I'm in agreement with the article. Sitcom characters serve as a kind of extended family. And if not family then they're like that crazy co-worker you want to talk to on Monday morning because you know they were up to some wild stuff over the weekend, and it's fun to hear their stories.

I'm just finishing up a spec pilot aimed at pay-cable. I first designed and outlined it as a multi-cam, but because of subject matter and some connections we decided to reconceive it as pay-cable single-cam. I enjoy most of the half-hour shows on ShoTime and HBO, but had never really analyzed them until a couple of weeks ago. The subject matter is definitely in line with what HBO and ShoTime do, but I had to dig deeper and take the supporting characters in some different directions. As I had designed them for network multi-cam they were too flat, and really just occupations/functions with a specific attitude. Because of the more serialized nature of single-cam in general, and pay-cable specifically, I forced myself to develop these characters so that they could carry on-going storylines. It's been an interesting exercise, and if I go back and do a multi-cam version a lot of those character choices will remain.

As far as favorite sitcoms, I love the old workplace comedies from the 70s and 80s, WKRP, Taxi, Night Court. All my favs are multi-cam.

Seinfeld. Own the DVDs and it's the only half hour show I watch to this day.

Extremely late on this, but Community is my favorite show ever. It's single cam and I love it. I aspire to direct an episode one day. :)