A TV Era Draws To a Close...

Since the beginning of TV, there have been very specific genres of shows that are staples:  soap operas, game shows, sitcoms, talk shows and variety shows.

For years, harbingers of death have been moaning about soaps being a dying genre.  Is it really possible?  Variety shows are long gone.  There is no more Jackie Gleason, Shields and Yarnell, Sonny and Cher or The Smothers Brothers, that's for sure.  Like the reality shows of today, variety shows were everywhere for decades.  Now I can't think of a single one.

Situation comedies are still around, but their footing in the ratings is tenacious.  My Name is Earl is one of the exceptions: a new, funny and welcomed with open arms by the viewing public.  Scrubs is going into its 4th season and is as popular as ever.  There are several others that are well received, but no more is the prime time schedule riddled with the funnies.

Bob Barker is finally retiring after 50 years of hosting and for all the world, it seems that he was carrying the game show market on his own back.  Sure, there's a game show network now, showing old Match Game and Password reruns, but don't we mostly watch that to see B-list stars when they were younger (or worse, before they were dead)?  Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are going strong, but what is left?  It used to be a cross-network phenomenon.  I remember gathering with my family to watch Truth or Consequences or Concentration as an event each week. 

The stakes are much higher now as the ever-evolving TV viewer raises their attention ante.  We used to get excited over a $5,000 luxury car (ha ha ha) and now, millions of dollars has to be on the line or we don't even bother to tune in.  Remember on The Price is Right when you had to guess the cost of a car and you ALWAYS started with a 3, 4 or 5?  You would now as well, except that there would be another 0 at the end of the figure. 

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire got big attention when it first aired as a temporary show, not only because a million dollars was on the barrelhead, but also because it was only going to air for a few weeks.  I was glued to the TV.  Now, I can't remember the last time I watched.  Years, I guess, whether it was Regis or Meredith or Pee Wee Herman hosting.  Deal or No Deal got my attention for a while because like Millionaire, it was intense and wow!  Howie is bald!  WTF?  I also have not watched that in ages.

As reality TV and gritty forensics shows have taken over prime-time viewing, the family hour of sitcoms and game shows has gotten pushed aside in favor of grittier, more "grown up" viewing.  TV has pushed past the gridlock of ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS and brought Fox and other networks into play where a "for mature audiences" disclaimer at the beginning of a show opens up a whole host of writing opportunities that were not there even 10 years ago.  With NYPD Blue's initial ass shot all those years ago, the floodgates opened for very mature programming to take hold.  Whether that is good in the sense of censorship becoming less oppressive or bad in the sense that your child can stumble across almost anything on TV if you are not hawking their every viewing moment is up to individual ethical debate.  Regardless, long gone are the days when Rob and Laura Petrie slept in separate twin beds and the words "damn" or "hell" were never uttered on TV.

Soaps and game shows used to dominate daytime with talk shows sandwiched in here and there (Dinah Shore, Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett and later, Phil, Geraldo, Oprah and Jerry).  Although talk shows are trying to hang in there, their heyday seems to be peaked and done.  As everyone from Carnie Wilson to Sharon Osborne to Tempestt Bledsoe to Vicki Lawrence to Marky Mark threw their hat in the ring as contending interviewers, the sauce was diluted to the point that no one cared any more.  Ricki Lake, Montel Williams, Jerry Springer, Sally Jesse Raphael and Geraldo dropped their pants to show their asses by losing any facade of presenting themselves as responsible or intelligent journalism and instead went in for not just the tabloidy, white trash kill, but actually resorted to staged stories using actors, reflecting situations that never actually existed.

Call it competitive commerce or call it bullshit, I guess desperate times called for desperate measures.  Even Dr Phil has stooped to "busting" cheating spouses and using hidden cameras to set up his guests to prove they are lying to him and to the people who are important in their lives.  Dr Phil, who I considered to be the icon for integrity!  I was crushed. 

Sadly, the only talk show host I see showing any shred of responsibility in their choices for show material is the one I dislike the most: Oprah.  My Oprahate (yes,it's one conjoined word) is more than adequately conveyed in a previous column, so I will not elaborate more at this time, but it's pretty sad when the talk show host who seems to work hardest at finding good material that is above the bare-ass-wagging level is the one I truly can't stand.  Admittedly, I do still watch Dr Phil on a regular basis, he just makes me cringe now and then with his occasional dip into the exploitative machinations. 

The exception to this rule seems to be Ellen Degeneres, who enjoys enormous, Emmy-winning popularity (but unfortunately is on opposite Dr Phil) and keeps a dry, funky style to everything she does in the vein of David Letterman.  She definitely has a following that is faithful to the nth degree.

Overall, however, I think it's safe to say that talk shows are a lame duck unless by some miracle, they find a resurgence in popularity.  Ditto the game shows.  Gone are the Monty Halls, the Chuck Barris', the Wink Martindales of the world.  Gone is ... who was that spooky looking guy who did The Joker's Wild?  ...Jack Barry!  The game show moment has come and gone.  The talk show doesn't seem far behind, becoming, for the most part, a parody of itself.  But who knows?  Rachel Ray might just be the one to save the industry.

These days, it's pretty much reality TV, forensic/medical/crime drama or nothing.  Sure, TV has always moved in waves.  Seldom, if ever, has there been anything close to "variety" to choose from in daytime or in primetime.  Not so long ago, Pink Floyd sang, "I've got 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from."  Now I have several hundred channels of shit on the TV to choose from and still have a hard time finding anything I want to watch.  The waves roll and now we have a reality TV and crime/forensics/medical TV roll out.

Maybe it's some kind of group consciousness that causes networks to come up with the same idea at the same time.  Maybe it's more along the lines of how primetime soaps got started.  Someone has an idea (Dallas), they get laughed out of town, it works and then everyone jumps on the bandwagon until it's so full the wheels fall off and it goes nowhere except to a Moldavian Massacre.  We went from Dallas to Dynasty to Falcon Crest to Flamingo Road to The Colby's and then followed into 90210 and Melrose Place. 

For now, it's all about reality. 

For me, the "reality" is that DVDs and books are gaining in appeal.