A new higher-order comedy about two guys, Will and Derek, who love sitcoms and are given a chance by the WB to produce a sitcom. The show is a mock reality TV show about these best friends’ exploits along with two girls that Will hired. The WB, who originally produced the pilot, passed on the show for reasons of their own machinations and it somehow made it onto YouTube split into three 9 minute parts. It has caused a fervour among the e-leet for being a brilliant show that should be renewed. And in an unprecedented event, the show may possibly get picked up by NBC because of its internet popularity. I don’t crawl YouTube so I found out about this through a slashdot article like (presumably) many others and decided to give it a shot.

The show was actually absurdly funny but at the same time, I found myself thinking about the limitations of the concept. The gist of it is, they have several three wall soundstages that look like classic sitcom stages and there’s a studio audience that watches the "reality" TV show. As a result you get a show that doesn’t need a laugh track (whether by it’s own comedic style or by the fact that it’s pretending to be a reality TV show) with a laugh track, that the two guys revel in by shouting state names and hearing people cheer and guiling the audience into cheering for them to win an argument. Sure it’s funny, but will it stay that way?

Some of its humour comes from the fact that it’s a scripted show about a reality TV show, another chunk comes from making fun of and referencing older sitcoms (including a hilarious scene where Dadless Will is looking for guidance and comes across Tom Bosley, James Avery, and Alan Thicke), and the rest comes from the Wacky™ best friends, Will and Derek. Will is a little spastic, tries a little harder to be funny, and is very emotional while Derek is more relaxed, doesn’t try as hard (relatively speaking), and doesn’t express himself emotionally. Someone commented that the two of them were very much like JD and Turk from Scrubs which is a valid argument given that they’ve had numerous Scrubs episodes about Turk’s inability to show his (Gay) Love of JD and they both act as though they are on a TV show. It’s an even more compelling argument when you realise that the creator of Scrubs co-wrote the Pilot episode of this show and presumably was one of the creators.

I’m excited for the show and I’m sure the writers will have better imagination than I, but I’m wary of the longevity of the show. Especially when you consider that the first part has 400 000 views and the second and third parts both have around 100 000 each. Kinda makes you wonder if the networks only looked at the counter for part 1 without regard to the continued interest the show draws.