfriend) and scarfs pain-killers like breath mints from a metal tin. "That box and a bottle of Bushmill's is the only thing keeping me from taking a hostage," he says.

Like its drama-inflected ancestor Sports Night, The Job incorporates elements that would be trite on a plain-old drama, such as the shaky, handheld camera. But here they're starkly funny and McNeil an arresting (sorry) puzzle. He's also the sort of character who makes network execs pop Mylanta as he pops pills. So Leary and Tolan were surprised when ABC actively recruited them. "We said, 'You'll never buy it,'" recalls Leary. "'We're not going to change the language. We're not going to change the behavior.' And they said, 'Don't worry about it.'" Indeed, Bloomberg boasts, "No character in prime time has ever been so flawed. If we can make this work, we have expanded the comedy landscape."

They'll have help. Fox has had a mini-streak of sitcom success in the past couple of years with risk takers like Malcolm and Titus (as well as with That '70s Show, laugh track and all). And it has two appealingly unusual and very different sitcoms on the way. Undeclared, from producer Judd Apatow (another Sanders alum), is a laugh-track-less coming-of-age comedy that, like Apatow's Freaks and Geeks, relies less on zingers than low-key humor and well-drawn characters. The Tick is an outlandish spoof (based on a comic-book series) about an inept superhero (Seinfeld's Puddy, Patrick Warburton).

And all the networks have nontraditional-comedy pilots in contention for next fall. NBC is considering a live-improv sitcom. Dharma & Greg creator Chuck Lorre is working on an interactive sitcom, whose viewers will vote on plot twists, for Fox, which is also developing a series about a bunny puppet who lands a starring role in a children's show. But the networks are hardly abandoning the traditional sitcom. ABC is hedging its bets this spring with two very conventional-looking ones, starring Damon Wayans and Joan Cusack. Even Apatow says, "I like cinematic comedy, but I still think the best show on TV is Everybody Loves Raymond. When the writing and the cast are that good, you don't need to do any tricks."

History suggests that something--be it a Wayans brother, a pill-popping cop or a fluffy rabbit--should surprise and win over the audience soon. In 1983-84 there was one sitcom--Kate & Allie--in the top 10. The next year The Cosby Show debuted. With the Friends soon to receive their Modern Maturity subscriptions, the right attention-grabbing comic at the right time could end up one lucky bunny.