2020-2021 TV Season in Review

In recent years I've made a tradition of giving an end-of-season review for the shows I watch on network television and I'll do so again this year.  I walk away at the end of the current season impressed with what series were able to produce this year given the strict COVID limitations they were dealt, especially early in the season.  Last September, there was talk of required 10-day shoots per episode, an additional $400,000 per-episode costs just for PPE, and social distancing requirements that kept actors at a distance from each other as much as was possible.  I'm not sure if some of those requirements were eased as the season went along, but I don't think they were eased much for most of the production season.  With that in mind, I went in expecting no more than 10 episodes to be made for most series, but every series managed to make more than that, with some producing 18 episodes or more, and usually without an obvious degree of actor distancing that made the content stand out for good or for bad compared to previous seasons.

So the television industry gets an A for the way they soldiered through the obstacles related to COVID, but particularly as the season comes to an end there are extremely worrying signs for the future of broadcast television and its ability to provide worthwhile content through public airwaves.  I have zero interest in indulging the pay-per-view barons bastardizing the concept of television and turning it into yet another upscale affair that entertains only the rich and upper-middle-class who can afford to pay for premium content.  I'm only interested in television that's as accessible to a poor kid who grows up in the projects or in a shack on a dirt road as it is to households that can afford the two dozen streaming services that one must now subscribe to if they want to see any of the series dominating the contemporary Emmy Awards shows.  

Unfortunately, it's becoming increasingly clear that the networks not only don't plan to compete with the streaming service pay-per-views, but they're getting in on the hustle as well.  Nobody is doing it more cynically than CBS, who is now about to dump three of its network offerings into the new Paramount Plus pay-per-view service.  Most depressingly, this includes "Evil", the most interesting network series of the last few years and my favorite new series of the 2019-2020 season.  Despite modest ratings, CBS renewed "Evil" last season, which caught me by surprise at the time.  But now I know why.  More than a year after season 1 ended, they've disgustingly announced that the second season that fans have been waiting so long for will only come to those willing and able to pay them for it.  Fuck them.

My feelings are thus complicated looking back at the season that was.  I continue to be amazed that network TV is still even in the game given their plummeting audience and presumably declining revenue.  Looking at the ratings numbers by themselves for network television in recent years, I'd have never imagined they'd still be making live-action scripted series at all, let alone ambitious crime shows with costly action scenes and expansive casts.  For this reason, I try not to be too critical because at various points in the 90s I'd have killed for as many respectable hours of network television as are available today, and I struggle to understand how they make the economics work to pay the bills.  And before I get too bummed out that they seem poised for a rapid descent from here, I'll celebrate--if that's the word--the season in the rearview mirror and review the shows I watched.

9-1-1--One of network TV's highest-rated series continues to be one of its most entertaining.  A healthy mix of humor, drama, and action/suspense has been a successful formula for "9-1-1" for four seasons now.  Not every individual episode hits the ball out of the park and not every ambitious action scene they attempt has good enough CGI to fully pull off, but the series knows its characters and knows how to make them sympathetic to the audience.  And occasionally the show has a really good script that ties all the divergent storylines together with a ribbon, such as the one that began with a drunk driver causing a freeway pile-up and ending with Chimney gaining a son and losing a brother on the same day.  It's one of the few series I get genuinely excited about when it's about to come on and I hope they can keep their winning formula on point in the seasons to come.  Grade:  B+

9-1-1: Lonestar--I'll happily admit I got it wrong on this one last year.  When it premiered in January 2020, I dismissed it as a gimmicky expansion of a successful franchise and only previewed it because it was given a 10-episode trial run in January when there were no other shows I was watching on Monday night.  I didn't find the characters as interesting as the characters from the flagship "9-1-1" and found Rob Lowe's character particularly unappealing.  I even said I wasn't likely to bother with a second season of the series.  But when January came around and TV finally resumed to its regular schedule of episodic fare, I gave "911: Lonestar" another sampling...and I'm glad I did.  The original "9-1-1's" skilled use of backstory for its characters rubbed off on the spinoff, occasionally making for truly compelling television.  The episodes that gave the full backstory for medic Judd along with the recent stunner where Tommy Vega returned home to find her husband dead were the two best hours of network television this year.  Not every episode was that great and the extended cast still sports its fair share of uninteresting stiffs, but I'm not discounting the potential of the "9-1-1" showrunners to find a way to make them more compelling as well.  It hurts a little to give such an unapologetic thumbs-up to this expansion-franchise spinoff, but I'm glad I stuck with this one for another round and will definitely be back for season 3.   Grade:  B

FBI--From one "franchise" to another, I must also credit "FBI" for stepping up its game from the previous season.  "FBI" has always seemed like a generic procedural straight off the Dick Wolf assembly line and continues to suffer from that lack of identity as CBS shamelessly expands (there will be three "FBI" shows back-to-back-to-back on Tuesday nights next season).  But unlike last season, the suspense, action, and character motivation was more on point in season 3 than it was the previous season.  Just about all of this season's episodes kept me tightly engaged throughout the hour with a nicely crafted procedural story.  It's not the kind of show I'd shed any tears for if it disappeared, but again, there were years in the 90s I'd have killed for a show done this well on network TV.  Grade: B-

Prodigal Son--On one hand, I had a measure of admiration for this serial killer thriller both this season and last as they certainly tried to give audiences something darker and moodier than typical network television fare, but it never fully worked for me personally.  The show was at its best when the gallows humor dial was cranked up to 11 in the character banter, but whenever the show trafficked in any kind of conventional procedural plotlines it tended to fall flat.  After moving from its cushy post-"9-1-1" Monday slot last season to a more challenging Tuesday evening slot for season 2, the only thing more moribund than "Prodigal Son's" plotlines were its ratings.  Catherine Zeta-Jones was added to the cast midseason as a sociopathic doctor who served as a foil for serial killer patriarch Martin Whitley, but the creative results were mixed and it ultimately seemed like "Prodigal Son" was throwing everything it could think of against the wall to see what would stick.  I appreciated the effort (better to try too hard than too little as so many network shows do these days) but I also understand why so much of the audience didn't stay with it.  Fox canceled "Prodigal Son" at the end of season 2, but there's considerable chatter of it being picked up by a streaming service.  I wish them luck, but I definitely won't be following the series to pay-per-view if it proceeds.  Grade:  C+

Big Sky--The only genuinely out-there series to premiere on conservative network TV in 2020-2021 was the Montana-based David E. Kelley thriller "Big Sky".  The quirky series wants to be this generation's "Twin Peaks", but to say the series was inconsistent would make me guilty of criminal understatement.  "Big Sky" had flashes of genuine brilliance with the characters it created and the clever scenarios it put them in.  Some scenes were absolutely captivating.  But the series had an ADD-level lack of focus and rushed through otherwise compelling story arcs to unsatisfying climaxes, often with the most compelling characters seeming to reinvent themselves every few episodes to meet the needs of the moment.  The female detective leads are stiffs yet seem poised to be the show's only core moving forward, with the far more interesting side characters disposed of along the way.  The series was nonetheless a modest hit for lackluster performer ABC this past season and got some favorable buzz along the way, including a thumbs-up from horror novelist Stephen King.  Even after the absurd season finale, I must confess I'm still looking forward to seeing more next fall, hopeful that the series is given a steadier sense of direction to help them live up to the potential of the impressive baseline that they established at various points in season 1.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure "Big Sky" will ever again find itself with the kind of platform it was given early last season when it captured the nation's fancy about as much as is possible for a network series these days.  Grade:  B

The Conners--Even with all the social distancing limitations, "The Conners" still managed to turn out 20 episodes this season, and mostly sustained the gritty, blue-collar authenticity that has defined this franchise for more than three decades now and modernizing it for contemporary struggles which obviously included the pandemic this past season.  The series maintains an impressive degree of continuity with the original "Roseanne", bringing back a number of characters and storylines that were likely forgotten by all but the most dedicated fans of the original.  They even came up with a clever COVID-related premise that led to the reopening of Wellman Plastics where Roseanne and Jackie toiled in the series' early seasons.  Not every detour they took was a homerun though.  They brought back Darlene's neighbor girl frenemy Molly Tilden for an episode and then unceremoniously killed the character off with a surprise brain disease, all with surprisingly little emotional resonance for either Darlene or Molly's own mother.  On the other hand, the show delivered some outstanding writing and acting in the way it dealt with Becky's alcoholism and identifying its origins of her disappointing trajectory after high school and the death of her husband, and even more outstanding when the topic came to a head with her father at the therapy session.  The original "Roseanne" was always astonishingly cynical for a network sitcom and its contemporary successor fits the modern anxieties of a blue-collar family even more impressively.  It's kind of surprising to see Hollywood read the pulse of Middle American angst this effectively.  Grade:  B

SWAT--As the long list of exhausting procedurals and shameless reboots on CBS's primetime lineup goes, the most ambitious is definitely "SWAT", now ending its fourth season as the most action-packed series on primetime.  While "SWAT" at times follows the beats of the conventional procedural a bit too closely, it's creative and well-filmed action and chase scenes can make a child of the 80s feel like he's watching reruns of "The Fall Guy" or "The A-Team" in a way that none of the other procedurals do.  "SWAT" also comes up with some intriguing side plots for its characters and this season was no exception, with department head Hondo dealing with his adopted teenage foster son reconnecting with his ex-con birth father.  The persistently turbulent relationship between Street and his scheming mother also continues to be entertaining. Like other cop shows, "SWAT" served up no shortage of wokeness this season in its dealing with policing in the post-George Floyd era, but has done so with more nuance than its contemporaries.  Ratings have been modest these last couple of years so I've been concerned that "SWAT" might not get picked up for season 5, but CBS was surprisingly quick to do so.  It is unfortunately gonna be sidelined to Friday nights, but I'll take what I can get if "SWAT" can continue to maintain its above-average quality for another season of old-school action.  Grade:  B

Superstore--The quirky comedy that puts the spotlight on America's foremost "essential employees" didn't disappoint in its treatment of the COVID pandemic in its abbreviated final season.  The series' absence from the network schedule will be a gaping omission next fall.  Like "The Conners", the Missouri-based series knows its characters and its subject matter, but unlike "The Conners", it rarely despaired in its treatment even when the economic anxiety of its characters got the most ostensibly dark.  With that said, the departure of America Ferrara early in the season left "Superstore" relatively rudderless and directionless.  It wasn't as if the romantic tension between Ferrara's Amy Sosa character and Ben Feldman's Jonah character was that irreplaceable, but Amy always served as the straight person that was needed to play off of the band of misfits she toiled with.  The series lacked a core without her, and that appeared to be clear to the showrunners who brought Ferrara's character back for the last few episodes and gave "Superstore" one of the most effective sendoffs in recent memory.  Grade:  B

Clarice--The umptieth treatment of novelist Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter franchise, which premiered in February, has had its moments of capturing my interest, but with nine episodes having aired as of this writing, I'm not yet fully signed on and find that more episodes than not fall flat.  For CBS this is a problem since they're cynically farming the show out to their pay-per-view Paramount Plus network for its second season.  Thus far, there are only a couple of characters on this overpopulated dark procedural who interest me.  There's room to grow with that but the series has a long way to go.  The pacing is inconsistent and a number of episodes drag on with little in the way of satisfying or particularly memorable resolution.  The feature-film quality look of the show is impressive, but even the look falls short of the recent treatment the Lecter franchise got just a few years back on NBC's excellent three-season thriller "Hannibal".  Thus far, "Clarice" has not proven itself an upgrade from "Hannibal", and if you're not able or not willing to improve upon the most recent template of a long-running franchise, then what's the point?  If "Clarice" was returning to CBS for season 2, I'd probably give it another shot to see if it found its sea legs in its sophomore season, but since it's being farmed out to Paramount Plus where I'll be expected to pay to see more, I suspect moths will soon be hovering around the mouths of those involved in this project for reasons beyond the franchise's folk lore.  Grade:  C

Manifest--As "sci-fi" shows go, "Manifest" is in one sense as close to my speed as I'm gonna find.  Its forays into the supernatural aren't frequent or particularly extensive, at least in comparison to, say, ABC's "Emergence" last season.  With that said, the show on TV today that most closely mirrors "Lost" from 15 years ago falls far short of "Lost's" level of quality.  The premise, related to a planeload of passengers lost in a time warp for five years, who returned to the US with the world having aged five years in their absence, is a clever one and on occasion the writers come up with a creative detour worthy of that premise.  But the sluggish pacing the show suffered from in its original season hasn't fully gone away and there remains a vibe that they're mostly making things up as they go.  Ten episodes deep into what's likely the final season (three episodes left to air) and there have been a couple of hours that have been truly engaging, even if the content borders on nonsense.  I hope the show goes out with a bang.  Even if it does, "Manifest" will merely be a blip on the radar of television history, but at this point anything network TV puts out that deviates from the procedural formula has to be seen as something of a victory.  Grade:  C+

The Blacklist--Last summer, I read an article assuring television viewers that the days of 22-episode seasons of their favorite series were over, at least for the COVID-stricken 2020-2021 TV season to come.  But somehow, some way, veteran James Spader procedural "The Blacklist" managed to make 22 episodes this season, with three of them yet to air as the series unprecedentedly extends its run into June.  Never would have imagined a few years back that "The Blacklist" would still be going, with eight seasons in the rearview mirror and already renewed for a ninth season.  NBC clearly has low ratings expectations on Friday nights and the cult favorite's modest numbers appear to meet those expectations.  So is the quality holding up to match the impressive episodic output?  Not bad.  The series works best when it either keeps its storylines simple (like the great episode where Reddington's worlds collided in small-town Kansas with his enemies learning about his secret girlfriend) or when it ventures into completely bonkers territory (such as Agent Keen's "cyronoid" cleverly deployed to fill her shoes when actress Megan Boone stepped away in the middle of the season).  But just as in previous seasons, the series is least effective when it ventures into murky, convoluted cloak and dagger stuff, and there was no shortage of that this season.  Plus Keen's visceral determination to throw away her career (and eventually her freedom) to kill Reddington this season after seven prior seasons of accepting his hijinks seems a bit forced.  Either way, the show remains a reliable Friday night distraction and hasn't yet worn out its welcome.  Still, one has to wonder how long this series can go.  It's already gone about 80 episodes beyond what I figured was its likely expiration date.  Grade:  B-

MacGyver--I was just beginning to resign myself to the idea that the legacy of the vastly superior original "MacGyver" was about to eclipsed by the fourth-rate CBS reboot when the network decided to cancel it.  Relieved as I was to see this clunker put to sleep, I must confess I'm not following CBS's logic and haven't been for a few years now.  The "MacGyver" reboot was a consistent ratings performer for the network and dominated its Friday timeslot, yet it was always treated like a second-class citizen being the first show on their lineup to get a last-minute pre-emption if they wanted to air a special and even shelved until midseason for season 4 despite its relative success.  Then came the ultimate indignity this year with CBS pulling the plug on the series with only three episodes left to air and no advance warning to the cast and crew who all seemed to think they'd be returning for season 6.  CBS even paradoxically cut the show off with only 94 episodes, denying it the more lucrative syndication package it was poised to reward itself with had it made it to 100 episodes.  There was some lawsuit in the mix fighting over series rights compared to the original and former showrunner Peter Lenkov, the patron saint of lackluster CBS reboots, was canned at the end of last season for the toxic workplace he fomented on the set of all of his series, especially "MacGyver".  But it was time for this series to go.  Through five seasons, there have been maybe a handful that I found memorably entertaining, and that's even less than the typical CBS procedural.  And the show wasn't getting better, with fly-by-night cast members being test-driven and then plucked into oblivion, popular cast members leaving in a huff, and this year, an odd love triangle between two coworkers, neither of whom seem particularly compatible with the hero.  Plus the special effects continued to be little better than Saturday morning cartoons from the 70s.  It's a relief that the end-of-weekend chore that was grinding my way through each episode of the "MacGyver" reboot has passed, and I really wish I had most of those 94 hours back.  Grade:  D

Magnum, P.I.--Only slightly better than the lackluster "MacGyver" reboot is the show's timeslot successor, the lackluster reboot of "Magnum P.I." now wrapping up its third season.  But unlike "MacGyver", pretend "Magnum" is returning next fall.  There's a curious history here.  The original "Hawaii Five-O" ended in 1980 but CBS decided to green-light another Hawaii-based crime drama that fall to take advantage of the sets and locations available on the islands, and the original "Magnum, P.I." with Tom Selleck emerged from that deal.  Nearly two generations later, it was the "Hawaii Five-O" reboot and the Peter Lenkov assembly line that was responsible for launching the "Magnum P.I." reboot.  Like the original, the Hawaiian-centric visuals make the "Magnum" reboot a passable way to waste an hour on a lazy Friday night, but otherwise it's a particularly weak entry in CBS's procedural lineup.  The characters are mostly pale imitations of Magnum's colorful sidekicks from the original and there's rarely even a passing attempt at coherence in the detective plots.  The closest thing to a high point this season was Rick's emotional response to the passing of his father figure played by Corbin Bernsen.  The "Hawaii Five-O" reboot was a frequently creative blast of kinetic energy in its heyday, but the creative team has definitely not found the same formula for the "Magnum" reboot.  Still, I can't help but think back to those bleak days in the 90s when I'd have hit my knees with gratitude if a show like the "Magnum" reboot was on, so I need to keep that perspective in check.  Grade:  C-

The Rookie--I'm not quite sure what happened with Nathan Fillion's copper "The Rookie" but its highly effective mix of action, comedy, and drama has grown alarmingly weary in its third season.  What made the first season of "The Rookie" work so well is the viewer never knew when to expect a fierce pivot, where a seemingly lighthearted story took a dark turn.  The series also mastered both suspense and narrative sleight-of-hand as well as any cop show in recent memory.  And while the series lost some of that flair in its sophomore season, it was mostly still on point and delivered with a huge two-part season finale.  But almost right out of the starting gate in season 3, the show seemed to falter.  They still had an interesting recurring story with Brandon Routh playing a dirty cop, but when that story was wrapped up there wasn't a heckuva lot to hang my hat on with this season's episode haul.  Most cop shows ran with the racial justice reckoning this year but "The Rookie" bent over backwards to prove itself the most woke of all.  Given the declining ratings and ABC's reduced level of promotion, I suspected "The Rookie" might not even get picked up for a fourth season.  It did, but with a weary cliffhanger and little sense of momentum that would give me hope that the series finds its footing again next season.  I'll continue to watch, but it certainly is disappointing that the freshman cop show I was raving about at this time in 2019 has fallen so far and so fast.  Grade:  C+

The Equalizer--My eyebrows certainly raised last summer when CBS released its fall lineup with a reboot of one of my boyhood favorites, "The Equalizer", starring Queen Latifah.  I'm sure the creative team was channeling the audience demographic that went for the relative recent Denzel Washington films rather than the largely forgotten Edward Woodward series of the 80s that the films were based on, but either way it was creative casting and I was curious--and a bit skeptical--of whether it would work.  I must say I'm pleasantly surprised with what Latifah has done with the role...and what the writers and producers have done with the franchise, capturing the dark and brooding spirit of the original better than most other CBS reboots.  What Queen Latifah lacks in action heroine credibility she makes up for with sass and spunk, convincingly going toe to toe with the same thugs and hooligans that Woodward and Washington tangled with and leaving them humbled and crying for mommy.  Just like the original series, the reboot has given Latifah's McCall a human side, sharing a home with her sister and teenage daughter, and its helpful in softening the edges of the vigilante zeitgeist that guides the stories.  Launched after the Super Bowl in February, the series debuted to a big audience and has largely retained it, likely benefiting from Latifah's gravitas among black viewers (she used to star in the #1 series among black viewers in the 90s).  A COVID-related production delay limited the series to 10 episodes this season but it was a reasonably impressive launch and I'm curious to see where they go with it for season 2 next fall.  Grade:  B

Good Girls--By conventional metrics, NBC's dark comedy "Good Girls", now in its fourth season, should have long ago run out of gas creatively.  The premise, centered around a trio of housewives going on a crime spree, seemed likely to lend itself to one really good season and then sputtering to humiliating exhaustion if the network kept the show alive beyond its natural expiration date.  However, that hasn't happened.  Granted, the already bonkers premise long ago jumped the shark into absurdity, but "Good Girls" fully embraces that absurdity and continues to entertain.  It remains unclear whether there will be a fifth season of the series, but there are still seven episodes of the 16 produced this season yet to air in June and July, and I look forward to seeing how this season's course of events play out.  As established, network television has gotten increasingly risk-averse in recent years, so when a show like "Good Girls" comes around and colors outside the lines so shamelessly and effectively, it deserves some applause.  Grade:  B+

 

 

So where do we go from here?  Now that two shows I've watched this season and last has been shuttled off to pay-per-view, will I continue to sample new network fare knowing there's a rising chance they're just giving me an appetizer before demanding I pay for it?  At least with CBS, I think I might be done given the cynicism of their Paramount Plus gambit.  It seems like a big gamble for the network with the oldest-skewing audience to try to make people pay for the shows after they get them hooked.  I suspect far more will be like me and elect to not even bother checking into CBS shows rather than pay to watch shows that used to be on CBS.  Of course, if even 10% of the people who used to watch "Evil" sign up for Paramount Plus to watch season 2, maybe the gambit will still be profitable for the network.

 

With this in mind, what will network television look like in five years?  Is the best-case scenario a full lineup of handful of shop-worn franchises (NCIS, Chicago, FBI, and Law and Order)?  Or should we expect a full lineup full of "The Bachelor", "Love Island", "Match Game", and "Kids Say the Darndest Things"?  In the past, viewers could rely on everything going in cycles on network television, but that was before cable and streaming services rendered the networks fading relics with diminishing resources.  At one level it's depressing because the lack of shared cultural experiences is proving itself increasingly terrible for societal cohesion.....and the degree to which low-income households are being specifically shut out of the elevated viewing experiences of their upscale peers is especially troubling.  But on the other hand, we're not yet to the point where broadcast content is intolerable.  That's a pretty low bar for victory, but in today's America I'll take it.