Hotmail
By Emily Russin
Special to MSN Entertainment
Has the TV miniseries left the living room? Once the behemoth television event of 25 years ago, the epic multi-night miniseries that held the viewing public in its sway for hours isn't dead yet, but it's certainly deteriorated. Between 1982 and 2000, the average number of miniseries aired annually was 17, according to Maj Canton's tvmoviedata.com. In the seven years since, that number has fallen to nine. As our viewing habits, channel options, and technologies evolve, there's increasing pressure to repackage the format into smaller, more bite-sized morsels. Miniseries cost networks time, money, and ratings, so the decision to put a miniseries on the air is a much bigger gamble than it once was. Networks have to keep things short or be willing to take a hit.
The Not-So-Big Three
It has been a few decades, but whose
heart doesn't beat just a little faster when recalling the triumphant line
"Kunta Kinte, I have found you!" at the end of 1977's "Roots," or the haunting
soundtrack to the 1983 World War II saga "The Winds of War"? The miniseries
is a story that generally takes between four and 12 episodes to resolve (less
than the average broadcast network season). The major networks tend to avoid the
longer, epic miniseries that once ruled the genre. But a prominent upcoming
example is CBS's six-part "Comanche Moon," the prequel to "Lonesome Dove"
written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana ("Brokeback Mountain"), which is slated to air in November.
From the 1970s to the early 1990s, the lengthier miniseries played out on one of the Big Three: ABC, CBS, and NBC. Millions watched simultaneously and got swept up in the weighty issues (war, religion, slavery) and exotic locales (Africa, Italy, Japan). With the limited channel choices available at the time, it's no wonder "Roots" attracted more than 100 million viewers over its dozen episodes. Los Angeles Times TV critic Robert Lloyd asserts that the broadcast-network miniseries tended toward "really long TV movies that needed more than one night to air. This 'bigness' added to the sense of a special event, something of import. They were different from everything else on TV."
Network offerings steadily declined in length, ratings, and subject matter after "War and Remembrance," ABC's two-miniseries farewell to the format. The dueling epics aired in consecutive seasons (1988 and 1989, totaling 30 hours of screen time) and across two weeks of ABC's schedule. From this last hurrah emerged the frothier fare more commonly made today: Shorter miniseries based on Jackie Collins novels, courtroom dramas, and books by Stephen King.
Cable-Ready
Today's epic miniseries is most likely to be:
1) on cable, 2) stacked with big-name stars, and 3) with limited or no
commercial interruptions. The longer cable miniseries also encourage a shift in
viewing habits: Many households now include rebroadcast devices like TiVo or
subscribe to Netflix. As Lloyd explains, "Time-shifting -- taping or TiVoing --
certainly has had an effect, in a broad way, on the 'television event.' The
requirement to show up at a certain time [back then] meant that everyone was
watching ... at exactly the same time as everyone else, and it also meant
that they weren't going to have a chance to see it again anytime soon, and
certainly not any time they chose."
Viewers watch more channels than ever these days, but too much choice is bad for ratings. Tana Nugent Jamieson, senior vice president at A&E for drama programming, laments, "It's sad there are so many viewing categories. There are so many other things for people to watch." A&E has a four-hour re-creation of "The Andromeda Strain" in production, a miniseries scheduled for 2008. As to whether the miniseries format still carries weight, Jamieson says, "You remember the bigger ones. The cast is bigger, you can lure bigger actors, and there's bigger money."
Jeff Wachtel, executive vice president of original programming for the USA
Network, which aired the Emmy-nominated miniseries "The Starter Wife" this summer,
echoes that sentiment. "The epic miniseries is, sadly, probably a thing of the
past -- at least on network or basic-cable television." He says there has to be
a major-event feel for a miniseries these days. "This could be auspices, like Tom Hanks with 'Band of Brothers'; the star --
'The Starter Wife's' Debra Messing; or the concept, like 'The 4400' or 'Battlestar
Galactica.'"
Which brings us to HBO, a network less constrained
by ratings and budget than its broadcast colleagues. Kary Antholis, senior vice
president for HBO films and miniseries, cites the network's creative freedom and
high-quality storytelling as the driving forces behind miniseries events.
"Because there's not a bottom line for each show, you're more concerned with
getting the story itself right," he says. "Then you try to push it out there
gently, rather than hammering it home and hitting certain beats your market
tester tells you to hit."
Antholis, whose work on miniseries with HBO includes "From the Earth to the Moon" and
"Angels in America," relishes the
depth of storytelling the miniseries format allows, and cites the network's
upcoming "John Adams." "What we found is that the detail is so rich and so
interesting that it's hard to contain it in a two- or even three-hour film. Also
the stories within the larger story are so gripping; our sense is that the
mini-narratives are compelling enough to bring audiences back week after week."
What's Next?
Given cable's greater
flexibility, it's no surprise that the miniseries format spawned a hybrid: the
limited series. Not an epic and not quite a full-blown series, the form has
become an increasingly popular approach to telling stories with multiple plot
layers within a limited time frame. This goes back to the origin of the
miniseries itself, which is based on the British serial. Basic-cable networks
have recently embraced this mini-season format. Recent examples include 2004's
"The Grid" on TNT, USA's "The
4400" (which was eventually turned into an actual series), and TNT's upcoming
Cold War drama "The Company," which premieres
Aug. 5.
Beyond cable, past TiVo and LCD flat screens, there is a new danger that the decline of the longer attention span puts not only the best miniseries in jeopardy, but also television itself. It's the age of customized, solitary infotainment. And where television hardly figures into the options on a handheld phone/camera/computer/MP3 player, networks will have to scramble to keep up with the latest technology. And those biggest, longest, and most expensive of television events, the miniseries, will need to find ways to be as relevant and as consumed as Oprah novels.
