Is anyone else disheartened by the increasing number of reality shows clogging the networks? I know I am. The scripted show is a dying breed. I can see how the networks love grabbing onto this fad, they're cheaper to produce, there are no actors or writers to pay, and they seem to always grab the top ratings. It's hard to deny the juggernaut that is reality programming. Sadly (fortunately?) I never warmed up to the concept. Game shows are one thing, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, The Price is Right, and the like all have their place, but raffling off people for marriage or sticking people in a house or putting people through extensive cosmetic surgery has no place on my television.
While these shows are proliferating like the proverbial rabbit, well written, challenging and often just plain entertaining shows are being struck down before they even get a chance to get going! For every Joe Millionaire we have a Firefly, for every The Apprentice a Wonderfalls. These shows, and many others like them, don't even get a chance to get going. These new scripted shows often get placed in bad time slots or shuffled around the schedule and then unceremoniously dumped. A lot of these shows need some time to gain a following and without that opportunity they wither and die. What I would like to see is a network that gets behind these shows and give them time to cultivate an audience. We need more challenging television, even shows that show a spark of creativity over this reality filler.
I cannot wait for the bottom drop out of this ship. Sadly, it just seems to be gathering steam. So anybody reading this, please, support some of the great shows on TV outside of that , ugh, genre. Fortunately, we do have some good scripted shows still on the air, such as Alias, 24, Scrubs, and Joan of Arcadia.
Television
Speaking of scripted television, there are a pair of shows that recently impressed me. These shows are both, I believe, on the "on the bubble" list, meaning they are potentially not returning for another season. They are UPN's Enterprise and Fox's Tru Calling.
First up is Enterprise. Now in it's third season, it is finally catching some sort of stride, and especially lately the show has been most impressive. It is easy to say that the first two years were rather on the dull side, with moments of life. The show just seemed to meander along with no real sense of purpose, come the end of season two they find an idea and some life is pumped back into the dying ship. You see, initially we had an interesting premise of taking Trek back to before the days of Kirk and Spock, and what we got was an uninteresting cast and stand alone episodes of a show that was going nowhere fast, mostly cruising on the fumes of a fast dying breed, the trekkie. The revolt was kicking in and fans were running for the escape pods. Season three comes along and starts building on the fantastic finale of season two. Now the show had purpose.
Season three is the first Enterprise season to get a direction and a story arc that has thus far carried it through the entire year. Earth was attacked by a vicious new alien race, now Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) and crew are now faced with the mission of finding this menace and stopping it before more damage is done. Recently the show has taken an even darker view. The crew has engaged in activities more associated with terrorists, the ship has lost a good portion of it's crew, and the ship has taken a great deal of damage. Finally, the show is interesting! We see the captain making difficult decisions, we see the chief engineer struggling with the loss of his sister as well as an important member of his team, the Vulcan science officer dealing with substance abuse, and a crew with a determination to see their mission though. I must say it's a good time to be a fan of Enterprise, hopefully we will be able to continue this mission next season.
Secondly, we have Tru Calling starring Eliza Dushku (formerly of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and mid-season add on Jason Priestly. The show has been flying under the radar for most of it's debut season, facing strong competition on Thursday nights from Survivor and the final season of Friends. It started out as a decent yet unspectacular new season with a neat gimmick of the title character reliving days in order to help people who died before their time.
This past weeks episode was the two-hour season finale, probably scheduled to avoid going head to head with Friends series finale next week. The first half of the season they got into a rut of the same story in a different setting each week, someone dies, day rewinds, said dead person lives to see again, blah, blah, blah. Then Jason Priestly joins the cast and the stories take a turn for the better, the stories become a little stranger, the people harder to save, and people getting closer to that Tru is hiding, especially Priestly who plays Jack. It all culminates in the penultimate episode where, thinking she succeeded, finds out that the victim was still a victim, Tru failed. Now comes the finale where agendas are revealed and new enemies are made.
It turns out that Tru is not alone in her ability, Jack also relives the same days. Problem here is that he is in the role of her opposite, she saves, he makes sure they die. It brings up a great question, what if the people she saves really were supposed to die, and what effect will that have on what is yet to come? Especially here, where the victim is Tru's brother. The episode plays out like a deathly serious game of chess, each piece being moved around the board in an effort to take out the opposition while saving themselves. It was the best written episode of the season, and what is revealed, especially in the last few minutes, really shows that there is more to this show than what is given in the early episodes. Hopefully, this, like Enterprise, will get the chance to come back next season and explore more of the possibilities.
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