Good Shows, Bad Networks, Part 2: Vampires and Swingers

No, I'm not done griping about TV yet. On Wednesday I singled out ABC for its recent record of puzzling/annoying/stupid programming decisions, but ABC is certainly not the only network guilty of handling shows poorly.

CBS's vampire drama Moonlight started promisingly in the fall of 2007. It came back after the writers' strike and completed 16 episodes. CBS held off on a renewal announcement, and for a while things were looking hopeful, but then yoink! Was there closure to the story lines? I'm not sure, because at the time I wasn't watching, but SciFi is kindly running the whole season in order this winter, on Friday nights at 9 PM (not so coincidentally, its time slot when it was on CBS). It's no Buffy, but I'm liking the show (with the exception of the reporter character, who's really annoying) and wishing I'd watched it the first time around. My mother did, and although our TV tastes are considerably different, I should have listened to her on this one.

For a while there were whispers that another network would acquire rights to the show and produce new episodes. SciFi was most frequently mentioned, but nothing came of it. Once again, I find myself wishing a network had been willing to show enough respect for its fans to just let a show be. For one thing, Friday at 9 isn't exactly a super-competitive time slot these days. Since it's Friday, let's take a little detour over to the TV Guide web site and see what's playing tonight at 9, shall we? (Keep in mind the sort of folks who are likely to be at home on a Friday night.)

Our friends at ABC have two hours of 20/20, featuring Siegfried and Roy's reunion/farewell performance (well, um, there's really nothing I can add to that); on NBC there's a new episode of Friday Night Lights (the show has been critically lauded from the beginning, but I have never been able to muster an ounce of interest in watching it); Fox has Buffy/Angel/Firefly auteur Joss Whedon's new scifiish-actionish series Dollhouse, which is still sorting itself out (only three episodes have aired); CW has two hours of America's Next Top Model (zzzzzz....); and over on CBS, in Moonlight's old slot, is Flashpoint, a Canadian import about a critical-incident/hostage-rescue team that I've seen about five minutes of (it reminded me of the old show S.W.A.T. that was on briefly when I was a kid, but I guess it kind of matches up well in terms of potential audience with Numbers, which follows it at 10 PM).

I should also point out that Flashpoint was not the show CBS originally had in mind to fill this slot after canceling Moonlight. That distinction went to The Ex List, an Americanized version of an Israeli show about a woman who is told by a fortune teller that a man from her past, someone she has already dated, is her soul mate and future husband, and that she has one year to figure out which ex was the one or she will never find true love. CBS had high hopes for this one, looking to draw female viewers with complementary programming that would match up well with Ghost Whisperer, which led into it at 8 PM, but it lasted for only four episodes back in the fall before they pulled the plug and all the Moonlight fans went, "Dudes, you canceled our show for that? Lame."

Flashpoint was a summer show that CBS acquired (relatively) cheaply through a production partnership with a Canadian network. I don't know whether or not they expected it to become part of the regular-season schedule, but after The Ex List tanked CBS had a hole to fill. A lot of times a network will fill such spaces in its schedule with reruns of its other hit shows. (that's pretty much what's happening on all the broadcast networks on Saturday nights these days) and that's what CBS did for a short time. I imagine they were already thinking about bringing Flashpoint back, and just moved up its return so they could charge more for the ad time (ads in reruns are cheaper, and therefore bring a network less revenue).

Which brings me to Swingtown, another 2008 summer show and recent CBS casualty. I liked Swingtown, a serious, adult show about changing social and sexual attitudes in the mid-1970s, and I blame Flashpoint for Swingtown's cancellation. Both shows started around the same time last summer, Swingtown on Thursdays in the 10 PM slot after reruns of CSI, while Flashpoint was put on Fridays, borrowing the Numbers slot. But after a few weeks, Flashpoint was drawing much better ratings than Swingtown, which was expected to draw better numbers because CSI tends to repeat well and they figured people would just stick around for something that wasn't a repeat.

CBS then flipped the two shows' time slots--Flashpoint to Thursdays, Swingtown to Fridays--thereby pretty much guaranteeing Swingtown's ratings would get even worse, which of course they did. At least CBS aired all 13 produced episodes. Then, as with Moonlight, there were months of speculation as to whether the show would return, or perhaps might find a home on another network. Maybe its provocative themes scared off some viewers; maybe it belonged on a non-broadcast network where it wouldn't be subject to FCC rules and could explore those themes more provocatively.

In January, CBS officially announced that Swingtown would not be returning anywhere, though Bravo bought the rights to rerun the episodes. So CBS gets a show that draws decent ratings in the time slot, but it's about the most generic show imaginable. And even though I didn't need another reason not to watch Flashpoint, I got one anyway.