"Stop making shitty television shows and endlessly promoting them Gordon. You're letting the team down."
By Matt DiVenere
While Sean and Daniel talk about their favorite television shows and how they’ve made an impact on their everyday lives, I’ve decided to instead attack one of the networks.
I’m hoping that this rant can be a PSA to network producers, marketing teams and promotional teams across all of the networks in regards to upcoming television shows. So, without further ado, I give you my conclusion:
The more you try to stuff a new television show down my throat by running multiple promos, the easier you make it for me to actively root against it to succeed.
Case in point, FOX recently cancelled their “new hit show” called “Almost Human.” This science fiction meets crime drama show paired up a police officer (Karl Urban) with a lifelike android/robot (Michael Ealy) as his partner in the distant (kind of) future.
Want to know what I can tell you about the show? The android/robot’s name was Dorian and the cop doesn’t agree with the fact that he needs any type of partner because he’s way too badass to have some drone follow him around and help him.
Want to know why I know only that much? Because I refused to watch it. Not because of the plot, or the actors involved in the project. I mean, J.J. Abrams was one of the executive producers, so it clearly had some strength in the production aspect of the show. Hell, there’s even a petition making waves across the Internet to try and get the SyFy channel to continue the series, so clearly it had some type of following to it.
The reason why I did not watch even a second of this show is because of the putrid performance by FOX’s marketing and promotional team in regards to getting people excited about their new show. FOX force-fed us this show with countless advertisements, promotions, and “behind the scenes” videos on their YouTube channel, they violated the Super Bowl with commercials for the show, and even ran promos during “Almost Human” for “Almost Human.” Talk about overkill.
They didn’t want us to watch, they needed us to watch.
So, instead, I chose to actively root against them. I chose to watch shows on the Animal Planet that I didn’t even think could be a thing, like “Treehouse Masters.” I mean, who builds luxurious tree houses? How rich can you be?
See, this is a real thing.
And if I ever overheard someone talking about "Almost Human," which I didn’t personally, I would like to think I would have chastised them for giving in to this type of network peer pressure. Just from the sheer number of advertisements that were produced for this show, you would have thought it was going to be one of FOX’s biggest hits ever. However, despite their pleas and overall disdain for the common viewer’s retinas, FOX kept cramming it farther and farther into the souls of whoever dared watch any type of programming on FOX.
I'm going to turn my final thoughts for the “Almost Human” marketing and promotional team over to Jack Reilly, head coach of the Minnesota Hawks pee-wee hockey team:
“You could have been one of the greats! An’ now look at yourself. You’re not even a has-been. You’re a never-was.”