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Short season - better or worse?
Well, that's it. It barely seems a week or two ago we were eagerly anticipating the return of our favorite shows after the strike and suddenly we're at finale stage and saying goodbye to them again. Almost every show came back to reduced ratings and I've read a number of reviews that are disappointed about storylines being rushed - so was this short comeback worth it?
As always, season finales in May provoke the more extreme happenings (characters getting injured or killed, actors leaving, "stunts" everywhere) so maybe that gives us a biased view, but it certainly seems like all of the shows have been trying to cram in as much as they can in these last few episodes. I'll only talk about 2 examples, but I saw the same type of things on a number of shows.
House Only 4 episodes after-hiatus but to me every one has been high-ranking (so far, but I have no doubt the finale will be too). While I would've liked a full-season of this standard, it may be that the strike meant we only saw the cream of the crop. Certainly having the two-part finale as half of the returned season drags the overall rating up dramatically.
The Wilson-Amber relationship was developed pretty quickly, but it was already in place before hiatus and reports suggest that the two-part finale was intended for Superbowl week, (which would've been about the same number of episodes in if Fox hadn't dragged their feet over showing new episodes in Jan when they knew they were limited), so maybe that was the intended timing all along.
CSI:NY In contrast, the Danny-grieving widow thread came at us really fast after hiatus, without much background. But if that had been planned for the second half of the season the writers may have had no choice but to jump into it quickly when they lost half-a-dozen opportunities for background comments and odd missed dates etc. The Taxi-Cab-Killer thread seemed to drag out even with the reduced season, so maybe not having quite so many episodes to continue the hunt was a good thing.
Overall, I'm grateful that any of my favorites made it back onto the air this spring, but I'll continue to wonder what we may have missed and how things might have developed given more time.
What do you think? Did the short-season inspire your favorite show or leave it rushed & crowded?
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May 18, 2008 7:48 PM
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does this include shows like 7th Heaven and Gilmore Girls-2 of my faves??
tvstar
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May 19, 2008 12:15 AM
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Like you with the two shows that you mentioned I think it was a balance. Some shows returned stronger, with tightly packed episodes that were as creative as anything they've done before and others seemed to just be trying to come up with stuff to fill the limited time. Either way I was glad to get them back for little while.
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May 19, 2008 10:50 AM
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In several instances, you can feel the renewed efforts post-strike vs. pre-strike. How much is real and how much the result of our joy at getting new episodes is questionable. The casualties were those that couldn't create enough audience due to the strike, like Moonlight.
And the big question is: Will we have a repeat of this scenario after June 30th?
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May 19, 2008 11:18 AM
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