The 2022-2023 TV Season in Review and Thoughts on the Writers' Strike

I know I'm already a broken record with annual reviews of network TV mediocrities, but allow me to be even more of a broken record and double down in saying that the trend for broadcast TV is once again even more imperiled than it was at this time last year.  Not only do audiences have to contend with the shameless rebooting of beloved franchises from decades past, the even more shameless cloning of existing franchises, and the burgeoning issue of license fee renewals putting even the most successful big-budget series at imminent risk of cancellation, we now have to stack a writers' strike on top of that.  The writers went on strike earlier this month and with most TV shows out of production for the summer anyway, we're told to not expect much negotiation urgency.  With that in mind, our favorite shows aren't likely to return in early autumn as they usually do.  Of course, if your "favorite shows" are reality shows and singing competitions, then you'll be in heaven because unscripted series will dominate the airwaves in the absence of scripted shows.  This was a frightening enough trend during the last writers' strike of 2007-08, but broadcast television's economics have only worsened in the 15 years since, meaning the likelihood that they'll phase out all unscripted television in favor of lowest-denominator unscripted shows has dramatically risen.

So what's the writers' strike all about?  Consider me ahead of my time for being distrustful of streaming services and limited-run pay-per-view cable shows.  On top of all of their other sins, they've also made it impossible to make a living as a television writer.  With limited numbers of episodes, studios have shrunken writers' rooms and given the few writers who do find work 10-week contracts rather than the full-season commitments that broadcast shows that produce 22 episodes per year enjoy.  The concept of syndication deals is also obsolete in today's much-ballyhooed "peak TV" revolution.  The end result is that a writer who used to be able to make $150,000 for a single writing credit over the course of an episode's broadcast and subsequent cable and syndication repeats can now expect to earn only a fraction of that, and is forced to start all over looking for another gig every 10 weeks.

The writers' strike is also the opening salvo of what we can be assured will be a tectonic global struggle over artificial intelligence.  The writers want commitments from the studios that they won't generate scripts using AI.  The fact that this is even a point of contention is very telling that the studios are likely flirting with the idea of cutting out writers altogether to crank out paint-by-numbers scripts with AI.  The network procedurals are likely most at risk for this kind of treatment since so many of them already seem as though their scripts were cobbled together via algorithm.

Basically the stakes couldn't be higher for the producers and consumers of television series.  It wasn't hard to predict that we'd pay a steep price for mortgaging our souls to the altar of pay-per-view television and letting the broadcast model wither on the vine.  Those in the business have already seen the consequences of the trend and its beginning to trickle down to the consumer, in the form of the strike and a general reluctance of studios to finance the kinds of cable and streaming series they have in the last five years.  The deal that is ultimately brokered on the other side of this writers' strike should be very telling of what the future holds, but in the meantime, let's take a look at what the world of network television looked like before the strike began with the series that I've consumed over the past year....

9-1-1--It was bound to happen and by season 6, this first responder drama started to show its age and become less compelling than in the past.  There were still some exciting rescues and clever character detours, but at no point this past season was there a moment that absolutely captivated me as has been the case with "9-1-1" in the past.  It's still an hour worth watching and I intend to continue doing so next season, even though it'll be on a different network.  Even though "9-1-1" is Fox's highest-rated scripted series, the network did not renew it because of licensing costs, an issue that emerged with other series in recent years but really seems to have become a problem of late.  Thankfully, ABC picked up "9-1-1" for its seventh season, but I surely didn't see coming that Fox would be willing to part with it.  It's a telling--and frightening--development in the future of network television.  Grade:  B-

The Cleaning Lady--The previous season's most promising new series didn't fully live up to expectations in season 1 but fell completely flat in season 2.  Writers kept revisiting the same narrative terrain where Thony's son was sick and she needed to make a desperate choice to save him.  While recovery speed bumps are common to organ transplant recipients, it sure did make for tiresome television when the sick son trope was revisited so damn many times.  The writing was clumsy and uneven all around, with absurd manufactured crises and sloppy, overly convenient resolutions.  The addition of Naveen Andrews to the cast as the menacing villain Robert gave the series some signs of life, as did some nicely choreographed action scenes and possibly the best-acted gunshot death scene I've come across when Oliver Hudson's FBI agent Garrett was fired upon in the season finale.  I'll probably give the show another look in season 3 as it has once again been renewed but after the mess that was season 2, I've given up on this series living up to its potential as a suspenseful thriller of the "Prison Break" or "Gang Related" mold.  Grade:  C

Quantum Leap--I went into the latest unnecessary reboot with lower expectations than usual as nothing about this 90s remake seemed like it would be very inspired, working harder at checking off every possible diversity checklist box than it did at coherent storytelling.  I watched a half dozen episodes early in the season and a couple more in the second half of the season, enough to satisfy my curiosity and confirm that the charm of the original was nowhere to be found here.  It was seldom unwatchable but the tech-heavy jargon and horrendous CGI effects made the new "Quantum Leap" feel more like "Timeless" or other more sci-fi-rooted reboots.  It fell on the cast to breathe life into the new characters and work some inspiration to the proceedings, but they were ill-prepared to live up to the challenge.  The reboot seems to be a bit better received by the "Quantum Leap" fan faithful than I expected, but I have no intention of returning whenever the series' second season begins.  Grade: D+

The Rookie--After a dreadful fourth season, I was prepared to declare "The Rookie" as the most improved network series as its fifth season progressed quite nicely, the clever storytelling of its first two seasons making a regular comeback in season 5's fall stint on Sunday nights followed by its smooth transition to Tuesday nights midseason.  "The Rookie" found entertaining ways to prolong the storylines of some of its primary recurring villains, including crime boss Elijah and female serial killer Rosalyn, whose story got closure just in time for actress Annie Wersching's premature passing.  Unfortunately, "The Rookie" ended the season with a whimper, falling into some of its old bad habits including the dreadful "reality crime show" documentaries which fans detest but the showrunner keeps insisting on making every season.  "The Rookie" also attempted in vain to keep its pathetic spinoff "The Rookie: Feds" alive with multiple pointless "crossover episodes" that went nowhere.  The season finale was intense and exciting, and of course that kind of inconsistency has been the template for this series for most of the last three seasons.  It will be returning for season 6 on the other side of the writers' strike and I hope when it does, the episodes more closely resemble what we got from the first dozen or so episodes of season 5.  And if they continue to do crossovers with "The Rookie: Feds" and desperately try to drag me along into choking down that series, they will prove just as unsuccessful as they did this last season.  Grade:  C+

9-1-1: Lone Star--Since the day it premiered and I grudgingly decided to give this franchise expansion a chance, I've had a love-hate relationship with "9-1-1: Lone Star", a relationship that persisted through season 4 this past year.  They've done a good job of making the secondary characters more interesting, and adding some new semiregular characters associated with them, but in many ways it's come at the expense of the core of the franchise built around white-knuckle rescues.  Some episodes of "Lone Star" have been largely action-free character deep dives this season, and while some have been more interesting than others, I walk away from the hour a bit disappointed if nothing exciting at all happened.  Nonetheless, more episodes than not entertained this year, and one episode in particular sparkled.  Midseason episode "Road Kill", featuring a badly injured Marjan fighting for her life with the help of a little girl ostensibly injured in the same highway collision, was far and away the best hour of network television that I consumed this season, unpredictable and masterfully executed from the opening moment to the closing.  This has been the story with "Lone Star" from the beginning, and even at its lowest depths during the Texas deep freeze storyline early in season 3, it was hard for me to walk away from this series because I didn't want to miss the moments of soaring highs such as this year's "Road Kill."  Grade:  B-

Night Court--I was a huge fan of the 1980s version of "Night Court", and the networks make it tough for me to maintain my disappointment at their business model of unnecessary reboots when they keep tapping into my favorite franchises of yore and tickling my curiosity in a way that forces me to scratch it.  Factor in that my favorite character from the original--lecherous, womanizing prosecutor Dan Fielding--was brought back to reprise his role and I just had to sample the remake.  Would Dan still be interesting 30 years later with his shameless womanizing years in the past, and having switched from a prosecutor to a defense attorney?  For the most part, he was, thanks to Larroquette's skillful comic timing. Despite some early hiccups, I was pleased with the writing and the relatively successful launch of the new characters, as well as the continuity with storylines from the original.  Some of the silliness that made the original so much fun seems dated now, and the comedy that seemed so edgy in the mid-80s is not nearly as blush-inducing today, but as nostalgia trips go, this one turned out above-average, as reflected by its solid season 1 ratings and early renewal for an encore.  Grade:  B

Will Trent--I didn't know what to expect when I saw the ads for upcoming detective series "Will Trent" during last holiday season.  Nothing about it really jumped out at me in those early promos, but critical reviews were strong, and lead Ramon Rodriguez was the star of my favorite series of the last 10 years, "Gang Related," lending him a fair amount of credibility with me in terms of pulling off a series.  Ultimately I don't know if "Will Trent" brings anything genuinely fresh to the detective procedural format, but it's more intelligent than most and over the course of the season it effectively explained some of the key mysteries established early on.  And while a few episodes fell flat, more episodes than not delivered with above-average storytelling.  In some cases, I had to review portions of the episode to help connect some dots I missed on the original viewing.  By modern network standards, ratings were fairly strong and it was a no-brainer for ABC to bring it back for a second season.  It's certainly earned that.  Grade:  B

The Conners--The most cynical show on television returned for a fifth season and largely delivered again with its fire hose assault of working-class angst. As with past seasons, and with the franchise's 1990s flagship "Roseanne", not every storyline was a homerun, but there's enough continuity in the characters and overall narrative themes that it rarely feels inauthentic.  As is so often the case with downscale families, one step forward always seems to lead to one step back, which was most poignantly portrayed this season in Darlene getting a managerial position at a new job but having to make the impossible choice to give it up when her son's college scholarship fell through and she needed to take a job as a lunch lady at his school to help him get a break on his tuition.  I'll be eager to see how that storyline progresses in the seasons to come, and if we know one thing about "The Conners," it's unlikely the writers will take the easy way out and make the characters' plight comfortable moving forward.  Grade:  B

Big Sky--After a lackluster, directionless second season, I didn't go into the third season of David E. Kelley's offbeat Montana-based thriller with much hope of a worthwhile revival.  At least early on, the primary stories of the new season had potential, with Reba McEntire joining the cast as the duplicitous operator of an outfitting company.  But as has been the case since the beginning with "Big Sky", the engaging early episodes grew increasingly stale as the season progressed, with abrupt and unsatisfying resolutions to plots that took all season to build.  And there really wasn't any supporting cast material capable of propping up the stiff and uninteresting female leads. On balance, season 3 was a step up from the weak sophomore season, but it still emerged weak enough at season's end that I'm not surprised ABC put it out of its misery.  I'm sure the day will come that I'll look back at "Big Sky" as better than anything currently on network television given the genre's downward trajectory.  But even using that low standard, I still don't think "Big Sky" had enough of a pulse left to justify it returning for a season 4.  Grade:  C+

True Lies--Even today, I still get excited when I see advertisements for new action-heavy spy shows, so the TV reboot of the old Arnold Schwarzenegger film "True Lies" caught my eye when they advertised it this winter.  When I discovered that former "Burn Notice" showrunner Matt Nix was the executive producer, I was looking forward to sampling it even more.  Sadly, it was a dud, bringing back unfortunate memories of 2019's "Whiskey Cavalier" which couldn't even find a pulse in the exotic European locations where it was filmed.  TV's "True Lies" was beset by the feature that annoys me most in action shows and procedurals, that being characters in life and death situations, be it under fire from the enemy or defusing a ticking time bomb, who are breezily bickering about some petty side issue or grievance.  That wasn't all that was wrong about "True Lies" as both of its leads and most of its supporting characters weren't the least bit appealing.  The husband was a wimpy-simpy bore and his "accidental spy" wife was more charismatic was even more grating.  That's not to say "True Lies" didn't have a few moments of entertainment value and a couple of solid episodes, particularly the episode "Rival Companions" with an amusing guest starring spot by Matthew Lillard as "The Wolf".  Still, for a project coming from Matt Nix, "True Lies" was unexpectedly disappointing and I'm not at all surprised it wasn't renewed for a second season.  Grade:  C-

S.W.A.T.--Long the most action-packed series on network television, "SWAT" had a sixth season similar to what we saw from its first five, with intermittently solid and creative storytelling and other episodes that fell a bit flat.  The action was always intense and well-choreographed, however, and the characters' story arcs were explored in enough detail and with enough narrative continuity to make "SWAT" the perfect Friday night popcorn show.  However, "SWAT's" days are numbered, and for three days earlier this month, it seemed as though that number would be zero.  "SWAT" had been on the cancellation bubble at least two seasons in the past but always managed to survive.  By 2022-2023, "SWAT" had developed enough of a following that it was one of the few series this past year to see its ratings go up, and up by 18% at that.  The last thing that I expected going into this spring was that "SWAT" was again in danger of cancellation.  But not only was it in danger, CBS actually did pull the plug on the series before reconsidering and agreeing to bring the series back for an abbreviated seventh season.  I'd have felt terrible for the creative team if they hadn't gotten this opportunity to button up several unresolved storylines.  So how did "SWAT" come close to having its plug pulled despite its strong ratings in a bad time slot?  The same issue that sent "Magnum PI" fleeing for NBC last year and has "9-1-1" scurrying for ABC next year.....licensing fees.  I don't know enough about the economics of television to fully describe this situation, but apparently CBS kept "SWAT" on the air as long as it did because its distributor didn't jack up the licensing fee.  In 2023, however, they insisted on a higher fee, and apparently CBS was willing to let the series die in this game of chicken as any other solution would have resulted in a higher per-episode cost on a series that's already among the most expensive series to produce.  The distributor appears to have blinked when they discovered CBS was serious about cancellation, however, and they negotiated a reduced license fee for one final season.  This standoff says plenty of unfortunate things about the future of network television, but at least for now, I'm grateful I get one more year of my favorite Friday night popcorn show.  Grade:  B

Fire Country--I didn't know what to think of CBS's new procedural when it premiered last fall and I put it on the backburner as a show I'd check out when I had time rather than diving in for live viewing.  CBS sure was proud of "Fire Country", advertising it relentlessly and shamelessly throughout the season.  Ultimately, the network's hype drew me in and I checked out several episodes by late fall.  I figured there was a chance I'd get into the series and I was right.  The plight of the prison crew fire fighters had its soapy moments but ultimately proved too interesting to turn away from.  And while the CGI special effects were hit or miss to put it generously, the sense of danger was often palpable and the tension and excitement of the rescues were effectively captured.  The writing on occasion worked at an even deeper level, particular the "Two Pink Lines" episode when lines of liquid fire retardant that doused a spreading wildfire brought to life a metaphor of a crew member's discovery that his girlfriend was pregnant.  I'm hoping CBS isn't up to its old tricks and planning to spring this series into pay-per-view on Paramount Plus after a while, as it's done to a couple of other series in the last couple of years.  One of the reasons I was slow to tune into this series was my concern that CBS would insist I pay for it if I wanted to see a second season.  So far that hasn't happened and "Fire Country" is slated to return to CBS on Friday nights next season.  Grade:  B

The Equalizer--I can safely say that Queen Latifah's reboot of "The Equalizer", having just completed its third season, is the reboot that most unexpectedly channels the spirit of the original series of any of the vast lineup of reboots on the schedule these days.  However, that's not entirely an unqualified compliment.  More often than not, there's above-average entertainment value and clever storytelling on Latifah's "Equalizer", and the series works best just as the original did when it introduces us to some lovable lout in an impossible situation who needs assistance outside the means of conventional law enforcement.  And the more screen time Latifah gets, the better, as her sidekicks Harry and Mel don't chew the scenery quite as effectively as she does.  But just like the original, the updated "Equalizer" is less effective when it dabbles in murky cloak and dagger with McCall's "former employers" in the CIA and the cagey, con artist handlers who always know more than they let on.  And just as the original worked too hard to incorporate McCall's son Scott, played by William Zabka of "Cobra Kai", into the storylines, the reboot works too hard to find things for McCall's aunt and daughter to do.  Their subplots are sometimes more interesting than others, but even when they're at their best they slow down some of the momentum of the main plots.  I'll be curious to see how long Latifah lasts in this role before she tires of it.  Sometimes stars limp along in TV roles longer than one would expect, but if I was her, I'd be frustrated by the seemingly endless nine months of time slot delays due to sporting event overruns.  Grade:  B-

Magnum PI--For as much hype as CBS gave its freshman hit "Fire Country" this year, NBC probably gave just as much adoration to the show that just last year occupied "Fire Country's" time slot, the reboot of "Magnum PI".  NBC seemed determined to make the "Magnum" reboot a hit at its new home, even airing five nights of primetime reruns the week before its official season 5 premiere in mid-February.  And at first it worked, with "Magnum's" ratings off to a zippy start on Sunday nights, but over the course of its 10-episode spring haul, the numbers crashed back to Earth and it's not entirely clear that the network shift will be seen as such an unqualified success moving forward.  Weirder yet, the original plan and making two 10-episode seasons was scrapped and NBC produced a full slate of 20 episodes for season 5, only to split the season in half and save the remaining 10 episodes for next season.  Well okay then!  Was "Magnum PI" a better show on NBC than on CBS?  For the most part, it was the same mediocrity as it was for its first four seasons on CBS, with a spattering of engaging episodes with clever plots mixed in with instantly forgettable offerings that barely hold your attention.  With that said, "Magnum" probably had a slightly higher batting average in season 5 than in the last couple of seasons.  And depending on how long the writers' strike lasts, I may really welcome the fact that the series has 10 episodes in the can for next season as it could well be the only show on the schedule with new episodes ready for fall.  Grade:  C+

The Blacklist--When I mentioned in my review of "The Equalizer" that it was surprising how some stars stick around on television series far longer than one might expect them to, James Spader's decade-long tenure on "The Blacklist" is the perfect encapsulation of the point I was trying to make.  In one sense, the series' novelty wore off long, long ago, along with its buzzworthiness, and that alone would have led me to believe Spader would have parachuted on to the next project.  In the previous couple of seasons, it was astonishing how little (read zero) promotion "The Blacklist" got given its relatively consistent audience numbers even in bad time slots, and its uncanny ability to churn out 22 episodes even amidst the pandemic.  In terms of quality, the results have always swung wildly from outstanding to waste of time on "The Blacklist", so its unsurprising that the inconsistency has continued into its 10th and final season this year.  Some episodes continue to be captivating and very outside the box while others are a perfect antidote to insomnia.  Eight episodes remain of its final season and they'll be broadcast Thursday nights this summer.  I hope the series goes out with a bang after such an unexpectedly long haul.  It certainly deserves more than the quiet midsummer sendoff it's likely to get from NBC.  Grade:  B-

There are a couple of shows I've watched in the past that I quit watching this year, due to some combination of less leisure time, competition from other shows, and disgruntlement over franchise expansion.  "FBI" was the biggest casualty of these factors as I didn't watch a single episode of the boilerplate Dick Wolf procedural in its fifth season....or either of its two cookie cutter imitators for that matter.  By and large though, my thoughts on the 2022-23 TV season are similar to the seasons that preceded it.  There was very little that genuinely captured me but I'm also surprised they have the budget to do pretty much anything worthwhile given the stunning attrition of audiences for network television in the last few years.  It's hard to track the overall audience these shows are getting because so much of the viewing occurs in delayed online streaming on the networks' websites, but the attrition of live viewing in the primetime hours is mind-boggling.  A series that averages two million viewers can at this point be considered a modest hit, at least on ABC, NBC, and Fox.  Go back even five years and a series that was limited to two million viewers would have been canceled after the first broadcast.

On the positive side, one trend that I documented last year seems to have ebbed at least a bit, and that's the heavy-handed political messaging coming out of network series.   I predicted last spring that the overwhelmingly woke social justice agendas of most network series was unsustainable in the face of the older, rural, and conservative-skewing dead-enders who represent the majority of those sticking it out with network television.  I'm typically more amenable to this kind of messaging than most viewers, and even I found it to be suffocating in the prior couple of seasons.  While most series didn't abandon racial grievance and social justice causes entirely this year, there was clearly less of it than there was in the previous couple of seasons, and it seems like a pretty safe bet it was because of negative feedback from the vast majority of their audience.

Assuming the strike is resolved in time for there to be a TV season next year, you can expect to return next May with another round of reviews.  But particularly if the shows I watch all end clustered against each other from January to May after the strike ends, it's a fair bet some of the series currently profiled will go the way of "FBI" and end up on the cutting room floor of my reviews.