Just when I think I have the ...
Question: Just when I think I have the pulse of the American public, they go and really confuse me. Didn't it used to be that cult fans like myself had to wait for years of heartbreaking cancellations before a genre show like
The X Files could be picked up for good? And now we have
Jericho and
Heroes both looking strong, while an Aaron Sorkin show and a quality show about football of all things are in trouble? I think it's very interesting that genre TV seems to have caught on big time while what used to be "safe bets" are bombing. Maybe, like you suggest, people are finally fed up with being spoon-fed familiar cornflakes and they're ready to try some exotic crunch berries, even if they're not all that great! I just hope people stick around as reliably when a legitimately great genre show debuts.
Answer: While I would argue that neither
Studio 60 nor
Friday Night Lights were ever considered safe bets (quality shows almost never are), I agree that it's encouraging that the audience has taken a leap of faith with
Heroes and even
Jericho. The problem with this season's more traditional serial mysteries is that, even in a quality production like
Kidnapped, they just felt too familiar to stand out.
Heroes and
Jericho don't really feel like anything else on TV, and that turns out to be an asset, even when the shows themselves sometimes leave much to be desired. But being critical of genre shows comes with a price. Witness the following, from Jared D.:
"Why is everyone bashing Heroes and Jericho? I and a lot of other people have been waiting for a major network to pick up some Buffy-esque, character-driven fantasies with an air of realism. Last season all the shows like that got canceled, and we got procedural clone after procedural clone shoved down our throats. Now we start to get shows like Buffy that are successful, and the same people clamoring for it complain. But do you think that the high ratings for these character-driven sci-fi shows will bode well for an increase of similar shows next year?"
Now that
Heroes and
Jericho appear to have caught on, I have no doubt the networks will ramp up development of weird TV for next season. You might see a few at mid-season as well; NBC's
Raines, for instance, about a detective who solves crimes with the help of dead people, which seems to owe a big debt in concept to
Medium and
Ghost Whisperer. Not all are going to work or be successful, and not all should. As long as the characters and storytelling are strong and original, I'm all for it. But the defensiveness in Jared's question alarms me, because the worst thing any fan of genre programming can do is allow themselves to be pandered to. Not all of these shows are going to be created equally, and many of them (including the current crop) have serious creative issues that deserve to be addressed. By the way, be sure to check out next Monday's Ask Matt for more spirited discussion of
Heroes and
Jericho.
