Meet The New Boss...

Monday night saw the series finale of "The Closer." Now, I admit this wasn't very noteworthy to me, because I never watched a single episode of the show. However, just because I didn't like it doesn't mean no one did. The show was clearly very popular as the final episode had over 9 million viewers, which is an absurd number for a cable show. And even though I didn't care one way or the other about the show going off the air that doesn't mean I totally ignored it. For example, I found it extremely interesting that immediately after the last episode of "The Closer" came the first episode of "Major Crimes" which was basically the exact same show featuring the exact same cast of characters, but with a new female lead. I can only assume this was done because everyone but star Kyra Sedgwick wanted to continue the show and the network thought this was the easiest solution.You couldn't even call this show a spin-off, because that would imply a different trajectory. The new show apparently just changed names to avoid any confusion. And, judging from the ratings for that night, the idea was a success as "Major Crimes" retained a healthy chunk of its lead-in audience. Only time will tell if they can keep it up.

I'm always interested to see how spin-offs do because it is such a weird thing to attempt. It is almost like trying to catch lightning in a bottle twice. People who work in TV will tell you that people will watch the same thing over and over again and a look at your cable guide makes it kind of hard to dispute that claim. At any given moment you can watch 12 singing competition shows, 10 shows about flipping houses, another 8 about trying to find gold in rough climates and 4 shows just about people going through abandoned storage lockers. However, even in those situations people tend to be very loyal to one or the other. You may be an "American Idol" fan or prefer "The Voice" but very rarely will you meet someone who watches both, which just proves that people can get sick of seeing the same thing over and over again. That is why new shows always get such high ratings - people want to see what the fuss is about. Even if people don't like something they may watch it just because it is different. But if they see it is the same old stuff that they can get from another show they already watch, that is why the rating plummet. So, I'll be very interested to see how many of those first-time watchers come back for week 2 of "Major Crimes".

I also think the way they are trying to launch this particular spin-off is rather lazy. It is one thing to introduce people to characters through an already established show (see: "NCIS", "NCIS: LA") and then give them their own unique show, but to just change one person and press on by claiming it is a new show is almost insulting to our intelligence. Of course, this is maneuver is nothing new. The history of television is ripe with examples of programs which had their main star leave but the show's producers refused to let the show die and forged on with a new person in the lead. The most famous early example is "Bewitched" which saw them change one of the main characters and the public was just asked not to talk about it. Later "Cheers" swapped Shelley Long for Kirstie Alley and some would argue the show actually improved. It is true that actors are inherently replaceable when it comes to TV shows. They switched moms after a couple seasons of "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and daughters on "My Wife and Kids" and "Roseanne". ("Roseanne" went the extra weird step of switching the actresses back a couple seasons later which made the first switch all the more obvious.) The more removed the character from the main storyline the easier the swap, which makes this particular switch even more tricky.

In the end, spin-offs exist mostly due to lack of a better option. Trust me, if these networks had something better to put on to try and stand out from the crowd, they would be airing it already. I like to think they aren't any more pleased with this than the viewing public. After all, it's like going to a restaurant and ordering the same thing every time - yes, you know you will leave full and generally satisfied, but part of you will also be disappointed in yourself for not being even slightly adventurous and trying something new. Also, I question how thrilled these writers are to be changing the focus. I'm sure some of them are just happy to still have a job. Plus if I worked on a TV show that I was really proud of I wouldn't be in any great hurry for it to be cancelled, especially just because one person wanted to do something else, and there is something admirable about trying to keep something going despite all the naysayers, but at some point by pressing on you just end up crapping on the solid work you did with the first show. Remember, there are a lot more attempts at spin-offs which ended up like "Joey" than "Frasier".