I love Fleabag, but to see it losing to an absolute classic in King of the Hill makes me sad. KotH might be Mike Judge's best show/movie ever. It's consistently great over a VERY long run, has a stable of really great characters, and did a lot of that Norman Lear by teaching its audience about how to be a better member of society (the episode where Peggy unknowingly befriends a drag queen and later learns to accept her is fantastic). And it was the last hand-animated show on TV!
Fleabag is great, but it's easy to be that great when you're doing the UK short-and-few seasons thing. Any show can be good for 12 episodes. King of the Hill was good for 259.
Fleabag's short run was really, really good, but King of the Hill produced thirteen years worth of excellence with very few misses (LOOKING AT YOU, MICHAEL KEATON) and both a rewatchability and an impact on popular culture that is far greater than Fleabag's. An easy vote for Arlen.
I completely sympathize with KotH fans, even as I am very much not one. I don't even know that Fleabag is a sitcom even in the loosest sense, in the way that Eastbound and Down is if you squint hard enough. But it is very good and very popular, so it will probably win. Alas.
I’d put Fleabag in the kind of comedy subgenre Louie and Girls more or less created, the semi-autobiographical arthouse dramedy. Think also Atlanta, Master of None, Ramy, Bupkis. All of these can be funny but I feel like they’re separate from a traditional sitcom.
The BBC/UK season model (short, <10 episode seasons) being applied to all of western TV over the last decade, particularly on streaming platforms, has really expanded what can be considered a "sitcom" these days.
Back in the day, I'd say a "sitcom" almost had to be a multi-camera show like I Love Lucy or Seinfeld. But Arrested Development broke ground for the single-camera format, and then the UK model opened the door for way more dramedies to be able to call themselves "sitcoms."
I completely sympathize with KotH fans, even as I am very much not one. I don't even know that Fleabag is a sitcom even in the loosest sense, in the way that Eastbound and Down is if you squint hard enough. But it is very good and very popular, so it will probably win. Alas.
I love Fleabag, but to see it losing to an absolute classic in King of the Hill makes me sad. KotH might be Mike Judge's best show/movie ever. It's consistently great over a VERY long run, has a stable of really great characters, and did a lot of that Norman Lear by teaching its audience about how to be a better member of society (the episode where Peggy unknowingly befriends a drag queen and later learns to accept her is fantastic). And it was the last hand-animated show on TV!
Fleabag is great, but it's easy to be that great when you're doing the UK short-and-few seasons thing. Any show can be good for 12 episodes. King of the Hill was good for 259.
Fleabag's short run was really, really good, but King of the Hill produced thirteen years worth of excellence with very few misses (LOOKING AT YOU, MICHAEL KEATON) and both a rewatchability and an impact on popular culture that is far greater than Fleabag's. An easy vote for Arlen.
I really loved Fleabag, but how is it beating KOTH?
The day I stopped having to ask my husband "What'd he say?" every time Boomhauer spoke was when I first felt like an honorary Texan.
I completely sympathize with KotH fans, even as I am very much not one. I don't even know that Fleabag is a sitcom even in the loosest sense, in the way that Eastbound and Down is if you squint hard enough. But it is very good and very popular, so it will probably win. Alas.
I’d put Fleabag in the kind of comedy subgenre Louie and Girls more or less created, the semi-autobiographical arthouse dramedy. Think also Atlanta, Master of None, Ramy, Bupkis. All of these can be funny but I feel like they’re separate from a traditional sitcom.
We're talking really subjective lines here, but all of those shows strike me as more sitcom-adjacent than Fleabag does.
Some more than others. Louie is basically a more artistic-leaning Seinfeld, but where are the jokes in Master of None?
The BBC/UK season model (short, <10 episode seasons) being applied to all of western TV over the last decade, particularly on streaming platforms, has really expanded what can be considered a "sitcom" these days.
Back in the day, I'd say a "sitcom" almost had to be a multi-camera show like I Love Lucy or Seinfeld. But Arrested Development broke ground for the single-camera format, and then the UK model opened the door for way more dramedies to be able to call themselves "sitcoms."
I completely sympathize with KotH fans, even as I am very much not one. I don't even know that Fleabag is a sitcom even in the loosest sense, in the way that Eastbound and Down is if you squint hard enough. But it is very good and very popular, so it will probably win. Alas.