No other sitcom actor will ever justify a $1 million price tag like the whole cast of Friends did.

TV addiction typically kicks off at a very young age. Just ask the legions of one-year-olds and their mums trapped in a never-ending cycle of Bebe TV. Sadly, it never quite goes away.

The addiction tends to sustain itself irrespectively of the quality of the fodder available. Think of it this way. A heroine addict who’s desperate for a fix is unlikely to turn up his nose just because the only stuff available is of an inferior quality now, is he?

No siree, whether it’s talc, powdered soap or strychnine, that’s cut with your traditional drug of choice, any self-respecting junkie (an oxymoron if there ever was one) is likely to shoot it all up happily down the system.

Television shows work pretty much in the same way. Whether it’s Class A material – think Friends, Seinfield, Buffy and Frasier – or Class A rubbish that the TV set spews in our direction, chances are that we will still be there happily submitting to said rubbish, taking in our fix as we mumble and grumble our way through the umpteenth bad pun.

Most of them give us approximately five episodes of good jokes before their shelf-life expires

Really, nothing else would explain why we willingly subject ourselves to sitcoms that have been regurgitating the same joke for well over three seasons.

I remember a time when your traditional 20-minute laugh-fest was precisely that – a non-stop assault of witty one-liners and caustic sarcasm guaranteed to bring a grown man (or woman, we’re all for equality here) to his (or her) knees with a bad case of the laugh-till-you-pee.

Friends, for instance, managed 10 seasons without once becoming stale. None of the viewers resented the posse’s $1 million price tag per episode. Joey, Rachel, Phoebe and the rest of the clan were the ones responsible for our post-office laughs and by God did they deliver on their promise.

Not only did we not begrudge them their dollars, but we’d probably have been quite happy to pool in to contribute to that sum that made sure we didn’t miss out on our daily fix.

To a lesser extent, Buffy the Vampire Slayer followed in this great tradition. It’s no wonder Facebook boasts countless groups dedicated to the Buffster, including the legendary All my witty banter I owe to Buffy.

Filler episodes were unheard of, as were celebrity guest appearances. No, it was all about a fantastic plot and enough sharp one-liners to leave a legion of vampires dead in their tracks.

Of course, the fact that the vampires didn’t glow also helped up the coolness factor. And so we popcorned our way through X seasons of pure awesome.

I could go on and on. Frasier for the sarcasm, Cheers for the good-natured bonhomie... fast-forward to the newest crop of sitcoms.

Most of them give us approximately five episodes of good jokes before their shelf-life expires and we get treated to a seasonful of regurgitation.

To take some examples: Fox’s The Goodwin Games just doesn’t gel and the characters make you hate them (and not in the good way, either); Raising Hope (same network) is just plain annoying; NBC’s Guys with Kids and The New Normal barely rate a mention of the popular websites...

The list goes on. Sure, there are a few gems such as The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family but let’s face it, if you’re more into the witty one-liners than the lowest common denominator humour, then there isn’t much of a choice out there.

Come back Frasier. All is forgiven.

rdepares@timesofmalta.com