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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
The TV season ends in an orgy of sex, birth, death and other life-changing events.
May 25, 2002 | Anyone who has watched too much television in the last couple of decades knows that May is National Unresolved Issues Month. As series frantically tug at loose threads in an attempt to lure us back in the fall, we dutifully sit through births, deaths, shocking reversals, surprising verdicts, sudden elopements, unforeseen riots and bizarre outbreaks of diseases long ago eradicated. Between the season-ending cliffhangers (which, once, in happier, pre-"Dallas" times, were exclusive to daytime soaps), the mawkish series-changing events (babies, weddings, babies and weddings) and the obsessive-compulsive retreads of old ratings glory days that have recently plagued prime time (you have Carol Burnett to thank for the "That's Incredible," "Laverne & Shirley," "American Bandstand," "The Cosby Show: A Look Back," "20 Years of Must See TV" and "Take 75" specials), the networks seemed especially entrenched in old patterns this year.
Of course, there's nothing like a very special episode to make us realize we don't really care.
Few of us will spend the summer with our glutes clasped to the edge of the couch, wondering if Noah Wyle is going to be OK, or whether Rachel plans to scamper down the aisle with Ross or Joey, or whether Jordan will return to work or stalk off to find her mother's killer come fall. But for some people (hint: It's not the viewers), sweeps really is hell on the cuticles.
If the channels on your television have been acting like Aretha, Mariah and Celine after being told they'll be sharing a trailer at "Divas Las Vegas," that's because May is when the major networks feverishly compete for ratings as advertising rates are set for the fall. And last week, in that insider-y version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (which has finally, mercifully, been put down), the majors hosted the "upfronts," a series of lavish New York parties for marketing executives in New York, during which the new fall shows were unveiled for advertisers. What, you thought all the suspense, nostalgia and otherwise unresolved issues were for you? Silly rabbit, sweeps are for ads.
It's not surprising that the networks have babies on the brain. If last week's parties marked the end of mating season between networks and advertisers, they followed the long pollination season between networks and producers. As happens every year, a whole pageant of comedies and dramas were ordered up for consideration last season, only a few of which made it to the screen in the fall. (Of 31 pilots ordered by ABC this year, for example, only seven new shows found their way onto the fall schedule.)
If this year's sweeps were all about making unresolved story lines out of unresolved personal issues, next year's new shows are all about seeking comfort in the familiar. Now that even Dan Quayle is embracing televised single motherhood, the networks looked homeward, inward, backward and Mom-ward.
I. Unresolved Mother Issues
"Alias"
Our favorite spy girl, Sydney Bristow, has been inching toward patching up her relationship with her dad, Jack, just in time to discover that her late lamented mother is neither late nor all that lamented. In fact, if the show's catch-all plot-forwarding device, the cryptic Rambaldi prophecy, turns out to hold any water, Mom may just turn out to be all four horsemen of the Apocalypse rolled into one hot former KGB spy. Still, after a season of double-crossing double-agent doublespeak, Sydney may begin to get some closure.
In the two-part season finale, Sydney's SD-6 partner, Dixon, still unaware that he's working for the evil branch of the CIA, makes an inopportune appearance while Sydney and her CIA handler, Vaughn, are capturing Sark (who will lead them to Khasinau who will lead them to "The Man"). Dixon suspects Sydney of treason. Turns out Hadlaki may have been a mole within the CIA. Unresolved sexual tension between Sydney and Vaughn will likely remain that way, because at the end of the episode, Vaughn is as good as dead. (Never complain that your life is complicated. Complicated is having to summarize even a single episode of "Alias.") Of course, on "Alias," you never die once. Look at Sydney, who recently survived after plunging her car into deep water by breathing air from the tires, just like her mother did some 30 years ago. Still wondering who "The Man" is? Uh, Mom?
