On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 3:58 AM, JW <[email protected]> wrote: > > If I want to make a TV show about a crack, > > secrete espionage unit that relies more on guile and manipulation than > > shooting, I might as well call it Mission:Impossible than think up a new > > name and market it as "kind of like M:I in the 21st century" (assuming I > > already own the rights to the show). > > The problem is that people too young to have seen the original series > have no investment in the name, while those of us old enough to > remember the original will bring expectations to a new series that the > producers may be unwilling or unable to meet. (In the particular case > of Mission:Impossible, I'm ignoring the movies, which add further > levels of confusion.) > > I gave up on the current Five-O after a few episodes. On top of the > writing being pedestrian, I kept having a "that's not McGarrett" > reaction two or three times an episode. I also agree with Kevin's > general point that building the backstory of how this team came > together added very little. If it were Honolulu Cops (or some cleverer > title) with characters named Wilson and Manumaleuna, I'd probably have > lasted a bit longer. Even if I didn't like it as much as the original > Five-O, I'd be more willing to judge it on its own merits. > > A note about the original Five-O: Che Fong was a great one-man CSI lab > decades before anyone knew those initials. >
To repeat, my argument has nothing to do with the artistic or creative merit of the projects (I think most will agree that ideally it would be better to see attempts at new, creative projects rather than re-hashing old concepts). My argument is that, given that it is a fact that networks will re-hash old concepts, I am less irritated than I used to be when they do so under the umbrella of a familiar brand, rather than pretending an old idea is new. JW may not have liked the new Five-0, but enough did to make it a successful show (not wildly successfully, but I think it was the #1 or 2 top rated new drama of last season, and did get renewed). I can be convinced by the argument that the exact same show called Honolulu Cops would not have gotten as high ratings, and may not have been renewed. Your note about Che is the point I was making earlier. If you go back and watch the original Five-0 you will see a a lot of the elements of contemporary criminology procedure. I wound up not watching many of the new episodes from the second half of last season (once it became disappointingly clear Boomer was not going to be in as many bikini's as I had hoped) but it seemed like the new show was trying to recapture the Che part with that guy from Heroes, but it never seemed to get much traction. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
