WHY are "high concept" shows failing?

Richard Dower

On US network tv.....
Over the last 2/3 seasons a large portion of so called "high concept" shows have failed, though i admit there have been a small few successes [Once Upon A Time springs to mind].

The list is long now, but a few of note The Event/Flash Forward/The Cape/Alcatraz/Terra Nova/Awake etc etc.
The knee jerk reaction is "stupid Americans being fed on a deit of reality crap" or "too stupid to 'get it' "....is it really that simple?, or is it the shows themselves were crap or just the usual "the ratings weren't there". Tbh i think the question is somewhat complex, it's probably a combination of many factors....not least that how people view their tv these days is radically different from a few years ago.

On demand, streamimg, media players and rips etc. have all had a huge impact on network ratings. Year-by-year viewing is trending down, but to juxtaposition this....cable viewing numbers are on the increase.

Some speculate in 5 years network tv will be over or simply full schedules of reality shows and singing competitions, as that's where the money is coming from.....sadly

lots has been said on the subject, probably raised a few times here already, but hey....tis a slow Summer/tv time

StupidLikeAFox

It could be down to the fact that if people donts see the first few episodes they dont bother getting in on the show, whereas something like the Big Bang Theory you can pretty much jump in at any point.

Or else the miss the first few episodes and then go download them all at once, which doesnt affect the ratings

andala

I think it's for the same reason people read less and less books. We're getting intellectually lazy, we can't be bothered to stay focused for too long so what generally is more appealing is something that doesn't demand too much thinking, has short visually varied segments rather than a long, complicated plot. TV lives off advertising so it's natural they go for shows that are likely to attract masses, which leads to losing quality.

Like people said in the thread about tv being far from reality, nobody wants to watch forensic investigators spend hours looking via microscopes in a sterile lab with white tiles, we want cool gadgets, fast action, beautiful people and we definitely do not want to feel stupid, hence simplified plots

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

because most of those shows were poorly made ****?

you can be as high concept as you want but unless you actually make a good product people wont watch

mike65

High concept is shorthand for clever idea not for a clever engaging well written story. First principles first please.

Jogathon

I loved Flash Forward and was gutted they cancelled it! I think I understood it too but then I'm, err, highly intelligent, I swear.

matrim

I think that a small part of it may be not knowing if a show will last more than a season so not wanting to get invested without being sure.

As you said cable shows are on the rise and this may be in part because they are less likely to get cancelled.

Simples.

Americans are getting dumber.

S.M.B.

All of the above but in the following order!

- Poor quality derivative shows finding their way onto network TV.
- Mainstream TV audiences reluctance to watch serialized shows where they can't just dip in and out of on a weekly basis.
- A further subsection of a shows viewership wanting to watch a show in bulk whether via DVR or DVD boxsets.

LeinsterDub

The main thing I think is the target audience are all tech savvy. It was the same with battlestar everyone I know who watched it downloaded it.

ArmaniJeanss

Richard Dower wrote: »

The list is long now, but a few of note The Event/Flash Forward/The Cape/Alcatraz/Terra Nova/Awake etc etc.

I made a decision not to watch any of these shows after Lost.

I think that 'mysterious things are happening, our intrepid cast must get to the bottom of it' type shows are fundamentally flawed in the American TV model.

Because either a)
they get good ratings and the network continually greenlights it for another series, leading to convoluted superfluous story arcs and 'making it up as they go along' problems.
or b) it gets cancelled between series leading to a hanging cliffhanger with no actual conclusion.

Skerries

The Event - interesting but needed to have done something bigger and unfortunately and belatedly they did in the last episode
Flash Forward - was good and was starting to come it's own but again we needed something to draw us in more
The Cape - absolute rubbish and a travesty to the Superhero genre
Alcatraz - I felt this was the new Fringe but needed to change tack like Fringe did after the first series as that was very freak of the week as well
Terra Nova - too sterile and family friendly
Awake - I am liking this but it's not at the top of my must watch shows and would like to know where it is going

don ramo

quiet simple really these shows are so expensive to make, so you need massive revenue streams coming in to make up for it, shows like terra nova cost so much to make that it probably required 15million viewers plus a week to be able to generate enough advertisement revenue to justify its cost, it pulled in 10 million viewers, which wasn't really that bad a rating when you see Fringe getting renewed last year, with about 4-5 million viewers, (it was obviously renewed this year for a final season but FOX kinda committed to a fifth season when they gave it a 4th and bringing it so close to 100 eps) on the same network, how much did it cost to make???

and the networks seem to need there money back immediately, i think HBO were the first to click onto this, that its impossible to get all your money back straight away, you invest wisely and in a good product and you forecast your profits, and it seems to be working out quiet nicely for them so far,

also, most of the creative people on network shows are just sh1t, some shows just seem to wonder aimlessly for a while before they finally click, and at that point its to late, these people always say they have a plan, yet seem to change it about 6 or 7 episodes in due to low ratings, they cant change it 3 or 4 eps in cause them episodes would have been filmed already, they need to come up with a plan and stick to it,

and there always seems to be shows that you know should be on cable I.E firefly, but are on network television for some reason, and i think most showrunners should know if there show will work on the networks, and if not plug it to a cable network, but then you wont make as much money and get the recognition you feel you deserve, all the big shots and cool dude are on network TV, but all the best talent is over on cable,

also looking at GOT here, when was the last time you saw a network show jump 50% in viewership from one season to the next, hell even 20%, it does seem like if you miss the train at the start then you aint ever getting on,

i always find it funny how a show like breaking bad gets talked about so much when it only pulls in 2 million viewers a week, then shows like CSI and The Big Bang Theory are never really talked about yet pull in 5-10 times the numbers

high concept works, when its made by the right people and sold to the right people,

mike65

The Singing Detective was high concept you know and that's million miles removed from the pap of the above.

Because some people like to watch Glee or 2 and a Half Men and enjoy when shows they're too retarded to get get cancelled.

rednik

There are too many shows.

ixoy

A number of reasons:

1) Inaccessibility: If your arc is too tight, or too involved, you can lose people quickly especially if they miss it earlier on. Network TV demands viewers early on and won't brook the long game.

2) Short-term planning: As touched on above, many of the shows actually aren't planned very well. They've got a nifty concept and maybe an ending but very little in between that. If they're good enough they can do a good job of making it up as they go along (BSG) but often they have to pad it out too much as they renewed and there's filler.

3) Seasons are too long: Network TV asks for 22-episode TV seasons. Most high-concept shows are better suited to the cable 13-episode model. More meat, less filler.

4) A lot of them are kinda crap. Never thought much of "Flash Forward" - too much ham-fisted weak characters and a central premise that could be easily undermined by a bit of thought. "Terra Nova" was terrible in too many ways.
And so on - good idea doesn't mean a good TV show.

ejmaztec

I think it's the writers in a lot of cases, they come up with some concept, and then fail to get the message across. It's almost as if they're surprised to be given the airtime, and then have a mad panic knocking out a few episodes.

In Alcatraz for example, they made every effort not to give anything away in the first few episodes, as if they didn't know themselves what was going to happen, and by the time they did stick the odd clue in, most people had given up watching.

Kilkenny14

I think it's Lost fatigue - people don't want to be burned by watching a show as big and layered again.

Still, Lost Season 1 really was awesome.

kitakyushu

Dexter is high concept and it's moving into it's seventh season next winter.

TonyD79

kitakyushu wrote: »

Dexter is high concept and it's moving into it's seventh season next winter.

Its abut a serial killer bringing serial killers to justice...nothing complex about that! It does have its own unique season story telling arc but there are no big mysteries behind its main premise.

Mc Love

Flash Forward was great. Enjoyed V too and that was cancelled.

ixoy

kitakyushu wrote: »

Dexter is high concept and it's moving into it's seventh season next winter.

No it's not high concept. High concept generally implies some big grand mystery / story. Dexter's take is merely just the premise - there's not very much to uncover about his world as the story goes on.
Would you call "The Sopranos" or "The Wire" high concept too? I wouldn't despite their strengths.

angelll

Didn't enjoy most of the above shows,the premise/concept was v good but they just didn't follow through with the script. Some shows that do work are Once upon a time & Haven imo. Good characters,big mystery and they do drop a lot of hints to keep you interested.

Richard Dower

Interesting comment here:

I'm not gonna watch any more of these "ongoing mystery" type series (like this one, "Terra Nova," "The Event," "FlashForward," "The River"... the list goes on and on) when it's like 99% odds that the series will get cancelled before ever making it to a second season, much less a definitive conclusion. These kinds of shows should be miniseries, with a defined run. Loyal viewers want to know that all the hours they invest in the show will be rewarded with closure, not frustration.


^ --> http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/05/26/awake-finale-kyle-killen-burning-questions/2/

bnt

I'd call Heroes a good example - remember that? Pretty high concept, and the first series did well, while the second series bombed. The difference between the two was the quality of the story-telling.

If I look at shows I like, I see a mix of high and low concept in them. It doesn't have to be either-or. An episode of The West Wing, House or Six Feet Under has elements that are allow the episode to work on its own, while tying in to a longer/deeper storyline. I saw Friends described as "high concept", but if you missed an episode or two you weren't Lost (pun intended).

I've been reading a bit about high concept, e.g. this, and one thing that jumps out at me is the importance of creating solid characters with whom the audience can empathise. If you're going to send your characters on multi-episode journeys, you want the audience to want to go along for the ride. With Terra Nova, for example, the characters were caricatures which left me going "yeah, yeah, we know where this is going already".

fitz

ixoy wrote: »

kitakyushu wrote: »

Dexter is high concept and it's moving into it's seventh season next winter.

No it's not high concept. High concept generally implies some big grand mystery / story. Dexter's take is merely just the premise - there's not very much to uncover about his world as the story goes on.
Would you call "The Sopranos" or "The Wire" high concept too? I wouldn't despite their strengths.

High concept does technically fit for Dexter. In fact, its textbook high concept. Look up the meaning of the phrase - its that the concept of the film/show can be easily summarised at a high level in a couple of sentences.

"Show about a serial killer who only kills the murderers the police can't catch"

Has nothing to do with the concept being high brow or mystery related, it's just a term for how a concept is presented to give a good idea of what to expect from the film or show. I remember looking it up years ago when I first heard the phrase and being surprised too. Pretty common misconception though.

pixelburp

The very fact we are using the term "High Concept" to describe this form of shows should in itself be a clue as to why they're failing. It's a pretentious, slightly PR-based term to describe something that shouldn't really exist. You can't hang an entire 20-episode season off a 'clever' hook whose description fits on the back of a matchstick card.

Sure, they often make for a good pilot, but despite what we might think of the average TV viewer, they aren't so thick that they'll fail to recognise a show with no meat or substance to sustain its central conceit. Sometimes a show with a vague central mystery can sustain itself - usually because of fluke though. A good example might be Fringe: its central premise in series 1 was utterly generic, yet it was the strength of the main characters & actors playing them that sustained it. Not the elevator-pitch concept.

Even the progenitor of this idea - Lost - had to constantly shift the mystery sideways, or constantly throw in new variables to keep the series going. Fringe eventually had to do the same.

Although I'm sure the cutthroat world of American TV ratings has its say in things, I think it's also a fashion in some networks, and they've simply lost faith in the strength of their own programming departments, so they insist on these 'high concept' shows.

stevenmu

In short, they mostly fail because they start with a clever premise that might appeal to people looking for a more cerebral show, and then dumb it down completely to try and make it appealing to more casual viewers, and end up with a result that neither is interested in.

The examples of "high concept" shows that have worked are all ones that, for the most part, stuck to their original billing. The Event/Flashforward/Terra Nova etc all started with a high concept but then buried it underneath a 3rd rate soap opera.

Be thou hot or cold...

thebman

I think you can't ignore issues such as saturation. A lot of new shows are like old shows with new characters in slightly different settings.

I think many people get enough of that in repeats to fill up other channels that they are sick of those kinds of stories.

The ones like big bang are similar too but the purpose of shows like that is the jokes which if good or charming enough, will draw in the fans despite the setting being like friends and the love relationship taking being like Ross and Rachel.

I have stopped watching shows for this reason. I started watching heroes and that had no ending. Then i started watching Terra nova and that has finished. I dont want to put my trust in any other shows.
I am however watching Game of Thrones but that just crawls along. I kinda wish i just waited and watched them all together as a movie.

longhalloween

I think it depends on the effort and dedication required to watch these shows. The viewer is required to watch every episode in the proper order to have any idea of what's going on.

Contrast this to TBBT or any other light, self-contained TV show that's not very demanding on the viewers attention. Most people I know have only one or two shows they will dedicate their attention to, and it's the likes of Grey's Anatomy or House, where the series plot arc has only a slight impact on the episode plot. So you can miss a few episodes and still quickly pick up on what's happening. Since these shows are renewed every year (except House ) it can be difficult for new shows to break in.

You have to remember too that most people watch shows because their friends watch them, so if something has low ratings from the start it's unlikely it will ever succeed, and also that most people are content with Coronation St./Eastenders etc. where nothing ever happens:pac:

The Black Oil

Pretty much what ixoy said. Lack of patience might also be part of it. You can be as high concept as you want, but if your characters are empty or dull people won't stick around.

I don't quite understand why some people point blank to refuse a give a show like Rubicon a shot simply because it wasn't renewed.

fifi234ie

The BBC cancelled The Fades.

Irish Guitarist

After a while it becomes apparent that most of them are made up as the writers go along. In the case of Alcatraz it was only a matter of time before people figured out that JJ Abrams can't write a decent story (or at least a decent long running story) to save his life. He's great at coming up with mysteries, but not actually resolving them. Anyone could come up with some elaborate story if they didn't actually have to explain it properly or come up with a coherent outcome. Some of the episodes of Alcatraz are alright, but I bet he won't be able to come up with a reasonable explanation for what's going on with the prisoners. He would be far better off writing something like The Twilight Zone that has a different story and different characters every week.

Some programmes can be judged on an episode by episode basis, but not programmes that have a continuing storyline. For instance early episodes of Lost were great but they wouldn't be half as enjoyable for me now that I know that most of the characters and events aren't relevant to the overall story. I'm sure that Lost is responsible for turning people off of programmes of this ilk. I can usually tell after a few episodes now when the writers have no clue what they're doing.

It's kind of like when the last few minutes of a film are terrible. If you ask someone what they thought of it they'll say they hated it, even if they enjoyed it up to the last couple of minutes.

CastorTroy

Personally, I think 2 reasons people don't watch high concept shows is because, first, the writers of the shows rarely write with a set number of episodes in mind so even if they have an ending planned, there'll be a lot of boring padding episodes.

Secondly, it's partially the network's fault since these days people look at it as "Ah sure it'll probably get cancelled". So if the networks would give enough notice to write and film a finale or even just give them the money for a finale after it's been cancelled, they would get more viewers from the beginning. I especially think networks should do this for long running series. I was not happy when they cancelled The 4400 and the Dead Zone on their break after 4 seasons and 6 seasons respectively.

jonneymendoza

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

because most of those shows were poorly made ****?

you can be as high concept as you want but unless you actually make a good product people wont watch

i can think if many other tv shows in america that are far worse then Awake for example.

mcgovern

The way people consume TV is changing. A lot of people (especially in the age brackets that the ads are aimed at) don't sit down now to watch a TV show in the evening. They sit down to watch a show, while browsing the net, playing a game on their phone/tablet etc at the same time. You can watch TBBT, Coronation St, American Idol etc while doing something else, because they don't require much attention.
The likes of Rubicon do need you to pay attention to enjoy them and so people get lost or confused because they missed an important part of the last episode while checking up on the latest Jedward news, and that puts them off.

It also doesn't help that the likes of Terra Nova, The River and The Cape were utter crap.