Culture: Mass/Pop TV:: Will 2k6 Autumn TV be as dismal as 2k6 Spring? Probably worse!

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I'm so sick of the clichéd offerings of forensic specialists and cadaver cutters - from CSI Las Vegas to ...Miami to ...NYC. I'm sick of angel-shows, especially Angel because I actually tried to watch it on a few occasoins when nothing better (to my tastes) was extant in that time slot late at nite, and I'm also leery of "passing over to the Other Side" shows. Cross out Supernatural; only rarely will I keep one eye on a Friday the 13th Screamer on one of the channels every Friday nite. As to scifi, Stargate of all varieties has me bored stupified. As to the soaps, I only try to keep in touch with one, The Young and the Restless.

Groovin' the Tube, by Anaximaximum

The show's writers keep transmogrifying their characters, a skinny thread of continuity in each imaginal person, that carries them thru the most bizarre twists, turns, and turnabouts. I've hated them all in turn, except perhaps Phyllis - she's just too passionate and breathlessly conniving, a glamorous amorous lady who comes up for air all contrite and momentarily self-aware. But I'm looking for something fresh. I still like Las Vegas most episodes, but hate all the other Las Vegas-themed coattailers, especially that movie show with the poker game between film-segments, run by one of the fat guys from The Sopranos and a cupala show-girl sidekicks.

So what's the New York Times got for us?

As Networks Plan for the Fall,Many New Shows Teeter on the Brink

"Criminal Minds on CBS, and Bones on Fox have been renewed for next season; while the fates of Conviction on NBC, and Freddie on ABC remain uncertain," says NYT's TV critic Bill Carter (Apr13,2k6).

The prime-time lineups of network television shows are like any other species; they need new generations to come along constantly or they face extinction. With just one month to go before the so-called upfronts, the announcements in New York to advertisers of their new schedules, which will include the ritual designation of which shows will survive, the network programmers are poring over the results for the new shows this season.

They will shortly decide which they can count on to keep regenerating their schedules, and which will die young.

Kelly Kahl, the chief scheduler for CBS, said he had a basic formula for how to determine whether a network had had a successful season in introducing new shows. "In my head I always think that to keep perpetuating the schedule you need two to three new shows to stick every season," Mr. Kahl said.

By that measure, every network can claim at least minimal success this season. Each of the five networks, including the new CW network, which will take shape in the fall combining the offerings of WB and UPN, is likely to bring at least two new series back from the current season. Some of those will be much easier calls to make than others.

One show I liked will be renewed, Prison Break on Fox, but the renewal of Criminal Minds on CBS and My Name Is Earl on NBC leave me unfazed. I could enjoy 5-10 minutes of the latter, but then I always had to click the remote, wanting something better.

None of these new entries were quite the monster hit that ABC enjoyed the season before with Desperate Housewives and Lost, but all were safely in hit territory. ABC has again had the highest-rated of the new series introduced this season with its reality hit Dancing with ....

Yeah, I watched a few rounds of that one, but never from beginning to end. A TV show has to be really good to get my undivided attention, otherwise I go back to my blogging ... presto!

Did I mention that, regarding the genre of cop shows, I still like Third Watch, sometimes Without a Trace. I'm sick of hospital shows, altho House used to catch my eye and ear, and engage my occasional delite in grumpy old skeptics who always turn out to be r+t. Back to cadavers: I do like Crossing Jordan. Now, aside from narratives, I also watch occasional non-storyline shows when there are no good narratives going (I leave aside my taste in TV comedy for now); I've found msyelf clicking in the remote-control to some of the extreme fiting stuff on Spike channel. On A & E, about all I can stand and sometimes watch is that Dog the Bounty Hunter reality series based in Hawaii and surely nite to day, compared with the ancient-TV-history thingy that starred Tom Sellek (Hawaii 5-0, or was that something else yet again?). Not much Canadian fare on my list I see, but I won't allow myself to get started on that topic.

Watching TV with the remote handy, and a passion to scrounge news, opinion, visuals and URLs from the web as resources for writing blog-posts, it all puts the TV in a situation of point-of-viewing competition. Let's see what ya' got, babe, r+t now. I don't recommend my approach to the Tube to anyone else, for obvious reasons. PS I hate the porn commercials, whether its young women posing to the beat, squirming, busting and generally whoring it up, or men doing the same but more tamely. Porn shows more hardcore? I have next to zero libido, so they are click-offs if I happen onto one - well, maybe I'll watch one of these for five minutes before the scene wears out and boredom sets in. The plots are n't any good and the characterizations don't exist. Infomercials? Even worse fare, from my point of taste. Oh, I pay my landlord $4 extra a month to have Fox News Channel available among a bunch of other news shows/channels, all of which I tune into to pick up on reportage of late-breaking stories. Canadian news programs are all leftwing, some more mindless than others. American news is generally much more upfront ideologically, it seems to me. Canadian is more hidden, except when it comes to the near-universal anti-American slant. But no one here seems to notice. That's what the TV news is, first of all, you're daily dose of anti-Americanism. But what the heck, that's what mainstream-media TV news is in the States too. American MSM is what Canadian MSM honchos monitor, emulate, surpass, and tone-down to a steady stream of snides. In Canada, we like our TV anti-Americanism delivered to us comfortably. - Anaximaximum

Tags:

• aesthetics
• tv
• tvproducers
• tvseasonautumn
• tventertainment
• story
• characterization
• csiforensics
• copshows
• soaps