It’s time for USA to update its network formula

Few networks have as strong and as recognizable a brand as USA does. After a summer of watching and reviewing some USA offerings, I am starting to think about what works and doesn’t work in the network’s formula for its shows. We know the network for its blue skies, “Characters Welcome” approach to television storytelling. The shows are generally fun summer fare, often procedural and easily digestible. In general, this is an approach to TV that I enjoy, as I don’t believe every show can or should be, say, Breaking Bad.

The week-to-week formula on a USA show generally follows the pattern that Burn Notice has been using for six seasons now. There is a protagonist, Michael Westen, who is very good at his job, though of course his personal life is a mess. Every week, he and his team have a new case to deal with, but there is an overarching mythology that gets increasingly complicated as the seasons go on. This mythology is usually sort of confined to during the first five minutes and last five minutes of every episode, except for premieres and finales, which often deal exclusively with mythology. This is the formula, and while it may have worked in the early seasons of the show, it’s getting tired now. (Psych is an even older show, but it doesn’t really have a mythology so it’s been grandfathered in.)

Now, I don’t watch every single USA offering (sorry, Suits and Covert Affairs), but of the ones I do watch, White Collar seems to be the more direct descendant of Burn Notice – which is my model for an archetypal USA show — in terms of structure. There is a case of a week, and nowadays, the episodes check in on Neal Caffrey trying to figure out why his godmother Ellen was murdered; in earlier seasons, it was his girlfriend’s death he dealt with, more than once, even. Now we are getting the idea that the current storyline will unravel to reveal Surprising Truths about Neal’s dad, who may or may not have been a dirty cop. I expect these reveals will take a long time and involve increasing layers of bad guy conspiracies, just like on Burn Notice.

And already, I don’t care.

In the case of both White Collar and Burn Notice, the long-term story arc is in fact the least interesting element of the show. The multi-year arc of who burned Michael got so complicated that I could not longer keep track of it and, thus, did not care much about it. I expect the investigation into Nate’s death to go the same way, as well as Neal’s investigations on White Collar. For both of these shows, the chemistry between the leading players as they do their week-to-week case work is the real appeal. Michael, Sam, Fiona, and Jesse interacting and tackling problems from week to week is the engine that drives Burn Notice, just as the uneasy Neal/Peter partnership is what makes White Collar work.

I have started to notice shifts in the USA formula, these two shows notwithstanding. I was reviewing Necessary Roughnessthis summer, and I came to see it as having an opposite problem from White Collar and Burn Notice. Dr. Dani Santino usually had a case of the week, but it almost always felt shoehorned in compared to the increasing drama with Dani’s personal life and the drama surrounding the Hawks. With this show, so much was going on I never really felt that I needed to see Dani’s other patients. I wonder if the difference here is that Dani has to work each weekly therapy “case”alone, isolating her from the other characters, such as Matt, Nico, and TK, whose interactions help make the show interesting.

If USA is really all about characters, then a show like this should be allowed to focus on the characters in their shared milieu rather than isolating them. For White Collar and Burn Notice, the shared milieu is structured so that it involves the main cast in the cases of the week, whereas with Necessary Roughness, the shared milieu is the football team and all its attendant stories. As a result, this just doesn’t lend itself as well to cases of the week, unlike the other two, which are more fun when they are mostly procedural.

The show that I actually feel is allowed to be itself the most while also managing to stick to the USA formula the best is, oddly enough, Royal Pains. I don’t think most people would say this is exactly the best show on the network, but in some ways, it offers the most uncomplicated pleasure. Now, hear me out. The show’s milieu, a concierge medicine company, lends itself to involving everyone in cases of the week, especially now that Paige works for HankMed, and most of the actors involved shine when dealing with the patient guest stars. The case of the week showing the main characters something about themselves is a trope as old as procedurals, but I think it works here because health care professionals have to care so much about their patients. (It should work on Roughness, but the case of the week is often given so little time there as to feel perfunctory; we can’t care about Dani’s non-team patients if if the show doesn’t.)

HankMed also allows for enough interpersonal drama to keep things interesting. For instance the introduction of the awkward Dr. Jeremiah Sarcani and his sweet unrequited love for Divya has been a highlight of the season for me. This show, since it lacks the mythology of some of the heavier USA offerings, focuses on the characters: the very essence of USAs’s Characters Welcome mission statement.

I don’t mean to imply that Royal Pains is a perfect show by any means. Mark Feuerstein is pretty good when playing against patients and against Paulo Costanzo, but the repeated attempts to give him a girlfriend are snooze-worthy. The Paige is adopted storyline needs to play out further before I can judge it properly. And the stuff with Boris (which may be this show’s attempt mythology) is a waste of Campbell Scott and feels like it belongs on, well, Burn Notice. But most of this stuff doesn’t take away from the good work the show has done by toning down Evan’s character by keeping him with Paige and allowing him to grow, and by Hank finally admitting they needed to hire other doctors and grow the business. Their little team feels like a family, which is why I tune in from week to week.

The conclusion I can tentatively draw from my musings is that, perhaps USA shows should either be or not be procedural, depending on what works for each show, but that the ones I watch at least would be better off without a heavy-duty mythology arc that starts to feel confusing and perfunctory after a while. USA should trust their slogan to be true: characters are why people tune in to shows most of the time.

Of course, USA’s formula seems to work well for them in terms of ratings, and if it ain’t broke, right? I don’t know that the network feels that it ain’t broke, though. This season’s miniseries Political Animals represented an attempt to experiment with breaking the formula a bit, even though the show was tonally similar to the network’s other shows. Unfortunately, the ratings were not great, which may teach USA to just leave things be. However, I also feel like the second season of Necessary Roughness, with its decreased emphasis on cases of the week may have been part of the same experiment, and perhaps shows a willingness to let each show find what works for it (even if they won’t be allowed to abandon the formula entirely). I really hope that’s the case. The USA brand is very strong and clearly a good way to launch shows, with their focus on character and on maintaining a breezy tone, but then those shows should be allowed to find their way without too many network constraints or demands for complicated mythology.