Is it just me or are TV ...
Question: Is it just me or are TV critics taking schadenfreude in seeing NBC's slipups and misses for the past few seasons, especially now, during the Olympics, and with
Joey's dismal ratings. While it's true that success does breed some sort of contempt from advocates of rival networks, TV critics should always have an objective approach. However, highlighting and then further underlining NBC's failures borders on playground teasing.
Answer: Maybe it looks like critics are kicking a network when it's down, but really, NBC has been a juicy target ever since it fouled its airwaves with
Fear Factor, failed repeatedly to find an adequate comedy to replace
Friends (most notoriously with the ill-fated
Joey), cloned
Law & Order to the point of absurdity, failed to adequately promote and protect gems like
Ed and
American Dreams through their multiseason (and still too brief) runs — again, the list goes on. And lately, with the
The Book of Daniel debacle, the twice-a-week
Apprentice disaster and the lackluster Olympics production, what are critics supposed to do — look the other way and accentuate the positive? Look, it's in all of our best interests for NBC to be a strong network. We don't root for their shows to fail, unless they're as cynically conceived as
Dick Wolf's new
Conviction or as ineptly produced as
Surface. In fact, I'm dying to see
Aaron Sorkin's new show for next season, since I always believed his
Sports Night might actually have flourished on NBC. Maybe this will be the hit the network needs to turn things around. If so, we as critics will continue to call it as we see it, and we'll just to have find someone else to beat up on.
