TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. You know, it used to be an annual TV tradition - the fall season, when the broadcast networks would unveil their new and returning series to great fanfare and large audiences. Well, our TV critic David Bianculli says all that has changed with the advent of cable and now streaming networks - and with good reason.
DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: You may not have even noticed, but the broadcast fall season finally is underway, a little later than it used to roll out and with a lot less impact. The basic reason for this is that the corporations owning the broadcast TV networks also own streaming services. CBS has Paramount+. ABC has Disney+. NBC has Peacock. And they're putting their best programming eggs into those baskets. Just like in the late 1940s, the owners of NBC and CBS Radio put their money and talent and energy into this new thing called television.
So what's left to watch on broadcast TV this year? Not much. In prime time, I still watch "60 Minutes" on CBS, and I like "Abbott Elementary" on ABC. But this season, the networks are serving up a lot of sequels and retreads. CBS has Kathy Bates in a new show that uses the title of the old "Matlock" series, but not much else. CBS also has yet another spinoff from its "NCIS" franchise, while ABC has a sexier "Love Boat" type series called "Doctor Odyssey." And CBS also has a spinoff from the sitcom "Young Sheldon," which itself was a spinoff of "The Big Bang Theory."
It's an odd type of TV evolution. "Big Bang" was filmed multicamera in front of a studio audience. "Young Sheldon" wasn't. And the newest spinoff, "Georgie And Mandy's First Marriage," is. And it even opened with Georgie and his family watching an old multicamera sitcom on TV, an old episode of "Frasier," with Georgie, played by Montana Jordan, noting the laugh track from the "Frasier" studio audience.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GEORGIE AND MANDY'S FIRST MARRIAGE")
KELSEY GRAMMER: (As Frasier Crane) In order to prevent spillage, one does not simply twist out the cork.
(LAUGHTER)
MONTANA JORDAN: (As Georgie Cooper) "Frasier's" a laughing show. I like laughing shows.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) What are you talking about?
JORDAN: (As Georgie Cooper) Well, some shows you can hear people laughing, and some you can't. "Wonder Years" - no one's laughing. Is it funny? We'll never know.
BIANCULLI: So many of these new series are like cafeteria casseroles. They're aggressively and intentionally bland and designed to be instantly accepted rather than being spicy, exotic or unsettling. Late-night broadcast TV, on the other hand, is going just as intentionally in the opposite direction.
Political humor has been a late night staple for decades, but there's more of an edge now and more time given for context. On "Saturday Night Live," during Weekend Update, Colin Jost poked fun at Donald Trump's behavior at a recent rally but actually showed more of that rally than on any news channel I watched, making the eventual punchline even more biting.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE")
COLIN JOST: But then this week Trump did strike a positive tone when he stopped questions at a town hall to just dance for 40 minutes. Please enjoy these somehow a hundred percent real clips.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IT'S A MAN'S MAN'S WORLD")
JAMES BROWN: (Singing) This is a man's world.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HALLELUJAH")
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT: (Singing) Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AVE MARIA")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #1: (Singing) Ave Maria.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOTHING COMPARES 2 U")
SINEAD O'CONNOR: (Singing) 'Cause nothing compares...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOVEMBER RAIN")
GUNS N' ROSES: (Singing) In the cold November rain.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MEMORY")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #2: (Singing, inaudible).
JOST: Special.
(LAUGHTER)
JOST: Like, really special. And you can find all those incredible songs on "Now That's What I Call Dementia."
BIANCULLI: And Seth Meyers, in his opening monologue on a recent edition of his late-night show, mocked Trump's behavior at yet another rally. But Myers did so with a punchline that was so unexpected and so dark, you could hear it reflected in the reaction from his studio audience.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS")
SETH MEYERS: That's right. Former President Trump held a rally over the weekend in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and suggested that golf legend Arnold Palmer was well-endowed - well, still not as bad as that rally where he suggested that Mike Pence might be hung.
(LAUGHTER)
MEYERS: It does work.
BIANCULLI: Late night, not primetime, is where broadcast TV is thriving these days. Even if most people watch those shows afterward in small clips on streaming services or social media. But I did find at least one absolute delight on prime time broadcast TV. It was on the season premiere of Fox's "The Simpsons," which decided to open its 36th season by presenting its series finale. It wasn't the finale for real, but it was really, really funny.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE SIMPSONS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) It's the "Simpsons" series finale.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) And now your host for tonight, Conan O'Brien.
(APPLAUSE)
CONAN O'BRIEN: (As himself) Thank you. Yes, thank you. It's such an honor to be with you all for the series finale of "The Simpsons." I knew I was the right man for the job 'cause I've hosted the last episode of three of my own shows and counting.
BIANCULLI: The episode used the excuse of a fake finale to aim at lots of tasty targets - not only the long history of "The Simpsons" but other TV finales and even a very current concern among Hollywood writers. The setup was lengthy but worth every second of it.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE SIMPSONS")
O'BRIEN: (As himself) The time has come to finally end "The Simpsons." But how? The bar had been raised so high by the classic finales of "Mad Men," "Breaking Bad" and "The Sopranos" and lowered by the legacy-ruining farewells of "Seinfeld," "Lost" and "The Sopranos." Their producers wracked their brains to create a finale that would satisfy the show's many fans and many, many haters. Then they came up with the perfect plan - foist the job onto somebody else. Meet that somebody else. I give you the latest in machine learning artificial intelligence, Hack-GPT.
(APPLAUSE)
O'BRIEN: (As himself) This cutting-edge breakthrough in plagiarism has been programmed to write, animate and voice the perfect finale for "The Simpsons," one that wraps up the characters' storylines in emotionally satisfying ways but won't damage the most important legacy of the show, the 2026 grand opening of Homer Simpson's Claim-Jumping Yukon-Rumbling Rock-N-Roller Coaster at Disneyland Shanghai.
(APPLAUSE)
O'BRIEN: (As himself) To create the ultimate finale, the AI has been fed every "Simpsons" episode and the last episode of every television series ever made.
(SOUNDBITE OF COMPUTER BEEPING)
O'BRIEN: (As himself) Hack-GPT is now performing billions of computations to create the perfect story. Who knows how long this process will...
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Finale complete.
O'BRIEN: (As himself) Oh. Well, that was really quick. Well, let's see what we got.
BIANCULLI: "The Simpsons" really entertained me when it premiered in 1989, and it still really entertains me in 2024. On broadcast TV, that's an absolute rarity.
MOSLEY: David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALF CLAUSEN AND TOM KRAMER'S "THE SIMPSONS END CREDITS THEME ('IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD' HOMAGE)")
MOSLEY: Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly Seavy-Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALF CLAUSEN AND TOM KRAMER'S "THE SIMPSONS END CREDITS THEME ('IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD' HOMAGE)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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