The pop culture landscape would have you believe that the classic, three-camera sitcom is dead. The pop culture landscape is wrong. The sitcom, in its most lauded and berated format, is not dead. Shows like CBS's How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men, and The New Adventures of Old Christine are keeping the art of the sitcom alive. These shows are thriving.

Is there something special in the water at CBS? Why are they the home of today's classical, yet at the same time thoroughly modern, sitcoms? Why is the format somehow not stale in these three shows?

But for each HIMYM, TAAHM, or TNAOOC (don't you just hate acronyms), there are a plethora of 'Til Deaths, According to Jims, or Rules of Engagements (clearly the last one isn't served by the same pipes at CBS). 

It's difficult to pin down exactly why certain shows work, and other shows don't (well, besides being crappy). Both Two and a Half Men and The New Adventures of Old Christine have broad, generic jokes that appeal to the masses. Part of the charm of How I Met Your Mother is that we're all in on the jokes, because future-Ted (aka Bob Saget) is recalling his past, our present, and mentioning things like blogs, The Price is Right's Bob Barker, et al. allow us to laugh at how fleeting most of our current likes and dislikes truly are. Novel concept in theory (telling the show entirely in flash-back), but the practical application is quite ordinary. Yet, at the same time, altogether spectacular.