Veronica
Mars, In Memoriam
So
long, Veronica Mars, we hardly knew ya.
Despite
a last minute surge in a fan-based effort to keep the show alive, series
creator Rob Thomas finally conceded to TV Guide columnist Michael
Ausiello in May 2007 that television’s youngest P.I. was indeed
no more, officially dead and canceled after three seasons of lackluster
ratings.
A critical
darling and cult fan favorite, the weekly drama was a bottom dweller
in the Nielsens from the very beginning. Although excellently crafted,
intelligently written and well acted, the acclaimed series just never
caught on with the masses, first with UPN and then on the UPN-WB merged
CW. Despite ample support from those networks, improved time slots and
various strong lead-ins, the television powers-that-be finally concluded
that the ratings struggle was just too great to overcome.
Still,
they gave it a chance. For three seasons. Sixty-four episodes. Fans
of the show can’t complain, not with full boxes of DVDs sitting
on their shelves. What about the fans of the 2007 FOX series Drive?
A drama about an illegal cross-country road race with a $32 million
prize, it had the same excellently crafted, intelligently written and
well-acted attributes as Veronica Mars. But despite heavy promotion
by FOX, a two-hour Sunday night premiere and a prime Monday time slot,
it lasted only four episodes before the plug was pulled. The reason?
Poor ratings.
Which raises
the question: what exactly is television? An entertainment medium, sure,
that is in the business of making money. Nothing wrong with that. This
is America, after all. But big screen motion pictures are also an entertainment
medium in the business of making money. And, yes, the Spider Mans
and Shreks and Pirates of the Caribbeans pull down
the big dough, just like the CSIs and Two and a Half Men
pull down the big ratings. But Hollywood also produces excellently crafted,
intelligently written and well-acted motion pictures that don’t
reach the status of blockbusters. These aren’t judged by their
money-making abilities but, rather, the critical acclaim and Oscar-worthy
potential that they exhibit.
If Hollywood
can have it both ways—the strictly-for-the-money popcorn fares
and the intelligent, sophisticated critical darlings—why can’t
television? As a medium, after all, it actually offers more opportunities.
Some seasons of 24, for example, are better than the majority
of the spy-thrillers Hollywood has ever made. And despite many excellent
big-screen comic-book adaptations, can any of them really stack up against
what Heroes has been able to accomplish in its twenty-two episode
first season?
Truth is,
American television viewers are willing to accept (and watch) the intelligent
fare as well as the strictly-for-entertainment shows. Rating for Lost
(whose supposed viewership “erosion” has been greatly exaggerated
when you factor in nontraditional mediums like Tivo, the Internet, iTunes
and DVDs) prove this. And, yeah, those ratings may indeed be aberrations,
considering how many quality shows are canceled before their time. But
if Hollywood can accept lower box office numbers for critical faves
as long as they are coupled with the big money makers, why can’t
network television?
Three of
the most intelligent comedies of this decade—My Name Is Earl,
The Office, and the canceled Arrested Development—are/were
not ratings blockbusters, but do have that critical-stamp of excellence.
Rupert Murdoch, however, on whose FOX network Arrested Development
originally aired, once referred to that particular show as “elitist,”
and he didn’t mean it as a compliment. In truth, Arrested
Development simply refused to “dumb down” to a “lowest
common denominator” as so many mediocre sitcoms do, but tried
to raise the bar instead. It assumed the opposite of so many other shows—that
we are not all idiots—and aimed for a higher level of comedy in
the same way as The Office and My Name Is Earl. And
what is so wrong with that? Why can’t network executives accept
such a fact?
The television industry
is changing. The axioms of the past, such as “appointment television”
and “Must-See-TV,” no longer imply what they used to, because
we now have the ability to not just watch a show during its regularly
scheduled time period, but anytime we want. Online even. Downloaded
from iTunes. Via On-Demand cable or TV-On-DVD. Even the word “television”
itself isn’t what it used to be, not with computers, iPods and
portable DVD players. If the medium distribution methods are changing,
shouldn’t the “content” decision-making process change
as well? Instead of marketing to the masses, can’t there likewise
be marketing to a niche segment of the audience?
In the
fall of 2006, NBC premiered a new series called Kidnapped,
a drama following the kidnapping of the son of a rich businessman. It
opened to poor ratings, and was eventually canceled. NBC, however, felt
obligated to the fans of the show and still ordered thirteen episodes,
allowing the creators and writers to complete the story, albeit in a
shorter time span. Those episodes were released online at the NBC website
with a DVD collection following shortly thereafter, all of which proves
that in this day and age, failed television shows do indeed have an
afterlife, and can even still make money.
Don’t
believe me? One final point, then. The Academy Award winner for Best
Picture in 2005 (announced in March 2006) was Crash. According
to Amazon.com, it was their nineteenth biggest DVD seller that year.
Number twelve, however, was Firefly: The Complete Series. Firefly
was an excellently crafted, intelligently written and well acted FOX
television series canceled, due to poor ratings, after eleven episodes
on December 13, 2002. Firefly: The Complete Series was released
on DVD on December 9, 2003.
Which means
that three years after its premature cancellation, and two years after
its initial release on DVD, this “failed” television series
sold more copies, at least on Amazon.com, than a newly crowned Academy
Award-winning best picture. Enough said.
(This article
orginally was published in Flak
Magazine.)
Anthony
Letizia (June 20, 2007)
