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Thursday, May 18, 2006
Post starts optimistic, ends on a downer
If this was any time before the New Golden Age of Television I probably would find the idea of reading about network previews ludicrous. Now I read the blogs of Tom, Lyle, the articles of Tim Goodman and the folks at Aspecialthing.com with avid attention. I’m hoping for more shows that will capture my imagination but so far Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip seems to be the only thing gets me excited (that’s a meaty six minute clip there by the way). Then I read Tom’s description of the upcoming Let’s Rob Mick Jagger (I’ll it by its fun name, thank you very much) and Kidnapped and I notice a trend this New Golden Age of Television seems to be spawning.
Writers and producers have been inspired by 24 and, probably to a lesser extent, Veronica Mars to create shows so high concept that an entire season is devoted to one macro-storyline. I want to say Murder One was the first to try this although I’m sure you readers more versed in this “casual art,” as Martin T. Williams dubbed it, can inform me of earlier examples. Either way Murder One was a failure and it took about ten years for the idea of an overarching plotline to take off. I’ve never seen any 24 or Veronica Mars (I’ll check out the latter on DVD, though) so I can’t say I’ve ever seen this idea executed well. These new shows don’t look good, although I’m certainly willing to be proven wrong. Still, even though I’ve never seen the execution I think the idea of a one season over-arching plotline is one that can lead to great stuff. There’s just one caveat and it goes against common wisdom of the television business.
Let’s say you have a show with a high concept. It needs twenty-four episodes to tell the whole thing and then it’ll end with a real bang-up ending. Awesome, go for it. And then never appear again. No second season, no matter how big a hit it was or wasn’t and no matter how much money the show made and could stand to make. Television use to have high-rated mini-series like Roots and V but it’s a format that seems to be disappearing. From the looks of these new shows it’s a format that could be brought back. Have a show that takes the length of regular season to tell its story, complete with sub-plots and cliffhanger endings, but then spare us the complications of a stillborn ending and dangling plotlines in hopes of a second season that might, but probably won’t, recapture the spirit of the first season and its storyline. That’s what Desperate Housewives should have done. We’ll call these new shows “seasonals.”
I don’t know if this will happen. Even with the new creativity injected into television I think it’s fair to say that the people on the business end by and large still suffer from the same problem. They’re all so scared of losing their jobs rule number one is “play it safe.” So I’ll just sit here as a viewer, a viewer in that 18-to-35-year-old male demographic I hasten to add, and ignore shows that have overstayed their welcome (Desperate Housewives) and watch shows on DVD that should have stayed on beyond one season (Firefly, Freaks & Geeks).
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