The sitcom revival you're missing

Since almost none of you have bothered to watch “Til Death,” let me tell you: It's a funny show.

  Brad Garrett? If the “Til Death” star had this many lines when he was doing “Everybody Loves Raymond,” they might have called it “Everybody Loves Robert” instead.

  Garrett and Joely Fisher play a couple married 20 years, who drive each other crazy with their annoying habits and their ability to predict exactly what the other is thinking. They're so convincing, so hilariously true to life, they should win an Emmy for Most Dysfunctional Relationship.

  Until now, however, most viewers probably didn't know “Til Death” was still on the air. It was dying in a Thursday night time slot next to “The O.C.,” a show so low-rated Fox cancelled it mid-season. But all this is about to change, because next Wednesday Fox is moving “Til Death” to the coveted post-“American Idol” time period of 8:30 p.m. CT.

  If only all the new comedies on network TV had a monster hit to lean on.

  These are great times for situation comedies, but they are flowering in an age of drama and reality hits, and networks plainly have no idea what to do with sitcoms.

Two more terrific comedies are debuting this month. “The Winner” (8:30 p.m. Sundays, Fox 4) stars “Daily Show” alumnus Rob Corddry as a 32-year-old video store clerk who lives with his parents. I raved about it in this space a week ago.

And then there's “Andy Barker, P.I.” (8:30 p.m. Thursday, NBC, KSHB-41). It's a role tailor-made for Andy Richter, the onetime sidekick of Conan O'Brien, because it brings to life the whiny nebbish he played in countless sketches on the O'Brien show.

  Richter plays a mild-mannered C.P.A. who finds himself solving murders. I've watched the three episodes NBC supplied me, oh, about half a dozen times. They are little masterpieces of big, over-the-top gags and brilliant little ones.  Think “Police Squad!” meets “Desperate Housewives” and you're not far off the mark.

  The show's creators are O'Brien and Jonathan Groff, who was long employed as O'Brien's head writer. If any two people know what kind of comedy Richter should be in, it's these guys. They've surrounded him with an ensemble of stereotypical characters who, in their interactions with the accidental P.I., seem entirely original.

  Especially great are Lew (Harve Presnell of “Fargo” fame), the grizzled if slightly out-of-it private dick -- he thinks the Russian mob takes its orders from Khrushchev -- who comes out of retirement to help Andy; and Jenny, Andy's devoted, you-can-do-it wife (Clea Lewis), who embraces his moonlighting after Andy tells her that crime-solving gives him the same rush as “when I punch the 'equals' button and the number is the same as the number on the worksheet.”

  The “Andy Barker” pilot is flawless. But how many will actually watch it? “Andy Barker” is temporarily in the time slot that “30 Rock” has occupied this season. And even after Alec Baldwin won a much-deserved SAG Award and a Golden Globe for playing Tina Fey's GE overlord, “30 Rock” remains widely ignored by much of the viewing public, which is tuned to “CSI” and “Grey's Anatomy” instead.

  As a “30 Rock” fan, I'm happy to report that NBC hasn't given that show the hook, just a rest. However, like so many other worthy comedies in recent years, it finds itself stuck in a high-quality-low-ratings loop.

“Arrested Development” remains the poster child for this trend, but at least it got three seasons on Fox. By contrast, “The Knights of Prosperity,” a great new crime caper with the happening '70s attitude that I rated my favorite new comedy of the season, is already off the air. ABC, which waited until January to premiere “Knights,” pulled it earlier this month after its ratings sunk below those for, egad, “According to Jim.”

  No one knows the shifting fortunes of TV comedies better than Preston Beckman, the executive in charge of program planning at Fox Television. Before Fox, he filled out the schedule for NBC in a similar role. That was back in the go-go '90s, when he had comedies in prime time six nights a week. At Fox, he's down to one night, Sunday, and two sitcoms on Thursday, one of which he just moved.

“Now it's harder to market a comedy,” Beckman said. “You need people to discover it.” That, or you need to schedule it after “Idol.”

  Why is that? Beckman offered a couple of theories I'd heard before. “Raymond,” “Seinfeld,” and other past hits are still on TV, keeping the audience happy and the demand for new sitcoms lower. And cable TV has gotten into the comedy business in a big way, further reducing the need for more network product.

  But I had called Beckman for insights into scheduling, and he didn't disappoint. Comedies, he explained, have always relied to some degree on “flow” in the prime-time schedule. Flow is the ancient network concept by which similar shows were put back-to-back to dissuade people from changing the channel.

  That was a great way to grow new hits, but it may have hastened the demise of the sitcom, too, because NBC put so many duds on its Thursday-night lineup in between “Seinfeld,” “Friends” and “Frasier,” shows like “Caroline in the City,” “Suddenly Susan,” “Union Square,” “The Single Guy.” NBC was in the reverse loop back then: high ratings, low quality.

  Flow, in the form of the post-“Idol” audience, will be crucial to the future of “Til Death.” You may have shrugged when the pilot of this show aired in the fall. But about three weeks in, it became clear that Garrett and Fisher had found their rhythm, if not an audience. I think you can make the case that with “Til Death,” Garrett -- a big lunk whose gravelly voice and permanently beaten-down look get huge laughs even when he's just staring into space -- has inherited the Raymond role from his old show.

  There's another problem with a lot of today's sitcoms, according to Beckman. Though critics may love shows like “Arrested Development,” “The Office” and “30 Rock,” the ratings suggest that there's a disconnect between critics and ordinary viewers.

  People don't necessarily like edgy in comedies, Beckman said. “Comedies are more like hanging out, finding people you want to spend half an hour with.”

  The best example of that is CBS, which has had an unbroken line of bland, successful sitcoms on Mondays dating back to the early 1990s, from “Designing Women” to “Yes, Dear.” Watch enough hours of “How I Met Your Mother” and “Rules of Engagement,” and you start to wonder if the sitcom format isn't a leftover from a bygone era, when TV watchers had lower expectations.

I hope not. “Andy Barker, P.I.” raises those expectations mighty quick. It's the kind of show you would want to download off iTunes for $2 each, then pick up the box set at the end of the season with the outtakes and the silly commentaries. If that actually happens, maybe all that extra revenue will convince NBC to keep “Andy Barker” on Thursday nights.

  That would be great …. but then, where would NBC put “30 Rock”?