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The way “Abbott” deploys comic mix-ups is a technique the show shares with traditional sitcoms, the 20th-century kind with their multicamera setups, stagelike sets and audience laughter (real or simulated). But “Abbott” exists in a world that has been slowly shedding that style. Many examples still exist, but by the end of the aughts, multicamera shows were already seen as quaint compared with their critically acclaimed new counterparts — single-camera comedies like “Arrested Development,” “The Bernie Mac Show” or “Modern Family.” These shows could borrow techniques from film, documentary and reality TV — cutaways, confessional interviews, voice-over — to access jokes unavailable in the old studio-audience setup. The most obvious predecessors of “Abbott” were among them: the American adaptation of “The Office” and, later, “Parks and Recreation,” both long-running NBC mockumentary sitcoms about close-knit workplace colleagues.
