TV Guy

Wednesday, February 13, 2002:

Attack of the Right-Wing Cartoon

Why doesn’t anyone understand “South Park”?

Weird BE // 1:02 AM
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Wednesday, February 06, 2002:

The pertinent question of “24” and its ratings efficacy is unfortunately a matter for but a small, though vocal crowd of adoring critics (who, in the latest Electronic Media poll, rank the Fox series as top drama on TV) and a relatively small but devoted fan base, who have made “24” the 72nd (out of 172) most-watched program on TV. To someone either uninvolved or uninterested in the real-time drama, the series’ prospect for renewal is surely of little concern.

The permanent question of “24,” however, is of concern not only to the small legion of its devotees and admirers, but indeed all television devotees and admirers. Just as “Hill Street Blues” answered for television whether or not viewers could handle stand-alone stories with serial elements (the foundation for practically every cop/doc/lawyer drama since); and just as “The X-Files” answered whether an audience could handle a mix of stand-alone anthology and continuing mythology (the foundation, more or less, for “Alias” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer), “24” will answer for all networks the question of whether the American public is mature enough to handle what the late New York Times theater/film critic Vincent Canby termed “the magnificent mega-movie.”

And it does not look promising.

At heart, really, is a larger issue: the dominance of HBO, particularly in the past four years, in acclaim and accolades. Acclaim as in critical adulation, the kind regularly heaped on (virtually) every HBO series from paid critics; accolades from even the most conservative of voting bodies, such as the Emmys, which gave “Sex and the City” the vaunted Best Comedy prize last year (not to mention winning the same prize at the Golden Globes this year, a venue in which the net swept the top three categories: Best Drama, Comedy and Miniseries).

So how does “24” factor into the puzzle? Two words: “The Sopranos.”

As much as HBO hates to admit it – and, in particular, as much as “Sex” and “Six Feet Under” cast and crew hate to admit it – the HBO halo effect, as TV Guide columnist (and IU alum) Matt Roush called it, is a very real and substantial consequence of the importance of David Chase’s mafia opera. While it may not reward outright awful attempts, as was witnessed by the critical shellacking of “Mind of the Married Man” and continues to be witnessed, against all odds, by “Arli$$,” the halo effect does unjustly lavish praise on what are either mediocre (“Sex”) or acceptable-but-hardly-groundbreaking (“Six”) efforts.

But it would be folly to simply proclaim that “Sopranos” works because it works, because of either cast or crew (as its proponents claim) or absence of Standards and Practices (as its detractors claim). David Chase may be the best television writer of his era, and the ability to effectively parrot the verbal tongues of the Real World may be of great significance, but the former does not explain why, say, “Six” works (and it is, criticisms aside, largely a good show) and the latter does not explain why “Project Greenlight” or “Hard Knocks,” two docudramas largely absent of unacceptable language or themes, also are effective.

What all four have in common – and in particular “Sopranos” and “Six Feet Under,” for they are continuing series with longer episode orders – is that they have skirted traditional concepts of film, series, miniseries and soap opera. They are an amalgamation, instead, of all four. Indeed, they are less devices of the filmed screen than of the page; they are, in every sense of the word, novels.

It was this that Canby had in mind when he lavished praise on the mega-movie (while reviewing “Sopranos”) shortly before his death – a storytelling technique that rewards patience and attention to detail. The reason is simple: because most TV series are stand-alone (and serial elements such as, say, Andy Sipowicz’s alcoholism, are too tertiary to qualify as long-running storylines in and of themselves), the traditional Act I/Act II/Act III structure seen in films does not apply to the season at whole. Only within an episode can this be seen.

What mega-movies do is add the technique to without. Thus, a middle episode of “Sopranos” can not only rivet, via its episodic structure, the casual observer, but also, via its season structure, the addicted Soprano-phile whose interests are geared more toward the character’s predetermined (by Chase) arcs.

Thus, “Six Feet Under,” while much less involving on an individual, episodic basis, can still nevertheless be enjoyable for it can build, over 13 successive hours, from Act I to Act II to Act III. Because of this, it’s hard to name a single individual story or episode from the series’ first season, but arcs and individual characters are easy to recall, though it remains to be seen whether or not creator Alan Ball will avoid the “Sopranos” curse of its second season (i.e., blow your wad in the first; this, however, is a separate article).

“24,” however, ups the ante. Not only has it mastered the concepts of within and without arc structures, it does so in (almost) real time and, most importantly, does so without the relatively lax A-B-C storylines of other mega-movies, most notably “Six Feet Under.”

Think about it in this construct: you are a writer-producer on “Six Feet Under.” The basic parameters of the series have been set out, and majordomo Ball has already penciled in, more or less, where the characters are going from Episode 1 to Episode 13. All you have to do, then, is fashion out A, B and C stories to effectively demonstrate the within qualities of the show (with the A story usually being part of the without storyline). The B and C stories will usually be stand-alone stories that can be, within certain limits, done at any time.

Say the main character, David, has to cater to a family who has just lost their parents in a car crash, and sets about on a quest to find the relatives who cut off connection with them (this, by the way, is an awful story; don’t write a spec script on this); this can be done, probably, at any time during the 13-week stretch. Nothing about the story is imperative to being done during a specific episode or, more daringly, during a specific time.

“24” is the monkey wrench to that rule. Everything about the series is dependent on its predecessor, be it the previous episode (i.e., the previous hour) or the previous minute. While series creators Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow may have an idea (and let’s hope they do) of how the game will play out, it’s still largely impossible for them to write Episode 13 without knowing how Episode 11 turns out, unless they – unlikely – plot out in their entirety whole episodes. While, like “Six Feet Under” and other mega-movies, “24” A-stories are dependent on the past (and, thus, vital for the future), so are its B-stories and C-stories.

At the beginning of the season, this appeared reckless: with only the reviews of a pilot episode to go on, it would be only cautious of the average viewer to doubt the veracity of the, frankly, over-extended shouts of acclaim from critics that seemingly aired during each change in at-bat during Fox’s coverage of the World Series. Yet 10 hours in, Cochran and Surnow’s creation has in fact been redeemed ten times over. It has succeeded in quality past even the most optimistic expectations, and has worked beyond efficiently, which is probably the best congratulatory remark one could give.

And yet, all may be for naught. Despite what is probably the best and most affectionate treatment a network has ever given to a show (reruns twice a week on FX, and reruns on Fox during the week for the first nine episodes), “24” has yet to gain a substantial increase in viewers, though it has done quite well demographically.

For all its ambitions, and for all its accomplishments, 24 may be the age at death for “24.” While it would never be known if that is indeed a terrible thing (it’s hard to imagine a scenario under which another 24 hours of similar magnitude could coincidentally again befall Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer, at least without getting into Die Hard ridiculousness; indeed, it may be best as a close-ended work of art), it is surely bad precedent. It’s hard envisioning another pitch as elaborate as that of “24” and structured along the same mega-movie form getting a green light; failure by “24” will likely see to it that, at least for the considerable future, such a high-concept attempt will not be duplicated.

In that light, it would be wise for HBO – which is already at the virtual whims of David Chase, who will have had audiences waiting for nearly 16 months when Season 4 of “Sopranos” begins in September – to add to its vast arsenal a piece of work that is of genuine quality, unfiltered and unaffected by a buzz-infatuated media that has bloated the importance of HBO and diluted its real significance. If Fox and the other nets realize they can’t make it with “24,” then HBO should see to it that it makes it with “13.”

Weird BE // 3:58 AM

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