# Three's Company (1977)

> Two single women share their Santa Monica apartment with a man who must feign being gay to keep the room.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/2551

## Facts

- Seasons: 8
- Episodes: 171
- Episode runtime: 25 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: comedy
- Created by: Johnnie Mortimer, Brian Cooke
- Network: ABC
- Cast: John Ritter, Joyce DeWitt, Priscilla Barnes, Jenilee Harrison, Suzanne Somers, Don Knotts, Audra Lindley, Norman Fell
- TMDB rating: 7.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075596/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: mild
- Complexity: simple
- Violence: none
- Tone: breezy, witty, cheerful, farcical, light

## What critics say

Audiences broadly regard Three's Company as a positive, well-liked sitcom whose farce and ensemble chemistry carried it through its long run.

## Synopsis

Three's Company (1977-1984) is a American network sitcom created by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke for ABC, running eight seasons and 171 episodes. Janet Wood (Joyce DeWitt) and Chrissy Snow (Suzanne Somers) share a Santa Monica apartment and take in Jack Tripper (John Ritter), a cook who wakes up in their bathtub after a party. To keep the room, Jack must pose as gay so the prudish landlady Helen Roper (Audra Lindley) and her husband Stanley (Norman Fell) will not evict the trio. The engine of each episode is a deception that snowballs, as Jack juggles lies, misread cues and a parade of visitors through a single bright apartment. Each story is self-contained within a continuing sitcom frame, with running gags about the landlords and the building's comic neighbors. Ralph Furley (Don Knotts) later arrives as a fussy landlord who adds a new layer of mischief. The tone is breezy, cheerful and innocent, rooted in late seventies American network comedy with a laugh track. Fans of The Golden Girls, Friends and The Odd Couple will find resonance in its farce, sitcom warmth and mistaken-identity humor.

## Shows like Three's Company

- [The Exes (2011)](https://ember.film/tv/37140)
- [Bosom Buddies (1980)](https://ember.film/tv/2446)
- [Full House (1987)](https://ember.film/tv/4098)
- [The Golden Girls (1985)](https://ember.film/tv/1578)
- [Fuller House (2016)](https://ember.film/tv/56452)
- [Who's the Boss? (1984)](https://ember.film/tv/599)
- [Diff'rent Strokes (1978)](https://ember.film/tv/2290)
- [Two and a Half Men (2003)](https://ember.film/tv/2556)
- [Laverne & Shirley (1976)](https://ember.film/tv/2885)
- [The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970)](https://ember.film/tv/2816)

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