State Of The Union: New Fall Television
Although the Rent My Blog program seems to have lost some speed, this hasn't slowed me down from pimping my new tenants. This week I welcome Adventures In Everyday Life. I hope you visit her, if not to see her kickass, Wonder Woman inspired design, then to show her some love as her most recent post talks about how "nobody" reads her. I possCome on now people. Let's prove her wrong!
Every fall, three things are a certainty in my world: a new school year starts, the drop in temperature is always unwelcome and startling and a new television season takes precedence, though not necessarily in that order.
Each year's television lineup is a healthy mix of returning favorites and eager to please, new kids on the block. This got me thinking. Is it harder to be an old returning favorite or a new guy, trying to get attention?
Now that the majority of the new fall shows have had a few weeks to settle in, I thought it would be best to break things down the way I see them. Of course in order to break down how I see the new fall shows, I have to actually see the new fall shows. Duh. This is why I decided to categorize them. Basically I do all the work so you don't have to. No need to thank me. The categories are as follows...
Cut From The Same Cloth-ers - This category is compromised of shows that have nearly the same premise however they are entirely different programs, or so they say. First up is Fox's Vanished not to be confused with NBC's Kidnapped. Although on different networks their plots are nearly identical. In each show someone of importance has been kidnapped and it is up to the team of professionals to bring them home safely. If you're keeping score at home, Kidnapped technically has bigger name stars like Timothy Hutton and Dana Delany, but it hasn't mattered much considering the show has already been given the kiss of death and will be moving to Saturdays, "eventually".
And while I have enjoyed both shows on some level (I personally like Kidnapped more) I could see how either show could be a hard sell. I mean, can you see shows like Kidnapped or Vanished being successful and sustaining five or more seasons? Just how long can the missing person scenario be fresh and exciting? In general I am not a fan of this genre being used in a series setting. For a miniseries? Great. But it's like Lost. They still haven't found what they're looking for. Sooner or later, even U2 will tire of watching that.
Next up in this category is the fric and frac combo of 30 Rock and Studio 60. With both Studio 60 and 30 Rock the angle would be a unique one, yet ironically it is no longer unique when another show has very similiar inspiration. Both shows offer us a behind the scenes look of what it's like in the not so glamorous world of late night sketch comedy. 30 Rock, though yet to premiere, is decidedly the more humor-filled of the two, but that doesn't change the fact that if you as a viewer are into checking out Studio 60, chances are you would like to check out 30 Rock as well.
As if the similiar settings wasn't odd enough, they both air on the same network where, get this, they are both obviously taking jabs at an actual show that airs, Saturday Night Live. Now it's doubly amazing. The fact that shows like these got on the air to begin with, especially when they are obviously working off an existing show that is struggling to tread water, astounds me. I can't say anything about 30 Rock yet, but I can say I like Studio 60. It is definitely and aquired taste though full of a lot of subtle entertainment humor. Translation? It will probably be gone by sweeps week.
Where People Stop Being Polite And Start Getting Real- This category covers the tricky new crop of reality tv shows. I call this group tricky because in many cases, techincally each season is new, even if the show itself is a repeat offender.
For example, in one corner we have returning shows like The Bachelor, Dancing With the Stars, The Amazing Race, while in the other corner we have the new contender, House of Carters. With The Bachelor, Dancing With the Stars and The Amazing Race the story remains the same, but the players have changed.
Yet the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. On The Bachelor the girls are just as crazy as before and the bachelor "seemingly" just as clueless. On Dancing With the Stars it's blatantly obvious who can dance and who can't. And then there are others that have an unfair advantage since they have most definitely danced professionally before, (I even have the VHS tapes to prove it!) despite saying otherwise.
Then there's the new addition to the reality show game, the catchy titled, House of Carters on E. Unfortunately the title is the only thing that is cute about this show. It follows the life of Backstreet Boy Nick Carter and his four siblings, only one of which you may have heard of before and probably will hear of since. This family follows the Britney Spears formula for fame. Just because you have the cash, doesn't mean you have class.
Save The Drama For Your Mama- The shows in this category are the new dramas on the horizon. Luckily all of them are very different from one another. Men In Trees is like Northern Exposure meets Ed. It's got a cast of quirky characters. And what better quirky place for these characters to live than the quirkified Alaska. It's always cold! There's more men than women! Now that's quirky! And hilarity ensues. Oh and did I mention the quirky cherry on top? The star of the show is the Quirky Queen herself, Miss Anne Heche! If someone like her can't make it playing an offbeat character I don't know where anyone can make it.
Then there's the heavy handed drama, Brothers and Sisters. Here we have a group of loosely connected brothers and sisters who look absolutely nothing alike so if that sort of thing bothers you, then this isn't the show for you. What can I say? Party of Five's genes it does not have. The matriarch of the show is the still downright adorable, Sally Field. Her children are played by Calista Flockhart, Rachel Griffiths, Balthazar Getty and two other actors. Basically they get progressively less known the younger they are in the line of lineage. It's a good show so far, but as it often seems to be with dramas with lots of storylines going on, we're still in the getting to know you phase of the relationship. Come back to me in a week or two when I have more of the neuroses down.
Finally the last two new dramas in this category are in the subcategory of "It's The End of the World As We Know It" dramas. These are the shows Heroes and Jericho. On Heroes, a group of otherwise ordinary people each discover seperately that they have extraordinary, comic bookesque talents. Each one of them is still in the disbelief stage of their powers and rightfully so. Just getting used to a new route to work is hard enough, let alone getting acquainted with suddenly being able to fly. In a related note one of the characters is played by actor Milo Ventimiglia who seemingly has a super power all of his own; the ability to look extremely ordinary but be given an extraordinary amount of career chances. Perhaps he was able to draw on that experience when he landed this role.
Jericho meanwhile is basically the poor man's Lost. It stars Skeet Ulrich who might be known to audiences as once being considered the poor man's Johnny Depp. But man, times how they have changed. Now Skeet is older, wiser... and scroungier. Here the residents of the small town of Jericho realize that something or someone has wiped out the majority of the US, if not the world. Somehow, someway the people of this town have managed to survive the battle. And unlike Lost the people of Jericho have a few things going for them. For one thing, they are not stuck in a five mile radius. For another their stories does not exist in flashbacks. We're living in real time here, people. Now if only we could make it just a tad more realistic, we'd be all set.
Shows 'The Count' Would Approve Of- Just to be silly I put together the shows The Nine and Six Degrees. Really these are dramas like the shows listed above, but somewhere along the way networks thought it would be cool to add numbers to their show titles. I think they took this idea from the musical trend a few years back. (You know, Matchbox 20, Eve 6...) But The Nine is really about ten people, which begs the question, why didn't they just round up and call it a day? I haven't been this confused since bands like The New Radicals took the name New Radicals, when really there was only one guy in the group. Unless of course this is a foreshadowing of a killing to come. If so, way to ruin the surprise, guys.
On Six Degrees there is no Kevin Bacon but there is a lot of sizzling. Don't let the catchy name fool you. Sure the lives of these people start to loosely intertwine, but there are very different and seperate storylines going on for the most part. I like this show. It's one of my faves of the season. I have no idea how it is doing in the ratings. Maybe it's better that way.
Odd "Men" Out- The final category is what I like to refer to as the Land of the Misfit Toys programming options. This is because they didn't really fit into any other category. One of these is the critically acclaimed Ugly Betty. Betty who is, "ugly" is hired by a fashion magazine, aka the land of the rich and the beautiful. She is hired by the head honcho who is making an effort to keep his philandering son out of corporate trouble. The weird thing about Ugly Betty is that it's not quite a drama, but it's not quite a comedy either. It's more cartoony, only with real people. And the actress who plays Betty, America Ferrera, is not ugly at all by the way. Just thought I'd say the record straight.
Then there's The Class. This show is a much, much waterdowned version of Friends. It revolves around former third grade classmates, reunited one night in a grand, symbolic gesture of one of said classmates to another.
The fact that a straightforward comedy like this ended up in the mismatched socks pile is odd. This is because once upon a time the weight of new programming was in the 30 minute comedic format. But the last few years or so have changed all that. True there are other new comedies, but most of them I'm not watching so I can't say anything about that. I can't say for certain but I think it has something to do with canned laughter. It's like soda. It's hard to go back to after you've been weaned off of it for so long.
If you managed to stay on this "channel" for my entire program you should now have a better understanding of this year's fall programmiing highlights. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging, already in progress.
Every fall, three things are a certainty in my world: a new school year starts, the drop in temperature is always unwelcome and startling and a new television season takes precedence, though not necessarily in that order.
Each year's television lineup is a healthy mix of returning favorites and eager to please, new kids on the block. This got me thinking. Is it harder to be an old returning favorite or a new guy, trying to get attention?
Now that the majority of the new fall shows have had a few weeks to settle in, I thought it would be best to break things down the way I see them. Of course in order to break down how I see the new fall shows, I have to actually see the new fall shows. Duh. This is why I decided to categorize them. Basically I do all the work so you don't have to. No need to thank me. The categories are as follows...
Cut From The Same Cloth-ers - This category is compromised of shows that have nearly the same premise however they are entirely different programs, or so they say. First up is Fox's Vanished not to be confused with NBC's Kidnapped. Although on different networks their plots are nearly identical. In each show someone of importance has been kidnapped and it is up to the team of professionals to bring them home safely. If you're keeping score at home, Kidnapped technically has bigger name stars like Timothy Hutton and Dana Delany, but it hasn't mattered much considering the show has already been given the kiss of death and will be moving to Saturdays, "eventually".
And while I have enjoyed both shows on some level (I personally like Kidnapped more) I could see how either show could be a hard sell. I mean, can you see shows like Kidnapped or Vanished being successful and sustaining five or more seasons? Just how long can the missing person scenario be fresh and exciting? In general I am not a fan of this genre being used in a series setting. For a miniseries? Great. But it's like Lost. They still haven't found what they're looking for. Sooner or later, even U2 will tire of watching that.
Next up in this category is the fric and frac combo of 30 Rock and Studio 60. With both Studio 60 and 30 Rock the angle would be a unique one, yet ironically it is no longer unique when another show has very similiar inspiration. Both shows offer us a behind the scenes look of what it's like in the not so glamorous world of late night sketch comedy. 30 Rock, though yet to premiere, is decidedly the more humor-filled of the two, but that doesn't change the fact that if you as a viewer are into checking out Studio 60, chances are you would like to check out 30 Rock as well.
As if the similiar settings wasn't odd enough, they both air on the same network where, get this, they are both obviously taking jabs at an actual show that airs, Saturday Night Live. Now it's doubly amazing. The fact that shows like these got on the air to begin with, especially when they are obviously working off an existing show that is struggling to tread water, astounds me. I can't say anything about 30 Rock yet, but I can say I like Studio 60. It is definitely and aquired taste though full of a lot of subtle entertainment humor. Translation? It will probably be gone by sweeps week.
Where People Stop Being Polite And Start Getting Real- This category covers the tricky new crop of reality tv shows. I call this group tricky because in many cases, techincally each season is new, even if the show itself is a repeat offender.
For example, in one corner we have returning shows like The Bachelor, Dancing With the Stars, The Amazing Race, while in the other corner we have the new contender, House of Carters. With The Bachelor, Dancing With the Stars and The Amazing Race the story remains the same, but the players have changed.
Yet the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. On The Bachelor the girls are just as crazy as before and the bachelor "seemingly" just as clueless. On Dancing With the Stars it's blatantly obvious who can dance and who can't. And then there are others that have an unfair advantage since they have most definitely danced professionally before, (I even have the VHS tapes to prove it!) despite saying otherwise.
Then there's the new addition to the reality show game, the catchy titled, House of Carters on E. Unfortunately the title is the only thing that is cute about this show. It follows the life of Backstreet Boy Nick Carter and his four siblings, only one of which you may have heard of before and probably will hear of since. This family follows the Britney Spears formula for fame. Just because you have the cash, doesn't mean you have class.
Save The Drama For Your Mama- The shows in this category are the new dramas on the horizon. Luckily all of them are very different from one another. Men In Trees is like Northern Exposure meets Ed. It's got a cast of quirky characters. And what better quirky place for these characters to live than the quirkified Alaska. It's always cold! There's more men than women! Now that's quirky! And hilarity ensues. Oh and did I mention the quirky cherry on top? The star of the show is the Quirky Queen herself, Miss Anne Heche! If someone like her can't make it playing an offbeat character I don't know where anyone can make it.
Then there's the heavy handed drama, Brothers and Sisters. Here we have a group of loosely connected brothers and sisters who look absolutely nothing alike so if that sort of thing bothers you, then this isn't the show for you. What can I say? Party of Five's genes it does not have. The matriarch of the show is the still downright adorable, Sally Field. Her children are played by Calista Flockhart, Rachel Griffiths, Balthazar Getty and two other actors. Basically they get progressively less known the younger they are in the line of lineage. It's a good show so far, but as it often seems to be with dramas with lots of storylines going on, we're still in the getting to know you phase of the relationship. Come back to me in a week or two when I have more of the neuroses down.
Finally the last two new dramas in this category are in the subcategory of "It's The End of the World As We Know It" dramas. These are the shows Heroes and Jericho. On Heroes, a group of otherwise ordinary people each discover seperately that they have extraordinary, comic bookesque talents. Each one of them is still in the disbelief stage of their powers and rightfully so. Just getting used to a new route to work is hard enough, let alone getting acquainted with suddenly being able to fly. In a related note one of the characters is played by actor Milo Ventimiglia who seemingly has a super power all of his own; the ability to look extremely ordinary but be given an extraordinary amount of career chances. Perhaps he was able to draw on that experience when he landed this role.
Jericho meanwhile is basically the poor man's Lost. It stars Skeet Ulrich who might be known to audiences as once being considered the poor man's Johnny Depp. But man, times how they have changed. Now Skeet is older, wiser... and scroungier. Here the residents of the small town of Jericho realize that something or someone has wiped out the majority of the US, if not the world. Somehow, someway the people of this town have managed to survive the battle. And unlike Lost the people of Jericho have a few things going for them. For one thing, they are not stuck in a five mile radius. For another their stories does not exist in flashbacks. We're living in real time here, people. Now if only we could make it just a tad more realistic, we'd be all set.
Shows 'The Count' Would Approve Of- Just to be silly I put together the shows The Nine and Six Degrees. Really these are dramas like the shows listed above, but somewhere along the way networks thought it would be cool to add numbers to their show titles. I think they took this idea from the musical trend a few years back. (You know, Matchbox 20, Eve 6...) But The Nine is really about ten people, which begs the question, why didn't they just round up and call it a day? I haven't been this confused since bands like The New Radicals took the name New Radicals, when really there was only one guy in the group. Unless of course this is a foreshadowing of a killing to come. If so, way to ruin the surprise, guys.
On Six Degrees there is no Kevin Bacon but there is a lot of sizzling. Don't let the catchy name fool you. Sure the lives of these people start to loosely intertwine, but there are very different and seperate storylines going on for the most part. I like this show. It's one of my faves of the season. I have no idea how it is doing in the ratings. Maybe it's better that way.
Odd "Men" Out- The final category is what I like to refer to as the Land of the Misfit Toys programming options. This is because they didn't really fit into any other category. One of these is the critically acclaimed Ugly Betty. Betty who is, "ugly" is hired by a fashion magazine, aka the land of the rich and the beautiful. She is hired by the head honcho who is making an effort to keep his philandering son out of corporate trouble. The weird thing about Ugly Betty is that it's not quite a drama, but it's not quite a comedy either. It's more cartoony, only with real people. And the actress who plays Betty, America Ferrera, is not ugly at all by the way. Just thought I'd say the record straight.
Then there's The Class. This show is a much, much waterdowned version of Friends. It revolves around former third grade classmates, reunited one night in a grand, symbolic gesture of one of said classmates to another.
The fact that a straightforward comedy like this ended up in the mismatched socks pile is odd. This is because once upon a time the weight of new programming was in the 30 minute comedic format. But the last few years or so have changed all that. True there are other new comedies, but most of them I'm not watching so I can't say anything about that. I can't say for certain but I think it has something to do with canned laughter. It's like soda. It's hard to go back to after you've been weaned off of it for so long.
If you managed to stay on this "channel" for my entire program you should now have a better understanding of this year's fall programmiing highlights. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging, already in progress.
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