Irony, we hear these days, is over. We should have seen it coming. Such trends begged the subsequent announcement of The New Earnestness. The predictability of adolescent rebellion is not, after all, lost on adolescents. Raised in a culture that watches and rebroadcasts their every move, kids understand what their script is supposed to be.
Television is indifferent to our approval or our love, it wants only our time.
The same proportions of interoffice intrigue, mistaken identity, and preposterous plan gone awry fuel the same basic plots now as they did twenty years ago. It's period-piece aesthetics seem to confront the truth of television's timelessness head on, even if it does wind up losing, since its admission of defeat in the wardrobe department hasn't necessarily given them extra energy in their battle for original plots. There is nothing ironic nor earnest about this sensibility, and there's nothing particularly funny about it either. Comedy often seems to move more quickly than the culture at large. Adventurous comedy today isn't ironic, and it's not exactly earnest.