Why can’t anyone in LA make a good TV show anymore?
This may seem like a sweeping generalization, but we are not even halfway through the 2013-14 television season and 19 of the shows that debuted last fall have either been canceled or are knocking on death’s door.
Audiences have rejected the product. Millions of dollars have gone down the drain.
Let’s look at the record. NBC’s Thursday’s night comedy lineup — “Welcome to the Family,” “Sean Saves the World” and the much-hyped “The Michael J. Fox Show” have died swift or long, painful deaths. The remake of “Ironside” was an unmitigated disaster. As for “Dracula,” that doesn’t have much bite left in it.
“Blacklist” is the only show that NBC has renewed. “Chicago Fire,” from the Dick Wolf formula factory, is likely to return.
On Fox, only one show — the genuinely entertaining “Sleepy Hollow” — has been renewed and everyone seems to be ready to give Golden Globe-winner “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” another go, despite so-so numbers.
In the Fox minus column: the stinker “Dads,” “Enlisted,” and “Almost Human.” Despite Greg Kinnear’s appeal, “Rake” is not winning anyone over.
Things are a little more cheerful over at CBS, a network that is ridiculed for giving its audience what it wants. It’s not exactly creative — the network is knee-deep in spinoffs — but at least their lineup doesn’t look like a butcher shop. “We Are Men” was the one WTF? of its fall season and was quickly buried like a family secret. Two series that experimented with shorter seasons — “Hostages” and “Intelligence” — did not work out as expected so the network will have to fine-tune the idea of having two series share one timeslot, with 15 episodes apiece.
ABC is a wilderness of dated ideas, peculiar casting and bad luck. Gone already are “Lucky 7,” “Back in the Game,” “Killer Women,” “Betrayal” and “The Assets.” Breathing their last are “Trophy Wife” and the ridiculously hyped “Super Fun Night” starring the actress no one was anxious to see, Rebel Wilson. And were you really shocked when the spinoff “Once Upon a Time in Wonderland” didn’t catch on?
The CW, at this point, barely counts as anything more than a teen fashion show.
To be fair, the networks have tried what has worked for them in the past. They’ve hired stars — Fox, Sean Hayes, Blair Underwood, James Caan, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Toni Collette. Dylan McDermott, among others — but that approach doesn’t work anymore.
What’s not working is the writing. With innovative series on BBC America, AMC, PBS, Netflix, Showtime and HBO — the kind of shows my colleagues regularly pop to my desk to “borrow” — viewers no longer look to the major networks to entertain them — outside of live events such as awards shows and sports (football, baseball). Risk-averse policies that please advertisers first — viewers second — have alienated audiences. And and the worst part is, the networks know it.
They just can’t help themselves.
A flurry of mid-season replacements will be coming our way after the Olympics — to make us forget our disappointments thus far. One, “About a Boy,” is a remake of a hit movie that starred Hugh Grant. Another, “Mixology,” is described as a “high-concept comedy” (words that scare me) about 10 friends trying to hook up. The geniuses who wrote “The Hangover” are behind this one. Still another, “Friends with Better Lives,” is the story of six friends who don’t know if they’re happy or not. So another remake of NBC’s “Friends”? We’ve been through so many remakes of that show that the original cast is now middle-aged and coming back to network television.
Fox network President Kevin Reilly has recently said that his network will no longer have a pilot season — greenlighting dozens of shows in hopes of coming up with a handful of hits — opting, instead, to properly develop the most promising series.
At least someone out there is willing to entertain a new idea.