Word on the street has it that your fall T.V. schedule is in trouble. Your Thursday night comedy lineup is critically-approved but audience-ignored, your procedural crime dramas are going nowhere fast, you canceled yet another Aaron Sorkin show (bad move there — I actually liked Studio 60…) and your only bright spot is Heroes (I love the comic book supplements — good job there).
Here’s the thing: you have a great stable of shows on your cable assets — Monk, Psych and Battlestar Galactica come readily to mind. Why not draw upon that font of resources? The real fans have already seen the episodes, your production costs are effectively nil — just advertise the tar out of ’em.
Start running BSG from the very beginning on Wednesday nights. Replace Wedding Crashers or something else just as trite with Psych. You get the picture.
You’ve got the assets — use ’em, darn it!
G.E., NBC Universal: A Word, If You Please
I watched to first episode of Studio 60,….then promptly turned it off when one character likened the 700 Club to “a Klan rally without the hoods.”
Not that I’m defending the 700 Club, but it was just another typical Aaron Sorkin cheap shot at the right. He did it for years on The Left Wing and I didn’t see a reason to pander him some more.
BTW – If you’re going to bring in something new and different, why cancel Raines?
Don’t get me wrong — I have little sympathy for Sorkin’s politics, but the man can write dialog and compelling characters like few other writers in the TV trade these days. The West Wing went downhill quickly in the aftermath of 9/11, I feel, because the writers were put in an untenable position: they could not recreate 9/11 in TWW’s universe and so their Strong Liberal President fantasy increasingly became disconnected from the events of the real world. Pipe bombings at a school swim meet are a poor substitute for a mass-scale terrorist plot.
As for Raines, well, I suppose I’m just as guilty as anyone, as I watched maybe 5 minutes of it before flipping the channel.
I think shows are given far too little time to breathe, to grow, to gain an audience (ask Joss Whedon and Tim Minnear about that phenomenon) and thus mainstream TV suffers while cable affords shows such as Monk, et al. to gain traction, an audience and a voice.
Heck, maybe I’m just looking to the wrong people to fill my metaphorical entertainment basket with goodies — maybe I should be content with the offerings on cable/satellite and let the hoi polloi have their American Idol and Real Wedding Crashers.
Awww, who am I kidding? I’m not that cynical. I want others to enjoy and appreciate fine entertainment too.