FX has not yet announced a renewal for Sons of Anarchy, and at least according to his Twitter feed, show creator and executive producer Kurt Sutter is growing disillusioned by it all.
In his latest blog posts he ponders if speaking his mind is getting him into trouble and whether he should just keep his mouth shut. I’m as certain as I can be that Sons of Anarchy will be renewed. I’m also pretty sure that Sutter will continue to speak his mind. But as much as Sons is my new favorite show, sutterink.blogspot.com is my new favorite blog. Though I don’t think FX would be crazy enough to tell him “stop blogging or we won’t renew your show”, if they do, I hope he gives them the finger.
I can’t see Sons not being picked up for a season three. But hey, I could be wrong. Dollhouse was boldly renewed for a second season, and I definitely got that wrong.
Speaking of Dollhouse, could it be that Sutter is a fan? In Sutter’s latest blog post he recounts an impromptu encounter with a development executive outside of a Starbucks in Burbank who wished him dead. She wasn’t too happy with the post about why most broadcast network scripted dramas suck. I’m sure there was a bit (or more) of writer’s license being employed, but he describes a heated exchange where the executive defends her work:
KS: I’m serious. I want to believe you. You’re probably right. Name something on your schedule that you’re proud of. That’s original. Smart. Great stories.
(She names two shows)
KS: First of all, I agree with you, (show 1) is original and interesting. So why are you pulling it off the air?
DG: It’s not canceled.
KS: Of course it is. It’s been yanked from the schedule and replaced with reruns.
That last line is definitely straight from the TVbytheNumbers playbook. But I got to thinking, what show has been yanked off the schedule and replaced with reruns but not yet officially canceled? Dollhouse, which was yanked from the schedule for November sweeps with its remaining episodes being burned off in December and beyond is the only show coming to mind. The Beautiful Life: TBL was yanked off the schedule and replaced with reruns, but it has been officially canceled, plus I can’t envision a world where Sutter would’ve found it original and interesting.
Dollhouse fits the bill, and I’d agree at least in premise it’s original and interesting. In execution, it hasn’t always been interesting, though at least a few episodes have been. But if it’s Dollhouse, I can answer the question of why they are pulling it off the air: a 0.8 Live+SD adults 18-49 rating.
A question that I’ve been wondering is:
Why should a Network employee care whether or not it’s line-up contains any shows that are “original. Smart. Great stories”? Their job is to maximize their profits. Usually that entails scoring the best numbers possible, but why should they care how, or with what, they obtain those numbers? If they place too great an importance on how “good” a show is, and that comes at the expense of their potential profits, then it would seem that they are not doing their jobs.
The majority of the available pool of television viewers is of average intelligence and average interests and so it would seem that they would best be served by average programming. A Network devoting resources to anything else seems like one that does not have it’s priorities in order.
was show #2 GLEE?
grr_argh,
It doesn’t look like we have enough information with which to speculate on what the second show might have been. There are only three programs that Fox has pulled off the air: Dollhouse, ‘Til Death and Brothers and so it is much easier to guess that Dollhouse might have been the one to which Sutter was referring.
AO, based on some of his other posts, I think Sutter probably agrees with you to a large extent. He has conceded that, as Bill noted, the accountants are taking over, and also that we get what we get because we watch what we watch.
I think (still not sure) his point is that if networks managed the development process differently you could get really great shows that a lot of people watched.
CBS takes a lot of flack that it’s not original with a slew of NCIS/CSI, and even for its comedies like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory. But whether you like CBS’ shows or not, it’s hard to argue with the results.
Grr_argh, I don’t think so. In another post he spoke well of Glee. it, Lost, and, yes, Chuck, were broadcast network shows he spoke well of.
@Robert
aw. well then it must be Fringe or Lie to Me. I must know. The curiosity will kill me. It can’t be House, 24, or Bones. There’s no reason to call those shows a POS. Plus, she’d be referencing old shows, and she wouldn’t want to be doing that or she’d give him more ammo for naming old shows.
grr_argh again, to what degree he was using writer’s license is unknown and he did not specify that the network is FOX. I guessed Dollhouse only because it’s the only show I could come up with that matched the first instance. But who knows. I doubt the second show would be Lie to Me only because of his relationship with Shawn Ryan who is now the showrunner for Lie To Me.
@Robert
that’s true about him probably not being harsh about Lie to Me because of his relationship with Shawn Ryan. Which makes me think that your guess that he was talking about Dollhouse as show #1 is the only one that makes sense. Two of the female writers for Dollhouse were also writers for Ryan’s The Shield. Meaning, Sutter must’ve been showing support and being defensive for Dollhouse because of his relationship with the staff. Just a thought.
Kurt Sutter does a point but I think network television isn’t as bad as he says and it has adapted to suit with the times but you can’t blame for being safe when a lot of risky shows fail to gain an audience, that’s why procedurals and soaps are very populars but they do take risks and sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t.
Even Cable shows aren’t that different, the USA shows are just different genre with the USA mould, TNT shows are slightly edgier version of Broadcast shows. Critics may praise shows from AMC and FX but when you look at the cable top 25, it’s usually USA and TNT who make the list most of the time.
I gotta go with my gut and say that conversation didn’t happen.
“I think (still not sure) his point is that if networks managed the development process differently you could get really great shows that a lot of people watched”.
I’d ideally like to believe that too, but I think that we have enough information to know that the majority of Americans want and will best respond to “entertaining” programs. It seems to me that finding a program that is both entertaining and good is a challenge and developing one that is both entertaining and great is even trickier. Given the choice, the Networks owe it to themselves and their shareholders to go with the most reliable route to profits. For PR purposes then I can understand how it makes sense for them to try to convince their audience that every show being offered will go down as one of the finest that the medium has ever offered, but it’s surprising that at least some of those Network employees would believe their own hype.
“CBS takes a lot of flack that it’s not original with a slew of NCIS/CSI, and even for its comedies like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory. But whether you like CBS’ shows or not, it’s hard to argue with the results”.
Right. And the desirability of quality over profits is something that could be argued in another forum, but it continues to surprise me that people bring value judgements into the discussions here at this site. The quality of a show does not have any bearing to it’s ratings and/or profitability and CBS has done what it’s supposed to do, which is appeal to a larger number of Nielsen viewers, more often, than the majority of it’s competitors.
I disagree that there is a huge demand for “challenging” shows. Don’t people get challenged enough during the day? They just want to see something interesting or mildly amusing. So American Idol and NCIS are hits, and Smarter than a 5th Grader easily recoups its costs.
That’s why sci fi shows that deal with the big questions of life are ALWAYS relegated to 2 million viewers or less. The market just isn’t that big. It’s also why sci fi movies with giant explosions are consistently #1 at the box office.
I hope people in the thread won’t call them dumb for that. Are people dumb to prefer Gin Rummy to Poker? It’s all entertainment, after all.
Ha! That was another thread that suggested “challenging” shows. AO just said “challenge” and I had a thread flashback
From the clues, I agree that he’s talking about Dollhouse. There’s also the connection between his mentor, Shawn Ryan, and the Whedonverse (SR was a writer/producer for Angel, and Ryan/Whendon have shared various writers and actors over the years), so it only makes sense that Sutter would have respect for DH.
Could pissing off a network exec on your blog kill a marginal show? Sure, stranger things have happened.
Could it kill a show with the ratings that SoA has? No chance.
Is it possible that the second show could have been The Cleveland Show? I could imagine an executive saying they’re proud of it and someone else saying it’s a piece of shit.
#2 wasn’t GLEE because he’s stated he liked that show. I’d guess she said Lie To Me or Cleveland Show perhaps? “Job’s hard enough…” uh-huh. So difficult. Nothing he said was a direct insult to specific network functions. He laid into the lazy idiot-pandering nature of network television. The post was a call for executives to be more creative and to try new things. It’s pretty hilarious that her reaction is being bothered instead of actively trying to go about making change.
“Why should a Network employee care whether or not it’s line-up contains any shows that are “original. Smart. Great stories”? Their job is to maximize their profits. Usually that entails scoring the best numbers possible, but why should they care how, or with what, they obtain those numbers? If they place too great an importance on how “good” a show is, and that comes at the expense of their potential profits, then it would seem that they are not doing their jobs.”
So true, I’d love to see these people decrying FOX for doing their job (and other networks consistently cancel genre shows too Dresden Files, Painkiller Jane, Flash Gordon all only did a season or less on Sci-Fi channel), and seeing what excuses they came up with when they went break.
And if Dollhouse was so intelligent, you’d think it have a few less plot and characterisation holes in the writing.
“From the clues, I agree that he’s talking about Dollhouse. There’s also the connection between his mentor, Shawn Ryan, and the Whedonverse (SR was a writer/producer for Angel, and Ryan/Whendon have shared various writers and actors over the years), so it only makes sense that Sutter would have respect for DH.”
Well all of Hollyweird is a clique and nothing’s more clique than the Whedon gang.
“I’d ideally like to believe that too, but I think that we have enough information to know that the majority of Americans want and will best respond to “entertaining” programs. It seems to me that finding a program that is both entertaining and good is a challenge and developing one that is both entertaining and great is even trickier. Given the choice, the Networks owe it to themselves and their shareholders to go with the most reliable route to profits. For PR purposes then I can understand how it makes sense for them to try to convince their audience that every show being offered will go down as one of the finest that the medium has ever offered, but it’s surprising that at least some of those Network employees would believe their own hype.”
This is so true. I like most of the performances (barring the male lead who I think is terrible with his jaw clenching) if not the writing of Dollhouse.
But qualitive can always be argued, the numbers can’t. It’s a flop, you can argue that none of the shows on a Friday get high numbers, but you can’t argue it’s consistently last of four.
What execs have to ask themselves is can they a) find something that’ll bring them in more ratings and b) bring in more profits. That’s all that should concern them.
For some reason I take an odd measure of pride in being a fan of two of the three shows Sutter spoke well of (Glee and Lost).
He’s got a good point. Though personally I don’t have that big a problem with network TV’s offerings. I can only watch so much TV in a weeek and I’ve got enough shows that I’m following to fulfill that need. Glee, The Tudors (in Canada), FlashForward, Community, The Office, Supernatural, Survivor, the Amazing Race, and soon V and Lost…that’s enough for me in a week. I’ve got other things to do.
The other show is so obviously Fringe. I’d be willing to bet on it.
I agree that the conversation probably did not happen.
I think we can all agree that Dollhouse is “original” and “interesting” at the very least. Now if only it were well executed, consistently entertaining, and had stronger writing and acting…
“I think we can all agree that Dollhouse is “original” and “interesting” at the very least. Now if only it were well executed, consistently entertaining, and had stronger writing and acting…”
I think the acting’s fine, but the writing…. It’s a skeevy concept in the first place (one I wouldn’t watch at all but for a liking for certain members), then you build on the concept with sloppy plotting and poor characterisation, and you’ve got a problem.
If your concept’s going to be about a bunch of largely unlikable characters doing pretty nasty stuff, you’ve got to have writing the like of Sopranos or The Shield to draw people.
With the likes of Buffy, it doesn’t matter how bad the writing was, and it was pretty damn sloppy, because you had likable chars to draw you with, and you could ignore the plot holes. DH is hard to watch as a concept, and the writing isn’t exactly an inducement to keep watching.
XFEver says:
“But qualitive can always be argued, the numbers can’t. It’s a flop, you can argue that none of the shows on a Friday get high numbers, but you can’t argue it’s consistently last of four”.
That’s very true and it’s why I come to this site. I’m a fan of Dollhouse, though one that will readily admit that it’s far from perfect, and I’d like to see it continue. But when looking at the numbers, then it’s clear that there’s not much of a case to save it from cancelation.
What can be frustrating, and I’m glad that’s it’s been pretty much avoided on this thread, are the emotional arguments that condemn this show or it’s fans because the poster doesn’t like the program on a personal level. And that goes for any other show too. Our tastes shouldn’t affect whether or not a show has a good case for survival.
“What execs have to ask themselves is can they a) find something that’ll bring them in more ratings and b) bring in more profits. That’s all that should concern them”.
In the short term, absolutely. And obviously they recognized that and have replaced all 3 Friday shows with repeats for the Sweeps period. In the long term though, airing repeats is not a successful strategy. That seems to be one of the reasons that Dollhouse was given a second Season and even though it has not performed as they had hoped, then it doesn’t change the fact that Fox really needs to find SOMETHING that can attract a respectable audience on Friday nights. But they seem to be very aware of that and hopefully they will be more successful in the Spring, or at least by next Fall.
XFEver, I agree with you completely on Dollhouse. I loved even the bad episodes of Buffy, because that show had wonderful characters and crackling dialogue that enhanced the show even when it wasn’t firing on all cylinders. Dollhouse has neither of these things, so the bad episodes (of which there are many), are just a slog to get through.
AO says:
“Their job is to maximize their profits.”
And that makes them soulless robots – but most are also humans. Which is good, if they were pure robots that would be a bigger problem for society that
“The majority of the available pool of television viewers is of average intelligence ”
You overestimate them – and its going down exactly because too many executives are robots which provides rubbish for the masses.
@Kermonk:
OK, so how would YOU write a business model that sustains ‘intelligent’ and as well as ‘good’ (read, please, as ‘the kind of show that Kermonk likes’) shows that consistently bottom out on the ratings?
As to your second point, I’m not a big fan of the ‘calling everyone dumb’ theory of television programming. I just think that real-life is hard enough without having to pretend that my television programs have to be just as, if not more, intelligent than I am. I’ve got plenty of things to worry about, and I’m not about to consider that ‘keeping up with a television show that’s too obtuse to draw me in’ makes me dumber than the av-er-age bear.
Moreover, people are perfectly capable of finding intelligent programs if they really want to. (a number of cable channels, the library and the internet can be used for that purpose) I’ve heard so many people in the same breath complain that Fox executives (for instance) are idiots, but that the shows they produce should be intelligent? Really?
I may not believe that people in general are idiots, but I’m a huge believer in Garbage-In-Garbage-Out.
Fox was smart enough to acknowledge that Whedon has talent (dubious, in my opinion; he’s got deadly whiffs of trying-too-hard about him), but not smart enough to keep his shows afloat?
At the end of the day, I think the ‘fan excuse bingo’ is an exercise in proving that there’s typically nothing wrong with the television audience, not even ’stupidity’. If -that many- excuses exist to ‘prove’ that a TV show can’t get enough ratings to keep itself afloat, perhaps we simply need to return to Occam’s Razor: the simplest explanation is the correct one.
That is, the show was never very good in the first place.
@AO: “…the emotional arguments that condemn this show or it’s fans because the poster doesn’t like the program on a personal level.”
Which has never stopped anyone paying attention to a thing in the first place.
Howard Stern found his popularity from people who didn’t like his program on a personal level, if his movie “Private Parts” is to be believed. (Both the people who liked him and didn’t like him kept listening, according to the movie, because they wanted to see what he’d say next.)
I don’t know how true that is, however I do think there’s something to it. Were “Dollhouse” as controversial as it wants to be, I think it would garner far more attention than it has. But as I alluded to above, I think Whedon has this problem where he constantly wants to get his point across, but the story, without fail, tends to comes second at absolute best. And if the story is only half-hearted, perhaps why that is the reason it doesn’t seem to entertain. And if it doesn’t entertain, well, we all know what happens next.
The thing about Stern was that he never led with the pretense that you had to think about what he was doing before you laughed at it.
However, in the Stern comparison and referencing the “preference” argument, not everyone laughs at Howard Stern. A fan of Howard Stern laughs at Howard because he/she finds him funny.
A fan of Dollhouse finds the show interesting because they find the content interesting. It’s not any different, only that there are far more of the former than the latter.
And regarding Occam’s Razor, excuses occur because things usually aren’t that simple. If cancellation requires that a show not be that good, I’m at a loss to explain “Arrested Development” which was a show I didn’t really love (not a huge 30 minute comedy fan atm), but I could easily recognize its quality. I agree its simpler to look at things that way and it gets you to the same endpoint, but I find causes usually more interesting since ultimately public opinion determines the success of a show, not its quality.
It’s also unfortunately why Sutter is wrong in his assessment of network executives. They’re job-holders with a boss, not some sort of artistic patron. I say unfortunately because I like extremely niche artistic shows and movies, but I’m the severe minority and I know it.
There’s a difference, though, between things not being quite-so-simple and being overburdened by excuses. (I can honestly agree with you if it were two or three definitive excuses. To have over twenty? At that point it stretches believability.)
Many fans point to enough excuses that could, in fact, fill a bingo card.
All of those things could have factored into the sinking of Dollhouse without actually the show being at fault in and of itself?
Sure the content might be interesting to a certain subset of people, but is it really true that under different circumstances (a better lead-in, a better night, more advertising, artistic freedom from the outset, etc.) the show would appeal to more than just that subset?
If it needs THAT many crutches, at some point you have to ask, what’s wrong with it that it absolutely SHOULD have those crutches?
“Were “Dollhouse” as controversial as it wants to be, I think it would garner far more attention than it has. But as I alluded to above, I think Whedon has this problem where he constantly wants to get his point across, but the story, without fail, tends to comes second at absolute best. And if the story is only half-hearted, perhaps why that is the reason it doesn’t seem to entertain. And if it doesn’t entertain, well, we all know what happens next.”
Absolutely, the man doesn’t concentrate on telling a story in the way the greats do (see The West Wing, Dexter, Sopranos, Babylon 5 etc), he concentrates on making his rather dubious points (his version of feminisism is especially revolting), at the expense of characterisation and plotting. Because he’s that much more smarter than everyone else.
And that’s why he’ll never move outside his niche followers. And that’s why his shows fail, not down to the networks, but because the five and a half million that watched the 1st Dollhouse episode were massively turned off by the ideas presented therein.
The people knew what would be on FOX at 9pm the next Friday.
And they turned off in droves.
To me, you can’t blame a show because a show is a static object. It’s art (even “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader”.) It’s there to be appreciated or not. Maybe a semantics game, but its what I believe anyway.
If it’s not appreciated (or if it is) the question is what sensibilities of the public does it repel or attract. And there are quite a few qualities that are entailed in that and they’re not always the same. In fact, often two shows have very similar qualities outside of a cast and are often treated very differently. And sometimes, public opinion itself IS the repellent or attractive quality.
My point is, as funny as the concept of “Excuse Bingo” might be, it chills the discussion and calling everything an excuse doesn’t really get you anything. All causes are generally also excuses. Not all excuses are causes. Most of them are just theories while people try to figure out the causes. At least, they are for me.
Regarding Dollhouse specifically, I can say that while Whedonesque and Joss fans are treated as a single entity on this board, whenever an actual discussion of the show comes up on Whedonesque, most are completely split on Dollhouse. Its appeal is often antithetical to the appeal of his previous shows.
So the advertising excuse (cause) comes up because of what I think is a very valid question: if you have a product that is going to be that divisive to your core demographic, why would greenlight (on a major network no less) it and then rely exclusively on word of mouth and fan campaigns from that same demographic? It would be like relying on Michael Bay fans (does he have those?) to exclusively market his new period drama. It makes no sense. So to answer your question, I don’t know who Dollhouse would appeal to. It appeals to me, but I don’t know where you’d find more of me. I DO know that either by design or in execution the end result was an extremely inept promotional attempt and we’ll never know the answer to your question. I never saw an advertisement when I wasn’t watching Dollhouse. Is that a cause?
I’m not excusing ratings, I’m saying these are the kinds of topics that interest me. Because ratings are just static numbers themselves but they’re made up of millions of these public consumption decisions and network advertising decisions and pretending that its something simple like the show quality just doesn’t do it for me. There are too many examples of bad (both in terms of unoriginality and inconsistency) shows that stay on and good shows that fail.
There are too many examples of bad (both in terms of unoriginality and inconsistency) shows that stay on and good shows that fail.
But you (and I) can only say that based on our own opinions. It’s definitely true that some shows I like don’t stay on the air while some shows I don’t like do. But I would disagree that all shows I don’t like are “bad” even if *I* don’t like them. I’d also disagree that being unoriginal makes a show “bad”. There are unoriginal shows (which is, after over 50 years of TV, almost ALL of them at this point) that are good, and unoriginal shows that are bad. But degree of originality doesn’t necessarily make a show good or bad.
I agree. But I guess my point is, it’s kind of a circular argument. Fans of Dollhouse have to argue against the premise that Dollhouse is a bad show. But I can’t say that other shows that are on are bad.
If they’re opinions, great. But they need to stay that way the whole time. They can’t only be labeled as subjective when someone’s defending a show.
And that’s also why I think demonizing excuses or causes is defeatist. They are usually attempts to quantify human behavior which is relevant where as “a show is bad” is not.
Carl, perhaps. That’s why WE focus on the numbers. All opinion about show quality are subjective, but how many people are watching isn’t.
There may be reasons aplenty that certain shows don’t succeed. But at the end of the day, you add all of them up and it still adds up to this: a lot more people want to watch Ghost Whisperer than Dollhouse. And at least Friday, a lot more adults 18-49 wanted to watch a House rerun than watched Dollhouse the week before. At some point, the only logical conclusion is that a lot more people want to to watch some shows more than other shows. At the levels of numbers we’re talking about stuff like “it’s on Friday and got no promotion” go out the window. Ghost Whisperer is on Friday and the House rerun didn’t get a ton of promotion.
WHY more people wanted to watch those might be fun armchair psychology for you, but it’s simply not possible for us to quantify any of that.
Let me illustrate quickly because in my mind “circular argument” makes sense, but if you’re not in my mind it probably doesn’t.
It goes:
“Show X does poorly because it’s a bad show.”
“No it’s not because of points X,Y,Z”
“I disagree and the ratings back me up” (which is subjective followed by a logical reach)
“Or maybe excuse A, B, or C”
“Those are just excuses. Maybe the show is just bad”
“But Show Y is bad and it gets great ratings”
“But that’s just your opinion about show Y”.
“But we’ve been arguing this entire time about your opinion of show X”.
“But the ratings back me up.”
BTW, that was a clarification of my previous, not addressing your response which I just saw.
Robert, I truly get the difference between what TVBTN does, and what I do. And honestly, I appreciate it. If you read my previous comments, I wasn’t defending Dollhouse at all. I started off addressing what Sutter said, then all but admitted I am NOT the typical majority.
I simply addressed one point Liz made about “who would watch Dollhouse.” That point is valid, but its deeper than just saying “no one, because no one is watching it now.”
At what point did I ask “who would watch Dollhouse”?
I made a point about why people might not, but not who would. And I certainly don’t lump all fans into a group, I can only do that insomuch as there’s a very vocal minority out there that continues to perpetuate the excuses.
I didn’t demonize fans, and I certainly didn’t ‘demonize’ making excuses. I simply made the point that all of these excuses, without a singular amount of either significant weight or evidence to make any of them extremely valid points to make may ultimately lead an objective person to ask the question: ‘but really, what’s with all the excuses? Why is the show so far down in the hole that it requires all these theoretical handicaps to make it successful? Why not just one or two?’
Sorry Liz, if it came off I was going after you specifically, I was not. I think most of us do make one or two claims, but the problem is when you put 20 people together, they’re not the same one or two claims.
And I understand your point about wanting quantifiable evidence. But as fans or spectators to ratings that is not something we’re going to get because it generally requires an experiment with a control which is something networks don’t do. They don’t try a show once with advertising and and then once without. All we get are end results of whatever they choose to do (the ratings).
To Robert’s point about not advertising House on Friday, conceded. But I would also be curious if everyone would admit that if they did the same stunt in reverse (Dollhouse replaced House) that a majority of viewers would have no idea what they were watching during House’s normal slot. House conversely would NOT suffer the same problem.
The main Dollhouse fan complaint is that outside of media critics, television bloggers, and Joss Whedon fans… who really knows about this show or has even seen it once to form an opinion? Would it be a breakaway hit? I don’t believe it would, but we’re back to the evidence problem. I don’t GET to have Fox do it my way for comparison purposes. All I get to have are claims and theories.