Laughable

I finished Sitcom: A History In 24 Episodes by Saul Austerlitz.  Feels like I've been working on it forever.  It took so long not because it was bad, but because each chapter covers a show, and I'd read it, something would come up, then I wouldn't get back to the book for another week or so.  I think it took as long as a full TV season, which these days tends to be 24 episode, thus the 24 shows the book investigates.

What are the shows?  The books lays them out chronologically:

I Love Lucy
The Honeymooners
The Phil Silvers Show
Leave It To Beaver
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Gilligan's Island
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
All In The Family
M*A*S*H
Taxi
Cheers
The Cosby Show
Roseanne
The Simpsons

Seinfeld
The Larry Sanders Show
Friends
Sex And The City
Freaks And Geeks
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Arrested Development
The Office
30 Rock
Community

Each chapter is built around a specific episode, but also looks at the show as a whole, and, indeed, at other sitcoms that followed in the original's footsteps.

It's a solid list.  Most of the shows are classics, or at least pretty good, but they also show the development of the form.

For instance, many sitcoms to this day still follow the basic rules I Love Lucy set up in the 1950s (especially all those hit shows done live on CBS).  Then you get to The Dick Van Dyke Show in the 60s and The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 70s, and the form becomes more sophisticated--the themes are more adult and the big laughs not just from farcical situations. You also get titles like All In The Family, which shows that sitcoms can deal with controversial subjects, and M*A*S*H, where it takes on war in a serious way (unlike service comedies such as The Phil Silvers Show).

The form further develops in the 1980s with Cheers, where there's an arc shared by the leads--whole seasons are devoted to their up-and-down romance, whereas on previous shows, each episode would essentially be a reset.

Then in the 90s The Simpsons stretches the sitcom so that it can go anywhere and do anything (it helped that the show was animated), while Seinfeld looks at the minutiae of everyday life, but also shows us that lead characters don't have to be lovable. Also there's The Larry Sanders Show, which is a self-aware sitcom--show business as a product.

By the 21st century, the form had been around so long that it was in its post-modern era.  The Office is (allegedly) a documentary, where the cameras are (supposedly) just trying to catch the action, and the actors speak directly the camera.  And 30 Rock--another show about a show--is fully aware of the history of sitcoms, and plays off it. Finally, you get to Community, which is full meta, often playing with different formats, while showing that even with these alienation effects the audience can still care about the characters.

So, all in all, a pretty good book.  Austerlitz knows his material, and is also willing to say when it's less than great.  But you better love the subject, or it might come across as too much.