Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Hey ABC, Hire Me To Be Your Programming Director

I swear, ABC's taken a page out of the Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase.

I imagine the Fall Lineup planning went something like this:


"Ok, so we have a few hits: Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, um...and that show with Ally McBeal and Sally Field."

"Don't forget Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

"How can I? Ty calls me up and says the same thing every fifteen minutes."

"We really should switch him to decaf or something."

"Hide his hair gel."

"Oh no, can't do that--enough folks get him and Ryan Seacrest confused as is."

"Anyway: focus people. That's at best three nights of TV, and we can't run Dancing With the Stars four nights a week. After all, we're not FOX, and it ain't American Idol."

*Hearty, somewhat forced laughter all around*

"Hey I know, let's do a Grey's spin-off!"

"Brilliant."

"Who do we spin-off? We can't give Dr. Burke a show..."

"Nope, but he is gone."

"Wouldn't make much sense to spin off Meredith, what with the show name and all..."

"How about the Chief retires and we get to follow him to the golf club?"

"Nah, that show Big Shots already pretty much has the 'rich-guys-who-whine-even-though-they-never-have-to-worry-about-money-or-go-more-than-a week-without-getting-laid' demo sewed up."

"Oh, I got it: Addison. Think about it, she's likable, but a part of the audience still hates her because she was married to McDreamy, so she's going to continue to be seen as Meredith's rival..."

"Even though some of us think Meredith is a whiny bitch who shouldn't deserve a so-called 'perfect man' like Dr. Sheppard..."

*Therein followed a lengthy and discursive argument excised from this transcript for either the purpose of bringing up in a separate post, or your humble author's half-assed attempt to avoid censure at the hands of the untold women who really identify with the character of Meredith Grey for some reason or another*

"Ok, that's settled, let us never speak of it again. As I was saying, she's also not really involved with anyone on the show right now..."

"Oh, and we could have a 'preview' spin off, like when Married With Children tried to do that show with Matt LeBlanc and Nicole Eggart..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"It was terrible, but I had a crush..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"It was a good concept though...it flopped, so they didn't spend money on the series."

"Oh, now I get you."

"So we send Addison off somewhere, maybe meet some old colleagues somewhere..."

"Los Angeles."

"Yeah. Pay back the OC for making fun of us."

"Like LA, and if the ratings are decent we have a show."

"What kind of show?"

"Well...like Grey's...but with different doctors. And maybe a talking elevator and quirky Ally
McBeal stuff."

"That's one down."

"Those GEICO cavemen ads are funny, why not a show about them?"


And you can see where we go from there.

The end result:
1. Shitty sitcom based off an insurance commercial (and not even GEICO's best ad: that would be the "Tiny House" spot, though I admit a partial bias because I found the brunette quite striking, with amazing gams. That's right, Family Guy's not the only folks to break out old-timey slag for a joke.)

2. A shitty sitcom from a funny guy (Kids In The Hall's Bruce McCullough) about folks carpooling to a boring job. A tip: commutes are boring at best; adding in boring jobs equals a boring sitcom.

3. Two shows about rich assholes (Dirty, Sexy Money--which is in the lead for "worst show title of the year"--and Big Shots). Personally, I don't want to watch reprehensible people who never have to worry about paying for stuff. But The Simple Life was a hit, so there you go.

4. The odd absence of October Road, which they sure trumpeted as a hit (I don't know if the actual ratings back this up or not--while I have many, many issues with the show, it was shot in Atlanta, and if it stays in production, that would give me a chance to go drinkin' with Donna from That 70s Show.)

5. The aforementioned "hit" shows.

All in all, I'd say it was a large swing and a miss on their part (not that, outside of Desperate Housewives I watch anything ABC shows at this point anyway. Sure I was one of maybe 5 people that watched What About Brian, but the show had at least 15 episodes worth of good plot points it could've milked.)

And again, of all the ads on TV (or even of all the popular ads) why make a sitcom out of the GEICO cavemen?

The following is my list of ads that should be shows:
1. The Miller Lite Catfight Girls.

2. Victoria's Secret (pick an ad, any ad. Even though technically CBS has already done this one.)

3. The AFLAC Duck. Gilbert Gottfried needs work. Plus, it could be a near Road-Runner type thing, with that depressed-looking guy that seemed to be the only one noticing the duck for the first 5 ads or so trying to track him down.

4. The Cialis smiling guy. Ok, this is actually a horrible ad, but I think it'd be funny to see them try and go 21 minutes only impling that the guy's got a raging boner, but not mentioning it, or the word "penis" or even coming euphemistically close to mentioning it.

5. Let whomever does Bud Light's ads have 30 minutes of a variety show. It couldn't be worse than MadTV. I'm assuming. Is MadTV even on the air still?

I blame my most recent birthday. I'm a year older, and I'm apparently becoming that curmudgeonly guy that hates TV...

2 comments:

Jamie said...

You say you don't understand Meredith Grey like you also don't drink too much and sleep with inappropriate men.

Ooo.

Will said...

Yes, that's right. Except I didn't say it. The non-identified ABC exec I made up and quoted said it. And she could be female.