First the FX drama The Shield ended, perfectly. Then, two weeks later, the ABC comedy-drama Boston Legal ended, perfectly. And that same day, NBC announced, far from perfectly, it would replace all weekday 10 p.m. ET programming with a new Jay Leno talk show These three events may seem independent of one another -- but in the larger view, they're so closely related, they're absolutely interlocked.
For half a century, broadcast TV owned the hour-long drama form. Absolutely monopolized it, except for rare and minor exceptions. Then, in 1997, HBO experimented with Oz, then two years later with The Sopranos, and the world changed. Premium cable could beat the networks at their own game -- and in 2002, FX proved, with the introduction of The Shield, that basic cable could, as well.
Boston Legal, ABC's spinoff of The Practice, began in 2004, and ended Monday with a brilliant final episode. It included rants about Chinese policy and pharmaceutical company malfeasance, and one last appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court, and even a double wedding, involving four of the law firm's attorneys -- three of which were men.
And it ended, of course, with William Shatner's Denny Crane and James Spader's Alan Shore on the balcony, sharing a wedding-night dance. Totally appropriate, completely satisfying.
Two weeks ago, when The Shield ended, it, too served up a whopper of a finale. The first major jolt came when Shane, the fugitive cop realizing he was cornered, not only took his own lives, but the lives of his beloved wife and child, by poisoning them and posing them on the motel bed with, respectively, a bouquet of flowers and a favorite toy.
Unforgettable.
So were the long, lingering closeups of the tortured eyes of Michael Chiklis' Vic Mackey (above) as his past misdeeds caught up to him -- and to that unexpected, twisted final twist that had Vic chained to a different type of prison hell: assigned to menial tasks in a cubicle, with no freedom, no power and no friends or family.
The success of The Shield, on basic cable, led to everything from The Closer and Mad Men to Damages and Breaking Bad. The one-hour drama, on cable, is alive and well. But on broadcast TV, it's fighting for life, and it's not doing well.
ABC chose not to support Pushing Daisies. Now that Boston Legal is gone, the number of broadcast TV series that deal in prime time with topical issues is, let's see, zero. And with NBC removing, in essence, five time slots per week that could have gone to drama series development, it's slashing the future of network TV drama, at least at NBC.
When ER began in 1994, it immediately dominated its time slot and gave NBC more than a decade of Must-See TV on Thursday nights. When ER ends in May, after a proud 14-year run, replacing it will be difficult... but NBC isn't even going to try. Instead, its time slot will go to Jay Leno.
And with all due respect, if there's one thing Jay Leno isn't, it's must-see TV. If audiences want quality drama -- and they do -- where will they go? The same place they're going in increasing numbers anyway: to cable.