Here at Heathen HQ, we’re big on algorithms. Years ago, I worked out a very detailed system to help me decide if I should order a crab cake entree in a given restaurant. Here it is:
- Am I in Baltimore?
If so, proceed. If not, eat something else. Done!
I’ve developed a similarly finely tuned algorithm to determine if a given TV drama is worth watching on first run. It works across the board, but is doubly effective, by the way, for anything with any science fictiony angles.
Here’s the test:
- Is it running on a network that has commercials?
That’s it. If the answer is yes, it’s probably going to disappoint you or get clobbered very, very quickly. Genuinely good programming that surfaces on advertisement-driven TV is a complete fucking accident (I’m looking at you, Mad Men). On the other hand, can you imagine anyone but a premium channel doing something like The Wire, Carnivale, Deadwood, or Game of Thrones? No chance. How about Dexter or Weeds? Nope. Pay cable’s batting average is seriously solid. Basic cable? Not so much. Legacy broadcast outfits like NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox? Pretty much never.
I think of this every year, when some hopeful type from Geek culture will suggest we have reason to be hopeful about any show produced by one of the legacy broadcast networks (verdict: NEVER — Christ, look what they did to Firefly). If something good DOES happen on one of those networks, I’ll happily pick it up online or on DVD later, but there’s just too many examples of shows sucking outright, or starting good but going south, or being actively screwed by the network, for me to make a point of watching them without some real promise of a reasonable story arc or two.
What’s got me talking about this today? Mostly this news, about how AMC — the network that, thus far, hasn’t fucked up Mad Men — is nevertheless going out of its way to ensure the second season of Walking Dead is nowhere nearly as good as the first:
Just days after AMC trotted out [show runner Frank] Darabont at Comic-Con, who not only revved up thousands Walking Dead fans but also delivered one hell of a season two trailer, the studio allegedly fired the director, producer and writer of the most successful show they’ve ever had. What the hell happened?
And from the linked Hollywood Reporter article:
The show shoots for eight days per episode, and the network suggested that half should be indoors. “Four days inside and four days out? That’s not Walking Dead,” says this insider. “This is not a show that takes place around the dinner table.” That was just one of what this person describes as “silly notes” from AMC. Couldn’t the audience hear the zombies sometimes and not see them, to save on makeup? The source says Darabont fought “a constant battle to keep the show big in scope and style.”
This, of course, comes on the heels of SyFy’s decision to cancel Eureka, which was among their highest rated programs, to say nothing of the broad disappointment with various other offerings this year. The legacy networks and their cash-grabby cable cousins are way, way, way too into shitty reality game shows and throwaway sitcoms to bother with quality television. Thank God for pay cable; it’s the only place on the dial anyone is even trying to make something good.
Hi Chet, you right brother. but as a very poor person, i try to appreciate some network shows and they are few and far between. Also, they fade. 30 rock, modern family,(and at one time house). just sayin’, they throw a few tidbits our way. i was not even watching t.v. during the “golden age” – sopranos and a little later, the shield (caught some, they were addictive!). but now i am quite stuck on things like “sons of anarchy” – i’m sorry, but to me so shakespearean-and the general nastiness of louis c.k.. can’t watch them though because i don’t have cable. afterall, the politicos say “look at the poor, they have refrigerators and microwaves”. in other words, preserving our food before we cook it is a luxury!
Somehow, people who know nearly nothing about broadcasting and episodic television programming have been put in charge of broadcasting and episodic television programming. It’s considerably worse in terrestrial radio.
Maybe deregulation wasn’t such a great idea. Granted, I’m grasping at straws here, but I don’t know how else to explain away how excruciatingly bad things have become. I subsist exclusively on Netflix.