Four Walls and a Hot Plate Just Won’t Do

If viewers believe everything they see on television, then jobless runaway brides can afford spacious, well-designed Greenwich Village apartments and college students relying on waiter salaries can live in elaborate, exposed-brick Manhattan lofts.

But this is television, a world where fantasy outweighs reality. Most twentysomethings could never afford the trendy, stylish digs occupied by their counterparts on prime-time television.

Take Audrey (Jaime Pressly), a struggling New York City actress on the WB’s “Jack and Jill,” who welcomes her unemployed friend Jack (Amanda Peet) into her two-bedroom Greenwich Village apartment after the latter left her groom at the altar. The apartment has dramatic drapes hanging in the living room, spacious bedrooms and perfectly painted walls. It’s hard to believe the two can afford the place, especially since when Jack gets a job, it’s as an intern for a TV newscast. (She eventually gets hired full time as a producer.)

Or what about Sean Blumberg (Greg Grunberg) on the WB’s “Felicity”? Sean’s ultra-cool three-bedroom loft, also inhabited by college students Ben Covington (Scott Speedman) and Julie Emrick (Amy Jo Johnson), is an architectural gem.

There’s a good reason for these contradictions.

“The first rule of television is that it’s always an enhanced life,” said John Shaffner, production designer for such prime-time comedies as “Friends,” “Dharma & Greg,” “Veronica’s Closet” and “The Drew Carey Show.”

When “Friends” started to gain popularity in the mid-’90s, some viewers wondered how Monica (Courteney Cox Arquette), an erstwhile chef, and her coffeehouse-waitress roommate, Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), could afford the rent of a two-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village. After all, the average price of a two-bedroom walk-up in a building without a doorman is $2,500 a month, according to Rita Fischer, a broker with the New York City real estate agency Douglas Elliman. That’s a hefty chunk of change on a chef’s salary and virtually impossible for a waitress. (Rachel now works as a buyer at a department store and can afford $500 apothecary tables from Pottery Barn.)

The incongruity prompted writers to add the story line that the apartment is rent-controlled and belonged to Monica’s grandmother, Shaffner said. And, as Shaffner points out, it’s the fifth floor of a walk-up, and the higher you go in a building with no elevator, the less expensive the rent gets.

Technically speaking, sitcom sets have to be large enough to accommodate multiple cameras that move on dollies, plus the camera and lens operators. That’s why prime-time apartments often have one large space for the kitchen and living room. It’s also why television apartments are larger than what a “real person” could afford.

But they’re also more elaborate because the shows’ creators want viewers to escape from reality.

“We’re doing a stretch in that we’re trying to give it a fantasy quality,” said Cloudia Rebar, the set decorator for “Jack and Jill.” “Our things are more expensive than a twentysomething can afford, but people tune in to television because they want to get away from reality.”

For Joseph Hodges, the set designer for “Jack and Jill,” that can be frustrating.

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For example, in an early episode, Jack and Jill were doing laundry in the apartment’s basement, a space that Hodges made grungy--like an average NYC laundry room. But the show’s creators made him repaint the set. “They wanted it to be much happier, not down and dirty,” Hodges said.

“The apartment is in the Village. . . . I don’t nail it into a certain area, but I’m sure it’s somewhere they couldn’t possibly afford,” Hodges said. “My biggest problem being a designer on a show like this is, are we living in fantasy or reality? There’s nothing on TV that’s realistic.”

D Rebar and Shaffner emphasize that many of the items that adorn their prime-time apartments are actually inexpensive. When furnishing on a budget, both recommend thrift shops and flea markets.

“It’s the best shopping, and it’s quite real,” Rebar said.

When shopping for the sets, the designers always have the characters’ backgrounds and personalities in mind. Dharma (Jenna Elfman), a creative and energetic yoga instructor/dog trainer, lives with her lawyer husband Greg (Thomas Gibson) in a converted San Francisco loft that houses a collection of items found in California flea markets. Plus, there are a few pieces from Ikea mixed in.

In Joey and Chandler’s “Friends” apartment, most of the colors are brown. “It’s the central all-guys place--no one wanted to be responsible for the aesthetic choices,” Shaffner said.