Dude, change the channel
With remakes and rehashes abounding, there's something very familiar about the US networks' autumn TV schedules. But in this ruthlessly competitive market, the telly treadmill will just as quickly feed programmes to the furnace.
Dave Hannigan reports from America on the shows you may or may not soon be watching
'The Good Wife'
'The Vampire Diaries'
Kelsey Grammer's new vehicle 'Hank'
The ill-fated 'Emily's Resons Why Not'
Chevy Chase's comback 'Community'
The new 'Melrose Place'
The scene was a rocky crag somewhere up the Galtee mountains in 1985. A group of schoolboys on a class trip involving a day's walking in the Golden Vale Himalayas were taking a well-deserved break. A quick discussion of the remaining itinerary brought the realisation it would be well after nine that night before the bus had us back at the school gates in Cork. This prompted one student to burst into tears. It takes a lot for a 14-year-old boy to well up in front of his peers. In this particular case, the individual was distraught just because it meant he'd miss that night's episode of the alien television series V.
As science-fiction shows went, V was very briefly compulsory viewing for Irish teenage males. Almost a quarter of a century down the line, a reworked version of the cult classic has been made and hits American television screens on 3 November. No word yet on whether the visitors from outer space still snack on mice (a delightful feature of the first go-round), but the very existence of this retread has many once more lamenting the television industry's apparent lack of imagination. It's a legitimate charge given that another "fresh" arrival in the eagerly-awaited autumn line-up of new shows is a spruced-up version of the not exactly late-lamented 1990s glamour soap Melrose Place.
If the producers of V can argue technology will allow them seriously improve on the original, what possible reason is there for resuscitating Melrose Place, a spin-off of Beverley Hills 90210? Well, it got ratings first time out, a 21st century edition of 90210 that launched last season has done well, and they've added a lesbian storyline that's bound to attract a few curious onlookers. And audience is all that counts for the five networks – ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and CW – that are dealing with the new, harsh economic reality. A decade back, nearly 40 new shows a year were foisted upon the American public every autumn. This year, the number is down to 21. Maybe seven of those will last the year.
The extraordinary casualty rate is all the more shocking given that the same networks have spent the past few months, starting around last May, relentlessly promoting the new productions. From television commercials to roadside billboards, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been invested in persuading people to watch the various shows. In what must rank as one of the most bizarre business models, some of these shows will then be yanked from the air after just a couple of weeks. In the very odd case, one poorly-received episode may be enough to cause the plug to be pulled.
To quote William Goldman's famous line about Hollywood, "nobody knows anything". Corporations squander millions every year in search of the few elusive hits that will turn into instant-appointment television and endure as a syndicated money maker for decades. To try to minimise the risk, the suits ensure that the new crop is very much like the old crop, formulaïc and utterly predictable.
The kids liked Twilight? Let's give them The Vampire Diaries, based on an older series of bloodsucking books, every Thursday night at eight. Think that between Family Guy and American Dad, Fox may have exhausted the creative genius of Seth MacFarlane? Perish the thought. Here comes The Cleveland Show, a spin-off featuring one of Quahog's favourite characters.
Cloning is central to the programmers' philosophy. ER may have finally been euthanised but a trio of new medical dramas will battle to fill the remaining void. Mercy centres on a nurse returning to work in a New Jersey hospital after a tour in Iraq, Three Rivers is set among transplant surgeons in Pittsburgh, and Trauma deals with the travails of San Francisco paramedics. The only thing we can say for certain is only one of these patients is likely to survive past Christmas.
Apart from milking successful concepts to death, the networks also like to recycle stars who previously delivered big. Among this season's batch of comeback kids are the likes of Kelsey Grammer, Courteney Cox, and Chevy Chase. Grammer's latest attempt to reprise his sitcom midas touch, honed in Cheers and perfected in Frasier, is called Hank. Topically enough, he plays a businessman who loses everything in the recession and is forced to move back to his home town to start again. Unfortunately, critics are already predicting this one will go the way of Hank's business and tanks.
Cox may fare better. Her new sitcom Cougar Town is the beneficiary of a serious advertising campaign and was conceived by Bill Lawrence, creator of Scrubs. In a very obvious effort to tap into a societal trend, Cox is the cougar of the title, a newly-divorced fortysomething returning to the dating game and discovering her attraction to younger men. With hilarious consequences. At least that's what the previews would have us believe.
Community is another sitcom that has been promoed to death. The constant pushing – which sometimes causes a viewer backlash before the first episode reaches air – may help remind people Chevy Chase, one of its main players, was an actual movie star way back in the '80s. Set in a community college, a much-maligned branch of the American education system that serves as a cheap stepping stone to the mind-bogglingly expensive four-year universities, the producers are already issuing statements saying they don't intend to poke fun at these institutions. When apologies are being issued in advance about the nature of the humour, that's never a very good sign.
Would that these people might learn that a bit of daring, risk and offence could yield better results? Witness the adulation being heaped upon Glee, arguably the most critically-acclaimed of the newcomers. A witty, brazen and sometimes vicious take-down of the high-school musical genre, Fox broadcast the pilot episode last May immediately after the American Idol finale. The canny time slot guaranteed a massive audience that night and the buzz generated by a fleeting glimpse of the material has lasted all summer long.
While very few of the other contenders will arrive onscreen with that kind of build-up, the next most anticipated show is actually an old favourite at a new time. NBC's decision to move The Jay Leno Show from 11.30pm (when it was known as The Tonight Show) to 10pm has massive implications for the whole business. Five nights of Leno will cost the network around $1m to produce, exactly the same as one episode of ER used to set them back. If, starting tomorrow night, people tune in to watch a chat show at that hour, expect CBS and ABC to change their schedules accordingly and for the number of dramas being produced every year to plummet. Little wonder Time magazine put Leno on the cover last week and called him the future of television.
Apart from saving corporations bucketloads of money, the diminished output would be a pity. Even if the standards set by HBO (which a majority of American homes don't have) in recent years have embarrassed NBC and the rest of them, the networks can still occasionally put out good stuff. From the Lost/Heroes format, FlashForward is based on the premise that the whole world lost consciousness for a couple of minutes and everybody caught a glimpse of how their lives would be exactly six months down the line. Confusing yet entertaining time-travel chaos ensues and Joseph Fiennes (the latest English actor to try to pull a lucrative Hugh Laurie) is the FBI agent trying to keep the whole thing together.
Of a different timbre yet also very positively-previewed is The Good Wife. Julianna Margulies, beloved ER alumnus, is the spouse of a disgraced politician played by Chris Noth. Following Mr Big, eh, sorry, her husband's involvement in a sex scandal, Margulies must rebuild her family and restart her own career as a lawyer. Apart from a couple of reliable leads, The Good Wife should also profit from the fact its subject matter is so timely in these parts where governors and senators apparently can't keep it in their pants.
Fidelity will no doubt crop up in The Modern Family, a highly-touted sitcom attempting to capture the non-nuclear nature of family life in contemporary suburbia. Using the mock-documentary format, among the stereotypes lampooned are the gay couple with children, the older man with the trophy wife, and the trying-too-hard-to-be-friends-with-his-kids dad. Sounds familiar, but most critics reckon this is one to watch.
It doesn't matter what anybody says though because right now all of the rookie productions are at the starting line, hoping to become the next Seinfeld or Grey's Anatomy, and dreading turning into this year's Emily's Reasons Why Not.
You will probably have never heard of Emily's Reasons Why Not. With good reason. A sitcom about a publishing executive played by Heather Graham, it was cancelled after one episode, back in 2006. Twenty-two minutes and out. Tough crowd.
September 13, 2009
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