As we examine the post 9-11 pop culture landscape two genres will be the hallmarks for television drama: the proliferation of the Anti-Hero Drama (think Jack Bauer, Tony Soprano, Gregory House, Dexter Morgan, Vic Mackey, Walter White) and the rise of the Survival Drama (think Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Jericho, The Walking Dead, Falling Skies, Terra Nova). The Anti-Hero movement is a revenge catharsis against the horrors of a national tragedy. This happens every time a war ends, but in the 20th century we would turn to the Western.
The Survival Drama is a newer and trickier beast. While obviously no stranger to the fiction world, Survival Dramas have rarely been successfully mounted on the small screen prior to September 11, 2001. The serialized nature of television is a natural inhibition to the bleakness and profound nihilism that should accompany most Survival Dramas: if things are too dark and dire, why would we want to tune in week after week.
For fans of the genre, two things happened to help make this possible. First, of course, was the 9-11 tragedy which unfortunately made the possible need of survival a reality, encouraging viewers to entertain the possibilities in their own minds. Second, there was the precipitous rise of original scripted programming on cable television. Their business model was made for short runs (usually thirteen episodes, but oftentimes ten or even as few as six) of scripted fare, as opposed to the 20-24 episode runs of a broadcast network series. It's far easier to commit to darker material for a short period of time.
Battlestar Galactica must be recognized as the landmark innovation of this genre. It proved that a devoted audience would aggregate around bleak, if well told, Survivalist material. Battlestar was one of the greatest dramas ever produced for television; combining hard sci-fi with humanity, heart and hope. Not only did fans come back week after week to see their heroes struggle to overcome insurmountable obstacles, they rallied to the show, creating scads of websites and fan groups to support the series. Of course, the material was not for everyone; the ratings for the series would have gotten in cancelled on any broadcast network, save perhaps The CW. It wasn't until Lost came along that broad appeal became a possibility, and broadcast networks forced a burgeoning genre into adulthood.
Lost was a gigantic ratings success. In its first few seasons, before it embraced its very strong sci-fi roots, the show was about surviving and the communities we create when faced with adversity. Even after the show narrowed it's focus by ironically expanding to the world beyond the island, the series never lost it's primary concern about the nature of man. Lost took the passionate base that surrounded a show like Battlestar and quadrupled it. Soon the broadcast network landscape was littered with shows that were trying to mimic Lost's success.
Many of the new series focused on the sci-fi elements which were merely intriguing hooks in the early days of Lost. ABC had Invasion; NBC had Surface; CBS had Threshold; Fox, experiencing the one-two punch of the overwhelming successes of American Idol and House and the scripted programming drain of baseball in the fall, had little real estate to launch a new sci-fi series. Each of these immediate Lost sycophants had no desire to be a true survival series, though, and were instead set in the contemporary world. They were concerned with staring down a potential survival event, and working to overcome it before it happens. None lasted more than a season, and this would become the standard for all future broadcast Lost-esque series, save one--Jericho.
Jericho was a CBS series about a small town in Kansas that survived a nuclear attack. It aped Lost in mostly the right ways: characters in isolation determined to create a functional society while fighting unknown forces. The main differences between Lost and Jericho (other than the specific setting) was the quality of the casting and the writing. Jericho featured Skeet Ulrich, Gerald McRaney, Ashley Scott and Sprague Grayden. Lost featured Matthew Fox and made stars out of Terry O'Quinn, Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Michael Emerson, Evangeline Lilly and Daniel Dae Kim. The writing of the early seasons of Lost was quite unique weaving serialized storytelling with an almost anthology approach to developing characters; Jericho's structure was a far more traditional style of serilaized storytelling--sturdy but unremarkable.
Even though its casting and writing was significantly weaker or least less nuanced, Jericho still attracted a decent sized audience. Had it been on any network other than CBS, it would have run for several years. But since CBS has been the 800 pound programming gorilla since the turn of the century, they cancelled Jericho after one season. The fans were outraged, and in a move that his since been copied any number of times, they organized nationwide to bring the series back. Capitalizing on one of Ulrich's last lines in the first season finale, "Nuts!", the fans flooded the offices of CBS with 20 tons of nuts. CBS, noting the fervency of the fan base, brought the series back for a limited second season.
This second season reprieve would not happen again (sorry fans of FlashForward, V and The Event) until two more actual Survival Dramas start on cable: The Walking Dead and Falling Skies. Actually, each of these series will be entering their third season this year. The Walking Dead is AMC's most popular show in their short history of original programming. In fact it's second season premiere had numbers both in total viewers and in the key 18-49 year old demographic that beat most episodes on the broadcast networks that week. The Survival Drama genre is still going strong, and NBC is looking to capitalize on it this season with Revolution. I've seen the pilot of Revolution, and my one sentence review (a full one is coming in just a bit): Revolution is what would happen if Lost and Battlestar Galactica had a child, and then abandoned it to be raised by Jericho.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder