Starring Noah Wyle,Uncle Jessy and a Gilmore girl
If you're looking for the reason for this shows end ,look no further than former president W.Today's unfortunate economical state has sadly contributed to the demise of roughly 10-15 percent of what had formerly made up our regular television viewing, i.e hour long dramas and sitcoms.The reality show has come in like a cancer and is only gaining momentum as this figure looks to double in the next 2 years.Money folks!That's the bottom line here.It costs roughly 1 to 3 million dollars to produce an episode of any of your typical shows over the years and now multiply that from anywhere between 16 and 22 episodes per season and you have yourself a budget upwards of 16 to 66 million dollars per year.Conversely, look at a show like Survivor where an entire season is based on one sole earner of a measly million dollars at the end of several months.Sure they incur extra costs such as travel and insurance but the fact that the contestants are basically being paid scale more than helps the bottom line.Credit/blame creator Mark Burnett as well for having the forethought to get the ball rolling on this revolution as we now have him to thank for other gems like The Flavour Of Love and The Hills.Ugggh, I just threw up a little in my mouth as I typed those titles back to back.
Where was I?Oh right, E.R and its final bow.Some loose ends were tied up and some left to question as they banged out their 2 hour curtain call.Nothing too special really and no real stand out performances other than special guest Ernest Borgnine who quite frankly has more acting talent in his eyebrows than the bulk of the regular cast combined.Marilu Henner of Taxi fame also showed up for a cup of coffee and was completely unmemorable.I found it odd that George Clooney only came back a few weeks ago for one episode and not the final one, but when you consider that if he had and if he shared any screen time with John Stamos then there would be an influx of female fainter's admitted into actual e.r's all over America.Maybe its good he didn't.
For anyone interested in the oddball story line,here's what you missed in a nut shell.A woman had twins but then she died.NOT FUNNY.An elderly man that sleeps around at his retirement home broke his wiener.FUNNY.Tony and Sam ended up holding hands.Touching.DR Greens daughter shows up as a med student.Touching.Dr Morris, who pretty much carried the entire final season single handedly,ate some donuts and a piece of pizza.Touching.
In another odd theme of the night,I felt sort of bombarded with previews for the new cop show Southland which is more than ready to take over the now vacant slot held for so long by E.R and the body isnt even cold yet.Bring on the new flashy show with the cast making pennies compared to the final payroll of the county general crew.But by all means tune in and give it a shot if you've already wrapped up the latest season of Tila Tequila and The Biggest Loser.I'm not exactly religious, but I am currently praying for televisions future.
At least Ive still got my M.A.S.H reruns.E.R had 15 years to try to capture the genius that the 4077th delivered and fell a little short in the end but they stand alone and atop in other regards.Michael Crichton would have been proud.
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I think I've watched a total of 2 full episodes of ER in it's entire run, so I can't really comment on the ending of the show, but I do want to put my two cents in on the demise of the scripted program.
ReplyDeleteLike you said, scripted television is EXPENSIVE and continues to get more and more expensive every year. It's the Seinfeld phenomena. Seinfeld was the first program, to my knowledge, to grossly overpay their actors and shortly after which, Friends followed suit. Television actors salaries escalated to ultra-inflated heights much the same way professional athletes salaries have in the past 15 years. Inflated salaries are great when the money is there, but with advertising dollars drying up, I honestly don't see how they can continue to pay these actors/producers this much money. Hence the rise of Reality TV. As you mentioned above, the overhead for producing a reality TV show is relatively low, largely due to the fact that there aren't a whole lot of "Above the line" costs (industry speak for actors, directors, screenwriters). Reality contestants are typically paid scale, and the directors are usually either journeymen who have yet to have their big break, or rookies looking to pad their resume. Writers are the only real large above the line expense. Yes, I said writers. If you look at the credits for any typical reality TV show they employ at least a dozen writers to "script" the action. After all, actual reality is boring, scripted reality is sensational.
Where the television stations are short sighted in turning to reality television rests in the syndication of these programs. Ever notice that you can find an episode of Scrubs or Family Guy pretty much 24 hours a day, but you are SOL if you wanted to watch reruns of I Love Money? That's because reality TV is only good ONCE. There is no market for rerunning reality TV. It is designed to be consumed once and then it's over. There is also no demand for DVD releases of reality programs. The first season of Survivor was released on DVD during the first big boom of TV on DVD back in 2001 and it sold miserably! Syndication and DVD sales are all gravy for the networks. They provide a large and continuous revenue stream that keeps the network in the black during down turns in advertising dollars, which is exactly what is happening now.
The major networks reliance on reality TV is what will ultimately doom them. Had the networks produced even a dozen more memorable and watchable scripted programs in the time period of 2000-2009 they would now have several hundred episodes to sell both domestically and abroad to keep them afloat. But no, they chose the instant gratification of reality television and are now feeling the pinch of lowered ad revenue and less money for new programming. Ultimately all this means is that they will turn to even MORE reality TV because it's the only thing they can afford to produce. The real sad thing is, most network execs honestly have no idea where it all went wrong...