Stories of the Year

Well, I have been really late on this, and with the busy weekend, I basically have to throw this together last minute but here we go.

Story #1: The Fall of Serial Dramas: I am a huge fan of the serial dramas, but this was a very bad year for them. After Invasions fail last year, alot of people didn't expect the serial drama to be prominent this coming season, but they were. Vanished, Kidnapped, Smith and Jericho were all serial dramas that started the year, and Jericho was the only one of those to survive. Now, the quaility of these serial dramas were also below par. However, this directly relates to next season tv where there are currently no real serial dramas to be found.

Story #2: The Failed Creation of CW: Well, in theory it didn't completely fail, because it does still exist, but for a channel that claimed they were going to rival network television this year, they failed horribly. For example on TVguides Emmy dream ballot they had only one nomination, and that was for lead actress in a comedy. No real success stories to speak of, and one of the few quality shows on the network (Veronica Mars) continued to be unable to find raties and crashed and burned. In the end CW took no steps forward, however with Gossip Girl next year hopefully this will change. But for now, its goals were not met at all.

Story #3: The Horrors of Mid-Season Hiatus's: Well now, you can't discuss TV without bringing up the problems with the Christmas break hiatus. Lost, Heroes, and Jericho all went on breaks of two months or more, and they all returned to lower ratings. Needless to say, this craze really won't go anywhere because of the hatred over repeats, so the midseason hiatus gives a chance to start new shows (like Day Break, which failed oh so miserably).

Story #4: How Do You Stop American Idol?: This show returned with massive ratings, bigger than anything I have ever seen, not just winning weaks but dominated them. It also created a forceful lead in that spurred "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader" into being a hit and bringing
"Til Death" from a show with poor cancellable ratings, to the top Sitcom ratingwise at the end. It also crippled both Jericho and Friday Night Lights in Ratings, and forced Lost to change its timeslot to avoid it. All this, for a crappy overall talent season. However, can it be stopped. It experienced a decline for the finale at the same point Lost increased ratings. So its not completely immortal.

Story #5: Gameshows Everywhere you Look: Gameshows are an easy hit for an extremely cheap cost, and with Deal or No Deals success a year before, it was a shoo-in to be chuck full of them this season, and there was. Almost all of them were subpar (including the worst of the bunch Identity) and they all basically followed the same idea... You can play this game no matter how stupid you are, and hey it works... Hopefully this craze will die, but it won't.

Story #6: The Death and Ressurection of Jericho: Come on, what happened here was practically unheard of. When the announcement for next season came around and Jericho wasn't on it, there was mass outrage, but instead of all working alone, they created a website and a plan, and by sending over 39,000 lbs of peanuts they lifted the cancellation and got a second season return. It was unheard of what they did, and they did it while being polite and providing something that CBS is later going to use for the army and to feed the hungry. They were the first, and I would like to thank them for proving that you can fight back for your show.

Story #7: The Lack of Big Name Finales: There was only one big series finale this season, and that was Sopranas, a channel were only 8 million people watched it (which is huge for HBO). The other notable finales were Gilmore Girls and OC. With that said, compared to most years there was an actual lack of these planned series finales. It may be because of the fact more shows are getting cancelled now, but just remember... In 2010, the biggest finale of all will appear, Lost.

Story #8: Showtimes Quality Higher than HBO?: This was a year when Showtime shined qualitywise with two extremely well acted and well produced shows in Sleeper Cell: American Terror, and even more so Dexter. Dexter is going to be all over the Emmy's, and while HBO had the Wire and Sopranos, I feel that Showtime really jumped forward this season into being in the same class as HBO, or even better.

Story #9: Nielson Potential Inclussion of DVR: This is a complicated story, as Nielson Ratings are started to take into account other ways people watch television besides live. This was a big thing, because alot of people have DVR now and do not watch it in the same old fashioned way. The problem with this potential inclussion, is that when people watch DVR they likely don't watch the commercials, which means those ratings are pointless. It is going to be a difficult to deal with this in the future, but its coming more and more into light.

Story #10: Sports Failure: Sports on television failed miserably this year with atrocious ratings in three of the four championships this year. NBA, MLB, and NHL all faced record low tv ratings because of subpar matchups. This has become a concern for all of these leagues in dealing in the future. The NFL however, had the third highest rating tv event EVER, and the highest ratest semifinal game in its league history with the AFC Championship. Why, because Indy has become so marketable its rediculous. Highest television ratings of any sports team right now, and that was before they succeeded. So NFL is looking strong, but the rest...

Story #11: Most Popular Pilots become failing Shows: The three most critically acclaimed pilots coming into the season were The Nine, Studio 60, and Friday Night Lights in that order. Only one of those survived because of its critically loved season, while two completely fell flat and the critics who once praised them completely turned its back on them. Now, what this shows is that the Pilot does not make a show, and hype can't save a show alone. The Nine and Studio 60 both came out strong, and just got weaker week after week, while FNL actually went up. This might be a warning to one particular show next season that have the critics buzzing, because it could fall flat if history is proving true.

Story #12: Friday Night Lights Predicted to Clean Out The Emmys: Alot of people have been predicting that not only will Friday Night Lights will get alot of nominations, but barring a Sopranos take over (seeing it was its final season) they are favored to get alot of Emmys for its season. It was already the most nominated show for the TCA awards, and highest number of nominees in TV Guides dream ballot. In the end, maybe it won't been, but if its going as predicted get ready to see alot of Football in the awards.

Story #13: The Conclussion of a Teen Soap Classic: Ok, this story is more so just particular to me, but OC was a classic of my childhood, and when of my all time favorite shows. To see it come to its logical conclussion, and that final scene with Ryan was just powerful. Never forget about this show, because it was superb, and I will never EVER forget it.

Story #14: Looking Onward like always...: When one season ends, you always have to look forward, and it does not look bright. However, I am not completely discouraged because every season looks poor until the shows come around. Gossip Girl looks like an instant classic, and Pushing Daisies while not my type of show has the most critical acclaim I have ever seen from a show coming into a season. So yeah, for now it looks weak, but I will always find something to keep it going. Because I love television, and I always be there.

There you go, fourteen major stories. Hopefully you all enjoyed this look back on what has happened.