Who needs the writers?

[ h/t to Atrios. ]

---

I've noticed that there is an arc to most of the TV series that I have enjoyed. A few start off good, but most are mixed. There has to be both good acting, with chemistry among the actors as well as good writing for me to enjoy the show. Acting and actor chemistry is really important, but if they have no story to tel, forget it. Those don't always come together at first, and frequently never do.

For the shows in which they do come together, there has to be a consistency over time. I've noticed that a failure of consistency when it occurs often follows a Summer hiatus. The show ends well, and for some reason simply doesn't come back with all burners burning. It's good when they do come back.

After the ability to survive a summer hiatus, the next thing that seems to kill shows is a drop off in the quality of the writing. I think CSI has reached this plateau. They built CSI around weird ways to die and the investigations that reveal them, and they simply have run out of weird and interesting new ways to die in Las Vegas. CSI: Miami has surmounted this with more character-driven shows set in the cross-cultural beehive of Miami. I'm a little amazed, since David Caruso mugs for the camera rather than acting, but his writers and photographers have saved the show. I find CSI: New York to have always been a merely journeyman level crime show. It has always been reliable, like a McDonald's burger, but also like a McDonald's burger, it has never been outstanding.)

There are two ways writing can kill the show. Sometimes there is a change in the writers over time, and the new crew simply doesn't understand what it was about the writing that made the show what it was. Then, after time, there seems to come a time when the writers simply can't find new stories to use the old characters in. MASH ended because the actors and writers simply ran out of stories and wanted to go out on a high note. Law & Order seems to have avoided this (so far) by changing actors and characters every so often, but that is quite risky. My point is that all the really good shows are based at least in part on a good writing team that can reliably come up with new and interesting stories to carry the series.

Which brings me to the most disappointing new show of this season - Women's Murder Club. I have enjoyed the James Patterson novels it came from and I liked Angie Harmon in Law & Order. But this show simply hasn't come together. The actors seem to be talking past each other rather than to each other, and the stories themselves are frankly not interesting enough to grab my attention. The core failure seems to be in the writing, but following that is the lack of chemistry among the actors.

I have been a bit surprised by "Chuck." The premise is a stretch, to say the least, but the stories have been reasonably good and the actors are moving towards a solid chemistry. It is an interesting comedy with no laugh track, and it is trying to do something different, so it is as yet a bit uneven. NBC was desperate to try it, and if they stay desperate long enough, it could turn out pretty good. The key is going to be in the writing, I think.

All of this is to point out that writing is key to the really good shows, and the lack of it will kill them. Of the critical elements in a successful show, the writers are the most poorly paid and certainly get the least recognition. So I strongly support the writer's strike. More power to them.