veronica-mars

Some Saturday Suggestions

May 31, 2006 by Jim Connelly

Once upon a time, the TV networks gave a rats ass about Saturday nights. It almost seems apocryphal, but there was a fabled season long ago that had this Saturday night lineup: All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show. Three solid hours of comedy all-timers.

Slow-forward about 35 years, and what do we have on Saturday nights? As Al Swearengen might say, a huge bag of shit. Sports. Reality. Magazines. Not a single scripted comedy or drama. Saturday night has become a major TV casualty of the overabundance of entertainment choices, and the networks aren’t even bothering to address it.

But isn’t there *anything* they could do? Maybe. But it would involve taking a gamble on some programming concepts that they’ve been slow to embrace, and actually taking advantage of what I will dub “The Spinal Tap Paradox.”

Upfronts: Veronica Lives!! FOX, Not So Much

May 19, 2006 by Jim Connelly

I know, I know — we’ve all been reading for a few weeks now that the low-rated but critically-loved Veronica Mars was going to make the cut at the CW, but I wanted to wait until it was officially announced.

I’m so happy that I promise not to make fun of their name for at least a few months. Though I think, given all of the narrowly targeted shows that they offer — the aforementioned Veronica Mars, Smallville, Supernatural, 7th Heaven — their name stands for “Cultshow Watching.” OK, now I won’t make fun of their name.

It will be interesting to see where they go. More towards the WB than UPN, I should think. By the late 1990s, the WB pretty much took over the mantle from FOX as the network that would try just about anything. Yet anybody who actually watched their shows could see that there was much more going on than pretty white teenagers who happened to be aliens and/or superheroes.

That’s What I Like: Veronica Mars

April 14, 2006 by Jim Connelly

To inaugurate our new weekly column — all about things that we really really like, OK love — I thought that I would choose something obvious, something that I’ve been raving about for well over a year: the best show on (broadcast) TV, Veronica Mars.

Best show? Yes. And, despite that, it’s probably going away. Even though it’s pretty much garnered nothing but critical raves from the moment it debuted, the ratings have been abysmal. For example, for the week of April 3-9, it was ranked 122nd, which means that only 2.85 million viewers watched Logan accidentally execute Weevil’s revenge against Thumper. Ka-boom!

And if you don’t know what the hell that meant, I’ve got some reasons why you really should.

Watercooler Shows On-Demand

March 31, 2006 by Jim Connelly

Time-Warner Cable has initiated talks with the big 4 TV networks about a on-demand TV service — but only for the top-rated shows.

It’s an interesting twist: while previous on-demand concepts have concentrated on categories of shows(sports, porn) or specific shows themselves (like HBO’s or Showtime’s on-demand services) — this is the first one with a capability of on a regular basis, based upon what what Neilsen has decided that various pluralities of the American Public deem worth watching.

Call it The Watercooler Shows On-Demand service.