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shadowkatLast night caught the season premiere of the new NBC television series Heroes.
First, I've got to take my hat off to NBC for delivering possibly the two most innovative dramas to hit the broadcast networks since Lost and Desperate Housewives, like them or hate them, you have to give Heroes and Studio 60 credit for being innovative and not complete rip-offs of someone else. Not to mention risky. The only risks NBC has taken in recent years have been with situation comedies - Scrubs, My Name is Earl and The Office come to mind. This year it is adding 30 Rock to its innovative sitcome line-up, proving that when it comes to comedy, NBC still is far ahead of the pack. (I'm limiting the pack to the broadcast networks, I'm well aware that Comedy Central and HBO/Showtime have done things which none of the broadcast networks can do - due to those nasty entities known as "network censors", not to mention inconsistent and somewhat hypocritical.) But drama wise? Up until this year, NBC has been lazy, resting on shows that go on and on forever, only occassionally changing their casts, but not much else. Paint by numbers television. We haven't seen an innovative drama sprout from the peacock network since well, ER, Law & Order, and The West Wing - which, wait, ER and Law & Order are STILL on? The shows that can't die. If you don't understand why they were innovative? Go rent the first seasons when both were still fresh. We can thank ABC and CBS for lighting a fire under NBC's butt, not to mention cable. Sure for a while the reality trend was working for the networks, cheap to make, yadda, yadda, yadda - but here's the thing - if people don't watch, no one cares. And after a while reality shows began to bore most viewers - the format became stale. ABC caught on first and developed not one but three dramas which were - get this not a reality show/documentary and not a criminal procedural. They finally realized the market had it hit its saturation point on both.
I more or less predicted this happening two or three years ago when everyone was worried reality shows would kill scripted television dramas and comedies. Told this to a friend of mine who feared that scripted/serial drama, which was not a criminal procedural, was for all intents and purposes dead. All we'd see were reality shows and endless copies of CSI and Law & Order. I told the friend not to worry, like all trends, sooner or later the reality show and the criminal procedural would wear out their welcome. People would get bored. Two- three years tops before market saturation, then we'd see a dramatic shift. The friend disagreed : "They are cheap to make and don't require many viewers." In short, they did not believe me. LOL! Clearly they'd never taken a marketing course or for that matter knew much about the biz of making TV.
Rule of thumb and repeat after me, when it comes to producing a TV show: Viewers matter. If people don't watch, they don't see the commericials, they don't buy the products, and your show bites the dust. If the people are paying for the show (ie. HBO and Showtime) and don't watch, they stop paying. So, bore your viewers and lose your show. Sure the cost/budget of a show matters but only to the extent people are watching and buying products. It's like selling your house - does not matter how much you spend on the baby, if no one buys it, you are out of luck. The trick is to get people to buy - and the better your presentation, the better it looks, the more it fits the needs of the buyer - the more likely they'll buy it. So you might want to modernize the kitchen if you want a better price, or change the roof. It won't guarantee you'll get a sale, but it will increase the odds of one. TV isn't all that different. Except in TV you are trying to attract a lot of buyers, a multitude of buyers who will look at and consider a multitude of products.
Another important thing to remember : In TV - it's not only a "numbers" game, it's also a "demographics" game - who the watcher is, what demo they fall under from the advertisers point of view. The demo has a heck of a lot to do with the level and type of advertiser you will attract - which also factors into the amount of money they'll spend to sponsor your show. The best, the one people want is 18-34, because these are the "impulse" buyers. People over 34 tend to be a bit more careful about money, they care about retirement and saving for the future. 18-34 just want to have fun. So, it is possible for a show like Veronica Mars to stay on for more than one season, even if its broad demo numbers are low (ie. does not appeal to over 34 crowd) because it hits that great 18-34 market. But, it also matters how many people watch it. If it falls below a certain amount, you can't attract the advertising dollars - and without those, no show. The show is there for those commericials you're flipping past with your Tivo or the product placements within the show that you despise. That's why it gets broadcast.
We can thank the reality format for two things - it taught network execs a lesson about their viewers. Viewers are smart. They like conflict. They don't want "nice". They are more than willing to watch nasty people, anti-heroes, and sniping - heck look at Survivor and the numbers Simon Cowell of American Ideal bring in. And they like puzzels and suspense. Also they don't mind it taking a while for the story to unfold or for the story to build on itself. It does not need to be resolved in one episode - if it is, cool, but that just means I don't have to watch next week. The other thing it taught the networks is while the budget of a series matters, the number of viewers and/or demographic of your viewers matters more to advertisers. As a result, say bye-bye to a docket full of cheap reality shows, and hello to the smart tv drama.
This may be the most interesting television season I've seen on air in ages. Certainly the first time I've had more than one show on literally every day of the week but Sat that I *really* wanted to make time to watch. Which means I'm going to have to invest in a DVR or Tivo soon. That said, Heroes is a seriously flawed drama. Oh, don't get me wrong, I adored it and will be watching it again next week. (*If you missed it - you can watch either on Friday at 7pm before Doctor Who on Sci-Fi or see it on NBC's site on the internet. Same place I saw the second episode of Studio 60.)
But, it took too long to get revved up and it has one too many characters and storylines to juggle. This is not something you can't manage on network TV - look at Lost, Desperate Houswives, Grey's Anatomy and The 4400, not to mention BattleStar Galatica all of which paved the way for the ensemble drama. Lost and 4400 proved that you can do a TV show with a huge cast of characters and storylines that at first do not appear to have much in common, yet upon reflection have a common thread - and still hold the audience's interest. The trick is to treat your audience with respect (ie. smart not stupid), hire charismatic actors, and come up with interesting backstories. Heroes appears to be doing that. The only problem with Heroes is we don't have a person to latch on to, a central focal point. It is too scattered. Both 4400 and Lost had a central character or characters to start with - in Lost it was Jack. In 4400 it's the two detectives. Same with BattleStar - Adama and his family. Heroes...I found myself hunting for one, was it the Indian guy, the Japanese guy, the cheerleader, the politician and his kidbrother, the painter, the mom with brilliant kid....hard to grasp. Instead we jump from one to the other, without much of a transistion. Now they do a good job of building suspense and jumping to another character just as they've done so is crafty but it is also annoying.
There is far too much "exposition" and that slowed down the pacing. To see how you can do exposition without slowing down the pace - check out BattleStar Galatica - the miniseries, or Studio 60. Or even Lost, in which we get it in quick flashes. And some of the exposition is a tad cliche - the mom running from the mob and doing porn videos, the smart professor hiding as a cab driver after his father was killed, the cheerleader who fears being a freak...the girl playing the cheerleader is a real find, by the way. She actually sold me on a role that I found sort of cheesy. What the show needs is balance and it also needs to find it's center, which characters to focus the most time on. Right now it feels a tad scattered and in the first half hour? I found it a little slow. It took off in the second hour, when the Japanese teleporter took center stage, along with the mom's odd and incredibly creepy skill.
Also, like I said before too many characters are introduced at once, I couldn't keep track of their names, assuming we got names? Did we get names? I feel funny calling them painter guy (sebastian?), flying brother, politician, indian guy, japanese geek, cheerleader, porno mom, brilliant kid, and evil guy with classes. Characters need NAMES that we can remember. Right now they just have stereotypical classifications and that is *not* good. Again this can be done well - see Lost, whose cast of 13 characters is introduced slowly over time. You know their names fairly early on. Same deal with BSG, and The 4400. I never refered to them by steretypical monikers. In a show that is driven by its characters, the audience must know their names up front, and remember them without having to re-watch or ask someone. We must have something to latch onto to give us a reason to care if this person lives or dies.
What works: The Japanese Teleporter (Is his name Hiro? I'd be willing to watch an entire series devoted to just this character, charming actor, not to mention wildly funny)and the cheerleader (the actress playing that part won me over, she gets across the creepiness of being invulnerable - there's a creepy sequence in which she puts her hand in a garbage unit to retrieve a ring then hides the healing maul behind her back, while talking to her mom. Also - her question to her mom regarding who her real parents are, and the reveal on who her daddy currently is..was enough in of itself to make me want to see next week's episode and skip whatever appears opposite.)
The other thing that works is the idea of inter-locking yet separate storylines, slowly being brought together through artwork - ie. a painter's art or a graphic novel. The idea of a meta-narrative, in which the show comments on becoming part of the pop culture around it - to the extent that it breaks the fourth wall. It is unfortunately a tough and risky style to pull off well. And to expect someone to pull it off brilliantly the first time out of the box? Not bloody likely. When watching a pilot, you have to give the art a little lee-way and keep in mind the pitfalls of writing for tv.
Developing a supernatural/sci-fantasy/superhero show for a broadcast network is not an easy task.
Number one - you have to contend with the fact that a good majority of your audience or rather the audience being tracked by that pesky group called Nielsen is not going to like anything that requires too broad a suspension of disbelief. They don't watch shows like Star-Gate, Star Trek, Farscape, Supernatural, Smallville, or even Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They see them as silly, campy, and not real - they can't identify with that genre. On the other hand - they do see shows such as Lost, BattleStar Galatica, X-Files, and the 4400 as wickedly cool. What's the difference? One group does not make an effort to take place in reality or the world that we know. The other does. One has prosthtetic monsters, one doesn't. One has people banding together to save the day, all for one, one for all, while the other is a tad less black and white and grittier. That's the perception at any rate. On cable or on a network like the CW - you can do the purer forms of sci-fantasy, less mainstream, more cult variety. But on a broadcast network - it is hard to grab a broad audience, unless that audience sees the show as being something they can identify with.
Lost and X-Files broke the barrier into mainstream. They are amongst the few to do so. BSG still hasn't accomplished it. And Buffy/Angel never did. Nor for that matter, did Star Trek - although it came close. Superhero shows have a different history, they have done well on broadcast networks, but only if the audience doesn't feel too silly watching them. Batman worked in the 60's and 70's for a while, not long, but a while because it was a campy send-up of the style. Superman also worked for a while back in the 1950s. Later we had the Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman - which worked in the same way Columbo, Monk, and The Dead Zone do - as sort of mystery/spy shows. They work, in short, if the audience can get into the character or enjoys the joke. In the 70's the superhero show was in - we had "The Greatest American Hero", "Wonder Woman" and "The Incredible Hulk" - all three worked because they focused on just one hero and were episodic in nature. But there are a few high concept superhero shows that were introduced in the 90s that did not work "Now and Again" comes to mind, along with "The Others" (at least I think that's what it was called - about a bunch of ghost-hunters). Both got a tad complicated and were hard to follow.
What Heroes appears to be attempting is to marry the superhero idea with the interlocking character study/meta-narrative format. That ain't easy. And they've made it even harder by introducing what appears to be 9 characters in the first 43 minutes. We are apparently getting four more next week. One of the main characters - the actor from Alias - a cop with telepathic abilities, isn't shown until the second episode. This is problematic for a new series. I think they would have made it easier for themselves and their audience if they'd taken a page from Lost and focused on just five in the pilot, then a couple of more, then a couple of more. The porno mom could have been pushed to another episode.
It's main plot thread, however, is fairly simplistic - almost disappointingly so. We are banding a bunch of people with evolving abilities together to save the world, while an evil scientist possibly working for the government plots to experiment on them and use them for his own reasons. (Hmmm...reminds me of the Pretender, Dark Angel, John Doe, and The 4400. The X-men to give it credit was about more than that.) On the other hand, its focus is not on the main plot thread or unifying factor - but rather about how does one deal with developing awesome physical and mental capabilities? How does it change you? How does it affect your relationships? Your fate? And how do you deal with destiny? The psychological side of the equation is what is fascinating the writers and the actors involved. Which is what makes Heroes more like The 4400 than say, Dark Angel. Also, there appears to be less interest in "governmental conspiracies" at the moment.
While the acting is admittedly uneven in places along with the direction, the show does have a couple of strong peformances and attributes that caught and kept my interest. Rare these days. The cheerleader and Japanese comic book geek fascinated me. Also the porno mom's creepy skill that I'm entirely sure about and has not been clarified. Plus - and this is a big plus, it is copying a trend started with Grey's Anatomy, Lost, and Veronic Mars - in presenting us with a multi-racial/lingual and ethnic cast. Instead of a bunch of people who all look alike - we get a diverse group, far more representative of our society as a whole and that will hopefully act to break down stereotypes. As an example, there is an entire sequence with cool subtitles that takes place entirely in Japan, with a Japanese pop band singing in stilted English. This looks like a show that is willing to take sizable risks. That wants to break the envelope and play a bit. I fear it won't get the chance, from the television reviews I saw in Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide, but I'm hoping it does. It's interesting. And I sort of like its chutzpah.
If you saw the pilot and had troubles with it, found that it drug a bit or didn't hold your interest?
I'd suggest giving it another chance. Watch at least four episodes before giving up. Granted there are a few shows that don't deserve that *cough*Jericho*cough* comes to mind. But I think this one does. It's different than most of the stuff on right now. Not an obvious rip-off or copy like Shark and Justic and Kidnapped and Vanished and Runaway are. It brings something new and if given a chance, I really think it could do change the television landscape for the better.
First, I've got to take my hat off to NBC for delivering possibly the two most innovative dramas to hit the broadcast networks since Lost and Desperate Housewives, like them or hate them, you have to give Heroes and Studio 60 credit for being innovative and not complete rip-offs of someone else. Not to mention risky. The only risks NBC has taken in recent years have been with situation comedies - Scrubs, My Name is Earl and The Office come to mind. This year it is adding 30 Rock to its innovative sitcome line-up, proving that when it comes to comedy, NBC still is far ahead of the pack. (I'm limiting the pack to the broadcast networks, I'm well aware that Comedy Central and HBO/Showtime have done things which none of the broadcast networks can do - due to those nasty entities known as "network censors", not to mention inconsistent and somewhat hypocritical.) But drama wise? Up until this year, NBC has been lazy, resting on shows that go on and on forever, only occassionally changing their casts, but not much else. Paint by numbers television. We haven't seen an innovative drama sprout from the peacock network since well, ER, Law & Order, and The West Wing - which, wait, ER and Law & Order are STILL on? The shows that can't die. If you don't understand why they were innovative? Go rent the first seasons when both were still fresh. We can thank ABC and CBS for lighting a fire under NBC's butt, not to mention cable. Sure for a while the reality trend was working for the networks, cheap to make, yadda, yadda, yadda - but here's the thing - if people don't watch, no one cares. And after a while reality shows began to bore most viewers - the format became stale. ABC caught on first and developed not one but three dramas which were - get this not a reality show/documentary and not a criminal procedural. They finally realized the market had it hit its saturation point on both.
I more or less predicted this happening two or three years ago when everyone was worried reality shows would kill scripted television dramas and comedies. Told this to a friend of mine who feared that scripted/serial drama, which was not a criminal procedural, was for all intents and purposes dead. All we'd see were reality shows and endless copies of CSI and Law & Order. I told the friend not to worry, like all trends, sooner or later the reality show and the criminal procedural would wear out their welcome. People would get bored. Two- three years tops before market saturation, then we'd see a dramatic shift. The friend disagreed : "They are cheap to make and don't require many viewers." In short, they did not believe me. LOL! Clearly they'd never taken a marketing course or for that matter knew much about the biz of making TV.
Rule of thumb and repeat after me, when it comes to producing a TV show: Viewers matter. If people don't watch, they don't see the commericials, they don't buy the products, and your show bites the dust. If the people are paying for the show (ie. HBO and Showtime) and don't watch, they stop paying. So, bore your viewers and lose your show. Sure the cost/budget of a show matters but only to the extent people are watching and buying products. It's like selling your house - does not matter how much you spend on the baby, if no one buys it, you are out of luck. The trick is to get people to buy - and the better your presentation, the better it looks, the more it fits the needs of the buyer - the more likely they'll buy it. So you might want to modernize the kitchen if you want a better price, or change the roof. It won't guarantee you'll get a sale, but it will increase the odds of one. TV isn't all that different. Except in TV you are trying to attract a lot of buyers, a multitude of buyers who will look at and consider a multitude of products.
Another important thing to remember : In TV - it's not only a "numbers" game, it's also a "demographics" game - who the watcher is, what demo they fall under from the advertisers point of view. The demo has a heck of a lot to do with the level and type of advertiser you will attract - which also factors into the amount of money they'll spend to sponsor your show. The best, the one people want is 18-34, because these are the "impulse" buyers. People over 34 tend to be a bit more careful about money, they care about retirement and saving for the future. 18-34 just want to have fun. So, it is possible for a show like Veronica Mars to stay on for more than one season, even if its broad demo numbers are low (ie. does not appeal to over 34 crowd) because it hits that great 18-34 market. But, it also matters how many people watch it. If it falls below a certain amount, you can't attract the advertising dollars - and without those, no show. The show is there for those commericials you're flipping past with your Tivo or the product placements within the show that you despise. That's why it gets broadcast.
We can thank the reality format for two things - it taught network execs a lesson about their viewers. Viewers are smart. They like conflict. They don't want "nice". They are more than willing to watch nasty people, anti-heroes, and sniping - heck look at Survivor and the numbers Simon Cowell of American Ideal bring in. And they like puzzels and suspense. Also they don't mind it taking a while for the story to unfold or for the story to build on itself. It does not need to be resolved in one episode - if it is, cool, but that just means I don't have to watch next week. The other thing it taught the networks is while the budget of a series matters, the number of viewers and/or demographic of your viewers matters more to advertisers. As a result, say bye-bye to a docket full of cheap reality shows, and hello to the smart tv drama.
This may be the most interesting television season I've seen on air in ages. Certainly the first time I've had more than one show on literally every day of the week but Sat that I *really* wanted to make time to watch. Which means I'm going to have to invest in a DVR or Tivo soon. That said, Heroes is a seriously flawed drama. Oh, don't get me wrong, I adored it and will be watching it again next week. (*If you missed it - you can watch either on Friday at 7pm before Doctor Who on Sci-Fi or see it on NBC's site on the internet. Same place I saw the second episode of Studio 60.)
But, it took too long to get revved up and it has one too many characters and storylines to juggle. This is not something you can't manage on network TV - look at Lost, Desperate Houswives, Grey's Anatomy and The 4400, not to mention BattleStar Galatica all of which paved the way for the ensemble drama. Lost and 4400 proved that you can do a TV show with a huge cast of characters and storylines that at first do not appear to have much in common, yet upon reflection have a common thread - and still hold the audience's interest. The trick is to treat your audience with respect (ie. smart not stupid), hire charismatic actors, and come up with interesting backstories. Heroes appears to be doing that. The only problem with Heroes is we don't have a person to latch on to, a central focal point. It is too scattered. Both 4400 and Lost had a central character or characters to start with - in Lost it was Jack. In 4400 it's the two detectives. Same with BattleStar - Adama and his family. Heroes...I found myself hunting for one, was it the Indian guy, the Japanese guy, the cheerleader, the politician and his kidbrother, the painter, the mom with brilliant kid....hard to grasp. Instead we jump from one to the other, without much of a transistion. Now they do a good job of building suspense and jumping to another character just as they've done so is crafty but it is also annoying.
There is far too much "exposition" and that slowed down the pacing. To see how you can do exposition without slowing down the pace - check out BattleStar Galatica - the miniseries, or Studio 60. Or even Lost, in which we get it in quick flashes. And some of the exposition is a tad cliche - the mom running from the mob and doing porn videos, the smart professor hiding as a cab driver after his father was killed, the cheerleader who fears being a freak...the girl playing the cheerleader is a real find, by the way. She actually sold me on a role that I found sort of cheesy. What the show needs is balance and it also needs to find it's center, which characters to focus the most time on. Right now it feels a tad scattered and in the first half hour? I found it a little slow. It took off in the second hour, when the Japanese teleporter took center stage, along with the mom's odd and incredibly creepy skill.
Also, like I said before too many characters are introduced at once, I couldn't keep track of their names, assuming we got names? Did we get names? I feel funny calling them painter guy (sebastian?), flying brother, politician, indian guy, japanese geek, cheerleader, porno mom, brilliant kid, and evil guy with classes. Characters need NAMES that we can remember. Right now they just have stereotypical classifications and that is *not* good. Again this can be done well - see Lost, whose cast of 13 characters is introduced slowly over time. You know their names fairly early on. Same deal with BSG, and The 4400. I never refered to them by steretypical monikers. In a show that is driven by its characters, the audience must know their names up front, and remember them without having to re-watch or ask someone. We must have something to latch onto to give us a reason to care if this person lives or dies.
What works: The Japanese Teleporter (Is his name Hiro? I'd be willing to watch an entire series devoted to just this character, charming actor, not to mention wildly funny)and the cheerleader (the actress playing that part won me over, she gets across the creepiness of being invulnerable - there's a creepy sequence in which she puts her hand in a garbage unit to retrieve a ring then hides the healing maul behind her back, while talking to her mom. Also - her question to her mom regarding who her real parents are, and the reveal on who her daddy currently is..was enough in of itself to make me want to see next week's episode and skip whatever appears opposite.)
The other thing that works is the idea of inter-locking yet separate storylines, slowly being brought together through artwork - ie. a painter's art or a graphic novel. The idea of a meta-narrative, in which the show comments on becoming part of the pop culture around it - to the extent that it breaks the fourth wall. It is unfortunately a tough and risky style to pull off well. And to expect someone to pull it off brilliantly the first time out of the box? Not bloody likely. When watching a pilot, you have to give the art a little lee-way and keep in mind the pitfalls of writing for tv.
Developing a supernatural/sci-fantasy/superhero show for a broadcast network is not an easy task.
Number one - you have to contend with the fact that a good majority of your audience or rather the audience being tracked by that pesky group called Nielsen is not going to like anything that requires too broad a suspension of disbelief. They don't watch shows like Star-Gate, Star Trek, Farscape, Supernatural, Smallville, or even Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They see them as silly, campy, and not real - they can't identify with that genre. On the other hand - they do see shows such as Lost, BattleStar Galatica, X-Files, and the 4400 as wickedly cool. What's the difference? One group does not make an effort to take place in reality or the world that we know. The other does. One has prosthtetic monsters, one doesn't. One has people banding together to save the day, all for one, one for all, while the other is a tad less black and white and grittier. That's the perception at any rate. On cable or on a network like the CW - you can do the purer forms of sci-fantasy, less mainstream, more cult variety. But on a broadcast network - it is hard to grab a broad audience, unless that audience sees the show as being something they can identify with.
Lost and X-Files broke the barrier into mainstream. They are amongst the few to do so. BSG still hasn't accomplished it. And Buffy/Angel never did. Nor for that matter, did Star Trek - although it came close. Superhero shows have a different history, they have done well on broadcast networks, but only if the audience doesn't feel too silly watching them. Batman worked in the 60's and 70's for a while, not long, but a while because it was a campy send-up of the style. Superman also worked for a while back in the 1950s. Later we had the Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman - which worked in the same way Columbo, Monk, and The Dead Zone do - as sort of mystery/spy shows. They work, in short, if the audience can get into the character or enjoys the joke. In the 70's the superhero show was in - we had "The Greatest American Hero", "Wonder Woman" and "The Incredible Hulk" - all three worked because they focused on just one hero and were episodic in nature. But there are a few high concept superhero shows that were introduced in the 90s that did not work "Now and Again" comes to mind, along with "The Others" (at least I think that's what it was called - about a bunch of ghost-hunters). Both got a tad complicated and were hard to follow.
What Heroes appears to be attempting is to marry the superhero idea with the interlocking character study/meta-narrative format. That ain't easy. And they've made it even harder by introducing what appears to be 9 characters in the first 43 minutes. We are apparently getting four more next week. One of the main characters - the actor from Alias - a cop with telepathic abilities, isn't shown until the second episode. This is problematic for a new series. I think they would have made it easier for themselves and their audience if they'd taken a page from Lost and focused on just five in the pilot, then a couple of more, then a couple of more. The porno mom could have been pushed to another episode.
It's main plot thread, however, is fairly simplistic - almost disappointingly so. We are banding a bunch of people with evolving abilities together to save the world, while an evil scientist possibly working for the government plots to experiment on them and use them for his own reasons. (Hmmm...reminds me of the Pretender, Dark Angel, John Doe, and The 4400. The X-men to give it credit was about more than that.) On the other hand, its focus is not on the main plot thread or unifying factor - but rather about how does one deal with developing awesome physical and mental capabilities? How does it change you? How does it affect your relationships? Your fate? And how do you deal with destiny? The psychological side of the equation is what is fascinating the writers and the actors involved. Which is what makes Heroes more like The 4400 than say, Dark Angel. Also, there appears to be less interest in "governmental conspiracies" at the moment.
While the acting is admittedly uneven in places along with the direction, the show does have a couple of strong peformances and attributes that caught and kept my interest. Rare these days. The cheerleader and Japanese comic book geek fascinated me. Also the porno mom's creepy skill that I'm entirely sure about and has not been clarified. Plus - and this is a big plus, it is copying a trend started with Grey's Anatomy, Lost, and Veronic Mars - in presenting us with a multi-racial/lingual and ethnic cast. Instead of a bunch of people who all look alike - we get a diverse group, far more representative of our society as a whole and that will hopefully act to break down stereotypes. As an example, there is an entire sequence with cool subtitles that takes place entirely in Japan, with a Japanese pop band singing in stilted English. This looks like a show that is willing to take sizable risks. That wants to break the envelope and play a bit. I fear it won't get the chance, from the television reviews I saw in Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide, but I'm hoping it does. It's interesting. And I sort of like its chutzpah.
If you saw the pilot and had troubles with it, found that it drug a bit or didn't hold your interest?
I'd suggest giving it another chance. Watch at least four episodes before giving up. Granted there are a few shows that don't deserve that *cough*Jericho*cough* comes to mind. But I think this one does. It's different than most of the stuff on right now. Not an obvious rip-off or copy like Shark and Justic and Kidnapped and Vanished and Runaway are. It brings something new and if given a chance, I really think it could do change the television landscape for the better.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 04:46 pm (UTC)Oh, Heroes is normally on Mondays
Date: 2006-09-27 05:10 pm (UTC)So you can watch it on Mondays.
Agree about Tuesday. Thank God, Eureka is having it's season finale next week and isn't continuing.
So Tuesday night is now, hopefully going to be House and Veronica Mars. If they switch House's time slot on me, I may have a problem.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 05:11 pm (UTC)As far as no strong central character, apparently the main protagonist appears in the second episode, another pretty bold move. Hopefully the viewing audience will have patience to wait till next week.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 05:22 pm (UTC)Time was - people gave shows a chance, nowadays they expect the pilot to win them over. But pilots don't always work and often a show with a fantastic pilot, Joan of Arcadia and Now and Again both come to mind, falls apart later. While shows with weaker pilots can take off.
Yep, the police guy is going to be the central character, I'm thinking. Played by the same actor who had been on Alias as Vaughn's under-appreciated sidekick, Weiss. Part of the reason I initially decided to check out this show was for him. That said, Hiro is a real find and the best thing in the first episode.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 05:22 pm (UTC)As you may have read in my comment to ponygirl, I'm not entirely on board with Studio 60. It's well-paced, snappy, and Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford are as charismatic and charming a pair of leads as you're going to get on prime time.
But Aaron Sorkin may be the wrong man to write a show about a sketch comedy series. Sorkin has a sophisticated dry wit and all his characters are dignified with a capital D: they have class, style and erudition. But when it comes to sketch comedy, dignity is usually the enemy--you have to be willing to do anything to get a laugh. Sorkin doesn't seem to be able to convey the craziness, the lunatic desperation, behind the scenes of an SNL-type series. The whole enterprise seems both slightly stale and muted.
Nonetheless, I could be premature in my conclusions, and I'm willing to wait a few weeks to see if AS can get down and dirty. He needs to lighten up on his speechifying; he needs to get off the Matt/Harry subplot, because that--and Sarah Paulson in general--isn't doing anything for me; and he might have to bump Amanda Peet and Steven Weber from regular status, because top network brass has better things to do than babysit a single late-night comedy show.
As for Heroes: I loved almost every minute of it. The garbage disposal scene with the cheerleader is exactly the kind of gruesomely funny throwaway I'd write myself. And yes, the Japanese comic book geek's name IS Hiro....
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 08:15 pm (UTC)For a lot of reasons.
I like Studio 60 for a lot of the reasons you don't, and if it became what you want it to become, I'd probably stop watching. If you want that - I think that is 30 Rock. Lots of people online don't get that - there's two series. One is about the zany goings on behind the scenes of a sketch comedy series - in a way is a lampoon of it = 30 Rock, a situation comedy. The other is about the politics involved in creating a tv show that just happens to be a late-night sketch comedy. It's not about the writing process so much as the process involved in getting those sketchs on air. One is about the writing - the comedy, the other about the business. And there's no one better in the industry to write about the inner political maneuverings of the TV biz than Sorkin.
So - you are going into Studio 60 expecting what you stated above "the behind scenes zany goings on at a sketch comedy series" - like what Sports Night tried to be - and you are of course disappointed.
But that's not what the show is about.
Note - it is called "Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip" - the main characters are a TV Network President, a network executive, a writer, a director, then the "supporting" or "bit players" are the actors and you have a major character who runs the control booth. If it were about the zany goings on behind a sketch comedy or focused merely on how you put together this type of series, they probably wouldn't have the Steven Webber character, much like you said above and Amanda Peet would be in a smaller role. But it is not about that - it is a "dramedy" not a "comedy" (note the length and time slot) and it is focused on network politics. So, hate to say this, but if you continue to watch it with the idea its about writing a zany sketch comedy series, you won't like it. That's my difficulty with a great deal of my flist's criticism - they are criticizing the show for things it has no interest or desire to do. They want it to be SNL or 30 Rock or Sports Night. When that's not the intent. Be like me criticizing Heroes for not being like X-men or 4400.
Of the two shows, I think Studio 60 achieves what it sets out to. Whether you want to watch that or not, is another matter. Heroes isn't there yet.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 01:01 pm (UTC)I'm not looking for Studio 60 to be 30 Rock. 30 Rock is apparently going to be a "wacky workplace comedy" with Tina Fey as the harried head writer who tries to corral her nutcase cast while a supremely clueless network exec (Alec Baldwin, who is killing me in the commercials) adds an additional scoop of misery to her work week. It's not going to be a serious discussion of the issues surrounding an SNL-like show and how it impacts society.
Studio 60 is about the intersection between art and commerce. How a show like SNL affects American culture, how the nation responds, and how TV reacts to the pressures of reactionary elements within society who cannot abide transgressive art--in this case, comedy that pushes the envelope.
Sorkin has set up the framework quite well, and we see the pressures of commerce on art very clearly in the first two episodes. I especially liked the countdown clock in Wes' old office, a constant reminder of the bone-crushing pressure on Matt and Danny to put out quality product week after week after week.
But if you're going to show the battle between art and commerce, sooner or later, you're going to have to present the "art." You have to make me believe that this writing staff, this staff of comic actors, can put on a TV show that will thrill a majority of the viewing public--and piss off an angry minority, to the point where the Steven Weber and Amanda Peet characters have to step in. You don't necessarily have to show any of the sketches, but you have to judge from observing these people backstage that they're talented enough, funny enough, to pull it off.
Right now, I don't believe it.
The Big Three--Simon (D.L. Hughley), Harriet (Sarah Paulson), and Jeannie (Jeannie's #3, right?)--aren't funny. They sound like they'd be perfectly competent comic actors within a sketch comedy framework, but Sorkin hasn't invested them with the star quality, the unique personalities that draw the public to performers. At this point, Simon feels more Garrett Morris than Eddie Murphy; Harriet is Jane Curtain without the timing; and if Jeannie is supposed a Gilda Radner-type gamine, she's not even in the same universe.
I don't need to talk to you about "where art comes from". You know better than anyone. With Studio 60, I'm not getting the desperate need to please the audience, the sublimated bitter anger at society, the enormous appetites, or any of the other psychological motivations that fuel most transgressive comedy.
Sorkin has time to provide that psychological backing for his cast. But if he blows it off and just keeps telling us how funny Studio 60 is without giving us the funny, my suspension of disbelief will be permanently un-suspended.
Suspension of disbelief
Date: 2006-09-28 02:11 pm (UTC)And I learned first hand in college during a creative writing course - that it is also to a degree a subjective thing. I'd written a short story based on my grandparents, my grandfather had had three brain tumors removed, they were cancerous and he'd survived, but his mind was irreparably damaged. One of the people in the class blasted the story and me as being ludicrous and offensive, because her relative died with one brain tumor and based on her experience this was ludicrous.
I've watched enough episodes of SNL to find it believable that there are actors on it that aren't funny. Have you seen it in recent years? Ugh. And the set-up of Studio 60 is a failing sketch comedy that needs new life breed into it. It hasn't been funny in a while.
It's not a successful show. And they think the way of fixing it is bringing back the old writers. So under that premise? I can buy it.
But like I said it's an individual thing. And what we each find funny? Also an individual thing. What makes me laugh is not what makes you laugh. I like subtle humor. I laughed at the skit at the end of Studio 60, out loud. Course I'm admittedly not a fan of sketch comedy. I like wit. The one liner. And there were a couple of nice ones in this week's episode. Studio 60 made me laugh more than say How You Met Your Mother or Everybody Loves Raymond. It is a subjective thing - that's why it's so hard to pull off.
I'm interested to see if Studio 60 continues to pull in the numbers, so far it's doing quite well. 19 million in premiere. But we shall see. Taste's vary.
I'm not "in love" with it. But I'm not in love with any tv show right now. And I sort of like it that way. When you fall "in love" with a tv show it has a tendency to eat up vast amounts of time. And we so do not want to go there again... I do however appreciate it for trying to do something new and interesting and it entertains me. I do not expect it to be perfect or to hit all the marks, that's inherently impossible for a TV show to accomplish considering the time constraints, etc. If it entertains me for an hour? I'm happy. And hey, it's refreshing to see at least one hour long drama about a workplace that does not contain terrorists, guns, violence, people getting killed/raped/mutilated, or shot or injured in any way - that the action is completely pushed forward with "dialogue" - gee what a concept. Oh and the main characters? Don't want to hurt people - they are merely occassionally mean or stupid. Sigh. For a while there I wondered if anyone could write a show that did not involve death. Seems they can.
Re: Suspension of disbelief
Date: 2006-09-28 06:28 pm (UTC)I can go with that explanation. Maybe Simon, Harry, Jeannie, Tom and the rest of the S60 veteran cast members have been fed so much bad material for so long, they've lost their edge. Maybe when Matt and Danny start cleaning house and the writing picks up, the cast will regain their old spark.
[Still....Sorkin is working Harriet's Christian Comedianne angle WAY too hard, to the point where I doubt she could ever be funny:
"Hey, Harry! Why did the chicken cross the road?"
"To get to the other side, where he was embraced in the loving arms of our lord, Jesus Christ.")
Re: Suspension of disbelief
Date: 2006-09-28 07:00 pm (UTC)I've been catching it on just about every show I've seen lately.
The Christian jokes aren't bugging me. I'm actually enjoying them. But then, as you know, I've been on an anti-religion streak since 9/11.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 08:04 pm (UTC)That was more or less been presented up front in the press package. No secret there. Actually it is one of the reasons I'm watching it - the fact that he is basing it on his own experience, his own struggle as a TV writer.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 07:37 pm (UTC)http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/
One does detect (and he acknowledges) some sour grapes but it's interesting to read an insider's perspective. I wonder if Studio 60 will manage to be loved by tv people the same way West Wing was by politicians?
no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 08:32 pm (UTC)It's so hard to know what will become of all these shows. I've seen pilots that I've loved that have turned into awful series and craptacular pilots become fabulous shows. There are series that don't come into their own until the second season and others that should have quit after the first. Right now I'm excited about Heroes because it surprised me while Studio 60 did not, but yesterday's squee can easily become tomorrow's meh. I'll definitely be watching both shows, it's nice to have options for a change. Those were a couple lean years after AtS.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 09:38 pm (UTC)Don't know. The skit at the end *really* worked for me, but that's partly because I took a course in college where I literally saw every Gilbert & Sullivan musical ever made and became *cough*expert*cough* on G&S briefly. So it surprised me and made me laugh in a way that I haven't laughed at a situation comedy in ages.
Comedy truly is a personal thing. For me, I thought the sketch they did was funny, but this is coming from someone who found the humor in The Girl in Question a hoot, but thought Storyteller merely silly and somewhat boring. (shrug)
So, again, I'm not getting your problem with it. It reminds me a bit of my arguments with my brother - "the wall is white" "no, it's off-white", "in this light it is white", "no, it's off-white."
Here: "the show isn't funny", me -"well it's not supposed to be, it is a drama, but I found it funny where it meant to be funny like in the sketch," "No it wasn't", "Yes, it was." Sigh.
Right now, regarding what show will or won't make it? Thought I had a clue, until I went over to brilliantbutcancelled.com 's death watch game. Apparently "Jericho" was in second place on Wed. Okaaay.
And "Two and A Half Men"? It's doing great. Quality does not always equal sucess in TV land. And what people like? Beats me.
I'll be watching both shows. Didn't like Heroes as much as you.
But did enjoy it. Am far more worried about it's success that Studio 60, for the reasons I cited in my post above. It's too damn slow and can you remember the names of any of the characters but Hiro?
no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 09:41 pm (UTC)"Am far more worried about its success than Studio 60."
Note to self, proof, before posting.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-29 03:40 pm (UTC)Have you ever seen a movie or a TV show where an important character is an author of some kind, the writer of psychological horror novels, or social satire (or whatver)? And did you ever watch this character and listen to his dialogue for about 10 minutes, then grumble to yourself: "No. NO. WRONG."
You find the whole idea of this character as a WRITER completely unbelievable. There is no love of words. There is no trace of verbal sophistication or complex ideas. You don't believe this person could write a shopping list, let alone a novel. You find Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist in that Bond movie more credible.
That's how I feel about the S60 cast at the moment, especially Sarah Paulson's Harry Hayes, who comes across as a sanctimonious pill. As I said above, these are good actors, and Sorkin can add the proper psychological layers in the coming weeks, so I'm not getting TOO down on the show. But he does have work to do.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 05:33 pm (UTC)I'm not sure what's behind the trend toward enormous casts. Something for everyone? Trying to keep individual stars from getting big heads?
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 10:22 pm (UTC)What worked in the second half was porno mom and Japanese guy (Hiro) - those two are why I'm coming back next week, that and I happen to like Adrian Psdar and the guy who played Weiss on Alias (who will be introduced next week).
Big problem with the series is I don't know these people's names - we need a way to keep track of who is who without drawing a spreadsheet.
Seven reasons for ensemble cast
Date: 2006-09-27 09:05 pm (UTC)2. Ensemble casts provide a writer with more fodder for stories. You are not limited to the range of one actor or their point of view - which can after two or three years get really boring and suffocating.
3. Ensemble casts are more interchangable, you aren't stuck with the same actors for ever. If so and so wants to quit? Fine no problemo, kill their character, send them to Siberia, you can focus on someone else. That was the problem Whedon ran into on his shows - he was dependent on Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanze resigning their contracts. He couldn't just smile and wave by-bye, while he focused on the wonky adventures of Willow or Spike or Weseley or what have you. While if Charisma Carpenter got nutty, he could boot her off - she was a supporting player, but not the lead. Bones has the same problem, anything happens to the lead? The show is dead.
4. While it may appear that ensembles are more costly than solo acts - they aren't in the long run. You have more bargaining power with an ensemble. When Jorja Fox and George Eads got uppity at CSI, the producers sent them each a script where they'd been killed off. Lost? They can kill off any of the characters at any time - so those guys might get 80,000 an episode. House on the other hand, if Hugh Laurie leaves they don't have a show - that's why Hugh Laurie makes 300,000 an episode.
5. It's exhausting to hold an entire tv show on your shoulders. A lot of actors don't have the stamina. David Boreanze was dead tired by the end of Angel, and was very close to ending his contract even before news came that it was being cancelled. (The only thing that might have changed his mind was reportedly the fact that they'd increase Spike's role and he wouldn't have to bear the entire weight of the series. Also get directing time.)Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars requested less screen time last year - she couldn't deal with the number of hours. If you are a lead in a tv show, you put in on average 13 hours a day, 5-7 days a week. 5 if you are on schedule. That's why when you ask actors what they watch on TV or if they've seen a film, etc, they'll state - hey, on my off time? I sleep. I miss sleep.
6. The Something for Everyone Approach is a great idea - for one reason: When you have a lead you are risking a lot of money on that actor's ability to bring in an audience. Here's an example: A lot of people don't like Jack on Lost, but they adore Hurley, Sawyer, and Jin. They can watch Lost and ignore Jack, no problem. Even just skip the episodes featuring him, knowing they'll get one or two in which he doesn't appear at all. Bones on the other hand - if you don't like David Boreanze or the actress who plays Temperance - you aren't going to watch Bones. Buffy had a similar problem, if you did not like Sarah Michelle Gellar, chances were you would not watch Buffy.
7. The Diva Problem - if you have an ensemble cast, as Joss Whedon discovered on Firefly, you tend to have less problems with Diva's. Whedon had dealt with three - one executive produced their own show, Roseanne, the other two paled in comparison so are never mentioned except as insider gossip on the sets. When everyone shares the load, you tend to get along better. The Friends cast all supported one another and fought for raises together. Same deal with West Wing - a bunch of them banded together. Buffy - they couldn't do that, so there was back-biting.
Same deal with Angel - back-biting. The supporting members got along okay, but after about 3-4 years they began to despise the lead and a gap emerged. It's human nature.
Re: Seven reasons for ensemble cast
Date: 2006-09-27 10:03 pm (UTC)Re: Seven reasons for ensemble cast
Date: 2006-09-27 10:28 pm (UTC)More likely the lead can up his salary. And when he/she does it can hurt the supporting players potential for raises. It was one of the problems on Buffy.
Overall? If I were creating a TV series or were buying one? I'd go with ensemble. They work better for a much longer period of time. ER, Hill Street Blues, Sopranos, Six Feet Under, NYPD Blue, La Law, Law & Order, CSI, and St. Elsewhere are just a few examples.
It's just harder to maintain a one or two person series for a long period of time, cost wise and creatively.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 09:14 pm (UTC)All of this is to say that you're right, in the current model of television, viewers very much count. But I wonder how long it will be until a radical new approach to the business of network broadcast television will be required. What form that could take (government subsidies and more educational material, renewed dedication to the art of entertainment and reclaiming long-lost credebility among viewers, etc.) is anyone's guess.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 09:42 pm (UTC)Ways they've found around the filter devices - are product placement inside the tv show or movie.
But that may or may not work anymore in a world in reach we are rapidly approaching information overload.
The problem with relying on government subsidies is that leads to, not often, but occassionally to moral policing. While PBS has been pretty good about getting the government not to tell it what it can program all the time, it still has to deal with the moral police. The entertainment industry is a constantly evolving beast and a bit chaotic to live within. And may well be overrun by corporations - who are spending more and more money and getting less and less result.
The other problem they are running into is there are too many choices - people are almost overwhelmed by choices. I remember when we only had four or five tv stations, three broadcast networks, PBS, and UHF. Then HBO came along and with it the cable phenomenon and the Video phenomenon. The two together changed things. DVD's have only changed them more - providing more choices. What may very well happen is TV will stop being free. Not that it is for most of us. Very few people can watch just by antenna or choose to. I can't - no reception, so I have to have cable. So when TV becomes pay only? I doubt I'll notice much. But when it does - it may well be on demand. You want to watch a specific series? You pay a certain amount, much like people are doing now with pay-on-demand tv shows via Showtime and HBO. I can see a time in the not too distant future where all shows will be like that. Which may not be a bad thing. It does away with those annoying sweeps periods or breaks in the season. Also allows us to watch them whenever we choose - no DVR taping or worrying about missing an episode. DVD has already put the concept in motion - the internet's bit torrents, streaming videos, youtube, and i-tune podcasts
have furthered it. It's only a matter of time before the corporations and industry as a whole catchs on. Fascinating to watch.