Scene: Derek Walker’s living room, 1996. My mother and father are engaged in a flipping frenzy between television titans “Seinfeld,” “Roseanne,” “Married With Children” and my personal favorite, “Suddenly Susan.” To best avoid a family feud (and perhaps a mixed-gender boxing match), they collectively agree to place the remote on the coffee table. NBC it is.

Canned laughter pacing the room’s uncomfortable silences, I sit there wondering exactly what there is to appreciate about an overdone formula and a laugh track. Why am I supposed to find the fat father funny? Because the piped-in audience finds him funny? With my television telling me what to think, I wonder what is next in this whirlwind adventure I call life at age 9. (Answer: Bullying, ever-present apathy and a handful of cavities.)

Fast-forward: Derek Walker’s living room, 2008. My mother, having surrendered the remote to my father, keeps in her room, deciding on which of the three Lifetime channels suits her most immediate feminine needs. My father has also moved on. Even though he exudes control over the home’s main (and largest) television, low-budget comedic programming filled with pratfalls and prop-laden set pieces does not capture his interests.

Indeed, television has changed over the past decade. Episodic serial dramas dominate the prime time while the happy-go-lucky sitcom has evolved, offering better situations and more comedy. While Brooke Shields’ bubbly mug will certainly be missed, I think I prefer the new-age of TV funny business. Shows like “The Office,” “30 Rock,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” offer viewers tighter writing and characters outside the family-of-four dynamic, all without the hindrance of a laugh track. Finally, an audience can think for itself.

Fast-forward again: Derek Walker’s living room, 2018. I am very rich and no longer find television necessary, as I have enough money to pay the actual actors of my favorite programs to perform for me, live and in person. Sipping merlot from a diamond-crusted chalice, I prod a 65-year-old Hulk Hogan into an impromptu wrestling match with his two children, Brooke and Nick. Hulk agrees to it for obvious reasons; his kids agree to it because they’re addicted to drama and crippling people, respectively. Hogan Knows Best is back, baby. And it’s all mine.