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May 8, 2008 10:45

Coming Soon in the 2008-09 TV Season: The 2007-08 TV Season

Posted by James Poniewozik | Comments (6) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

USA Today runs a walkup to next week's broadcast network upfront, where the big trend in new TV will be: less new TV. The upfronts are usually an intense preview of the coming fall season, with the networks screening trailers of pilots that they mail out to advertisers and critics soon afterward. This year, there'll be fewer clips, because fewer pilots have been shot. The bad news: though I'll still be going to most of the upfronts next week, I may have bupkes to report to you. The good news: the sessions will be much shorter than usual.

Among the handful of new shows that are expected or are already announced, USAT spots one trend: "Dramas that blend weekly procedural cases with expansive character development." Intrepid readers may recognize that as the big TV trend of last fall (Life, Journeyman, Pushing Daisies, Moonlight...), one that didn't pan out so well ratings-wise for the nets even before the strike.

But given the hurry-up mode TV development is in, the networks are lucky to have any new stuff on the air come fall. Isn't originality too much to expect on top of that? It usually is.

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Reader Comments (6)

Keith:

@James: "I may have bupkes to report to you."

Sounds like maybe you need to oil up Robo-James and turn the old hand crank to get him whirring again.

Posted by Keith | May 8, 2008 12:07 PM

Tom Shaw:

Women's Murder Club, Reaper, etc. as well.

But it's a good formula - a regular (but not every time) viewer can jump back in on any given week and catch the storyline of the week (and thus never be lost, pun intended) while the persistent elements encourage them to come back next week.

And yes, new show news should be sparse; I'm more wondering about this year's bubble shows, and whether the lack of material may keep some of them on the air that otherwise wouldn't be.

Posted by Tom Shaw | May 8, 2008 12:34 PM

Tom Shaw:

Oh, and just what kind of episode orders we're looking at: Take Pushing Daisies, for instance. The only produced 9 episodes out of 22 last year; do they get any additional episodes ordered or will ABC just stick with the existing 13 "left" and see how ratings are doing?
Or are those old orders null and void and the networks are only contracted to whatever they order for the '08 season?

Posted by Tom Shaw | May 8, 2008 12:39 PM

Lulu Lulu:

@Tom Shaw: Gaah! That's actually a pet peeve of mine and something James has blogged about before...season-long character development combined with single-episode murder mysteries. It's like the networks are trying to put together the season-long arcs of shows like 24 with the one-shot deal of CSI and hopefully get the viewers of both shows for one golden hour of programming (and ad dollars). In my humble opinion, it's difficult to do both well* so they should concentrate on one or the other. Procedure or season-long! Pick a side! We're at war!

*Except Pushing Daisies. Pushing Daisies is perfection and can do no wrong.

Posted by Lulu Lulu | May 8, 2008 1:22 PM

Molly:

Pushing Daisies is perfection and can do no wrong.

Ditto!

Posted by Molly | May 8, 2008 3:46 PM

geoff:

Hmmm.... a Life on Mars remake. It was such a quirky British show, I can't imagine it going over well once it's Americanized. But I guess that's what everyone thought about The Office...

Posted by geoff | May 8, 2008 4:22 PM

About Tuned In

James Poniewozik writes TIME magazine's Tuned In column, about pop culture and society. Tuned In, the blog version, is about the stuff we used to call "TV," whether it's in your living room, on your computer or--once the networks figure out the technology and line up the advertisers--in your dreams themselves.