Hourlong Dramas Rule Prime Time
Has prime time returned for the television drama series? David E. Kelley, creator of this year’s Emmy winner, “The Practice,” thinks so.
Kelley said it’s a sign of good health for TV dramas when there are too many worthy shows to fit into the slate of five Emmy nominees for best dramatic series.
When the half-hour sitcom reigned just a few years ago and some critics were writing obituaries for hourlong series, the Emmys had to pad the drama category just to fill up the nominations, said Kelley, whose courtroom show “The Practice” won best drama for the second year in a row.
Kelley also scored an Emmy first: He won the comedy category, too, with “Ally McBeal,” an hourlong comic series with dramatic undertones.
“I do feel that right now it’s a pretty strong year for the one-hour form,” Kelley said.
In the years when “L.A. Law” was a perennial favorite for best dramatic series, there generally were only three or four sure nominations, with another program or two thrown in to round out the category, Kelley said.
“Now, it’s not the case,” he said. “There’s going to be one or two or three good dramas left off just because there are so many.”
Prime-time TV today is loaded with perennial contenders such as “ER,” “Law & Order” and “NYPD Blue.” All three are previous best drama winners that lost for the second straight year to “The Practice.”
One of last year’s nominees, “The X-Files,” was pushed out of the running this time by “The Sopranos,” the first cable series nominated for best dramatic show.
Other dramas that could have been contenders this year, if not for the crowded field, were “Chicago Hope” and HBO’s “Oz.”
“We’re probably in a golden age for the hourlong series drama,” said Gerald Isenberg, a former producer who teaches television and film at the University of Southern California. “There probably has not been another time for the hour drama where there’s been that much good stuff on.”
A handful of creative producers such as Kelley, “Law & Order’s” Dick Wolf and Steven Bochco, who created “Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law” and “NYPD Blue,” have been heavily responsible for revitalizing the hourlong drama. Kelley’s other efforts include “Picket Fences” and “Chicago Hope.”
Dennis Franz, who won his fourth Emmy for best actor in a drama series for “NYPD Blue,” said he cannot recall when last there were so many good dramatic shows on television.
“When `NYPD’ first came on in ‘93, there was not a lot of hope for hour dramas at that time,” Franz said. “The interest seemed to be going toward the half-hour shows, and people thought it was a dead deal.”
“NYPD Blue” helped rekindle the genre, and now “we’re experiencing a resurgence in dramatic television,” Franz said.
The proliferation of cable channels looking for long-term programming to grab audiences also has fed the dramatic comeback.
“In this 50-plus channel universe, these many networks found they could attract viewers with knee-slappers but they couldn’t keep them,” said Thomas O’Neil, author of “The Emmys.”
“They’re keeping them with one-hour news shows and one-hour dramas,” O’Neil said.
The pendulum has begun to swing the other way from the days when half-hour situation comedies ruled the prime-time roster. The new fall schedule, for example, is heavy with dramas or other hourlong shows.