For the millions who opted not to tune into the 2009 Golden Globes, you didn’t miss much, aside from the hilarity from a (jokingly) bitter, beer-drinking Ricky Gervais giving a shout-out to one-time co-star Kate Winslet and shaming the Hollywood Foreign Press. Besides Gervais, there was little to shock and awe over, especially on the TV side of things, where “30 Rock” swept the comedy side (again) and HBO swept pretty much everything else (also, again). Surprise, surprise.
Ever since the beginning of HBO’s heyday in the late ’90s with “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City,” the pay-cable station has been known to dominate pretty much every Emmy, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild ceremony thereafter. As with any other trend, other cable stations such as FX (“Damages”), TNT (“The Closer”), AMC (“Mad Men”) and even Showtime (“Dexter”) have taken note and followed suit to similar critical success.
Many argue, and rightfully so, that these shows are superior to their network counterparts because cable stations are able to push the boundaries to a whole other level, and pay-cable channels such as HBO and Showtime have literally no boundaries to worry about. Have you seen the cleaned-up A&E reruns of “The Sopranos”? I’m surprised this version even has the same theme song as the original!
Another reason for the quality difference is that cable stations don’t have to aim for the millions and millions of viewers network TV does, so there is no need to dumb anything down for the general public. While “24” is labeled as a flop whenever fewer than 10 million viewers watch it, “Mad Men” is a huge hit for AMC with, at best, barely more than 1 million viewers a week.
However, a third argument worth noting is the length of TV seasons of cable versus network television. Pretty much all network shows, no matter which network or which genre, amount to a standard of 20-something new episodes a season with a summer break somewhere between April and August. However, even during their prime, cable shows usually put out 13 episodes a season at the very most. So doesn’t this difference in workload give the cable players an extra advantage?
For example, Debra Messing garnered Emmy and Golden Globes nominations for her starring role on “Will & Grace,” but since the show went off the air in 2006, she’s moved over to the cushy cable side of things in the USA dramedy, “The Starter Wife” to great reviews and even more nominations for best actress in a comedy show. If Jon Hamm of “Mad Men” only has to method his way to a nomination 13 episodes a year while Hugh Laurie has to give his all in 24 episodes, shouldn’t the network folks be getting a little bit more of our respect and admiration? Although, it is true that nominees are chosen based on single episodes submitted rather than based on a whole season.
Aside from the problem with the acting nominations, what about nominations for entire shows?
Shows that burn through fewer episodes a season are arguably automatically higher quality than network shows that have to go through more story lines on the first out. For example, imagine if the 27 episodes of “The O.C.”’s first season had been spread across into two or three smaller seasons ““ it would have been less of a flash-in-the-pan cultural bomb and slightly more respected.
Mitchell Hurwitz, the creator of the “Arrested Development,” made a similar argument when his critically acclaimed, yet low-rated comedy was cancelled in its third season and rumors started to spread that the show would continue on Showtime rather than Fox. “I had taken it as far as I felt I could as a series” and adding that he was “more worried about letting down the fans in terms of the quality of the show dropping.”
With the definition of a TV season constantly changing and cable channels crowding the competition, this is far from the end of this debate. I mean, how many “best actor in a comedy” Emmys can “Monk” actor Tony Shaloub really receive?
If you wish “Arrested Development” had moved to Showtime, e-mail Stanhope at kstanhope@media.ucla.edu.