The Multi-Camera Sitcom

A defense.

This is not movie structure or movie style. It's very hard to have people sit at a table and talk for ten minutes in single-camera without the viewer getting antsy, because single-camera comedies depend on short scenes, snappy scenes. It's why when Frasier did a My Dinner With Andre tribute episode, it didn't have to explain why the characters were sitting and talking for such a long time, but when Community did it, we wondered why the hell Abed and Jeff were having such a long conversation, and they eventually did have to explain it. Single-camera is like a movie, where long speeches leave us fidgety or even wondering if something terrible is about to happen, like in Inglourious Basterds. Multi-camera is like theatre, where words and acting are enough to hold our attention. Single-camera sitcoms can have quick cutaways and short scenes, but it's much harder for them to just let scenes play and build for a long time without losing us.

I'm convinced I will one day write the shoulda-been-written-by-John-Hughes-movie of two dudes, riding in a car for two hours.  Period.