“So that’s it?” said the character Ernest Borgnine portrayed on the final episode of NBC’s “ER” which aired April 2. Like so many memorable guest stars that included Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, and Don Cheadle the medical drama featured over its 15-year-run, Borgnine played an elderly husband who stood vigil at his dying wife’s bedside asking Dr. Tony Gates (John Stamos) that question when she passed away.
The answer to that question, though, may not just apply to that character’s situation or the end of NBC’s long running medical drama where 16.2 million viewers tuned in for the finale, but an end to noteworthy shows the three big networks (NBC, ABC, CBS), ok, four when you include Fox, have to offer.
Sure viewers are still tuning into “The Simpsons,” and the never ending Law & Order and CSI franchises and “Lost.” I suppose when it comes to soap opera dramas, or should I say trashy soap opera silliness, viewers still have “Desperate Housewives,” “Brothers & Sisters,” and “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC to look forward to.
When I say “noteworthy dramas”, however, I am talking about my own personal favorite long running shows like “Chicago Hope,” “Homicide: Life On the Street,” “NYPD Blue,” “St. Elsewhere” and, though I stopped watching years ago as the entire original cast was replaced by newcomers, ER.
Yes, I admit when mentioning these shows, I claim personal bias thanks in part to the characters I enjoyed watching who went through a variety of personal problems while on the job. There is no denying they were not memorable. I found, for example, television’s best police detectives were the fiery volcanic mountains of anger, negativity, and perfectionism Andre Braugher and Dennis Franz displayed in “Homicide: Life On the Street” (1993-1999) and “NYPD Blue” (1993-2005).
As for “St. Elsewhere” (1982-1988) and “Chicago Hope” (1994-2000), the brilliant, ego driven, self-absorbed surgeons William Daniels and Mandy Patinkin played on the series were my favorite characters. I admit I have a fond weakness for TV characters who are complete assholes and make other people’s lives in the workplace miserable. They are the villains who made some of these shows’ worth watching. Such was the reason I could not get enough of Paul McCrane’s Dr. Robert “Rocket” Romano on ER. When a helicopter crashed on him thus ending the life of his character in the series’ 10th season, I am certain I was the only one in mourning.
These programs offered the dramatic equivalent of what viewers are watching today on the cable networks. Since the late 90s, their favorite characters have been a mobster going through a midlife crisis and wonder if he really got whacked in the final episode in “The Sopranos” (1999-2007), women obsessed with sex, fashion, and high heels in “Sex and the City” (1998-2004), and whether or not the remains of the human race will finally reach Earth and evade the cyborg Cylons forever in the reincarnated “Battlestar Galactica” (2004-2009).
Today’s popular dramas are the ones on cable where viewers are interested in are the high stakes deals of an immoral litigator played by Glenn Close in “Damages”, the daily struggles of a firefighter (Dennis Leary) in “Rescue Me” on FX, and the life of a chemistry teacher turned criminal in Breaking Bad on amcplus. Vampires are the latest characters hungry for warm flesh as opposed to mobsters in True Blood on HBO. Even the animated half hour series, “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”, has been a ratings success for The Cartoon Network.
Such is the kind of material the major networks used to air and are now ignoring at an alarming pace. Why else do you think the high school sports drama, “Friday Night Lights,” almost got axed by NBC? Thanks to DirecTV, the show was saved and has recently been renewed for two more seasons on its satellite network before airing on the peacock. The trouble is it is only 13 episodes per season versus the usual twenty plus.
With “ER” gone, so too is the next big long running drama to look forward to every week on network television.
Viewers got to go to cable to find that where FX, AMC+, Sci-Fi, and HBO reign supreme over the kinds of programming Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC used to offer.
©4/5/09
The answer to that question, though, may not just apply to that character’s situation or the end of NBC’s long running medical drama where 16.2 million viewers tuned in for the finale, but an end to noteworthy shows the three big networks (NBC, ABC, CBS), ok, four when you include Fox, have to offer.
Sure viewers are still tuning into “The Simpsons,” and the never ending Law & Order and CSI franchises and “Lost.” I suppose when it comes to soap opera dramas, or should I say trashy soap opera silliness, viewers still have “Desperate Housewives,” “Brothers & Sisters,” and “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC to look forward to.
When I say “noteworthy dramas”, however, I am talking about my own personal favorite long running shows like “Chicago Hope,” “Homicide: Life On the Street,” “NYPD Blue,” “St. Elsewhere” and, though I stopped watching years ago as the entire original cast was replaced by newcomers, ER.
Yes, I admit when mentioning these shows, I claim personal bias thanks in part to the characters I enjoyed watching who went through a variety of personal problems while on the job. There is no denying they were not memorable. I found, for example, television’s best police detectives were the fiery volcanic mountains of anger, negativity, and perfectionism Andre Braugher and Dennis Franz displayed in “Homicide: Life On the Street” (1993-1999) and “NYPD Blue” (1993-2005).
As for “St. Elsewhere” (1982-1988) and “Chicago Hope” (1994-2000), the brilliant, ego driven, self-absorbed surgeons William Daniels and Mandy Patinkin played on the series were my favorite characters. I admit I have a fond weakness for TV characters who are complete assholes and make other people’s lives in the workplace miserable. They are the villains who made some of these shows’ worth watching. Such was the reason I could not get enough of Paul McCrane’s Dr. Robert “Rocket” Romano on ER. When a helicopter crashed on him thus ending the life of his character in the series’ 10th season, I am certain I was the only one in mourning.
These programs offered the dramatic equivalent of what viewers are watching today on the cable networks. Since the late 90s, their favorite characters have been a mobster going through a midlife crisis and wonder if he really got whacked in the final episode in “The Sopranos” (1999-2007), women obsessed with sex, fashion, and high heels in “Sex and the City” (1998-2004), and whether or not the remains of the human race will finally reach Earth and evade the cyborg Cylons forever in the reincarnated “Battlestar Galactica” (2004-2009).
Today’s popular dramas are the ones on cable where viewers are interested in are the high stakes deals of an immoral litigator played by Glenn Close in “Damages”, the daily struggles of a firefighter (Dennis Leary) in “Rescue Me” on FX, and the life of a chemistry teacher turned criminal in Breaking Bad on amcplus. Vampires are the latest characters hungry for warm flesh as opposed to mobsters in True Blood on HBO. Even the animated half hour series, “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”, has been a ratings success for The Cartoon Network.
Such is the kind of material the major networks used to air and are now ignoring at an alarming pace. Why else do you think the high school sports drama, “Friday Night Lights,” almost got axed by NBC? Thanks to DirecTV, the show was saved and has recently been renewed for two more seasons on its satellite network before airing on the peacock. The trouble is it is only 13 episodes per season versus the usual twenty plus.
With “ER” gone, so too is the next big long running drama to look forward to every week on network television.
Viewers got to go to cable to find that where FX, AMC+, Sci-Fi, and HBO reign supreme over the kinds of programming Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC used to offer.
©4/5/09
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