POISON SCOOTER

Fall TV Preview - Disturbing Trends

My final thoughts as we roll into the new fall season on the tube. I guess the networks have decided that either we want something we have seen before, something we are in essence comfortable with, or we want to see shows that remind us of movies that we kind of enjoyed. How else can you explain these offerings?

Jericho, Heroes, Big Day, Day Break, Kidnapped and 6 Degrees are playing on either the themes present in Lost or 24, arguably the two most successful shows on right now. People intertwined but not sure of their purpose works for Lost, but will it work for half of these new serial dramas? And the continuing action adventure done incrementally is tough to pull off, but apparently hugely popular with Emmy winning 24 fans. Will fans of these powerhouses be open to adding another similar show into their already busy lives?

In this vein, networks putting out similarly themed shows, you have to point directly at the connections between 30 Rock and Studio 60 which both center around sketch comedy shows. I'm anxious to see both as I mentioned before, but the closeness makes me uneasy. Both shows have addresses in the title, and the numbers correlate to their running time each week. Just too creepy that two networks green lit such seemingly closely linked shows. Then again, 30 Rock is a sitcom and Studio 60 is a drama, so perhaps this can be done. I'd never compare 7th Heaven to Just the Ten Of Us, but both feature really large families but they are very much different executions of a similar theme.

Kidnapped, although not coming right out with it, is essentially the movie Ransom stretched out for a television season. Perhaps the downplay of how this show resembles a film starring Mel Gibson is a strategy to avoid bad press? In any case, Tim Hutton is a wealthy guy whose kid gets held for ransom and we suffer along with the family for 24 weeks. And we also have Friday Night Lights on the docket, a straight up translation of the movie about high school football minus Tim McGraw and Billy Bob Thorton. Whenever I see shows like this crop up, I think to myself....didn't I already see this before?

I think a lot of viewers are like me. We want something new, fresh, exciting...why do they continue to force recycled shit on us? That's why I like reality TV. It's still in it's infancy, whereas the sitcom has been around since the days of radio. Give me a celebrity doing anything and I'm there. Put strangers in any situation, offer them money, film them and I'm there. Thank God I see some interesting reality shows on the schedule. Yum.

posted by Scooter @ 6:28 AM