Saturday, October 07, 2006

As Diane points out, the audience for Friday Night Lights was abysmal -- the lowest rated new drama. The network will be looking closely at whether those numbers build; pilot numbers are less a function of how strong the show is than the hook plus the promotion budget. So here's an opportunity for all those conservative groups that threaten boycotts of various shows to do something constructive. If they're really serious about promoting family values on television, they ought to mobilize their viewership to watch the darn show. Punishing shows with happy gay people won't change the face of television. But nothing will get family values on television faster than people watching shows with family values.

10:26 AM

3 Comments:

Great show but it does have a key problem that might be affecting its numbers - it doesn't have much appeal for women 25+ which is a key demo.

Great show, amazingly great but where are the interesting female charaters?

By  blindmind, at 10:43 PM  

I dunno: I'm a woman 25+ and just the fact that it's football is enough to make me wanna watch at least a couple episodes. And I can think of at least a few other women in my age group who would probably feel the same way, and only one of them actually grew up tailgating.

I don't actually feel the need for a show to have female characters for me to want to watch it. Now if the female characters who are there are stupid and unconvincing, then I'll be turned off. But that's equally true of the male characters.

Just because a character is male doesn't mean a woman can't relate to him. I relate to House and Spike way better than I relate to Cuddy, Cameron, Buffy or Willow. (Though theoretically this could be because male characters tend to be better written?)

That said, I thought Sideways was boring as all bleep specifically because there wasn't a single character I could even begin to relate to. Which probably has more to do with my age/interests/romantic status/professional situation than my gender.

But to get back to your point, blindmind, good question: will the show develop its female characters? And do most women really need to see a woman of their own age in a show before they feel they can watch it?

By  Katya, at 10:59 PM  

Is a reverse boycott the same as an endorsement? LOL
I'm actually one of the ones that didn't like it.
I'm definitely for family values; I just don't think living for the high school football game is a good one.

By  Milehimama, at 5:29 PM  

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