MagneticMediaFed Fall Television Preview!
Since you can only watch so many episodes of Man Vs. Wild before you feel like you could literally survive anywhere on the planet (so long as you’re willing to bite into a living fish), I’ve decided to finally tackle this stack of pilots for the new falls network shows and report on my findings. Over the next week or so I’m hoping to hit (at the very least) the highlights from the CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and CW fall schedules.
“Preview” is the operative word here as a lot of these pilots could change between the copies provided now for screening and what will actually air on television. I won’t be writing reviews, per se, but an early reaction and whether or not I’d like to see another episode. Still, there’s only so much a network can do to gussy up a walking disaster. In the same vein a series can have a great pilot and then fall apart in its second episode (i.e. Studio 60 and the Sunset Strip) which is why the television pilot is such a crazy beast to begin with. In 20 or 45 minutes an audience member needs to meet all of the important characters, understand the basic motivations, and hopefully be at the very least “slightly dazzled” providing reason enough to tune in the following week.
The shows that succeed as art are the ones that somehow managed to get through development relatively intact. The one’s that are insufferable and not worth the plastic they’re burned to tend to be those shows that have the stink of network meddling or were simply green-lit on a shaky pitch and then were built from the top down. The problem, of course, comes from the sad, unpredictability of to what an audience will actually respond. The real successes on television commercially tend to be those shows that can strike the right balance of high-concept originality and mainstream aesthetic (Lost, Desperate Housewives, The Office, hell, even the first CSI).
Either that, or it’s chimps with a dart board. It could be either one.
Tags: Fall TV Preview
