Like crocuses emerging undaunted after a brutal snowstorm, there are surprise TV hits awaiting discovery in early spring.
Odes to spring aside, the period before the May sweeps, once a dumping ground for series that didn’t make the fall TV schedules, has evolved into a safe haven for smart and quirky shows that may be more demanding or offbeat. March is a good time for thinking viewers to come back to the tube.
Remember, “3rd Rock From the Sun,” “Northern Exposure” and “Seinfeld” had midseason starts, plugging holes for failed fall entries. So did “The Sopranos” back in January 1999.
This spring, the networks know they’ve got to aim higher or lose audiences to DVDs. Why watch a mediocre new sitcom with a laugh track when you can rent a season’s worth of “Arrested Development”? Why endure a predictable procedural drama when you can catch “The Sopranos” on a boxed set?
The popularity of tougher, more complex series on cable – “The Sopranos” on HBO, “The Shield” on FX – has demonstrated that TV audiences will engage with morally ambiguous protagonists in mature, dark stories. In this sense, the tastes of the American TV audience are growing up. The heavier cable series are having a positive effect on network primetime, spawning mature, brooding dramas with complicated families – minus the profanity and nudity.
Amid the batch of dark dramas vying for viewers beginning in March, the mini-trend seems to be robbery schemes: NBC banks on “Heist,” FX is thick with “Thief.” Both take viewers inside the minds of ethically challenged burglars. Andre Braugher (“Homicide: Life on the Street”) is the headliner on “Thief,” Steve Harris (“The Practice”), and Michele Hicks (“The Shield”) are among the ensemble playing cops and robbers, who find themselves at various moral crossroads on “Heist,” due March 22.
Judging by the pilots, “Thief” is the standout, a more layered exploration of grander themes. Beyond break-ins, a relationship develops between the thief and a teenage stepdaughter who questions his motives.
CBS will take a chance on a drama rooted in our fears of terrorism with “The Unit” from David Mamet and Shawn Ryan (“The Shield”), chronicling the actions of special- forces operatives and the effect on their families. Less formulaic than “NCIS,” it will have to deftly straddle the home versus field settings to earn a following.
On cable, spring brings “Big Love” on HBO, a drama about a polygamist and his families in Utah. This addicting hour is a more sinister version of suburban secrets than “Desperate Housewives,” with more graphic sex. Late spring-early summer heralds the arrival of “Brotherhood” on Showtime about a politician and a thug, in Providence, R.I., a dark tale of sibling rivalry and morality’s gray areas. Either series could build an adult following to become the next big cable buzz.
Reseating the sitcom
On the comedy side, Fox’s “Arrested Development,” while not a ratings winner, raised expectations in terms of twisted, densely packed dysfunctional family comedy. While its future ranges from uncertain to unlikely, “Arrested” has had an impact on the development of new comedies. “Sons & Daughters,” an edgy ABC sitcom about a large extended family of emotionally unstable misfits, hopes to follow in “Arrested’s” deliciously peculiar wake.
“The Loop,” beginning March 15 on ABC, is intriguing but more traditional, a slapstick comedy about 20-somethings living in Chicago. One roommate (Bret Harrison of “Grounded for Life”) has a job; his roommates goof off.
The networks realize the standard sitcom formula is stale.
ABC entertainment chief Stephen McPherson stresses the writer’s point of view and voice are crucial to developing a decent comedy: “I think the nontraditional single-camera can work if there’s a voice, if there’s a really great point of view to it, and it’s done at the highest level. We’ve got to take some chances in comedy. Doing the traditional sitcom where it’s the same couch you’ve seen in every previous show, it’s the same setup, that’s a problem.”
With “Sons & Daughters,” in particular, the producers aim for a stylized, offbeat presentation with active camera work. We’ll see if that’s enough.
A demand for quality
Success isn’t achieved simply by making dramas darker or comedies more dysfunctional, of course. Viewers are seeking quality writing, juicy stories and riveting characters whose lives resonate for us. Such a combination is tremendously difficult to produce, given the constraints of commercial television.
Still, it seems from the spring 2006 crop that television is striving for less predictable programming, stretching to more complicated fare.
Whether they admit it, producers of the best new dramas owe a debt to HBO and “The Sopranos.” The creator of “Brotherhood,” asked if his drama is an Irish-American version of “The Sopranos,” fittingly paid homage to “Sopranos” creator David Chase.
“Other than we all worship at the altar of David Chase three times daily and face New Jersey, we’re really a very, very different tonal show than ‘The Sopranos,”‘ Blake Masters said. “We’re actually probably, in tone – there’s a more elegiac quality to what we’re doing. There’s also a whole political element. We are just as much ‘All the King’s Men’ as we are ‘The Godfather.”‘
There are weeds among midseason’s potential crocuses, of course. Many of the shows aren’t form-shattering. Fox’s “Unan1mous” is an open-ended reality gimmick that entails locking nine contestants in a bunker to see how long it takes for a single winner to emerge for a potential $1.5 million prize. The longer they take to vote, the less money they’ll win. ABC’s “Miracle Workers,” debuting March 6 for four weeks, follows doctors and nurses working wonders in the upbeat reality-show manner of “Extreme Makeover.”
We’ll skip past The WB’s awful “The Bedford Diaries,” about a sex seminar at a New York university, an embarrassment for Matthew Modine who plays the professor. Same for Fox’s dreary “Free Ride,” about a college kid who moves back in with his sexually hyper-active parents. And ABC’s “What About Brian,” coming April 2 from the producers of “Lost” and “Alias,” is a middling hour about a nice guy (Barry Watson of “7th Heaven”) with a crush on his best friend’s fiancée. We expected more from executive producer J.J. Abrams, yet “Brian” may stay afloat on the strength of its “Desperate Housewives” lead-in.
Novel approaches
The more notable spring starters try new approaches to old themes. John Wells’ “The Evidence,” on March 22, is another crime show but with an “interactive” style that invites viewers to solve the crime before the characters in the show. The gimmick is intriguing, but Orlando Jones and Martin Landau are the reasons to watch.
“Conviction,” March 3 on NBC, a Dick Wolf (“Law & Order”) procedural too transparently focused on young characters to draw younger audiences, is heavy on the extracurriculars, not just the jobs.
As always, just being different isn’t a guarantee. The better new sitcoms work because they’re funny: CBS tries “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” an offbeat half-hour with Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a divorced mom, whose ex is remarried to a babe with the same name. No tricks or gimmicks, just self-deprecating humor from a pro, trying to bloom under commercial television’s normal adverse conditions.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
