By John J. Joex
So another season has passed us by with the expected multiple cancellations along with several bubble shows barely making the cut. And at the upfronts, the networks announced their new lineups which include several genre shows hoping to be the next Lost or Vampire Diaries or Walking Dead. But is there anything really to crow about among the new shows scheduled to hit sometime in the 2011-12 season? Maybe. But I have to say that for the most part I am unenthused. Having waded through series that showed some promise but quickly descended to mediocrity such as The Event, V, FlashForward, Persons Unknown, Life on Mars and plenty more over the last few seasons, I can’t say I have much confidence in what the broadcast networks or cable channels have to offer these days.
The upcoming shows seem to split mostly along two lines. You have your Lost wannabes like Alcatraz, The River, Awake and then you have your supernatural/fairy tale/folklore themed shows like Once Upon a Time, The Secret Circle, Grimm, A Gifted Man. And I’m sure that at least of couple of the latter group will work some sort of a story arc into their weekly episodes. The only two that don’t quite fit into the above categories are CBS’ pre-crime series Person of Interest from J.J. Abrams (which may or may not actually have genre elements) and FOX’s time travel/dinosaur series Terra Nova. But then the former could easily trend close to Lost and/or Fringe (both also Abrams productions) and the latter could very possibly follow a heavy story arc path.
I have to say at this point that the show that interests me the most is Person of Interest. That’s in a large part because Michael Emerson stars in the show (and in the trailer he’s at the top of his game) and also because Abrams has been quite reliable of late (I even liked this past season’s cancelled Undercovers). And if Person of Interest turns out not to have any genre elements (I’m betting Abrams is just keeping them hidden for now), that’s fine as long as it still delivers an interesting story. It looks like this one will give us an intriguing twist on the cop show theme that could delve into some of the same moral dilemmas suggested by the Minority Report movie and original short story. At this point, anything fresh and original from the networks would be welcome.
Among the Lost wannabes, Alcatraz actually looks somewhat interesting, but then it also comes from Abrams and has a former Lost star (Jorge Garcia), so I’m a bit biased there again. And I wonder how well this one would work on an ongoing basis (but then I said the same about Lost way back in 2004). The River looks like it will fly closest to the Lost structure (lost on a huge river instead of an island where mysterious things happen), but its cinema verite style may help lend to its creepiness and give it a fresh angle. As far as Awake, I don’t have a good feel for that one yet, but it seems to combine bits of two previously failed NBC shows (Journeyman and My Own Worst Enemy) so I don’t know if this splicing will lead to any greater success.
As far as the magic-tinged shows, I could pretty much pass on all of them. Grimm seems too close to Supernatural, A Gifted Man seems geared for the audience that tuned in for Ghost Whisperer and Medium, and The Secret Circle looks like it wants to carry over the pre-teen/teen female audience of Vampire Diaries. And Once Upon a Time seems like ABC’s attempt to rework No Ordinary Family with a fairy tale theme with characters out of folklore discovering they have special abilities but really just wanting to live a plain suburban life (could somebody please explain to these people that suburban life is pretty vapid and boring). I’ll likely sample each of these (except perhaps A Gifted Man), but my expectations are low.
And then there’s Terra Nova which by all rights should be a big hit based solely on its pedigree. But something about this one smacks of the typical over-produced/network manipulated series that ends up missing on all marks and crashing and burning (sort of like ABC’s V). And the concept seems fundamentally flawed. People are going into the past to escape from the future (wasn’t that a Star Trek episode)? Wouldn’t that cause a catastrophic change to the future timeline? (Star Trek actually dealt with that.) Don’t know. This one will be expensive and if it doesn’t bring in big returns it could find itself off the schedule be season’s end, despite have Steven Spielberg’s name attached to it.
Sorry to be so cynical, but my opinion at this point is that if the networks suddenly changed their minds and pulled any or all of these from the upcoming schedule (except Person of Interest), I would not be too heart-broken. Of course some of these may actually blossom into decent genre entries, but then again they could all wind up facing the network executioner by season end (with the requisite one or two shows generating some desperate “Save My Show” campaign). As far as I am concerned, I will continue to delve into the many web series available out there on the internet (and you can read more about those at this link) as I find those far more creative and challenging than what the networks and cable channels have had to offer lately. But I will keep an eye on the new shows to see if any manage to surprise and actually give us something new and original for a change.
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