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« Battle Of The Networks
2008 Upfront Letters
With upfront season wrapping up I thought I would give you my two cents on the recent announcements, in letter form! Before I start I would like to alert you of the trend of the year, British imports (read on to learn more).
Dear ABC
Dear ABC...
Lets start with some encouragement. Four of your freshman series' from last year are heading into a second year, you're importing a popular British series in the form of Life on Mars, and your network is on top of the ratings. Now on to your problems, you have two new shows coming out this fall! One of these new shows, Opportunity Knocks, looks to be a lame attempt for ABC to finally cash in on the current game show trend in which America seems infatuated with, thanks Deal or No Deal. The majority of the series' in which you premiered last season could be said to have been given the benefit of a doubt, as many could argue that many of these shows (such as Eli Stone, Pushing Daisies, Private Practice, and Dirty Sexy Money) were affected by the strike and also suffered from relatively low support in the ratings department and probably would have been canceled if the previous television season had been a typical one. Now, lets talk about Life on Mars, successfully importing a British phenomenon into American pop-culture has been done before by The Office and Planet Earth but this import concept has not yet been proven to be constantly successful, hello Viva Laughlin and Coupling. Therefore Life on Mars is a very risky gamble, and according to reports about behind the scenes trouble the show could disappoint not only ratings wise but also creatively. The show could become the next Lost or Heroes or it could turn out to be a Bionic Woman, personally I will be tuning in. I have a question for you, where exactly is Cupid? Is Rob Thomas out of work? This is the question I can't wait to know the answer to. Now lets move on to the REALLY bad. Your network is host to such quality shows such as Wife Swap, Supernanny, Funniest Home Videos, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (why not just call it "Extreme Makeover"?), According to Jim, and The Bachelor. Thank God Big Shots isn't still around.
Sincerely,
tv(mike)
P.S. Congratulations on snatching up Scrubs.
Dear CBS
Dear CBS...
When reports about your Upfront's starting coming out I groaned, I thought "oh great, more boring procedurals and uninteresting sit-coms." Then I looked at your program schedule and saw titles such as "Project Gary" that just wreaks of sit-com badness, "Eleventh Hour" that just wreaks of boringness, and "The Ex List" which looks like the title for a bad romantic comedy. But for the sake of crafting a fair account of the upcoming tv season I decided I should check out what these shows are actually about. Sure you guys have a The New Adventures of Old Christine wannabe named Project Gary, and a show called The Mentalist which has the most boring plot summary I have seen so far this year (a man who uses his heightened power of observation to help solve crimes), and Jerry Bruckheimer's latest drama (sure it will do wonders in the ratings department) which sounds like a bad rip-off of The X-Files called Eleventh Hour, and a very blatant attempt to cash in on Lost's success called Harpers Island, but to tell you the truth the premise of Project Gary and Worst Week still look funny, and Harpers Island if handled well could be really fun. Yet again this is CBS and you guys practically have every person over 50 watching your network, but this year I believe that you have taken some big steps towards being an interesting network, at second glance. Looks like Life on Mars won't be the only British import this year, it will be accompanied by Eleventh Hour and Worst Week which in combination with Life on Mars might make British imports more common in America.
Sincerely,
tv(mike)
Dear CW
Dear CW...
Relatively speaking you guys have kept things safe this year. Banking in on the success of Gossip Girl with the much anticipated Beverly Hills 90210 spin-off and Surviving the Filthy Rich (based on yet another book series featuring spoiled rich kids), and launching a sure-fire hit reality show from the mind of Tyra Banks called Stylista. But at the same time how can I blame you for providing more of the same? Recent reports that the network might become extinct during their third year due to low ratings is scary to see as we watch the network become a larger and more entertaining brand, even without Veronica Mars(the only thing worse than canceling the show would be to have rebooted the show as a procedural). At the same time The CW has made some bizarre choices this year, scraping its comedy development, paring two un-proven freshmen shows (90210 and Surviving the Filthy Rich) on Tuesday without any lead-in, and giving us absolutely nothing on Saturday and Sunday (although Sunday nights schedule is reported to be announced soon), bringing back an unsuccessful freshman show from last year (Reaper), and seemingly canceling a one time hit (Beauty and the Geek) after a single unsuccessful season due to a temporary revamp of the reality series' formula (hello Amazing Race: Family Edition). The biggest question I am interested in finding the answer to is which (if any) Gossip Girl-esque freshman series (90210 or Surviving the Filthy Rich) will be successful, if not both. On the outside you would expect 90210 to be the early favorite with its building hype and built in audience from the original, but don't overlook Filthy Rich, it looks more similar to Gossip Girl and could be safer if 90210 tanks creatively or ratings wise. I am predicting a win for both shows. Even if these two shows fail the network has a sure-fire hit in Stylista, it obviously will retain almost all of the audience from Top Model.
Sincerely,
tv(mike)
Dear FOX
Dear FOX...
This is the problem with your network. When I look at the list of returning shows I see I only have been watching your Sunday night animated block. That's it. I don't even watch that every week. This is the biggest hurdle your network has to beat. Your network follows every American stereotype (I know this being a Canadian looking in on America and seeing our American stereotypes reflected in the programming), is so male driven, is so dependent on the popularity of reality tv (three of your nights are completely filled with alternative programing), and so dependent on Seth McFarlane (he is slowly taking over Sunday night with American Dad, Family Guy, and the Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show). The network needs to recognize that Fox programming is so predictable and to a degree unappealing. However this year you have stepped up and have earned my attention much like CBS. Now, even though Do Not Disturb wreaks of FOX your new programing could be brilliant or it could simply be more trash. You guys raked in two of the most anticipated new series from two of televisions most interesting creators (J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon) which are Fringe and Dollhouse, and both look fairly promising, Fringe being the better looking wannabe X-Files of the season, and Dollhouse looking like fun sci-fi goodness. The buzz surrounding those two shows are predicted to translate into high numbers for your network. Bringing who I didn't know was a popular character to his own spin-off of Family Guy could pay off for the network with ratings or could simply steal too many jokes from the already packed McFarlane mind and take away ratings for all three shows (the two others being American Dad and Family Guy). At the same time the Mitchell Hurwitz created Sit Down, Shut Up sounds promising mostly because of the large number of comedians the show has attracted to guest on (Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Cheri Oteri just to mention a few) but at the same time it could be extremely lame, just like its plot. Of course this might all be useless speculation as all of these new shows could be canceled fairly soon, knowing you guys they are all probably already canceled.
Sincerely,
tv(mike)
Dear NBC
Dear NBC...
Is it possible that your network is host to a... CURSE? Lets look back on the past two fall seasons. What were the two arguably most anticipated new series' of the past two seasons? To me I believe they were Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Bionic Woman. Where are those two shows now? Erased from many TV fans brains. Now it isn’t odd for a network to cancel a show, heck, FOX practically cancels every single freshman show that isn’t a reality or a game show. The thing that sets your networks recent failures apart is the high expectations for the shows. Many may argue that they did not expect much from these two shows, but if you look at the people behind the scenes on these shows you have to give them respect for their previous projects, Aaron Sorkin being the mastermind behind Sports Night and the indisputably legendary West Wing, and the Bionic Woman crew made Battlestar Galactica go from cheesy to cool. So which new NBC show could fall next to the curse? The case may made for Knight Rider (not interested, sorry), but wait a minute audiences already approved this reboot by turning in to watch the recent TV movie. The Office spin-off is getting plenty of heat right now, but the truth is that the people behind the scenes of The Office are witty and funny so why are we arguing about getting more of their humor? Oh yeah, the one hour episodes that started off the fourth season to little fanfare, and its very possible that with both The Office and this spin-off around at the same time that the combination of the two will feel the same as an hour long episode. I believe the show will do fine with ratings, earning almost as much as The Office, but one problem you need to face is making sure that the built in audience of The Office will tune in to this new spin-off, if you do that than you will be fine. My Own Worst Enemy has an unappealing title, made only cheesier once you read the description, but ultimately its plot seems interesting, now its just a matter of time until we hear more about the quality of the show, and this is the same story with Kings which mixes biblical stories with a soapy feel. Merlin has the potential to rake in an audience but I believe that the story wont captivate many Americans, and yet again its the same story with Kath & Kim, which features a generic sit-com plot, but also has the very funny Molly Shannon. SNL hits primetime this year on Thursday nights, which I am interested in seeing as I have been watching SNL recently, but I have to ask how the show is expecting to produce another 1/2 hour of television when its current broadcasts have plenty of throwaway sketches. So this leaves us with the one and only Crusoe, based on the legendary survival book Robinson Crusoe. Crusoe is the front runner for inheriting the NBC curse. From what I can see at this time there are high expectations for the show as any fans of the book will surely show up to watch, the only question left is if the show will fail in the ratings department. Its hard to see this early on if the show will or won't be cursed but at the time it is the front runner in my eyes. Apart from Merlin I can't wait for next season and what you will bring us.
Sincerely,
tv(mike)
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May 16, 2008 8:02 PM
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