Subject: Fred Barron: Writer of the sitcoms 'My Family' and 'After you've gone'

Sitcoms in Britain have reached almost dead-flat proportions. Fred Barron wrote, amongst other things, the commercial success 'My Family' and, in the last year, started a new sitcom called 'After you've gone'.

Now, 'My Family' (a sitcom featuring Robert Lindsay about a cynical sadistic dentist living with his delusional wife and 'quirky' children) is a phenomenon because, as comedy, it is wretchedly awful and banal, yet it has an incredibly high fan-base in the UK. Barron follows it up with the awful 'After you've gone' (a sitcom featuring Nicholas Lyndhurst about a womanising handyman who's wife up'd and left him for a boyfriend in South Africa). I watched this today and I was literally hypnotised by how pathetic this show is.

This is from a man who wrote for the legendary 'Gary Shandling Show' and had involvements with the show 'Seinfeld' - what went wrong?

So what I am asking is has anybody outside of the UK heard of these shows? Has anybody in the UK watched these shows? Does anybody think that the UK sitcom is dead? Does anybody want to talk about . . . er . . . gas prices instead? Whatever it is, let me know. :)