Sitcom. A Different Way of Writing. Discuss.

I'm cream-crackered so I'll try and keep this brief. New project at my day job, long car journey, lots more to learn, I'm sure you've all been there! Going to have to work on ways to organise my day to fit everything in. 

Big Thank Attack to everyone who's said nice things about the Screenwriters' Diary Newsletter, or told people about it, or - hell - read it and, hopefully, found it useful. 

On my journey home, I was thinking about sitcom. When I started out, I was trying to write features. In those, it's all about the hero's journey. A character starts with one point of view, you stick him through the ringer and he emerges from the other side with a different point of view. 

You stick him/her up a tree, throw things at him/her and then get him/her out of the tree. I always liked that analogy. Is that the right word? I'm too tired to find a dictionary.  

Sitcom is the complete opposite. The characters do not and cannot change. But that's the point. Does Basil Fawlty learn anything in those 12 episodes? After five series, are Mark and Jez in "Peep Show" better people? No. 

Even "Friends", which I think was unusual for a sitcom in that it had series (or at least several episodes) long story arcs, if you watch the first episode and the last episode, 10 years apart, the characters are exactly the same. Are you the same person you were 1o years ago? I hope I'm not. But we want Joey, Homer, Edmund Blackadder and Tim and Daisy to be.

It's a different way of writing and I'm having to get used to it. Does any of that make sense?

I may have to go to bed, now. Sleep tight, Space Cadets.