TV

Setting the Tone for Sticking the Landing: CBS’s Approach to How I Met Your Mother

Mike Hannemann

CBS is probably the smartest network on television. Let me immediately clarify that sentence. Their programming isn’t the smartest – not by a long shot. It’s the reigning network king for primetime dramas and comedies, having dethroned NBC years ago. Personally, I devote an hour of my life every week to CBS, two sitcoms are all that interest me. And that’s even on the heavy end of the 25-35 demographic. There are no Facebook updates on Hawaii Five-0 or Sherlock. I don’t go to work and hear people talking about Survivor anymore. In five years? Well, who knows. My peer group may be super into CSI: Dubuque.

I can’t, however, insult the intelligence the network heads have for their scheduling. It’s solid and air-tight. Their dramas compete with the right dramas to win and they smartly place their comedies on nights where other networks won’t be able to compete in the big leagues. As much as I love Parks and Recreation, it’s always going to lose to Two and a Half Men. With no real education in this, I can’t really say that I draw these claims from technical knowledge… just a deep-rooted obsession with TV for the past 20 years of my life. Which is why finding out CBS’ approach to ending their second-highest-rated sitcom was so fascinating.

First, a quick recap: How I Met Your Mother is currently in a ninth and final season. It started as a low-rated test to see if TV audiences would take to a show with a mildly distinct and unique narrative structure – yet also one that could easily be drawn out for, well, nine seasons. It landed and turned into the network’s biggest sitcom after The Big Bang Theory (a quick check of the numbers also puts Two and a Half Men in that category). Like all popular shows, the network wanted to hold onto it as long as possible. But since creative minds finally have at least some say in when and how a show would end, a deal was struck to conclude in 2014. (Sidebar: Can you imagine what that would have been like 10 years ago? When, if even for a moment, network execs would stop and listen to the writers that enough is enough?)

The interesting part is how they’re going to do it.

HIMYM is going to end on March 31st, burning off its final two episodes. One of the highest-rated shows is going out in March, not May. Not with a big finale to compete with the other networks ending their seasons. Instead, on a date that is one of the slowest times of the year for television (the top three of course being November sweeps, February sweeps, and May). The crazier part is that this is in the midst of one of the biggest sporting events of the year: the NCAA tournament. A tournament that CBS airs. It makes no sense, on paper. But when you elaborate on it, it’s genius.

Not that the show needs the advertising, but being able to promote the finale during the tournament is huge. It was already going to be talked-about but now CBS is creating an island in the middle of the TV landscape for this to be the ONLY event. How many times do you think people are going to hear “How I Met Your Mother series finale event” during the course of March Madness? If it’s anything less than 12 per game, I’d be honestly shocked.

Let’s go back to the island metaphor. CBS is creating something unique for the show to land on. This is the only thing happening at the end of March. There’s nothing for anyone else to talk about… so why not talk about this? Viewers who didn’t care much for the show will at least have nothing else distracting them. It won’t be a big week because a list of shows are ending for the season – it’s a big week because one show, THIS show, is ending. And since it all ties back into advertising, CBS looks to increase that revenue as well because of it.

Finally, this basically leaves a spot on the bench to fill at the perfect time. CBS is known for having many comedy pilots that go to series and are canceled because… well, they’re awful (stay in your room, Rob!). But there are always shows with potential for greatness that never get the chance to get there. Creating a seat in the middle of CBS’s comedy lineup after coming off the wave of a series finale and into a wave of rising expectations for everything else ending for the season is the perfect spot to put something new in. Something (hopefully, a little experimental like HIMYM was) that deserves that little bit of an extra chance.

Network TV shows end in a lot of different ways. Some are critically acclaimed but end quietly, like 30 Rock did last year. Some shows are burned off during the summer with networks airing episodes just because they have nothing else to put on. And most end in May, competing with each other for every precious (if arguably obsolete thanks to streaming) ratings tick. CBS has shown intelligence in its programming tactics, and their willingness to take a chance to create a new standard on how you can use a show’s ending to help both creative and corporate parties is nothing short of brilliant.

But then I read about their potential spinoff How I Met Your Father that’s in pilot mode right now and I’m tempted to take everything I just said back.

Image source: fanpop.com

Space Dandy: The New York Times is Reviewing Anime Now?

Alex Russell

In 1998 Shinichiro Watanabe created what turned out to be a very accessible anime series for American audiences when he developed Cowboy Bebop. Bebop was a big hit in the United States, even for people who weren’t devotes of the artform in general. It was an easy to watch, action-packed show with a soundtrack that was “cool” in the way “cool” is supposed to be used. It was flashy, but not bright like Dragonball Z or Pokemon. It was soaked in booze and smothered in cigarette smoke and it was a perfect introduction in style and content to a world that a lot of Americans had never given much thought.

The show ran on the very first night of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block of shows in 2001 and continued to rerun through the end of last year. It would be a mistake to say that Watanabe took America by storm and became a household name just as much as it would be a mistake to blindly assume everyone knows the first damn thing about Cowboy Bebop. It’s just more likely that you’ve heard of the show that was supposedly going to be adapted to a live-action version with Keanu Reeves than you have heard of, say, His and Her Circumstances.

You don’t need to know everything about the world of anime to understand Watanabe’s new show that runs on Adult Swim on Saturday nights, but it’ll certainly help. Space Dandy is the story of a man named Dandy who travels the outer reaches of space in search of new species of aliens. He needs to report them to a more-than-global database to make a living and to fuel his real purpose in life: visiting every location of a Hooters-parody restaurant called, well, “Boobies.”

Stay with me.

Bebop isn’t super-serious all the time. The series begins its 26-episode run with episodes about chasing a dog through busy street markets and cheating dealers in casinos. As the story develops the emotional core of the show grows darker and darker until it’s so gritty it gets almost maudlin. Around the sixth flash of a character dropping wrapped roses to the far-away tune of a music box, it brushes against the line between sad and sappy. It doesn’t cross it, though, and in that line lies the ability to make an animated show feel more real than a live-action one.

It’s assuredly unfair to compare Dandy and Bebop. For one thing, Bebop is done. It became much more than the sum of its episodes by the end. Dandy has only had one episode air so far (“Live With the Flow, Baby” which you can watch here) and has a long way to go to develop into whatever it’s going to be. Should you watch it develop? That all depends.

The New York Times praises the animation and calls the worst of the humor “cringe-inducing.” There’s two important things to mention here:

  1.  The New York Times is talking about what is essentially a style parody running at almost midnight on Adult Swim.
  2.  They (for the most part) are doing so correctly.

Dandy (the show and the character) is ridiculous. It’s designed as a parody of traditional anime, which the Times gets right and you can read their piece to read about influences. The first half of the first episode is some of the broadest television that’s ever been broadcast. Dandy’s sidekick (an android vacuum cleaner…kinda) shrieks and worries that they are “breaking the fourth wall” too early. The characters are all ridiculous and if you don’t constantly remind yourself that they’re ridiculous to mock an existing style then they might feel too slapstick to handle.

The parody is so direct that it reminded me of a terrible movie I saw as a kid. Mafia! was ahead of its time in a bad way. It’s also a genre parody that’s the same joke as the Scary Movie franchise. You know mob movies? Here’s every mob movie. That’s the joke! If you don’t know the source material it can feel like it’s just bad jokes.

You should stick around for the second half, though. Dandy captures what he thinks is a rare breed of cat alien, but it’s just a cat. The cat takes Dandy to where the real weird creatures are and the episode picks up from there. There’s no need to ruin the ending, but the variety of creatures and inventive art style are worth the price of admission that the weird opening charges you.

If it sounds like I’m wavering it’s because I am. The bad jokes in the first half are really bad at times and I’m hesitant to recommend this to people as it stands right now. I can do so only because the final animation sequence got an audible “wow” out of me, and it’s really not that often that animation does that anymore. If the show strikes a better balance between the goofs and the interesting universe itself, it will probably find an audience on Adult Swim. For now, though, it’s odd territory on American television that you should still see to believe.

Space Dandy airs Saturday nights on Adult Swim.

Image source: awn.com