The Biggest Hits Of TV Dramas
What makes a drama a hit?
There are two ways of looking at what makes a TV drama a hit. One way is simply looking at what is a commercial success, what is watched by many people, and gets advertisers to pay a lot for spots on the show. There is another measure of what makes a TV show a hit, however, and that is whether it is elevating literature. Where is the quality, and what is creating an influence on culture generally, as well as the nature of storytelling and changing what audiences expect. Raising the bar, in other words, for television.
Why are shows taken off the air after a few episodes?
When a TV show is taken off air, it may really be unrelated to the quality of the show, or even whether anybody would like it or not. Networks sometimes get scared and pull a show after a mere 4 episodes, thinking that it is never going to work, it will never catch an audience, or they just don't like it. The truth is that after a few episodes, not enough people may have seen the show to know if it is wonderful. If All in the Family had been judged after a few episodes, it would have been long gone, and this is true of many of the shows that turned out to be great. The fact that shows die, or are pulled off the air after a few episodes, may be unrelated, or only vaguely related to their quality.
What are some of the most successful contemporary TV dramas?
Right now Grey's Anatomy is popular. Lost has continued to be popular even though it has lost some of its audience. The CSIs and all of their incarnations are wildly popular and have always been. House is also very popular right now. HBO shows can't be considered popular in the same sense because you don't have the same audience. You have to subscribe so people don't see HBO dramas. But, people who do see it really like Big Love a lot. All of the procedurals have been successful because they are easy to watch. People have been watching all the CSIs as well as Law and Order for a very long time. House is right now is a medical procedural and is very successful. Those are easy to be successful because you don't have to commit to them over a long time. Each episode closes and you know what you're going to get when you are watching them. There are some other shows that have long arcs and it's a little harder to get on board with them if you don't know who the characters are. So it's more challenging to build a show like that.
What kind of impact did 'ER' have on dramas?
ER is an important breakthrough TV show because it pioneered the notion of vignette storytelling, which was not used in the same way until that time, so this was a breakthrough in style. Vignette storytelling means that you're able to tell an entire short arc in as little as one or two scenes, and in their early years - they don't do this so much anymore - instead of having the usual three very large storylines, they might have had as many as fourteen small stories, in addition to the larger arcs that were going on, and they were complete little stories. They might have been a relationship between a particular patient and a particular staff member who saw each other only a couple of times in that particular episode or ever, but it was fulfilling. The pace of ER, the short scenes, and the number of vignettes that nevertheless were able to hang together was it's brilliance in the early years. ER has extended its lifespan by bringing in new cast, so almost recreating the show every few years, and it is still very popular, and is high quality, with good writing.
What was the impact of 'Law Order' on TV dramas?
Law & Order took stories straight from the current headlines. They would take topical issues and run them as stories for the continuing cast to work on. So you were sure when you watched it that they would be something that was intellectually interesting if you were living in the world today and had some sophistication.
What impact has 'Lost' had on TV dramas?
It has been an extreme case of serial storytelling where they kept reaching for new things to do. To twist and twist and twist the story. I think they may have gotten themselves in a little bit of trouble with that because most of the serials that succeed as serials do so because of the depth of characters' relationships evolving rather than because of external changes that keep happening. Lost is special for a business reason that has nothing to do with this though. Lost created the DVD market in a sense, because at the time that Lost released its I think it must have been its first season on DVD, there was a very small DVD market for television series. That package that they released of that season sold tremendously and validated the notion that people in the general public would go out and rent television series and it opened that marketplace wide up.
