TV Writers Tackle What Should Be Called a ‘Comedy’ as They Discuss Tone and How IP Can Be Adapted Into Original Ideas

Maria Simulescu

What’s a comedy these days? It’s a hot topic, including among the comedy contenders at last week’s A Night in the Writers Room: Awards Season Edition. This year’s panelists hailed from shows that range from “funny, but dark” and “dark, but funny” to “funny, but emotional” and “crime procedural, but funny,” and everything in between. Perhaps the biggest headline on this front came from CBS’ “ Elsbeth ,” which had just announced hours earlier that it was moving out of drama awards contention to