Those who made it to the finish line.
Whoo! We did it! We did it!
As the 2006/2007 TV season winds to a close, it’s kind of interesting/sobering to look at the network schedule and see which of those “highly toted” new shows from last fall actually made it all the way. Even more interesting is to try to figure out which of those shows impressed people enough to get second seasons.
According to my count the following were clearly strong enough (or at least received well enough by critics) to make it from the fall to the spring mostly intact: Jericho, Shark, Ugly Betty, Heroes, 30 Rock, Friday Night Lights, ‘Til Death and The Game. Of those, you can really only grant the distinction of being a “hit new show” to Heroes, Ugly Betty and Shark — all of which are expected to return next fall.
Also interesting is that Heroes is the only true serial (perhaps Ugly Betty to a lesser degree) that caught viewer’s attention this year despite “the serialized drama” being the hot genre going into the fall of 2006 (The Nine, Six Degrees, Other Number Based Drama anyone?). Apparently people who are not myself only have so much tolerance for interweaving storylines.
As for those shows that didn’t make it out alive, they’re numbers are too plentiful to count. Not like we’re really missing anything too significant. Outside of Friday Night Lights, which made it from start to finish despite still being on the bubble for a season two, there really weren’t that many new shows this season that broke any significant ground artistically. Are there people out there still wiping away tears because Kidnapped didn’t make it past its fourth week? Probably, but we didn’t really want to be friends with those people anyway, did we? Look, at least they’re got a DVD release, which is more than I can say for fans of Andy Richter Controls the Universe.
