The 2019-2020 Network TV Season: Reviews Of What I Watched
The television season officially ended this week even though quite a few shows ran out of episodes several weeks ago. COVID-19 has disrupted everything in 2020 and television production is on that list, raising significant doubts about when most of the shows I'm profiling will return. This is particularly true since the majority of shows are produced in Los Angeles, where shutdown orders have already extended to the end of July. That pushes right up against the timeframe when most series begin production for the fall season. But as for the season that was, there's always been a certain "comfort food" element to network shows for me and that's only intensified while held up at home in the middle of a pandemic. That's not to say most of the shows are by any means incredible, but they at least served as a source of normalcy in the last couple of months, at least until they ran out of episodes. The timing of the pandemic, which came to a head in mid-March, meant most shows hadn't filled out their entire production order, leading to unfortunate anticlimactic ends to seasons that most showrunners weren't intending. Some shows were lucky enough to finish their production just before the buzzer though. Anyway, here's what I watched in the 2019-2020 season....
9-1-1--One of the highest-rated scripted shows on television lived up to its past work again this season, with an appropriate mix of drama, humor, and intense rescues. Like most shows of this nature, the CGI wasn't always entirely believable, but it was reliably above-average on "9-1-1", as were the scripts. Whether it be Athena's investigation to discover her long-ago-murdered fiancee's killer or the tightly organized caper by thieves who staged and armed takeover of the 9-1-1 call center, the series was always entertaining and on occasion even moving with a solid cast of likeable characters. I hope they continue to do work this good for season 4, whenever that may come. Grade: B+
Prodigal Son--There was plenty to work with in this series' high-concept outline featuring the son of an imprisoned serial killer channeling his boyhood demons to be a profiler of killers, and they delivered a few stellar episodes over the course of the 20 episodes they were able to produce for their inaugural season. Michael Sheen lit up the screen as devious serial killer Martin Whitly, so episodes where his character had a considerable presence were the most memorable. With that said, I rarely felt the series rose above conventional procedural tropes despite its efforts to be dark and edgy. It certainly wasn't as twisted as Kevin Bacon's "The Following" which found its way onto network television airwaves back in 2013. While ostensibly well-made, there were just too many hours over the course of this season that reinforced to me that "Prodigal Son" wasn't really my cup of tea. I'll still probably watch it next season though, at least early on. Grade: C+
Manifest--I walked away from season 1 of NBC's soft-core science fiction freshman so underwhelmed that I considered not bothering with it for season 2. Surprisingly, the series modestly improved in its storytelling and quickened its pacing in season 2, at least to the point where I was vaguely interested in what was going on on the screen in a way I wasn't for large swaths of season 1. It's still not a show I've had a smooth and natural connection with and if NBC decided to not proceed with a third season I wouldn't lose one moment's sleep, but I'll at least give them credit for exceeding my low expectations for season 2 with a cleverly expanded mythology regarding the survivors of the lost flight and the reactions from the public spooked by them. Grade: C+
9-1-1: Lonestar--I'm usually a harsh critic of when a successful television franchise branches out and weakens its brand with imitators a la CSI, NCIS, and the trio of "Chicago" shows from Dick Wolf. I was prepared to not bother with the Rob Lowe-Liv Tyler-starring expansion of "9-1-1" either, but given how much I enjoyed the original and saw it was only gonna be a nine-episode trial run in the middle of winter, I gave it a shot. The verdict: it was definitely not an upgrade from the original, with far less memorable characters and a ridiculously excessive amount of time spent talking about Rob Lowe's character's hair. I'll give the show some kudos for the Texas-centric emergency rescue ideas but wonder how long that will be sustainable enough to maintain any semblance of identity for this series compared to the original. Ultimately, "Lonestar" gives little to justify its existence beyond a money grab by producers and the network of a successful franchise, and I don't plan to reward them for it by returning next season. Grade: C+
The Conners--Last season I was impressed how well the series formerly known as "Roseanne" held up without the toxic presence of the overrated title character, and this season only reinforced that the soul of this blue-collar comedy had little if anything to do with Roseanne Barr herself. What makes "The Conners" work is the stellar cast which plays off of each other with some of the best timing I've ever seen in a situation comedy, and above all the snappy writing which regularly finds humor in the darkest sociological places. It's rather astonishing how cynical the show and its characters are, but the cynicism accurately captures the zeitgeist of a struggling working-class family in a burned-out Midwestern industrial town above and beyond what one would imagine coming out of a Hollywood production crew. The series finds a way to touch upon nearly every source of anxiety that's tearing apart Middle America all while managing to largely avoid being preachy or one-dimensional, and I really look forward to how they deal with the COVID-19 shutdown--and the economic depression that follows--next season, whenever that may be. Grade: B+
FBI--I was ho-hum on the first season of Dick Wolf's latest network procedural last year and, if anything, thought it got even more generic in its second season. That's not to say the show wasn't capable of a handful of really entertaining and well-executed episodes in its second season. Like most procedurals on CBS--or from the Dick Wolf assembly line--"FBI" indeed had its moments, but by and large it was a season of uninspired mediocrity with an interchangeable and unmemorable cast (which was actually minus its only household name--Sela Ward--who left at the end of season 1). Nonetheless, its cushy timeslot following the still-popular "NCIS" has kept the show a major ratings player, so much so that it actually inspired a spinoff (!!) called "FBI: Most Wanted" that I didn't watch. Interestingly, "FBI" was the first network series to run out of episodes due to the COVID shutdown, wrapping up its season on March 31st. That won't stop it from returning for a season 3 either next season or whenever life begins to resume again. I'm sure the third season of "FBI" will likely produce a few more entertaining hours per season amidst a generally forgettable full-season slate that keeps senior citizens nominally tuning in week after week but offering little to keep younger viewers sticking around. Grade: C
Emergence--I just don't "get" sci-fi. I never have. That hasn't stopped me from sampling a number of softer-core science fiction series that have come along on network airwaves over the years, the most successful being "Lost", but as a genre I've just never connected. That's why I can't render more than a personal judgment on the quality or lack thereof of ABC's "Emergence", which burned through 13 episodes last fall and winter before ending with a whimper. It had an intriguing pilot episode with a core of appealing characters and modest if never totally impressive ratings out of the starting gate, but I suspected it would delve deeper and deeper into science fiction as it proceeded, and I wasn't wrong. I never felt like the show lived up to its potential and didn't care for how things progressed, and judging by its declining ratings trajectory leading up to its unceremonious cancellation, it appears as though most other viewers had the same response. Like most science fiction series, "Emergence" had a core following, and its unfortunate that the nature of primetime scheduling is squeezing out "different" shows like this that might appeal to a more niche and underserved audience, but it definitely wasn't for me and I wouldn't have continued with the show even if it had gotten renewed. Grade: C-
Stumptown--This Portland-based detective series starring Cobie Smulders busted out of the starting gate with a strong pilot and a lot of hype, but it didn't take long for it to crumble under its own bloated cast and lack of coherent identity. Of "Stumptown's" 18 episodes, about a third were pretty good, but another third of them were unwatchably bad, the byproduct of a series that clearly doesn't know what it wants to be. The cast is overly bloated, and in the eagerness to give everybody something to do, managed to dilute the franchise into a muddle. ABC's ads for the show always hype up the "love triangle of the week" storyline and downplay the detective angle, indicating there may be a lot of ABC's notorious creative interference on a series trying to find its footing. The functional alcoholic title character suffering from PTSD from her days in Iraq, and who lives with her mentally challenged brother, has her moments of being genuinely fascinating, but the series badly needs focus and that will require trimming some of its extensive background players and spending less time per week obsessing over boy-kissed-girl or girl-kissed-girl inanities. The series' fate remains in limbo and will be one of the toughest calls for renewal by ABC. It might deserve a reprieve, but just barely, and my fear is what needs to be fixed won't be. Grade: C-
SWAT--As CBS's action procedurals go, I've long had a soft spot for "SWAT". It has some of the fastest and best-produced action scenes and some of the most engaging subplots for its characters that often extend in multi-episode arcs. "SWAT" reminds me of "New York Undercover" in that sense, where even if the primary action plot is below par, the character storylines often make up for it. This season had its share of solid episodes, including Street's undercover operation to bust the mobsters his brother was working for and Hondo's intense personal connection to East African genocide. Now like most CBS shows that make 22 episodes a season, "SWAT" had its share of forgettable episodes too, but it ended its season with more things for a viewer to latch onto than, say, "FBI". "SWAT" moved to Wednesday this season after two successful seasons on Thursday, and the move was not met well by viewers with ratings down more than 25%. For most of the season, I was convinced season 3 of "SWAT" would be its last, but it ticked up at just the right time and earned itself a season 4 renewal from CBS, which I was grateful to see. Grade: B-
Superstore--While not quite as gritty or emotionally resonant in its depiction of downscale life in Middle America as "The Conners", the cast of newly celebrated essential workers in the quirky "Superstore" nonetheless pack quite a punch in humorously depicting the perpetually anxious life of those who stand on their feet for a living. Taking on everything from increased automation in the workplace to vindictive management responses over forming a union in season 5, "Superstore" knows its characters as well as any other show on television, being reliably funny even when the subject matter gets ostensibly dark. There's a risk of its quirky characters drifting into cartoonishness but they've kept most of them multi-dimensional thus far. I look forward to seeing how "Superstore" takes on COVID-19 in the workplace matters when it returns for season 6. Grade: B+
Evil--I wasn't prepared last fall when I began watching "Evil", about an oddball trio of paranormal investigators working on behalf of the Catholic church, and quickly discovered it was the most oddball, out-there network television fare since "Twin Peaks" premiered on ABC 30 years ago. I was intrigued right off the bat, not to mention startled by the show's capacity for genuinely creepy moments, but it was Episode 4 when I really stood up and took notice. "Rose390" was the single best hour of network television I saw in the entire decade of the 2010s, masterfully put together and skin-crawling spooky above and beyond anything I ever expected to see on network television. That episode gave the show a lot of street cred for me, but if I'm being honest it was hit and miss after that high-water mark. The show has an expansive, unpredictable universe where the tone of each week's episode often varies dramatically with the tone of the previous episodes. I appreciate that about "Evil" as it keeps viewers on their toes in a network TV landscape full of very predictable and formulaic series, but its storytelling diversity can be as big of a liability one week as it was an asset the previous week. The show's fan base seemed to have a similar response to me on that front, appreciating the show's risk-taking but not always finding every risk to yield the intended reward. The show's ratings were not great, as is often the case with shows this outside the box and particularly when broadcast on a network with the most conservative audience, but hats off to CBS for giving it an early second-season renewal anyway and allowing the showrunners some creative breathing room. I'm tempted to give "Evil" an even higher grade but given that it was unquestionably--and in some ways intentionally--inconsistent, I'll stop short of rating it at the top of my grading curve. Grade: B+
Deputy--If "Evil" was a great example of stylistic risk-taking on network television, "Deputy" was a great example of sticking with convention on network television. That's not to say "Deputy" was as reactionary as its early ads made it look as the show's politics was almost hecklingly "woke" for a series broadcast on Fox. Stephen Dorff was well-cast and had a charismatic presence as the gruff cowboy deputy who backdoored his way into becoming Los Angeles County Sheriff on a technicality, but when the series' opening scene featured Dorff's Bill Hollister character facing suspension for refusing to participate in ICE raids, it was an immediate warning sign of a show that wasn't going to know its audience. Beyond that, the series had a couple of standout episodes but largely tread on conventional police procedural turf, inexplicably mining the same turf almost every week when depicting Hollister's personal life at home with his wife and daughter. Filmed in New Mexico, I'll give the show high marks for its production values in the action scenes set in the rugged rural terrain. At no point, however, did I really connect with this show and didn't shed any tears when I learned of its cancellation. With that said, the ratings weren't terrible so it was a bit surprising Fox announced it was shit-canning the show only a week after its 13-episode run ended. Perhaps that's an indication there was something to my assessment of the show's worldview being so greatly divergent with the audience Fox was going for. Grade: C
Brooklyn Nine-Nine--I complimented "Superstore" upthread for largely avoiding turning its regulars into cartoon characters, but veteran police comedy "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" has remained successful by taking the opposite tact and intentionally making its cast of characters cartoonish. As viewers, we're generally in on the joke that the squad of officers might well be toiling in a normal workplace if not for the corrupting influence of Andy Samberg's Jake Peralta character, the core of the show that drives everybody else to the outer edges of eccentric madness. Sometimes the show gets a little too silly for its own good, but there's rarely a shortage of laughs and the lightning-paced comedic discourse among the actors is always impressive to behold. The show also manages some impressive production values, staging a spattering of action scenes that you don't expect to see done so well on a half-hour comedy. I would have never imagined back in 2013 when it premiered that "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" would still be on the air by 2020, but amazingly the show is still holding up well enough that I'm fully onboard with the show's renewal for an eighth season next year. Grade: B
Blindspot--There was a point three seasons ago when NBC's high-octane action show "Blindspot" was my favorite show on network television, particularly in its second season when it really found its footing. Unfortunately. the show had been moved from a plum timeslot and had to survive on its own, and bled a huge share of its audience. I was skeptical it would be renewed for a third season, but extremely grateful when it was. Regrettably, it's been downhill for the show since then, both creatively and in terms of audience response. Sentenced to languish in a Friday night ghetto, I was shocked when the show survived to a fourth season, and absolutely blown away by NBC's decision to give it an abbreviated fifth season which only began to air in early May. Either the series' showrunner has damning evidence against a top NBC executive or the network was wholly committed to getting to the 100-episode mark for a more lucrative syndication deal, particularly overseas where an old-school action show like "Blindspot" really seems to connect. I suspect the latter is the correct answer as the season 5 episode order "Blindspot" got puts it at exactly 100 episodes. Only two of this season's episodes have aired, and while there are still flashes of the spunk the show routinely served up in its halcyon days, it mostly seems weary and long ago overdue to be put to sleep. With that said, I'm grateful to have one show putting up new episodes for me to watch this summer, and I hope the series can somehow reverse its long, painful decline in its final stretch of episodes. Grade: C-
The Blacklist--Here's another series that seemed like it would be out of gas years ago that has somehow soldiered on to the completion of its seventh season! I'm more than a little surprised that James Spader hasn't gotten bored, especially given the rigorous schedule of an hourlong drama producing 22 episodes a season. "The Blacklist" has aged much better than "Blindspot" and has a number of episodes every season that are absolutely riveting. The mythology can sometimes be a bit murky but that's more the fault of my own short attention span than anything the writers are doing wrong. The show is regrettably languishing in a low-rated Friday night slot at this point in its run and getting little promotion by NBC, but they must be satisfied with it because it keeps getting renewed, scheduled to return for its eighth season. "The Blacklist" took a huge gamble for its final episode this season, using animation to fill out the remainder of an episode that got cut off halfway into its production due to the COVID shutdown. I can't say the gambit was a success and seems to have gone over very badly with fans, but it does reinforce the general outside-the-box thinking by the series' creative team that has kept this show interesting after so many years. I keep thinking the show's on its last leg but it keeps returning year after year. Grade: B
Hawaii Five-O--Last year I lamented the considerable decline of the long-running Friday night staple that was the "Hawaii Five-O" remake, encouraging them to wind things down because the above-average action procedural had lost its way. It turns out my advice was taken--sort of--as "Hawaii Five-O" wrapped up at the end of its 10th season. The way it was done was unfortunate, however, with CBS only informing the cast and crew in the middle of filming their last episode that they weren't getting picked up. It was indeed time for the series to go, however, with Alex O'Loughlin, the actor who played Steve McGarrett, planning to leave the show primarily because of the chronic pain he'd sustained doing stunts for the show for so many years. McGarrett was the backbone of the show and I couldn't see it being worth saving without him. And even though season 10 was far removed from the series' heyday, I considered it an upgrade from season 9, featuring more memorable episodes and some affecting arcs impacting the lead characters. While I'm grateful the show wasn't allowed to limp along for any additional seasons as a shadow of its former self, I still think a hat tip is in order for the many years of above-average pulp entertainment that came from this long-running reboot. "Hawaii Five-O" held up far longer than I originally expected as a colorful, action-packed popcorn show for Friday night, and I'll miss it as an end-of-week Old Reliable. Grade: C+
Magnum P.I.--The Peter Lenkov reboot machine should have quit while it was ahead with its successful reimagining of "Hawaii Five-O" as its subsequent reboots of both "MacGyver" and "Magnum P.I." have been far less inspired by every metric. I always thought the original "Magnum P.I." was kind of overrated in comparison to many other crimefighter shows of its era but it did do a good job of creating its own unique universe. The reboot hasn't even done that with generic retreads of the more colorful characters of the original. Like most CBS procedurals, the "Magnum" reboot had a few solidly done episodes this year but by and large its output was entirely forgettable and substantively interchangeable. The show's ratings have been mediocre but especially with "Hawaii Five-O" having ended I suspect CBS will be satisfied with mediocre for its Friday night lineup of stale retreads that seem to have tapped into enough middle-aged viewers with fond memories of the original franchises to beat the weak Friday competition. It's disappointing since the longer the reboots run, the more likely they'll dilute the cultural footprints of the superior original product. Grade: C-
Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector--The most weirdly named new series of the past season was NBC's 10-episode serial killer thriller that was a tick more interesting than I suspected but nothing groundbreaking. The networks all seem to have a pretty predictable template for their procedurals and "Lincoln Rhyme" fell right into the zone of what a viewer would expect of an NBC series. The ratings weren't great and the series will be a long shot to return next year. The network could do worse but the narrative seemed like it was relatively contained to a one-season run, so the showrunners would have to give them a compelling reason to come back. Grade: B-
MacGyver--It's rather amazing how the lackluster reboot of my all-time favorite series "MacGyver" is tracking the run of the original, outlasting everybody's expectations while still getting zero respect. CBS has long given the series abysmal promotion and as limited of exposure as they possibly can, and heading into the 2019 fall season, they didn't even put "MacGyver" on their fall schedule despite ratings impressive enough that it absolutely earned it. Sidelined until February, "MacGyver" returned with a new showrunner and creative team but little renewed reason to continue to exist. The show has long been a chore for me, an end-of-weekend obligation I save until late Sunday night, and that didn't change for me this year. I'll give the show credit for some great guest cast choices, with Peter Weller, Jeri Ryan, and Tobin Bell all playing heavies this year, but the content has continued to underwhelm, consistently a cut below CBS's other action procedurals let alone the original "MacGyver" with far too many pointless and uninteresting secondary characters diluting the core of the franchise. Even when they come up with clever MacGyverisms, such as stopping an underwater missile by turning the water gelatinous and absorbing the incoming missile in season 4's premiere, the CGI was worse than 70s-era Hanna-Barbera animation. The series had a dark story arc late in the season, which at least mirrored the dark turn the original series took in its fourth season, but I'm still not inclined to give bonus points for effort on such a turkey of a series. With all of that said, "MacGyver" will be returning for a fifth season, and in this case I can confidently say it will be back in the fall and not later since the series produced 20 episodes but only aired 13 as of its May 8th season finale, shelving the remaining seven. It was a good idea by CBS and could give the show a leg up in having new content before nearly everything else on television returns due to COVID production delays. Will I be so starved for original programming come September that I'll be celebrating the return of the "MacGyver" reboot? Seems unlikely. I genuinely resent this reboot for consuming the cultural footprint of the original, which it's definitely doing at this point heading into season 5. Grade: D+
The Rookie--Last year, ABC's freshman copper "The Rookie" was my favorite show on television, a perfect blend of action, humor, and drama with a strong cast fronted by always likeable Nathan Filion. I still enjoyed the hell out of its second season....more or less. When it was on its game, it was incredible. But it was on its game a little less reliably in its second season, producing a number of episodes that were just okay or even downright forgettable. I wasn't a huge fan of SNL's Pete Davidson emerging as a ne'er-do-well half brother of Nolan, but suspect he'll be returning if the series comes back for a third season. But whether it be Lucy's kidnapping at the hands of a serial killer suitor or Armstrong emerging as a dirty cop in with the Armenian mob, "The Rookie" proved it could still pack quite a punch, and I'm grateful they were able to get all 20 episodes produced this season before the COVID shutdown. The ratings were impressive by the modern primetime standards of ABC (the 10th highest rated scripted show on television this season), which makes it all the more mind-blowing that as of this writing, ABC still hasn't committed to a third season. They'd be nuts to not renew it as it's almost unthinkable they could find a stronger ratings performer for Sunday night at 10/9, but especially in the COVID era, perhaps they'll put a premium on cheap, in which case the big-budget "Rookie" would be at a disadvantage. Not as pitch-perfect as season 1 but still a great way to finish the weekend in its sophomore season. Grade: B
Good Girls--While some shows I watch leave me ambivalent about their survival at season's end, I'm always pleased when I see that the dark comedy "Good Girls" is returning, as it will be next year for season 4. In one sense, the show may have reached its natural expiration date but the writing continues to be so inappropriately crisp and depraved year after year that I hunger for more. This year they were only able to make 11 of the 16 episodes ordered, and the fact that so many episodes were already in pre-production but never got made probably made NBC's decision easier to bring the show back despite unimpressive ratings. The nature of the show is comparable to "Prison Break" and "Revenge", which also started creatively strong but ultimately overstayed their welcome. The same thing is likely to happen with "Good Girls", either through a tangible jump-the-shark moment or a slower-motion attrition where the characters' extended crime spree proves creatively unsustainable. I was nervous we were already there with "Good Girls" by the end of season 2, but the show maintained its spunk in season 3 and I think it has some gas left in the tank for next year. Grade: B
So on balance, network television this past season has been about where it's been for much of the last decade. It's far better than it was 25 years ago, but is largely stuck in a recycled rut with increasing aversion to risk-taking. That's why most of the nearly two dozen shows I profiled fell in the B's and C's range when it comes to letter grades. This is unfortunate insofar that so many primetime hours are filled with multiple variations of NCIS and lackluster reboots of superior original products, but I can't bring myself to shed too many tears for what passes for mediocre TV by today's standards. I'm really impressed with the kinds of production values that are affordable on network series that are drawing a fraction as many viewers (and getting smaller all the time) as the shows I grew up with. Back in the 90s, as the networks were really starting to hemorrhage audience to cable alternatives, the economics of television were ridiculously depressing and it was an open question if low-budget sitcoms, newsmagazines, and reality crime shows would be all the networks could afford to produce with the ad revenue available to them. And considering that even today, clunky reality shows tend to bring larger audiences that just about every scripted series, it would be incredibly easy for the networks to push scripted shows with production values entirely to the curb in favor of 22 hours a week of primetime singing competitions and group date shows. Yet somehow, they haven't sunk to that level yet.
I don't want to give the networks too much credit, but I also don't want to give them too little. I fear that someday, those of us who appreciate what is made available for free to the public through broadcast television will lament the loss of what we have now, which includes a steady diet of reasonably well-produced series on a reliable weekly schedule. The likely hit of ad revenue the broadcast networks are poised to take in the pending economic depression could make this prospect more than just a hypothetical in the very near future, which means I'll probably circle the wagons consuming network television as aggressively as ever to do my part to keep that from happening. I don't want Jeff Bezos to control the entire distribution of consumer products at the expense of brick-and-mortar stores....and I don't want pay-to-play streaming services to control the entire distribution of television we consume. I'm probably fighting a losing battle on both fronts, but I'll be hanging on with my fingernails for the entirety of the plummet into new economy hell.
9-1-1--One of the highest-rated scripted shows on television lived up to its past work again this season, with an appropriate mix of drama, humor, and intense rescues. Like most shows of this nature, the CGI wasn't always entirely believable, but it was reliably above-average on "9-1-1", as were the scripts. Whether it be Athena's investigation to discover her long-ago-murdered fiancee's killer or the tightly organized caper by thieves who staged and armed takeover of the 9-1-1 call center, the series was always entertaining and on occasion even moving with a solid cast of likeable characters. I hope they continue to do work this good for season 4, whenever that may come. Grade: B+
Prodigal Son--There was plenty to work with in this series' high-concept outline featuring the son of an imprisoned serial killer channeling his boyhood demons to be a profiler of killers, and they delivered a few stellar episodes over the course of the 20 episodes they were able to produce for their inaugural season. Michael Sheen lit up the screen as devious serial killer Martin Whitly, so episodes where his character had a considerable presence were the most memorable. With that said, I rarely felt the series rose above conventional procedural tropes despite its efforts to be dark and edgy. It certainly wasn't as twisted as Kevin Bacon's "The Following" which found its way onto network television airwaves back in 2013. While ostensibly well-made, there were just too many hours over the course of this season that reinforced to me that "Prodigal Son" wasn't really my cup of tea. I'll still probably watch it next season though, at least early on. Grade: C+
Manifest--I walked away from season 1 of NBC's soft-core science fiction freshman so underwhelmed that I considered not bothering with it for season 2. Surprisingly, the series modestly improved in its storytelling and quickened its pacing in season 2, at least to the point where I was vaguely interested in what was going on on the screen in a way I wasn't for large swaths of season 1. It's still not a show I've had a smooth and natural connection with and if NBC decided to not proceed with a third season I wouldn't lose one moment's sleep, but I'll at least give them credit for exceeding my low expectations for season 2 with a cleverly expanded mythology regarding the survivors of the lost flight and the reactions from the public spooked by them. Grade: C+
9-1-1: Lonestar--I'm usually a harsh critic of when a successful television franchise branches out and weakens its brand with imitators a la CSI, NCIS, and the trio of "Chicago" shows from Dick Wolf. I was prepared to not bother with the Rob Lowe-Liv Tyler-starring expansion of "9-1-1" either, but given how much I enjoyed the original and saw it was only gonna be a nine-episode trial run in the middle of winter, I gave it a shot. The verdict: it was definitely not an upgrade from the original, with far less memorable characters and a ridiculously excessive amount of time spent talking about Rob Lowe's character's hair. I'll give the show some kudos for the Texas-centric emergency rescue ideas but wonder how long that will be sustainable enough to maintain any semblance of identity for this series compared to the original. Ultimately, "Lonestar" gives little to justify its existence beyond a money grab by producers and the network of a successful franchise, and I don't plan to reward them for it by returning next season. Grade: C+
The Conners--Last season I was impressed how well the series formerly known as "Roseanne" held up without the toxic presence of the overrated title character, and this season only reinforced that the soul of this blue-collar comedy had little if anything to do with Roseanne Barr herself. What makes "The Conners" work is the stellar cast which plays off of each other with some of the best timing I've ever seen in a situation comedy, and above all the snappy writing which regularly finds humor in the darkest sociological places. It's rather astonishing how cynical the show and its characters are, but the cynicism accurately captures the zeitgeist of a struggling working-class family in a burned-out Midwestern industrial town above and beyond what one would imagine coming out of a Hollywood production crew. The series finds a way to touch upon nearly every source of anxiety that's tearing apart Middle America all while managing to largely avoid being preachy or one-dimensional, and I really look forward to how they deal with the COVID-19 shutdown--and the economic depression that follows--next season, whenever that may be. Grade: B+
FBI--I was ho-hum on the first season of Dick Wolf's latest network procedural last year and, if anything, thought it got even more generic in its second season. That's not to say the show wasn't capable of a handful of really entertaining and well-executed episodes in its second season. Like most procedurals on CBS--or from the Dick Wolf assembly line--"FBI" indeed had its moments, but by and large it was a season of uninspired mediocrity with an interchangeable and unmemorable cast (which was actually minus its only household name--Sela Ward--who left at the end of season 1). Nonetheless, its cushy timeslot following the still-popular "NCIS" has kept the show a major ratings player, so much so that it actually inspired a spinoff (!!) called "FBI: Most Wanted" that I didn't watch. Interestingly, "FBI" was the first network series to run out of episodes due to the COVID shutdown, wrapping up its season on March 31st. That won't stop it from returning for a season 3 either next season or whenever life begins to resume again. I'm sure the third season of "FBI" will likely produce a few more entertaining hours per season amidst a generally forgettable full-season slate that keeps senior citizens nominally tuning in week after week but offering little to keep younger viewers sticking around. Grade: C
Emergence--I just don't "get" sci-fi. I never have. That hasn't stopped me from sampling a number of softer-core science fiction series that have come along on network airwaves over the years, the most successful being "Lost", but as a genre I've just never connected. That's why I can't render more than a personal judgment on the quality or lack thereof of ABC's "Emergence", which burned through 13 episodes last fall and winter before ending with a whimper. It had an intriguing pilot episode with a core of appealing characters and modest if never totally impressive ratings out of the starting gate, but I suspected it would delve deeper and deeper into science fiction as it proceeded, and I wasn't wrong. I never felt like the show lived up to its potential and didn't care for how things progressed, and judging by its declining ratings trajectory leading up to its unceremonious cancellation, it appears as though most other viewers had the same response. Like most science fiction series, "Emergence" had a core following, and its unfortunate that the nature of primetime scheduling is squeezing out "different" shows like this that might appeal to a more niche and underserved audience, but it definitely wasn't for me and I wouldn't have continued with the show even if it had gotten renewed. Grade: C-
Stumptown--This Portland-based detective series starring Cobie Smulders busted out of the starting gate with a strong pilot and a lot of hype, but it didn't take long for it to crumble under its own bloated cast and lack of coherent identity. Of "Stumptown's" 18 episodes, about a third were pretty good, but another third of them were unwatchably bad, the byproduct of a series that clearly doesn't know what it wants to be. The cast is overly bloated, and in the eagerness to give everybody something to do, managed to dilute the franchise into a muddle. ABC's ads for the show always hype up the "love triangle of the week" storyline and downplay the detective angle, indicating there may be a lot of ABC's notorious creative interference on a series trying to find its footing. The functional alcoholic title character suffering from PTSD from her days in Iraq, and who lives with her mentally challenged brother, has her moments of being genuinely fascinating, but the series badly needs focus and that will require trimming some of its extensive background players and spending less time per week obsessing over boy-kissed-girl or girl-kissed-girl inanities. The series' fate remains in limbo and will be one of the toughest calls for renewal by ABC. It might deserve a reprieve, but just barely, and my fear is what needs to be fixed won't be. Grade: C-
SWAT--As CBS's action procedurals go, I've long had a soft spot for "SWAT". It has some of the fastest and best-produced action scenes and some of the most engaging subplots for its characters that often extend in multi-episode arcs. "SWAT" reminds me of "New York Undercover" in that sense, where even if the primary action plot is below par, the character storylines often make up for it. This season had its share of solid episodes, including Street's undercover operation to bust the mobsters his brother was working for and Hondo's intense personal connection to East African genocide. Now like most CBS shows that make 22 episodes a season, "SWAT" had its share of forgettable episodes too, but it ended its season with more things for a viewer to latch onto than, say, "FBI". "SWAT" moved to Wednesday this season after two successful seasons on Thursday, and the move was not met well by viewers with ratings down more than 25%. For most of the season, I was convinced season 3 of "SWAT" would be its last, but it ticked up at just the right time and earned itself a season 4 renewal from CBS, which I was grateful to see. Grade: B-
Superstore--While not quite as gritty or emotionally resonant in its depiction of downscale life in Middle America as "The Conners", the cast of newly celebrated essential workers in the quirky "Superstore" nonetheless pack quite a punch in humorously depicting the perpetually anxious life of those who stand on their feet for a living. Taking on everything from increased automation in the workplace to vindictive management responses over forming a union in season 5, "Superstore" knows its characters as well as any other show on television, being reliably funny even when the subject matter gets ostensibly dark. There's a risk of its quirky characters drifting into cartoonishness but they've kept most of them multi-dimensional thus far. I look forward to seeing how "Superstore" takes on COVID-19 in the workplace matters when it returns for season 6. Grade: B+
Evil--I wasn't prepared last fall when I began watching "Evil", about an oddball trio of paranormal investigators working on behalf of the Catholic church, and quickly discovered it was the most oddball, out-there network television fare since "Twin Peaks" premiered on ABC 30 years ago. I was intrigued right off the bat, not to mention startled by the show's capacity for genuinely creepy moments, but it was Episode 4 when I really stood up and took notice. "Rose390" was the single best hour of network television I saw in the entire decade of the 2010s, masterfully put together and skin-crawling spooky above and beyond anything I ever expected to see on network television. That episode gave the show a lot of street cred for me, but if I'm being honest it was hit and miss after that high-water mark. The show has an expansive, unpredictable universe where the tone of each week's episode often varies dramatically with the tone of the previous episodes. I appreciate that about "Evil" as it keeps viewers on their toes in a network TV landscape full of very predictable and formulaic series, but its storytelling diversity can be as big of a liability one week as it was an asset the previous week. The show's fan base seemed to have a similar response to me on that front, appreciating the show's risk-taking but not always finding every risk to yield the intended reward. The show's ratings were not great, as is often the case with shows this outside the box and particularly when broadcast on a network with the most conservative audience, but hats off to CBS for giving it an early second-season renewal anyway and allowing the showrunners some creative breathing room. I'm tempted to give "Evil" an even higher grade but given that it was unquestionably--and in some ways intentionally--inconsistent, I'll stop short of rating it at the top of my grading curve. Grade: B+
Deputy--If "Evil" was a great example of stylistic risk-taking on network television, "Deputy" was a great example of sticking with convention on network television. That's not to say "Deputy" was as reactionary as its early ads made it look as the show's politics was almost hecklingly "woke" for a series broadcast on Fox. Stephen Dorff was well-cast and had a charismatic presence as the gruff cowboy deputy who backdoored his way into becoming Los Angeles County Sheriff on a technicality, but when the series' opening scene featured Dorff's Bill Hollister character facing suspension for refusing to participate in ICE raids, it was an immediate warning sign of a show that wasn't going to know its audience. Beyond that, the series had a couple of standout episodes but largely tread on conventional police procedural turf, inexplicably mining the same turf almost every week when depicting Hollister's personal life at home with his wife and daughter. Filmed in New Mexico, I'll give the show high marks for its production values in the action scenes set in the rugged rural terrain. At no point, however, did I really connect with this show and didn't shed any tears when I learned of its cancellation. With that said, the ratings weren't terrible so it was a bit surprising Fox announced it was shit-canning the show only a week after its 13-episode run ended. Perhaps that's an indication there was something to my assessment of the show's worldview being so greatly divergent with the audience Fox was going for. Grade: C
Brooklyn Nine-Nine--I complimented "Superstore" upthread for largely avoiding turning its regulars into cartoon characters, but veteran police comedy "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" has remained successful by taking the opposite tact and intentionally making its cast of characters cartoonish. As viewers, we're generally in on the joke that the squad of officers might well be toiling in a normal workplace if not for the corrupting influence of Andy Samberg's Jake Peralta character, the core of the show that drives everybody else to the outer edges of eccentric madness. Sometimes the show gets a little too silly for its own good, but there's rarely a shortage of laughs and the lightning-paced comedic discourse among the actors is always impressive to behold. The show also manages some impressive production values, staging a spattering of action scenes that you don't expect to see done so well on a half-hour comedy. I would have never imagined back in 2013 when it premiered that "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" would still be on the air by 2020, but amazingly the show is still holding up well enough that I'm fully onboard with the show's renewal for an eighth season next year. Grade: B
Blindspot--There was a point three seasons ago when NBC's high-octane action show "Blindspot" was my favorite show on network television, particularly in its second season when it really found its footing. Unfortunately. the show had been moved from a plum timeslot and had to survive on its own, and bled a huge share of its audience. I was skeptical it would be renewed for a third season, but extremely grateful when it was. Regrettably, it's been downhill for the show since then, both creatively and in terms of audience response. Sentenced to languish in a Friday night ghetto, I was shocked when the show survived to a fourth season, and absolutely blown away by NBC's decision to give it an abbreviated fifth season which only began to air in early May. Either the series' showrunner has damning evidence against a top NBC executive or the network was wholly committed to getting to the 100-episode mark for a more lucrative syndication deal, particularly overseas where an old-school action show like "Blindspot" really seems to connect. I suspect the latter is the correct answer as the season 5 episode order "Blindspot" got puts it at exactly 100 episodes. Only two of this season's episodes have aired, and while there are still flashes of the spunk the show routinely served up in its halcyon days, it mostly seems weary and long ago overdue to be put to sleep. With that said, I'm grateful to have one show putting up new episodes for me to watch this summer, and I hope the series can somehow reverse its long, painful decline in its final stretch of episodes. Grade: C-
The Blacklist--Here's another series that seemed like it would be out of gas years ago that has somehow soldiered on to the completion of its seventh season! I'm more than a little surprised that James Spader hasn't gotten bored, especially given the rigorous schedule of an hourlong drama producing 22 episodes a season. "The Blacklist" has aged much better than "Blindspot" and has a number of episodes every season that are absolutely riveting. The mythology can sometimes be a bit murky but that's more the fault of my own short attention span than anything the writers are doing wrong. The show is regrettably languishing in a low-rated Friday night slot at this point in its run and getting little promotion by NBC, but they must be satisfied with it because it keeps getting renewed, scheduled to return for its eighth season. "The Blacklist" took a huge gamble for its final episode this season, using animation to fill out the remainder of an episode that got cut off halfway into its production due to the COVID shutdown. I can't say the gambit was a success and seems to have gone over very badly with fans, but it does reinforce the general outside-the-box thinking by the series' creative team that has kept this show interesting after so many years. I keep thinking the show's on its last leg but it keeps returning year after year. Grade: B
Hawaii Five-O--Last year I lamented the considerable decline of the long-running Friday night staple that was the "Hawaii Five-O" remake, encouraging them to wind things down because the above-average action procedural had lost its way. It turns out my advice was taken--sort of--as "Hawaii Five-O" wrapped up at the end of its 10th season. The way it was done was unfortunate, however, with CBS only informing the cast and crew in the middle of filming their last episode that they weren't getting picked up. It was indeed time for the series to go, however, with Alex O'Loughlin, the actor who played Steve McGarrett, planning to leave the show primarily because of the chronic pain he'd sustained doing stunts for the show for so many years. McGarrett was the backbone of the show and I couldn't see it being worth saving without him. And even though season 10 was far removed from the series' heyday, I considered it an upgrade from season 9, featuring more memorable episodes and some affecting arcs impacting the lead characters. While I'm grateful the show wasn't allowed to limp along for any additional seasons as a shadow of its former self, I still think a hat tip is in order for the many years of above-average pulp entertainment that came from this long-running reboot. "Hawaii Five-O" held up far longer than I originally expected as a colorful, action-packed popcorn show for Friday night, and I'll miss it as an end-of-week Old Reliable. Grade: C+
Magnum P.I.--The Peter Lenkov reboot machine should have quit while it was ahead with its successful reimagining of "Hawaii Five-O" as its subsequent reboots of both "MacGyver" and "Magnum P.I." have been far less inspired by every metric. I always thought the original "Magnum P.I." was kind of overrated in comparison to many other crimefighter shows of its era but it did do a good job of creating its own unique universe. The reboot hasn't even done that with generic retreads of the more colorful characters of the original. Like most CBS procedurals, the "Magnum" reboot had a few solidly done episodes this year but by and large its output was entirely forgettable and substantively interchangeable. The show's ratings have been mediocre but especially with "Hawaii Five-O" having ended I suspect CBS will be satisfied with mediocre for its Friday night lineup of stale retreads that seem to have tapped into enough middle-aged viewers with fond memories of the original franchises to beat the weak Friday competition. It's disappointing since the longer the reboots run, the more likely they'll dilute the cultural footprints of the superior original product. Grade: C-
Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector--The most weirdly named new series of the past season was NBC's 10-episode serial killer thriller that was a tick more interesting than I suspected but nothing groundbreaking. The networks all seem to have a pretty predictable template for their procedurals and "Lincoln Rhyme" fell right into the zone of what a viewer would expect of an NBC series. The ratings weren't great and the series will be a long shot to return next year. The network could do worse but the narrative seemed like it was relatively contained to a one-season run, so the showrunners would have to give them a compelling reason to come back. Grade: B-
MacGyver--It's rather amazing how the lackluster reboot of my all-time favorite series "MacGyver" is tracking the run of the original, outlasting everybody's expectations while still getting zero respect. CBS has long given the series abysmal promotion and as limited of exposure as they possibly can, and heading into the 2019 fall season, they didn't even put "MacGyver" on their fall schedule despite ratings impressive enough that it absolutely earned it. Sidelined until February, "MacGyver" returned with a new showrunner and creative team but little renewed reason to continue to exist. The show has long been a chore for me, an end-of-weekend obligation I save until late Sunday night, and that didn't change for me this year. I'll give the show credit for some great guest cast choices, with Peter Weller, Jeri Ryan, and Tobin Bell all playing heavies this year, but the content has continued to underwhelm, consistently a cut below CBS's other action procedurals let alone the original "MacGyver" with far too many pointless and uninteresting secondary characters diluting the core of the franchise. Even when they come up with clever MacGyverisms, such as stopping an underwater missile by turning the water gelatinous and absorbing the incoming missile in season 4's premiere, the CGI was worse than 70s-era Hanna-Barbera animation. The series had a dark story arc late in the season, which at least mirrored the dark turn the original series took in its fourth season, but I'm still not inclined to give bonus points for effort on such a turkey of a series. With all of that said, "MacGyver" will be returning for a fifth season, and in this case I can confidently say it will be back in the fall and not later since the series produced 20 episodes but only aired 13 as of its May 8th season finale, shelving the remaining seven. It was a good idea by CBS and could give the show a leg up in having new content before nearly everything else on television returns due to COVID production delays. Will I be so starved for original programming come September that I'll be celebrating the return of the "MacGyver" reboot? Seems unlikely. I genuinely resent this reboot for consuming the cultural footprint of the original, which it's definitely doing at this point heading into season 5. Grade: D+
The Rookie--Last year, ABC's freshman copper "The Rookie" was my favorite show on television, a perfect blend of action, humor, and drama with a strong cast fronted by always likeable Nathan Filion. I still enjoyed the hell out of its second season....more or less. When it was on its game, it was incredible. But it was on its game a little less reliably in its second season, producing a number of episodes that were just okay or even downright forgettable. I wasn't a huge fan of SNL's Pete Davidson emerging as a ne'er-do-well half brother of Nolan, but suspect he'll be returning if the series comes back for a third season. But whether it be Lucy's kidnapping at the hands of a serial killer suitor or Armstrong emerging as a dirty cop in with the Armenian mob, "The Rookie" proved it could still pack quite a punch, and I'm grateful they were able to get all 20 episodes produced this season before the COVID shutdown. The ratings were impressive by the modern primetime standards of ABC (the 10th highest rated scripted show on television this season), which makes it all the more mind-blowing that as of this writing, ABC still hasn't committed to a third season. They'd be nuts to not renew it as it's almost unthinkable they could find a stronger ratings performer for Sunday night at 10/9, but especially in the COVID era, perhaps they'll put a premium on cheap, in which case the big-budget "Rookie" would be at a disadvantage. Not as pitch-perfect as season 1 but still a great way to finish the weekend in its sophomore season. Grade: B
Good Girls--While some shows I watch leave me ambivalent about their survival at season's end, I'm always pleased when I see that the dark comedy "Good Girls" is returning, as it will be next year for season 4. In one sense, the show may have reached its natural expiration date but the writing continues to be so inappropriately crisp and depraved year after year that I hunger for more. This year they were only able to make 11 of the 16 episodes ordered, and the fact that so many episodes were already in pre-production but never got made probably made NBC's decision easier to bring the show back despite unimpressive ratings. The nature of the show is comparable to "Prison Break" and "Revenge", which also started creatively strong but ultimately overstayed their welcome. The same thing is likely to happen with "Good Girls", either through a tangible jump-the-shark moment or a slower-motion attrition where the characters' extended crime spree proves creatively unsustainable. I was nervous we were already there with "Good Girls" by the end of season 2, but the show maintained its spunk in season 3 and I think it has some gas left in the tank for next year. Grade: B
So on balance, network television this past season has been about where it's been for much of the last decade. It's far better than it was 25 years ago, but is largely stuck in a recycled rut with increasing aversion to risk-taking. That's why most of the nearly two dozen shows I profiled fell in the B's and C's range when it comes to letter grades. This is unfortunate insofar that so many primetime hours are filled with multiple variations of NCIS and lackluster reboots of superior original products, but I can't bring myself to shed too many tears for what passes for mediocre TV by today's standards. I'm really impressed with the kinds of production values that are affordable on network series that are drawing a fraction as many viewers (and getting smaller all the time) as the shows I grew up with. Back in the 90s, as the networks were really starting to hemorrhage audience to cable alternatives, the economics of television were ridiculously depressing and it was an open question if low-budget sitcoms, newsmagazines, and reality crime shows would be all the networks could afford to produce with the ad revenue available to them. And considering that even today, clunky reality shows tend to bring larger audiences that just about every scripted series, it would be incredibly easy for the networks to push scripted shows with production values entirely to the curb in favor of 22 hours a week of primetime singing competitions and group date shows. Yet somehow, they haven't sunk to that level yet.
I don't want to give the networks too much credit, but I also don't want to give them too little. I fear that someday, those of us who appreciate what is made available for free to the public through broadcast television will lament the loss of what we have now, which includes a steady diet of reasonably well-produced series on a reliable weekly schedule. The likely hit of ad revenue the broadcast networks are poised to take in the pending economic depression could make this prospect more than just a hypothetical in the very near future, which means I'll probably circle the wagons consuming network television as aggressively as ever to do my part to keep that from happening. I don't want Jeff Bezos to control the entire distribution of consumer products at the expense of brick-and-mortar stores....and I don't want pay-to-play streaming services to control the entire distribution of television we consume. I'm probably fighting a losing battle on both fronts, but I'll be hanging on with my fingernails for the entirety of the plummet into new economy hell.
posted by Mark at 3:52 PM
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