Five Pipe Dreams About Fall TV

A month from now, during the week of Sept. 8, we'll be diving into the fall TV season. Yes, summer is full of a lot more new programming than it used to be, and seasons are far more fluid. But there's still a fall season, and once we hit the CW premieres on Sept. 8 and the regular-season kickoff of Fox's much-anticipated Glee on Sept. 9, it will be underway.

And yes, the top wish is "better shows." The top wish is always "better shows." Every show could be good, and the top wish would still be ... "better shows." Because as a viewer, that's what you always want. That's the easy part. And even aside from "better shows," there are a few things — particularly at the networks — that would help the season look a little more promising.

1. Portion control. There really aren't that many network reality shows that air during the regular season. But the ones that are on are on way too much. Even if you find Dancing With The Stars to be frothy and fun, the results show is consistently one of the least necessary hours of television around. And The Biggest Loser doesn't need to be two hours every single week. The amount of real estate these things occupy is massive, not so much because they proliferate as because they expand.

And by the way, when they eventually return, the bloated American Idol and Bachelor franchises could, no matter how you feel about their continued existence, benefit from a chop. Remember that the Idol results show used to be half an hour. There's no reason it couldn't be half an hour again. And if you remove the parts of The Bachelor that start with "Coming Up," it would be about 12 minutes long.

Two-minute overruns, saving Tim Gunn, and more, after the jump...

 

2. Stop running things two minutes over. We know what the networks are up to. We know they want us to stay with them for the last two minutes of Grey's Anatomy, thus missing the first two minutes of The Mentalist and deciding that if we have missed the first two minutes of The Mentalist, we might as well just watch Private Practice.

I sense, however, that we, as a TV-watching public, hate this. It confuses our DVRs, makes us miss both endings and beginnings, and contributes to a general sense that networks are hostile to us.

3. Make The Jay Leno Show good. Look, I am not a Jay Leno person. I didn't watch Jay Leno much when he was on in late night, and I probably won't watch much of him in prime time, either. But the fact of the matter is that NBC has decided to forgo other development to bet on this venture. That means it will be on for a good while, no matter what happens.

And that means that a certain number of people are going to watch it. Unlike most network shows, we are absolutely, positively stuck with it. Even if it were the lowest-rated outing since Viva Laughlin (which won't happen anyway), it would live on, at least long enough for a contingency plan to emerge.

That means that in the interests of everyone, we have to all hope it's good. Some of your neighbors are Jay Leno people, even if you are not. It will be on five nights a week, and they will be watching it. Out of generosity, wish them the best.

4. Don't ruin Project Runway. Okay, look. Nobody is saying Project Runway is The Wire or anything, but for five seasons, it's been an addictive competition that (a) usually brings out some very impressive work from the designers, and (b) gives you a taste of the high drama of competitive reality shows while (c) cutting it with some actual drama related to people's varying skill levels. It's the amuse bouche of bad behavior, instead of the 20-piece bucket.

And now, it's jumping networks, from Bravo to Lifetime — and, far more significantly, it's jumping production companies from Magical Elves (the people who also make Top Chef) to Bunim/Murray (the people who also make The Real World). I cannot stress enough how potentially bothersome this is. Yes, there's a template to follow, and it would be foolish to mess with what works, and there's no reason to suspect they're going to transform Project Runway into a Real World-ian universe of hot-tub encounters and bar fights. But just ... keep it the same, okay?

5. Quit twitching. What do I mean by "quit twitching"? Well. Listen up, network people.

You put the show on once. It does badly. You pull it for a week. You bring it back. You move it to a different night. You air it twice. You flip it with the show before it. You put it on hiatus. You bring it back. You pull it for sweeps. You bring it back. You replace it with reruns of whatever you have that's already doing well. You don't show it for a month, then you show four episodes back-to-back. You bring on the Jonas Brothers as guest stars.

Quit twitching. Put the show on. Leave the show alone for a while. If we like it, we'll bother our friends and colleagues about watching it. Unless, that is, you make it clear that you've given up on it, in which case we will give up on it too. If you think it's good, give it some extra airings in some delightful time slot where extra people might spot it. Put all the episodes online. Make them easy to watch, so people can catch up. You can always cancel it if it doesn't work, but I'm convinced that all the twitching is often the equivalent of moving back and forth between lanes in a traffic jam — you feel like you're doing something about your predicament, but in reality, you're going nowhere.