I hate how networks these days don’t give a show a chance. Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 decades for a show to find an audience.
We checked out SVU for the first time last night, and what a godawful piece of crap it was. It was overloaded with the kind of touchy feely garbage L&O nearly always avoided, in my experience. And the first episode we saw shoehorned in almost every cliche we could think of - most prominently a very pregnant lady in a car crash (the accident, of course, sent her into labor, and the baby was out in 15 minutes) with all the rescue workers and medical personnel standing around with their thumbs up their asses letting Ms. Hero Lady Cop save the victim singlehandedly. Horrible stuff. The second episode overplayed its hand by featuring a bunch of mental patients, but it wasn’t as bad. What Lynn Bodoni said about Benson was completely correct. I’ve seen a couple of episodes of Criminal Intent over the years and I find that one pretty bad, too.
Variety is reporting that Dick Wolf and NBC are talking to TNT about moving the show there for the 21st season. (Here’s a link to the AV Club article on this. It links to the original Variety story, but that appears to require an account to read.)
You have to remember that even if a show is still pulling in good ratings, the cost has to be less than the rate of ad sales.
Longer running shows have higher production costs. The casts make more money, they make more demands and are much less flexible. When a show starts, actors, writers and well everyone is anxious to pull it off and will do what it takes. Slowly over the years this flexibility dies.
For instance an actor salary isn’t just one cost. The longer they are there the more likely they are to demand money for fancy trailers, money to cover their own personal staffs, money to go on shows like Jay Leno and Letterman (those shows only pay scale to their guests), and so forth.
If it ain’t profitable it ain’t gonna run. And remember even if it makes money, it has to make the MOST money. If another show can make more money than that one wins out.
This has never applied to Law & Order. The revolving door of the cast (which has swung in four new characters in the last couple of years) means that no one ever got too big for their britches.
I would think many cable networks would love a show like this that has a loyal following. The only catch is that cable shows have lower budgets so they might have cut actors in order to meet the budget.
FWIW, After last nights 10 pm et episode, the teaser promo for next week said the “season” finale, as opposed to the “series” finale.
Cable networks now will start up new shows but that is a risk compared to getting a show with a built in fanbase.