Nikkithought my earlier throwaway comment about how I don't like “Will & Grace” was “insulting and homophobic.” On the contrary–I just can't stand sitcoms, Nikki. In fact, I get physically uncomfortable watching almost any sitcom.

I attribute this to having been overexposed to sitcom reruns as a child; I think I was forced to watch nearly every episode of “I Love Lucy”, “Mr. Ed”, “The Flying Nun”, and “The Courtship of Eddy's Father” by the babysitter while waiting for my school bus (not to mention later exposure to Sanford & Son, Chico & The Man, Welcome Back, Kotter and Happy Days). Every sitcom ever broadcast on network television or put in syndication between 1955 and 1982 is part of my subconscious mind. As a result, whenever I am subjected to a sitcom, I instantly begin deconstructing it. I can usually predict the entire plot in the first five minutes, and then get queasy waiting for the show to agonizingly unfold. I do not have the attention span for this, so I usually punt; elsewise, it's time for the Dramamine.

There have been no new sitcom plots written since 1978. Every sitcom (at least after the situation and the characters of the show have been established) is based on concepts first explored in the medium by Lucille Ball or Jackie Gleason. “Will & Grace” is “I Love Lucy” with a gay WASP playing the role originally filled by a Cuban band leader.

The coup de grace for sitcoms for me was the fifth season of “Happy Days.” I think that's when my body started physically rejecting any new sitcom information that came into my body.

“Dramedies” are occasionally manageable for me, as long as the humor is realistically applied. But regrettably, the long-running series of this genre often become formulaic as well. M*A*S*H was the first effective dramedy; unfortunately, it mined out the entire war/medicine genre by running for longer than the Korean War lasted.

Somebody should pass a law that TV dramas have to end after three years. I can no longer watch “ER”; the show lost me for good after the long, drawn out death of Anthony Edwards' Dr. Greene. These people should all move on and do somehting fresh already, for God's sake.

This is why I have to pay for HBO: “Six Feet Under” and “The Sopranos” have finite story arcs, they are written well, and THERE ARE ONLY A LIMITED NUMBER OF EPISODES EACH SEASON so they don't stretch the talent thin. Even “The Sopranos” is now starting to stretch, which is why I suspect that it will soon be sleeping with the fishes.