I'm old enough to remember the "good old days" of network television. Perhaps you are, too--you know, back when a new show was given a commitment for an entire season's production? Take, for instance, 1981's Hill Street Blues, a groundbreaking drama set in a New York police station. Ratings the first season were absolutely abysmal, and yet, NBC left it on the air for the entire season. At the end of the year, the drama picked up eight Emmys, was renewed for season two, and went on to run for seven full seasons.
Fast forward to 2006. I don't watch a ton of television, mainly 24 and CSI (Las Vegas, not New York or Miami). But when the fall 2006 season started, two new shows caught my eye: NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and ABC's Day Break. Studio 60 was a potentially intriguing "behind the scenes" look at a live weekend comedy show (i.e. Saturday Night Live), produced by Aaron Sorkin, whose work I've liked in the past. Day Break's premise was more unique and complicated--a police detective is framed for a murder, and he keeps waking up to the same day, over and over (ala Groundhog Day). He then spends the repetitive day slowly figuring out who framed him and why.
I started watching both shows last fall...only to have ABC and NBC cancel both shows before they even made it through one season. Day Break was canceled after only a handful of shows; Studio 60 made it through 16 (of what might be typically 20 to 25 shows in a season). NBC claims Studio 60 will be back "later," but I'm not holding my breath. ABC, at least, had the decency to run Day Break as an online series--you can watch all the episodes online for free, and the season finale "airs" this Wednesday.
But the bigger point is that these shows really didn't get a long enough run to find an audience. Sure, both might have wound up being total losers (Studio 60 was degrading into a weird romantic comedy, for instance). However, the studios didn't give either show a real chance to succeed. That's a shame, because good or bad, I feel they at least deserved a full season's worth of opportunity for success--just like Hill Street Blues.
The end result of my latest foray into network television? I see no reason to ever again invest my time in watching a new series: the risk that I won't even get to see one season's storyline through to its conclusion is just too high. Instead, I guess I'll let others take the risks, then go back and watch earlier seasons on DVDs, as I did when I got hooked on 24 three years into its run. Of course, my actions mean that the networks will have one less viewer watching their new series, probably helping further accelerate their demise.
It's a shame, really, that there's so much pressure for instant series success now. I feel sorry for the creatives who have to pour blood and sweat into their projects, only to see them axed after a handful of shows receive poor ratings. I don't know what the solution is, I just long for a return to the good old days :).
Even worse was the series 3 lbs, about brain surgeons, that lasted a mere 3 episode (1 lb each?). While not the greatest series, you'd think that only 3 episodes is nowhere near enough for anyone to know how well it would succeed over time...
The window's gotten shorter and shorter, honestly. Shows need to do extremely well in a small period of time, and if they don't, they get yanked unceremoniously. Which is kind of funny, when you figure the amount of money the networks are paying to have all these episodes made. You'd figure that they'd at least try to get their money's worth by broadcasting whatever they've filmed. It's even worse than the record industry's insistence on mega hits—at least there are indie labels in the music world; the same can't really be done with television.
Case in point: a few years ago, Fox aired four episodes of an excellent show called Wonderfalls, despite the fact that 13 had been filmed. It's now available on DVD, which is nice, and has become sort of a cult hit. Likewise, NBC pulled another promising show this year, Kidnapped; it finished airing it online, as ABC is doing with Day Break, and it seems like it's coming to DVD in April, which is nice. But I, for one, will be rather pissed if NBC decides to hold the rest of Studio 60 in its vaults.
You know Rob this article eerily echoes thoughts I've been having for the past two years - almost word for word too.
When you look at american television's most honored and defining shows, most of them were tanking during their first-year run. All in the Family, MASH, Cheers... they all had shaky starts. Today, NONE of them would make it past a few episodes. Network executives have become so focused on advertising audiences they've forgotten the reason people tune in in the first place. Are we really expected to "adopt" characters instantly? is there no room to grow into a show's premise? or let those shows find their rhythm? They don't allow time for people to even find the shows anymore.
Last night we noticed Studio 60 was replaced by - yet another - new series. We went to the NBC website to see what was going on. Not much info. This is such a blatant disregard for the very audience they're striving to keep. It makes you just want to turn off network tv entirely.
My girlfriend and I have been burned so many times these last few years that we were genuinely surprised Heroes had been picked up for the entire season. When we got hooked to the first few shows we joked that it was probably going to get cancelled.... that's how lucky we've been with network series!
Let's see now: Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, Invasion, Threshold, Wonderfalls and now Studio 60. A lot of these critics darlings. All cancelled within months (or weeks). Wonderfalls was replaced with REPEAT episodes of Extreme Makeover for god's sake.
Arghh. Thanks for expressing our repressed anger in a clear and concise manner Rob.
By today's standards, NBC actually gave Studio 60 quite a chance. But I agree that airing shows for less than a dozen episodes doesn't really give most people a chance to catch on. I've even seen some series cancelled after only a single episode aired. If the networks had acted like that in the past, many "classic" shows never would've survived: Seinfeld, Cheers, Family Ties, etc.
24 is a good example, because it didn't actually do that well out of the starting gate and it was questionable whether it would even get to the 24th episode. I didn't get into it until I saw it repeated on FX and caught up partway in the first season.
Ugh, I thought they were just doing some post-Oscars temporary nonsense, because I had previously read they bought a whole season... but Wikipedia and its sources say otherwise. Damn.
At least there wasn't a plot arc that needed upwrapping, like other shows whose loss I am occasionally reminded to mourn.
Of course the most famous one recently was Fox and their abysmal handling of Firefly.
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