The TV show Addict Thread!

[Alex]

It may be good, but the problem is with the genre (serial dramas). They have a very poor historical record for success no matter how much people like them.

Because of their format, if you miss a couple episodes you feel lost and once a viewer feels lost they just stop watching. And year to year you tend to only lose viewers since hardly anybody wants to jump in mid-story.

24 solves this by starting a new story every season. Lost is a surprising exception to the rule. But I link the more illustrative example will not be Lost but Murder One (remember that?) where everybody who watched the show loved it. It was the critical golden child. It started out to high ratings and quality wise people felt it improved as the season went on. But week to week it slowly shed viewers.

Who knows, I hope the new age of Tivo/DVR and DVD distribution will help these type of shows be successful that never could have before but the TV executives can't yet rely on that and keep or lose their jobs based on the overnight ratings, not the combination of live viewers, difficult to measure time-shifters, and year later DVD watchers.