Fall TV: Whatever stays

Dinosaurs! Playboy rabbits! Fairytale mobile phone industry's!Got your attention? The systems certainly hope then when it involves the hooks behind their fall shows. High concepts and gimmicks really are a attempted-and-true way of drawing eyeballs to new series, but they are they getting when it comes to what keeps audiences returning: story and figures?Channing Dungey, senior Vice president of drama at ABC, states a crowded landscape for brand new shows is what's driving the search nowadays for nice hooks. "I had been reading through somewhere you will find something similar to 46 new shows premiering within the first three days from the fall season, and that is crazy when it comes to obtaining the average consumer to give consideration," states Dungey, whose network is dangling the conceptual celery of stylish '60s stewardesses ("Pan Am"), storybook figures ("Not so long ago") and twentysomething vengeance ("Revenge") this fall.But she appreciates it's just one area of the puzzle: "A large hook could be great you will have a large opening. But when you have not got the best foundation, you are not going to keep that train about the tracks."Jennifer Salke, NBC Entertainment prexy confirming to new chairman Bob Greenblatt, states that after she's hearing pitches, she looks to determine the way a hook is definitely an additive, not the primary component. "You need to love the show and also the figures having a non-existent hook, after which in the event that hook improves it, i quickly feel you have a shot at something,Inch Salke states.There might be no bigger bag of hooks this fall than Fox's costly "Terra Nova," which Salke assisted develop in her own previous job at Last Century Fox Television and that provides fishing lures on-camera (dinosaurs), within the storytelling (time travel) and behind-the-moments (professional producer Steven Spielberg). Based on "Terra Nova" showrunner Brannon Braga, a conceptual hook could make the familiar appear new again, however it should not overpower a persons factor. "Dinosaurs will encourage them to stay tuned, however the individuals will encourage them to stay," states Braga, who confesses casting "Terra Nova" was "the toughest factor we did about this show."Possibly the very best example in recent memory of high concept and portrayal meeting in high-rankings harmony was the rollout of "Lost" in 2004. An airplane crash and mysterious sights gave the pilot episode oomph, however it was a focus on establishing the survivors' tales each episode that lay the footwork for that more difficult concepts in the future. The graveyard of less-than-galvanizing copycat serials with wild hooks in ensuing years ("FlashForward," "The Big EventInch) only offered to underscore the problem from the task."They were given you committed to individuals figures," states Dungey about "Lost." "They required their some time and required you to definitely places in which the island travels over time. I believe the error us along with other places made (with later series) is the fact that we began traveling over time on episode three."Is the time over, then, whenever a network could drop a star right into a hospital or precinct, title the show following the character and expect audiences? Or possess a show about several buddies that does not need to be known as "Cougar Town" first, to cite a set that made it regardless of a sensationalistic title that does not describe it any longer?Dungey states that less hook-driven ABC hits for example "Grey's Anatomy," which depended on its ensemble and writing, and also the star-powered, procedural-oriented "Body of Proof," did well because of midseason launches not even close to the madding crowd."I am unsure, had we put 'Body of Proof' on within the fall, it might have had exactly the same chance for sampling," Dungey states. " It could have been overcome."For TV Guide critic Matt Roush, whenever a show does not deliver on its hook, this is an especially condemned feeling he thinks results in just one conclusion: An excellent show sells its greatness. "In the very best of all TV mobile phone industry's," Roush states, "the reveal becomes the hook."FALL TV PREVIEW: ABC Cable CBS CW Fox NBC PBS Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com