I just saw an ad for the new ESPN series Tilt and with that one 60 second ad I had more desire to watch that series than any of the new shows coming to NBC or CBS next week. Sure I like to watch poker on TV, but that is not the reason why I like Tilt.
From that 60 second commercial, I get the idea that this series will have multiple layers and storylines. There is the old pro that everyone fears. There is a team of young guns who want to take him down. There is over confident young guy who doesn’t always thinks things through yet somehow manages to skate by. There is the gal who is a beautiful blonde and knows how to use it. Then there is the unassuming young guy who is in the crew but yet will face a delimma, does he stick with the crew or does he betray them and go with the old pro and the glory that can come with it. Add to the mix his goregous, leggy dancer girlfriend and you have a rich and complex drama.
Contrast that with CBS’s NUMB3RS and NBC’s Medium. Both are episodic crime dramas, like we really need any more of those, that revolve around a mystic quality of a main character. For NUMB3RS it is a mathematican brother of an FBI agent. NBC’s Medium features a woman who is psychic.
While they seem interesting, neither show grabs me like Tilt does. That is the problem with most network TV shows these days. They go for the episodic fare and wonder why the cable channels run circles around them in creativity. Sure I like the Law & Order and CSI franchises, but neither one can really create a sense of anticipation for the next episode like The Sopranos or The Wire.
I guess I must be different from the viewers that the networks want.
