You've read it all already "CBS sucks," "Moonlight rocks," "Alex O'Loughlin is amazing," " I love the show because ____." You've also read the bile and illogical rambling of certain fans. Case in point: a suggestion of whining turns into three pages of long-winded rants.
I'm not a Moonlight fan. I thought the show started off pretty bad and got better as it went on, so it's not like I really want the show to come back. I saw Alex O'Loughlin in a Super Bowl ad for The Back-Up Plan (which looks terrible by the way), and posed a question on Twitter asking if Alex O'Loughlin fans still wanted CBS to renew Moonlight, and got an overwhelmingly positive response. That got me thinking. There are several good reasons why CBS should at least consider bringing Moonlight back or another vampire show with Alex O'Loughlin.
CBS will never bring it back, and in the cold world of television, there are few success stories, so don't get your hopes up. There is reason in why CBS bringing it back wouldn't be the worst idea in the world, so I wanted to point them out.
1) Vampires
Have you seen the ratings for The Vampire Diaries and True Blood? The craze sparked by Twilight has created a legion of rabid followers that will watch anything vampire related. Put that on top of the already rabid Moonlight fanbase and the ratings should be fine.
2) Brand image
Fox has a solid bevy of shows, NBC has the Thursday comedy lineup, ABC has Lost and Grey's Anatomy. CBS is the network of crime procedurals and traditional sitcoms. It may bring in the ratings, but it doesn't look good for hardcore TV watchers. For the 2010-2011 season, CBS is continuing down the road with a Criminal Minds spin-off and Hawaii Five-O remake. This season CBS had success with NCIS: Los Angeles and The Good Wife riding on the coattails of NCIS while Three Rivers completely bombed. They gambled with medical dramas this year, but Miami Medical looks like it'll suffer the same fate as Three Rivers (and the probable fate of Mercy and Trauma). With each successive failure, CBS is reverting to what it knows best. It's a scary thought--one that seems imminently possible--that their lineup will be filled with not only crime procedurals, but also more crime procedurals spin-offs than originals. Two CSI spin-offs, one NCIS spin-off, and one Criminal Minds spin-off later, the outlook looks bleak.
Moonlight would add another much needed facet to the monolithic image as the network for old people. CBS renewed Jericho for a second season, but quickly canceled it after that. And there's the countless other genre shows CBS canceled after a few episodes. Moonlight has a decent chance to succeed and it work inject a different
3) Alex O'Loughlin
CBS is trying to bank on his seeming popularity by putting him in more of their shows. First he was cast on Three Rivers and now they're trying to get him for the Hawaii Five-O remake. I think O'Loughlin is better fit for Hawaii Five-O, but the role is still not optimal for him. What they have to realize is that he has to be in Moonlight or a similar show.
Monday, February 8, 2010
10 comments:
I totally agree with this assessment of Moonlight's chances for success if it were renewed!
Christine/Boston
"...but Miami Medical looks like it'll suffer the same fate as Three Rivers."
Wanna bet?
It'll be back in the fall.
You name the wager, I'm in.
1 cent?
There is zero buzz for the show and it's going on a Friday night. That is after all where Moonlight died.
MOOMLIGHT SHOULD BE A "NO BRAINER" FOR CBS, BUT THATS JUST IT, CBS IS A "NO BRAINER. THEY THINK ML FANS WILL FOLLOW ALEX TO ANYTHING, BUT FOUND OUT WITH 3R'S ITS THE WHOLE OF THE STORY NOT JUST ALEX...WHEN THEY STARTING SLAPPING US WITH ML CHARATER NAMES IS WHEN I LEFT THAT TERRIBLE SHOW..IT WOULD HAVE BEEN AN EXCELLENT 2 HR MOVIE, BUT TO DEPRESSING FOR EVERY WEEK. MOONLIGH WAS AND COULD BE AGAIN, A SUCESS, JUST KEEP THE BEHIND THE SCENES "DRAMA" PEOPLE OUTTA THERE AND BRING BACK MICKS DADDY!
indeed Mr. O'Loughlin requires a show...Moonlight was truly ahead of its time & there isn't likely a way that CBS could recreate that at this point in time! However, he is a very gifted & talented actor who has shown that he can carry a show, even in the middle of the writers's strike the show continued to grow fans!
I'll bet you 5 cents and a 200 word essay as to why you are wrong when it comes back for season 2. (My 200 word essay will be about the subject of your choosing... frozen peas... turtles... unicorns... whatever.)
Well why do you think Miami Medical will survive? All the new medical dramas failed this season, and there hasn't been a genuine medical drama hit since Private Practice, and that was a spin-off. In 2009, The Listener, Mental, Trauma, Mercy, and Three Rivers, all got terrible ratings.
You can go through your list of above medical dramas and give each its own NON-MEDICAL reason for dying. Bad casting. Misguided concept. Network-On-The-Brink. They didn't fail because they were medical, any more than True-Blood/Vampire Diaries succeeded BECAUSE they were vampire shows. People who comment on TV always try to construct "trends" only to be proven wrong again and again. The year after Lost, we were told the serialized show was "the new black".
So, I'm willing to take a flyer, for 200 words and 5 shiny new pennies. :)
Since we can't prove or disprove anything, what can you say about Miami Medical that makes it so special?
And I think it's safe to say that vampires are the reason why The Vampire Diaries and True Blood are doing so good. The Vampire Diaries is just another CW show, but it consistently gets ratings 1.5 times higher than other, and True Blood is getting close to Sopranos level. Both of the shows certainly aren't at the top in writing, acting, directing, or anything, and yet they get terrific ratings on networks that few people watch regularly. The only common denominator is vampires.