Shouldn’t Skynet Be Live By Now? | Summer Glau is “Cameron” in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Hasta la hit, baby. Last Sunday’s premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox netted the biggest ratings for a new show in more than three years. Apparently viewers suffering from terminal strike-induced boredom have found something action-packed (sans Nerf bats and spandex) to watch.
But is it worth it? Meh. It has the flash and dazzle of any action show, but only time will tell if it can sustain movement and audience growth.
In the meantime, we continue to live a quality TV-bereft existence where even I, costume drama queen, couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm for Jane Austen’s Persuasion on Masterpiece Theatre last weekend. I gotta give PBS kudos—they’re trying to hip up this stalwart Sunday night fare. No more Mouret fanfares over loving pans of antique books and a suitably stodgy host. Now we have Gillian Anderson (Bleak House) against a vibrant red backdrop briefly introducing the show, and reminding us how cool the classics are. Say what you will about the show, but methinks Anderson has had a little too much botox around the lips. Either that or she’s had a stroke. But at least she isn’t aping an English accent.
The question I want to pose is this: is money really the be-all and end-all of television? Okay, that was a dumb question. Of course it is. Let me rephrase: why oh why does money have to be the be-all and end-all of TV? Isn’t it enough to produce quality shows with more than two and a half men in them? Programming that appeals to more than desperate housewives and criminal minds?
We thought at one time that European television had the answer. No pesky commercials in the middle of your favourite shows, lots of classy actors and stories about real people, not plastic-coated moneygrubbers wearing couture outfits and slumming it in the O.C. But not for long. The European Union’s “Television Without Frontiers” broadcasting legislation has now allowed member states to include product placement in commercial TV, barring news, current affairs, sports, and children’s programming.
The debate over product placement (you know, the Coca-Cola glasses in front of the American Idol judges and the Buicks sitting in every driveway on Wisteria Lane) has raged in Europe for several years. France’s version of the CRTC employs 60 people full-time whose job it is to watch 50,000 hours of TV a year to detect product placement. Fines for transgressing can be up to E150,000, as a broadcaster found out five years ago when they allowed Club Med logos to appear in a reality show.
And just in case you underestimated the importance of branding in TV, it was announced on Tuesday that Oprah Winfrey is getting her own network. Apparently, having a syndicated talk show, magazine, production company, website, and girls’ school isn’t enough. OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network will go on the air in 2009 to the same 67.7 million homes that get the Discovery Health channel.
The trick to sustaining success in broadcasting these days, it seems, is having a global reach. Oprah knows that. So does Ricky Gervais, creator of The Office. With local Offices in the U.S., France, and Germany already, Gervais was tickled this week to announce a new franchise in Chile. This oficina is the first Spanish-language one to hit the air, despite the fact that the original British show is seen in more than 90 countries. It’s not enough, though, Gervais told Variety. “I won’t be happy until I see an Inuit doing the dance.”
So maybe it really is all about the Benjamins. I mean, the Bordens. Or the Mistrals. I stand corrected.
