As the May sweeps rage around us, it’s time to assess the season that will end May 25.
The trend-spotting game yields refreshing results this year. At least we’re not talking about “reality TV” devouring all of primetime.
After “Elvis” goes up against “Desperate Housewives” and an unauthorized Donald Trump movie faces off against Rob and Amber’s wedding on “The Amazing Race,” after “American Idol” has its bout with an ABC News exposé, and Katie Couric stares down her detractors, this will be remembered as a better- than-average TV season.
Here’s a look at the good, the bad and “The Office.”
The 2004-05 season was a great one for drama, with ABC contributing two new hit hours, “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost.” Fox’s “House” and a re-energized “24” also stood out as thought- provoking. Even “Alias” began to make more sense, thanks partly to uninterrupted scheduling week after week.
UPN sneaked in a rewarding father-daughter detective hour, “Veronica Mars” (picked up for another season), CBS succeeded with the ambitious “Numb3rs,” and the WB’s underappreciated “Jack & Bobby” held on.
The FX cable series “Rescue Me” deserves special note, while “The Shield” was reinvigorated by the addition of Glenn Close. And HBO’s superior “Deadwood” truly challenged viewers with Shake-
spearean complexity and dialogue, Dickensian characters and David Milch’s delicately twisted creativity.
On the comedy side, prepare for weighty thumb-sucking “think pieces” concerning the May 16 series finale of “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Is it the end of yet another era? More likely it’s the well-timed demise of a solid domestic situation comedy that succeeded without editing tricks or gimmicks. There will be others.
With the exception of Fox’s “Arrested Development,” the network’s programmers demonstrated this season that they are fresh out of new comedy ideas.
The sole attempt to experiment with an unfamiliar comedy tone failed miserably:
NBC’s Americanized clone of the British “The Office,” which
incorporated the same faux documentary tone, bombed in the ratings. Even for a network desperate for a new comedy, the “Office” numbers weren’t good enough to earn the series a renewal.
The embarrassingly low ratings suggest the American audience would rather have a laugh track and a mindless, standard-issue half-hour like “According to Jim.” Talk about mortifying.
Cable came through with a bizarre, loosely scripted comedy, Kirstie Alley’s “Fat Actress” on Showtime (akin to HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”). Otherwise, the state of television comedy remains spotty.
So-called “reality TV,” omnipresent a year ago, was less a fear factor this season. The most despicable fare (“Who’s Your Daddy?”) came and went quickly. Meanwhile, worthy unscripted shows (“The Amazing Race,” “The Apprentice”) proved their staying power.
NBC is piling on unscripted quickies for the summer, including the return of “The Biggest Loser” and “Average Joe 4: The Joes Strike Back” and newcomers “I Want to Be a Hilton” and “Meet Mister Mom.” But reality fare seems to be fading during the regular season.
For those keeping score, the big ratings loser was NBC, for years the dominant network in every category. This season the Peacock molted to fourth place in the key 18-49 demographic. CBS, which has loudly feigned disinterest in that particular age group, may actually win that battle.
A continuing question is the wisdom of running franchises through the copy machine. How many “CSIs” are too many? How much “Law & Order” can the Nielsen masses take? The answer is taking shape in the audience’s relative disinterest in “CSI: NY” and, in spite of Bebe Neuwirth, “Law & Order: Trial by Jury.”
Thank goodness for all those stockpiled tapes, TiVo downloads and DVD rentals: It will be a long summer with no fresh episodes of favorite network dramas until September – and loads of tacky unscripted fare filling the gaps.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
