Since this will be another "Friday Films" about television, I'm just going to announce that "Films," for the purpose of these posts, might also include TV shows. I guess this is also timely, as the new season of most television shows is currently getting started.
As you might know, one of the shows that is not returning is ABC's Pushing Daisies. I watched the first
and second
season DVDs this summer, and I think the network really made a mistake in pulling the plug on the show. Of course, it has all the marks of a show that would fail early and be missed: clever and quick dialogue, well-developed characters, no laugh track, and more nerdy allusions than even I can pick up on. The show centers around a piemaker who can bring people and objects back to life for one minute--any longer, and something nearby has to die--who brings his childhood sweetheart back to life and decides not to send her back. They work with a detective, Emerson Cod, solving murders--an easy task if you can temporarily bring back the dead and ask who killed them.
The biggest problem it ran into was, surprisingly, not its strangeness or its originality--those traits actually gained it a lot of viewers--but the writer's strike. The first season was cut short, to nine episodes, and the second season was allowed to die quietly over the course of thirteen episodes. That's roughly one full season. Toward the end, it was subject to the network shuffle, the fastest way to shake off those few viewers who were still hanging on, and the producer was forced to come up with an ending to somehow wrap things up. Every plot thread they laced through the seasons was abruptly cut off.
Somehow I ended up watching the second-to-last episode on a Saturday night (I didn't find out that it was the second-to-last episode until later) and I was lost, but completely hooked. The episode had a ton of Chinatown
references, and a plot like an episode of CSI put through a blender with a fairy tale. I wanted to find out the rest of the story. And I did, and then I, too, was disappointed that this show was taken away.
Which brings me to my point: if I saw one episode and was hooked, enough to seek out the rest of the show and catch up on what was going on, I'm willing to bet that many other people who see just one episode will want to see more. And then, if the network actually, I don't know, keeps it in the same time slot for more than a week at a time, those viewers who saw that one episode would watch more. And then the show would build a following. It seems to me to be a problem of short-sightedness and chasing after fast profit. Now, look at a show like HBO's True Blood
: HBO partnered with Blockbuster to rent out the first episode, for free, the week before the premiere. One episode, enough to get people coming back. Now, it's a huge hit. And it's been allowed to build and grow and gain an audience without its time slot being switched without notice.
I think the only network who seems to have any idea of the value of doing this is Fox--although their previous sins against Arrested Development make it difficult to forgive them--by premiering Glee after American Idol several months ago, they created anticipation and buzz. I'm not sure what the ratings were last night, but I'd imagine they were pretty great. And it's a weird show, an hour-long scripted musical in the middle of primetime, and I think it's a smart idea to help it along. Because there is an audience. But the network needs to put some work into it. And they need to leave its time slot alone.
Okay, so rant about short-sighted networks over. Go watch "Pushing Daisies" and make ABC wish they had kept it going. We would have been its audience. Instead, they give us "Crash Course" and "Dating in the Dark." But wouldn't you much rather have this?
As you might know, one of the shows that is not returning is ABC's Pushing Daisies. I watched the first
and second season DVDs this summer, and I think the network really made a mistake in pulling the plug on the show. Of course, it has all the marks of a show that would fail early and be missed: clever and quick dialogue, well-developed characters, no laugh track, and more nerdy allusions than even I can pick up on. The show centers around a piemaker who can bring people and objects back to life for one minute--any longer, and something nearby has to die--who brings his childhood sweetheart back to life and decides not to send her back. They work with a detective, Emerson Cod, solving murders--an easy task if you can temporarily bring back the dead and ask who killed them.The biggest problem it ran into was, surprisingly, not its strangeness or its originality--those traits actually gained it a lot of viewers--but the writer's strike. The first season was cut short, to nine episodes, and the second season was allowed to die quietly over the course of thirteen episodes. That's roughly one full season. Toward the end, it was subject to the network shuffle, the fastest way to shake off those few viewers who were still hanging on, and the producer was forced to come up with an ending to somehow wrap things up. Every plot thread they laced through the seasons was abruptly cut off.
Somehow I ended up watching the second-to-last episode on a Saturday night (I didn't find out that it was the second-to-last episode until later) and I was lost, but completely hooked. The episode had a ton of Chinatown
references, and a plot like an episode of CSI put through a blender with a fairy tale. I wanted to find out the rest of the story. And I did, and then I, too, was disappointed that this show was taken away.Which brings me to my point: if I saw one episode and was hooked, enough to seek out the rest of the show and catch up on what was going on, I'm willing to bet that many other people who see just one episode will want to see more. And then, if the network actually, I don't know, keeps it in the same time slot for more than a week at a time, those viewers who saw that one episode would watch more. And then the show would build a following. It seems to me to be a problem of short-sightedness and chasing after fast profit. Now, look at a show like HBO's True Blood
: HBO partnered with Blockbuster to rent out the first episode, for free, the week before the premiere. One episode, enough to get people coming back. Now, it's a huge hit. And it's been allowed to build and grow and gain an audience without its time slot being switched without notice.I think the only network who seems to have any idea of the value of doing this is Fox--although their previous sins against Arrested Development make it difficult to forgive them--by premiering Glee after American Idol several months ago, they created anticipation and buzz. I'm not sure what the ratings were last night, but I'd imagine they were pretty great. And it's a weird show, an hour-long scripted musical in the middle of primetime, and I think it's a smart idea to help it along. Because there is an audience. But the network needs to put some work into it. And they need to leave its time slot alone.
Okay, so rant about short-sighted networks over. Go watch "Pushing Daisies" and make ABC wish they had kept it going. We would have been its audience. Instead, they give us "Crash Course" and "Dating in the Dark." But wouldn't you much rather have this?
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