The Case for More Original TV Content

As media consumption has progressed over the last decade, the amount of original and scripted, not to mention interesting, works on television have steadily decreased – game shows, “reality” TV, talk shows, and late-night talking heads have canvassed the airwaves, to the anguish of many.

Survivor can be blamed for creating ten years of “reality” television and game shows, debuting in 2000 and still on air today, spawning countless hours of mindless, horrible programming that people somehow find entertaining.  There had been some hope, apparently unfounded, that the Great Recession, in combination with an oversaturation of reality and game show content, would begin to see a resurgence of true entertainment in 2009, but this did not happen.

There appears, however, to be hope.

NBC has been losing the ratings battle for some time now, and has been attempting to reboot itself as a viable player in the arena of scripted content – this collapsing behemoth has ordered 18 pilots for Fall 2010, none of which appear to be reality or game show oriented.  The former staples of NBC, such as Heroes, no longer perform as they used to, and for good reason:  the rainbow peacock has fallen into the same trap of sequels, reboots, copycats, and reimaginings that all the other networks have depended upon for scripted content over the last decade.

This is not to say that NBC’s attempt at new shows will not include stealing other networks’ ideas or reboots of shows from a different age, but it’s a start.  Some of television’s best scripted content, such as V, 24, and LOST, are long-standing series or modern adaptations of old shows – where is the new, original content?  More often than not, modern television simply rehashes old ideas like “regular guy becomes cop/spy/badass to defeat badguys” and “crazy things happen that we don’t explain clearly”, instead of taking the time to develop new and interesting concepts.

The entertainment industry is quietly crumbling, as evidenced by the same reboot/sequel mentality’s prevalence in Hollywood, but this can be easily fixed with a return to taking risks on brilliant concepts and unique scripts.  Battlestar Galactica was wonderful, but even that was not an original show – it was a reimagining of the 1978 version.  This is as much the fault of networks as it is writers:  those with vested interests in the success of a media property prefer to go with the “safe bet”, rather than something radical.

Movies like District 9, Moon, and Avatar have shown that action-drama can come entirely out of left field with original ideas and be hugely successful – why not replicate this on television?  There are already too many sitcoms, talk shows, and whatever the current failure of Jay Leno is considered, so it’s time to return to allowing writers the freedom to create something new and wonderful, rather than tired and rehashed.

Or, at the very least, pursue the adaptation of brilliant novels or comic books as a television series – I nominate “Gridlinked” by Neal Asher.

Kyle can be found on his blog, on Facebook, via email, or on Twitter.