Current Commentary

Coming Next

 

TV Series Theory

LA in the 1970s:

Experimental Finance

 

Part I: The Long Goodbye

Comes of Age

 

 

 

 

March 11, 2013

 


Home
Commentaries
Mutual Funds
Risk Management
Experimental Finance
Online Articles
Books and Articles
Finance Notes
Rigged Online
Links
About Us
Contact Info

 

TV Series Theory 

by

Ross M. Miller
Miller Risk Advisors
www.millerrisk.com
February 11, 2013

I am guilty of having watched way too much television in my youth. By high school other interests got me away from the tube (when it actually was a cathode ray tube), but I have drifted back from time to time. I did, however, get some professional mileage out of my interest in television. My undergraduate economics advisor at Caltech (and all-around great guy), Roger Noll, was a pioneer in, among very many things, the field of the economics of television. While I was a grad student at Harvard my circumstances were such that I needed to offer a junior tutorial in economics on a topic that would attract a lot of students (enough to require two sections with a single preparation). I figured that the economics of television would do the trick, and it did. It was a great tutorial to teach; most of my students were from the Pudding and they were far more interesting than the typical econ major of the day. As they say, a good time was had by all.

The only "television" that I watch now are shows that are several years old and are either free to stream on Amazon or are reasonable deals on optical media. I rarely watch an entire series all the way through; by the fourth or fifth season it turns either dull or dreadful. And that's where TV series theory comes in.

All TV series begin their lives as distinctive products. Derivative possibly, but still distinctive. That is because a network or syndicator has to pick up the series and without a "hook" there is no chance of that happening. When I was at GE I would talk from time to time to the quants at NBC who provided some statistical input into the series selection process. All I remember of their description of the process at NBC is that there was a "credenza" (that's the word they used) where all of the binders with the pitches for new shows would sit in Warren Littlefield's office at NBC (Littlefield, then the president of NBC, was the real-life basis for the president of NBC who fell in love with Elaine on "Seinfeld"). Occasionally, one of binders would fall behind the credenza, which meant that show, regardless of merit, would not get passed over by NBC.

While all shows start out as different products, these differences are transitory. Ultimately all television shows become essentially the same show. That, in a nutshell, is my TV series theory. Shows that do not ultimately conform to the standard mold die. Take, for example, the now-forgotten "Herman's Head." Its hook (or gimmick) was that the main character, Herman, had four characters in his head and they provided a kind of running commentary/Greek chorus for whatever silliness was happening to Herman. There were a few good things about the show, like Hank Azaria, but the head people were a distraction. Herman never got good ratings, indeed, it was a joke in the television industry. At the time of cancellation they were even contemplating adding more "head people" to another character. Quelle clueless.

The homogenization of TV shows takes many forms. Almost always, the key edgy character becomes "loveable," or at least less hateable. The Fonz on "Happy Days" started out in the pilot episode as a real "Lords of Flatbush" hood. By the end of the series, he was the father figure of the show. "Dexter" started out as a serious human misfit on the border of total social dysfunction, now other characters come to him for advice. "House" actually did pretty well in this regard, long-term romances toward the end of the show's run notwithstanding. The problem with "House" was that the ailment-of-the-week gimmick was exhausted by the third season. There are only a very limited number of medical mysteries that a general audience will have any chance of being able to follow. "House" only lasted as long as it did because Hugh Laurie is an amazing actor and his chemistry with the ensemble cast around him worked out well with some notable exceptions.

The underlying reason for a TV series to evolve in the manner that it does is that the hook is necessary to grab viewers in the first place, but then the show must pander to the audience to keep and enlarge it. "Twin Peaks" shows what happens when a show fails to pander. David Lynch's weirdness drew audiences in and then drove them away. When there are the hooks that never grab more than a cult audience and then there's no need to pander because no one else is left to join the cult. "Freaks and Geeks," "Action," and "Arrested Development" are among the rare series that managed to be consistently good because they were on death row almost from day one.

"Arrested Development" is, of course, a special case. It made it so long and is being resurrecting this year because the show goes beyond brilliant into a category of its own. The big gimmick of the show is that Michael, the good-looking "nice guy" who is the lens through which the show is seen, is just as rotten as his despicable relatives, and possibly more so due to his rampant narcissism and self-delusion. What makes this especially funny is that the typical viewer (and TV critic and Wikipedia) buys Michael's "I'm only doing this for the family" bit, joining him in his delusional state. Michael's actions, however, speak much louder than his words. Karma sucks.

Beyond the homogenization effect, TV shows do have an obvious evolution when it comes to quality. Successful shows tend to peak somewhere during the first four seasons. The first season is rarely the best because the show is usually underfunded and the creators/writers/actors need time to figure out what the show is about and let it find its "voice." Still, the first season can be the best when additional funding comes at the cost of network interference or if there is a falling out among the talent. "Dobie Gillis," the topic of an earlier commentary, is an example of a show that was epic in its first season and all downhill from there. The second and third seasons are usually the sweet spot for a show: there is enough money to do things right, there are still massive payoffs to having a successful show, and not all of the good ideas had been used. Critical among these massive payoffs is having sufficient episodes for second-run syndication, which often requires 100 episodes. The monetary pull of syndication can keep a show going strong through its fourth season and even into the fifth. After that, the creators/writers are likely well more involved in their next series, providing support for only the occasional episode, if that. Actors squabble, get to direct episodes (usually a big mistake), and peripheral characters have entire episodes written around them. "Special" shows also abound, such as hallucinogenic fantasies, weird points of view, musicals, etc. The occasional series that get enough of the special shows right, for example, "Buffy" and "X-Files," are the ones that peak the latest.

Next time, I move from TV to movies and begin a three-part series on Los Angeles in the 1970s as represented by the movies of the time. My first flick in the series is Robert Altman's underappreciated treatment of the Raymond Chandler classic The Long Goodbye.

Copyright 2013 by Miller Risk Advisors. Permission granted to forward by electronic means and to excerpt or broadcast 250 words or less provided a citation is made to www.millerrisk.com.

Commentary
Archives


April 12, 2004
The Bull That Will Not Die

April 19, 2004
If an Irrationally Exuberant Moment Turns Into the Right Moment...

April 26, 2004
Anatomy of the Bull that Will Not Die
Part 1: Meme Wars

May 3, 2004
Anatomy of the Bull that Will Not Die
Part 2: All That Macro

May 10, 2004
Anatomy of the Bull that Will Not Die
Part 3: Stock Factors

May 17, 2004
Waiting for the End of the World

May 24, 2004
Black Gold or Bubbling Crude?

June 1, 2004
The Fastow Challenge

June 7, 2004
Bull for President, Oil, and Fed Funds

June 14, 2004
Rigged, Not Random

June 21, 2004
Three Cheers
 for the Subconscious

June 28, 2004
Infinite Liquidity,
Infinite Capital,
Infinite Jest

July 12, 2004
The Golden Age
of Wall Street:
Part I

July 19, 2004
The Golden Age
of Wall Street:
Part II

July 26, 2004
The Golden Age
of Wall Street:
Part III

August 2, 2004
The Golden Age
of Wall Street:
Part IV

August 9, 2004
Uncle Possum's
Handbook of
Mutual Fund Scams

August 16, 2004
Hedgehog
Chapter 19 from
Rigged

August 23, 2004
Is Google the Anti-Enron?

August 30, 2004
What Will Google
Be Worth
on November 30, 2004?

September 13, 2004
A Rigged Summer

September 20, 2004
Dan Rather and the Hedonic Age

September 27, 2004
Still Waiting for the End of the World

October 4, 2004
Fannie Mae Death Watch Part I: Overview

October 11, 2004
Fannie Mae Death Watch Part II: Abrupt Conclusion

October 18, 2004
Alien Abductions and
Your Financial Future

October 25, 2004
Factor Models 101

November 1, 2004
Google November

November 8, 2004
Post-Election Outlook

November 15, 2004
Adventures in Retailing:
Part I: Grocers

December 6, 2004
Adventures in Retailing:
Part II: Two Guys
from Retailand

December 13, 2004
Going Sporadic

January 6, 2005
Adventures in Retailing Part III: Manhattan Bookstores

February 24, 2005
Adventures in Retailing Part IV: Woodbury Common

March 21, 2005
Outlaw Financial Calculators

April 11, 2005
The Year of
Living Bullishly
and the
Oil Superspike

April 25, 2005
Adventures in
Retailing Part V:
Office Superstores

May 9, 2005
Be Careful
What You Model

May 23, 2005
Dude, Where's My Web Page?

June 13, 2005
Going Mobile

June 27, 2005
Splendid Isolation

July 11, 2005
Invasion of the
Asset Swappers

July 25, 2005
Adventures in
Retailing Part VI:
Arts & Crafts

August 8, 2005
The Political
Economy
of Pop

August 22, 2005
Errol Morris
Gets Inside
People's Heads

September 12, 2005
Mutual Fund =
Index Fund +
Hedge Fund

September 26, 2005
Calendar
Consciousness

October 10, 2005
Market
Mulligans

October 24, 2005
Google Again

November 14, 2005
The Human Variable

November 28, 2005
More TV Madness

January 9, 2006
The Shape of
Financial Time

January 23, 2006
Reality Has Never
Been So Real

February 13, 2006
Adventures in
Retailing Part VII:
The Search
for Dave

February 27, 2006
Adventures in
Retailing Part VIII:
Procuring Dave

March 13, 2006
Reality Swaps

March 27, 2006
Trial by Enron
Part I: Myths

April 10, 2006
Trial by Enron
Part II: Facts

April 24, 2006
Trial by Enron
Part III: Opinions

May 8, 2006
Three More Things
about
Risk Management

May 22, 2006
Hangin' with the Fed

June 12, 2006
The Public Side
of Self

June 26, 2006
Hedge Funds:
Corruptors of
Youth?

July 10, 2006
Oral Philosophers
Part I:
Jean Shepherd

July 24, 2006
Oral Philosophers
Part II:
Alan Watts

August 14, 2006
Oral Philosophers
Part III:
Spalding Gray

August 28, 2006
Adventures in
Retailing Part IX:
Costco and
Sam's Club

September 11, 2006
The Unbearable
Snarkiness
of Dividends

September 25, 2006
The Wide Angle

October 9, 2006
Wireless Routers,
Lemons, and
Bad Opinions

October 23, 2006
Dollar Donuts

November 13, 2006
Revenge
of the Matrix

November 27, 2006
Woz Foreshadowed

January 8, 2007
Be a Financial Woz

January 22, 2007
How I Write
These Commentaries

February 12, 2007
Financial Dogma

February 26, 2007
The Making
of
Stansky's
Monster

March 12, 2007
Attention
T-Mart
Shoppers

March 26, 2007
Absorbing Media

April 9, 2007
Adventures in
Retailing Part X:
AJ's Fine Foods

May 14, 2007
Bull Market
Update

June 11, 2007
What Me
Worry about
Credit Derivatives?

July 9, 2007
XM:
Music from Above

August 13, 2007
Internet Radio
and Beyond

September 10, 2007
Getting Things
Labeled

October 8, 2007
Adventures in
Retailing Part XI:
Amazon and Newegg

November 12, 2007
Podmania

February 11, 2008
Postmodern
Cupid

March 10, 2008
Back in
the Day

April 14, 2008
American
Top 40

May 12, 2008
Radio
Paradise

June 9, 2008
Teen Directors I:
Hal Ashby

July 14, 2008
Teen Directors II:
John Hughes

August 11, 2008
Teen Directors III:
Cameron Crowe

September 8, 2008
The Big Conversion

October 13, 2008
Vista and the
Software Gap

November 10, 2008
Whatever

February 9, 2009
Nerd Nerd
Revolution
Part I:
Introduction

March 23, 2009
Nerd Nerd
Revolution
Part II:
SXSW 2009

April 13, 2009
Nerd Nerd
Revolution
Part III:
Nerds on TV

May 18, 2009
Nerd Nerd
Revolution
Part IV: xkcd

June 8, 2009
Addict Nation

July 20, 2009
Yuppie Music I:
Jackson Browne

August 10, 2009
Yuppie Music II:
Fleetwood Mac

September 14, 2009
Yuppie Music III:
Tom Petty

October 12, 2009
Adventures in
Retailing XII:
Crate & Barrel

November 9, 2009
Hydrogenaudio
vs.
Stereophile

February 8, 2010
Vintage Audio

March 8, 2010
From KWHY
to CNBC HD+

April 12, 2010
Green Mountain
Breakdown

May 10, 2010
Evolving and
Hibernating

September 13, 2010
Too Clever
by Quant

October 11, 2010
Adventures in
Retailing XIII:
The Fresh Market

November 8, 2010
Thirty Years Back

February 14, 2011
The Disillusioned

March 14, 2011
Back to Earth

April 11, 2011
Pass the Kool-Aid

May 9, 2011
Cloud Invasion

June 13, 2011
It's Complicated

July 11, 2011
Tucson and Kashmir

August 8, 2011
Finance 2.0

October 10, 2011
Paving at Ten

November 14, 2011
The Future
Rewrites
the Past

February 13, 2012
Adventures in
Retailing Part XIV:
Niskayuna ShopRite

March 12, 2012
The Return of
Dobie Gillis

May 14, 2012
Extrapolating
the Future

June 11, 2012
Albums Circa '70
Part I: CS&N

July 9, 2012
Albums Circa '70
Part II: Nantucket
Sleighride

August 13, 2012
Albums Circa '70
Part III: Emitt Rhode
s

October 15, 2012
Homer at Last

November 12, 2012
Whatever (Again)

February 11, 2013
TV Series Theory