Fall TV enters this year amidst the fog of writers’ and actors’ strikes. The networks are slow to keep to their schedules and are still changing their lineups for September and beyond. Cable channels have pushed up the release dates of in-the-can shows, fearing they’ll languish without promotion from their stars, an activity banned by the actors’ guild during the strike. The streaming archives beckon.
On the surface, the fall network schedules suggest that the work stoppages have had an impact: They’re overcrowded with reality competitions and game shows, whose employees generally work under contracts other than those of the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA.
ABC’s Wednesday primetime lineup includes “Celebrity Jeopardy!” followed by ‘Celebrity Wheel of Fortune’, followed by ‘The $100,000 Pyramid’. On Thursday, CBS added a new competition called “Buddy Games,” alongside the long-running “Big Brother” and another episode of “The Challenge: USA.” On Fox, celebrities undergo military training on Monday (“Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test”), guess songs on Tuesday (“Celebrity Name That Tune”), and sing in ridiculous outfits on Wednesday (“The Masked Singer”).
However, aside from “Buddy Games,” which are essentially summer camp contests for groups of adult friends, none of the shows in the previous section are new — the networks have been releasing unscripted prime-time shows for years. Overall, their lineups are eerily stable, more like an extended summer season of familiar titles and reruns than an unusually arid fall slate.
So, in the end, the schedules reflect the strikes not because they look radically different, but because their numbing sameness is a reminder of the problems that led to the work stoppages – that everything is simply ‘content’, and that the only form of value is money value. is. .
What are we to assume about the studios’ feelings towards the people who make television if their offering suggests apathy towards the people who watch it? Or maybe these lackluster lineups are the product of corporate strategy, now that seemingly all TV has been consolidated into a few media megaliths that are changing the way shows are made and creators are paid.
It’s no wonder ABC likes to offer singing contests and celebs spinning the wheel, while Disney, the owner, wants you to subscribe to Hulu and Disney+ for scripted family and prestige shows, along with franchise fares like Marvel and the “Star Wars” series. . CBS? Oh, you mean the broadcast base of the Viacom empire, where you can also watch reruns of Paramount+ shows like “FBI True” and “Yellowstone?”
(This shift isn’t limited to networks, of course. Don’t think of HBO as a sophisticated condiment in a TV universe separate from homemade makeover shows and bugs being pulled from people’s bodies—imagine a series of treasures instead. and trash for and the “Friends” catalog all piled up under one meaningless headline: Max.)
This isn’t the first fall of reality shows. ABC would always air another season of “Dancing With the Stars” (this will be its 32nd); NBC would always air “The Voice” (season 24); CBS would always air “Survivor” (45) and “The Amazing Race” (35); and Fox has included “Hell’s Kitchen” (22) in its fall lineup many times. While the CW is largely renouncing any claim to original programming, opting instead to flesh out its fall schedule with a lineup of existing foreign shows, it still airs new episodes of its version of “Whose Line Is It Anyway”. ?’, which begins the 12th season in November.
NBC distributes reruns of the “Law & Order” and “Chicago” franchises, with reliance on the Dick Wolf universe being a core programming strategy for much of the past three decades. ABC will keep ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ alive until the sun eats up the earth. Fox’s animated comedies are tenable for now.
Even most of the new rates fall comfortably within the lines. ABC’s “Golden Bachelor” is “The Bachelor” with a 71-year-old widower at its center. NBC has two scripted dramas: “The Irrational” and “Found,” each a twist on crime procedural so no American can go more than a few minutes without seeing someone duck under the yellow crime scene tape. Fox has a new Dan Harmon cartoon (“Krapopolis”), its third current animated series. CBS airs the original UK version of “Ghosts” as a supplement to reruns of the US version — an inspired choice in its way, but also an easy choice given the success of the adaptation.
Otherwise, our newcomers include the aforementioned “Buddy Games,” hosted and executive produced by Josh Duhamel, who previously made two movies based on the same concept, and two CBS game shows: “Lotería Loca,” hosted by Jaime Camil, a TV presenter. version of the lotería bingo game; and “Raid the Cage,” an adaptation of an Israeli show where people take prizes from a cage. Finally, there’s Fox’s ‘Snake Oil’, a hybrid of ‘Shark Tank’ and ‘Bullsh*t’, hosted by David Spade.
To be fair, the networks have been counted out many times over, and shows like ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” which scored eight Emmy nominations in July, and “Ghosts,” show that there’s still a lot of fun and specialness to be had in a broadcast format. This and other sitcoms and procedurals could be back in the new year with new episodes. (Or maybe even sooner, if the strikes are resolved quickly somehow.) But such sparks are rare.
As far back as the early 2000s, premium cable shows began largely outpacing network shows, and since then many streaming series have done the same: winning awards, accumulating cachet, and draining our wallets. Reasonable! After a while, it seemed as if the networks barely resisted; police shows and singing competitions as far as the eye can see, plus ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘The Simpsons’.
But now the new flashy fairground ride isn’t a more expensive, fancier platform; it’s free, ad-supported streaming television. The increasing popularity of these platforms, such as the Roku Channel, Tubi, Pluto, and Amazon’s Freevee, suggests that viewers want to recreate the basic cable experience of yesteryear with marathons of classics, as well as fun and interesting original shows (Freevee’s “Jury Duty” received four this year Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Comedy) and tolerates advertising. That’s a network television audience.
That also means that networks can occupy a different space in the public imagination: the ground floor is not the penthouse, but yes, it is not the garden area or the storage cellar either. High-profile comedies and long-running dramas still have value in the streaming age, perhaps more than ever before as a way to lure parents and kids away from their individual screens.
Perhaps a decline in game shows will eventually alienate viewers and thereby convince program executives of the value of actual creativity. Perhaps it will lead to a more adventurous attitude in Hollywood when the strikes finally end. Perhaps the next time the networks have to put things on hold, we’ll actually feel the loss.
