Sweeps Spur Shows To Be Creative

February sweeps have come to a close, once again, and this year television’s attempt to gain ratings brought some of the same old ideas but managed some originality too.

Both the “Friends” and “Party of Five” series featured “what-if” episodes to snag a high spot on the Nielsens.

The very funny hourlong “Friends” proved to us that if Rachel had married her fiance, if Ross’ wife had never realized she was a lesbian, if Monica was still overweight and if Joey had never lost his job on a daytime soap, they still would have ended up drinking coffee at Central Perk.

“Party of Five” asked the traumatic question, what if the Salinger parents had never died.

Of course these are good to pull in viewers, but haven’t there been enough “Friends” flashback/fantasy-type episodes?

As we can’t forget the use of “to be continued” endings on shows at this time of the year.

“ER” ended an episode with the attack on Dr. John Carter and Lucy Knight by a patient, forcing viewers to wait a week to see if the two would make it out alive. Considering that Kellie Martin, who portrayed Lucy, announced she was leaving the series several weeks earlier, her character’s demise was not unexpected.

Plus, as any loyal “The X-Files” fan knows, with every February comes a two-parter, usually concerning the pending alien colonization. This month Chris Carter finally wrapped up the plot about Mulder’s sister’s abduction.

It was a pretty roundabout resolution that no fan could have predicted, but time was ticking for some loose ends to be tied up, since this is most likely the show’s last season.

The summary of this season’s sweeps wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the disaster known as “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?” May I simply say this: “Are you kidding me?”