Post-teenage, Pre-midlife Singles Culture in Seinfeld, Friends, and Ally -Seinfeld in Particular MICHAEL SKOVMAND In a recent article, David P. Pierson makes a persuasive case for considering American television comedy, and sitcoms in particular, as 'Modern Comedies of Manners'. These comedies afford a particular point of entry into contemporary mediatised negotiations of 'civility', i.e. how individual desires and values interface with the conventions and standards of families, peer groups and

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... society at large. The apparent triviality of subject matter and the hermetic appearance of the groups depicted may deceive the unsuspecting media researcher into believing that these comedies are indeed "shows about nothing". The following is an attempt to point to a particular range of contemporary American television comedies as sites of ongoing negotiations of behavioural anxieties within post-teenage, pre-midlife singles culture -a culture which in many aspects seems to articulate central concerns of society as a whole. This range of comedies can also be seen, in a variety of ways, to point to new ways in which contemporary television comedy articulates audience relations and relations to contemporary culture as a whole. American television series embody the time-honoured American continental dichotomy between the West Coast and the East Coast. The West Coast -LA -signifies the Barbie dolls of Baywatch, and the overgrown high school kids of Beverly Hills 90210. On the East Coast -more specifically New York and Boston, a sophisticated tradition of television comedy has developed since the early 1980s far removed from the beach boys and girls of California. It is grown-up -or almost grown-up television comedy, it is urban, and its roots are not the feel-good world of the Beach Boys, but the narcissistic conversational culture of Woody Allen. The beginning -to the extent that one can talk about beginnings of genres that reach back into radio and beyond -was Cheers, the mother of recent sitcoms, which ruled the American networks between 1982 and -93, becoming the greatest succes series in American television history. The cosy Boston bar was home away from home to a handful of employees and regulars, plus whoever walked through the door, presided over by the ever-present Sam (Ted Danson), ex-baseball player with an ever vigilant eye on the main chance. Cheers gave us fast-paced adult talk, breaking new ground in conversational permissiveness and precision. But even this loosely constructed sitcom machine gradually depleted its narrative repertoire, and the defunct concept was milked by a number of spin-offs, notably Frazier. The real inheritor, however, was Jerry Seinfeld, the standup comedian of Saturday Night Live fame, who, along with Larry David created Seinfeld