I think there are two kinds of new sitcom episodes airing today:

• The ones on ‘over the air’ network, which are largely unfunny and cringey and have horrible laugh tracks.
• The ones on smaller ‘cable’ networks that are more edgy and usually don’t have laugh tracks, and which are usually genuinely funny.

For me the sitcoms of old were mostly the unfunny, cringey, laugh-track plagued ones. So I don’t think the need cringey ones are really any worse than most of the older ones.