Do No Harm – Big Q Tip

Hey there fellow boob tubers,

Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  The Big Q Tip: Stop watching network television!  NBC has cancelled a new show after 2 episodes, yes two.

The show was a medical drama called “Do No Harm”.  Was it any good?  Don’t know, I was one of the billions that didn’t watch.  It might have been crap. Trying to redo a Dr. Jeckyl and Mr Hyde update does have room for a "major suck" element.

But who really knows after 2 episodes.  Some of the biggest and most successful shows of our time have had horrible ratings when they started.Cheers is a great example of this. But because economic times were different, the “bottom line” wasn’t such as major of a factor in determining how long a show  could live, and they were given a whole season to develop. We all know how well that turned out. Cheers' amazing success is credited for helping kickstart other NBC sitcoms such as Seinfeld, helping create the "Must See Thursday" line-ups that dominated ratings in the 80's and much of the 90's.

So how did it go so wrong?  And how can the networks stop hemorrhaging viewers and losing great shows?

All the networks seem to own other small stations on cable.  If they have a project they like but don’t know for sure if it will be successful, why not debut it on one of the smaller stations and let it grow.  Trees don’t start out big and get small, they start out small and get big.  In baseball terms, a minor league system.  Some of the shows that NBC has lined up for next season sound good, but seem risky.

We’ve all been burned in the past, but yet we keep coming back for more.  Abusive much?  Isn’t it about time we put the networks to bed, and then start it on fire?