Push gets Shoved

[Testtrack321]

E! is reporting that ABC will anounce the first casualty of the new season, the much hyped and advertised "Push, Nevada" will get the ax. The last episode will air on Oct. 27. The producers will say enough cluse would have aired to allow the lucky winner to get the prize.

It's not the money, ABC, it's the characters. Does Jim get it? Mary, is she going? Slowman? How about the deputy sherif? Finish the story ABC. Lets remove one of the most creative shows on TV and replace it with repeats of "America's Funniest Home Videos".

 

[treesinger]

This show is so deep it hurts! It is totally engrossing to me! I guess it is just too quirky and intellectualfor the masses. Another mindless casualty.

 

[Jeff in BigD]

Serves me right for getting hooked on a show I suppose. The one & only new show on ABC that's even worth a damn & it gets yanked.

 

[airlarry!]

Before I say whether I disagree with AV or not I will say that the networks just don't seem to have patience anymore with quality shows.

Remember when Cheers stayed in last place the entire first season? LAST PLACE! And it got renewed, and it ended up being (arguably) the greatest or one of the greatest ensemble sit-coms ever made.

Would Cheers have made it in today's "give 'em 1/2 of 1/2 of a season to make the ratings" climate? I rather doubt it.

 

[ToddS]

Remember when Cheers stayed in last place the entire first season? LAST PLACE! And it got renewed, and it ended up being (arguably) the greatest or one of the greatest ensemble sit-coms ever made.

Same can be said for Seinfeld, which performed similarly ratings-wise in its first couple of seasons. The networks, for whatever reason, do not have the patience that they used to as far as great shows that get a slow start in the Neilsens.

I would think that the increasing presence of cable TV has something to do with that. There are so many options now available to the viewer, the networks just can't afford to be as patient as they used to with shows that are slow to draw viewers. The viewers will just find something else.

 

[Obi-Wan Pinobi]

I think both thedscoop and airlarry are right.

The public does want fluff. They want an escape from reality. What better place than an island where people are competing for a million dollars or endless videos of people landing hard on their netherregions.

But when something inventive and different, with high production value and creative quality comes along, it's the first on the chopping block. NBC and Fox have always been more willing to give shows a chance. Cheers isn't the only example. What about Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, and Quantum Leap? All were given a chance to find an audience. Of the three, only QL didn't have a stable timeslot.

ABC has always been the worse offender. Two weeks?? How is a show supposed to build off of word of mouth in less than two weeks?? Week one, people watch the show and start talking about it to friends the next day. Week two, those curious and who remember to watch tune in. After the show, they start talking about it to more friends. including those who heard about it after week one but forgot. Leading up to week three, it's announced that the show will be cancelled, so people start thinking "why bother watching".

 

[Another Voice]

“Now I know Mr. Voice will say it grossly unfair to blame the audience for anything, but I'm beginning to disagree with that more and more.”

Disagree all you want Mr. Scoop just as long as you make film and series for your own amusement or for a limited audience. But if you’re in the Big Time Media Network Business where Eisner wants to play, you have to make a show that brings in the bucks. That’s the business they’ve chosen, that’s the business they've invested $25+ billion in, and that’s the business they’re now losing billions in as well. Presenting highly rated programs is the rule of the game – no matter how awful, how lowest-common-denominator, or how depressing that might be. Getting into the game and then whining about the rules is only allowed in politics.

Internally, most people inside Disney had a bad feeling about ‘Push’ from the start. It wasn’t a deep, thoughtful, intense series at all. It was a gimmick, simply another rife on the whole reality series genre. There were dreams of real people running through the countryside tracking down clues, hundreds of internet sites posting rumors and hints, cross-over promotions with ‘Alias’ and other ABC series – everything except for the show itself.

Disney’s problem was that ‘Push’ was a game show with the expenses of a regular TV series. They needed to sell a lot of ad time to make up for it. Second, the little audience that it had was slipping away fast. Because of its format, you can’t compare to ‘Cheers’ or ‘St. Elsewhere’ or any other show an audience found.

You miss one episode of ‘Push’ and you miss a lot of clues. You miss two – then you’re out of the game. It’s not like a regular series that has a basic premise and characters that don’t chance all that much week to week (letting an audience jump in almost at any time). The history of tightly plotted shows like ‘Push’, ‘24’ and ‘Murder One’ is that they bleed away audience as people loose interest or miss too much to keep up. And they never gain audience despite all the hype the media and the network can throw then (again, ‘24’). You can't start watching a movie half way through and expect to follow the plot.

And times have changed. There is tremendous competition not only from the smaller networks and cable, but also from home video, the internet, gaming and life in general. While the networks still operate like it’s 1964, life has moved on. You’re not going to get a third of the population of the entire country sitting down to watch the same series week after week after week.

It’s not that the audience is stupid or that the networks have lost patience – it’s that the networks are playing the game with 50 year old rules and the audience is enjoying the freedom to choose what it wants to see, not simply choosing the best of three options. Don’t whine about how everyone is dense for not liking ‘Push’ along with you (there were 6 million others that did). Instead whine that ABC is demanding that 20 million more people watch to show because they don’t know how to run a modern network.


P.S. Best new show so far is ‘Boomtown’. I'll withhold my thoughts about ‘Push’.

 

[raidermatt]

...the sad fact is that more and more people don't want to invest in following shows.

Let me add a little perspective as to why I don't necessarily see this as a sad fact...

I am one of those who generally does not watch shows that heavily carry their plot from episode to episode. Why? Is it because I'm one of the shallow masses?

Well, I maybe shallow, but that's not why I avoid these shows. I simply have other things I would rather do at times other than feel like I have to watch a TV show. Maybe its dinner with relatives, or maybe there's a sporting event I'd prefer to watch, or maybe its a nice night and I want to take a walk with my family. Whatever.

If I miss Everybody Loves Raymond, no big deal. I can watch next week and not have any problem figuring out what happened. Plus, I can catch the re-run some other time with no continuity issues.

But I did watch the first episode of 24. The next week, something came up and I wasn't able to watch. Come week three, I decided I probably missed some important stuff, and would probably miss some more episodes, so it wasn't worth it to me.

Push? Never had a chance in our house.


You've got to give the audience what they want. Do that with quality and you'll last longer, but quality alone (in the sense of "good performances" and "awards") won't carry a TV show.

Besides, as AV points out, if Push was really all about quality, why the gimmicks?

 

[Planogirl]

I watched the first few episodes of Push and decided that it didn't stand the chance of the proverbial snowball. I think it was a good show, very creative and quirky and since I was one of those devoted to Twin Peaks that suited me. But, I felt that it was a fairly demanding series and I suspected that much of its audience would be turned off by that. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to deal with it in fact!

I think that many people lead stressful lives without enough time in the day to do all the things that are necessary. Some "veg" time is a good thing but a show like Push wouldn't allow that. As entertaining as it is in its own right, it's a difficult show to watch. It requires concentration and thought, and how many people really want to do either of those after a long day?

 

[Distriv]

I with Scoop, we need all off these reality show? By the way I can't wait for the second season of 24! (Oct. 29)

 

[scooby-the-doo]

Originally posted by thedscoop

Cutting edge shows like 24 and now Push are either cancelled or come perilously close, while Survivor 12, American Idol, and Celebrity Worm-Eating on NBC climb up the ratings.

24 was both original and cutting edge and it is coming back for a second season. Push was a derivative, sub-par David Lynch wanna-a-be that deserved to be given the boot. May I suggest Mulholland Drive if you want to see a film that this show aspired to be akin to, but came nowhere near.

 

[doubletrouble_vb]

I didn't watch Push...had just developed enough interest to start watching but won't now, didn't like what I first saw of the story line of '24'...but...I do recall reading somewhere that if the Sopranos were on network tv and got the same ratings they do now they would get the ax for low ratings.

The problem might be that Push, Nevada and/or '24' needed to have 2 or 3 timeslots per week to give people time to catch an episode if they miss one. This is exactly were ABC Family could find its niche. Give me a re-run of current television and that gives me the flexiblity to catch on my schedule rather than yours. Generally speaking I have something else to do at 8pm on a weeknight than watch television...I will admit to watching Survivor & CSI...they fall on Thursday...a night that's usually wide open for me. Survivor is a constant irritant that I can't give up...I keep expecting the shows creators to display the same creativity they did for the first season but...they still don't get why it was so outrageously popular (IMHO because it was a cast of ordinary people). And I flat out make time for HBO Sunday...but even if I miss it there will be a re-run somewhere during the week...if not on HBO then on HBO-2 or H2W or whatever.