*** Television Fall 2010 ***

[DisneyOhMy]

Indeed, which has nothing to do with the quality of the show, in my estimation and that of my family. We watched the first season but had dumped the show before getting through the second season.

You didn't comment on Bryan Cranston winning best lead actor in a drama for the past 3 years and Aaron Paul winning best supporting actor in a drama in 2010.

Hard to believe the show is degrading with those awards under it's belt. I know you feel as though the awards are a popularity contest but still, give it some credit.

 

[bicker]

And I do. I acknowledge that a lot of folks like Breaking Bad, and I still consider Mad Men part of my personal top ten. However, that doesn't mean that Breaking Bad is everyone's favorite show, and it also doesn't mean that Mad Men is still as good as it was in its first season.

 

[DisneyOhMy]

And I do. I acknowledge that a lot of folks like Breaking Bad, and I still consider Mad Men part of my personal top ten. However, that doesn't mean that Breaking Bad is everyone's favorite show, and it also doesn't mean that Mad Men is still as good as it was in its first season.

I personally thought Season 3 of Mad Men was the best. Everyone will have different opinions on that, that's fine.

AMC has definitely proven itself as a provider of top quality programming. AMC only airs programming on Sunday nights so I'm not really sure it's fair to say that FOX has House and Bones so they're better. Yes they have those but how many failures do they have? Have they had? How many shows are they carrying right now that are failing? Fox has struck out an incredible amount of times. But they do have American Idol and X Factor.. yippeeeeeee!!!

 

[bicker]

Again: I think it is important not to lose sight of what we're talking about, when we're talking about Fox. The assertion made earlier was that something was, specifically, the "network's loss". Your assertions regarding how much you like shows on AMC and aren't really relevant to whether what Fox is doing is the network's loss or the network's gain. We can chat about whether or not AMC and/or Fox are satisfying our personal needs or not, apart from that, but the essential point, regarding Lie To Me, is that Fox is actually on the winning side of this equation, since even if Lie To Me was doing better it would almost surely need to be canceled after this season solely because Fox has so much attractive programming planned for next season that there won't be enough room for all of that, plus all that they currently have. That's success.

Anyway, back to the AMC versus Fox issue you're discussing. My point there was that AMC is not producing an adequate amount of quality programming. It's not in Fox's class, in that regard. It's a second-rate network that happens to be producing a small amount of first-rate programming. That doesn't make AMC better than Fox. It makes AMC better than, let's say, Spike TV.

Beyond that, Fox has a good amount of programming in the pipeline. J. J. Abrams and company is working on a pilot for Alcatraz, which sounds very promising. Barry Levinson's group is working on Chameleon which might also be a good show. Fox also has Jason Smilovic, Alex Kurtzman, Jerry Bruckheimer, Peter Chiarelli and James Lassiter, Brian Grazer, Sam Raimi, Ryan Murphy, Diane Farr, and Glen Mazzara and Peter Tolan working on new dramas, and that's just the producers I know about.

AMC is working on only a few new dramas I know about, and only one of them has anyone attached to the project that recognize. And the show doesn't sound that interesting.

Only time will tell, of course.

 

[DisneyOhMy]

Beyond that, Fox has a good amount of programming in the pipeline. J. J. Abrams and company is working on a pilot for Alcatraz, which sounds very promising. Barry Levinson's group is working on Chameleon which might also be a good show. Fox also has Jason Smilovic, Alex Kurtzman, Jerry Bruckheimer, Peter Chiarelli and James Lassiter, Brian Grazer, Sam Raimi, Ryan Murphy, Diane Farr, and Glen Mazzara and Peter Tolan working on new dramas, and that's just the producers I know about.

Does it even matter? Serialized dramas get canceled on networks very, very quickly. So why even get excited about an "Alcatraz" for example?

 

[bicker]

For the same reason we got excited about Lost, and '24', and Alias, every other serialized show that did last more than a year on network television.

By the same token, why get excited about The Walking Dead, given how quickly AMC killed off Rubicon?

I can't say that I'm as concerned about HBO or Showtime in this respect.

 

[DisneyOhMy]

For the same reason we got excited about Lost, and '24', and Alias, every other serialized show that did last more than a year on network television.

By the same token, why get excited about The Walking Dead, given how quickly AMC killed off Rubicon?

I can't say that I'm as concerned about HBO or Showtime in this respect.

AMC doesn't have enough of a history to be able to firmly judge how quickly they pull of shows. Mad Men didn't have great ratings the first season but they stuck with it. So there is reason to believe they will stick with their programming.

Once again I think you're giving HBO too much respect. They broke the hearts of many people when they prematurely canceled Rome and Deadwood (2 and 3 seasons, respectively).

With network tv, you're almost better off just waiting to see how the ratings are in a show, see if it gets renewed, then catch up on it through the first season DVD. That way you don't invest time in something that gets the hook.

 

[bicker]

AMC doesn't have enough of a history to be able to firmly judge how quickly they pull of shows.

I agree. There really isn't enough to go on to give AMC a positive or negative review.

 

[DisneyOhMy]

I agree. There really isn't enough to go on to give AMC a positive or negative review.

But most networks would have pulled Mad Men with the ratings it was bringing in for season 1. AMC stuck with it so they deserve some major credit for that!!

 

[DonkeyGreatness]

AMC and HBO are definitely my favorite channels!!

 

[Planogirl]

I agree. There really isn't enough to go on to give AMC a positive or negative review.

There was a time when Fox had very few shows too. One can only assume that AMC and some of the other cable networks will increase their output if the interest is there.

I personally like A&E so far.

 

[bicker]

But most networks would have pulled Mad Men with the ratings it was bringing in for season 1. AMC stuck with it so they deserve some major credit for that!!

I suspect the fans of Rubicon don't agree.

There was a time when Fox had very few shows too. One can only assume that AMC and some of the other cable networks will increase their output if the interest is there.

There's a big difference; AMC is owned Cablevision; Fox is owned by News Corp. It is far more likely that News Corp. will one day gobble up AMC than AMC actually ever getting enough investment to change their current approach (i.e., mostly reruns and old movies, with one or two original series). As long as the industry is the way it is, that's going to make the Dolan family the most money.

 

[DonkeyGreatness]

I suspect the fans of Rubicon don't agree.

I suspect that if AMC didn't have "The Walking Dead" or "The Killing" on tap for next year, they probably would given Rubicon another season. But they don't have to take those risks anymore.

 

[bicker]

Unless they'd looking for the kind of success that USA Network has, with Psych, Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, Royal Pains, White Collar, and Covert Affairs (and perhaps will have with Fairly Legal).

 

[DonkeyGreatness]

Unless they'd looking for the kind of success that USA Network has, with Psych, Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, Royal Pains, White Collar, and Covert Affairs (and perhaps will have with Fairly Legal).

Are you going to watch Fairly Legal? I saw previews for it the other day and looked kind of silly.

 

[bicker]

The previews on USA Network are always silly. They are deliberately working to appeal to those of us who are looking for some relief from the hard work we do all day. They've successfully connected on every new drama they've put out in the last four or five years or so. And they often have two or even three series presenting new episodes each week.

 

[bicker]

Recent weeks have brought more cancellations, official and presumptive. I've updated the beginning of this thread with the full list.

Renewals

HBO
Boardwalk Empire

Fox
Simpsons

Cancellations

ABC
My Generation
The Whole Truth

AMC
Rubicon

CBS
Medium

CW
Life Unexpected

Fox
Lone Star
Lie To Me (presumptive)
Running Wilde (presumptive)
The Good Guys (presumptive)

FX
Terriers

NBC
Outlaw
Undercovers

TNT
Dark Blue

 

[bicker]

Sunday, December 19, 2010
Finales:
Leverage (TNT)

Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Finales:
Meet the Browns (TBS)
Psych (USA)

 

[bicker]

My wife and I see it as a much thinner schedule coming this coming fall, as compared to the last few falls...

A sure sign of the end of the Fall television season, imho, is when my wife and I resubscribe to Netflix. We effectively ran out of television this week, and so our first Netflix discs arrived on Monday.

In retrospect, the fall season wasn't quite as thin as I had anticipated. While we ran out of television perhaps a week earlier than before, and had a few Sundays over the course of the fall where we ended up watching old Lost reruns, I rather thought it would be worse.

As it was ...

My original plan was to record Hawaii Five-0, and only watch it if the reviews were good. Well, my wife overruled me, and credit to her, it is perhaps the most satisfying new show of the Fall for us.

We also planned to record The Event and wait, but we ended up watching it. It was okay - I wish we had stuck with our original plan, and in the end that would have meant never getting into The Event. I have a strong suspicion that our time invested in the show will end up grossly wasted.

We planned to watch No Ordinary Family from the start, and it actually bumped NCIS from our recorder. Big mistake afaic. The show is relatively poor. Luckily NCIS isn't really a serial, so we can hopefully jump back into it this Winter, without having "missed" much.

We also planned on watching Undercovers from the start, but that was also a disappointment.

At some point, we were planning on checking out The Whole Truth, Outlaw, and Chase. We never did catch any of these, and from what I've read, we didn't miss anything.

We caught the first episode of Blue Bloods and dropped it there. It just seemed so forced and so predictable.

Parenthood was carried over from last year, but after the first two episodes this Fall, we've dumped it. It's just too much people-talking-over-each-other. It grates on my nerves.

For similar reasons, we didn't even bother watching Brothers & Sisters this year, and we've only watched Private Practice occasionally.

So we gained only one new series (Hawaii Five-0), and lost several (Parenthood, Brothers & Sisters, Private Practice, and the shows that are in the process of being canceled, such as Medium and Lie To Me). A significant reduction in worthwhile programming, from our standpoint.

Hopefully, things will turn around this Winter.

 

[gometros]

I watched No Ordinary Family for as long as it was re-aired on Friday nights. I lost interest very quickly and no way was it going to bump Glee and NCIS. Hawaii 5-0 and Blue Bloods are the only new network shows this season I'm watching. I'm getting good at my promise to myself to cut down my TV. I only have five episodes of Stargate: Universe with which to catch up.