Since the day VCRs became, like alarm clocks, a staple in many homes, people could more or less assemble their own TV schedules. Back then, the big 'freedom' for many (especially the most vocal of users) was being able to catch their daytime soaps at night. Two decades later, in this age of iPod and DVR, is it all do-it-yourself?
No.
One network actually programs one night of TV. NBC on Mondays is must-see TV for three hours (a feat the network never, ever managed on Thursdays). That wasn't always the case and it required ditching the ambitious series Christian Slater starred in and bringing back
Medium, but you can honestly turn your TV to NBC at the start of prime time and leave it on NBC for the full night.
It's not just that new technology has turned entertainment TV into a buffet, a self-serve buffet at that; it's also that the networks have refused to keep up. They really don't have a clue how to program which is why Jay Leno's going to be taking up five hours of prime time next year. No offense to Jay, Johnny Carson couldn't deliver a nice-size audience doing
The Tonight Show in prime time. But someone thinks that the network's tired (about to get more tired) late night warhorse can be dragged by the reigns into prime time and it's going to be an 'answer.' Repeating, they just don't have a clue.
In the better times, when there were only four to five choices for most Americans (three networks, a PBS and possibly a syndicated channel), the networks weren't able to offer up seven nights of programming that amazed hour after hour. But for all their failures (
Supertrain,
My Mother The Car,
Manimal, etc.), at least they tried. And if they hadn't tried, there would never have been
I Love Lucy,
The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
Newhart,
Murphy Brown,
Hill St. Blues,
Family,
The Cosby Show,
Seinfeld,
Friends, etc. Today's suits don't grasp that you never get the glory when you can't even do the job: Program seven nights of offerings.
They really don't have a clue which is how the best show NBC introduced in fall 2007 ended up struggling this year.
Chuck is the sort of show ABC would know what to do with but NBC appeared to mistake it for
Lost.
The hour long show, which leads off Monday nights, revolves around Chuck, a Buy More superstore employee who ends up working with the CIA and NSA due to an e-mail (don't ask) even though he has no spy training. Each week, the comedy, action and romance series has the gang squaring off against the baddies. It's the sort of confection that always appears simple to pull off until people actually attempt it. But
Chuck did everything it was supposed to and it built up an audience.
So how did it end up struggling last fall when new episodes returned? Because, again, some idiots at NBC thought it was
Lost. It is not
Lost. It is not a serial. The only episodic element is the will-they-or-won't-they between Chuck and the CIA's Sarah. You do not need a friend sitting by you to provide recap or two seasons worth of DVDs to 'catch up' in order to tune into
Chuck. All you have to do is turn on the TV.
And that's how NBC screwed up. All summer long, they could have built the show up, increased its audience. It's not as though NBC offered any 'new' (reality) programming that anyone needed or wanted to watch. Keeping
Chuck in the Monday time slot, in repeats, may have meant a small audience. That's not the point. With a new show, you train the audience. You let them know, no matter what happens, winter, spring, summer or fall,
Chuck, like a Carole King song, will be there. It's the TV equivalent of comfort food and it's something CBS fully grasps.
NCIS increased its ratings in part because Michael Weatherly got down to an attractive weight and in part because the show was always there.
NCIS has not become a better show (some argue it's worse with the killing off of Lauren Holly's character). But it was there. It was there on CBS each Tuesday when there were new episodes and it was there when there was nothing to watch all damn summer.
NCIS' success story should be
Chuck's.
Chuck should have been the show that picked up new viewers (even if old ones didn't watch -- though we think they would have) over the summer just because it was there. Just because there are many who will not watch
Five Nannies Live Together And Try To Lose 60 Pounds While Falling In Love And Becoming Fashionistas. Just because when there are no new shows on TV (real shows, not 'reality'), viewers will grab the remote and check out a show they didn't watch before. A show that blends action, romance and comedy has some elements lots of people can enjoy. They just need to sit down and watch it and know it's there at X o'clock on X day, week after week. NBC blew it and nearly destroyed
Chuck in the process.
When the series started back up last fall, it did so to the lowest ratings ever. When no one knew what the show was, it pulled in more viewers. It pulled in more viewers for any week of fall 2007/spring 2008. For three weeks last fall, it got the worst ratings it ever had and had to slowly rebuild. And it has but none of that would be necessary had NBC aired the repeats over the summer, conditioning the audience to tuning in each Monday.
Years and years ago, NBC stuck by
Cheers which was not a ratings winner in its early days and could easily have gone the way of
Buffalo Bill. But they stuck by it because they knew that exposure to the show (it was a strong show) would mean more would watch. It's a lesson the suits don't grasp today.
Monday found a brilliant moment the next morning following Chuck's nightmare. His sister Ellie and her fiance Devon (Sarah Lancaster and Ryan McPartlin) are at the table with Chuck (Zachery Levi). Devon offers they're not prying and Ellie says they are and want to. It was a quick moment, a zing and a zang, and it may have been overshadowed for many by the nightmare itself where Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) climbs across Chuck in bed before attempting to kill him. But it is those moments that enrich the show and that show how much care is taken in the details. Whether it's Ellie's apartment or the Buy More, the characters -- all the characters -- are richly drawn. And if you watch it with a group of people, as we did on campus Monday, you'll quickly grasp how these supporting characters really please the audience.
Take the Buy More store where Joshua Gomez long ago carved out the part of Morgan and now only works on shading. His work should have nabbed a Best Supporting Actor Emmy last year. What the Emmys missed, audiences don't whether its Gomez, Mark Christopher Lawrence was given a sketch (Big Mike, the manager) but has managed to flesh him out into a full bodied character or, best of all, Julia Ling as Anna Wu who made no sense until Anna was paired with Morgan.
We've noted the outstanding work of Levi, Strahovski and Adam Baldwin before and it is outstanding work but the ensemble cast, the supporting players are doing so much that viewers getting a chance at repeats in the summer are being offered a treat, not a stale leftover.
Nathan: Just out of curiosity, what can you do these days?Peter: Do?Nathan: Your abilities?Peter: What are you, a cop? What's the last thing you saw me do, Nathan?Nathan: You flew.Heroes follows
Chuck.
Chuck keeps the action and the mood light and is the perfect lead-in for the action drama that was the best show NBC added in the fall of 2006. Or should be. But
Heroes is awash in problems these days.
For example, Tim Kring never appears to grasp that the audience is disempowered when Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) is powerless. When the series began, Peter and Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) were bickering and Peter was the soulful but self-doubting and weak, younger brother. You cannot build up Peter and have the audience experience that, know they identify with him, and repeatedly strip away his powers without alienating the audience.
Peter has his powers back. He is not the whiny loser you were introduced to on the very first episode. We mention that because it is important. The drama between brothers Peter and Nathan still exists with Nathan taking a slow trip to the dark side. Peter ineffectual will not work. It upsets the family dynamics, it upsets the audience. Peter doesn't have to win but he has to be able to fight and when his brother is this and that (now a US Senator) and has super powers, you better make sure Peter has a chance at holding his own.
His? That's becoming the real problem with the show. We explained (
before the show aired) that there were problems with the female characters. Clair is easily one of the most popular characters on the show so when they sideline her, the ratings suffer. (When they sideline her and strip Peter of powers, the ratings crater.) Hayden Panettier has done everything any script has asked of her and made it seem completely natural to Clair. No easy task when you're got a mother, father and brother who aren't biologically related to you and your own mother shows up (while no one's watching is supposed to notice that your brother has vanished) and your character is torn between two mothers and then one dies and your not even given a scene where you grieve.
And that's just one example. But, episode after episode, Panettier makes it work.
Ali Larter is frequently ignored in the scripts. For example, last Monday's broadcast found the actress showing off her body in the opening scene when a governmental/military squad arrived (just as she puts on a robe) and aims several rifles at her.
"You want me to beg?" Larter asks with a snarl. "Screw you. I don't beg for anyone."
It's not that she's immediately knocked out with a dart that makes the scene ultimately so disappointing, it's that this is it for Larter. She'll show up in the final scenes for a second so Peter can touch her, absorb her power and (unknowingly) use it. If they wanted her character's power used, why not let Larter do the scene?
Well that's expecting equality and there is none on
Heroes. As this has become more and more obvious, it's hurting the show.
Ali Larter is an actress. What's her character's name?
Disposable. Sometimes her character has a name -- actually, her characters. But she's disposable. She started out playing Niki Sanders -- online stripper with super powers and a secret personality. Niki just vanished which was a problem not only because Niki was a popular character but also because Niki's son was a popular character. This year, she's Tracy Strauss who, like Niki, sleeps with Nathan. Tracy's super power is the ability to freeze. Who knows what next year's power will be or what, fall 2009, the name of her new character will be?
Is Tracy being killed off? We have no idea. We do know that a lot of
Heroes fans we spoke to last week say they can't stand Tracy, that they miss Niki and they aren't buying the crap-ass excuse that's been put out publicly.
In October,
Behind The Eclipse interviewed Joe Pokaski and Aron Coliete (writers and producers of Heroes):
"Was Nikki/Jessica removed to allow Ali to play a different role, or was it more story and character-based, in a realization that perhaps you couldn't find a way to redeem the character, or go anywhere further with her?"
A little of both. But most importantly, it also allowed us to tell an origin story again. To play the human confusion of a rug being pulled form us. The "what’s happening to me?" of it all.That's a load of s**t. Niki and Tracy go to the fact that strong women scare the hell out of the boys behind the scene on
Heroes. They won't admit it, but that's reality. It's why they can't write Clair convincingly and the actress has to basically rewrite every scene she's in. It's why the older actress are the "good" (Clair' adoptive mother) and the "bad" (evil Angela, mother of Peter and Nathan). It's why Niki's storyline never made sense.
Niki had an alternate personality. Her dead sister. When she would use her superhuman strength, she'd black out due to some trauma and become her alternate personality. Did you follow that? It's not very difficult unless you're a man working on
Heroes.
What's the problem for Niki?
It takes a real SEXIST PIG -- one scared of any strength in women -- to argue Niki's problem is her super powers. But that's exactly what the show argued. They had her working to do away with her powers. Niki and her sister were beaten as children by their father. He would eventually beat her sister to death.
Niki's super powers were not her problem. Even Jessica (the alternate personality) was not, in and of itself, a problem. Jessica was a coping mechanism for Niki. And it's really strange that instead of offering a story where Niki tries to integrate the Jessica personality into her own, the 'problem' is suddenly that Niki has super powers and all of season two must be wasted with Niki trying to get rid of them via various drugs.
The cover story is that they couldn't go any further with the character of Niki. Go any further with the character? They never took Niki anywhere. ("They" being the writers. We're not referring to Larder who has played poorly written characters better than they deserved to be played.) As for the claim that it allowed them to tell an 'origin story,' that crap might have played as believable in October when the new episodes were just starting to air; however, those episodes have now aired and there was no origin story for Tracy. In dialogue -- passing dialogue at that -- we learn that she was 'genetically modified' (like monster corn?) and that's how she has powers.
We learn something else -- and note this is all in 'Do you think it will rain today?' type narration, not in 'origin story' type action. We learn that Tracy is Niki's sister. She's Jessica!
No.
Jessica was one sister of Niki's. But Niki was a triplet. And Tracy and Barbara are her sisters. Barbara? No one's seen her. Fans of the show we spoke with last week hope that Barbara will be the character that finally interests the writers if only in a "third time's the charm" type of manner.
Another fan favorite was Dana Davis' Monica Dawson, niece of Niki. She was brought on in season two and dropped for season three. Why? She's a woman. That's really all it is. They say there's no storyline for the character but they find time for one storyline after another when it's a male. The writers do nothing with the female characters and then, time and again, turn around and whine that they've gone as far as they can with 'her' -- and it's always a her -- so they have to write her off the show. It's not just Niki or Monica. It's Elle Bishop (Kristen Bell). It will no doubt be Daphne's turn next or is no one supposed to notice Brea Grant had only one scene in Monday's episode?
For writers who feel they've done all they can for the female characters, they never seem to notice how much they under utilize them episode after episode.
We noted before that taking Peter's powers away hurt season three's episodes. We were not aware how much damage getting rid of Niki did until we were speaking on colleges last week (about Iraq) and, during down time, would seek out an opinion on NBC's Monday night line up.
Heroes has really hurt itself -- with young men and women -- by making women disposable.
No one gives a damn about Matt Parker, for example, or really any of the characters other than Nathan, Peter, Clair and Syler (Zachary Quinto) now. "Why should I give a f**k what happens to Matt?" asked one guy who thinks Clair is next on the writer's hit list and vows he's done with the show when that happens. Building up the audience means building up the female characters.
A big shift took place last Monday with the new storyline. Nathan is having the heroes detained because of their super powers. They're rounded up, put into the sort of restraints and outfit Jose Padilla was forced to wear. The story has Gitmo overtones and much more. But the big shift is that it's Nathan and that the audience who might have enjoyed Sylar's evil are now rooting for it. As they saw Tracy rounded up, followed by one hero after another, when it was finally time for the evil Sylar to be rounded up and he, instead, slaughtered the government agents, people were thrilled. (Including the group we watched Monday's broadcast with in a student union.) They were cheering him on.
They were cheering on Clair when she boarded the plane to set the heroes free but lost interest as she became background and they noticed the men were being freed and the female heroes were doing nothing. If the audience was either as dumb or sexist as the writers,
Heroes might have less problems.
Which brings us to
Medium. Patricia Arquette plays (to perfection) Allison, a psychic working for the district attorney's office, with three kids and a husband. The crowd in the student union was largest for Heroes. But
Medium didn't just maintain a large number of holdovers, it brought in its own group including one young woman who told us what she loved about the show best was that the characters "talk and act like real people. They keep it real."
The youngest daughter was drawing pictures of her art teacher naked on Monday's episode. Joe (Jake Weber) and Allison were brought in for a conference and there was inferring of 'what is going on at your home that your young daughter is drawing nude men?' She was actually drawing a spot on his chest that got bigger and bigger. It was cancerous. Like her mother, she has psychic powers.
Allison's powers became public knowledge two seasons ago when guest star Neve Campbell wrote about them for the paper. It led to Allison losing her job as well as her boss Manny (Miguel Sandoval) losing his eventually. Now Manny's the DA again and Allison's back at the DA's office. The broadcast was the season six premiere and, as is usual for the show, it eased into it. Not an insult, just noting that things always grow twised and complicated as the seasons progress. That's what's allowed Patricia to win an Emmy (and be honored with a Golden Globe nomination last year) and allows for so many richly drawn characters -- regulars and guest stars (such as Anjelica Huston whose amazing work last year resulted in an Emmy nomination).
Chuck opens, Medium closes and, even with its problems, Heroes is worth watching allowing NBC to do something heroic itself: Manage to program three watchable hours of prime time television. Considering the state of TV, three hours from one network in the course of the week would be amazing. That NBC airs all three on Mondays instead of doling it out like heroin and stringing viewers along almost qualifies as humanitarian as well.
