Drifting Out to Sea

WELL. THERE'S A BIT of nailbiting going on. Would viewers come back to TV? Has the blood pouring out of the open wound of broadcast TV been stanched, finally? Or is gangrene setting in? (Okay, I'm setting aside that metaphor right now. )

The pre-spin about the TV season started to sound increasingly like the McCain campaign trying to defend Sarah Palin; it's too early to judge, it's not as bad as it seems, when you factor in PVR's the picture is rosier.

And based on Mediaweek's analysis, that just might be true. (Except for NBC, which is like, totally screwed, dude.)

If anything, the first four days of the official start of the 2008-09 broadcast prime-time season has affirmed one basic truth: When the networks produce programming viewers like, they will draw a big audience.

CBS procedurals CSI: Miami (with 17.2 million viewers), CSI: NY (14.5 million), NCIS 18 million) and Criminal Minds (17 million) all drew a bigger audience this year on premiere week than last year. Same for the net’s hit Monday sitcom Two and a Half Men, which drew 14.8 million viewers, up from 13.5 million last year.

Among the new series to premiere last week, the CBS drama The Mentalist pulled in 15.6 million viewers leading out of NCIS, nearly 5 million more than The Unit attracted last season leading out of the same show during premiere week.

So much for the disappearing TV viewer. While four days is not enough to make season-long projections, of course, those numbers indicate that it’s still possible for the networks to draw a mass audience.

Not every returning show came back stronger, but the big shows of last season nevertheless fared well. ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy pulled in 18.4 million viewers, 10 percent fewer than last season’s premiere, while CBS’ Survivor drew 13 million viewers, down 7.7 percent from last season.

That's great news. I guess. Except. Except.

I've read people suggesting that the slump in comedy, and the death of the broad-audience hit sitcom, can be fobbed off on the fact that there just isn't enough mass experience to draw upon. We are penned in our niches, all of us, and the days where a Cheers or even a Seinfeld could make people of differing economic, social, and educational levels laugh is over. Whatever one says about hit comedy Two and a Half Men, the fact remains that it's remarkably middle of the road.

So what to make of the great debut of The Mentalist? I watched it, or part of it. Yes, Simon Baker is an appealing lead, much as he was on The Guardian. And yup, it's a perfectly serviceable show. But that's it. It's wallpaper. There's nothing about it that sets a fire, that hooks me, nothing that makes me excited to be watching it, instead of something else.

And maybe that's what you need to do to be a network hit in 2008. Maybe the days of the challenging-in-any-way network drama truly are over. But that causes a problem for me. Because I don't really want to watch that kind of show, much less write it.

Let's also add this little local log to the fire: a show as straight-ahead and been there done that as The Mentalist, were it to debut as a Canadian show, would most likely get murdered by critics in this country.

What to do? What to do?

I'm really asking. I don't know.

What I do know is that the few shows that I do enjoy watching now on network tv seem almost to be refugees from a cable universe: House is forumlaic, but the character interactions keep it fresh. (Even if I am a little disturbed that the House-misanthropy seems to be dialed up to 11 this year, almost daring you to stop watching.) The Office eschews punchlines for moments, and I love them for it. But what in heaven's name is it doing on a network? Same too to 30 Rock. Oh, 30 Rock, writers everywhere may have a secret case for worshipping their replica Tina Fey glasses, but that doesn't mean you're a hit show. Far from it.

Beyond that, I've been lost utterly to the wilds of Cable. Californication, a show that I'd given up on early last year, I now recant. I've seen the first two episodes of Season 2 (as well as the last four of Season 1 which I'd never bothered to watch) and the scabrous, ludicrous elements are more than balanced by the strangely compelling relationship between Madeleine Martin (as the daugther) and David Duchovny. Then they drop in Callum Keith Rennie, and the most over-the-top coked-up argument between Pamela Adlon and Evan Handler that I've ever seen -- and that's it. I'm laughing. I'll follow you, Duchovny and Tom Kapinos, I'll follow you to the ends of the boner-snipping, sex addicted earth.

Then there's the only women I could ever love: Holly Hunter on Saving Grace. Kyra Sedgwick on The Closer. Mary McCormack on In Plain Sight. Jennifer Carpenter on Dexter. Heck, even Gabrielle Anwar on Burn Notice does it for me. Then, from that show, add in the cool spy takeaways, and Bruce Campbell. Dude! Bruce Freaking Campbell...and it hits me...

I'm drifting, drifting, drifting. There's the mass audience. I can see them there, on the shore. They seem shiny, shiny as ever. But maybe they're a mirage. Maybe I'm really in an innertube and I've been here for thirty days and I'm delirious and dehydrated. And I close my eyes and think I'm Don Draper or the one guy at Sterling Cooper who sees Joan for truly who she is, a woman out of her time and trapped in her limited role, and then maybe I score a bit of meth from Bryan Cranston on Breaking Bad or Nancy Botwin on Weeds slips me a load of chronic, but it's not enough. Now I want the pure stuff. I want Skins, or stuff we can't even begin to get on the air here yet.

And I don't want to do a series wank that's all self important. I just want to do good work. I want to be able to write the things I like to watch.

And that shit just aint The Mentalist -- no matter whether it gets 15 million viewers or not.

And that's when I realize the cold, hard truth:

I might be fucked.