Although I wasn't fond of it's series finale... M*A*S*H was also awesome for most of its run and is maybe the only show that I like early episodes less well... cuz there was more 'locker-room humor' and less character development.
For me, one reason comedies fare better in the long haul is that... when they get more serious over time it's OK, cuz they started off-balance in favor of funny. For me, the best dramas start off well balanced with drama and humor... and they all get progressively darker... because more is better and darker makes for 'serious art' as opposed to fluff.
Hercules: the Legenday Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, West Wing, Everwood...
All these shows started out with healthy senses of humor. Yes, Xena was darker than Hercules... Angel was darker than Buffy... But none of these shows took themselves too seriously when they started out. They seemed to appreciate the value of comedy. But then over the years each
(we'll have to see about Everwood but much of Season 2 was sure a downer.) turned away from the comedy that I found very importent to my enjoyment of the shows. It's easiest to illustrate in fantasy genre shows. First they'll have a character get beat up. But then it's 'been there done that' gotta have them nearly die. But where do you go after that? I know... we'll have everyone think the character died but it's really just a ruse. Now what? OK... let's actually kill off the character, but because of some potion... spell... time travelling... bargain with the gods... we bring the character back to life again... and so on...
Sigh.
'More' doesn't necessarily mean more interesting and, quite frankly, darker doesn't actually equate to deeper/more highly evolved... more worthy of accolades. It's like "character growth" must equate to more and more misery... Whassup wid dat? To me, cultivating a healthy sense of humor is a very important part of character development. Everything is a crisis with children because they haven't experienced enough of life's hardships to really put things in perspective. For instance, I went back east last month for my grandmother's funeral. My sister had arranged for a floral basket from the both of us... but when we set eyes on it... Let's just say it was "differently abled" in the aesthetics department. Now this was a somewhat stressful time and a decade ago we might have burst into tears... instead we laughed. Life as we know it wasn't going to stop just cuz our flower arrangement had bizarre color combinations. {smile}
TV writers seem to think darker is deeper and thus more meaningful. So good comedies are more likely to get richer with age as they blend humor and drama... good dramas are more likely to get tiresome with age as they search for bigger drama which equates to more outlandish storylines... or darker storylines... or both... i.e. MELOdrama.
-Aquillea