TV Sitcoms

Classic TV sitcoms were basic TV shows that were filmed fairly quickly - it took approximately a week to complete a whole season, and was more episodic. Episodic is a characteristic for TV shows that aren't a continuous story where episodes are based off of previous knowledge and generally end with a lesson. This type of TV show also has very basic character development throughout the episodes where characters don't seem to grow up and learn from previous mistakes.
This allows sitcoms to be comedy rather than dramatic, since dramas are based on complicated character developments. With each episode having the potential to cover a wide range of topic without having to follow any type of chronological order, it allows sitcoms to end each episode with a lesson or a moral story. The lesson or moral story at the end of each episode help tie the episode back to the starting scene instead of the first episode in the series, and allows each episode to have a final finish.
In the show Family Guy, the main characters don't learn from their previous mistakes. Peter makes the same mistakes over and over again, Meg is constantly picked on, Stewie repeated tries to kill his mother Louis, but we can come to expect that he will never succeed and she will always come back to life. Although episodic sitcoms are produced using a general patter, they are also given the flexibility of covering many topics and scenarios.  Since the problems/issues that arise in each episode are different, they are always solved at the end which is one of the reasons that I enjoy sitcoms. The general audience can turn on the TV and tune into an episodic sitcom and be able to understand what is happening without having to catch up and watch the previous episodes to be follow along.