Wed 23 Sep 2009
ONE TREE HILL & VAMPIRE DIARIES Get Back 9 Picked Up, While Ostroff orders 6 more MELROSE (Or How Dumb Can Dawn Ostroff Really Be?)
Posted by Nick C under MELROSE PLACE, One Tree Hill, The CW, VAMPIRE DIARIES
[26] Comments
Dawn Ostroff is out of control.
While it was a no brainer to order the back 9 for the The Can’t Win Network’s two most viewed scripted shows of their beloved demographic (women 18-34) the order of 6 new scripts of MELROSE episodes is mind boggling. The decision was tied to the addition of Heather Locklear to the cast. In the words of one mindless bitch at The CW it’s “guaranteed exposure!,” and while that may be true Dawn is running around making horrible decisions with money that isn’t hers.
Will the government please step in? I mean seriously, if they think they can save GM they can save The CW. This kind of decision is right up there with AIG board members taking a luxury vacation on the dime of tax payers who helped buy them out. Dawn should be held liable just like our President claimed he would the people at AIG.
Am I going too far? Maybe. However this is just a step too far. This isn’t FOX which can renew a above average genre show that has horrible ratings, this is The CW which is renewing a show that got a .8 in the demo last week. A frickin point eight! The CW doesn’t have the ability to fall back on words like “we’re trying to build stability in our Friday Night lineup,” this is Tuesday night for The CW which historically for The WB and Paramount was one of their top performers.
MELROSE PLACE 2009 is a flop. It’s not a bad idea, but the new show is nothing compared to the old show and has very little to compare with the original. Find that hard to believe? It’s easily summed up with some photos:
Exhibit A: Cute kids
That’s right they sure look cute. They’re all what about 20 maybe 21? They’re all definitely getting carded. Now look at the original cast:
Exhibit B: Hot 20 to 30 somethings.
Can you see the difference just from the photos? MELROSE PLACE wasn’t about teen angst or teen drama it was a full on evening soap starring some really hot young talent in Hollywood. By hot I only mean physically too. No offense to the acting skills of the above (where the hell did they all end up?).
Unlike last year’s 90210 which debuted huge, this year the old fans of MELROSE weren’t fooled. Was it because some had already been suckered in by the horrible 90210 redux? Perhaps, but a part of me thinks it was also the promotion work done by The CW. It was obvious from the pictures of the people that this wasn’t your older sister’s cousin’s roomate in college’s mother’s MELROSE PLACE. This is something different.
The CW found that out too late, and their answer is: Heather Locklear. Do I think that will work? Nope. You know what would work?
Cast Serinda Swan
I’m on crack but…
I like Melrose Place. I said it. I think last nights episode was a good way to get the old fans into the new show. Will the show succeed? No. But I’ll enjoy the ride while it lasts.
Nick, did Supernatural get a full season order? Seems odd OTH got 13 episodes this year when before it was always for a full pickup.
Brad, GG, SMALLVILLE and SUPERNATURAL already have full season orders, you crackhead.
Picking up Melrose is insane. I can understand The Vampire Diaries getting a few more episodes, but this is just flushing money down the toilet.
Wasn’t there talk of a Justice League show? If Serinda Swan was a regular (reprising her role of Zatanna) the ratings would be through the roof with the male demograph.
Dawn O. has finally overdosed on stupid pills. She should have kept Reaper. It performed admirably given the competition.
To Siri,
According to Dawn males don’t exist so she doesn’t care if we’ll watch which is stupid.
Nick,
Did you accidently exclude 90210 from that full-season pickup?
Brad, I don’t remember if it got a full season order last Spring or not. It wouldn’t have been a good idea, so I’m going to guess not. However with them ordering scripts and extra episodes it seems weird that they didn’t move on 90210. So that would lead me to believe it was a full season order.
Of course that was back when Dawn and others were convinced it would be profitable on DVD (it’s not, not even close). So a full order of a product that made money for the Studio rather than the Network was ok. Now she’s looking rather silly if she did a full season order. She isn’t dumb enough to order one real new episode of MELROSE. Also her inability to order those episodes says just what Les is thinking (that she’s wrong).
I, too, thought the MP extra 6 was insane, but doubtless it’s because of Locklear. Hell, it might even have been a condition of getting her. Still, it’s all fine for us to talk about this (and mock Dawn), but is there any sense that Les will finally pull the trigger on firing her? Because this is just ridiculous. It’s entertaining watching her fail and fail again – more entertaining than her shows – but I do want to watch good scripted dramas and that won’t be happening under her.
Or is the plan still that CBS wants to divest itself of the CW entirely? It’s a dead weight, clearly, especially with how fantastic CBS has been doing (granted, in the first couple days of the season, but still).
I am impressed by CW viewers, however. I always said my demo was not this stupid…and they’re proving me right by refusing to watch these insultingly stupid shows. Of course, it does make me wonder how Body Politic would have done. That was the only thing that had any brains to it last season, so of course it didn’t get picked up.
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.
Nick, you’re just grinding away at that axe, waiting for it to be used to cut off the head of the network.
I, however, can’t bring myself to hate Dawn. She championed Veronica Mars, and brought it to The CW even though it was the lowest rating series to make the move to the new net, and several higher rating series were cancelled in favour of it. For that, I will forever love and to some degree respect her.
By the way, what timezone is this blog set to, EST or PST?
nick last summer u wrote an article about the BODY POLITIC’s fate on other networks(abc,nbc).do you have news about this???
Melrose Place makes some sense to me:
The Beautiful Life is dead. CW only has one scripted replacement show in the wings (the questionable Life Unexpected).
So ask yourself, which will do worse? Melrose Place (which might sell some DVDs and can air as repeats) or more midseason reality drivel?
(Of course, the correct answer is for WB to not be completely incompetent over the last few years. But they weren’t, so now more MPs makes sense.)
And no, Locklear won’t save the show – the kids have no nostalgia for her.
George,
Body Politic is dead. dead. dead. It’s very rare for a pilot to get passed on one season and get picked up the following. It’s possibly they may re-tool it, but I imagine at this point of the actors have moved on.
Nick,
Given that CW has ordered an additional 6 scrips for MP I’d wager 90210 did get a full season pickup as its doing better in the ratings/demos over MP and a script/episode pickup would have come along with 90210 as well.
90210 sales were lackluster. I reviewed the DVD set and hardly had anyone bother to read it. My One Tree Hill S6 review had 8x more hits on it…so that say’s alot.
And how about the numbers for TBL….
0.5/1 1.086 total viewers.
The CW is delusional. Have you seen their slogan now. TV to talk about, or text about… tweet about. Just crazy.
@ Jack
Yeah, Dawn did bring Veronica Mars on the CW. But looking back in time…. do you really think it did the show (or it’s fans) any good? Not only was season 3 beyond awful… they canceled the show. So, in essence, she took a good show from UPN, ruined it and then canceled it… without any closure.
Rob Thomas is not innocent in that story, either.
And this season pilot selection is….. unbelievable. Except for VD they can’t manage a 1 rating and 2M total viewers.
Alex, she was the UPN president before The CW, and she ran with the show for three years. Season three was of course the worst season, but it was still excellent TV by any standard.
And its series finale was both great and fitting for the show, even if (obviously) not ideal.
I’ve been mind boggled by the fact Dawn still has a job. Would they fire her now or wait until May? Also what would the chances of dumping the CW and bringing back the WB?
I enjoyed all three season of Veronica Mars…but yeah, Season 3 was not the best but still decent television.
Yes Jack, I know Dawn was the president of UPN… that just makes things worse, really. But, enough about VM… old wounds.
I wonder if anyone (Nick C?) has more info on why was TBL picked up by the network… because of the all important 18-34 F demo?
Jesus.
TBL’s series order frankly made sense. It was a thematic match with ANTM, it starred the usual young faces (and frankly, Barton and the HSM guy are more known that Simpson), and it made their long term producers (Banks & Kutcher) happy.
I view the TBL disaster as a sign of the collapse of the CW strategy more than anything else.
Nick I cannot believe you typed the sentence that a remake of Melrose Place wasn’t a bad idea, yes it was. It might have seemed like a good idea immediately after the debut of 90210 last year but the weeks that followed should have made everyone see sense but clearly not.
In regards to the additional episode pick-up’s for Melrose Place I can see why its been done – they don’t really have anything to replace it with now The Beautiful Life is dead. On the subject of The Beautiful Life can anyone explain why its called The Beautiful Life: TBL? And surely someone should be running a sweepstake on how much longer it lasts in its current slot? I would have thought now was the time to move Smallville off of Friday nights and dump TBL there…
Serinda Swann was one of the few high points of Smallville last year.
She’d make a good Athena in a Battlestar Galactica movie.
No way would they put Smallville to Tuesdays….yet. Dawn wants to see how well/poor it will do on Friday. If she can build a Friday night she should. But now with other networks doing the same (or trying to) it might not last on Friday. IIRC, they are shooting episode 8/9 of TBL now, so they can easily go through the Winter if CW wished.
If Dawn had wanted a Friday night she shouldn’t have dumped Smackdown. At this point the night is a loss, and there is no reason not to move TBL there.
Tom, your point is certainly valid. It (TBL) is a thematic match with ANTM, no question about it.
I’m just surprised (why, one would wonder) at the constant narrowing of the creative range on this network. It’s either rich white kids, models, current hyped-up teen movies (Twilight) or former hits, redone in a way that fits their targeted demo.
That’s why I am frustrated… it seems that almost nothing works (their (CW’s) hits are the leftovers from WB.. OTH, Supernatural & Smallville) and still they are reluctant to try something different. Like ‘Body politic’ par example.
Anyway, you are right, their strategy is collapsing. Hopefully, that would change things… or end the CW forever. Whichever is fine with me.
Brad they don’t necessarily have to move Smallville to Tuesdays (although a Top Model/Smallville pairing would be a big night for them) they should just move it off Friday’s and put The Beautiful Life there. In theory they could try putting something like Vampire Diaries behind Top Model and try to grow that into a bigger hit with a strong (CW) lead-in. Or if Dawn really wants to keep Melrose Place try moving that behind Top Model and hope that stops the bleeding.
TBL is as good as dead. Burn off whatever episode sthey have left and wait for Life Unexpected to fill its place. Hopefully that might catch on (as the very WBish Vampire Diaries has). Guess we’ll see how Smallville on Fridays does tomorrow…
I’m still really surprised that they haven’t decided to run Vampire Diaries encores on Fridays after Smallville. They’d make a great pairing, and considering how competitive the Thursday-at-8 timeslot is, it might be a good way for Dawn’s only hit to get another chance.
That, and if I’m too lazy to turn off the TV after Smallville, I don’t want to have to sit through Top Model. So there are selfish reasons for saying that, too.