February 11, 2009
Happy endings on TV are no guarantee that networks will live happily ever after By James Hibberd
From the The Hollywood Reporter.
Producers on current shows are being told to keep their subject matter light, as if writers should use the Dow to calculate each episode's pathos-to-comedy ratio. One need only glance at next season's TV drama pilots to see that networks are banking on traditional closed-ended procedural dramas that have the potential to provide satisfying happy endings on a weekly basis.
Programmers forget that the content trend toward darker and serialized shows -- the one now ebbing out of style -- wasn't born out of the stock market peak of 2007. It came after 9/11 and the bursting of the Internet bubble, during the previous period of stock-market lows.
Fox's "24," FX's "The Shield," ABC's "Lost" and Sci Fi's "Battlestar Galactica" helped usher in an era of dark, complex, groundbreaking, critically acclaimed and conspiratorial action dramas that were major hits for their networks.
The point isn't that dark times produce more gritty, realistic hits. The point is that recession-era successes are just as likely to reflect the mood of the country as to act as a lighthearted tonic. Truly escapist TV is any show that's so compelling viewers forget they're on the couch.
The "Americans want escapism and happy endings" mantra is wishful thinking. With the broadcast ratings woes, it's TV executives who want to escape.
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