TV Pilot Season

Over the next couple of weeks, TV executives will be whittling hundreds of potential show pilots down to the few hours of new material that'll be premiering next fall. The task is a bit daunting, seeing as every TV producer and his brother will try their hardest, annually, to air a new television program.

I don't want to give the impression that I care too much, because honestly, I don't really plan on watching any of the new pilots next fall. Who has time to watch all those new shows? Even if only there are only three interesting new shows starting in the fall, that'll be three hours every week that I have to devote to sitting down in front of the television and investing in a set of characters. I have school, homework, and [hopefully, by then] a job to think about.

However, TV Pilot Season is exciting. It's new hope for all the people who make their money on this extremely popular medium of story-telling (I don't really count game shows or reality shows as quality TV in the least). Plus, any show that airs a full season and then gets canceled is fodder for my free time in the summer or later years (I'm already planning to watch The Cape and Running Wilde this summer). So it is important to me that good shows get aired, and not repetitive cop dramas or spin-offs.

It's also very interesting to see the process TV goes through to produce stories. It's almost identical to the Manga-producing process in Japan, or the old 19th century serial novels. With both of those on-paper story-telling mediums, writers would publish their stories in a chapter-a-week format through a weekly magazine. TV dramas are doing the same thing, essentially, with a film format instead of in a novel style. It's fascinating how very similar we still are even with a new medium.

The reason I'm not planning to watch any new shows this fall is because I've already got enough shows to keep me busy.

 Monday nights start with Chuck, a Spy Comedy about a geek/nerd who accidentally learns a bunch of government secrets and must work with them to bring down high-level terrorists. It's a witty comedy, with lots of character-driven plot to balance out the action. It's also, however, in trouble of being canceled soon. While I certainly don't want this show to be cancelled, if I had to choose one of my shows to finish off, this might just be the one. The romantic lead has finally gotten together, and pretty much every plot goal from the first season has been satisfied. I would love this to continue, as a standard for how to bring the lead couple together without waiting five years, but I wouldn't be dissatisfied with the story if it ended now (in fact, if it keeps the writers from dragging on and making up ridiculous filler plots, I'll be happy)

Later Monday night, we watch Castle, a cop drama from the perspective of a best-selling murder mystery novelist who shadows one of the homicide detectives. Also a great comedy, and since I fancy myself a writer, I feel an inherit connection with the premise. They've started to highlight the romantic subplot (very Moonlighting), so if they were forced to cancel, I'd feel very cheated. The show isn't doing as hot as it could be, but it's one of the few comedies on ABC, and it's doing OK (especially since their main actor already had a cult fanbase who'll pretty much watch everything he does), so I doubt it'll get the axe anytime soon.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays, we have nothing to watch, but on Thursdays my parents and I sit down to Bones, a murder mystery drama from the perspective of a forensic anthropologist working at the 'Jeffersonian' (she works with bones, as the title suggests). I pretty much insisted on watching the show years back, when it was new, even though the time slot back then didn't really work for me. I loved the sciency-techno jargon and the not-quite-autistic lead character. They're currently on their sixth year, however, and it's only been since the fourth season that the shows carried any significant romantic undertones (there definitely were romantic hints earlier, but they took a backseat to the episode-by-episode cases). Since increasing the romantic tension, however, the show's done nothing but drag it on. I find that a bit annoying, so while I love this show and would hate to see it end, its relatively long run and refusal to satisfy any romantic subplots push it pretty high on my list of shows I wouldn't mind being canceled.

Friday afternoons, when I have the house to myself, I watch either the Hulu or our TV recording of The Office. I decided to speed through this last summer when we got Netflix, so I'm keeping up with it for the first time this year. It airs the same time as Bones, and is so popular I wont even bother explaining the plot. They just got rid of their star character (played by Steve Carell), so I wouldn't be too surprised if this show it canceled in a few years. It is pretty popular though, so I doubt it'll be anytime soon (if the audience hates the replacement character next season, then maybe it'll end).

Then, Friday evenings, as a family we watch Fringe, a sci-fi paranormal investigation show recommended to us by my brother. The producer also made Lost, but it has a much more grounding feel to it (as opposed to Lost, which was a bit too weird and off-putting), and until this last season has taken huge plot-risks and had them all come out great. This last season was a bit awkward, however -  while I loved the first part, which involved exploring a parallel universe, most audience members seemed to dislike it, and during the middle-section of the current season the plot seemed to get a bit to cliched and predictable for my taste. They were even moved to the Friday time-slot (used to be right after Bones), which is a huge disadvantage. They've managed to bring it back, however, and I doubt it'll get canceled, at least until they've finished their current story-arch.

Saturday, as I've previously blogged about, I watch Doctor Who on my own. Since I have a whole blog post dedicated to it, I wont bother going on with what it's about, or why I don't think it'll get cancelled anytime in the next five years.

That's six shows (not counting the ten episodes of A Game of Thrones) that I'm still trying to keep up with. Once a single one of my shows ends, however, I'll feel free to start up a new one. I might read up about some of these new pilots and sign myself on-board, if I find I have a personal time-slot open.