While watching the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics battle it out in an excellent seven game series, it was hard not to notice all of ABC’s promos touting its upcoming summer season. Among the offerings were several dramatic series --- The Gates, Rookie Blue and Scoundrels.
I don’t plan to watch any of them.
It’s nothing personal. For all I know, they could be very good. I’m sure the cast and crew for each worked very hard to create the best shows they possibly could. I know this was the case last summer with the ABC show The Unusuals.
The Unusuals was a quirky cop procedural about the off-the-wall goings-on in a NYPD homicide unit. It starred Jeremy Renner (pre-Hurt Locker) and Amber Tamblyn (post -Joan of Arcadia) as unlikely partners. His character, Detective Jason Walsh, was getting over the shooting death of his last partner and seemed to be hiding a deep, dark secret. Her character, Detective Casey Shraeger also had a secret. From a wealthy family, she had turned her back on her life of privilege for a chance at what she really wanted to be -- a homicide detective. She was given the chance by the precinct's Sergeant, but with strings attached. She had to secretly investigate her new colleagues. The Sergeant believed one of them had shot the detective she is replacing.
Other notable characters in The Unusuals included Detective Leo Banks (Harold Perrineau), who was convinced he was cursed and destined to die on his 42nd birthday, Detective Eric Delahoy (Adam Goldberg), who was in denial about a brain tumor that could potentially kill him, and Detective Henry Cole (Joshua Close), a religious zealot concealing a criminal past.
The Unusuals was funny and touching, its characters richly drawn and engaging. The overall style of the show was unique, unlike any other procedural on TV.
It was cancelled after 10 episodes.
A few summers before this, NBC aired The Windfall. It featured an ensemble cast that included Luke Perry, Jason Gedrick, Lana Parrilla, Sarah Wynter and Jon Foster. The show was about a group of friends and neighbors with a tradition of pooling their money to buy a stack of lottery tickets. One of the tickets suddenly hits and they all become millionaires. The show followed the impact the newfound wealth had on their lives. It wasn’t great, but it was watchable. And I got sucked in to the point where I wanted to know what would happen to the characters.
It was gone after 13 episodes.
Each show went away with unresolved storylines. And I really want to avoid that again. This is the reason I have no interest in investing time and effort into the summer network dramas.
There is one network show this summer I am willing to give a shot... NBC’s Persons Unknown. A intriguing drama with a Prisoner-like feel, it takes a group of seven ordinary, seemingly unconnected people and plops them in the middle of a ghost town with apparently no way out. None in the group has a clue as to why he or she has been kidnapped and imprisoned there. As they repeatedly attempt to escape, the only thing they know for sure is that they are constantly being watched through a series of cameras by their unknown abductors.
The series is created by Christopher McQuarrie who wrote The Usual Suspects. That’s a good sign. But what convinced me to tune in was NBC’s promos. They made it plainly clear that Persons Unknown is a self-contained mini-series and that all would be revealed by the end. No hanging plotlines! I’m in.
And after watching the first three episodes, I was willing to hang around. I want to know these people’s story. But it looks like I’m getting screwed again. Persons Unknown was running on Monday nights at 10:00 PM. When I tuned in at that time this past Monday, I was met with the second hour of The Last Comic Standing. Where was episode 4? I found out the next morning NBC showed it at 8:00 PM.
Not only am I an episode behind, but it’s very difficult for me to watch a show at 8:00 PM. Had I known NBC was going to do this, I never would have begun watching Persons Unknown in the first place.
So, what’s the deal NBC? You couldn’t trust your audience for even a month? Did you really need to switch time slots that quickly? Your itchy trigger finger, and that of your fellow network executives, is really getting old. Sure, we’re in the era of the DVR, but that’s assuming I knew that it was going to be on at a different time and wanted to take the time to record it. Sorry NBC, I’ve got more important things on my mind these days. Besides, only about a third of U.S. households have the device. That still leaves many viewers high-and-dry. If you don’t have enough faith in your shows to commit to them, why should we?
It’s no wonder TV fans are flocking to cable in droves. As far as the content is concerned, outside of the improvement, we don’t recognize the difference. But it’s also nice to know that the cable channels seem willing to make a commitment to their programming. Rarely do they play schedule roulette, especially once a season begins. Instead, the shows air week after week, same time, same place, until they finish their run. And then, it’s always with a note of when each will return.
And that’s a concept worthy of commitment.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Persons Unknown
Time Slot Unknown
The Unusuals
