It's Always Sunny: The Sitcom in its Purest Form
Spoilers for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia , of course. Mild spoilers for Friends and The Office . When people talk about It’s Always Sunny , the first things they typically mention are how its characters are terrible people, how it uses dark and offensive humor, or how it’s an “anti-sitcom.” Those are all the show’s main selling points. But what I find most appealing about It’s Always Sunny , that lodges its place in my mind, is that it distills the sitcom format into its purest form. The easiest way to demonstrate what I mean by that is to point you to Sunny ’s episode-naming convention. Look at the titles of these episodes: Dennis Gets Divorced. Mac and Charlie Write a Movie. Mac and Dennis Buy a Timeshare. The Gang Buys a Boat. The Gang Texts. A character performs an action. This is the basic formula behind all sitcoms. Only, most shows have a little more pretense than that. They have series-long arcs and dramatic moments ...