Several of Fall’s New Comedy Offerings Take a Turn for the Dramatic

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wonder what the heck’s going on: This year, comedy and drama are being combined like never before, and it’s getting harder to tell which is which.

The concept of the "dramedy" has been around for decades. Over the past few seasons alone, many shows that traditionally would be called dramas — "Desperate Housewives," "Gilmore Girls" and "Boston Legal," just to name a few — have blurred the line between drama and comedy. But this season, comedies are striking back — not with "special episodes" designed to ramp up the tension and the ratings, but with storylines based on dramatic premises.

For instance, the ABC comedy "Big Day," slated to premiere next month, deals with all the theatrics of one couple’s wedding day — the doubts, the personality clashes, the last-minute disasters.

"This is serious, hard drama, all played for ridiculous laughs," said executive producer Josh Goldsmith.

Other new fall shows more subtly include dramatic themes to generate comedy. In "30 Rock," Tina Fey’s character, Liz Lemon, must deal with a humorless new boss (played by Alec Baldwin) who’s bent on changing her show. "Help Me Help You" mines group therapy for humor. And "The Class" brings together a group of late-twentysomethings whose lives haven’t turned out the way they expected.

"We really wanted to do a show where that’s the hook — you’re compelled to watch next week," said David Crane, a creator of "The Class." "You want to know what’s going to happen. It’s going to be funny, but it isn’t just, ’All right, it’s funny and you’re done.’"

Crane used that formula to great effect on "Friends," which he also helped create. "There’s an emotional investment that you don’t always find in a half-hour," he said. "And that’s really important to us."

Actually, that’s been important to most of TV’s greatest sitcoms, such as "All in the Family," "M*A*S*H," "Cheers" and "Friends." Matthew Perry, who’s making the transition from comedy ("Friends") to drama ("Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip"), said comedy doesn’t need drama to succeed. What comedy needs, he said, "is the reality that’s coming out of real situations."

You can see that in shows such as "How I Met Your Mother," which ended its first season in May with a decidedly dramatic moment — Marshall (Jason Segel) sitting on a step, crying because Lily (Alyson Hannigan) left him. Not many laughs there, but the situation did create a connection between the characters and the audience.

"I cherish that we’re allowed to experience real emotions on the show, which is rare for a half-hour comedy," Hannigan said. "Do I want to cry every week? No, but it’s nice to be able to make ’em laugh and cry."

Hannigan doesn’t see the show turning dramatic, but she expects the trend toward realistic situations to continue. "People cry and people have emotions in their life. It’s not always joke, joke, setup, joke, setup, joke. And there’s so much heart to this show. It’s inevitable — we’re gonna cry."

Reality remains the benchmark for "Entourage," the HBO series that picks over Hollywood angst to create close-to-the-bone comedy. Its third season ended in August with budding superstar actor Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) firing his agent, Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven), for botching a movie deal. During the season, Ari also found himself in blistering — but funny — negotiations to end his relationship with a longtime business partner. Viewers could laugh, but they also felt the tension.

Writer-producer Brian Burns said no mandate exists to make the show more dramatic. But if there’s drama, it stems from reality.

"It’s certainly a comedy, and we try to make real-life situations funny," Burns said. "At the same time, at the core of our show, the number one rule is, is it real?"

Veteran comic actor Jere Burns, one of the stars of "Help Me Help You," said he’s seen reality seep into the scripts he’s read. He suggests the inspiration is the work of Christopher Guest ("Best in Show," "A Mighty Wind") and Larry David ("Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Seinfeld"), whose sensibilities are heavy on improvisation and take real situations to comic extremes.

"Reality can be funny, or reality can be dramatic," he said. "But I think these days, really funny is really real. I don’t think the big, goofy ’Three’s Company’ comedy sells anymore. I don’t think that ’fake TV funny’ is particularly funny."

The trend began with "Sex and the City," said Silvio Horta, executive producer of ABC’s "Ugly Betty," a show that combines comedy and drama. "Sex in the City" "was positioned as a comedy, but the comedy works because the situations are very real and played straight," Horta said. "There’s a tremendous resonance there for people."

Kim Fleary, executive vice president of comedy development for the new CW network, said she can’t pinpoint any particular societal shift that’s caused writers to make their comedies more dramatic. "I think it’s very cyclical," she said.

Or it just might be that, in a time when everything from music and videos to computer software is being combined into "mash-ups," this is the right moment for comedy and drama to become one.

"Maybe it’s because everything’s a hybrid of everything," said Tina Fey, the former "Saturday Night Live" writer-performer who created and stars in "30 Rock."

"If ’Desperate Housewives’ is a dramedy, maybe all the genres are just melding into realiramatromedycom."