These are times of the apocalypse for most TV critics.
Oh, some may not recognize it yet. But we have turned an important corner in the way we judge the success of network television series, and it's only now beginning to reverberate across the industry.
What's considered quality television isn't necessarily popular television anymore.
Back in the day, it was an argument I often used to lay the smackdown on anti-TV snobs. "Look at the top-rated TV shows," I'd say. "They're also the best."
That was when scripted TV was in its heyday, and classic shows such as Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, ER and Everybody Loves Raymond regularly placed at the top of the ratings heap.
But look at the list of the most popular shows for the 2003-04 season, which ended May 26, and what do you see? American Idol. The Apprentice. Survivor: All-Stars. Survivor: Pearl Islands. Even CSI, TV's top-rated show, is hardly considered TV's best drama.
According to figures from Nielsen Media Research, half the season's top 10 shows were reality series. And though those shows offer thrilling moments, compelling intrigue and exciting finales, they're also manipulative, exploitive, dangerous and mean-spirited, qualities critics don't usually applaud in reviews.
And it's not just about the rise of reality television. In a conference call with reporters last week to speak about the end of May's "sweeps" ratings period, NBC Universal Television Group president Jeff Zucker cited four series that led the network's success: Las Vegas, Average Joe, The Apprentice and Crossing Jordan.
"A schedule is all about balance," said Zucker, explaining why networks that treated reality TV like a weird uncle last year have welcomed it with open arms in 2004. "The good (reality shows) do show staying power and become critical components of any network's schedule."
Factor out the two reality series Zucker mentioned for NBC and you're left with two dramas of middling quality that found surprising success in tough time slots: Las Vegas against Raymond at 9 p.m. Monday andCrossing Jordan against The Practice at 10 p.m. Sunday.
Neither Las Vegas nor Crossing Jordan are going to make most critics' best-of lists this year. But people are watching them, so the networks will try to duplicate them, further diluting TV's quality quotient.
So what's a network that believes in quality programming supposed to do? Ask the brain trust at the Fox network, which has given us both the best scripted dramas of the year (The O.C. and 24) and the worst reality shows (The Littlest Groom, The Swan), and the answer is a nonanswer.
Patience.
"In this environment, where there are so many choices, you have to continue to show patience where you believe there is creative growth," said Gail Berman, head of entertainment for Fox. As evidence, Berman cited Arrested Development, a low-rated, critically acclaimed comedy, which the network renewed for next season despite dreadful ratings.
"It takes longer than it has ever taken before (to introduce shows)," said Berman, who hopes that slotting Arrested Development behind popular comedy The Simpsons in the fall will draw more eyes. "You have to pick your shots."
Perhaps. But if viewers aren't responding to the show, keeping it on the air for a few more weeks won't solve the problem.
Nowhere does this phenomenon appear stronger than in the best-of lists critics dutifully assemble at the end of each season. This year, I'm pulling together tallies for the Television Critics Association and Television Week magazine, and as I survey the long list of shows that aired, a painful truth emerges.
None of the best shows I saw were also among the most-watched. And in an industry where the flop-to-fantastic ratio is already horribly lopsided toward the negative, any trend encouraging mediocrity exasperates those of us who already spend way too many hours mainlining episodes of Forever Eden and Whoopi.
Judge for yourself, as I list what worked and what didn't over this season. Feel free to use this as a guide to what you should have been watching.
THE BEST
Chappelle's Show - Though a hit by Comedy Central standards, comic Dave Chappelle's side-splitting collection of vignettes (a blind white supremacist who doesn't know he's black and the hidden, gangsta side of easygoing entertainer Wayne Brady were highlights) still seems a cult favorite. Unafraid to whip up a tangy mix of stoner jokes, race-based gags and sex-drenched one-liners, Chappelle's Show goes where lesser comedies fear to tread, and it keeps you laughing once you get there.
The O.C. - Finally, a show that blends the deliciously soapy plot lines of Beverly Hills 90210 with the angsty substance of Once and Again to create a family drama the whole family might actually watch. And best of all, in this story about a poor kid who winds up living with a wealthy Orange County, Calif., family, the older characters have just as many story lines as the kids, handing a new lease on showbiz life to star Peter Gallagher.
The Shield and 24 - These shows go together as gritty cop/espionage dramas that found new life by graphically pushing the limits of what their characters could do. On Fox's 24, Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer endured a heroin addiction, killed a fellow government agent and cut off his protege's hand to stop a deadly virus from being released in Los Angeles. FX's The Shield has shown a male police captain secretly coping with a rape while redefining office politics by maneuvering his successor out of a deserved promotion.
Angels In America - This aired way back in December, but it still resonates as the season's best made-for-TV movie. Sure, it had a $60-million budget, director Mike Nichols and stars such as Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and local boy who made good Patrick Wilson. But it also had an expansive story that blended hallucination and stark reality into a potent look at the emergence of AIDS in mid '80s New York. Try to find another TV movie whose subject comes close to this level of relevance.
Significant Others and Curb Your Enthusiasm - Both shows share a wonderful characteristic: using improvisation to spice already incisive comedy. In Curb's case, Seinfeld co-creator Larry David whipped up an inspired story line in which he took a role in a production of The Producers with Ben Stiller. Significant Others is a Bravo show in which viewers see four couples in and outside their therapy sessions. Neither show relies on scripts to map out every line, instead allowing the actors to improvise their words, which adds an unpredictable energy to every exchange.
Arrested Development - Despite anemic ratings, Fox's comedy about a dysfunctional family forced out of wealth when the patriarch is jailed for corporate malfeasance was this season's most crackling comedy. Toss in sidesplitting guest spots from Liza Minnelli and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and you have a true cult classic in the making.
60 Minutes I and II - At a time when most TV newsmagazines are busy auctioning babies and shilling for their network's programming, CBS's venerated news shop has offered a series of hard-hitting reports on the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, culminating in the scoop of the year in photos of the Iraqi prisoner abuse. It's good to see that some prime-time network news outlets still know the difference between journalism and publicity.
THE WORST
Extra-exploitive reality TV - A beauty pageant for plastic surgery recipients? A fake singing contest in which the worst participants are fooled into thinking they have talent? A dating show in which a little person chooses among full-size women and little women? Such series seem to play on viewers' worst tendencies, offering freakish displays with little redeeming value. Here's hoping The Swan, The Littlest Groom, Superstar USA and their ilk eventually prove too degrading even for desperate TV executives.
Newsless news shows - Dateline NBC can spare two hours apiece on the endings of NBC sitcoms Friends and Frasier, but it offers little or no reportage on the war in Iraq, the unfolding presidential race, the increasing troubles of the Bush administration or anything else resembling important current events. No wonder voter participation is so low; when networks choose to air Fear Factor's stunts instead of a presidential address, their actions can't help but send a signal to viewers about what matters and what doesn't in the body politic.
Unpredictable scheduling - Pressured to compete with cable TV by avoiding reruns, the networks have presented a patchwork of reality shows and limited series schedules for the next year so complex that most viewers will need a crateful of TV guides to keep up. (Fox alone offered a schedule for debuting its new shows in three phases over the next seven months.) So even if you decide you like a new show or two, good luck figuring out when it will air.
