Interactive TV Too Early: The False Start of QUBE Amanda D. Lotz The Velvet Light Trap, Number 64, Fall 2009, pp. 106-107 (Article) Published by University of Texas Press DOI: 10.1353/vlt.0.0067 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/vlt/summary/v064/64.article01_sub24.html Access provided by University of Michigan @ Ann Arbor (14 Mar 2014 14:25 GMT) 76 Perspectives on Failure THE EDITORS Dossier: Perspectives on Failure edia history is lined with failures, flops, success. But the economics of television place the failure and false starts across the areas of aesthet- threshold much higher, as most series only turn profitable ics and style, technology, social and politi- after multiple seasons, making failure a nearly universal M cal representation, media studies’ methods condition by the only measures that matter to the televi- and models, and industry and business. We approached sion industry. a number of well-known media scholars working in From a creative perspective, failure is much more a variety of fields and asked them to discuss a favorite, muddy. Many programs that have turned a profit via overlooked, or particularly important instance of failure in the magical realm of syndication are viewed by critics one of these five arenas. Their thought-provoking answers and creators with scorn—sure, programs like Gilligan’s complement and extend the concerns raised elsewhere Island, Empty Nest, and Coach could be seen as successes, in this issue, covering a range of topics from submarine with long, profitable runs both on- and off-network, movies to PowerPoint presentations and from telephonic but it would be hard to find a serious defense of their cats to prepositions. We thank our contributors for their aesthetic achievements. Meanwhile, television history is responses and hope that the reader will find this collection littered with “Brilliant but Cancelled” pilots and abbre- as engaging as we do. viated first seasons, programs whose aesthetic choices fail to find their groove in the commercial system—think Firefly, Frank’s Place, and Freaks & Geeks, just from the Aesthetics and Style F file. But it’s a mistake to link innovative aesthetics with com- The Aesthetics of Failure mercial failure and industrial success to formulaic retreads. If you ever get a chance to see an unaired pilot, odds are Jason Mittell it earned its failure. Likewise, some of the most successful shows in television history were incredibly innovative To study the aesthetics of American television requires and adventurous aesthetically, from Dragnet’s paradigmatic us to examine failure. Not because, as many might assert, telefilm style to Seinfeld’s narrative architecture, Cheers as television fails as an aesthetic medium. In fact, I would a trailblazer for sitcom story arcs to ER’s groundbreaking argue that television of the last twenty years is arguably our visual style. Instead of bemoaning the failed aesthetics of most robust aesthetic medium. Rather, television creativity television, we should look to what both successful and itself is immersed in failure, and failure needs to be seen cancelled innovations can teach us and how they help as the default norm, not the exception. shape the possibilities of the medium. Clearly, this is tied to the raw numbers of television For my own current project analyzing contemporary programming. In the commercial American system the American television narrative forms, launched here in vast majority of program ideas never get optioned into Velvet Light Trap 58, I have been forced to think about a script, and most scripts are never filmed as pilots, and a how narrative innovations stem from both commercial small fraction of pilots makes it into an aired series. Thus, successes and failures—and rethink that very boundary simply getting a show on the air should be regarded as a itself. I have kept a running list of programs that might The Velvet Light Trap, Number 64, Fall 2009 ©2009 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819 The Editors 77 be categorized as part of the mode of narrative complex- failures—producers of Lost and Heroes mention these pro- ity I outline in that article. As of January 2009 I count grams as object lessons on how not to handle the long-term ninety-seven narratively complex series that made it to dynamics of serialized storytelling. television since 1999, which I see as the moment when Other early influences are more explicit failures, with a few innovations coalesced into a full-fledged trend. Of Crime Story, Wiseguy, and Murder One all trying to fore- those, forty-two might be deemed successful, gaining a ground arc-driven complex stories but failing to sustain renewal beyond a single season, with a few still too recent themselves beyond short runs with mediocre ratings. Even to judge. farther back in the archives of failure, the series Coronet A nearly 50 percent success rate is remarkable for Blue, about an amnesiac searching for his identity and why commercial television, where failure is much more com- he was targeted for assassination, was shelved for two years monplace. For comparison, thirty new series debuted on before CBS decided to air it in the summer of 1967, with network broadcast television in 1997, with only three the network afraid that the narrative would be far too chal- lasting beyond that season. To be fair, many of the shows lenging for audiences. Such failed programs may not have on my list aired on basic or premium cable, where com- been direct influences on the creators of today’s serialized petition is thinner and the ratings thresholds are lower. dramas, but they helped set the norms and expectations for But nonetheless, the commercial success of these programs networks about the limits of narrative experimentation. suggests that the aesthetic trend of narrative complexity is Thus, studying television aesthetics cannot limit itself to not a short-lived cycle common to television but a more the study of unmitigated successes. There’s far too much widespread and deeply felt shift in the possibilities of tele- happenstance that allows a hit to avoid failure—after all, vision storytelling. Seinfeld, Lost, and CSI were all nearly pulled before even In thinking about the terms of success and failure that airing. Failures help us understand the limits of the system operate around these programs, the gray area between the as well as the possibilities that got passed over, and thus they two is vast. Take Pushing Daisies, an ABC series cancelled in need to be viewed alongside clear successes and within the late 2008 after two half-seasons—by commercial measures, gray area in between. it was a failure, as it did not generate sufficient ratings to sustain itself and reach syndicated bounty. However, it did The Return of Jezebel James generate twenty-two episodes of truly original and innova- tive storytelling, pushing beyond many norms of network Michael Z. Newman programming and thriving in DVD release. Likewise, be- loved Fox comedy Arrested Development is bemoaned for Admirers of Gilmore Girls (The WB/The CW, 2000–2007) its cancellation, yet fifty-three episodes over three seasons were largely disappointed by Amy Sherman-Palladino’s make it hard to regard the show as a failure compared to subsequent effort, The Return of Jezebel James, which ran the majority of shows that never get beyond the first sea- for three episodes in early 2008 before the Fox network son. Both of these shows certainly mattered, even if they killed it. (As I write in early 2009, all seven completed did not achieve commercial success—they will be written episodes can be viewed online at Hulu or downloaded about and viewed for years to come, even if they did not from iTunes.) Reviews were scathing and ratings were low get to conclude on their own terms. when Jezebel James, a half-hour comedy starring Parker Looking backward into the history of television’s nar- Posey and Lauren Ambrose, first aired on a Friday night rative innovation, it is clear that many shows made their in March. Among its most despised aspects was the sound mark despite their status as failures. Twin Peaks is certainly of audible laughter from its studio audience.1 A critic a key landmark for many contemporary programs, but for the New York Times compared it to peanut butter on despite its critical acclaim and initial ratings buzz, its pizza (Bellafante). It was the show’s misfortune to have thirty episodes make it no more of a commercial success arrived at a moment in television history when most of than Pushing Daisies. And although its innovations are a the aesthetically advanced comedies had abandoned the frequently cited touchstone for contemporary television audience laughter (real or fake) that had been part of the producers, both Twin Peaks and the more commercially sitcom format since radio days and that Brett Mills calls successful The X-Files are frequently highlighted as partial “the convention which has traditionally most simply and 78 Perspectives on Failure effectively defined the genre” (38). It was the curse of having seen them so effectively defamiliarized by a new Jezebel James to aim to be too classy, and its failure is in part generation of television comedies that eschewed theatrical- a testament to the fickle arbitrariness of taste standards as ity. In many ways Jezebel James came across as aiming for they change over time. aesthetic sophistication. It was a product of the same cre- While it has suffered a decline in mass popularity, the ators who had made the beloved screwball dramedy Gilmore sitcom genre has enjoyed a creative renaissance in the Girls, renowned for its smarty-pants writing and engaging aughts, largely a function of having cast aside many of its characters.