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Alison Herman
TV Critic
aherman2006 See All
Courtesy of FX Time is often the not-so-secret ingredient in a TV show’s success. This is especially the case for sitcoms, which often need room to experiment with cast and character dynamics to land on a winning, durable formula. Think of the American reboot of “The Office” calibrating Steve Carell’s incompetent boss until he’s distinct from the Ricky Gervais original, or its cousin “Parks and Recreation” making Leslie Knope less clueless and more admirable in her idealism. Without much serialized plot or a premise more complicated than “people work and/or are friends with each other,” the je ne sais quoi of a long-running comedy is a chemistry that can’t be anticipated — it has to be discovered.
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