What’s Happening to TV Comedies Is Not Funny

Mr. Martel is a former showrunner for “Key & Peele.”

At the Emmy Awards on Monday, one of these eight shows will receive the award for outstanding comedy series: “Hacks,” “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” “Widow’s Bay,” “Shrinking,” “Nobody Wants This,” “Only Murders in the Building,” “The Bear” and “Abbott Elementary.” If there’s any justice in awards shows (there isn’t), “Abbott Elementary” will win. Not because it’s the best show, but because it’s the only undiluted comedy.

Watching “Abbott Elementary,” we laugh easily at the characters, who are funny because of their faults (and have........

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