Skating with the Stars!? And after that?
As I wrote in yesterday's post, we were amused to hear of ABC's upcoming Skating with the Stars. TV program development is getting incestuous! The formula for program development now is to make a spinoff of a program that was successful. In the developers' fantasy, they will strike gold again as long as they dig just a few feet away from the first successful strike.
Thus, we now have variations on a theme from various sources in TV land. "The Real Housewives" series are an ever expanding example: Orange County, Atlanta, New York City, New Jersey, D.C., Beverly Hills. I have watched the Orange County series but only took brief looks at two others, Atlanta (which almost hooked me) and New York City. The subjects have common denominators. For one the women are all wealthy compared to most people. That's okay. Kind of interesting but why do they all have to be wealthy? That must be what we want to watch according to program developers. Well, yes, for a little while but then it gets old!
What could be interesting, if they have to stick with the Housewives theme, is something like "The Real Housewives of Tiffin, Ohio"! I don't know much about Tiffin except that we drove through there over twenty years ago and you could buy a nice looking house there for about $20,000 at that time. Things were not good then. I wonder how they are now?
How about "The Real Housewives of Detroit, Michigan"? How does someone deal with job loss, losing a house to foreclosure, looking for work, and feeding a family? Never mind putting kids through college and buying a car! These are questions that we are fortunate if we are among those who don't know the answer! How does a "Real Housewife" in Detroit cope? (How about if we got a bit more radical, although still in the same general subject area, and had a "Real Husband" series?)
If we keep going in that "Real Housewives" direction, there is the thought of a series called "The Real Amish Housewives of Kinzer, Pennsylvania"! Now THAT would be an interesting series if they really wanted to show us a lifestyle about which most of us know very little. How does one cope with having thirteen children while having a propensity to depression, having to make the family's clothes, wear long sleeves in the summer, and operate a horsedrawn plow?
Which is why the news of the upcoming "Skating with the Stars" amused us. Because, based on the way that things are going in the name of TV program development, we may have the following to look forward to: "Cooking with the Stars", "Project Runway with the Stars", "Law Enforcement with the Stars", "Talk Show Hosting with the Stars", "Soap Opera Acting with the Stars", "Olympic Curling with the Stars", "Triathlon with the Stars", "Tattooing with the Stars", "Jock Shock Radio Talk Show Hosting with the Stars" (who can be the most outrageous?), "Baseball with the Stars". You name it, they can do it. They can just keep digging in that goldmine, looking for more ratings treasure.
This reminds me of what they do with movies too. How many Rocky movies have been done so far?
I don't know about the Housewives series. Perhaps some of the after-the-original Housewives series did as well as the original. But I would guess that most TV or movie spinoffs don't do anywhere near as well as the originals.
OTOH, Tattooing with the Stars might be entertaining!
How about if TV developers lock themselves in a room and force themselves to stay there till they each come up with a brand new idea. How long would it take? Do they deserve to have their jobs?
Ginny
Thus, we now have variations on a theme from various sources in TV land. "The Real Housewives" series are an ever expanding example: Orange County, Atlanta, New York City, New Jersey, D.C., Beverly Hills. I have watched the Orange County series but only took brief looks at two others, Atlanta (which almost hooked me) and New York City. The subjects have common denominators. For one the women are all wealthy compared to most people. That's okay. Kind of interesting but why do they all have to be wealthy? That must be what we want to watch according to program developers. Well, yes, for a little while but then it gets old!
What could be interesting, if they have to stick with the Housewives theme, is something like "The Real Housewives of Tiffin, Ohio"! I don't know much about Tiffin except that we drove through there over twenty years ago and you could buy a nice looking house there for about $20,000 at that time. Things were not good then. I wonder how they are now?
How about "The Real Housewives of Detroit, Michigan"? How does someone deal with job loss, losing a house to foreclosure, looking for work, and feeding a family? Never mind putting kids through college and buying a car! These are questions that we are fortunate if we are among those who don't know the answer! How does a "Real Housewife" in Detroit cope? (How about if we got a bit more radical, although still in the same general subject area, and had a "Real Husband" series?)
If we keep going in that "Real Housewives" direction, there is the thought of a series called "The Real Amish Housewives of Kinzer, Pennsylvania"! Now THAT would be an interesting series if they really wanted to show us a lifestyle about which most of us know very little. How does one cope with having thirteen children while having a propensity to depression, having to make the family's clothes, wear long sleeves in the summer, and operate a horsedrawn plow?
Which is why the news of the upcoming "Skating with the Stars" amused us. Because, based on the way that things are going in the name of TV program development, we may have the following to look forward to: "Cooking with the Stars", "Project Runway with the Stars", "Law Enforcement with the Stars", "Talk Show Hosting with the Stars", "Soap Opera Acting with the Stars", "Olympic Curling with the Stars", "Triathlon with the Stars", "Tattooing with the Stars", "Jock Shock Radio Talk Show Hosting with the Stars" (who can be the most outrageous?), "Baseball with the Stars". You name it, they can do it. They can just keep digging in that goldmine, looking for more ratings treasure.
This reminds me of what they do with movies too. How many Rocky movies have been done so far?
I don't know about the Housewives series. Perhaps some of the after-the-original Housewives series did as well as the original. But I would guess that most TV or movie spinoffs don't do anywhere near as well as the originals.
OTOH, Tattooing with the Stars might be entertaining!
How about if TV developers lock themselves in a room and force themselves to stay there till they each come up with a brand new idea. How long would it take? Do they deserve to have their jobs?
Ginny
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