Or at least get better shows.
The comedies in particular look ghastly this year. If the idea of a trailer is to motivate you to watch the show (or movie) these have the opposite effect. I don’t know how anyone can look at some of these sitcom trailers and not say, “This is stupid. No way am I watching this shit.”
Your show is dead even before it airs. At least in the pre-trailer days, viewers would only catch fleeting glimpses of the new shows. They still might be curious enough to tune in. But when you watch these trailers and see how painfully unfunny they are, you're as gone as a cool breeze.
And half the casts are being replaced. So the trailers you see feature actors who were fired. Networks are not even presenting the good versions of the bad shows they’re showcasing.
Aside from that you’re seeing the same faces you’ve seen every year, now recycled one more time. Oh boy, Cedric the Entertainer has white neighbors who just moved in. Cart out the old JEFFERSON jokes from 1975. And hey, with new casting the white neighbors are the guy from NEW GIRL and girl from 2 BROKE GIRLS. Everything about that seems stale and familiar.
Audiences have learned that movie comedies put their best jokes in the trailer. So when those jokes suck you know the movie does too. With very few exceptions, the same is true in sitcom trailers. And what you’re left with – or at least what I’m left with – is that for all the pilot scripts commissioned and all the “notes” and then the fifteen or so that get made by each network – after a year’s worth of development – THESE are the best shows?
The decline of network television is inevitable. But it’s odd to see them contribute to their own demise. Lose the comedy trailers. So what if other networks employ them? It’s bad enough you’re running the shows. Give yourself a fighting chance.
from By Ken Levine
Comments
Post a Comment