Re: TV Guide's Roush on ABC Fall
- From: "Steven L." <sdlitvin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 17:58:25 GMT
David wrote:
On to the shows. ABC’s unusually aggressive schedule, including 10 new
series (counting Saturday night’s new College Football franchise), is
heavy on single-camera comedies and high-concept dramas, many of the
latter involving strangers connected in random, mysterious ways. These
may be a tough sell for a network that is only returning one freshman
show (the midseason mediocrity What About Brian) from the current
season. Few seem to have the instant zing of a Desperate Housewives or
Lost—or even a Grey’s Anatomy, whose move to Thursdays is the most
talked-about salvo of upfront week so far.
Wow, talk about rewriting history. Back in spring 2004, when we first got word that Lost, DH and GA might be greenlighted, most media critics didn't think any of those shows would be big hits. They found Lost intriguing but were sure that viewers would be turned off by a show with such a complex, sweeping concept. And sneering comparisons to Survivor were common. GA was a surprise hit too; media critics never expected it to be a big hit like it turned out to be. Media critics changed their minds only after they got to watch entire episodes being broadcast, and saw the quality of the writing.
And the media critics laughed scornfully at Dancing with the Stars when it was announced too.
If there is going to be a big hit among ABC's freshman shows next season, it will probably be totally unexpected as well.
Monday: Looks to me like ABC dropped the ball here (pun intended).
With football no longer on the agenda, ABC has turned to a tired
lineup of reality concepts (Wife Swap, a Roman Bachelor sharing a time
slot with Supernanny) and the inexplicably renewed What About Brian?
"What About Brian" was likely renewed as a sop to its creator J.J. Abrams, whom ABC wants to keep on retainer. (Along with Six Degrees, Alias and Lost, ABC is clearly the Abrams "Bad Robot" network.)
Earlier on a rainy Tuesday morning, I stopped by the presentation of
nascent network MyNetwork TV, one of the ventures rising from the
ashes of the WB/UPN merger. (Chances are whichever station in your
market isn’t becoming a CW affiliate, it will go the MyNetwork way.)
Talk about sloppy seconds. This prime-time lineup consists of cheesy
13-week soaps (under the umbrella titles of Desire and Secret
Obsessions) that will be stripped Monday-Friday, with recap episodes
on Saturdays. From the laughable clips, it all looks like overheated
trash with subpar actors, a low-rent way to provide instant content to
stations left high and dry by the CW merger. But this is about
quantity (of episodes), not quality. Critics are immaterial to the
success of a bottom-feeding network like this. And as the execs
pointed out, this telenovela format of limited-run series with nightly
cliffhangers has been hugely popular in other cultures. (Yes, but was
there much competition?) All I can say is this isn’t MY idea of
network TV, thank you.
Nope, it's Bush's idea of "guest workers" watching MyNetwork telenovelas in their spare time as they struggle to learn English. :-)
--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email: sdlitvin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
.
- References:
- TV Guide's Roush on ABC Fall
- From: David
- TV Guide's Roush on ABC Fall
- Prev by Date: Re: "Grey's Anatomy" moving to Thursday against "CSI"
- Next by Date: Overnight Ratings - Tuesday 5/16/06
- Previous by thread: TV Guide's Roush on ABC Fall
- Next by thread: "Grey's Anatomy" producer interviewed about finale
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
Loading
