The nytimes have done an interesting piece on what the Television landscape will look like once the WGA strike is over. Which is a good point - what will TV look like after the strike? Bionic fans are still in the dark over whether or not the show will return. Although if it does return, things will surely be different. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing, perhaps if the networks decide to tighten their belts and provide less financial clout for their shows, it will mean that creators of those shows will have to focus more on quality writing, and less on ‘razzmatazz’?

Bionic Woman fell victim to sub-standard writing, but remains a show littered with potential, especially in terms of the caliber of actors on board and the premise - which I still believe is awesome. I’m not saying that I want to see less cool special effects - a sci-fi show like BW needs it’s share of ‘razzmatazz’, but I think creators should first focus on getting the foundations right and then build from there. I get the feeling that alot of shows are sanctioned on a whim - it sounds good and so the networks go for it, then when it fails they drop it like it’s (not so) hot.

BW has been ridden with mistakes..every BW fan knows it and so do the critics, but I sincerely hope that NBC don’t make another mistake by ditching the show. There are not many shows which could have a better premise than BW - let’s work with it and get it right..that would surely be better than spending another $10 million on another show with half the potential, only for that to be cancelled? Yes, let’s stick with BW - everything is in place..all we need is our (re-tooled) show back.

Back to the nytimes article - they cite Bionic Woman as being a prime example as to why the networks may decide to spend less on TV shows post-strike:

Cost is at the center of the drive to reduce the number of pilots, or at least to restore them to being television shows instead of mini-movies. Several executives pointed to the bloated costs of drama pilots, which have reached as high as $9 million, while episodes of the subsequent series cost only between $2 million and $3 million. Audiences then often decide that the regular episodes fail to live up to the pilot. One recent example: “Bionic Woman,” NBC’s remake of an old series, which got off to a roaring start thanks to a film-quality pilot and never measured up again.

As I said, it’s an interesting article and well worth the read. You can read the whole piece here.

I guess my main question after reading that article, is does having too much money over-complicate things for the networks? Obviously it’s all relative and it’s different for each show, but it could be argued that both BW and Heroes fell victim to trying to do too much too quickly? Obviously the writing was at fault for this, but perhaps having such huge budgets also contributed to the confusion? By the way, I’m referring to Heroes Season 2..Season 1 was awesome, and had a smaller budget, I might add ;)

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