Our attention spans have shortened so you can't setup jokes over a page or two. You have to do them rapid fire or you risk losing the audience. That's really hard to do well. I think some of Chuck Lorre's shows have been amazing that way.

A lot of people watch TV while on their phones or laptops, and it's difficult to write for that. You have to over-explain stuff or repeat it because part of the audience wasn't paying attention.

We're a lot more sensitive than we used to be. Somebody has to be the foil in a joke. A lot of people don't want to see people the the victim. (When I fall down a manhole, it's a tragedy. When you do it, it's comedy.)

I think some shows confuse funny with randomness. If you have a proper setup, something random can be funny. Just random, not so much.

We also have less in common with each other than we used to. Ages, economics, beliefs, education, likes/dislikes, etc. One group may find a comedy hilarious while other groups are left scratching their heads. Comedies that attract a broad audience are getting harder to do.

Comedy's also harder than it looks. My two cents.

They had enough but probably would have liked more. They wanted Kevin Sorbo to sign a contract for three more years of Hercules, but he had committed to the Andromeda series. So, they rushed an eight-episode final season before he became unavailable.

The successful Star Trek series of the time, TNG and DS9, ran for seven seasons in first-run syndication.

Their goal is to get the best ratings they can with inexpensive programming. I suspect we'll get more low-budget acquired dramas and cheap unscripted shows.

>Cancelling 'Reaper' after 2 seasons is still one of the worst decisions ever made by a TV Network

Not for the CW network. The show got really low ratings. It ranked 192nd out of 200 shows the first year and 169th out of 190 shows in year two. I suspect they renewed it for a second season, hoping that it would catch on but the ratings didn't get much better. Reaper wasn't owned by CBS or Warner Bros (the owners of CW) so the network had no financial stake in the series. This was before streaming and there was no monetization of delayed viewing. I enjoyed the show but liked the second season less than the first.

It happens. That would be a great story.

Sorry, Barney Miller isn't related to any Lear shows. It did have a spin-off of its own, Fish.