NBC Markets New Fall Shows Early With Help of Netflix
Will this new brand of delivering TV to the people without the TV work? Well, yes. Who wants to be tied to a network’s schedule? In comes Tivo and the internet to the rescue, but then what is this new trick of NBC’s? To offer a show to the viewer before it airs, why that’s counter-intuitive, or is it? NBC is hoping that one, the novelty of being able to see the show before the season starts will make netflixer’s want to see the show, and two, that the show itself will make you want to see the show.
In the cases in point here, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Kidnapped look to be good bets as to attracting some ratings for NBC. West Wing is gone, but Aaron Sorkin comes back to give up Studio 60, an in-the-trenches view of a show like Saturday Night Live. It boasts a seasoned cast, and thankfully features intelligent dialogue and a healthy dose of issue-oriented wit and sense. Kidnapped is NBC’s answer to Fox’s 24.
It follows a single kidnapping of a wealthy family’s son, and the parties involved in finding the boy. Though not quite as gimmicky as 24, it is one of those shows that leaves you hanging for any kind of real resolution until the end of the season.
Studio 60 comes from a pretty good pedigree. Sorkin was behind the NBC thinking-audience stalwart The West Wing, and before that, he created the under-watched SportsNite, a behind-the-scenes look at a sports news program. Notice a theme? I do as well, but what can I say, the guy does a good job with the genre. Studio 60 looks like it might just be another feather in Sorkin’s and NBC’s respective caps.
As far as pilots go, Studio is complete in itself, but sets up a whole season’s worth of material. It’s moments before showtime, and the studio’s censor is demanding that a skit be dropped, which causes Judd Hirsch to freak out on the air, a la Network, which immediately becomes the opinion of every news outlet that covers the scandal at NBS, the acronymical stand-in for any network you’d like to insert, but pretty obviously NBC. As in Network, the savagely intelligent female exec, here Amanda Peet, wants to use this “crisis” as an opportunity to bring in the “saviours”, a writer-director partnership, Matthew Perry (Friends) and Bradley Whitford (West Wing), who had been fired years before, only to make it big after their dismissal.
Of course, there is friction between the Studio head, Steven Weber (Wings) and the “Matt and Danny” team, and Matt (played by Perry) used to date a very Christian cast member, Harriet (Sarah Paulson). So some future plots are practically writing themselves, but it is the execution that will make this show a hit. The writing is witty, savage at times, and pointed. It’s nice to have opinions offered by real characters about things that have to do with more than solving a murder.
Now solving a kidnapping, thats another story, I guess. Kidnapped sounds a lot like Fox’s Vanished, but it is mercifully much different. Well, maybe not, I couldn’t even last fiften minutes watching Vanished, but Kidnapped I liked. True, it does seem a bit cliched now, wealthy family has the son taken for ransom , and we get to live through the trials of having a loved one threatened by strangers, and then there will be some rogue cop or FBI agent that will come to the rescue…wait, I just gave you the plot. So you might already see how this will turn out, but it is well-done and the pacing works.
The writing is bit tired, and the characters are one-dimensional, but it is only the pilot. For a show like this, you really need to give it time to grow and get past the gimmick. Jermey Sisto (Six Feet Under) plays the badass that can find kids, Delroy Lindo plays the FBI agent that is drawn onto the case against the wishes of the parents (Timothy Hutton and Dana Delaney). This show is different from the one hundred million CSI look-alikes, but maybe only a little. It does give us short snips of different film stocks, angles, and other annoying affects that are meant to make the show different that every crime-based show has now. But like I wrote earlier, not every episode will wrap up neatly with the case solved, as Kidnapped will follow the retreival of only one victim.
However, we must wait to see if the producers decide to make mini-plot wrap-up per episode, much like 24 does. This show is airing Wendesday nights at 10, so it is going head-to-head with a CSI (the NY variety) and The Nine, another hostage show, but a different angle. I can’t say that any one of these shows will be crowned the champ for that schedule night, but as The Nine and Kidnapped may deal with similar crimes (one a bank robbery-turned-hostages-taken situation and then the premise of Kidnapped, it will probably depend on how well the producers and writers can urge a viewer to tune in again next week, or rather Tivo the show. But in that case, a viewer can just watch both.
Studio 60 will probably have an easier time with one of its competitors, as Life of Brian doesn’t really hold any appeal. Who wants to watch a whiny guy wonder where his life has gone? But CSI: Miami, the veteran ratings-champ, may still win the night, but the two shows are quite different, and seriously, how many murder investigations can one watch in a lifetime (thank you, Law and Order for spawning). However, NBC is not all that bright, and has on its fall roster, 30 Rock, another show about a fake SNL and its inner workings. Can you really expect both shows to become hits? Well, maybe that is why NBC hasn’t been doing so well lately.
Even if you are not into following TV ratings or hit shows or ad rates, you can still appreciate good programming. NBC may have taken a chance on pre-releasing pilots (as now I have no need to watch the first episode of either show, which means that I can watch a competitor, right?), but they chose their best and brightest obviously. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip looks to be worth watching on a regular, if not habitual basis.
If you don’t watch football, then you use an SAT word at least once a day, so the intelligence of Studio 60 will be right up your alley. Kidnapped is less obvious as something you tune in for, but you may want to record it, as it will most likely have some good plots twists and periods of compelling drama. Or if you are like me, wait until it comes out on DVD and get it through Netflix (but you’ll have to wait until after the season for anything more than the pilot).
