It remains
to be seen what will become of the CW. Perhaps like a phoenix, they shall
manage to rise above its current financial straits and move beyond the plans of
the corporate honcho. Given the reality of television as a whole and the
current status of network in general, I am inclined to doubt it, however. So what lessons should television try to take
away from the past sixteen plus years of the CW?
First,
one must differentiate from the network (s) that gave birth to it. For all the
flaws that were within the WB (and were far more obvious in UPN) the fact
remains that they made a realistic and genuine attempt to battle the four major
networks at their own game. During the more than a decade existence of the WB,
there was a genuine attempt to try and equal level of creativity that broadcast
network was doing at the time. And given
the level of quality of more than a few of their shows (I speak primarily of
the now diminished Buffy, and the
still shining brightly Gilmore Girls and Felicity) they may have
presaged the arrival of what we now consider Peak TV. The irony being, had they
existed in an earlier era, where a far more fragmented audience could sustain a
network series for nearly a decade, the success of so many of their series could
have made them a force to this day. But the standards they were being measured
against was still that of the broadcast channels, and so they failed.
By
contrast the CW very quickly moved past any ambitions of being a purely
original and creative force and became the equivalent of a genre network,
unlike Syfy or Lifetime. The closest
comparison one could make of the CW is not of any major network but rather a very light version
of FX or USA (when the latter was trying to be a creative force). There was
then, and is now, still a place for networks like this and given the CW’s
success during the mid- 2010s, there’s an argument that it was clearly working
for them. The problem, however, must be laid at what was their critical flaw:
the blanket renewals they issued early in every fall season.
I
see this decision just as much an Achilles Heel for the CW as the decision to
keep spending immense amount of money on countless series has proven to be one
for Netflix. But where as Netflix’s decision
to produce too many programs in order to see what might stick was a disaster
one could see coming a mile away, the CW’s decision goes in the other
direction: with so much confidence in proven products – eventually all entirely
driven by a single creative force – the CW was running out of space for
anything resembling original programming by the end of the last decade and getting
increasingly diminishing returns with each coming year. For all of Netflix’s flaws – and we are aware
now how legion they are – when it came to most of their major successes, they
had enough faith in the creative forces behind the series to let them come to a
natural end. Fans might not have been thrilled that series like The Kominsky
Method and Dead to Me were gone after just three seasons, but its
hard to argue they overstayed their welcome.
By
contrast, the decision to keep so many series on the air well past the
extension of their natural lives led to almost all of the series on the CW bleeding
out creatively well before their eventual cancellation. The irony is, now that
the new ownership of the CW has decided to take a blowtorch to so many series
still on the air, most of the shows that were on – Legends of Tomorrow and
Stargirl, just to name a few – were cancelled on cliffhangers leaving
their fans empty handed. It remains to be seen in Nancy Drew and some of
the other series that have also been cut out will end on a suitable note.
(Though given the diminishing audience returns on so many of these series, it
remains to see how many people still care.)
To
this day, I still mourn the loss of the WB and all of the creative series it
let loose upon the world. The WB had a
legacy and so much of television is still feeling the ripple effect from it,
most of them beneficial. The CW has
lasted longer than the WB ever did. Yet after Jane The Virgin came to an
end, it began to diminish as a factor in my viewing life. The few series I watched after that point had
more potential than in practice and it’s hard to see its disappearance being
one that will affect by life as a critic going forward.
To
be clear, The CW did have its moments. Any network can create two series as
outstanding and radical as Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Jane the Virgin is
not without its merits, and for all my problems with everything Greg Berlanti,
it was admirable what he was initially trying to do before he eventually was
overcame by the effort. But if someday
the CW does finally fold in on itself and collapse, I will not mourn its demise
as much as the WB’s. The WB was, for a brief
shining moment, Camelot. At its best,
the CW could barely manage to be a pale imitation of the MCU. For the last few years, the CW was a disaster
waiting to happen. We should not be surprised that it finally did.
No comments:
Post a Comment