What has Happened To TV?

Faith

Faith

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Black Thorn
Found this on my daily search of http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire

UPN has ordered a pilot for Silver Lake, a supernatural drama series from producer Aaron Spelling (Beverly Hills 90210), Variety reported. Justin Tanner (Gilmore Girls) will write and executive produce the pilot with Spelling and E. Duke Vincent, the trade paper reported.

The drama revolves around a record-store owner who uses his psychic abilities to communicate with the dead and help them resolve issues they left behind, the trade paper reported.
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What i'm wondering is why they keep on re-using the same type of themes, why not go for something more original...no wonder there is a high rate of new tv shows being cancelled.
 
I do enjoy supernatural type themes used on TV, but I think they are definately over using them at the minute. It's getting to the point were there losing there edge and the interest in them is dropping. Having too many of the same type of themes isn't giving the watcher a wide choice and their just going to get bored.
 
Don't we already have "Crossing over with John Edward, Tru Calling, and Quantam Leap" to do the communicate with the dead shows? I think people should get original ideas.
 
I think you get a couple of good quality shows that have a different concept behind them and when they become successful every idea for a new show is to some extent taken from them. Sometimes it can work but there are alot of factors which add to the formula which either makes or breaks them. Even something like the setting, or how characters are written or who plays them can mean the difference between getting signed on for another season or getting dropped quicker than hot coal. A great story/concept doesn't guarantee a hit show these days, besides which there is so much competition it's no wonder so many don't make it past either their first season or sometimes just a pilot episode.
 
I dont watch that much TV anymore anyway...since Buffy finished, all I watch is Angel and Dead Like Me...
 
I'm very much hooked on shows like CSI, Law and Order and a lot of True Crime shows. I'm fascinated with them and they help me with my course.
 
I love CSI but I don't like CSI Miami, for some reason I don't think its done as well and I don't really like the characters in that.

I sometimes watch Crossing over with John Edwards, but I'm not keen on the English version with Colin Fry. I don't like the way he speaks to the people he's reading.
 
Although I watch both the Las Vegas one is better than teh Miami, as you said its the characters they just don't gell as well as the others in the LV one. And they don't have as much depth.
 
I watch regularly:

Angel
Buffy (reruns or DVDs)
Nip/Tuck
Frasier
Friends
Sex and the City

Friends is unfunny but having watched all other seasons I feel the need to see the last.

There is a lot of crap on TV *cough*I'm a celebrity get me out of here (or any celebrity show)*cought* but theres some good shows out there.

I want to make my own TV shows (but know I have it may not happen). I have two shows in mind, both building on existing ideas but adapting them and doing something "new" rather than the likes of all these clones shows out there.
 
Yeah too much of the same old, same old, then even when something special comes along (Dark Angel, Firefly, Witchblade, Lone Gunmen, The Others), they cancel them.

I'm really looking forward to this Wonderfalls when it comes out this spring.

It sounds like it's going to be something special and has good buzz.

WONDERFALLS is a funny, provocative and magical one-hour dramedy about Jaye Tyler, set against the backdrop of Niagara Falls. Jaye is an underachieving twenty-something souvenir shop worker whose life is forever changed after she has what her family calls "an episode." That's when inanimate objects - toys, cartoon images, anything in the form of an animal - begin talking to her, providing her with cryptic messages that invariably lead her into the lives of others in need. Jaye meddles in, muddles up, and ultimately betters the lives of herself, her eccentric family of overachievers, and the eclectic variety of strangers that cross her path. Jaye discovers that the world around her really is a magical place...even if she fears that listening to inanimate objects means she is slowly losing her grip on sanity.
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I watch Nip/Tuck, it's remotely original. All those new super-natural dramas are too alike for me. I would like to see a new kind of show emerge, but I figure it will take a while, before that happens.
 
Execs found they could make TV on the cheap thus realised people never liked sit coms or dramas or anything that wasnt about moving house, cookery or decorating 🙁
 
Nothing's actally original anymore. Even Charmed, which I used to love watching, is really bland for the past few seasons. The same themes are used over and over again on TV and that's fine as long as it's still original in a sense, but it's all about the writing. Some reality shows can be interesting, but the majority of them are just destroying American TV or at least bringing it down to a lower level.

I only watch Angel (and Buffy on reruns and DVD) on a regular basis, but I often watch CSI (the original one; I don't like CSI: Miami), Gilmore Girls, and American Idol.
 
Liking The Handler at the moment, which has just started here. I think Joe Pantoliano is excellent (Memento is a fave).

It does grate when good shows start only to be pulled by networks after a season or even just a few eps - Babylon 5's "Crusade", Odyssey 5, Lone Gunmen, Good vs Evil, Brimstone, Total Recall, Dark Skies, Space:Above and Beyond etc. etc. - we all have our favourites...

I'm hoping that Angel can survive (and Dead Like Me from the current crop of sci-fi/fantasy) but even people with Joss's sort of clout can't guarantee longevity - What was the name of that Chris Carter show that lasted about three eps? Harsh Realms?

That's the harsh reality of the US TV market at the moment I think. I used to believe that UK telly gave it's shows more of a chance but I notice more and more shows being cancelled after a few eps or moved to a graveyard slot. Too many companies taking the easy route with "reality" drivel, game shows and soaps overwhelming most channels and not enough willing to take a chance or waiting to see if an audience builds IMO.
 
Originally posted by Allycat
I watch Nip/Tuck, it's remotely original. All those new super-natural dramas are too alike for me. I would like to see a new kind of show emerge, but I figure it will take a while, before that happens.
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I watch that too, I find it interesting, and its on a different subject line than all the other shows that I am watching regularly. Do you know when Season 2 begins?

I am way too hooked on supernatural type shows like Buffy, Angel, Charmed, Tru Calling. Although, its not necessarily a bad thing, although I wish that they would come out with a show that doesn't copy some of the same storylines, cause I have noticed many things between Buffy and Charmed being the same. 😀
 
I think TV is at a very interesting point right now. Poised on the cusp of either nose-diving (further) or re-emerging from the ashes of reality-show hell like a corporate-sponsored phoenix.

Here's the deal, as near as I can figure. For the past ten years, network television audiences have been dwindling, siphoned off by competing entertainments like DVDs, video games, and the internet. CSI is currently the number-one rated show in the United States, but its viewership is nowhere near as large as ER's or Seinfeld's was in the early/mid nineties. Audiences are more fickle now, since they have more choices, and the networks are still struggling to figure out how to appease them. Reality shows are cheap to produce and therefore low-risk for the network, so we're getting saddled with an inordinate amount of "So You Want To Survive Marrying Average Joe Millionaire". TiVo and similar digital recording technologies have further muddied the waters, since recording a show on TiVo doesn't register with the Nielsen ratings (the method traditionally used to determine a show's popularity).

So networks aren't even sure what shows are successful anymore, since Nielsen ratings aren't as reliable as they once were, and dwindling viewership (and the corresponding reduction in the networks revenue from advertising dollars) has made the folks who make shows more reluctant than ever to take risks. BUT . . . slowly, the nets seem to be coming to the realization that they're going to have to make some changes to draw viewers back in. So there is the possibility that we're going to see MORE risk-taking shows (i.e. not carbon-copies of existing successful shows) in the next few seasons. Sometimes quality can be born of desperation. Here's hoping, anyway. 🙂
 
Chelsea:

"F/X has bumped the season 2 order up one episode from 15 to 16, and has announced Tuesday, June 22nd @ 10:00PM est the new season launch date. They have not announced when (or if) the show will return to the network as far as season one reruns."
 
They are really overusing alot of ideas. They try to work off of the success of other shows along the same topic. Im personally sick of overused story lines and show ideas. Where's the originality?And reality television? God, when will it ever stop!!!!!!!!!!!! Enough already!
 
Yeah, but Network crap has always been pretty much just that, crap.

I'm starting to think along the lines of Lazy Dolphin though. Some interesting things are starting to happen.

Another thing that's starting to make it interesting is the slow infilltration of non-network programming. Stuff like South Park, Sex and the city, Six Feet Under, The Shield, The Sopranos, Trailer Park Boys.

If the networks ever do decide to go after fresher stuff, they'll have a model.
 
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