A New York Times feature today looks at tomorrow’s Rosie O’Donnell variety special on NBC, widely considered to be a sort of test pilot for a possible variety series. As the piece notes, the Return of the Variety Show has been bruited about in network TV for a little while now—Fox is at work for one starring the Osbournes, for instance.
As is by now a staple of features like this, it includes interviews with TV executives who believe that the format is ripe for revival because of The Times We Live In. In this case:
Against a bleak economic backdrop that reminds some of the ’70s, television executives said they were hoping that families would gather in the living room for an upbeat hour of comedians, musicians and surprises.
Is Rosie’s special That ’70s Show that a recession-plagued America is yearning for? Eh. Having gone to TV upfronts and heard executive pitches going on a decade now, I’ve constantly heard the argument that Genre X is due for a revival because the Zeitgeist demands it. After September 11, it was supposed to be nostalgia shows, after which the networks debuted a slew of nostalgia-based shows that bombed. Ditto various genres like the Western or the family sitcom.
In fact, at one point after 9/11—when a Carol Burnett reunion special on CBS got 30 million viewers—variety shows were supposed to come back. They didn’t. What we got instead was the extremely dark 24, and the Osbournes’ first TV show.
In a way I feel bad knocking TV executives for this crystal-balling, because after all, part of my job is looking at how TV hits play off the larger culture. And I do think that the psychology of society can affect what shows hit it big. But when that happens, it usually doesn’t happen in the same way as it did the last time, or with the same type of show. The Zeitgeist manifests itself, if it does at all, in forms that surprise you. (For instance, you could argue that variety shows already came back, in 2002—but in the form of American Idol.)
People want to escape in bad times. Hell, people always want to escape. What they want to escape to is the jillion-dollar question. (To my way of thinking, for instance, the much more of-the-moment phenomenon is Bravo’s success right now, in crappy economic times, with a slate of shows about rich housewives, high-end hair stylists and people competing to work in the luxury service industry.)
Rosie’s show may be a hit, and it might not, but its success will probably have more to do with Rosie than with Ben Bernanke. In the meantime, are you planning to watch?