Broadcast's New Season is a Disappointing Follow-Up to Last Fall's Big Success - Ed Martin - MediaBizBloggers

The 201011 broadcast television season kicks off today amp8211 and it promises to be one of the most disappointing in years This isn39t the first time I have responded to the arrival of a new season in so downbeat a manner and it probably won39t be the last But the unavoidable conclusion that this season39s new shows will likely be a collective fail stings more than usual That39s because last year at this time so many freshman series introduced at the start of the 200910 season looked to be and later proved to be terrificIndeed putting aside the Jay Leno fiasco at NBC the early excitement of the 200910 season did much to restore faith in the ability of broadcast television to remain a compelling and creative force in the entertainment landscape Last fall brought us Fox39 Glee coming off four months of big buzz after its preview the previous May CBS39 The Good Wife NBC39s Community most notable for bringing Joel McHale from cable to broadcast The CW39s Vampire Diaries and ABC39s Modern Family Cougar Town and The Middle amp8211 plus FlashForward and V two other ABC freshmen that proved to be duds but had an awful lot of people eagerly anticipating their arrivals Meanwhile CBS39 midseason smash Undercover Boss was waiting in the wingsIt seemed as if all of those highly influential development executives at the networks and studios had finally gotten their collective act together and figured out how to produce quality primetime programming that would stand out against all that original cable fare that keeps eating into the broadcast audience But here we are one year later with 16 new broadcast series set to roll out this week plus three already out there and several more to come and I am hard pressed to recall a more unremarkable freshman class It39s as if nobody understood the successes of last season How could this happenIn short there isn39t a single new broadcast series set to debut at the start of this season that is worth getting excited about Some are better than most a couple are good but none of them are great Given the breadth and depth of the publicity marketing and promotion the networks have put behind them I expect decent tune in for most of their premieres but significant dropoff for their second episodes It will be interesting to see which if any of these new series the viewing public stays with after all that initial samplingI think the two shows that hold the most promise for shortterm success are Fox39 Lone Star and NBC39s The Event Longterm they will both have to work harder than most to survive Sadly they share the same time period Monday at 9 pm a significant obstacle even in the DVR eraLone Star is a sprawling serial about a sexy Texas con man with two lives and two wives that benefits enormously from its three highly appealing young stars amp8211 James Wolk Adrianne Palicki and Eloise Mumford and the entertaining contributions of two seasoned veterans Jon Voight and David Keith The basic premise seems preposterous Could Wolk39s character remain below the Internet radar while living a life of multiple lies Couldn39t one innocent tweet expose his mounting secrets But Star has all the ingredients for a simple and sexy good time so this is one worth rooting forThe Event is a complex mythology hybrid Part scifi adventure part melodrama part mystery part political thriller That means it will either grab an audience and hold it for a while or die by week two All those comparisons to Lost aren39t going to do it any favors given the fact that millions of its fans felt burned by that show39s finale but I defy anyone who makes it to the end of the Event pilot to not tune in for the second episode That said the second hour is going to have to kick ass or the show will likely fail right then and there The appeal of stars Jason Ritter and Blair Underwood will take it only so farKeeping with a positive mindset amp8211 difficult as that may be the other new shows with some palpable potential are Fox39 raucous white trash comedy Raising Hope the fall39s best pilot though not a guaranteed hit CBS39 lighthearted legal drama The Defenders starring Jerry O39Connell and Jim Belushi a promising comic pair CBS39 multigenerational cop drama Blue Bloods starring Tom Selleck Donnie Wahlberg Will Estes and Len Cariou and NBC39s frothy spy caper Undercovers a cross between Hart to Hart and Alias with supersexy Boris Kodjoe and Gugu MbathaRaw NBC39s timely Outsourced may also succeed if the audience is open to goodnatured humor that defies strident political correctnessYou may notice that I haven39t mentioned any of ABC39s new shows That39s because I39m withholding final judgment on them until I see them on television ABC no longer provides screeners to critics insisting instead that they watch pilots on the network39s press site which does them no favors Regardless I don39t detect a real winner anywhere in the network39s freshman class but I fully expect new ABC Entertainment president Paul Lee to swiftly clean house and begin unveiling exciting new shows by midseason Until then Dancing with the Stars and Modern Family will keep the network humming

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

Broadcast's New Season is a Disappointing Follow-Up to Last Fall's Big Success - Ed Martin - MediaBizBloggers

Author

Publish date

Channel

Ed Martin

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

More Videos:

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

Broadcast's New Season is a Disappointing Follow-Up to Last Fall's Big Success - Ed Martin - MediaBizBloggers

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Ed Martin

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

The payment was successful

Cookies