Friday night alternative comedy

as somebody who grew up mostly remembering telly from the late 1980s and 1990s i've noted that if there is one thing missing from the main networks schedule it's new, innovative comedy.

i'm talking about classics such as the young ones, bottom, the fast show, red dwarf, father ted, not the nine o'clock news, brass eye, the day today, blackadder, harry enfield's various sketch shows, spitting image etc. i really looked forward to a friday night around my friends watching these shows.

i know there are a couple of sketch shows on tv right now (eg armstrong and miller for example), but nothing like the fast show, the smell of reeves and mortimer or the above.

it extends to sitcoms too - i know birds of a feather, the vicar of dibley, abfab or keeping up appearances were hardly cutting edge but nothing like this seems to exist today.

have tv executives given up on alternative comedy?

I thought TV execs gave up completely.

What about

* IT crowed?
* Gavin and Stacy?

I can see where your coming from, its going the same way as Gameshows

Very few of them were on a Friday night though, In fact I'm sure that only Father Ted was originally on a Friday!

Your list is very disparate too, those programmes were spread over the course of about 15 years. If you look at the last decade there were many modern comedy classics: IT Crowd, Gavin and Stacey, Black Books, Spaced, Peep Show, Pheonix Nights, Alan Partridge, The Thick of It, The Office, Outnumbered etc all of them original in their own way

Part of the matter is that the 'alternative' comedy of the 80's is now firmly in the mainstream, it's still great, but not innovative. You can only innovate for so long

The Fast Show was a Friday night show, as was some series of 'Bottom'.

Scheduling of both varied - The Fast Show started off on Tuesdays. Bottom series 1 was on Tuesday, series 2 on Thursday and Series 3 on Fridays
Of the others, Red Dwarf moved from Mondays to Tuesdays to Thursdays and series 7 was Fridays. The original (BBC2) Harry Enfield series was Thursdays, the later 'and chums' BBC1 incarnation
Of the programmes in Lobster's list, only Father Ted was a regularly on Friday nights