Fall and Television

There are times when I feel like I am becoming one of those cranky old men who sit there and talk about how things were better back when I was younger.  That isn’t the case.  Generally speaking things are better now than they were in the good ol’ days.  Of course, the things that were happening in the good ol’ days weren’t really all that good.  Plus, technology is better now and, generally speaking, that makes things better. 

However, there was a time when television shows made something like 656 shows per season.  The “Honeymooners” was only one for like half of a season but they made six hundred and fifty-three thousand shows which is why they can run in syndication in perpetuity.  Somewhere along the way television seasons became something like two and a half shows for hour-long dramas and about ten for sit-coms.  I blame the loose morals of the 1970s for this, but I only just made that up and I don’t actually have any evidence. 

That was fine for a long time.  Now, however, something has come along that I just don’t understand.  When did television shows start having “Fall Season Finales?”  I believe I speak for all television viewers when I say, “Um, huh?”   

See, what used to happen was the television shows premiered for the fall sometime in September.  All of your favorite television show characters would be back and bigger than life, unless of course they were canceled in the off-season.  Still, most of them came back and that was great.  It was like welcoming old friends or something equally poetic.  Then you got to sit through the entire season.  There would be times throughout the year when repeats would be shown.  As I recall, when I was a youth, running barefoot through the fields, these repeats came sometime during the holidays.  I have no idea why this was.  I mean, they usually had the whole season filmed and “in the can” anyway.  Still, I guess they figured no one would be watching television during the holiday season. 

This is a misnomer of course.  Hardly anyone I know actually goes on vacation during the holidays.  Instead they all take time away from work and sit at home.  The problem then is that there’s nothing to watch on television.  Sure, relatives come over but, at some point, you get sick of all of that noise and the only way to shut it out is to turn on the television.  Which, of course, is only showing repeats. 

Anyway, you lived through the repeat season and then, after the first of the year, the shows would come back and you would watch them until the big climax.  Then there would be the big season finale sometime around the time when the school year would end.  The season finales were what you waited for all season.  The whole season built to these things.  This was what brought the world “Who Shot J.R.?”  It was the season finale that blew up the apartment complex at the end of “

Melrose Place

.”  It was the season finale that had the big showdown between Buffy and whatever villain she had been fighting all season long on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”  When “The West Wing” was a good show one season ended with the President being shot. 

This is the way of television.  This is where I sound like an old man.  Why?  Because that was the way I liked it.  I blame the television show “Prison Break” with this disturbing new trend.  You see when this show came on in the fall of ’05 no one was really sure how it would be received.  It was on Fox and it was on the same night as “24.”  For some reason they had pushed back the start of “24” until after the first of the year.  I think there may have been some other show that was in the mix on Monday night.  However, “Prison Break” became a kind of hit and they had to finish the damn season and actually break them out of prison just so the title would make sense.  However, they had to clear the schedule a bit to show “24” and so they stopped “Prison Break” in the middle of the fall and resumed it again later in the spring. 

I may have some of those facts mixed up but I believe this may have been the genesis of the “Fall Season Finale” which is a trend I would like to put a stop to right now even though I know not a single television network will ever read this or care.  You see November is a “sweeps” month which means ratings really matter so they must love the idea of having a big-deal episode for shows and then resuming those shows in February which just happens to be another “sweeps” month and so they get everyone coming back to view those shows that they have had to live without for three months. 

Don’t they realize that the only thing that gets us through the winter months is television?  It already gets dark at like two-thirty in the afternoon.  The only glow that can save us and get us through those dark nights is the warm glow of the boob tube.  Sure, they now program shows during the summer.  Yes they have been shoving also-ran shows at us as replacements during the winter months for years.  However, the great thing was that you could ignore those and still have your favorite characters to watch. 

Most recently the show that completely upset me with this is “Lost.”  In fact, they just had the “Fall Season Finale.”  This is the show I was anxiously waiting for all summer long.  They have shown like four episodes, answered nothing, made everything more confusing and now they just want to leave us hanging for three months.  What the hell kind of torture is this?  What are they putting in is place?  They are putting on a show that appears to be “Groundhog’s Day” with explosions.   

My advice for ABC is not to put this show on the air.  I know, you got Taye Diggs and he costs a lot of money and stuff, but how annoying is this show going to be?  Also, isn’t there a Denzel Washington movie coming out that deals with déjà vu?  How annoying is it to watch a show where the same day is repeated again and again and again. 

They have already changed the series premier times.  I have had to live with waiting until after the first of the year for “24” to start as it is.  I have lived with shows that ended up being in the minds of autistic kids.  I have watched shows that were brilliant and funny get canceled.  I want, very much, to draw the line at “Fall Season Finales.”  It has to stop somewhere.  Right? 

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available for sale at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.