I think I've finally figured out just what the Duck is going on.

I've seen the first two episodes of the third season of Duck Dynasty, which will air back-to-back Wednesday on A&E. And I had a bit of an epiphany.

Calling Duck Dynasty "reality TV" is wrong.

It's straight-forward comedy.

This, in fact, is where all the viewers who used to watch network sitcoms have gone.

There are shows such as Duck Dynasty peppered across the cable-TV landscape, although this definitely is one of the better ones, and one of the most successful. The point is, this is where a lot of people seek out TV laughs now.

Admittedly, there's a chicken-or-the-egg element. Did shows such as Duck Dynasty start to attract big numbers primarily due to their unique qualities, because they were different and fresh and visually interesting? Or, slowly but surely, did network sitcoms become decidedly less funny on average, thus pushing people to investigate alternatives?