has some interesting tidbits. mostly if you study the documentary-makers together with the people they portray. the documentary itself is mostly a dime-a-dozen leftist pamphlet from some chest-pounder doing an anthropological study about the USA. this guys chooses to focus on sitcoms (and how they evolved over the years), which is a novel and interesting angle. it's a few interviews with sitcom writers, some fragments from their shows, and then tim stanley blabbing it all together. the whole thing is in no way a comprehensive history of American sitcoms, but i think they did the best they could with a 1-hour story.
i think one of the biggest problems was too much ambition: you can't give a decent overview of 'abortion in sitcoms' AND 'gays in sitcoms' AND 'the failing of the American dream in sitcoms' AND 'religion in sitcoms' etc, AND tie each issue to how it is treated in politics, AND discuss how it is viewed by the common men. AND yam it all in one hour. it comes across as trying to push a season's worth of documentaries in just this 1 episode.
