I've been reading a lot about the death of the sitcom ever since the beginning of this year's television season. The sitcom is tired, stale, being edged out in quality and content by the hour long drama, which has generally been acknowledged to be at a fever pitch for the last few years. No, the sitcom is no longer cool in the ideas of the media. I wonder if the media is really watching television.

Sure, there are a lot of not so great sitcoms out right now. But when glancing at the TV Guide on a regular week, sitcoms generally make up a huge block on networks from eight to ten as the lead into the dramas. They've become filler. Some of them have simply been on the air too long and are living out an afterlife of bad jokes when they could have died gracefully a couple of years ago. But people prophesying the near end of the sitcom genre are too ready to lump sitcoms all into one all-consuming death trap of sameness. But there are a few that are still working, even a few that are doing the impossible and trying to manipulate the genre, a few that are working to shock some life back into it.

Sports Night (Tuesdays, ABC, 9:30 pm), one of my television highlights of the week, can be at some times an acquired taste. But it has such a different feel from the regular half-hour comedy, has such great and well written characters that if you can get past the fast pasted, quirky dialogue and the uniqueness of the camera work, then you'll find it's worth it. It is not about sports, and it is not, as so many sitcoms are, about getting as many laughs as possibly in the alloted time. It tells good stories about its characters, characters who are interesting and tend to be rather complex. There's Dan, who's in therapy and obviously grappling with some serious self esteem and family issues that continually effect his day to day routine and work on the show. Casey, as romantically inept as Dan is successful, speaks five languages, has trouble connecting with his son and not telling the women that he's dating that he's actually in love with someone else, his executive producer Dana, who cannot subordinate her career to her personal life. The rest of the ensemble includes stroke survivor Isaac, neurotically ambitious Natalie, and geeky sports encyclopedia Jeremy. It is not merely a show of workplace but the family that exists there. It is fast paced and rarely takes a moment to breathe, and is the shortest half hour on television. It is consistent and strong in the writing and character development and mixes elements of drama and comedy seamlessly.

Friends, the standard Thursday night fare (NBC, 8 pm), is one of the older sitcoms that still has bite. The characters that you know and love are merely more so, and it doesn't recycle tired plot lines and jokes. The on-again-off-again-ness of the Ross and Rachel duo, apparently permanently off, has never rerouted itself and done the same scenarios over again, but instead consistently goes one level beyond itself. The six characters are consistently themselves, rarely going outside of what one might expect from them. It might sound like a bad thing, but it means that the writers know the characters well enough to know what they would or would not do and leaves it at that. It has shown some improving, like Chandler and Rachel, who are funnier and better than they originally were, and some declining, like Ross, who started out okay as the older brother type but has now degenerated into a truly pathetic individual, though not without reason. Chandler and Rachel are better for their adventures, as Ross is the worse for his. It has not, like its Thursday night companion Frasier, become a tired photocopy of itself, using the characters' idiosyncracies and quirks over again in boring cycles, but instead uses them to further the character and show. Plus, Bruce Willis is doing a three-show guest spot in April, and as Bruce Willis is the coolest movie star alive, this can never be a bad thing.

The last sitcom that I feel is the one of the saviors of and testaments to the sitcom genre is Fox's Malcolm in the Middle (Sundaysm 8:30 pm). It has taken the family sitcom and perverted it into dysfunctional bliss. And it is, without a doubt, just funny. It doesn't try to be funny, it doesn't try to pull the laugh out of you, it just does. The characters themselves are joy. There's the mom, who seems a poster child for emotional abuse, but it is simply tough love justifying punishment and understood that way, rather than as intent to harm. A clueless dad, a glorified older brother, a mean older brother, and a whiny youngest brother complete the family mix that makes up Malcolm's home life. Malcolm is a veritable genius, in the gifted class, but this does not make him any better/different from his brothers, has never separated him from any part of their misadventures and their punishment. His teacher thinks his parents are abusive weirdos, and his best friend is an asthmatic in a wheelchair. It's a show that's all about the absurdities of life, especially those of growing up. You never question the world that Malcolm lives in, even though it's bizarre and a little bit warped, it never feels contrived or wrong, it just simply is.

There are some good sitcoms left, these are just a few. There's also That 70's Show, The Simpsons, Will and Grace, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Drew Carey. They're not always great, they're not always gripping, but they're proof that the sitcom is surviving just fine.