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Saturday, Nov 22, 2008
It's September: Where are all the new shows? Plus: Court TV's reality entry "Confessions" is not good for the soul.
Sep 11, 2000 | These used to be the sure signs of September: kids trudging back to school, the baseball playoffs winding down and the networks debuting their new fall shows. Now, the kids go back to school before Labor Day, the World Series lasts almost until Halloween and the fall TV season is in danger of passing into the storeroom of the quaint and outmoded -- there's a shelf reserved for it between Sunday dinner and the 40-hour workweek.
If the traditional TV timetable still held, we would be in premiere week right now; in the past, the Emmy telecast -- which aired Sunday night -- usually signaled the transition from summer reruns to a concentrated rollout of this year's models. But this week, there is only one, lonely new prime-time series making its debut: UPN's sitcom "Girlfriends." The pace is supposed to pick up during the first week of October, when a lot of new shows (and returning ones) make their bow. But almost as many shows will be trickling out after that week, all the way into November.
So what ever happened to the fall TV season?
Well, a major reason for this year's fragmented fall rollout is the confluence of the Summer Olympics and the presidential campaign. NBC is broadcasting the Sydney Games from Sept. 15 through Oct. 1, thus delaying its fall premieres. And NBC, ABC and CBS have been held hostage by the Gore and Bush camps' inability to agree on when and where their televised debates will air; the networks' October premiere dates are tentative until the candidates end their little pissing match.
But you can't blame the Olympics and Al 'n' Dubya for everything. The concept of a "fall season" has been rendered more and more meaningless over the past few years, with the veteran broadcast networks facing year-round competition from cable channels, syndicated shows and new networks. Back when Fox was an upstart, it began premiering its fall shows during (gasp!) the traditional late summer lull, and WB and UPN have followed Fox's lead.
ABC saw the summer programming light last August when rerun-weary viewers stampeded to its initial series of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." And after "Survivor," it's pretty clear that no network can afford to take the summer off anymore. NBC learned that lesson well when "Survivor" and "Millionaire" bulldozed must-see reruns of "Will & Grace," "Friends" and "Frasier" (and lame new series like "Sammy") in the ratings. Throw in fresh summer water-cooler talkers like HBO's "Sex and the City," PBS's "The 1900 House" and even CBS's "Big Brother" and you have compelling evidence that the days of a clean, seasonal break in TV programming are gone.
It's harder also, in the era of multichannel alternatives, for the networks to get away with putting on any old crap when fall rolls around. In the past few fall seasons, new series were yanked with alarming speed if they failed to spark immediate viewer interest. Last fall, NBC's "Mike O'Malley Show" lasted two episodes. ABC's much-touted Kevin Williamson soap "Wasteland" was pulled after three. Fox's Chris Carter-produced sci-fi drama "Harsh Realm" also made a surprising (because of Carter's value to the network) exit after just three episodes.
This fall, though, it seems as if the networks are at least making an effort at quality control before they let the dogs out. Hollywood is in a tinkering frenzy. Fox's John Goodman-as-gay-dad sitcom "Normal, Ohio" (formerly titled "Don't Ask") has undergone extensive, well-publicized recasting, reshooting and reconceptualizing ahead of its Nov. 1 premiere date. NBC's bid to recapture its old "Seinfeld" glory days, "The Michael Richards Show," is also in rehab after test screenings of the sitcom (in which Richards plays a goofy private eye) went over with all the appeal of Kramer's old invention, the bra for men. The sitcom was originally supposed to be a starring showcase for Richards, but has mutated into an ensemble comedy. A new pilot was shot in late August, for a tentative Oct. 24 premiere.
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