Surprise is off the table
New fall programs aren’t really ‘new’
Once upon a time, the fall rollout from the Big Three broadcast networks was as eagerly awaited as those shiny new models from the Big Three automakers, unveiled with great fanfare in dealer showrooms.
The TV “season’’ today is a seamless year-round cycle with dozens of providers adding scads of new prime-time shows to the hundreds already swamping the audience on cable and streaming as well as broadcast.
To acknowledge this vestige of a bygone media age — the fall TV season — is to dwell on fewer than two dozen new series arriving on the five legacy networks.
Some will likely find favour with viewers, and, despite years of doomsday forecasts, the broadcast networks launching them will continue to hang tough. (In part, that’s because they are expanding their reach beyond their age-old linear presence — in NBC’s case, 14 platforms now distribute its content).
But however warmly these rookie shows are received, this freshman slate resonates with a clear message: Creatively, the networks are fed up trying to compete for new-and-different with their cable and streaming rivals, and have thrown in the towel.
Surprise is off the table for the Big Five, which have succumbed to formulas and spinoffs. Comfort TV is the rule.
It’s as if they’ve said: We can’t compete with the more liberated outlets’ risky, edgy fare. Not when we’re answerable to the FCC and community standards (unlike cable and streaming, broadcast is beholden to the public airwaves), and to skittish advertisers (unlike sponsor-immune premium cable and some streaming channels).
The fall slate seems to echo a programming strategy applied with great success decades ago: Least Objectionable Programming. That is, placate rather than entertain.
Consider arguably the mosttalked-about “new’’ show of the fall: NBC’s revival of “Will & Grace.’’
A groundbreaking sitcom when it aired for eight seasons until 2006, this old TV friend, back with its original cast, is likely to be funny. But thanks to social enlightenment it helped promote way back then, it will now feel comfortable, not outrageous, as before.
Meanwhile, the CW is updating the 1980s soap “Dynasty.’’ CBS’ sitcom “Kevin Can Wait’’ is reuniting star Kevin James with Leah Remini, his leading lady years ago on “King of Queens,’’ for a retooled second season of what seems to be morphing into “King of Long Island.’’
“Young Sheldon’’ is a CBS spinoff from TV’s biggest sitcom, “The Big Bang Theory.’’ Likable, maybe, but no surprises there.
And CBS’ “9JKL’’ will feel comfortably rote before you’ve seen a single episode. Its stars are familiar, all right: Mark Feuerstein, Linda Lavin and Elliott Gould. More to the point is its done-to-death premise: Offspring moving back home with the parents.
Granted, Memory Lane extends beyond broadcast. Netflix is making hay one more time for “One Day at a Time’’ and “Fuller House.’’