NBC's New Series Show the Limits of Predictions
Dec 05, 2007
http://www.film.com/tv/story/nbcsnewseriesshowthelimitsofpredictions/13982602/17537492
"You never know" is a motto that can be applied to many walks of life,
television prognostication being one. Self-styled experts can make
educated guesses, but in the end audiences will always do what they
want. This is a lesson that NBC has learned again this fall.
The peacock network began the fall season with only four new series to
introduce, all hour-long dramas. The centerpiece was Bionic Woman, a
reworking of the somewhat campy 1970s series that promised to introduce
some post-Alias intrigue. The other three shows had lower profiles, with
mostly anonymous casts and without the cachet of an obviously creative
concept like Pushing Daisies. Chuck was a fish out of water spy story
with comic overtones, and the closest thing to a name star in its cast
was Adam Baldwin, who is best known for not being a Baldwin brother. On
its face, Lifeappeared to be just another cop show, one with about the
most boring title imaginable. Journeyman, about a time traveling
reporter, was instantly tagged as a rewrite of Quantum Leap, which isn't
even that far in the past.
But of the three, it appears NBC saw Journeyman as the show with the
most potential, as it was given a timeslot following Heroes, a show with
which it shares a sci-fi sensibility. Bionic Woman looked like a pretty
safe bet, and as for Chuck and Life -- well, both would need a lot of help.
So much for the conventional wisdom. Bionic Woman aired its last
finished episode last week, and NBC has said nothing about plans for any
more. Ratings that started out quite good fell dramatically in their
second week and have continued to fall, to the point where Life, the
show that NBC hoped might get a boost from Bionic Woman, has begun to
surpass it in the ratings. Life has been picked up for a full 22-episode
season by NBC (pending resolution of the WGA strike), as has Chuck,
which held its own on Mondays at 8:00 opposite Dancing with the Stars.
Journeyman has three more episodes to run this month, and NBC has put
out word that the final episode works as a plausible ending to the
series, which would seem to spell doom even though it hasn't officially
been canned.
What went wrong with Bionic Woman and Journeyman, and why did the little
engines Life and Chuck gain traction? Many shows debut and die without
ever really being sampledFriday Night Lights is still fighting that
battle in its second season. But Bionic Woman did not have that problem,
as ratings for its premiere were quite good. But its reviews were bad
right away, and not just from critics, but from the sort of fanboys and
fangirls who latched onto Heroes immediately and were expected to be
fervent backers here too. Part of the problem, one that perhaps should
have been realized from the outset, was that the title character played
by Michelle Ryan was badly overshadowed by the show's supposed villain,
played by Katee Sackhoff of Battlestar Galactica fame. All things being
equal, networks will cast someone who looks like Ryan to someone who
looks like Sackhoff ten times out of ten, but the reaction to the two
characters makes one wonder why Bionic Woman wasn't simply built around
Sackhoff in the first place, given her credibility with the sci-fi audience.
The problem with Journeyman was less that people didn't like it than not
enough people were interested in the first place. The Heroes audience
never really stuck around to watch, perhaps because Journeyman does not
have the same kind of breakneck kinetic appeal of its lead-in. Star
Kevin McKidd is best known for Rome, which wasn't one of HBO's bigger
hits, and he's a somewhat stolid presence for what should ideally be a
popcorn show. The overarching plot, regarding how McKidd's Dan Vassar
character started time traveling in the first place, was somewhat
confusing for new viewers; and the week-to-week plots were nothing special.
Chuck caught its first break during the summer when some critics began
singing the praises of its pilot episode, which did a great job of
establishing the title character as a regular shmoe in its first few
minutes, and then almost instantly plunged him into a bizarre new life
as a tool of the CIA. The show has done a good job of convincing those
who first tuned in thanks to the critics to stick around week after
week. The permanent setting, the electronics store where Chuck works
officially, provides a handy base for comical subplots; while the CIA
portion provides the action and (thanks to Yvonne Strahovski's Sarah)
the romance. Opposite Dancing with the Stars, NBC isn't looking for a
top ten hit, so Chuck could have a nice home on Mondays at 8:00 for a while.
Life shares with Journeyman the potential pitfall of a mega-plot that is
running concurrently with the show's weekly action: the question of who
it was that set up Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) for a long stint in
prison. Anybody coming in to Life at this point would either have to
watch the old episodes on NBC.com to understand why the characters keep
talking about the Bank of Los Angeles robbery, or just decide to ignore
the entire theme (although Monday's episode teased that a final answer
may not be far away).
Unlike Chuck, which built from a highly touted pilot, Life has caught on
via word of mouth, and a very vocal and passionate online fanbase that
has been begging critics to speak out in its favor. As time has gone on,
Life has begun to remind me a bit of the late, great Homicide: Life on
the Street, with its creative use of music and its odd bits of seemingly
random dialogue. Crews and his partner Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi) invert
the usual stereotype: the older man comes across as eccentric and often
unserious; the younger woman is cynical and quiet. With all the
procedurals around (one of which, CSI: NY, is the main competition for
Life), there's a place for a character-based cop show that's aimed a
little higher intellectually than Women's Murder Club.
NBC is still badly lacking in series that combine critical acclaim with
ratings -- one might argue they don't have any, considering the
struggles of Heroes. But the network can attempt to build off Chuck and
Life, while trying to prevent the mistakes that sank Bionic Woman from
happening again.
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