The book is a zippy read that features interviews with the various executives, writers, agents, directors, and actors that combined forces to bring us this powerhouse of programming. Thursday nights on NBC featured classics like Cheers, Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, and ER. If you were a fan of any of these shows (and really, who wasn't?) you will find a plethora of stories and reminisces that will surprise and amuse you. Seinfeld almost never made it past four episodes, while ER was on the cover of Newsweek after a few weeks on the air. Kelsey Grammer was living out of his car before he hit it big with Cheers, while a pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston was dejectedly asking Warren Littlefield if he thought she would ever make it in Hollywood. Clearly she did.
However, as fun as it to read about the showrunners and actors, the true meat of this book lies in its dissection of the network itself, and the multiple executives who contributed to the success and then eventual failure of Must See TV. In the 80s, NBC was a last-place network, much like it is today, but under the vision and drive of multiple "suits," who encouraged creativity and took huge risks on programming that didn't initially get big ratings, they were able to build the broadcasting behemoth that dominated in the 90s. However, Don Ohlmeyer, the network President with obvious alcohol problems, seems to be the big bad wolf who sold out Littlefield and started NBC on the path to its destruction. People's descriptions of Ohlmeyer vary widely - Littlefield clearly hated him, while others say he was loyal to a fault and a savvy broadcaster, but everyone agrees that his arrival engendered a lot of friction at NBC. Despite the conflicted reports about Don Ohlmeyer, the book ends with a very decided view about Jeff Zucker, the man who completely dismantled Must See TV and oversaw NBC's fall to fourth place, where it remains today. Here was a man who just hated TV and was your typical "suit," only in it for the money and the bottom line.
Everyone seems to have only good things to say about Littlefield, which is not surprising considering this is his book. It would be interesting to read a book from a different perspective and see if Littlefield really was so responsible for saving the network. Regardless, he does appear to have been an executive who encouraged talent and had a decidedly solid vision for programming that would intrigue the nation. He fought for shows like Seinfeld and Will & Grace, which is a move that seems unlikely among current network executives.
Of course, who knows if Littlefield's successes would have continued into the new millennium? The increasingly fractured nature of TV programming and the availability of hundreds of channels ensure that no network schedule could ever get the kind of insane ratings that Must See TV commanded in the 90s. Top of the Rock is a nostalgic look at that unprecedented period of TV success and both entertains and teaches readers about the difficulties of profiting from creativity and coming up with the television classics that we still love today.
No comments:
Post a Comment