Quotes of the Day
Announcing their 2003-04 schedules in New York City last week, TV executives said that next fall they will not resort to cheap reality stunts in midseason. All six broadcast networks will rise on the strength of a slew of creative new hits. And a special attachment will allow you to print $20 bills from your cable box.
O.K., I made up the last sentence to make the paragraph more believable. Everyone expects a little overpromising at the annual "upfronts," the expensive stage shows at which networks show trailers from their fall debuts and literally put on a song-and-dance for advertisers. At Carnegie Hall, CBS hired the Broadway cast of Chicago to disparage the competition to the tune of All That Jazz: "ABC is out of gas/while NBC eats horse's a__" (a reference to the horse-rectum-eating challenge on Fear Factor). They're called upfronts because they're designed to entice advertisers to pay billions up front for next season's ads, and the deals are lubricated by cocktails and carpaccio at posh afterparties. It's essentially a TV stock market, in which the moneymen hope to invest in hits-to-be on their way up.
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But as on Wall Street, you may think you're buying a blue chip and end up holding WorldCom. That's how some advertisers felt last year when they bought traditional dramas and sitcoms and, come winter, saw them replaced by the likes of Are You Hot? Despite hits like Joe Millionaire, reality shows' ratings are unpredictable, and not everyone wants their snack chips associated with Lorenzo Lamas' laser pointer.
So last week the network chiefs, like guilty spouses, denounced reality TV as a cheap tart even as the scent of its perfume still clung to their collars. And they pledged their renewed fidelity — We mean it this time, honey!--to "original, quality scripted entertainment."
"Scripted," yes: the new schedules are heavy on old-fashioned sitcoms and dramas written by writers — but, then again, so were last fall's. "Quality"? The jury's still out: the networks show only clip reels to the press at upfronts, so it's as if the Cannes Film Festival consisted entirely of movie trailers. But "original"? There's the first belly laugh of the new season. CBS had the two biggest new dramas last year with CSI: Miami and Without a Trace; so it announced three more crime dramas, plus two other dramas with cops as major characters. The WB, which hit big with a young, hot Superman on Smallville, offers a young, hot King of the Apes in Tarzan and Jane (on which Jane, of course, is a cop). There are yet more star-vehicle sitcoms, for the likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Charlie Sheen and Kelly Ripa. And NBC, under pressure to replace Friends after its final season next year, unveiled Coupling, a risque sitcom about six sexy young men and women in a big city. A Friends copy, you say? Nah. It's a remake of a British sitcom — which was a Friends copy.
In returning-show news, The West Wing will be back, but creator Aaron Sorkin is to be replaced by E.R.'s John Wells. Fox's 24 is planning one more lousy day for Jack Bauer, and ABC's The Practice narrowly avoided being disbarred. And the networks aren't totally disavowing reality shows, just those with bad ratings. Fox will bring back Joe Millionaire, even though its original the-prince-is-a-pauper surprise is well known; the network claims to have a "secret plan" for a new twist. Survivor will be back with a tournament-of-champions edition. And ABC's The Bachelor will return, seeking a mate for Bob Guiney, the funny, big-boned guy spurned last season by bachelorette Trista Rehn — who will marry her beau Ryan Sutter next fall, on ABC, of course. Nothing says "I love you" like a sweeps stunt.
In an encouraging trend, several new shows have black or Latino leads, at a time when the medium is still lacking in them. And not every scripted show looked like a snooze. CBS is offering Joan of Arcadia, about a teenage girl who talks to God; in NBC's Miss Match, Alicia Silverstone is a divorce lawyer and matchmaker. UPN's The Mullets — about a pair of hard-rockin' idiot brothers with the eponymous short-in-front-long-in-back haircuts — got the biggest laughs of the upfronts for the title alone. And Fox had, hands down, the most intriguing series ideas: Skin, a Romeo-and-Juliet romance between the daughter of a porn czar and the son of a D.A.; The Ortegas, a sitcom about a family that produces a talk show — recorded live on tape with real celebrities — in its home; Still Life, a family drama narrated by the dead son; and Cracking Up, a dark sitcom about a psychology student studying a family of rich lunatics.
Fox's shows may turn out to be awful, but at least they're attempting more original premises than those of the other major networks. And perhaps it's not a coincidence that the network with the most provocative scripted series ideas is the network that gave us Man vs. Beast. The cheesiest reality shows and the most ambitious sitcoms and dramas have one thing in common: they try to startle us with something we haven't seen before. But startling people doesn't always sell detergent. In the TV business, that's the only reality that matters.
- James Poniewozik