Why don’t the people in TV hire novelists to create and write their shows? I’ve been watching the new summer replacement season premieres. Some of my old favorites are back, if a bit on the dry side, and the new entries I’ve seen so far leave me cold.
Sustaining a story over a long arc is a particular talent. The hit show True Blood is based on the Charlaine Harris novels and benefits from the extended storyline to give the work direction. I gave up on Lost because it was clear to me that the writers/creators had no idea where they were going with the story. (I watched the finale and millions agree, I was right.) Heroes was great and then poof. The first season of Desperate Housewives was delicious and then not so much. I loved Alley McBeal and then where are we?
I will acknowledge that just getting a show in the can and on the air for twenty-something weeks is an undertaking. Still, the greater challenge, seems to me to be to create a story that can endure that, resume again the following year and not suck.
Here’s my idea. I keep hearing, television is dying and blah, blah, reality, blah. So, maybe the folks in charge should stop rehiring the same people who created all the crap that failed in the first place. Isn’t repeating the same action and expecting different results the definition of insanity?
Eric Shaw Quinn 