The CW is SMRT

William Goldman’s classic adage about the intelligence of Hollywood, “Nobody Knows Anything” needs to be changed. In light of recent events, the quote should now read “Nobody Knows Anything. Especially Network TV Executives”. How else can you explain the rash of inexplicable scheduling changes this season?

From ABC moving Lost (a perfect 9pm show) to the dreadful 10 spot (where viewers have already sat through two hours of programming, not to mention a full day of work, and are in no condition to sit through the mindfuck that is The Further Adventures of Oceanic Flight 815.). Or Fox’s decision to promote Drive ad nausea for two months only to announce days before the premiere that the show would only air five times instead of 13? Why would we choose to invest in a show that will only be around for a month? And let’s not even get started on NBC’s decision to take Heroes and The Office off the air for six weeks this Spring, and delay Scrubs till January only to pull them for nearly a month in February to launch Andy Barker P.I. which was then pulled after two (!) airings even while it was getting the best reviews of any new show of the mid-season.

But by far the most agonizingly dense decision by any network has been the continued abuse of their critical jem, Veronica Mars. Veronica Mars has clawed, scratched and fought its way on the air for two seasons. Critics drool over the show, there is a small but rabid fanbase, the DVD’s sell well and Kristen Bell is a bonafide star-in-the-making. It has all the pieces in place to be a fixture on TV for at least five seasons, except the one thing that truly matters: network support. The CW, in their infinite collective wisdom of being on the air all of six months, decided to pull the show off the air for six weeks in the middle of the season and run a Pussycat Dolls reality show in its place.

This would be OK for any non-serial, as most shows of that nature can go away and come back and no one would be the wiser (hell, the Law & Order franchise practically has a patent on this move), but Veronica Mars is a series that benefits from continuity and stability. It’s a show that actually strives for complexity, a true rarity in an era of dumbed down television; fans are rewarded for their loyalty by getting complex storylines that pay off so far down the road it would make the Lost Writers Room bow their heads in shame. Much like the aforementioned Lost, Veronica Mars needs to be on television as much as possible to help guide the viewers through the season. It’s nearly impossible these days to follow a series from premiere to finale without missing an episode, and Mars might be at the top of the list of hard to follow shows.

However, and it’s a significant however, the journey is worth it. And I just don’t understand why The CW doesn’t recognize that.

They chose to keep VM in the WB/UPN merger, so they must have seen the potential of the show at some point. They must have received the thousands of fan letters begging them not to cancel the show. They must have noticed that the show has been nominated for a WGA award, and that Kristen Bell has been nominated for a string of awards, as well. But most of all, at some point, they had to know it was the best show they had.

Gilmore Girls is a dying ship. 7th Heaven is on its last rites. Smallville is bloated and tired. Supernatural is just as poorly attended. One Tree Hill is a second-rate Dawson’s Creek with the most unbelievable “young” high school students this side of Ian Ziering. America’s Next Top Model and WWE Smackdown are reality shows and fake spectacle, respectively, and shouldn’t be compared to the drama slate. And NONE of the sitcoms have shown any traction in the nation consciousness (I challenge you to name be even ONE cast member from All Of Us). Veronica Mars, on the other hand, is well-written, superbly acted, young, hip, and given the chance, eminently marketable.

How difficult would it be to put Kristen Bell in the same marketing league as Felicity’s Keri Russell? She’s going to start developing an even wider fanbase once Fanboys and Forgetting Sarah Marshall come out, and greater critical acclaim once Roman and Flatland are released. She’s pretty, smart, a great interview and fiercely loyal to her show. She’s not gonna give you salary headaches like a certain beeyotchy Gilmore Girl, or try to distance herself from her show like a certain eight-headed, former resident-Capeside douchebag. I’d be willing to bet Kristen Bell would do Veronica Mars for a decade, if given the chance. She’s a star on a network that is sorely lacking in them. It’s beyond me why The CW is choosing to ignore this fact.

The ratings of the show seem to be the only real mark against renewal. I can understand the notion that a network should never settle for mediocre numbers, but when the entire network slate is one giant mediocre Nielson rating, landing in the 110th as opposed to 117th spot on the chart is splitting hairs. Veronica Mars airs Tuesdays at 9pm, opposite the Dancing With The Stars results show (already a built-in audience), House (with American Idol’s ginormous lead-in), The Unit (taking away the entire male 31-49 demo), and the bastard Law & Order spinoff, Criminal Intent. That’s four huge shows with marketing support dwarfing that of The CW, on networks that are more widely watched and even more widely available than The CW. At what point were the expectations of this show so high that they were expected to topple anything the Big 4 put out?

The average rating for a CW show is 2.1 million people. Top Model and Smallville regularly hit twice that number, while the sitcoms role at or below the average. For the 2006-2007 television season Veronica Mars has averaged about 2.5 million viewers, well above the network average. It hits very near the same numbers as 7th Heaven, a show that’s MUCH more expensive to produce. With this in mind, I can’t really understand the argument that the ratings aren’t good enough to warrant a fourth season.

Last year Veronica Mars was on opposite Lost at a time when the ABC drama was a real ratings behemoth, and yet, VM’s ratings went up. The main reason for this? It had Top Model as it’s lead-in. The key thing to remember here is that viewers were willing to choose the show over Lost, assuming they had a reason to be on the network before Lost began. This year, with a sub-par Gilmore Girls as it’s lead-in, VM is stagnant in the ratings. The key here is that the fanbase will always be there for the show, but if The CW wants more viewers they have to support the show with a better lead-in. And that point is the same for any television show, not just VM. Look at what CSI did for Without A Trace, or Friends did for Will & Grace or going back to The CW, what Smallville has been doing for Supernatural (namely saving it’s life). Very few primetime network shows can survive on their own without help; even fewer can do it on a network that’s watched by less than half its competitors. Throughout it’s run Veronica Mars has shown that given the opportunity, it can do just as well as anything else the network puts out, and in some cases, even better.

Most cult / small shows need a few seasons to get going. Take Cheers, Seinfeld or Buffy as examples. All were ratings-poor in the first few seasons, but took off by their 3rd and 4th seasons. Shows that are more difficult to watch or are non-traditional need support and longevity to sell their premise. A teen private eye is not an easy sell in a time when the other personification of teen life on television is My Super Sweet Sixteen. Moreover, noir is not a particularly popular genre. Lost is just as labyrinthine, but it’s base genre is epic sci-fi, which has traditionally sold very well on TV (think The X-Files, which I’d like to point out, also took four seasons before it became a phenomenon).

I just can’t understand the logic behind dumping a brand you put three years into building solely for an intangible potential a new brand might show. What is harder, building an audience for Veronica Mars, a show that has already established a presence in the national consciousness and only needs a good marketing push and a prime time slot to shine, or a COMPLETELY new presence that may or may not find an audience? Let’s go further… if you were a betting man, which show would you say has a better chance for longevity, Veronica Mars or the soon to be aired Hidden Palms? On the one hand you have a critically acclaimed drama starring a gorgeous and talented star on the rise and on the other you have a trashy teen soap that was pulled from the Fall line-up because it didn’t test well enough and stars the most hated actor in the history of television (that would be Taylor Handey, who played the loathsome Oliver on The O.C.)? I don’t know about you, but I’m going with the cute, sassy blonde girl that takes down former Clash of the Titans actors.

Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas has been wonderfully vocal about the state of the show. At times he has said there’s a 60/40 chance for renewal, other times he has said that the future of the show rests on the ratings of that execrable Pussycat Dolls show (and thank god that show dropped off the face of the Earth. Go grease a pole at the Forty Deuce, whores!). And to their small credit, The CW has given the show ample opportunity to potentially continue. They asked Thomas to make the final five episodes stand alones, which may attract viewers that were too afraid to jump into the series because they hadn’t been there from the beginning. And they asked Thomas to pitch multiple potential story arcs for Season Four, should the network think the show could do better with a slightly modified premise (for the record, I would rather they continue the college years than jump forward to Veronica as an FBI agent. Trying to explain away half a decade of Veronica’s life would be far more difficult than just making the college years more interesting. Hell, I could do that one right now. Kill off Logan, make Wallace and Mac into Veronica’s personal Scooby gang, and introduce a Big Bad that she needs the whole season to take down (a la Buffy). There. Done. I just bought the show another half million viewers.). There have been both good and bad signs on the road to renewal, but the next five weeks are the most crucial.

If the show can show some improvement it would do wonders for its chances of survival. It just needs a little help. It’s an underseen diamond in the rough; a television show that works hard to be great and asks a lot of its viewers. It never panders and it never dumbs itself down. It doesn’t introduce cute babies or have gimmicky weddings. It’s not stale and crusty like half the CBS dramatic line-up and it’s not trashy like the majority of the FOX line-up. Veronica Mars is a quality show in an era of lesser standards. And if The CW can’t understand that, then I’ll live with it. But I won’t have any reason to watch their network, either (I’ve gotten over my Kristin Kreuk crush, too).

I’ve gone over time on my frustration of this topic. Of my continued annoyance on the part of network executives fucking with my favorite TV shows. And I could go on even more about what needs to be done to fix the situation. But really, I just want to convey one thing. One crucial thing… Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, just give Veronica Mars a chance. I need Kristen Bell on TV every week for my own well-being. So help The Jay stay sane and give me this one thing. Give me a Veronica Mars Season Four.

Bangarang!

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