Monday, September 27, 1999
Returning favorites sport new looks, new casts
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Must be tough, people tell me, having to watch all 36 new fall TV shows.
That's 22 hours of new TV dramas, plus seven hours of pretty bad sitcoms.
Must be tough to keep track of the titles, time periods, teen stars and TV's old familiar faces.
It isn't. The really hard part of the fall season starts now.
I'm trying to watch the crucial second and third episodes of new shows, while keeping an eye on the 77 returning prime-time network series, which this year have seen more changes than ever.
How each of the 113 fall network series fare in the next five weeks — before the beginning of November sweeps — will determine which shows (new and old) move to new time slots, and which ones don't make it into the new millennium.
Like many, I'm equally interested in my old favorites as new shows. I want to see how Heather Locklear works with Michael J. Fox on Spin City.
I want to see what Chicago Hope looks like with half the doctors and newcomers Lauren Holly, Barbara Hershey and Carla Gugino.
I want to see what ER looks like with twice as many doctors. Michael Michele, Goran Visjnic, Paul McCrane (Dr. Romano), Maura Tierney and Ming-Na join ER Thursday, when Julianna Margulies and Gloria Reuben start their final season.
Some of you were dying to find out who Felicity chose, Ben or Noel. I'm anxious to see what viewers picked at 8 p.m. Sunday: Felicity? The Simpsons? Sabrina Down Under? Touched by an Angel? Or the second episode of NBC's new Third Watch?
Maybe you're curious about what Two Guys and a Girl looks like without The Pizza Place. Maybe you were the one.
The truth is: All TV shows are works in progress.
Previewing new fall shows, without commercials, in advance of their broadcast is relatively fun work. But it's impossible to guess how many great pilots will make consistently good TV shows, week after week. (Remember Buddy Faro? Gregory Hines? Rhea Perlman's Pearl? Great pilots, lousy series.)
Producers often take a year perfecting the pilots filmed last spring. But when they must grind programs out week after week, anything can happen.
@subhed:Real changes
@body:Fox's second Action wasn't as funny as the first (which is why Fox buried it at 9:30 p.m., for a one-hour premiere Sept. 16).
Fox's second Get Real completely switched the premise, fixing the parents' troubled marriage and turning normal teen-agers into the dysfunctional ones.
Sometimes good shows go sour without warning. Remember when Frasier was out of work last fall? Unwatchable. Or the slow painful deaths of The Nanny, Roseanne or Mad About You?
Nielsen numbers are not clear indicators. The Practice is just as good at 10 p.m. Sunday as it was at 10 p.m. Saturday, where ratings were terrible. Everybody Loves Raymond at 9 p.m. Monday, but the show was just as funny when buried at 8:30 p.m. Friday in 1996. If Felicity tanks at 8 p.m. Sundays, it may be more a function of time slot and competition than quality.
Sometimes a bad show can improve with simple addition. Look at Melrose Place before Ms. Locklear, Family Matters before Steve Urkel, or Martial Law without Arsenio Hall.
@subhed:Keeping loyal viewers
@body:
Of all the networks, NBC has done the most tweaking on returning shows. Then again, what would you do if stuck with Suddenly Susan, Veronica's Closet, Jesse and Profiler — while trying to launch six new hours of programming, more than one-fourth of your prime-time lineup?
“When you put together a schedule, you make an instinctual call as to which shows you want to keep and which shows you feel you can fix,” says Garth Ancier, who took over as NBC Entertainment president in May, one week before the fall lineups were announced.
Why were Veronica's Closet and Jesse worth saving?
“There are very loyal viewers that watch these shows, and we didn't want to just throw away that investment,” Mr. Ancier says.
“If you can tinker with the show, and (improve) the writing quality, it seems like that's a lot easier than simply dumping a show in the trash bin and trying to start from scratch.”
Every day, Mr. Ancier says, network executives think about tinkering with shows. “You can't be afraid to make changes, or you shorten the life of a show,” he says.
Change hasn't hurt Law & Order and NYPD Blue. On the other hand, changes killed L.A. Law, Picket Fences and Northern Exposure.
“Sometimes you can make a show last longer, sometimes you can't,” he says. “I certainly would be disappointed if we couldn't do that with ER, where cast changes are probably healthy to a certain degree. We're keeping Anthony Edwards and Noah Wyle (and Eriq LaSalle), and we're restocking the pond around them.”
Will we take the bait? Or cut the line? We'll know in the next few weeks.
John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV/radio critic. Write: 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; fax: 768-8330.
John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV/radio critic. Write him at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, 45202.
