The days ahead will include the major broadcast networks’ announcements of their lineups for fall 2016. Which immediately raises this question: How will shows get screwed up?
We’re not talking just about new shows that will arrive with promising pilots, only to go off the rails as soon as they have to make a second episode. This also includes returning shows which, perhaps because of creative ennui or a desperate attempt to prolong their on-air life, make drastic changes that prove terrible.
Fans of Sleepy Hollow have rightly raised objections to the drama’s killing off Abbie (Nicole Beharie) at the end of its third season. Although at this writing the show is still awaiting a fourth-season order, the core of it has long been Abbie and Ichabod (Tom Mison), and it’s hard to see it going on without her.
Same thing with Castle, built around the dynamics between Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Beckett (Stana Katic). But before ABC canceled it late last week, the show had hatched a plan to keep going without Katic or Tamala Jones.
But cast dumps are just one of the ways shows can go wrong. Changes in writers and producers may prove lethal. Plotting moves, likewise. (Remember Friday Night Lights’ season-two murder plot?) Introduction of new characters who don’t fit with the old. (There are those who still gripe about Emily Wickersham’s succeeding Cote de Pablo on NCIS.)
And, for another time, there are all the bonehead moves attached to series finales. Yes, we’re looking at you, How I Met Your Mother.
That’s not to say all such efforts lead to disaster. Lost seemed to make almost every imaginable error, yet remained watchable to the end. But shows have to be wary.
Malcolm X Abram and I recently had a video chat about this awhile back. And with help from Alexandra Harris, our younger-demographic associate, we’ve sorted out some of the ways shows have gone wrong, with a selection of the resulting victims. Now we just have to see if this fall’s shows can avoid all the traps.
• Kids in play.
Think of shows that add cute kids, especially when the original kids start to age. Examples: The Brady Bunch, The Cosby Show, The Partridge Family.
You could also add the shows that thought a baby was a good idea, such as Family Ties, Mad About You, Murphy Brown and Modern Family.
• Big twists.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer brought Buffy back from the dead. Dexter toyed with romance between Debra and Dexter, her adopted brother. Roseanne made its main character a lottery winner in the final season, only to say that was all in Roseanne’s imagination. Dallas, you know: Bobby. Friday Night Lights tried out a murder plotline that almost killed the show.
• Time warps.
One Tree Hill, Pretty Little Liars and Arrested Development are just a few of the shows that leapt ahead years between seasons.
• Off-camera changes.
The West Wing struggled without writing mastermind Aaron Sorkin. Gilmore Girls lost fans after writer Amy Sherman-Palladino departed in a contract dispute. (She’s back for the upcoming Netflix reunion.) NYPD Blue was never the same after David Milch left.
• We’ll be fine without them.
What was The Office without Steve Carell’s Michael Scott? Did The Good Wife ever get over the death of Will Gardner (Josh Charles)? You know how we feel about Sleepy Hollow. But did any The O.C. fans really miss Marissa (Mischa Barton)?
• Hey, let’s bring in a new cast!
Glee tried blending a bunch of new high-school students with the originals after the originals graduated. Not only were the newbies weak variations on the oldies, it was a struggle to serve everyone. (Friday Night Lights handled the same issue more deftly.) Lost kept finding people on the island, though few provided engaging.
• We haven’t run this into the ground yet.
For every Frasier and Better Call Saul, continuing a classic show with something good, there’s a Joey. Also an AfterMASH, Archie Bunker’s Place and Beverly Hills Buntz. Plus ill-considered reboots such as Heroes Reborn, The X-Files, Knight Rider, 90210 and the Dallas revival.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal, in the HeldenFiles Online blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/heldenfiles, on Facebook and on Twitter @rheldenfelsABJ. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.