Brothers & Sisters, Heroes, Studio 60, Ugly Betty, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights
A funny thing about buzz: You never know where it's going to lead you. Sometimes into a dead end, other times into the Next Big Thing. (Hi,
Heroes.)
Looking back over the wild zigs and zags taken by the winners and losers from this year's freshman TV class, it's hard not to notice how many sleepers became keepers and how few of the sure things lived up to their hype.
With the networks unveiling their new fall lineups this week, I found myself reflecting on the shows we'd labeled "buzzworthy" in our Fall Preview issue last September (Heroes wasn't among them). As always in TV land, you win some, you lose some. And some things you can't possibly see coming. Case in point: ABC's family saga Brothers & Sisters, which generated negative publicity during a turbulent gestation of recastings and rewrites. The final pilot was sight unseen at the Fall Preview deadline, prompting us to call it "the big mystery."
The first episodes were all angst, not too promising. But soon the tone lightened, the terrific cast (led by a marvelously maternal Sally Field) gelled, and Brothers evolved into a drama to cherish: warm yet edgy, and often more enjoyable than the strained soap antics of its Sunday lead-in, Desperate Housewives.
Such learning curves are what freshman seasons are all about. Among the shows we pegged as winners from the start, which more than lived up to their creative promise: ABC's adorable Ugly Betty, NBC's heart-lifting underdog Friday Night Lights and NBC's twisted 30 Rock, which we proclaimed the season's best new comedy. Still is.
Of these, only Betty is a certified hit — and Friday has yet to be officially renewed at press time. But they undeniably helped distinguish this season. And with its cheeky, deadpan absurdism, embodied in Alec Baldwin's hilariously droll parody of a network suit, Tina Fey's 30 Rock showed how to do a TV show about TV.
Whereas Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (another of our buzzworthy picks) stalled after a dazzling launch. The season's most unexpected disappointment became so swollen by self-importance that it felt less like it was putting on a show than trying to save the world through comedy as preachy missionaries. Switching gears to romantic comedy was too little too late.
A show that never got a chance to fix itself: ABC's The Nine, our fall pick as best new drama. The pilot was riveting, framed around a bank-hostage crisis and its aftermath, but it never equaled that initial high again, testing our patience as it withheld crucial info about what happened in the bank.
This wasn't a kind season for serial mysteries, to put it mildly. Remember Vanished? Kidnapped? Runaway? Smith? Better luck next season.
