Straddling the Sitcom Line

Our forums are working again, and longtime STBD fan MrV has returned with an evaluation of most of the new characters introduced since September. We're always interested in knowing how we're being viewed by the general public, especially since we all suffer from delusions of grandeur. Either that or self-loathing; it's an artist thing.

MrV made an observation I hadn't considered previously, but which makes complete sense now that he's pointed it out:

"Rich: An incredibly unbelievable character... one of the funniest people on the show, but he comes off as a sit-com character and not an STBD character."

This got me thinking... at what point does STBD cross the line between "sitcom" and "soap opera" -- or whatever it is that we are?

A character like Leo, for example, is forever stretching the definition of credibility, and yet he gets a free pass from most of the audience. Meanwhile, someone like Rich, who's really just one more degree away from Leo on the "superego food chain," seems to cross that boundary into unbelievable fiction.

We've begun calling ourselves a "web sitcom" recently, in an effort to explain our structure more easily to new viewers. But a "sitcom" conjures ideas of archetypal, caricature-esque characters that seem to fly in the face of the well-rounded STBD personalities that viewers like MrV have come to identify with over the years.

So: what are we? And what defines that boundary between sitcom and something else?