Showtime violates an unspoken code + Weeds season 2 premiere
Tonight after work I sat down in front of the television to take in the season premiere of the Showtime comedy Weeds. It’s an unremarkable show on an unremarkable network, but they’re both trying and that’s usually worth something. Showtime has no easy hill to climb. If you ask and Tom, Dick or Larry on the street where you’re going to find the best programming on cable they’re going to say HBO. Maybe Larry will accidentally say Showtime, but that’s only because he’s a big Red Shoe Diaries fan.
Though if they’re ever going to make a move, now is precisely the time to do it. HBO is limp. It’s top show, The Sopranos seemed to hemorrhage viewers this past season (maybe because people don’t like having to wait 20 months between seasons, or maybe because the shows sexiness has apparently bored the creators). Its top comedy, Sex and the City is long gone and nothing seems poised to take the reigns. HBO still makes great shows (this week’s Deadwood was awesome and exactly what a ‘payoff’ episode should be), and even the greatest show, The Wire, which I’ll be talking about in more depth later in the week. But none of these shows have the buzz that the network once had. Showtime, if it played its cards right, could finally start to chip away some of HBO’s viewers.
Weeds is a big part of that plan. It’s a crowd-pleaser (maybe too much so). Throw in The L Word and Brotherhood and you’ve got yourself a respectable one-two-three.
ANYWAY, I’m watching the show (on the SHO) and laughing occasionally at the occasionally funny moments on this occasionally interesting series about a pot-selling suburban mom when something happens. Something that should never happen on a premium channel. What was it? Click below to find out…
Actually, you could have probably figured it out from the HUGE image at the top of the screen, but thanks for continuing to read nonetheless. Twice during the broadcast of Weeds Showtime put up a promo bar at the bottom of the screen telling me that Brotherhood was on next.
Most people will say, “Hey Rick, who the hell cares?” To which I respond, “Screw you buddy, I’m paying for this channel!” (which is technically a lie since I work, kinda-sorta, for the cable company and get my service for free). But the idea is still wrong!
Here’s the problem. We, as viewers, have become so accepting of on-screen advertising during programming that it doesn’t even register anymore. It’s been a slow build. First was the network bug in the lower right corner of the screen. It wasn’t always there. In fact, I’d guess that it didn’t come about until the 90s. No one complained. Then came the increasingly obtrusive weather warning from the local affiliates. Growing up in Nebraska it wasn’t uncommon to tape a show while at work only to come home and find 2/3rds of the screen covered in radar maps, scrolling tickers, network bugs, and nonsense. People complained, but no one did anything.
The worst offender has to be FOX and NBC who now run animations on the lower third telling you about things that you already knew in the most horribly inappropriate way possible. You’d be watching 24 on FOX, Jack Bauer would be torturing someone with soldering iron and a coat hanger, and then Brian-the-Dog from Family guy would walk out into the middle of the screen, take a shit, and roll in it while Stewie held up a sign saying “Family Guy 9 Eastern 8 Central.”* Obviously it would never occur to them that some of us might be actually watching the story that’s unfolding on the screen. But we let it slide. We let it slide because we get it. We get that the networks can no longer compete with cable (in their minds), and that they have to pull out all the tricks in the hopes that a few viewers make the conscious decision to stop watching the program they’ve been enjoying and instead to process the information that is flying, driving, shimmying and (in some cases) being hurled across the bottom of the screen. We accept it, and now look forward to it.
It’s bad on cable too, but not quite AS bad.
Pay cable is a different story. Pay cable isn’t a system that depends upon ratings (they say). Pay cable only cares about subscribers. Once you get the package, they could care less if you tune in or not. Showtime is all ready getting my theoretical ten bucks a month, what is it to them if I tune into Brotherhood, The L Word or the god-damn Red Shoe Diaries.
This is why Showtime will never be able to trump HBO. Even if their product is better, it won’t matter because they taint it with image of being cheap. Only a cheap station would whore out the bottom of its screen to a self-promoting advertisement. It’s saying that we don’t trust our product. We’re weary of the appeal.
HBO treats its original programming like a gift from the Lord Almighty. There’s no promo, there isn’t even a network bug that often. The network respects the screen and respects the viewer. HBO Sunday night is sacred. People plan their week around it. It’s those last three hours before you have to go to sleep and face another godforsaken week at the office. It’s sanctuary, and be damned if some red bar at the bottom of the screen is going to ruin it for all of us.
As for the Weeds premiere it was about par for the course. Good comedies that don’t involve people in the entertainment industry are hard to come by these days. Weeds at least gets points for being about something moderate interesting. The problem is no matter how good Marie-Louise Parker is in this show, her story will always be trumped by that of her peers. Kevin Nealon, Elizabeth Perkins (et al) are a joy to watch and steal much of the show. It also doesn’t help Ms. Parker’s case that her character, Nancy, is completely unsympathetic, despite the show trying to convince us to feel sorry for her. Like I said above, this is an average show.
The catch is that I’m so starved for old-school, narrative comedy I’ll tune in every week (like with Entourage) just because I need something to watch that isn’t either complete off the wall or animated. So until FX produces the next great Dramedy (dare I say Starved might have been it? [actually, Lucky WAS it, but who remembers that show?]), we’ll have to take it.
*Not entirely accurate, but you get the gist.
