Good Shows, Bad Networks, Part 4: A New Hope?

Well, I guess I got a little carried away. I didn't intend to go on so long about this stuff; it started as a simple post about the cancellation of a TV show I like, but the ideas kept coming and I had to divide it up. This is it (for now)...

The broadcast networks need to stop looking at each pilot as the next potential number one hit show, and expect it to be so five minutes after the show hits the air. Statistically it isn't going to happen, and often the shows that end up becoming hits don't look like hits early on. Now-revered shows like Seinfeld, The X-Files, Everybody Loves Raymond, and even CSI took a year or more to really catch on with viewers.

While they're at it, the broadcast networks also need to acknowledge that too many shows outstay their welcome. ER is finally going off the air in about a month, after how many seasons? 15! (I had to go look that up, as I stopped watching it years ago.) From what I've read, the critical consensus is that the show should have concluded four or five seasons ago, but like Detroit's automakers, NBC didn't have a plan for the future; instead of investing in finding another tent-pole drama to supplant ER as the big draw on Thursdays, they chose to milk as many seasons out of the show as they could. What now, NBC? What if you had been willing to end ER in 2004 and start airing Lost on Thursdays at 10 PM instead? The two shows draw about the same number of viewers these days, but which one has had more buzz over the past five years?

I became a fan of The X-Files as soon as I made its acquaintance in the fall of 1993, but even as a fan of the show who stuck with it all the way to the end, I feel it stayed on the air probably two seasons too long (Doggett and Reyes just weren't the same as Mulder and Scully), and when it finally ended I think most fans were relieved. Last year's poorly-received and poorly-reviewed movie indicated that the franchise has probably run out of gas, which is sad, because I'd like to think that an entity as special as The X-Files was at its peak could sustain itself in some form for a while longer.

For a long time British TV networks have developed limited-run, closed-end shows developed to play out over the course of a couple of seasons. This approach to programming gives show creators a framework on which to build a story with a beginning, middle, and end (the original UK versions of The Office and Life On Mars ran this way). Another BBC template is to introduce a central character or set of characters in a movie- or miniseries-length program like Prime Suspect and revisit those characters every year or two. CBS is currently doing this with a series of movies featuring Robert Parker's small-town sheriff Jesse Stone. The reviews are positive, and the fans look forward to each new installment.

Speaking of Lost, it started out as a show without a known end date, but during its third season in 2006-7, its creators took the unusual step of announcing that they had a plan to end the show after three more seasons. They were justifiably afraid that the onus of stringing the many strands of its extremely complex plot through an unknown number of additional seasons would weaken the show creatively; indeed, some argue that the show did weaken creatively during that third season and that's precisely what brought them to their decision.

Lost's creators also opted for shorter seasons that would run uninterrupted each winter and spring, which allowed the storytelling to thrive without the inevitable gaps necessitated by spreading out the episodes over a full eight-month season. So not only do the fans get more sustained doses of their beloved show, but they know that their investment is going to pay off by the spring of 2010, when the show is set to conclude. And let's give credit (for a change) to ABC for airing Lost in the first place, but more importantly, for agreeing that these were the right creative choices for the show.

Miniseries flourished in the 1970s, and there's no reason they couldn't do so again. CBS (again, hmm) has a self-contained program starting in April. Harper's Island is being billed as a 13-week "mystery event." It's basically Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None updated to the 21st century: a group of guests arrives on an island for a wedding, and soon the bodies start to pile up. Knowing the story has a finite structure makes me much more likely to watch it, because I know I won't have to wait more than a couple of months for the answers.

I think the approach to advertising and sponsorship needs to change as well. People have been skipping commercials since VCRs came into common use 20-some years ago to record programs to watch later. You can even program a button on your TiVo remote to skip ahead 30 seconds each time you push it. The networks' response to this is to try to develop ads that show up on top of the program being fast-forwarded and that cannot be avoided or turned off. This is exactly the wrong thing to do, as it's likely to alienate viewers further. Another network response, stepped-up product placement, can be even more bothersome, as arguably more viewers have experienced it than have a mandatory fast-forward ad. Personally I hate product placement, mainly because it always feels phony and it breaks the suspension of disbelief.

Fox is experimenting this season with two shows, Fringe and Dollhouse, that have shorter "pods" (the network term for commercial breaks). When the show goes to commercial, the screen says "(show name) will be back in 60 (or 90) seconds." Two or three commercials air, and then it's back to the action. Even if you use a DVR, this is more palatable because there's the added benefit that you get more show, about seven or eight minutes' more program than on a typical one-hour show. Naturally, FOX is charging more for the ads in these shows; they are telling their advertisers that viewers are more likely to remember ads when there are only two or three in a pod. Who knows if that's true, but I suppose it could be; more importantly, I give them credit for being willing to try a different approach.

Another related idea that I think deserves some consideration is to revisit the concept of single-advertiser sponsorships of programs, like in the 1950s. Some of the NBNs have used such sponsorships to present commercial-free season premieres of anticipated shows. I think this works best when it's presented as a sort of badge of prestige, i.e. only the better-quality programs are deserving of such an arrangement. I'm in favor of this sort of sponsorship, as long as the sponsor doesn't get any undue control of program content.

Either the threshold of expectations must be lowered, fundamental ideas about how to program need to be altered, or the Big Four should just stop bothering with new shows, because they appear to be unwilling to give them a chance to develop an audience. Ironically, ABC (the network I was directing my initial anger at) seems to have more new shows on tap for this spring than any other network, but I doubt I'm going to watch any of them.