Last week I wrote about the new and existing TV series this season. I covered NBC in great depth, largely because they’ve been TRYING to pick themselves up off the floor and regain the power they had in the 90’s. Of course, they don’t do everything right (Fixing Up All Night by making it a laugh track sitcom? YIKES), but they do turn out more quality programming than the fatty comfort food of CBS. I don’t fault CBS for their programming. They produce easy to watch, no brain power required, fluff that is the equivalent of a Big Mac: Fulfills your greasy cravings and leaves you feeling guilty and unfulfilled when you’re done. But, like Fast Food, it’s easy and convenient. I don’t fault them because, like that juicy burger, people eat it up. They are number 1 for a reason, but that reason sure isn’t quality.
In discussing CBS shows, with the exception of 2 or 3, it really comes down to which do I dislike the least? Their standard is the procedural (a show that exists with easy plotlines, wrapped up at the end of each episode with no need to have caught last week’s episode when you tune in this week). Funny enough, NBC perfected this type of show with Law & Order. But as Law & Order started to wear thin for some viewers, CBS decided to make the mundane task of Crime Scene Investigation look sexy. And, for viewers, they succeeded. Like L&O before it, CBS offers several incarnations of the sexy lab geeks. Bodies and semen are routinely discovered each week in Las Vegas, New York and Miami.
I will be honest. I’ve literally only ever watched one full episode of CSI in my life. Is it because it’s bad? Not at all. It just isn’t my thing. I prefer following a story. It’s not 2000 anymore and the DVR is not a new invention that only a few have. Since I no longer have to worry about missing a show, I’d rather my TV took advantage of long character arcs and stories. The same goes for NCIS (which comes in two tantalizing flavors: Original and Los Angeles). These shows are perfect for people like my Dad who has trouble staying awake during an hour of television, has no idea how to work a VCR much less a DVR and the closest he’s come to a running plot line was The West Wing. And there’s nothing wrong with any of that. I just prefer to reward strong writing a little bit more. While I’ve only ever seen an episode or 2 of Criminal Minds, The Mentalist, Blue Bloods, Hawaii Five-0…they all feel like the same shows just draped over an interchangeably pretty cast.
This season we have two new CBS shows: Vegas and Elementary. Both show slight promise, but both are, again, largely procedural. In fact, the closest CBS comes to less procedural is The Good Wife. I admit that I am just now starting into this show, but it shows promise. One way you can tell that is by the STELLAR guest actors they have coming in week to week. That is always a great sign, when actors actively SEEK out a show to guest on, and usually in several episode arcs, in Emmy winning roles. The Good Wife isn’t my favorite CBS show (yet), but it’s certainly it’s strongest in regard to quality and popularity meeting in the middle.
Currently, the only CBS show on my DVR is Person of Interest. Sure, it’s another procedural, but it’s one with a strong creative team behind it and two great actors up front. It took me a while to realize why I liked The Jesus and Linus Show so much. One is that in this universe Ben Linus has turned into a nice guy computer geek with a stiff neck and Jesus has a predilection towards shooting criminals in the kneecaps. The other is when I realized it’s essentially the same plot as one of my favorite childhood series. I was obsessed with two shows as a 6th grader: Twin Peaks and Quantum Leap. While I love(d) LOST because I felt some of that Twin Peaks glee, I enjoy Person of Interest because it’s the same dynamic as Quantum Leap (with the Al character having a slightly larger role).
The Plot: A man is thrust into a situation where he must complete a task involving a specific person. This person is either in danger or is the danger. Helping him is a man played more for comic relief than the lead and who is the only one with the information available to help this man complete his goal. Only when they successfully diffuse the situation, and learn who was in danger, can they move on to the next case. Quantum Leap did this with a lead who had to immerse himself in someone else’s life (and body!). Person takes the modern approach. Finch is not a lech like Al, but he’s an incredibly brainy computer genius. Unlike Sam, John is an enforcer with a special ops background of secrets. The show is far from perfect, but they do a nice job of allowing enough of a storyline to carry episode to episode to keep a non casual viewer like me interested. I will keep watching as I am definitely curious where they will eventually go with it.
My main beef with CBS is with its sitcoms. With the OCCASIONAL exception of How I Met Your Mother (which has several very watchable episodes per season, and a lot of by the numbers filler), every sitcom on CBS manages to be offensive without being funny. Two and a Half Men is pure shlock through and through. What’s worse, it commits the same sin as The Big Bang Theory in that it takes some incredibly talented actors (Jon Cryer, Jim Parsons, Johnny Galecki) and pairs them with some of the dumbest, easiest jokes ever to hit a sitcom. Every punchline can be seen coming a mile away, and in the case of Men, it’s usually “shocking” in the way that I was “shocking” when I was 8 and turned my best friend’s last name (Medill) into something HYSTERICAL (Medilldo). The Big Bang Theory offends me more because it’s supposed to be about “geeks”. Yet, not one single geek minded TV viewer watches it unless their spouse or girlfriend makes them. It exists to pelt anyone with a brain or geek interests with Urkel level jokes. You can make fun of geeks, but if you do so, you better be on your game.
Yet, these shows are HUGELY popular, and sadly will go down in canon as the popular hits of the 2000-2010 decade. Cheers, Friends and Seinfeld relied on strong performances and equally strong writing (at least during their strong seasons). Bang and Men have great talent in front of the cameras (as does Mike & Molly), and that talent does the best with what is written. But just imagine if someone with talent was giving them REAL MATERIAL to work with. The sad truth, however, is that the canned laughter sitcom is making a comeback, but not in a positive way. I actually LOVE live action, multicamera sitcoms. I’m a theater geek, and there’s something satisfying about thinking of each of these shows as a live performance. Unfortunately, like in the case of How I Met Your Mother, it’s fake. Sure, old shows always padded their laugh tracks, but the great ones still taped in front of an audience. Most don’t.
So why use the laugh track? We’ve far outgrown needing to be poked and prodded to know what’s funny. Sports Night actually perfected it. There have been a lot of single camera comedies out there, but Sports Night proved you could use the “live audience” feel of multicamera and ditch the laugh track and people would still get it. Of course, Sports Night was cancelled (before getting reincarnated in this year’s The Newsroom) and the CBS sitcoms just get bigger and bigger. I would forgive these shows is they were family fare. I spent many Friday nights as a kid watching Family Matters and Full House and Step By Step. These were (are) not great shows. They were fairly ridiculous shows with horrible writing but great actors (see the trend?) I’ll forgive family fare, because it certainly has a place on network TV and not monopolized poorly by Nickelodeon, Disney and TBS. But Men has masturbation jokes that make a foul mouthed button pusher like me blush. And it airs during early prime time hours.
That’s why I am going to dub CBS the Cemen Broadcasting Station. Between sex jokes from 8 to 10 and black light illuminating stained sheets from 10 to 11, this is apparently what entertains the viewers of CBS. Funny bodily functions to start the night, frightening ones to put us to sleep. As for misspelling their signature word, I was just trying to keep on par with their jokes. You just didn’t know to laugh because your computer screen didn’t let you know you were supposed to.