'Lost'
BETWEEN "HEROES," "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" and the soon-to-debut season of "Lost," the metaphysical hornet's nest of time travel has seldom received such a thorough workout on television -- exploring age-old questions about whether tinkering with the past can alter the future.
Variations of this theme can also be found in the canceled programs "Journeyman" and "Daybreak," as well as Soapnet's upcoming Canadian import "Being Erica." Not surprisingly, "Lost" appears to have thought this out more rigorously than "Heroes" or Fox's "Terminator" series. Each show has so many characters flitting back and forth through time that an ill-advised tryst might result in a character literally becoming his own grandpa.
"There are rules -- rules that can't be broken," the islanders are warned in the fifth-season premiere of "Lost," thus qualifying as the one primetime show that actually appears to care about receiving angry email from astrophysicists.
EVERYONE SHOULD be forgiven, however, for being suddenly enamored with the notion of turning back the clock, or at least exploring extraordinary methods to improve our present and future. While the start of the Obama administration next week brings great promise, there's also a nagging sense that the new president has inherited a big steaming mess, which only heightens nostalgia for good ol' days in our respective corners of the world.
Speaking strictly in television terms, I bet more than a few executives would like to go back and eliminate the development of TiVo, Replay and other DVR technology, recreating a world where people determined to zap through commercials still have to find a blank VHS tape. A well-placed tweak in the fabric of time might also get advertisers' money again flowing as freely as cocktails did in the days of "Mad Men."
Independent producers would relish jumping back a couple of decades to restore health and vitality to the made-for-TV movie business, a once-thriving enterprise that churned out more than 200 titles a year and created a thriving longform community. The same group would probably start by amending history to ensure the Federal Communications Commission and federal courts didn't phase out the financial interest and syndication rules.
Comedy writers might go back and labor to enhance the laugh quotient in some of the god-awful sitcoms that helped deflate NBC's "Must-See TV" comedy lineup from the 1990s through "Joey." More enterprising types might simply seek to dam up the reality-TV floodgates that have mightily contributed to undermining their employment prospects -- starting with swaying "Survivor" producer Mark Burnett to become a British army careerist or, barring that, the best damn commando-turned-nanny he could possibly be. The same contingent could convince Rupert Murdoch that a British singing competition recommended by his daughter would never work in the U.S. and tell Regis Philbin he'd be nuts to host some stupid primetime quiz show.
An entrepreneurial sort, meanwhile, might journey back and take steps to syndicate a young Oprah Winfrey's talkshow before the King brothers could get to her.
More generous souls might inform Katie Couric that waking up before the crack of dawn really isn't so bad; NBC's Ben Silverman that being a network exec really isn't all it's cracked up to be; Dan Rather not to rely on questionable documents when exploring President Bush's National Guard service if he'd prefer to leave CBS on his own terms; and Brian Dunkelman not to quit as "American Idol's" co-host unless he truly wants to spend the rest of his life wincing at the sight of Ryan Seacrest.
AT FIRST GLANCE these what-if scenarios might sound a trifle silly, but that's part of the inherent charm and fantasy in the aforementioned sci-fi concepts. Besides, who wouldn't like to be able to influence their current reality in positive ways? Personally, here's a vote for a world where newspapers are thriving economically while print columnists and critics are revered, considered irresistibly sexy and compensated on a level commensurate with studio CEOs.
Just let me know who I have to go back in time to kill in order to make that happen.
Contact Brian Lowry at
brian.lowry@variety.com