Musical Tragedy
After only two airings, CBS has cancelled VIVA LAUGHLIN, a TV series in that most disgraced of genres, the Musical. Viewers hoping to see a show that resembled VEGAS, only set in a smaller town and boasting characters who might break into song at any moment, will be disappointed because CBS is going to take the radical step of replacing the show with yet another episode of CSI in its place.
Musicals have had sporadic limited success on the big screen since the fifties, but on television they have essentially always flopped. Sometimes the failure is huge and visible, like Steven Bochco’s COP ROCK, an attempt to combine his love of music with his success at gritty cop shows like Hill Street Blues. Sometimes it is under the radar like HEY JEANNIE! a sitcom from the mid fifties about a Scottish girl trying to make it big in New York city, and incidentally bursting into song at least once per episode. Sometimes it barely even exists at all, like Viva Laughlin. I swear I saw clips of it on a news show yesterday morning and I STILL didn’t know it was on TV.
Musical numbers are big TV business, just not in scripted dramas. Our biggest ratings grabber is AMERICAN IDOL, essentially a variety show with the fat stripped off of it. Same with DANCING WITH THE STARS, or DON’T FORGET THE LYRICS. Before the reality show boom there were Variety shows. These functioned as an excuse to put a guy in a tux and have him sing something. MTV at one time ran music videos which are like MGM musicals with a harder edge and no stories. We have no problem seeing musical numbers on screen. It just weirds us out in the context of a story.
In fact, one of the most successful musical stunts of television in the past decade was the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER episode called ONCE MORE WITH FEELING. It it the residents of Sunnyvale inexplicably start bursting into song and dance, the result of meddling by a demon played by Savion Glover. If this episode worked, perhaps it is because it acknowleges our fear that this kind of behavior is very very wrong and a sign of Satan’s meddling.
VIVA LAUGHLIN was CBS’s attempt to spice up their schedule, to try something a little different and therefore compete with their adventurous cable colleagues on HBO and FX. The fact that they backed out so soon indicates to me that they weren’t the least be serious about that. Unless the show sucked, which is entirely possible. Then again, this is the network that let PETTICOAT JUNCTION run for 222 episodes. It has nothing to do with musicals, but I still resent them for that.
-daniel k
October 24th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
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October 27th, 2007 at 3:31 am
There may be an alternative explanation of the failure of the particular show you are essaying. “Viva Laughlin” is– er, WAS– an Americanized version of “Viva Blackpool,” a British TV series. Which may place “Laughlin” as just the latest in a long line of badly misinterpreted imports.
I think you have a handle on a useful formula concerning musical elements in TV shows: Individual episodes can be extremely successful (I’ll add the incredibly good musical episode of “Scrubs” to the above-mentioned “BtVS” episode as positive proof), but scripted, all-singing, all dancing episodic TV is a doomed enterprise.
October 31st, 2007 at 1:16 pm
I heard Viva Laughlin was cancelled - after only two episodes. Why? There are probably many people who haven’t even seen it yet. When I saw the first episode I thought the singing was a little weird, but by the end of the show I liked it. I even looked forward to it in the second episode. I thought it was kind of “campy”. Does anybody remember what the word camp means? According to Dictionary.com, it means, “something that provides sophisticated, knowing amusement, as by virtue of its being artlessly mannered or stylized, self-consciously artificial and extravagant, or teasingly ingenuous and sentimental.” I thought Viva Laughlin was fun. Please bring it back.