Ewan's Musings

Joined Up Television

Another long conversation with Jody got onto the topic of how you would improve television ratings. What we cam up with deserves a much wider audience, because I think it would actually work. It's called Joined Up Television, and the premise is simple.

All our television programs should inhabit the same world.

Now this has been tried to a very limited extent before - witness the horror of the two parter detective story where part one was on Magnum PI and part two was on Murder She Wrote. But you want to take this to the extreme. A perfect example is the recent "sabbatical" taken by Dr Courday on ER.

For four episodes she was "back home in England, working at her local Hospital."

Now in the world of Joined Up Television, she would have been in "Casualty." Four episodes of Ye Olde English Danger. And right at the end, she would have invited Charlie Fairhead over to the Chicago ER department so he can have a bit of angst in the Big Bad America.

Think about it, it makes sense. A fan of "London's Burning" is going to be forced into watching another program they would never normally watch because Sunhill Police Station in "The Bill" caught fire and Sicknote might let slip some news about his marriage. Imagine taking the viewing figures of "Coronation Street" and adding them to "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" beause Jack Duckworth got through and the money he wins will appear in the ongoing plotline.

What we're really talking about here is taking the storyline from a show, and handing it to a character. And in a single stroke all the staid TV Writers suddenly have to become really on the ball to keep up with what their assigned character is doing.

Joined Up Television. It works. Just give it a chance.