2007 TV Season

I meant to write on this weeks ago, but somehow it seems appropriate waited. You know, because we've come that much farther into the season and the industry is facing a writers' strike. Or maybe it seems apt to me because now I understand the shows better and have begun to see--or think I see--where they're going. Ironically, given that I'm a media educator, I get only two channels: NBC and PBS. So the title of this entry is rather misleading; it should be NBC's 2007 Season. Oh, well. Right from the start, when I first heard about the line-up, I was immediately struck by the number of science fiction or comic book shows. No, none of them are directly adapted from comic books, but they are like comic books. Or science fiction. Witness Monday night: Chuck, Heroes, Journeyman. Witness Wednesday night's big show: Bionic Woman. And even Phenomenon, the magician's game show, could be considered science fiction. ("What do you mean? Magic isn't real?!") Oh, and let me be clear here: I like science fiction and comic books. I don't use those labels in a derogatory way.

I'm sure some of you are thinking, Chuck? How is that science fiction? Well, let's see: A guy becomes a spy after an uncountable number of images enter his brain via an e-mail; he sees certain things subconsciously and his brain flashes on images from the database, then he suddenly knows and can explain connections and plots. Hm. Sounds like SF and a comic book to me, especially when you add the larger sort of conspiracy stuff and the sense of humor. It even has a ridiculously attractive superspy female lead (who could almost have stepped from the pages of a superhero comic except that her proportions are anatomically possible).

So on to Heroes. For a full commentary on the first season, see my capsule review from September. I find the quality of this season a little lower than last, but they still do cliffhanging fantastically well and the expanding plot and plot twists continue to suck me in. I do not have the problem with the increasing number of heroes that some people have, but I tend to like sprawling storylines. Clearly, this is the stuff of comic books. I've made that case in detail below, but just, well, consider the premise: superpowered humans whose abilities come from genetic mutation. Hm.

Journeyman? Dan Vassar is a time traveler. 'Nuff said? (And if you get the reference, I owe you a cyber kewpie doll.) I'm not sure if the show is better because it has the family conflict/strife that arises from Dan's inability to control his traveling, but it adds to viewership, I'm sure. (And I love when the son sees his dad disappear, never mind the later "It's cool, Dad" conversation. "You're magic." Okay, maybe I'm a sucker now that I'm a daddy, but that one almost brought a tear to my eye. Maybe 'cause it's like when Elias looks up at me with big brown eyes and says, "Daddy, you're my hero.") Anyway.... Dan Vassar is a newspaper journalist who, in the first episode, finds out he can travel through time. Throughout that first episode, through a series of events, he finds out that each time he travels, he tracks a specific individual; he has some kind of wrong to right regarding that person. In this way, the show follows in the footsteps of earlier shows like Voyagers! (1982–1983) and Quantum Leap (1989–1993). In those shows, however, the protagonists knew they had to fix things, and they had tools or other characters to help them figure out the specific mission of each episode. In Journeyman, Dan has to figure out each mission on his own. There is another traveler, a character tied to his own past, but she doesn't exactly help--well, not usually. As of last week, the series seems to be on the verge of revealing or exploring a deeper plotline, an underlying conspiracy or direction. Dan and the other traveler have been realizing that they are sent or called each time they travel, but the writers have not yet had them expore the deeper meaning of why or who is doing the calling or sending. This is pure comic book stuff--time travel, mission, larger hidden agenda.... Further, there are complications: Dan's brother Jack, a cop, worries that Dan is endangering his family and falling again under the sway of his gambling addiction. This has led to some other law enforcement officials taking a closer look at Dan. As they say, the plot thickens.

And then there's Bionic Woman. It doesn't get much more comic book-y than this. This is a remimagining of the 1976–1978 TV show, which itself was a spinoff from The Six-Million-Dollar Man TV show (1974–1978) starring Lee Majors. In the first episode, Jaime, a bartender who has taken on guardianship of her younger sister, gets in a car accident, nearly dies, and wakes up bionic. There is much conflict around how this happens and around her adjustment to her new reality. The organization behind her transformation is called the Berkut Group, "a clandestine paramilitary group devoted to protecting the world from rogue organizations working to prevent the end of civilization as we know it." Yep, that's the line, said by the group's head, Jonas (Miguel Ferrer, putting his goofy-creepy persona to work very aptly), to Jaime just after our hero has had, let's say, a bit too much to drink. The rest of the dialogue is as follows. Jonas: "So are you in, or are you out?" Jaime: "I'm definitely out. Now I gotta throw up." Well, of course, she's not out. After all, we need a show. Jaime joins, reluctantly--and what's better than a reluctant superhero--and soon faces Berkut's first bionic woman (Katee Sackhoff, better known as Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, another reimagining), among numerous other foes. This show is part Alias and part Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's entertaining enough, but it has none of Alias's abiding charm nor any of Buffy's mad language skills and precious little of its sense of irony; and Michelle Ryan is no Jennifer Garner or even Sarah Michelle Gellar. As one friend said to me, It's just not campy enough.

So NBC alone has four shows revolving around science fiction concepts or in the style of comic books. Why is this? What is it in our culture and at this time that makes the networks (well, this network) believe that these kinds of shows will be successful? For that matter, each actually seems to be successful--Heroes is in it second season, and the others have become water-cooler fodder around the country. Sure, sure, there are other reasons for their success--Chuck is a comedy, with its mismatched lovers, high geek cred, marvelously psychopathic CIA operative (Adam Baldwin from Firefly), and superdorky sidekick; Heroes is episodic and filled with beautiful people; Journeyman has a focus on the family that likely draws in viewers who might not otherwise be fans of a show with this premise; Bionic Woman has, well, hot chicks in action (no, I don't mean to be sexist; I'm speaking to a certain image and a certain demographic). But at base, they are all comic book shows. I can't imagine that these shows would have succeeded ten years ago. What is going on in the world now that makes them popular? As a fan of these kinds of shows, I'm glad; I enjoy the heck outta these programs. As a media educator, I have to wonder.

(Images: Heroes c2007 NBC Universal Pictures/Tailwind Productions; Chuck c2007 Warner Bros./College Hill Pictures; Journeyman c2007 20th Century Fox/NBC; Bionic Woman c2007 NBC Universal Television)