The American method seems to be to have a show which goes on and on - 20 episodes a season - whereas the British method is to have a short season, and if there’s a defined story arc, it’s completed at the end of the season. One thing I see here is news of series being cancelled. Sometimes with outrage; sometimes with glee.
So why don’t American shows use the British method for that first season? 6-8 hour-long episodes which form a self-contained arc. Then, once the ratings are in, the execs can decide whether or not to commission another, longer, season while at the same time leaving fans with a complete run. And it still leaves the door open for the next thing they want to try.
Inertia, for one thing. US TV shows have always been done with the longer seasons, and that’s what everyone is used to.
Another issue is that if the show is hot, the network isn’t going to want to have it off the air for months while another series is shot. By the time there are new episodes, the excitement has died down. Similarly, if the show is a massive disaster, they want it off the air ASPS.
I’m guessing to save money. If they cancel the show after two or three episodes, there will be a couple shows in the can already, but they will save a lot more than if they commissioned ten.
I have to imagine that with four networks, several cable networks, that there are tons of cancelled shows in the US each year, way more than in Britain, so the money really becomes important.
Try Weeds, Big Love, Entourage… several HBO and Showtime shows do this. It not only works, it produces better quality programming and they can do/say a lot more than the networks let them. Think of them as TV channels that parents don’t expect to be babysitters.
The cost of American TV shows are amortized based on a long run – the hope is that the show survives long enough to get into syndication. As a result, the producers and performers sign long-term contracts for less money per episode but more total episodes. Sets are built using budgets designed for X number of episodes.
If a show is scheduled for, say, six episodes, everyone involved will look for a new job to begin as soon as shooting ends on episode six, and they may not be able to reassemble the same team for another round of episodes. If they sign everyone to six episodes with an option for more, then they have to pay off the options if they don’t renew the show, so they’ve spent the money anyway.
It sounds illogical, since most new shows end up being canceled anyway, but no one – the networks, the producers or the actors – signs up for a show believing it won’t be a success.
It would be easy enough to simply sign an actor to six episodes with the option to pick up the series at the same rate of pay if it’s renewed.
Maybe an established star wouldn’t do that, but most series contain relatively nobodies who’d jump at the chance.
In the real world it contracts don’t matter with hits. Look at “Friends.” It was universally reivewed as “just another ‘Seinfeld’ clone,” which it was. But it became a big hit the first year. The actors all were under contract and they all grouped together and simply refused to work at that price. Could they have been sued? Sure, but they knew they wouldn’t be. NBC had a huge hit and couldn’t take the risk of bad publicity and losing all the money. So they tore up the contracts and resigned everyone at a huge salary increase.
This isn’t new, I recall Natalie “Mrs Howell” Schafer, said when she read the script to Gilligan’s Island, she called her agent and said it was the most ridiculous thing she ever read. He replied, “So what, it’s a free trip to Hawaii.”
American TV is going this way now. No TV series today is ordered for 22 episodes or a full seaon. They are usually now, six episodes with another six or seven to pick up. Then it’s decided whether they’ll go for a full season.
American TV is based on “put as little on as possible and re-run it into the groun.” This is why you have reruns of the same sitcoms on two or three cable channels. Or the “Golden Girls” runing five times a day, while hundreds of sitcoms and other series sit unaired and never will be aired.
They’ve kind of done that with Glee – they ran a full half season (sic) in the fall, with no reruns (or maybe a rerun or two during the World Series, I don’t remember), finished that story arc, and then completely left the air. They’ll be back in April with another half season, which will pick up some subplots from the fall but also have its own story arc.
I think all HBO series are 13 shows per season, Showtime is similar. But they don’t all wrap up every story in 1 season - the Sopranos did not do that. Dexter did wrap up their story lines at the end of all 4 seasons.
Cable networks are different – they don’t need to worry about ratings, just subscriptions. They also don’t have to reach as large an audience. HBO and Showtime set aside a portion of their budget to develop series and in some ways, short series make more sense to them: they spend the budget and then decide whether to spend the money for the next series.
That’s also quite similar to the BBC. They aren’t ratings-driven. Producers can wait until they have enough good scripts for a season.
The networks, however, need ratings. If a show is a hit, they don’t want to have it lose momentum. You could see something like this with Pushing Daisies, which was a solid success before the writer’s strike shut it down. Despite having a nice cliffhanger, it did not do as well when it came back. If the show had continued to run a full season, it might have held its audience better.
Series now also need at least 13 episodes in order to market their DVDs.
TV shows have always been signed for 13 episodes and then resigned for the “back 9” to make 22 episodes a season. It’s been done this way for a long time and I can’t think of any show that has differed from this method in a long time.
No TV series was ever signed for 22 episodes out of the gate. OK, maybe there were a few exceptions. But it was never common as you seem to be implying.
American TV has been making more shows in the last decade than the previous 50 years of television combined. So I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. A lot of stuff gets reaired on cable channels and I’m confused as to why you think this stuff never gets shown.
As for the Golden Girls, it is immensely popular, even with 20something women. Why wouldn’t a network show it as often as it can?
Wasn’t Joey given a full season order from NBC before it’s pilot was even shot? Look how well that turned out. NBC had very, very high hopes that it would be as popular as Friends. Viewership started out high, but then declined. Still it got renewed for a second season. Then it was cancelled and the last few episodes weren’t even aired.