USA
If I had gotten around to reviewing USA’s White Collar, which debuts tonight, I’d probably have said what I’d have said about USA shows like Royal Pains or Psych or Monk. It’s a light, funny caper. (The premise: a con man ends up working for the FBI to help them catch other con men.) It’s brisk and slick and fun and competently made, although I would not expect to remember any individual episode more than 30 minutes after watching it. It’s good if you like that sort of thing. That’s what USA is to me: the official network of Good If You Like That Sort of Thing.
Maybe I just don’t have the comfort-food gene required to enjoy its shows; I gravitate more toward appointment shows I’m intensely involved in on the one hand, or reality shows about food or shopping or New Jersey housewives on the other. The middle range that USA plays to doesn’t really interest me. (Even Burn Notice, to be honest, though it’s a cut above USA’s other shows.)
That’s just me. But USA has been very successful making a kind of show that broadcast networks used to make. Which raises the question: should broadcast networks be making this kind of show again? Specifically: Should NBC?
What made me think about this is a revealing interview by Joe Adalian at The Wrap with NBC’s new programming chief, Jeff Gaspin. In it, Gaspin says that despite adding Jay Leno and canceling Southland, NBC is not getting out of the drama business. But here’s something he said that really grabbed me:
My belief is that dark and grim in general is not the tone I want to see NBC take right now in our development and in our schedule. It doesn’t mean it can’t be intense. It doesn’t mean it can’t be dramatic. But dark and grim and real, I think, is not what the audience for broadcast television is looking for right now. The way we need to rebuild NBC is with broad, somewhat blue-sky, somewhat more optimistic programming.
And this (paraphrased):
Gaspin implied it’s simplistic to think that just because a show is good means it can work on a network, particularly one with few pillars of strength.
Here’s how I read this: Look, people, we are not trying to be freaking FX, even if we got beat by Sons of Anarchy the other night. We are not even NBC as it was ten years ago. We can’t obsess over “good,” because FX and AMC and HBO and Showtime can do good better now, and make money with fewer viewers. We have to program for people who want to turn their brains off and relax after a hard day, even if that mass audience is smaller than it used to be.
OK, fine. The man has to run a business. I may disagree with him; I would say NBC’s most successful non-football night is Thursday, which has comedies with low viewership but extremely good demographics. NBC should be trying to make dramas that do the same.
But what do I know? I’m a critic, not a TV exec. If network TV drama now is indeed, as Gaspin says, about light, not-too-challenging diversions, then what he’s describing sounds a lot like what is already being done by USA, a sister NBC Universal network. (Also, to a lesser extent, by shows like TNT’s Leverage.) Should NBC, sheerly from a business standpoint, cannibalize USA’s strategy, forget making the next Shield (or even the next West Wing), and produce some light capers with rakish stars and a sense of humor?
One argument is that NBC is already heading that way, having signed up a remake of The Rockford Files. [Update: By the way, I loved the original Rockford Files and still do, though it was very USA-esque back in the day. Not sure why it appeals to me more than USA’s shows, though it had a kind of down-and-out dirtiness that they don’t.] A counter argument is that the USA approach basically describes Chuck, which has struggled just to stay on-air at NBC.
Me, of course, I’d rather see NBC get more ambitious and swing for the fences, but I’m biased. I want NBC to make shows I’d actually watch. On the other hand, the USA approach could well be better business. And it could produce some entertaining TV. If you like that sort of thing.