Well, whoop de do. In a week that brings the premiere of a great new season of “Lost” (look for my Wednesday print-edition column here) and the enthralling new HBO series “In Treatment,” plus ABC’s quirky new “Eli Stone” and other shows with actual scripts, it’s hard to work up much excitement for this just-announced news flash:
“NBC will premiere the new high-energy competition series ‘My Dad Is Better Than Your Dad’ on Monday, February 18 (8-9 p.m. ET) after ‘American Gladiators’ finishes its winter run, and will debut the comedy quiz show ‘Amne$ia’ on Friday, February 22 (9-10 p.m. ET) following the season finale of ‘1 vs 100.’”
Amazing. In one short sentence, NBC mentions four shows, and I don’t care about any of them!
Here’s a fifth: “‘The Baby Borrowers,’ originally scheduled to premiere on February 18, will move to a later date to be announced.” That’s the one where cameras follow real-life teens playing-pretend with marriage, babies and jobs. You know, the usual burn-some-brain-cells ephemera beloved of “reality” TV.
Why is NBC even producing shows anymore? Why don’t they just run a direct YouTube feed? That’s what the network’s continuing descent into the bargain basement seems to be leading to. Is it better to make money fast on cheap and disposable shows? Or to try to build an enduring business of lasting assets that continue to return revenue years from now as well as a modicum of immediate esteem? (Don't just blame the writers' strike. NBC was riding the down escalator long before that.)
There is one tiny hint of hope that the network might actually recall its glory days of doing the latter: “quarterlife,” an actual scripted series, even if it did originate on the web, produced by “thirtysomething”/“My So-Called Life” kingpins Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick. That drama’s announced Feb. 18 debut has been pushed back to a Tuesday, Feb. 26 preview, with a regular run starting Sunday, March 2 at 9 p.m.