Little boxes
I usually don't have much interest in writing about TV in any detail because it's pretty constant. I find a few shows I like and I watch them until they're canceled. I guess my life would be more exciting if I was one of those internet people who falls insanely in love with a show and then violently turns on it after five seasons/two seasons/six episodes, but that's not really how I roll. First, I have a pretty good eye for shows so most of the stuff I like doesn't get bad (and/or gets canceled too fast for that to happen). Second, if something does go south, like Boston Public after season one or The X-Files after season seven, it usually works out in a way that it's about time for me to lose interest.
Anyway, the advent of episode-by-episode TV blogs like TiFaux and TV Club and Thomas's LJ has put me in the mood, so let me take you through the TV season according to me, complete with some actual ratings quasi-analysis. I got in the habit of watching ratings for my favorite shows when, for awhile, pretty much all of my favorite shows were in danger of getting axed. I think that's settled down for now but I still watch them for the same half-interest in statistics that makes me pay attention to movie box office. Plus, I like to monitor the progress of smart, weird, and funny shows versus total abominations. Usually total abominations win.
Breaking the smart-weird-funny curse, at least for now, the best new show of the year, Pushing Daisies, was recently picked up for a full season. My first thought after watching the pilot, dovetailed with how long it would stay on the air, was how long the creators could actually keep it up if it did stay on the air. The pilot was almost too perfect
The three episodes following the pilot were not quite as letter-perfect, but if this turns out to be like Lost, where in a lot of ways the pilot can't ever be topped but the series is still excellent, then I'm fine with it. What I've noticed now is how that feeling of uncertainty -- how can this keep going as a series? -- has morphed into something pleasurable. The central mystery of this show is not "how will Buffy defeat the big bad?" or "who is Lily Kane's killer?" but "what can they do next?" That they've been able to (so far) answer the question on a weekly basis while still prompting echoes of it in the back of your head once the episode is over actually makes the show even more enjoyable, a stylish high-wire act. And it's frankly sort of a relief not be immersed in soap-opera-style ultra-continuity. Also, sometimes the characters sing.
Audiences seem to be rolling with it, too, at least in decent-sized numbers. In fact, after anxiously reading next-morning ratings to check whether Veronica Mars kept it above three million viewers, seeing Pushing Daisies settle in for an audience in the ten-million range is kinda surreal. Of course, ten or fifteen years ago these numbers would be questionable, but it's a different game now; networks seem to be very slowly catching onto the fact that the future of television is niches, not mass-appeal hits (the number of which will plummet further once the CBS demographic starts to die off -- or do you just start watching CBS once you hit a certain age? That would be kinda surreal if I just woke up one morning and thought, I am fifty, and I have a craving for crime-related acronyms!). Having a loyal audience, even if it's only in the single-digit millions, is more of an option.
This is reflected in the fact that for the first month or so of the TV season, hardly anything was canceled or picked up for the back-nine; almost everything on the four major networks seemed to be registering somewhere between six and twelve million viewers per week, and the networks were left waiting not just for the other shoe to drop, but for the first shoe, too. Eventually CBS blinked and axed Viva Laughlin; it was almost like they were relieved to have something to cancel quickly like the fall seasons of yore -- although the episode and a quarter of Laughlin I saw was certainly not much good, I've still seen more of it than almost a decade's worth of combined CSIs. Even Laughlin, which averaged about seven million viewers between its two airings, was only a couple million shy of some of the season's maybe-successes. I'm pretty sure the top five new scripted series so far are Samantha Who? (averaging around 12 million viewers unless it had a massive drop-off last night); Private Practice (averaging around 11-12 million viewers), Pushing Daisies (around 10 million), Bionic Woman (also around 10 million), and Women's Murder Club (around 9 million). Ranking shows after that would almost be pointless because so many of them fall into the seven-to-eight-million range. The networks can no longer afford to cancel something just for not reaching ten million viewers anymore.
I really feel that a couple of wonderful shows -- Arrested Development and Veronica Mars, mainly, though maybe also Futurama -- got caught right on the cusp of this movement. They got more episodes (in the 50-70 range) than they would've in the past with the same numbers, but at the same time, Gossip Girl was The CW's sexy hip replacement for Veronica, and scored an almost immediate full-season pickup off of ratings that are actually about as bad, if not a little worse, than Veronica's (I think they're about on par with the Mars season average, but a bit lower than the numbers it posted in the fall, which was always when it seemed to do better; I'm not sure why). Nothing about the histories of Dawson's or The O.C. suggests that hip sexy teen shows are slow-building phenomena that peak in years three or four, so I'm not sure why The CW is so bullish over their new one except out of sheer desperation for soap, and lowered expectations.
Speaking of Veronica, I DVR'd Heroes and fast-forwarded everything except the parts with Kristin Bell. So far it's very easy to imagine that I'm watching webisodes where Veronica has had her trusty taser implanted into her fingers.
Apart from Daisies and Lost when it comes back, my other primetime shows are all on that NBC comedy block that, quietly and about a decade and a half past its supposed prime, actually got really good. Remember how even it its heyday, it would be two and a half shows people liked and at least one show that was really awful?
Now the two best shows comprise my favorite hour of TV: 30 Rock and The Office. It took two shows and several years, but I finally feel somewhat at peace with no longer being able to watch Arrested Development. The feeling I get watching 30 Rock and The Office is one similar to how I felt watching that show, or Seinfeld, or vintage Simpsons, and unusual to television in general: it's gratitude. I actually feel thankful that someone is making weekly comedy shows this good.
The Office caught some flack for those hour-long episodes at the beginning of the year, and though they weren't as tight as some of their best half-hours, there's not much I would've recommended cutting. As far as I'm concerned, the show continues to be pitch-perfect; every time it looks like it might be too sweet, or too formulaic, or too silly, they'll just nail some kind of insanely correct detail, like everyone in the conference room watching the DVD screensaver bopping around and hoping it fits straight into the corner, or the rapid-fire staff-wide grammar debate, or Dwight's creation of a Second Life character within Second Life, and I'll fall in love all over again.
Speaking of in love: the Jim and Pam relationship hasn't been diminished at all by consummation. The characters are still the Jim and Pam we know and love; the focus of the show just shifts a little, to accommodate the different dynamic. It's amazing, in fact, to see a relationship on TV that isn't suffocated by soapy drama; The Office is so good that it makes me question the conventional wisdom that having two beloved TV characters get together is always a bad idea -- they just make it seem like every other show was doing it wrong. Friends, for example, which was never as wonderful as its biggest fans thought nor as awful as its hippest detractors said, hit a major stumbling block in that Ross and Rachel were a lot more effective as an unrequited couple than as an actual couple; even before the inevitable one jillion make-ups and break-ups, within their relationship the writers always had to find little bits of strife and drama to drive the plot. You rarely saw them as happy and it was hard to buy them as people who should be together. Monica and Chandler worked a bit better in this respect, but it still all moved pretty quickly into the domestic side of things: marriage, trying to have a baby, etc.
Jim and Pam, though, have changed subtly and at a perfect, natural pace. I don't want to gush, but I know my Jim/Pam love will always come in second after Rob, anyway, who said something to the effect of he would kill himself if they broke up. I'm sure they'll introduce some kind of drama or tension there eventually, but knowing that the writers are confident enough to actually let them have a sweet, believable relationship that doesn't overtake the show. It's a strong statement that this show is not ultimately about will-they-or-won't-they; it's about the characters. And about Creed stealing stuff.
30 Rock is more like the true heir to Arrested Development in that it's fast-paced, full of cutaways and asides and running gangs, and it sometimes borders on the surreal. Also, I find the number of women I know who seem to instinctively respond to the Tina Fey character quite touching. She's definitely the best single woman on TV since Murphy Brown. And way cuter. Sometimes I'm afraid 30 Rock will burn itself out but I'm thinking if Newsradio could go five seasons, so can they. 30 Rock also uses guest stars better than anyone since The Simpsons (and how awesome was it to have Steve Buscemi turn up on both Simpsons and 30 Rock within a week? And is it just me or have there been a couple of really damn funny Simpsons episodes so far this season, including the Buscemi one?).
Ratings-wise, 30 Rock has gotten a boost by sitting between My Name is Earl and The Office, averaging about a million more viewers than last season, but it's still (so far) the ratings weakling among the four (Scrubs has only aired once so far and may settle down to 30 Rock-ish numbers). My feeling is that they've tinkered with a couple of different 30 Rock slots -- at 9PM between The Office and Scrubs, and now the 8:30 position -- but the absolute best would probably be 9:30, following The Office at 9. I think Earl-Scrubs-Office-Rock would have a slightly better flow than the current order, but that's probably just nitpicking. 30 Rock just isn't going to be a breakout hit, not even at the mid-level (eight to ten million viewers) like Earl and The Office, and can we chalk this up to anything but popular taste, to the degree that it still exists on TV, really sucking? I'm not sure if this is still true, but a couple weeks into the season, Cavemen was being watched by more people on a weekly basis than 30 Rock. I'm assuming NBC likes the Emmy win, the critical buzz, the cult appeal, the demographics, etc., enough to keep the show around, especially with Scrubs entering its final year (if you have three sitcoms that aren't ending, and one of them won the most recent Emmy, you kinda look like an ass if you cancel it, right?). But then again, Fox gave Arrested a vote of confidence only to cut its season in half, so you never know what's coming.
Oh, and I guess I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the reality shows I see in bits and pieces: Beauty and the Geek and Kid Nation. They're both enjoyable in the sense that they're ridiculous, yet don't enable any alcoholics (as far as I know) nor glamorize complete idiots more than is absolutely necessary. But it's a measure of reality-show filler that I can miss chunks of and/or entire episodes at a time and not really miss anything. In fact, Marisa telling me what happened on Kid Nation is sometimes more fun than actually watching it.
Anyway, the advent of episode-by-episode TV blogs like TiFaux and TV Club and Thomas's LJ has put me in the mood, so let me take you through the TV season according to me, complete with some actual ratings quasi-analysis. I got in the habit of watching ratings for my favorite shows when, for awhile, pretty much all of my favorite shows were in danger of getting axed. I think that's settled down for now but I still watch them for the same half-interest in statistics that makes me pay attention to movie box office. Plus, I like to monitor the progress of smart, weird, and funny shows versus total abominations. Usually total abominations win.
Breaking the smart-weird-funny curse, at least for now, the best new show of the year, Pushing Daisies, was recently picked up for a full season. My first thought after watching the pilot, dovetailed with how long it would stay on the air, was how long the creators could actually keep it up if it did stay on the air. The pilot was almost too perfect
The three episodes following the pilot were not quite as letter-perfect, but if this turns out to be like Lost, where in a lot of ways the pilot can't ever be topped but the series is still excellent, then I'm fine with it. What I've noticed now is how that feeling of uncertainty -- how can this keep going as a series? -- has morphed into something pleasurable. The central mystery of this show is not "how will Buffy defeat the big bad?" or "who is Lily Kane's killer?" but "what can they do next?" That they've been able to (so far) answer the question on a weekly basis while still prompting echoes of it in the back of your head once the episode is over actually makes the show even more enjoyable, a stylish high-wire act. And it's frankly sort of a relief not be immersed in soap-opera-style ultra-continuity. Also, sometimes the characters sing.
Audiences seem to be rolling with it, too, at least in decent-sized numbers. In fact, after anxiously reading next-morning ratings to check whether Veronica Mars kept it above three million viewers, seeing Pushing Daisies settle in for an audience in the ten-million range is kinda surreal. Of course, ten or fifteen years ago these numbers would be questionable, but it's a different game now; networks seem to be very slowly catching onto the fact that the future of television is niches, not mass-appeal hits (the number of which will plummet further once the CBS demographic starts to die off -- or do you just start watching CBS once you hit a certain age? That would be kinda surreal if I just woke up one morning and thought, I am fifty, and I have a craving for crime-related acronyms!). Having a loyal audience, even if it's only in the single-digit millions, is more of an option.
This is reflected in the fact that for the first month or so of the TV season, hardly anything was canceled or picked up for the back-nine; almost everything on the four major networks seemed to be registering somewhere between six and twelve million viewers per week, and the networks were left waiting not just for the other shoe to drop, but for the first shoe, too. Eventually CBS blinked and axed Viva Laughlin; it was almost like they were relieved to have something to cancel quickly like the fall seasons of yore -- although the episode and a quarter of Laughlin I saw was certainly not much good, I've still seen more of it than almost a decade's worth of combined CSIs. Even Laughlin, which averaged about seven million viewers between its two airings, was only a couple million shy of some of the season's maybe-successes. I'm pretty sure the top five new scripted series so far are Samantha Who? (averaging around 12 million viewers unless it had a massive drop-off last night); Private Practice (averaging around 11-12 million viewers), Pushing Daisies (around 10 million), Bionic Woman (also around 10 million), and Women's Murder Club (around 9 million). Ranking shows after that would almost be pointless because so many of them fall into the seven-to-eight-million range. The networks can no longer afford to cancel something just for not reaching ten million viewers anymore.
I really feel that a couple of wonderful shows -- Arrested Development and Veronica Mars, mainly, though maybe also Futurama -- got caught right on the cusp of this movement. They got more episodes (in the 50-70 range) than they would've in the past with the same numbers, but at the same time, Gossip Girl was The CW's sexy hip replacement for Veronica, and scored an almost immediate full-season pickup off of ratings that are actually about as bad, if not a little worse, than Veronica's (I think they're about on par with the Mars season average, but a bit lower than the numbers it posted in the fall, which was always when it seemed to do better; I'm not sure why). Nothing about the histories of Dawson's or The O.C. suggests that hip sexy teen shows are slow-building phenomena that peak in years three or four, so I'm not sure why The CW is so bullish over their new one except out of sheer desperation for soap, and lowered expectations.
Speaking of Veronica, I DVR'd Heroes and fast-forwarded everything except the parts with Kristin Bell. So far it's very easy to imagine that I'm watching webisodes where Veronica has had her trusty taser implanted into her fingers.
Apart from Daisies and Lost when it comes back, my other primetime shows are all on that NBC comedy block that, quietly and about a decade and a half past its supposed prime, actually got really good. Remember how even it its heyday, it would be two and a half shows people liked and at least one show that was really awful?
Now the two best shows comprise my favorite hour of TV: 30 Rock and The Office. It took two shows and several years, but I finally feel somewhat at peace with no longer being able to watch Arrested Development. The feeling I get watching 30 Rock and The Office is one similar to how I felt watching that show, or Seinfeld, or vintage Simpsons, and unusual to television in general: it's gratitude. I actually feel thankful that someone is making weekly comedy shows this good.
The Office caught some flack for those hour-long episodes at the beginning of the year, and though they weren't as tight as some of their best half-hours, there's not much I would've recommended cutting. As far as I'm concerned, the show continues to be pitch-perfect; every time it looks like it might be too sweet, or too formulaic, or too silly, they'll just nail some kind of insanely correct detail, like everyone in the conference room watching the DVD screensaver bopping around and hoping it fits straight into the corner, or the rapid-fire staff-wide grammar debate, or Dwight's creation of a Second Life character within Second Life, and I'll fall in love all over again.
Speaking of in love: the Jim and Pam relationship hasn't been diminished at all by consummation. The characters are still the Jim and Pam we know and love; the focus of the show just shifts a little, to accommodate the different dynamic. It's amazing, in fact, to see a relationship on TV that isn't suffocated by soapy drama; The Office is so good that it makes me question the conventional wisdom that having two beloved TV characters get together is always a bad idea -- they just make it seem like every other show was doing it wrong. Friends, for example, which was never as wonderful as its biggest fans thought nor as awful as its hippest detractors said, hit a major stumbling block in that Ross and Rachel were a lot more effective as an unrequited couple than as an actual couple; even before the inevitable one jillion make-ups and break-ups, within their relationship the writers always had to find little bits of strife and drama to drive the plot. You rarely saw them as happy and it was hard to buy them as people who should be together. Monica and Chandler worked a bit better in this respect, but it still all moved pretty quickly into the domestic side of things: marriage, trying to have a baby, etc.
Jim and Pam, though, have changed subtly and at a perfect, natural pace. I don't want to gush, but I know my Jim/Pam love will always come in second after Rob, anyway, who said something to the effect of he would kill himself if they broke up. I'm sure they'll introduce some kind of drama or tension there eventually, but knowing that the writers are confident enough to actually let them have a sweet, believable relationship that doesn't overtake the show. It's a strong statement that this show is not ultimately about will-they-or-won't-they; it's about the characters. And about Creed stealing stuff.
30 Rock is more like the true heir to Arrested Development in that it's fast-paced, full of cutaways and asides and running gangs, and it sometimes borders on the surreal. Also, I find the number of women I know who seem to instinctively respond to the Tina Fey character quite touching. She's definitely the best single woman on TV since Murphy Brown. And way cuter. Sometimes I'm afraid 30 Rock will burn itself out but I'm thinking if Newsradio could go five seasons, so can they. 30 Rock also uses guest stars better than anyone since The Simpsons (and how awesome was it to have Steve Buscemi turn up on both Simpsons and 30 Rock within a week? And is it just me or have there been a couple of really damn funny Simpsons episodes so far this season, including the Buscemi one?).
Ratings-wise, 30 Rock has gotten a boost by sitting between My Name is Earl and The Office, averaging about a million more viewers than last season, but it's still (so far) the ratings weakling among the four (Scrubs has only aired once so far and may settle down to 30 Rock-ish numbers). My feeling is that they've tinkered with a couple of different 30 Rock slots -- at 9PM between The Office and Scrubs, and now the 8:30 position -- but the absolute best would probably be 9:30, following The Office at 9. I think Earl-Scrubs-Office-Rock would have a slightly better flow than the current order, but that's probably just nitpicking. 30 Rock just isn't going to be a breakout hit, not even at the mid-level (eight to ten million viewers) like Earl and The Office, and can we chalk this up to anything but popular taste, to the degree that it still exists on TV, really sucking? I'm not sure if this is still true, but a couple weeks into the season, Cavemen was being watched by more people on a weekly basis than 30 Rock. I'm assuming NBC likes the Emmy win, the critical buzz, the cult appeal, the demographics, etc., enough to keep the show around, especially with Scrubs entering its final year (if you have three sitcoms that aren't ending, and one of them won the most recent Emmy, you kinda look like an ass if you cancel it, right?). But then again, Fox gave Arrested a vote of confidence only to cut its season in half, so you never know what's coming.
Oh, and I guess I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the reality shows I see in bits and pieces: Beauty and the Geek and Kid Nation. They're both enjoyable in the sense that they're ridiculous, yet don't enable any alcoholics (as far as I know) nor glamorize complete idiots more than is absolutely necessary. But it's a measure of reality-show filler that I can miss chunks of and/or entire episodes at a time and not really miss anything. In fact, Marisa telling me what happened on Kid Nation is sometimes more fun than actually watching it.