terry, these ratings are way too low for this show, at its cost. A show like this has to STAY in the 2.5 area, BECAUSE it is so expensive. Do you understand why shows like The Office and Parks & Recreation get to stay on the air, despite their rather lackluster ratings, in terms of overall viewership? The answer is because they are CHEAP to produce, in comparison to a traditional scripted TV show. The Office certainly isn't cheaply produced, anymore, but at the beginning, it was probably roughly in between the cost of a 30 minute reality show, and a lower end 30 minute sitcom. These shows were groundbreaking in their cost reduction, as they were mimicking the style of a documentary. The only huge cost is in the actors, writers, producers, and directors, and almost no one related to that show was a star in any of the categories, when it began.
Bringing up Harry's Law as a success, is a mistake. Harry's Law had TERRIBLE 18-49 numbers, which meant that it was always considered to be an on the bubble show, despite its high overall viewership. The point is that if you cancel one of your highest overall rated shows, in terms of overall viewership, what is the bar? They did this because they didn't want the bar to be set too high, as nearly all of NBC's shows are severely under performing, these days. Prime Suspect is likely going to get canceled, in the fall, with what I'm guessing will be similar 18-49 numbers to Harry's Law, and the show Grimm, which looks like it might be the best show on their schedule (based on preview), was put on Friday nights. 18-49 is the bread and butter for every network. Most try to pursue that demo religiously. This is especially true for FOX. CBS only cares that they have the most viewers, as they probably figure most of their traditional demo puts on the CBS Evening News, and falls asleep with the TV on. CBS canceled S**t My Dad Says, even though it was averaging 10 million viewers, and had a 2.5 18-49 demo. CBS did recognize that it was crap, though. You would never see that happen on NBC.
Personally, if I were a scripted TV writer, I would totally want my show on NBC, as it has the lowest renewal standards. And if I were a scripted TV writer, I would be sending out resumes the minute my show got picked up on FOX. ABC kind of tries to hit numbers between NBC and CBS, but they do not give their shows a long leash, either (several canceled shows on ABC would have been picked up on NBC).
LOLa, the more I read and write, was clearly sabotaged (fctiger is right, the re-tool and non-re-tool were both equally good, neither outshined the other). I just think NBC wants to get rid of the L&O franchise. It's a relic of their once great past, and they just want to move on. These shows are really expensive to produce, and I would not be at all surprised if SVU is off the air at the end of next season, as well. The whole L&O franchise has become very stale in the last 5 years, and I was only extremely impressed by this season of Criminal Intent.
In my personal TV blog, I talk about the three keys to a scripted TV show's success: Ratings, Cost, and Quality. I firmly believe that if you have success in 2 of the 3 categories, your show will survive and thrive. LOLa fails in all three, though its smallest fail is in Quality. Put those three keys into context for every show you think about, with Quality being the LAST thing you think about, and it will likely put you closer to the mind set of a TV executive. What most TV execs fail to realize, these days, is that often a show needs more than one season to find its ultimate audience.
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fctiger
13 years ago
Yeah, you summed it up perfectly! The budget for this kind of show was astronomical! Its the reason why the original was cancelled, it was just becoming too expensive to keep. That's why that show had a smaller episode order last year to from 24 to 16 and they scaled back on production costs, and yet they still couldnt save it. Believe me, they wouldve happily kept the original if they couldve.
Whats ironic about LOLA is it was suppose to be a 'cheaper' show than the original but end of the day it wasnt that much cheaper to produce. So it needed better ratings to survive, period!
And as you said, NBC has been doing everything in its power to cut costs on its shows and programming. Lets not forget the horrible idea of airing Jay Leno at 10 p.m., the worst idea that network came up with in decades. They are trying their best to produce as many cheap sitcoms and competition shows as possible to balance out the truly more expensives shows like LOLA and The Event and its just not working. What does it tell you when ALL their new one hour dramas were cancelled this season except Harry's Law, a show as you said was on the bubble and was a mid season replacement? And the few older dramas left like Chuck and SVU are on their last legs. I'm still amazed Chuck has survived this long, but I'm guessing thats a very budget consious show and thats done after next season too.
As for L.A., I respect terrysmalls opinion on this, but he seems clueless just how bad this show was doing! Like I said, NONE of the new dramas came back except for one. LOLA mightve had better ratings than some, but that doesnt mean much either. Those are HORRIBLE ratings! If it was 'Minute-to-win-it' that would be pretty damn good lol. But for this kind of show, it DID need much more to survive. The fact NBC didnt outright cancell it and try to retool it showed they were committed to both this and The Event (but they had ordered full episodes so they were stuck with the costs, regardless if they showed them or not at that point). That show ALSO came back to bad ratings after a 3 and a half month hiatus, but both just cost too much and to get the same ratings similar to shows on CW showed how much trouble they were in.
Like I said, the show simply stumbled out the gate. It was rolled out pretty badly. If they started it differently, then maybe Skeet and the others couldve stayed and we would be talking about what stories they might do for next season. But that didnt happen. The retool was just as good, if not better than before. Its not like the stories or structure was done any differently, it was simply a cast switchup. The stories were just better written than the earlier ones. The Event had a REAL retool though. They changed character motives, got rid of dead weight of the storyline, got rid of flashbacks, even changed the entire point of the show, etc. LOLA really just made it feel more like the original, but the structure didnt change at all.
I DO agree though if they kept it the old way in time it couldve found its footing. But that's like saying in time Afghanistan will get better. Sure it could, but doesnt mean it will! NBC paniced and wanted changes. You dont have to agree with them or the specifics, but I UNDERSTAND why they were made. But eitherway, the show was on the way to cancellation regardless. Nothing couldve saved it unfortunately and if it was on another network, I doubt it wouldve made it halfway through the season.
But since its L&O and Dick Wolf is a long time partner who has bought them probably hundreds of millions in revenue, they did try and save it. It didnt work. Thats life! I wish they couldve bought it back as a midseason replacment, smaller order of episodes and see the reception after that, but I guess it just did too badly to give it even that. Too bad, I was loving Terrance Howard on this show too! I see why they gave him a bigger role in the retool. Man can act!
And yeah I'm loving Criminal Intent this season as well! Its bizarre to be watching new episodes of both of these shows back to back in late June lol. But I'm loving it! Sad that LOLA has only one more episode left, right? And then I think CI only has 8 episodes total and then its done! But it looks like they put a lot of thought into those few episodes at least and will send it out on a bang. After that, with Chris Meloni unceremoniously leaving SVU now, that show probably has 1-2 more seasons and ITS done! Thats still a great show too. Curious to see what they do next season with it now. And I'm guessing the franchise will finally be done. WOW, it will be the end of an era...kind of like when the final Star Trek show aired a few years back!
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nunnehickc
13 years ago
Excellent points, throughout, here. I thought the Pilot for LOLa was terrible. I was actually really disappointed with it. I just thought it was a caricature of L.A., and everything everyone else in the country thinks about it. They obviously softened that up, in future episodes, but brought it roaring back with the Rachel Zoe/Khloe Kardashian episode. I was livid about that episode, to tell you the truth.
From an acting standpoint, the show was miscast, but not in the way we're used to seeing. It was miscast TOO WELL. The show had a murderer's row of dramatic character actors, and leads, in the second half, but the first half was full of people that weren't high register people. I believe, firmly, if the original cast had been Molina as lead cop, Ulrich as Junior Detective, Howard as D.D.A., and either Regina Hall (I preferred her) or Megan Boone as the second chair, it would have been successful out the gate.
I felt that Molina had far too much presence to be just a D.D.A., and I would have preferred him in the Coyote role. I thought Howard was kind of making up his performance, as he went along, but in the episode, Plummer Park (the Russian spy episode), his performance was pitch perfect. If I were directing him, I would have made him talk in his deep voice, not his real voice, as he was doing in a lot of the episodes.
I just think people weren't willing to accept the drastic switch of Molina's character from lawyer to cop (I was, and I embraced it). Realistically, this would never happen. It costs a ton of money to get a law degree, and it's unrealistic to think he would have his loans paid off (he was cop before becoming a lawyer, remember), even though Prosecutors don't make that much money, anyway (at least in relation to Defense Attorneys).
These days, the TV audience is fickle. Small groups of people love shows, and are passionate about them, but not all that many shows appeal to large groups of people. I can't explain why Criminal Minds is so popular, but I still think it's a great show. I can't get into NCIS, because I just think it's so gimmicky and goofy, for what's basically a police procedural. So, it's hard to say what goes through a TV audience's mind.
As for Chuck, it's only back because of where its episode count is. TV by the Numbers actually thinks the magic number, to get a show to syndication, these days, is 88, and Chuck is at 78. So, when tracking shows that seem as if they're on their last legs, start looking at how close it is to 88.
You don't even want to get me started on The Event, a show that I watched til the bitter end, even though it was one of the exasperating shows I have ever seen.
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fctiger
13 years ago
I think between the both of us, we can write entire dissertations why The Event was such a mess of a show.
Yeah, like this show, I was really excited about TE! I was cautious, but I really did think that show had ALOT of potential based on the previews. But then it came on and it was such a screeching bore, nonsensical plots, trying to build mystery over the smallest things and flahback after flashback to the point you just stopped caring! What sucks is THESE two shows were my must-see of the season, not on NBC, just period! I wasnt really into many of the new shows (we dont have to wonder why?) but sure another L%O in my backyard sounded cool and was formatted as the original and TE looked like a really good sci fi serial show. I was a LOST, 24 and Heroes fan, so this was up my ally, especially since those ALL left the season before. But they blew it hard!
I didnt have a problem with the cast to be honest with you and was surprised they had so many 'names' in this one. In the original, there werent a lot of big names. Sure, character actors you knew from other shows or movies, but people like Howard and Molina have been in a lot of big films and were pretty famous. Skeet was basically 'hiatus boy' since SO many of his shows ended that way lol, but I was happy to see him in this. I THOUGHT this would be his meal ticket for a long time to come, but yeah. Regina Hall who is more of a character actor, but was known in the Scary Movies series was nice to see her in something a little more serious. I remembered when she played a lawyer in Boston Legal (another show that went before its times) so it wasnt a stretch to see her here.
I basically liked the cast, although I do agree it probably wouldve been better to make Molina a cop from the beginning. I liked him as D.A. just fine, but I liked him better as a cop....UNTIL I saw El Soreno last week and loved him as a D.A. again lol. Anyway, the guy is good and I understand why they wanted him full time. I dont even understand why they tried the CI route and cycled the D.D.A? I guess they wanted both actors and maybe because of film schedules it made sense to do it that way. I dont know, but that couldve been another reason why audiences never got into the show much. Who knows? Will agree about Howard, it sounds like he is about to cry a lot of times lol. I dont know if thats just his voice or just how he makes his speech patterns with that character. I've seen him in a lot of movies, but never noticed it so much until now.
As for Molina going back to a cop, yeah its unrealistic. I have a friend now who is a lawyer. It cost him over $100 grand and hes still paying it off today 10 years later. He doesnt make a LOT of money, but waaay more than a cop! He couldnt AFFORD to be a cop with those loans. Of course I guess Molinas character wouldve paid them off a few decades by now lol. But yeah like you it was no big deal. We saw him as a lawyer for 8 episodes, you stretch the imagination. If I had to pretend Ice T was a cop for a decade, I can definitely stretch this ;). The retool just didnt bother me because after 2 episodes, like classic L&O, it was like it was always like that, so yeah it just carries on.
And you know, maybe procedural shows just may be dying as well. The two big ones was this show and CSI and both of those franchises have gotten long in the tooth now. I still watch the original CSI, since the beginning, but I never fully got into its spin offs. I've never seen Criminal Minds either but its obviously popular. But the spin off got cancelled. I've seen NCIS here and there but never got into it either. I guess for me it was always this show and CSI basically for procedurals. But maybe they are slowly dying out now so I imagine in 5 years it will be about half than now....or who am I kidding, it could be TWICE as many lol. You just never know? I know peoples whose JOB it is to know and they never know lol. Television genres changes so much these days to whats popular or not, its just hard to predict now.
But it will be sad the day this franchise will no longer be apart of it!
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zuzus_petalz
13 years ago
As for Molina going back to a cop, yeah its unrealistic. I have a friend now who is a lawyer
Also, after last weeks episode, it is even more ridiculous considering Gonzales
also has her law degree???? Reeeeealllly? Wow, that's a lot of law degrees floating around over there. Poor TJ. Oh, no wait, he's also a licenced dermatologist on the side
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nunnehickc
13 years ago
Trust me when I tell you that you should start watching Criminal Minds. Buy the first 5 or so episodes of season 1 on itunes, and then after that they are showing basically from season 1 on A&E if you follow the episode list on imdb. I am pretty sure you won't regret it.
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13 years ago
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fctiger
13 years ago
Terrysmalls123,
Man, where did I use my "industry-authority" in my posts to you?? A poster asked me a question, I answered him briefly OUTSIDE of our conversations and that was it. And it was after we debated on this. I never devalued your opinion man. Thats just wrong for you to suggest that. Anyone who can read can clearly see we were having a conversation, from one L&O fan to another, that was it. I clearly respect you or I wouldnt have bothered constantly replying to you, right? You clearly have a lot of insight as do everyone here, that was never in doubt.
But I just disagreed with some of your points, gave reasons why I had issues with your argument, as people do mine. Where exactly did you get I was trying to act superior or something about it?
And sorry, you dont have to work in the industry to suggest you are simply wrong on the ratings. NBC didnt cancel and retool the show for the hell of it. I WILL tell you this though from what I do: If a network gives the go ahead to retool a show, that IS a last result option. You have no idea how much money it costs to retool a show in the MIDDLE of a season! Dick Wolf cant just snap his fingers and it happens. Is Dick Wolf going to pay both the network and the production company back for the unaired canned episodes that got filmed but were never aired? No! You think Dick Wolf can decide on a whim to make casting changes without notes from the network AND pay out the rest of Skeet Ulrichs, Regina Halls and Meagan Boones contracts for ANY unaired episodes they were contracted to film in the season, but didnt? No! You honestly think Dick Wolf has the power to keep his show off the air for four months costing the network MORE money? No! Do you think he has the power to just approve new scripts after others have already been written, but now scrapped for the retool, hence paying writers money on scripts that never got used? Again, NO!
This my point, he has NO control over any of this without getting permission from the network because it costs ALOT of money to change a show in the middle of a season. No executive producer can make these drastic changes UNLESS the network warrents it. And they clearly did as all of this came out of THEIR pockets, not Wolf's. I'm sure he had a lot of say and did most of the creative end, but even then if the network is not happy, they arent happy. He has to make the changes based on their notes. Its his shows, he makes ALOT of money off of them, but he has a boss and in this case it was NBC/Universal who pays for the production and licensing fees and THEY eat the costs, not Wolf.
My point is the retool wasnt taken lightly, it never is. It takes a big commitment on both the production and creative end. You are spending MILLIONS more than what was planned, while the network is losing money since those unaired episodes never got aired. They obviously thought it was neccessary, but it still didnt work unfortunately. But I dont know how many times I can say this which is why I say lets agree to disagree, but the show wouldve been cancelled regardless if it kept those ratings in the beginning or the network wouldnt have demanded those changes so early on. You can disagree, but believe me, they werent.
If you STILL dont believe me, then I guess you have to ask yourself why did they take the show off the air for 4 months, losing money, when they CLEARLY had episodes filmed and ready to go, retooled it which as I explained isnt cheap, and didnt even air the rest of the other episodes until the season was officially over and show cancelled? NBC had clearly washed its hands of the show by May when the reboot didnt improve. No one here is arguing that point, but its clear to ANYONE who knows a little about this and follows it as nunnehickc and others do.
Anyway, I was replying to you as an IMDB poster only, as I do 99% of the time here. What I do has nothing to do with it. I have some insights and direct knowledge on SOME things because of my job, but it has nothing to do with what we are talking about here, I assure you. I have a NO professional relationship to this show or to the NBC network, none! I was simply replying to you like a viewer and a fan like you were. I wasnt trying to suggest I knew more than you, but same time your argument IS flawed, like it or not. Again, you don't have to work in media to know that!
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just_wilco
13 years ago
It's too bad you guys are arguing over what you both seem to think was a good show.
It's late and I know this post isn't going to make any sort of sense, but FWIW:
1. I didn't like the LOLA premier either. It didn't grab me, I didn't even start watching the show regularly until after the reboot.
2. I now have respect for both preboot and reboot episodes. I like Skeet Ulrich. He didn't kill the show (for all you rebootists). Neither did canning him doom the show (for all you prebootists).
3. The cast was strong. It took me a while to NOT be annoyed by Terrence Howard, but it happened. Eventually. Corey Stoll is amazing, and I hope his LOLA experience gets him more and better parts.
4. Was Molina's jump from the DA back to cop realistic in real life? Of course not, but it was no reason to stop watching the show. The chemistry between Molina and Stoll was gelling VERY nicely, and I regret that it's over now. It was classic L&O veteran cop/young cop pairing, and it was enjoyable.
5. I agree with the sentiments that LOLA was launched too soon after the demise of the mothership. Given a year later start it might have fared better.
And yes,its obvious the franchise is stale and has been bleeding viewers for years, with Mothership bumping along the bottom as a bubble show for years.Its also obvious Criminal Intent is the best of the bunch, and that SVU will have touble trying to survive with only a few years left in it. You dont have to be "industry" to see any of that.
If the franchise has been bleeding viewers, that's nobody's fault but the viewers. I respect you have your opinion, but that above statement is purely opinion, not fact. IMO, the "bubble years" for the mothership was when Benjamin Bratt was on. I weathered the storm. The show was very watchable with Lupo, Bernard & Cutter, and I think NBC are a bunch of jagoffs for cancelling it when they did.
I could never get into CI, so to say it's the best of the bunch is opinion. And while I do still watch SVU out of a sense of loyalty, it was very, very good until a few seasons ago. LOLA good.
Nobody was belittling you or patronizing you until you started saying that the show was "renewed" after a few episodes. I know you argue that it was about semantics, but I think you are looking at this from entirely different perspectives. Yes, LOLA was given a full season order. That meant that they had this ONE SEASON to impress the execs at NBC. When the numbers were so miserable after the first few months, DW & Co. panicked and tried an ill-advised attempt to get second half ratings up enough to garner a 2nd season renewal. It backfired, failed, hasta la vista.
The bottom line - it was a gamble. Had they stuck with the original plan maybe viewership would have come up enough by the end of the season, but instead they rolled the dice and promoted a "shocking" episode where an L&O detective gets gunned down. The problem was that Skeet fans got pissed off and stopped watching, and anyone who tuned in to see the well-publicized episode didn't have any previous investment in the characters and stopped watching. Essentially, had the show gotten the pre-Skeet plus the post-Skeet numbers TOGETHER, it may have had a chance.
Anyway, enough rambling.
More fish for Kunta
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fctiger
13 years ago
Thank you!
First off I dont like being accused of belittling people or looking at their opinions as inferior when I would NEVER do such a thing. There ARE inferior opinions, but from trolls or people who are just completely misinformed of basic facts to base their opinions around, but there was no such thing here. I only got on his case over using 'renewal' as citing this show was getting a second season and he was simply wrong in that assessment. He said not once, but three times! It just got annoying reading it post after post as if it was a fact, so I wanted to correct him.
Everything else was just a conversation, but I just disagreed with him, thats all. I never said he couldnt think the earlier episodes were stronger, but his argument was they were strong enough to survive on when the evidence was clear that wasnt true. And I agreed in time they probably wouldve been, but the network and Wolf didnt want to take that chance, so they made changes. It happens every season somewhere. In NBCs case it happened with their two biggest shows, because they WANTED them to suceed. But like you said the Skeet fans werent happy and any new viewers his death had zero weight. Hell it BARELY had any weight for me. The guy was in 8 episodes! Its not like he played the role for 5 seasons or something. So you just move on!
And I agree with all 5 of your points! I'm not saying that to suck up lol, but I written all those in the above posts as well. The retool was fine, but it didnt do anything to save the show. I had no issue witht the cast changes at all. Its L&O, this is nothing new for this show!
But yes, they SHOULDVE waited until the next season and then premiere the show. It was just no time to mourn the original and people were SO vicious about this show when it came on. I was surprised how much it was hated. That seems to curtail now, but I'm guessing because half who hated just stop completely watching and the other half like us who kept watching it grew on us!
This show deserves another season, but sadly the ratings say otherwise. Like you said it was a gamble, not just the retool, but the show itself. Moving the location from NY killed a lot of peoples in it alone although I understood they wanted to go back to the original format but you couldnt do it in NY again obviously, so they took a shot. Didnt take, thats life!
I'm just happy we get one more new episode before we say goodbye!
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13 years ago
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just_wilco
13 years ago
As for the bubble thing, you guys are right, that's where my incoherence kicked in... Yes, it was definitely a bubble show, and if it wasn't the L&O mothership it probably would have been off the air years ago. But I do think that being a LAW & ORDER show hurt LOLA in the long run.
More fish for Kunta
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just_wilco
13 years ago
Will any Law and Orders survive and move into 21st century?
SVU is arguably on its last legs, and I'm not a fan of CI, so I have no idea if people still watch that one or not.
More fish for Kunta
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