CliqueClack » Animal Practice

Let’s blow the system up: How to fix the fall TV season

Jay Black — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 17:17:58 +0000

Using my patent-pending multi-tiered approach to television show promoting, shows that might otherwise wind up in an early grave could have new life breathed into them.

So here we are, right, knee deep in the first few months of the TV season, and all the new shows are tiny little turtles being picked off one by one by hungry, circling seagulls.

It’s a shame. Believe me, all the people involved in the shows are upset about it. Do you think that the people who made Animal Practice wanted the show to suck? Do you think they wanted it do be lambasted for six weeks, the careers of all involved being soaked in criticism? Do you think they wanted to be cancelled?

The system we have for picking network shows was invented 75 years ago and never updated.

The people who made Animal Practice aren’t demon spawn. They’re good people, I bet, who wanted simply wanted to make 100 episodes, and then retire into sacks of money and super models.

The problem is that the show never had a shot. This is for two reasons:

1. It was terrible. Really.

2. The system we have for picking network shows was invented 75 years ago and never updated.

Now, to the first point, I only have this to say: the people who work on Hollywood Entertainment are the greatest people on earth, and when they make a misstep it’s probably the fault of Chinese currency manipulators. (And I say this in no connection whatsoever to the impending release of my first movie, How Sweet It Is.)

The second point, though. That’s worth thinking about.

(And yes, this is a topic I covered once before on TV Squad. Before you think I just Jonah Lehrered myself, understand that if you made a Donal Trump offer of $5 million to anyone who could produce actual memories of my original article, all you would get is me in various degrees of fake mustaches.)

Here’s the way a network picks its shows: it looks at all the pilots that it commissioned, picks the ones they think people will like, then puts them on the air.

That’s it. That’s the whole system. This is trickle-down entertainment and it just doesn’t fit the world we’re living in.

My idea:

Each network owns several baby networks. FOX owns FX. NBC owns Bravo. CBS owns MTV and VH1. ABC owns ABC Family. And on and on. You’d be surprised just how many channels all share the same corporate parent.

As it stands now, the fuzzy-logic rules of the broadcast world are this: the over-the-air networks like CBS try to put out home-runs that appeal to everyone. The baby networks are free to try to develop an identity, and then pick niche shows that fit that identity.

That makes a kind of sense until you realize the following:

1. It’s nearly impossible to figure out what will be a home run.

2. The niche channels tend to engage in “Channel Drift”. (A term a super-talented blog writer from a now-departed website once coined. I believe that writer was stabbed for some trucker meth, but when he was alive, he was something else!)

What I’d like to see is a move to a more strict and tiered system with a bottom-to-top approach. (Incidentally, this exact sentence was in the personal ad that Zed from Pulp Fiction placed when he was trying to find the Gimp.)

What I’d like to see is a move to a more strict and tiered system with a bottom-to-top approach.

Let’s say that has three levels. A bunch of niche channels and the first level, a few basic cable channels next on the next, and a single broadcast channel at the top.

One of the executives at a niche channel devoted to pets decides to greenlight a comedy called Animal Practice. It’s not that great, but no one really expects it to be great, because, shit man, it’s on channel 5031 and it’s about an animal hospital.

But guess what? Some people start watching it and after a season, the writers work out some of the kinks that strangled the earlier episodes. Soon it’s the most popular show on the niche channel and it’s getting some notice at the network level.

Here’s what happens: the network PROMOTES it to the basic cable level. It moves it from Single A to Triple A. Animal Practice gets a bigger budget, some actual publicity, and a second season.

You can see where I’m going, right? By the end of the second season, maybe everyone is in their groove. All of a sudden, Animal Practice is being talked about as the new Cheers (partly because Rhea Perlman was hired to play a gibbon midway through the year). Then there are 20 posts a day about it here on CliqueClack, and in the most obvious signal of its success, hipsters everywhere are saying it was a lot better back when it was on channel 5031.

Everyone says the show is ready for the majors, and boom, in its third season it debuts on NBC, right there in the world for everyone with an antenna and an opposable thumb to see.

You tell me what makes more sense: developing a show from the ground up like this or having a 29-year-old network exec shrug and point to a DVD pile.

Could you imagine how much fun it would be to argue about which shows are ready to make the leap? Or how great it would be to argue that a show would be better not to move up. Louie might make Twitter have a stroke all by itself!

But more than that, it would do something that hasn’t happened in a very long time: it would give every show the chance to develop both itself and its audience. That’s good for the creators. It’s good for the networks. And most importantly, it’s good for the audience.

Photo Credit: ABC

Another season, another reason, for panning sitcoms

Aryeh S. — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:00:51 +0000

It’s the curse of every new television season: a bumper crop of sitcoms that leave us longing for the heyday of comedy. But when did “critically acclaimed” become code for “failed concept that a network just won’t quit?” And what series gets to wear that crown this season?

The term “critically acclaimed” must have been invented by a network executive desperate to boost the credentials of a flailing show loved by pundits and panned by audiences. It smacks of a desperation that “fan favorite” or “top rated” simply does not.

Now, I don’t know whether anyone has yet to apply that transparent label to any of this season’s crop, but I’m willing to bet that somewhere in the 2012 freshman class of sitcoms there’s a critical darling or two that will continue to tentatively cling to life as its abysmal ratings crater and critics bemoan the public’s lack of taste.

This season, as always, I took a deep dive into the flood of new sitcoms that the networks aired. Is there a critically acclaimed diamond in the rough out there? Here’s what I found.

The New Normal is a fresh take on an old story: couple wants to have a child and searches for a surrogate to carry the baby for them. Only this time the couple is gay, the surrogate comes in a package deal with an offbeat daughter and a homophobic mother, and someone decided to cast NeNe Leakes in a scripted role. Brilliant?

[The New Normal is] an arguably original conceit wholly lacking in original humor.

Some have complained that David and Bryan are written as stereotypical polar opposites who would never be able to sustain a relationship. My issue with the show is more pedestrian: it’s an arguably original conceit wholly lacking in original humor. The little girl draws on the expensive couch! Grandma makes radically offensive comments!

I hope that’s not the new normal.

Guys with Kids is a new take on the moms at home story: dads with their kids. You might be under the impression that if Anthony Anderson’s doing the show after three seasons spent on Law & Order it must be something special … well, you’d be wrong. And as a father, I can’t stress enough how offensive a portrayal the show makes.

From the creators of Will & Grace comes Partners, a brand new take on the gay/straight relationship. While I don’t think that the show wants to be a flag bearer for the social issue it attempts to put at the forefront, I will say this: as long as we highlight the uniqueness of this type of friendship it will never be considered mainstream.

What’s so unusual about the guys’ friendship? Just like on The New Normal, the main characters on Partners are painted in such a way so as to contrast them, but why do we assume that sexual preference defines who we are as people or dictates how we behave? The only thing it definitely informs is who we’re attracted to … why does the entertainment industry not seem to get that?

Ben & Kate lost me within a few minutes of Ben dragging random stuff into Kate’s house, while The Neighbors lost me at concept. A family moves into a street full of aliens who’ve named themselves after sports figures? Is that a real show, or a national punk? The couple of minutes of the series that I’ve caught at the beginning or end of other show tapings hasn’t given me any more positive of a vibe.

Kelly is my least favorite part of The Office …. so I doubt you’ll ever get me to check out a show she’s the epicenter of.

And then there’s The Mindy Project. I have not made an attempt at Mindy Kaling’s new series, and for one reason alone: Kelly is my least favorite part of The Office (as well as being half of my least favorite coupling on the show). So I doubt you’ll ever get me to check out a show she’s the epicenter of.

My wife, however, does not have the same commitment to her biases as I do, and she has tried Kaling’s new series. She’s a big enough fan that she’s season passed it … I’m glad that she’s enjoying it, but I just can’t do it.

Meanwhile, Animal Practice is gone — I’m a fan of Justin Kirk’s, Tyler Labine’s, and fancy monkeys, but the show fell flat for me — while a handful of shows have yet to premiere. But at this point I don’t know if I can definitively identify a show that critics will love and fans will loath … unless, do critics love The Neighbors?

Personally, I’ve only been able to get on board with Go On. As much carnage as Matthew Perry has wrought on his new projects — I was a huge fan of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip but Mr. Sunshine lost me — Go On has managed to throw together a solid ensemble cast that so far is succeeding at keeping the show fresh and fun. And while I think the grief group may be a little too big to sustain all the characters — and John Cho’s character just loses me — there’s some solid comedy there.

But I see that as a straight-up hit or miss. There’s nothing brilliant about the show, so either audiences enjoy it or they don’t; I don’t imagine critics lauding it with praise.

But maybe I can possibly imagine that happening with The Mindy Project, even without having ever seen it. Mindy Kaling is already a favorite, and I can see her landing in the same boat as a 30 Rock, a Community, or a Parks and Recreation (even without being on NBC), where those with the power of the pen see her genius and those with the power of the remote don’t in overwhelming numbers.

So will The Mindy Project be the next show that launches a crazy campaign? Will it be the next to land on a cable station after getting bumped from the networks?

Only time will tell … but it probably has a better shot than others to end up on that glorified list.

Me? I’ll try again next season. This one was pretty much a giant goose egg for new laughs.

How about you?

[easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B00005JPI6″ locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513ehi01y4L._SL160_.jpg” width=”113″] [easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B005OK0YIY” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51iqM4Pwm1L._SL160_.jpg” width=”113″] [easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B003L77GDS” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51V0BCZiznL._SL160_.jpg” width=”120″]

Photo Credit: NBC

Animal Practice sent to the farm – The curse of Tyler Labine

Jeremy Fogelman — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:00:43 +0000

With the sudden — if not entirely unexpected — cancellation of ‘Animal Practice’, the world wants to know: When will Tyler Labine catch a break?

Poor Tyler Labine:

This Guy!

[Labine is] now the victim of yet another show being “indefinitely pulled from the lineup.”

He’s now the victim of yet another show being “indefinitely pulled from the lineup” — NBC has officially taken Animal Practice off the schedule. On the “mildly almost funny but the monkey is cute” comedy, Tyler Labine played a straight-laced veterinarian who seems the least crazy or zany guy in the bunch. Which is unusual for him. It seems like only yesterday we were watching Tyler Labine on his failed show Mad Love, where he played Larry, a slacker with a sardonic wit who was best friends with Ben, played by Jason Biggs. Remember that one?

This Gang!

Ben then fell in love with Kate (wait… Ben & Kate? Gotta be a coincidence), played by Sarah Chalke of Scrubs fame, who had her own sarcastic and sassy best friend Connie, played by the hilarious Judy Greer. Originally Connie was supposed to be played by Lizzy Caplan — which would have been great — and Larry was played by Dan Fogler — which would have been awful. But the problem was that Ben & Kate were boring characters, horribly overshadowed by the actual comedy of Larry and Connie. Ah well. It was cancelled after twelve of its thirteen season one episodes were aired. But that wasn’t the only other time Tyler Labine has been cancelled. It seems like only yesterday we were watching Tyler Labine on his failed show Sons of Tucson, where he played a slacker with a sardonic wit who ran a scheme with a bunch of kids. You remember that one, right?

These Guys!

But don’t forget about Reaper, a cult favorite with some high concept ideas.

It was a zany, silly show with a bit of a heart and child actors that weren’t awful. But it had terrible ratings and was a bit too out there for much appeal. Cancelled after only four episodes, although all of season one did air. But don’t forget about Reaper, a cult favorite with some high concept ideas. Tyler Labine played a slacker with a sardonic wit, best friend to a guy who had to do favors for the Devil (a sublime Ray Wise).

This Evil Guy!

Before that Tyler Labine was a minor character on Traveler, another low rated cancelled show, and before that Invasion — another low rated and cancelled show. And it keeps going on the further you look back. Until you hit The X-Files — where he played a stoner (imaginatively credited as “Stoner”). That show went going strong for years after. Why is it that Tyler Labine has so much trouble with staying on the air when his costar Ryan Gosling from Canadian teen cruise ship dramedy Breaker High is suddenly so popular?

Because only one Canadian from the same show can be popular at once, it’s Canadian law. That’s my theory, anyway.

[easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B001EN5I3Q” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51lHSd9JDuL._SL160_.jpg” width=”113″][easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B005HI4LLY” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51N2-rCKqoL._SL160_.jpg” width=”140″][easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B001WAKNCC” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51-MOHOMAvL._SL160_.jpg” width=”114″][easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B0054JELSO” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HbO2-C6rL._SL160_.jpg” width=”114″][easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B003M6VUFI” locale=”us” height=”135″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/610B4I9%2BGQL._SL160_.jpg” width=”160″][easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B008X0T9CY” locale=”us” height=”135″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51p-oqbQU%2BL._SL160_.jpg” width=”160″]

Photo Credit: Sonja Flemming/Cbs, ABC Studios, Universal TV, CBS TV Studios, Fox TV