why not look at what AMC or FX are doing and attempt to create a quality show, but for network standards.
The holdup isn't networks' inability to show sex and violence. It's that AMC and FX have revenue from basic cable subscriptions, which gives them the luxury of shorter seasons and shows that are more precisely focused on a certain niche audience because they don't need 10M to survive or even close to that.
Network TV's business model being ad-based means they are forced to program for mass tastes. Even when a show is interesting and different by network standards, the odds are, it won't appeal to a broad enough audience since what makes a show interesting is usually that it doesn't try to appeal to everyone.
I can use myself as an example of arbitrary cruelty of niche audiences. I love
The Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy and
Breaking Bad, but I've bailed on
Mad Men, because it's "boring" to me. Yet those shows are all the same sort of thing: complex, serialized and sophisticated. Why is
Mad Men the odd man out? Even I don't know. That's a niche taste for ya.
Now imagine a network trying to parse shows that finely and yet get an audience of 10M or more. No wonder they just keep throwing cop shows at us.
Remember the days of yore for the USA Network when they had great programming like Silk Stockings? Really the only show that was ever a true breakout hit for them was Monk.
USA has a full roster of shows in that vein - lightweight, character-based adventure/dramedies. I don't much care for that style, but I can't fault them for finding a niche that is large enough to support a roster of shows and sticking to that like a lamprey. That's really the way for basic cable networks to thrive.
I'm just hoping AMC will realize that their niche is "sophisticated and serialized" on any topic. They gambled with
The Walking Dead and it worked. That show does pair up well with
Mad Men and
Breaking Bad when you just ignore the vastly different subject matter and focus on the approach all those shows take. I'd love to see an AMC space opera and more historical dramas, pre-1950 (they've got one coming:
Hell on Wheels, about the 19th C railroads). They should jump on that show I heard about that is "
Deadwood with pirates."
