Saturday, April 25, 2009

Television at its best

The last few weeks, I've been seeing more and more critics going after the Hollywood creative minds supposedly not being able to innovate enough for them.

As I do have the opportunity to talk with writers, their agents and read spec scripts like few people do in the country, I feel like I should make this clear. Creative minds are innovating more than ever, you are just not ready for it. I'm not going to debate about this, facts are here: Surviving Suburbia, the dumbest show of the new season is settling for over ten million viewers, According to Jim is in its fourth season, Friday Night Lights barely made it last season, and the list goes on.

Next season, more than any other years, all those scripts looked very similar, not because writers met up and decided they should all write about the same thing, but because it is common knowledge that everyone would rather watch some soon to be ten years old TV shows like Desperate Housewives or Two And A Half Men rather than to give a try to Chuck or even Dollhouse.

Do you think they are having fun getting cancelled after 10 episodes? Joss Whedon, Victor Fresco, Paul Feig, John Wells, Bryan Fuller, are some of the best writers out there that never or struggled to keep their show on air for more than ten episodes. Is it their fault? No. Is it the execs fault? No, well, yes, they shouldn't have overestimate America.

Maybe if there were fewer people watching idiotic shows like Surviving Suburbia (it makes me angry just to write it), Chuck ratings wouldn't look so bad. Stop the "Watch Chuck" campaign, do the "Stop Watching Bad TV" campaign, it'll work better.

Networks are done innovating, finding new talents; they now are working with people they know and ordering scripts about families having laughable problems. And you know what, you have no one to blame but yourselves.

PS: When I say you, I don't mean you, my readers, you guys are cool (as long as you didn't watch Surviving Suburbia.

4 comments:

  1. I don't use Twitter so I have to ask here for script reviews. I'd like to read about:

    AR2/American Revolution 2 (F/X)
    HOUSE OF CARDS (F/X)
    LIGHTS OUT (F/X)
    POWERS (F/X)

    Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
    Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire (HBO)
    Possible Side Effects (HBO)
    BORED TO DEATH (HBO)
    COCAINE COWBOYS (HBO)
    EVERYBODY HURTS (HBO)
    The Review (HBO)
    Treme (HBO)
    WELCOME TO AMERICATOWN (HBO)
    Last of the Ninth (developed for HBO)
    UNTITLED MARIA BELLO PROJECT (HBO)
    Robert Rodrigeuz' Women in Chains (HBO?)

    Exterminators (Showtime)
    End of Steve (developed for Showtime but not ordered)
    Camelot (Showtime)
    Hero (Showtime)
    Syns [Showtime)
    L-Word Spin Off - The Farm (Showtime)

    ABC's V Remake
    Captain Cook's Extraordinary Atlas (ABC)
    Fables (ABC)

    Masterwork (Fox)
    Boldly Going Nowhere (Fox)

    Community (NBC)
    Day One (NBC)
    Jason and the Argonauts (NBC)
    Lost in the 80's (NBC)
    Trauma (NBC)

    Back (CBS)
    THREE RIVERS (CBS)

    Red Mars (AMC)
    RECTIFY (AMC)
    CARTER BEATS THE DEVIL (AMC)
    Untitled Pony Express Series from Robert Duvall(AMC)

    Stargate Universe (SciFi)

    TOUGH TRADE (epix)

    Spartacus (Starz)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Big list !
    I actually read most of those already, and I will try to review most of them.

    Last of the Ninth is dead I believe, like the L Word Spin off, Boldly Going Nowhere was good but it doesn't look good for them either.

    There are few I didn't manage to put my hands on like Cocaine Cowboys (and boy, I want to read that one) and for some weird reason the AMC scripts (except Rubicon that I already reviewed).

    Even if you don't have twitter, I post updates of the reviews coming up, Community is one of them... So check back !

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey Charlie,

    was happy to see reviews on Flash Forward, Glee, The Wonderful Maladys, and Sons of Tuscon as I've been looking forward to them. Also glad to see you've got one of Community coming up.

    Wondering if you'd be doing anything on any of the following? Sorry about the lenght of the list, just a lot of shows that took my fancy;

    Day One
    Mercy
    Back
    Cougar Town
    The Fish Tank
    Game Of Thrones
    Happy Town
    The Law
    Limelight
    The Middle
    Stargate Universe
    The Cleveland Show

    ReplyDelete
  4. On my list (not necessarily in that order) :
    Games of Thrones
    Happy Town
    Day One
    Cougar Town

    The others, I'll probably only do if they get picked-up.

    Appreciate the support !

    ReplyDelete