Through the celluloid #3: TV decrypted

1994- NBC discovered the holy grail of Television entertainment- FRIENDS.
Sure there was Seinfeld- that was just the genius of one man, The Wonder Years and Doogie Howser were genuinely innovative ideas, they have made their way into pop culture, and there will never be another one like it.
With FRIENDS, NBC had discovered the 'formula' which, with minor modifications could spawn an entire generation of sitcoms and dramas portraying the twists and turns in the 'everyday' lives of 'ordinary' people. The same formula has been adopted by other television networks, resulting in a slew of serials like How i met your mother, The OC, The Gilmore girls (OK slightly different), Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, Big bang theory, Life as we know it, Private Practice, Coupling, Joey!!!, Jack & Jill and even Desperate housewives!!!
The quintessential contemporary TV series consists of the following:

1. A seemingly ordinary bunch of people( preferably an equal number of male and female characters )
2. Relationships between characters, i.e.,
   
3. A successful relationship
   
4. A dysfunctional relationship.- Very Important
   
5. A fantastic house or apartment even though none of them make much money and probably could not afford a place like that with all their money put together- I don't think anyone would pay money to watch people live in a crappy place
   
6. Although the characters work hard to make it in 'the real world', there is always a safety net Eg. Gilmore Girls, FRIENDS (Monica and Rachel's parents), The OC
   
7. And if there are no rich parents, a mysterious source of money paying for daily expenditures Eg: Joey in FRIENDS, most of the characters of Gilmore Girls
   
8. A family member of one of the characters, casually mentioned some time and introduced in the last episode of some season Eg: Lexy Grey in Grey's Anatomy
9. A rich, charming, attractive and seemingly harmless sex magnet- Barney, Joey, Mark Sloan
   
10. And most importantly, a drunken mistake- At least once in a season

But the biggest common denominator in all these is that none of them even vaguely resemble reality. If they did, I guess we wouldn't have to watch it on TV, we'd just have to look around.

P.S. Thanks Chodan