The Good, The Bad And The Ugly… This Season For NBC
By fred | June 19, 2008
(This week we look back at how each of the main networks handled things this past season, as well as looking at how things are looking up for the coming one. Agree ? Disagree ? Share your thoughts and grade networks in the comments below…)
The Good
This season NBC had some really good series on, and not only that but they had simply the best new series of the season : Life. Some very good new series (again, Life, but also Journeyman) and some very good returning series (30 Rock, The Office, …), at first it really looks like NBC might be a winner.
(Side note: For all fans of Life out there, there’s a new fansite around, The Path To Zen, on which you can find (among other things) a really great & interesting read about how Life could become a big hit, if NBC believed in it! I highly recommend the read, especially if you like the show…)
Adding to that the renewal of newcomers Life and Chuck, both deserving a second season for sure, or finding a way to save fan-favorite Friday Night Lights, NBC looks like a winner.
And yet, they’re not.
The Bad
But it’s NBC, and they’re a bunch of morons. Which is why the canceled one of the best new series of the season, Journeyman; or why they felt it was more important to go on Promo World Tour and make sure the latest Nissan could be seen a lot on camera, than actually ensuring someone was actually writing (good) scripts for Heroes, or why the spent millions and millions and millions of dollars promoting Bionic Woman, without again thinking that actual (good) scripts and characters were also required.
Maybe I should also mention the hour-long format which didn’t suit The Office best, or the mess that My Name Is Earl got stuck in, first behind bars then in a coma…
The Ugly
And if you thought that was bad, wait to see how they treated fan-favorite Scrubs after seven long years of good services. When creator Bill Lawrence asked to do a couple more episodes for the final season of the show, NBC basically told him to go fuck himself. It’s been seven years, seven years of good ratings, seven years that were long planned to end this season, and NBC wouldn’t let them end things properly. More than that, they even didn’t air the last episodes they had in order, as to confuse fan even more !
It’s really sad, because NBC had all the cards to be (one of) the best network around, and they screwed it all up by being, well, NBC.
The Future
Sadly NBC gave up on trying to be creative, or even caring about it! Now they’re all for reviving Knight Rider, or old popular stories like Crusoe, and selling products. At NBC, it’s not about product placement, the products are the show, it’s about “content placement”, trying to put some content, stories or characters, inside the hour-long commercials episodes, if that’s possible. First they ask what advertisers want to sell, then they ask writers to write something to sell it. And if while at it they can come up with things such as, you know, “stories” and “characters”, well, why not…
Another illustration of this new reality : The Office is popular, especially on the beloved demo, so they’ll make a spinoff and premiere it right in the post-Superbowl slot. What is it about ? Who’s in it ? What’s it like ? Who the Hell cares, it’s got “The Office” in its name (since they really have nothing, not even a name, a concept, anything…), so it’ll sell lots of iPhones!
Adding to that how they sent one of the greatest series out there, and definitely the best drama of NBC, Life, down to Fridays at 10.00 (aka the Death Slot) and it seems they really want you to hate them (I’ll send you back to the great article linked to earlier…). And as soon as they’ll have canceled The Office and 30 Rock, I’ll probably stop watching anyways…
Grades
This season: D+
Next season: E-
(Come back tomorrow when we’ll look at this season for The CW. In the mean time, your turn to look back & grade NBC in the comments below…)
Posted in News
Shows: 30 Rock, Bionic Woman, Chuck, Crusoe, Friday Night Lights, Journeyman, Knight Rider, Life, My Name Is Earl, Scrubs, The Office
