The 2007 Fall TV Lineup - What WIll Work?

The fall television season is almost here, that familiar time of year when dozens of new shows start appearing in constant rotation during ad spots on nearly every network. Each show has some kind of glowing review or controversial call to action and 95% of those shows will disappear before the end of October, never to be seen again. Whether they deserve to disappear or not depends entirely on the viewers and their opinions and there is no direct way of knowing what will be successful. The last three years, there have been new shows that have all captured my attention in some way or another despite my initial opinions, those being rather negative. They all got renewed and are running strong, even if Lost has faded with time.

This year looks to be no different than the previous years and the successes of last year are breeding a small selection of copycats this year. Thankfully, we do not have the same rampant overuse of specific genres as we saw in 2005, a year after Lost’s runaway success when every network on TV had their own supernatural spin on the serialized night time drama. None of them lasted and everyone was sent back to the drawing board the next year.

The Controversial

First up is Kid Nation, the new controversial show from CBS. Every year or two, something comes along that angers someone somewhere. The attention that the show garners often helps to propel it to the front of the pack for a short amount of time, shortly before it dies off and disappears. The midseason demise of Commander in Chief is a perfect example of how a show that thrives off its controversial premises can quickly die when people get bored. Kid Nation is a new reality show that will likely succeed because of the nature of reality shows, that addictive quality that enables a network to grab hold of its demographic and hold tight for just long enough to keep an audience until the end of the season. It works repeatedly and this show will undoubtedly succeed for that very reason.

The New Breed of Action Shows

The action show has grown a lot in recent years as television budgets have started to rise. The result is a new breed of show, like Heroes, in which the production quality is exceptional. The high quality writing and intriguing characters then combine to make an extremely popular show. This year, the networks are trying to duplicate that kind of success with shows like Bionic Woman, Moonlight, and Chuck which will take varying degrees of action oriented entertainment to the small screen.

Bionic Woman is the most highly touted of the new additions, a remake of a classic show that will take the same style of character driven drama and cool action adventure that Heroes made work so well. Moonlight takes up where classic and beloved shows like Buffy and Angel left off and reintroduces a new breed of vampire drama to prime time television. Both of these shows are banking on the popularity of supernatural action shows, something that could prove detrimental over time if they do not get the early season attention they need to survive.

There are other variations of course, the classic action comedy sitcoms such as Chuck and Reaper, both combining numerous different genres into a single package and throwing it into the crowded realm of primetime. With such mixed opinions thus far, it is entirely up to the audiences if these shows succeed past December.

The Classic Sitcoms

In recent years, sitcoms have been a slowly dying breed. While every network has done their best to keep new shows constantly arriving, the hour long dramas have been slowly edging out air time throughout the week and the new sitcoms have been rather weak. There are some exceptions, such as The Office, which added a much needed pick me up to NBC’s failing lineups. However, the classic formula has only truly succeeded in this current age of television on ABC and CBS, both stations that are willing to repeatedly bring on new shows and new comedians to try their hands and the same old jokes and the same old cliché situations.

This year is no different as two new shows are receiving a lot of attention on their respective networks. Cavemen, an actual spinoff of a car insurance commercial will be highlighting Tuesday nights on ABC. The show will need to do a lot of work to make such a tired concept work. Merely adding two pounds of facial makeup to mediocre sitcom actors and having them play the old switcheroo date joke will not work.

The other show, The Big Bang Theory, combines the ever popular geek style with classic "boy can’t handle attractive girl" sitcom clichés for a new show on CBS. This show will heavily depend on the audience that decides to watch it. If Two and a Half Men can rise to the top of the sitcom charts because of that audience, nearly anything can.

The Season in January

The season in September is always a slightly different creature from that of the one in January. Especially in recent years as networks have split their schedules into three distinct segments, Fall, Spring, and Winter. Now, fall is often reserved for new shows and highly regarded classics while the winter/spring season brings back those shows with devoted fan bases and slightly lower ratings. This year, shows like Lost, Scrubs, 24 and American Idol will all wait to debut until the midseason break is past. It leaves a lot of room for error early on and guaranteed ratings when the New Year rolls around. Here’s hoping that the results are as exciting as they always seem to look during the summer previews.