Farewell, Silverman

For those of us whose chosen profession includes sitting through NBC's prime time schedule, the question of "Who's gonna get fired for this mess?" was answered this week... sort of.

Ben Silverman is leaving NBC, apparently before the trap door could be sprung, to join IAC, a multi-media production company headed by Barry Diller. Silverman will stay on at the Peacock into September to launch the fall season and take credit for keeping Jay Leno, but not long enough to get his ass handed to him by Fox for a third year. Jeff Gaspin gets the fun job of mopping up after Community and The Philanthropist.

NBC gave the moon and the stars to the Olympics and the NFL, leaving prime time entertainment acquisition in a rough position: find some hits, but don't spend money on them. The Office is pretty much the only show to come through on that objective, a show that required very little in development (take a British comedy and change the accent) and needed only to write big IOU's to Steve Carrel, who now owns the network the way Cosby did in the '80's. The Gaspin interim period may be filled with back-to-back Office blocks, Steve Carrel hosting Saturday Night Live, Steve Carrel guesting on Leno, Steve Carrel guesting on The Tonight Show, a Steve Carrel bio on Dateline, and there's a rumor that they'll replace the naked guy statue in Rockefeller Plaza with a naked Steve Carrel. I'm really hoping that's just a rumor.

Given the budget constraints, it's amazing to look back over the Ben Silverman era and count the number of big budget single-camera film-based shows that were thrown against the wall only to slide off and splatter on the floor.

Take Crusoe, for example. Great ambition with this project: historical drama on prime time. Revisit Robert Lewis Stevenson with a more enlightened look at our man Friday, and lots of cool 19th century gadgetry. Oh, and pirates. Lots of pirates. Even a pirate chick. It was amazing how many pirates kept finding this out-of-the-way deserted island, and Crusoe just couldn't manage to get out of there. Gilligan! Throw in Sam Neil as a scheming baddie, and you have a show for the entire family that should've worked. Just one problem... Robinson Crusoe is a British novel. This isn't England. Americans want to see Americans in their TV shows. Besides, the "marooned on an island" thing promises chicks in bikinis getting buckets of spiders poured on them. That's what you should've done. It's more fun, and a lot cheaper to produce. Next!

OK, how about Merlin. A look at the teen years of a budding wizard in the Pendragon castle. Ooooo, nice. The Original Harry Potter. Lovin' it. And then add a wise old man mentor as the Dumbledoor character. Oh, and a dragon. An intelligent dragon hidden away in a cave straight out of The Hobbit. And the special effects. Lots of possibilities there. Gold. Pure gold. Should've worked, except for one problem... this isn't England. Raise your hand if caught you the foreshadowing significance of a boy named Mordred in last Sunday's episode. I thought so. Next!

Knight Rider. I get it. Revive a childhood fave that died in the 1980's. OK. Just one problem... this isn't England. Doctor Who succeeded as it did because in part of a loyal fan base that had been attending WhoFests and Sci-Fi cons for decades. Knight Rider? Not so much. Even Pontiac is going out of business. Besides, in the 2008 version we still had characters uttering the line, "The car talks!" Next!

Kings. Everybody say it with me... This isn't England!

The Philanthropist. Kinda hard to connect with one of the wealthiest men on the planet during The Great Recession. And he has a British accent. Why? Next!

Friday Night Lights. Finally, an American show with a uniquely American setting. Football in a rural Texas town too isolated from reality to get past its football fetish, but it has an Applebees - that was featured in each and every episode. Unfortunately, nobody in the top ten TV markets - including Houston and Dallas - cared to watch these characters bumble through their Bushland existence. The culture gap was far too wide to cross. Why would anybody want to live like that? Do none of you kids ever watch MTV? Don't you people have the internet? To big city viewers Lights characters all appeared to be suffering from a learning disability. Urban Americans prefer to watch characters who show a little intelligence.

You know. Like those chicks in bikinis getting buckets of spiders poured on them. Hey, offer me a million dollars. I'll do it.