I go through this every fall season. I think I am the only person in the world that gets excited for the new fall season. I have, since 1987 in fact. I am proud to hold the award for the only kid in known history to be excited by the new fall season. When I was a kid, it was like being in a candy store. New shows chock full of potential and my favorite shows returning got me giddy.Perhaps by the time 1999 rolled around, I got jaded. I understood the industry much better and I understood why shows I love got canceled. When I was a kid, I just floated to the next new show and had fond memories of a show about a man who plays a talking dog on TV or a blonde nanny who was a witch. (These shows existed, just don't know their names) I miss the days of when pilots where actually shown on TV. But unfortunately, not all the cast and crew was listed in those days. Ashton Kutcher said it best in a Rolling Stones article a few years ago that he didn't understand how a network would make a show and then it would not survive on air, or even make it on air. Thousand of pilots are made and never seen. Now in the days of iPods, YouTube and Tivo, it's amazing how network execs still cancel shows at a click of a button. Now that television watchers are avid bloggers and posters, they let the networks know how they were upset "Daybreak" or "The Black Donnelys" was canceled and they never found out how it ended.
This year, much like last year, I don't get as excited as before. I know my taste in shows. Some are broad and thankfully the shows don't get canceled and they are relatively well liked like "Lost," "Desperate Housewives," and "Grey's Anatomy." They have created so much buzz, that now the on the set dealings are more interesting to people than the shows themselves. Now that they enter their 4th seasons ("Lost" in 2008), people say 'oh it isn't how it was.' And I know I will always fall for the underdog and it will get canceled. Like "Firefly," "Wonderfalls," and "Arrested Development." All where on Fox mind you.
I feel more confused with this season's scheduling. I hate when it is not clear which show is premiering when and I hate missing them. I am currently between jobs and have no Tivo, maybe one of the rare Americans who still owns a VCR, so keeping track of the shows are hard. I wished all the returning shows premiered the same week or at least the shows that the network prepares to be on the show day premiere on the same day. NBC's Thursday night shows will not premiere on the same night this year. And it has happened a lot before that the shows the network planned to have on the same night never do. For example, a new show that was scheduled to be with an old one can air two weeks before and get canceled before the old one even starts its new season. Or either show gets shifted around.
Shows that will be premiering late are "Scrubs" and "Samantha Who?" No surprise since "Scrubs" came in mid-season last year (rather this year). But when it comes to mid-season, it is no longer for sucky shows. Plenty of shows like "24" and "Alias" (in its hey-day) premiered in January and were just fine. "Lost" is trying that this year.
And with all this technology, you'd think the television honchos would think of a better way to count and track Nielsen ratings.
