I’m up early in the morning watching television and surfing the net about all the repercussions of cancelled and new shows airing on the networks. The television I’m watching, considering its 3am, consists of black TV reruns on TV Land (Cosby Show, Sanford & Son, Jeffersons and Good Times) or catching up on the gabfests of the early morning cable shows.

The fall schedule for TV looks just like the last season and the season before that and before that. Network television still is reluctant to try anything new. Worse yet, because more networks produce shows for other sale by other networks, if a show made for, let’s say NBC, gets canceled and the production studio is CBS, CBS can decide to pick up the show, technically saving themselves money in the case of what just happened with MEDIUM. The show was on NBC, they canceled it and now CBS picked it up. They were footing the bill anyway and instead of spending money on an unknown series they’re just taking one of their own and bringing it ‘home.’

Television is going through some odd times right now. Network television is far from the time of 70s or 80s TV, when risks could be tried. Cable does some risks, but the risk has become something of a stunt. A hot talked about show is True Blood on HBO. Oh, sleepy town with vampires and people mingling. Yeah, we’ve seen it all before but flash a little T&A and the show becomes a minor hit. That seems part of the issue with TV today. Networks are unwilling to bend or break the boundaries within the rules they have set up. Cable has the ability to do groundbreaking shows, but to them groundbreaking means doing the same plots as networks shows, just letting the camera roll a little longer when a sex scene comes up.

Sure, there are exceptions to the rules but they are few and far between.

You know, I like the concepts Josh Wheldon and JJ Abrams put out there, but if you put them in comic book writing perspective, they’re at the level of some of the very good comic book writers of the 70s in the industry, meaning they have good stories to tell, but they don’t bring that extra push to the table. What television needs is exactly what happened with the comic book industry in the 80s. Television needs a Brit Invasion with writers coming up with mind blowing concepts that pushes the envelop. In the past years, there is nothing compared to a Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis or Alan Moore in the television industry.

Here’s an example of what I mean. Take a show like HOUSE. It’s about a brilliant diagnostic physician who has a bunch of issues, making him a pain to everyone around him. If you look at the character from season one and look at him now, there has been no change in the negative for the character, and only something slight in the positive. Someone that obnoxious, someone with his track record would have some serious repercussions with his actions, yet he seems Teflon. In the real world, his actions would have severe consequences, which actually might make for a better show, but week after week, year after year, he pisses off people and folks put up with it. He jeopardizes the hospital’s credentials and they let him do it. No matter how much of a genius he is, in the real world he would have been fired long ago.
I’m not sure how the industry can change, because the business of show business takes center stage in many decisions. It’s far easier to remake or warm over the quick and easy mass consumed products than to invent something new to challenge an audience. With the system the way it is, those wanting to create something new will always butt heads against those with the power and the purse strings who want to play it safe.