2008's Guilty Pleasures

OK, I ain't proud of 'em, but I likes 'em, so's I watch 'em.

HELL'S KITCHEN - It's profane and abusive but HK has one thing a lot of reality shows don't. I doesn't feel forced. If it is, it's well disguised. If you think about it, Gordon Ramsay is really the one going through the torture. I'll admit to skimming through the team rewards elements and getting right back into the kitchen for the good stuff.

PRISON BREAK - Man, oh, man. "How will they continue this show once they break out of prison?" Simple, they'll be on the run for a year. Then they'll get caught and have to escape from a Panamanian prison. Then they'll be on the run again, but this time a government agent will offer them freedom in return for stealing something from a Halliburton-esque organization. THEN they'll get double-crossed and have the item stolen from them BY THEIR MOTHER. This thing has more twists per episode than a month of DAYS OF OUR LIVES. And I love it!

BONES - BONES didn't make my Top 10 list for a very good reason. Sometimes the writing is a tad short of tortorous. It's hard to buy that someone who has written several best selling books can be as ignorant about modern American culture as Temperence Brennan. But David Boreanaz is sharp as Agent Booth. He's why I tuned in to begin with. (I REALLY miss ANGEL)

HEROES - Faded in year two, wasted too much time in year three, but it's going to have to get a lot worse for me to bail out. What started as a brilliant 'what if?' concept has quickly devolved into an over-populated comic book world. We need fewer dead end sotrylines, a narrower focus on fewer characters and a return to the magic of discovery that made up so much of that first season.

ER - Back in the beginning, I chose CHICAGO HOPE over E.R.. The two medical dramas were both set in a Chicago hospital and were scheduled head to head on NBC and CBS. By mid-season Hope had moved to Monday and I've seen every episode of E.R. since. That being said, this show is a long way away from the show that scored 40 shares with EVERY SINGLE EPISODE. Thank God the torurous storyline of Dr. Abby is finally finished. It felt like some sort of penance to force myself to sit through the darkmess and dreariness that accompanied that character. Seriously, the show would have benefitted from having another flaming helicopter falling out of the sky and squishing her like a whiny bug about two years ago. The show is better - by far - without her. It's a shame we're nto going to get to know some of the new characters very well before the entire thing wraps up in March.

[SIDEBAR: On 12/30/08, the five networks combined managed to score a measly 22 share. That means 78 percent of TVs in use at the time were watching something other than network TV. In its prime, E.R. used to score a 25 share with a RERUN.]

FAMILY GUY - OK, I admit it. I watch it. But, to be fair, it's better than it used to be. It's WAY better than it was back when it was cancelled. It still goes too far, too often, but the non-sequiters have found their own rhythm and the show has found its voice. I suppose from here on out, the decline begins.

OK - what about you? Your turn. Confess away.

Upfront and Personal

So the networks are wrapping up their upfront sessions in which they sell a large chunk of their advertising time to gi-normous ad agencies.

The income for the five big nets (yes, The CW apparently still qualifies) totals some $9.23 billion. That's right billion - with a B.

That number got me to thinking.

In the coming age, where DVRs skip over commercials and more and more of the network programming is becoming available online (bypassing the local stations), one wonders how much longer the networks are going to be able to continue to demand that much money for an ever dwindling audience.

Case in point: In the most recent TV season (yes, there was a strike - but still!) all of EIGHT scripted shows increased their audience vs. 2007:
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (+3%);
THE UNIT (+1%);
LAW & ORDER (+19%);
THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE (+1%);
MEDIUM (+21%);
BONES (+2%);
KING OF THE HILL (+20%)
30 ROCK (+12%)

Note that two of those shows are old-timers that were helped in the doldrums of the strike by a combination of reduced competition and better time slots. The results for MEDIUM are probably the most promising on the list.

So shy do the advertisers keep paying increasing rates for this slipping medium? Because it's the best there is, that's why.

It was announced today that the average household in the USA gets over 100 channels on their TV. You can advertise online to your heart's content, but there's no way you're ever going to get as broad and instantaneous a reach online - even if there are billions of web pages out there.

And for those of you who are complaining about all those commercials... the money ponied up by those sponsors is the equivalent of a $6.99 monthly subscription from each and every of the 100,000,000 TV households in the nation. (HBO has 40 million subscribers)

Good luck getting me to pay for any package that includes CBS.

Idol Down, But Fox Still Wins

Much was made in the industry trades this spring that AMERICAN IDOL's ratings were down this season. While the finale's numbers were on par with last year, the ratings for the run up to the final showdown were, indeed down.

But somehow all the gleeful naysayers managed to miss something rather important in TV land.

FOX as a whole was UP for the season - and not just because it aired the Super Bowl. Scripted fare like BONES and HOUSE mixed with smartly programmed stuff like MOMENT OF TRUTH and ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5TH GRADER more than made up for IDOL's slippage.

For the first time EVER, FOX finished a season #1 in total viewers. Now, there were plenty of factors in the victory, not the least being the writers' strike. But - FOX had to deal with it just like every other network. And they did a better job by going to their bench and developing imaginative game shows.

While CBS relied heavily on reruns of their scripted dramas, FOX threw in new shows like NEW AMSTERDAM and THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES.

And they won - without airing a single episode of 24.

Congrats to everyone at FOX. It took 20 years, but the revolution has finally arrived.

The tough news for the other nets for 2008-2009? Jack Bauer returns in November with a 2 hour TV movie, followed by 24 all-new hours starting January.

And word is, he's pissed.

Random Thoughts 080707

Good lord, it's almost been a month since my last post!

It's been a bit busy, you see.

Gretel's home from college, there's the new job, a new car and a new play. Not enough spare time to mow the yard, let alone post to a blog no one reads.

Know this: I'm lovin' another season of HELL'S KITCHEN. Gretel & I are eating up SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE - the level of the competition is miles above the previous seasons, And there's too much good stuff on cable to keep up.

The TiVo's filling up with MAD MEN, CLOSER, DAMAGES and SAVING GRACE - and reruns of SUPERNATURAL, which got lost last fall when it was head to head with THE O.C., but is worthy of consideration for a Season Pass this fall.

Speaking of this fall, BONES is on the move to Tuesdays, where it will now team up with HOUSE for a fun night of FOX style yumminess. NEW AMSTERDAM has been pushed back to January - all on the strength of this summer's DON'T FORGET THE LYRICS which will be getting a fall timeslot on Thursday nights (allowing me to watch SUPERNATURAL - see how it all comes together?)

CBS' ANGEL knockoff IMMORTAL is now on its third show runner, after major recasting by the second showrunner. Not a good sign. No Season Pass for you!

If you think politics is crazy where you live, you can't imagine the insanity of living in or near Iowa as the straw poll awaits. Political commercials out the ying yang. which makes advertising rates for non-profits who really need air time rather pricey.

Haven't made it to see that French rat movie, or the Simpsons flick, or pretty much anything since PIRATES came out. Seems that's about when the new job, the returning daughter and the new play all collided.

Check out the moderately redesigned SCCT website - (meaning slightly larger fonts, since I finally had to get reading glasses).

Later.

BONES - What To Do?

Sometimes the real world gets in the way of our TV watching fun.

FOX once had to re-edit the season finale of MELROSE PLACE because the explosion at the apartment complex came too close on the heels of the Oklahoma City bombing.

On the heels of 9/11, the series premiere of 24 had to be trimmed a bit to snip out a couple of shots of a crashing airliner.

And now, yet another tragedy has impacted yet another FOX show.

The episode of BONES originally scheduled for April 18th followed a murder investigation on a college campus. While the episode didn't deal with a mass shooting, it was rightly deemed inappropriate to air so soon following the recent events at Virginia Tech.

Unfortunately, it's looking like the episode may not air at all.

You see, there are elements of BONES that are part of a season long arc. I recently raked FOX over the coals for failing to air episodes in their correct order - and now it looks like they're expecting us to simply catch up, while having completely missed an episode that included some rather major plot developments for a couple of characters.

FOX's summary for this week's episode includes this passage: "Meanwhile, thwarted in his previous attempt to propose to Angela, Hodgins tries a more traditional, romantic approach to winning her heart."

With the cancellation of DRIVE, I think FOX could have aired the skipped episode of BONES this Monday night, instead of airing a HOUSE rerun, while giving folks a chance to keep up. Or they could at least make it available online.

Again, this episode doesn't contain any plot points similar to Virginia Tech, other than it takes place on a college campus and someone dies. No gunshots, no loner student, no chained doors.

I think we could handle it.

7 Minutes of Emptiness

At 6:53PM local time today, something happened that I haven't seen in years.

My TiVo was empty.

That's right. Empty. Caught up on THE O.C., HOUSE, HEROES - you name it. Nothing left to watch.

For seven whole minutes.

And then, at 7, the better half triggered some home fix it show on HGTV. At 8, we grabbed THE SOPRANOS on A&E.

And after seven minutes that must have seemed like an eternity to the magic little elves in the TiVo box, they weren't alone anymore.

Just goes to show how little has been on TV over the last 2 weeks.

Coming soon - 24, IDOL, LOST, BONES, HOUSE, HEROES, THE O.C., THE SIMPSONS, tons of stuff I won't have time to watch live.

Even the TiVo deserves a break for the holidays, right?

Now, back to work, you!