How big a hit does a show have to be to receive the sincerest form of flattery? Apparently, bigger than Modern Family, which, despite being the indisputable breakout of the rapidly winding down TV season, has not inspired many copycats. Of the eleven comedies that have been picked up for next fall you might expect some to follow Family’s example and be about, duh, families. Instead, there is only Fox’s Keep Hope Alive, about a family raising an infant whose baby mama is a serial killer (just a smidge more twisted than Modern Family). Of course, the reason that the fall comedies have forsaken families is a totally good one: It’s because they’re all focused on twentysomethings having sex.
Really. Lots of attractive people will be grappling with their love lives come fall. Consider the following shows:
ABC’s Better Together: Two twentysomething sisters are at different stages in their relationships.
Fox’s Traffic Light: Three male twentysomethings are at different stages in their relationships.
NBC’s Perfect Couples: Six twentysomethings, in three couples, are at different stages in their relationships.
ABC’s Happy Endings: Six twentysomethings have to figure out their relationships when one couple breaks up at the altar.
NBC’s Friends With Benefits: Five twentysomethings have relationships.
ABC’s Love Bites: Two twentysomethings have relationships.
And then there are two more series that focus on thirtysomething relationships instead:
Fox’s Wilde Kingdom: About Gob and Felicity’s relationship.
CBS’s Mike & Molly: About two chubby people’s relationship.
And finally, two shows that are not about relationships, but not are not about families, either.
ABC’s Mr. Sunshine: On his 40th birthday, Matthew Perry’s jerky character realizes he has to change his life.
NBC’s Outsourced: White dude goes to work in India.
It’s kind of like the space-time continuum collapsed, and Friends was last season’s big hit.
