The Television Game

I was reminded of this the other day. Michelle and I were talking about TV shows as we walked down to lunch and she asked if I watched "Survivor." I answered that I would watch "Survivor" if surviving were the point. Like, if they had to fight to the death or stay on the island until they gave up or starved… that would be interesting to watch.

So that got me thinking about a game we played in college, The Television Game. In The Television Game, you are a network executive and you have to plan your weekly primetime lineup to compete with other networks’ lineups. Can’t remember what T and I called our network, but we had shows on our lineup like “That Darn God,” as well as several others. We all compared our schedules and decided who “took” that hour of programming.

Yes, we’re nerds.

Anyway, that little conversation with Michelle made me think about what kind of a lineup I’d make for today’s audiences. I can’t imagine it would be difficult to do. Do people really enjoy "Dancing with the who the hell are these people? Stars?" Are people only watching "Gossip Girl" because there is nothing better on? Do they tune in to "Jersey Shore" just so they can say to themselves “Well, I may not be thin or good looking any more, but at least I don’t act like that!”

Here’s my weekday lineup:

Monday is typically hour-long drama night. "House." "Law & Order." "One Tree Hill." "Gossip Girl." I concede that drama does well on Monday. Especially medical drama. Or police drama. Or teenage angst drama. I just think my network will do it better. My show, “Teenage Wasteland,” will encompass all of that. It follows the lives of eleven teenagers and young twenty-somethings, set in the small suburb of Forest Mountain. Most of them exhibit the bored cruelty of the young and popular, but one of them is a cold-blooded killer. But the killer is not content to shoot or strangle. Oh, no. They take their victims slowly, by infecting them with some horrible disease that doctors will work to diagnose—sadly, always after the fact—every week. (Incredibly, all of their parents work for a local evil corporation that creates these diseases in a laboratory in order to sell to the military for biological warfare.) And the police must try to find the killer before another teenager dies—without implicating the politically powerful parents or the evil corporation, which owns pretty much all of Forest Mountain. All of this, of course, brings more angst to our young people. Irrationally, that will cause them to have more sex and drugs and be even more vicious to one another. I don’t know why, but that seems to be the pattern on those shows and, hey, the pattern seems to work.

Tuesday is reality TV day. "Dancing with the Has-beens Stars," "American Idol," "Biggest Loser"… I am convinced that people are only watching this because there is nothing else on. My network will fight the reality TV trend with an Un-Reality TV show called “Sparkling, Spinning Things with Fireworks and Animated Cats.” It will feature all of that, set to a soundtrack by Depeche Mode. I’ll advertise it as “An Acid Trip Without The Lasting Aftereffects of Real LSD” or something like that. It won’t matter. I’m sure that most people, when faced with choice of "The Show That Has Ruined Popular Music Forever By Convincing The World That Every Note Needs To Be Dragged Out Ridiculously Long And Run Through At Least A Two Octave Scale Twice While You Grimace As If You Swallowed A Poisonous Snake" and… well… anything else, people will make the right choice.

Wednesday seems to have no pattern of genres, and no clear winner in the ratings. So, Wednesday becomes my night for “Gripping News Stories,” a show about all those things we really want to know about. I’m not talking about what Congress is arguing about, or which companies are projecting second quarter losses. I’m talking about news you know you cannot look away from—like the CNN story the other day about the woman who was awake during her eye removal surgery, but was paralyzed and couldn’t tell anyone. Or the story about the guy in Ohio who kept all the dead bodies in his house after he killed them. Or pretty much anything about robots or people who’ve had to have foreign objects surgically removed from their bodies. I will follow that show up with an hour-long commentary show which reviews politics, music, fashion, literature, and—ironically—television shows, called “If I Had A Hammer.”

Thursday is Must See TV Night. This is typically where you’d want to put your powerhouse show, the one that everyone is going to watch and talk about the next day. Thursday will be a tough night. "CSI" has done well in this slot, as well as the newcomers, "Flash Forward" and "Fringe." (So has "Bones," but I have no idea why.) The big dogs, of course, are "The Office" and "30 Rock." So I have to bring out my big guns. Once upon a time, Thursday was ruled by "Friends." My show, "Zombie Friends," starts its season with “The One Where Rachel Eats The Landlord’s Brains And They All Get To Live In An Apartment They Couldn’t Otherwise Afford.” As always, the friends are sadly lacking in brains.

Friday is the kiss of death for TV. Thank God people have better things to do on a Friday night. Sadly, for most of them, those things usually involve some sort of alcohol. A good network executive, of course, will capitalize on this trend. My Friday lineup will include “Truth or Dare or Drink,” a game show based on the slumber party game. Contestants have the choice to tell a truth, take a dare, or do a shot. However, the audience will be equipped with electronic voting devices and they will be able to over ride the contestants’ decisions at any time.

Hi-larious!