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An Anti-CBS PROGRAMMING rant (aks the House of Cards Network)

Mutara Nebula 1967

Mutara Nebula 1967

Captain
Captain
There is some saying that it’s hard to argue with success. Well I’m going to try in this post

CBS is the number one network on TV these days…but it’s also the biggest house of cards waiting to fall that I have ever seen and that is because of its tunnel vision when it comes to the type of programming it airs. It is completely overstuffed with crime solving/legal/forensic dramas. Let’s look at this for a minute

Sunday: GOOD WIFE & CSI MIAMI
Monday: HAWAII 50
Tuesday: NCIS, NCIS LA and UNFORGETTABLE
Wed: CRIMINAL MINDS & CSI
Thurs: PERSON OF INTEREST & MENTALIST
Fri: GIFTED MAN, CSI NY & BLUE BLOODSSat: RE-RUNS of SOME OF THESE PROGRAMS

With this lineup CBS is appealing to the viewer who needs programs that have a beginning, middle and end with few or no continuing threads from week to week. Whenever CBS tried to step out of the box with the likes of JERICHO, SWINGTOWN & HARPERS ISLAND as a few examples they were met with rejection by an audience too lazy to invest if following something from week to week so they automatically gravitated back to the tried and true police procedural programs.

Now as said CBS is a huge house of cards at this moment waiting for a massive collapse because some of these shows are running out of steam (the CSI franchise)…what would happened to this network if the crime drama falls out of favor at last. Think it can’t happen? Ask yourself how many Westerns you see on the schedule on the networks the last 30 years

CBS also is relying on its stable of what were once called Sit Coms but now I call Sex-Coms because if the main plot doesn’t revolve around sex it’s always being mentioned, talked about, joked about or referenced non stop through just about any of CBS sitcoms led by the horrid TWO & A HALF MEN. Can you imagine what the classic CBS sitcoms would be like if they were made today? Here’s a couple of plots guaranteed


BEVERLY HILLBILLIES: Mr. Drysdale turns to Miss Jane to find some way to save his marriage when Mrs. Drysdale catches Milburn with an erection after watching Ellie Mae sunbathing by the CEE-MENT pond.

ALL IN THE FAMILY: Edith is deathly afraid that Archie is going to wake up in the night and hear Meathead banging his “little goil” through the paper thin walls of the Bunker house

And to think CBS was once called the "Tiffany Network"-there's nothing class about these half hour comedies at all

So in short CBS consists totally stale police procedurals and sex coms. The over reliance on these two formats are going to leave them someday spiraling down towards being a cellar dweller network like NBC when some day the jig is up on their moribund programming unless they start to make a serious run at expanding their types of programming and not just a token show like JERICHO every now and then

Just to be fair a couple of their police shows are actually quite good such as the HAWAII 50 reboot and they do have a couple of bright spots like SURVIVOR and AMAZING RACE to be proud of. I just think they need to look to the future now before they dig themselves into a hole with their narrow view on programming

Anyway thanks for reading. Got to love Internet message boards for giving you a chance to vent on things that need venting. LOL
 
I'm not sure why you're singling out CBS. Each network tends to program in way that lends it a certain identity.

ABC is female friendly dramas and female friend sitcoms.
Fox is youth oriented
Arguably, NBC has the most varied scheduled but its sitcom heavy and the best ones are cult hits (Community, Parks) more than genuine hits.
 
Sorry, but CBS gives me Big Bang Theory. That eliminates your entire argument right there.
 
Mutara Nebula 1967 said:
Whenever CBS tried to step out of the box with the likes of JERICHO, SWINGTOWN & HARPERS ISLAND as a few examples they were met with rejection by an audience too lazy to invest if following something from week to week
Click to expand...

I don't know that it automatically follows that people are lazy if they don't want to follow a continuing serialized show. Maybe they just don't want to invest the time.

As for the procedurals, despite a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth here on this board, apparently they're still pretty popular with the public in general. I mean look at the ratings for NCIS. They program those kind of shows because a chunk of people like them.
 
I would also point out that "Person of Interest" is co-created by Jonathan "the Dark Knight" Nolan and JJ "Lost" Abrams. I think that alone makes it worth checking out as something that might be different than, for example, CSI or NCIS.
 
I will add that I can't say I disagree with you on the state of CBS's comedies and their over-the-top raunchiness. But again, their ratings mostly seem to say that's what people want.
 
I find it rather odd to hear the argument that appealing to simple, proven formulas is somehow a recipe for disaster. It's not like TV viewers en masse are suddenly going to get tired of TV as comfort food and demand only sophisticated, challenging programming from then on. Yes, hopefully there will always be an audience for the sophisticated, challenging, experimental stuff, but the bread and butter of television has always been the formulaic and familiar.

People have always liked series fiction about crimefighters and crimesolvers. That goes back far beyond the current wave of procedurals, back to the days of Peter Gunn and Naked City, back to when Dragnet and Gangbusters aired on radio, back to the days of dime novels and Sherlock Holmes in the Strand magazine. Fads for things like Westerns or spy shows or sci-fi come and go, but there are always cop shows and mystery shows. (Heck, when the spy fad subsided, the original Mission: Impossible switched its focus to crimebusting in its last two seasons.)

It's also a prejudice of our era to assume that fans of serial fiction are automatically smarter or more attentive than fans of episodic fiction. Decades ago, the cultural prejudice was just the opposite. In '50s TV, the classy shows were anthologies, and the only serials were lowbrow soaps. So even series fiction with continuing characters strove for an anthology flavor, putting their emphasis on making each individual story a complete, self-contained experience rather than on unifying the whole. Which made sense in the days before frequent reruns, home video, and the Internet gave us the means to focus more on the big picture. Episodic storytelling isn't inferior to serialized storytelling, it's just a different approach.
 
The metalist is an awesome show been playing catch up on TNT.
Looking forward to Person of Interest it looks interesting pun intended.
as for Gifted man reminds me of Ghost whisperer so I am in on that one.
and I can't wait for the second season of Blue Bloods great show.
 
Christopher said:
I find it rather odd to hear the argument that appealing to simple, proven formulas is somehow a recipe for disaster. It's not like TV viewers en masse are suddenly going to get tired of TV as comfort food and demand only sophisticated, challenging programming from then on. Yes, hopefully there will always be an audience for the sophisticated, challenging, experimental stuff, but the bread and butter of television has always been the formulaic and familiar.

People have always liked series fiction about crimefighters and crimesolvers. That goes back far beyond the current wave of procedurals, back to the days of Peter Gunn and Naked City, back to when Dragnet and Gangbusters aired on radio, back to the days of dime novels and Sherlock Holmes in the Strand magazine. Fads for things like Westerns or spy shows or sci-fi come and go, but there are always cop shows and mystery shows. (Heck, when the spy fad subsided, the original Mission: Impossible switched its focus to crimebusting in its last two seasons.)

It's also a prejudice of our era to assume that fans of serial fiction are automatically smarter or more attentive than fans of episodic fiction. Decades ago, the cultural prejudice was just the opposite. In '50s TV, the classy shows were anthologies, and the only serials were lowbrow soaps. So even series fiction with continuing characters strove for an anthology flavor, putting their emphasis on making each individual story a complete, self-contained experience rather than on unifying the whole. Which made sense in the days before frequent reruns, home video, and the Internet gave us the means to focus more on the big picture. Episodic storytelling isn't inferior to serialized storytelling, it's just a different approach.
Click to expand...

Problem is CBS is so locked into the episodic format they don't really give it a chance...look at HARPER'S ISLAND...it wasn't even airing during the regular season but over the summer time but almost immediatly they yanked it from Thursday to the Saturday night graveyard.

JERICHO well they killed any momentum they had going by making it vanish for 3 months and were later shamed into a token season 2 by an outraged peanut wielding fan base.

Good mention of anthologies....that's another genre that collapsed like westerns...why CBS doesn't realize the same could happen to crime dramas some day and start making a serious run at some other types of programming I don't know.
 
I'm kind of curious of why you are so worked up about this. And I don't mean this in a negative or confrontational way, but it just seems kind of odd that you are so passionate about this when all you have to do is simply not watch their shows.

I gather that you are a big Jericho, and/or Harpers Island fan, and are irritated that they cancelled those shows. Believe me, I share your frustration in them cancelling shows I like. Trust me no one was any madder than me when they whacked some of their new shows last year that I really liked. But if the shows don't get the ratings, (regardless of how frustrated it might make you or me) what are they to do?
 
I haven't seen Season 3 of The Mentalist yet (caught 1-2 on DVD over the summer), but I've been told 3 is more or less a season long arc about Red John, the serial killer who murdered Jane's family. Seasons 1-2 were somewhat serialized anyway, there were references to previous eps. That's a superior police procedural show IMHO, with a lot of deeply disturbing and moving eps.
 
gh4chiefs said:
I'm kind of curious of why you are so worked up about this. And I don't mean this in a negative or confrontational way, but it just seems kind of odd that you are so passionate about this when all you have to do is simply not watch their shows.

I gather that you are a big Jericho, and/or Harpers Island fan, and are irritated that they cancelled those shows. Believe me, I share your frustration in them cancelling shows I like. Trust me no one was any madder than me when they whacked some of their new shows last year that I really liked. But if the shows don't get the ratings, (regardless of how frustrated it might make you or me) what are they to do?
Click to expand...

No, it's cool thanks for asking.
Yes, you are right a lot of my angst with CBS is a lot of their cancelled shows that I'm recently becoming reaquianted with via Netflix Streaming...that and it's just frustrating how cookie cutter this network has become because it wasn't always like that. 30 years ago you could find a good variety of shows-Fridays Had the nightime soaps like DALLAS and FALCON CREST...Thursdays would have the crime shows like MAGNUM...as well as family shows like WALTONS and other nights sitcoms like WKRP. It was varied and something for everyone...so much unlike what this once great network has become.
 
Mutara, it sounds like you have the same problem I have, I've outgrown their programming. Translation: We're old. :(

ETA: Oops, missed your last post. OK, I'll rephrase. I'M OLD. :lol:
 
Mutara Nebula 1967 said:
Christopher said:
People have always liked series fiction about crimefighters and crimesolvers.... Fads for things like Westerns or spy shows or sci-fi come and go, but there are always cop shows and mystery shows...

In '50s TV, the classy shows were anthologies, and the only serials were lowbrow soaps...
Click to expand...

...

Good mention of anthologies....that's another genre that collapsed like westerns...why CBS doesn't realize the same could happen to crime dramas some day and start making a serious run at some other types of programming I don't know.
Click to expand...

Wow, it can't have been easy to read what I wrote and yet miss the entire point of it so completely.


Also, you're wrong to assume that CBS's procedurals are strictly episodic. Even "case-of-the-week" shows can have ongoing arcs running through them, for instance the Ray Langston/Nate Haskell arc that came to a head in CSI's last couple of episodes last season and whose fallout was shown in this season's premiere. Indeed, it's hard to find a show these days that's genuinely a pure episodic series without some kind of overall arc or quest for the main character; for instance, Unforgettable's lead character is haunted by the unsolved mystery of her sister's murder, a case that will no doubt be unfolded gradually over the course of the series -- much like the murder of Beckett's mother in Castle or the murder of Monk's wife in Monk.
 
CBS' average viewer is in their 50s - that's out of the advertisers' 18-49 demographic. They definitely need to think about what they are going to do as their viewers start to croak. :rommie:

the G-man said:
I would also point out that "Person of Interest" is co-created by Jonathan "the Dark Knight" Nolan and JJ "Lost" Abrams. I think that alone makes it worth checking out as something that might be different than, for example, CSI or NCIS.
Click to expand...

That show is a baby step in the right direction. It debuts tonight!

gh4chiefs said:
Mutara, it sounds like you have the same problem I have, I've outgrown their programming. Translation: We're old. :(

ETA: Oops, missed your last post. OK, I'll rephrase. I'M OLD. :lol:
Click to expand...

No, just the opposite. CBS's programming is attracting an old demographic, and it's starting to age out of the advertisers' desired demographic.

All the networks (cept the CW) have this problem. CBS is the oldest, FOX is the youngest.

But all this is CBS' problem. If they go out of business because they didn't take action soon enough, why should I care? The writing has been on the wall in 50-ft high letters for a while now. If they're that stupid, they deserve to fail. I only hope whoever ends up with Star Trek will make better use of the brand than just sitting on it.
 
I'm so sick of this argument. I'm a well-educated individual who likes serial storytelling AND cop shows. So what? I don't watch CSI and Criminal Minds because I'm too stupid to follow other shows. I just happen to like a good mystery and I'm invested in a lot of these characters as much as would be one from Fringe or something similar.

They're doing way better than NBC or ABC when it comes to scripted programming. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
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