At the beginning of this fall season, there were two things everyone in TV knew: 1) the key to success was to develop shows that were as much like CSI as possible, and 2) ABC was deep in the ratings toilet. The alphabet network finished last season in fourth place, without a major hit sitcom or drama or, above all, a big crime franchise.
Little more than a month later, ABC had two brand-new Top 10 dramas — both textbook examples of what viewers in the CSI era supposedly don't want to watch. Lost, an X-Files-like supernatural chiller about plane-crash survivors on a spooky island, and Desperate Housewives, a soap about lust and secrets in upscale suburbia, are stories with complicated serial plots that viewers have to follow closely. And they're following gladly.
The success is especially gratifying for Lost creator J.J. Abrams, whose ABC drama Alias has a cult following but has never hit big, allegedly because its twisty espionage plot is too hard to follow. "If you have three CSIs and three Law & Orders on the air, people will start to say, 'What else is there?'" he says. Still, Abrams says Lost is designed to be more friendly to occasional viewers. Each funny and delightfully scary episode includes a flashback to the pre-island life of one of the castaways, so there's a story resolved in each episode along with the running saga.
Desperate Housewives is an even bigger hit. One week it outdrew CSI in the coveted 18-to-49 viewer-age category. But creator Marc Cherry's dark-comic soap was rejected by six networks before ABC bought it. Cherry actually describes himself as a big fan of the CSI and L&O franchises — at least, until they each hit their second spin-off. "Certainly," he says, "ABC's experiment with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire taught everyone something about killing the goose who lays the golden egg."
Not that anybody believes the crime franchises are worthless. "Believe me," says ABC prime-time entertainment president Stephen McPherson, "we'd love to have CSI. But you've got to play the cards you're dealt, so to speak, and that's what we did." Not surprisingly, CBS chairman Leslie Moonves agrees that the procedural is not dead. "Good shows work," he says. "Bad shows don't. I don't care what type of shows they are." It's unclear whether many will watch ABC's new hits in reruns or syndication, two reasons procedurals are such moneymakers. And ABC can't just spin off Desperate Housewives: Minneapolis. "They are singular shows," says McPherson. "I don't think imitating them will be successful."
But people will try. Scant weeks after Housewives' launch, NBC bought a seven-year-old script for a series about five families living on a suburban cul-de-sac. Who's got the golden egg now?
