I need to just take a minute to bitch and moan a little about a TV pet peeve of mine: When a show, at least in some respects, refuses to step outside its basic formula, like
ever.
A perfect example is
Castle. If I had the energy, I'd try to figure out how many times
Castle has done an episode with
out a case of the week which gets solved by the end of the episode (or by the end of the 2-parter). It's extremely small, right? Out of six full seasons of the show, at 128 eps total? But haven't those very few episodes that have stepped at least a little bit outside of the typical formula been some of the best of the entire series? I'm thinking like, "Knockdown," "Knockout," and "Always," as the examples that come to mind. I'm sure there are a few others I'm forgetting.
So why the HELL don't they do this more often?? Why do they feel the need to do a new murder case every single episode and to always solve it by the end and to always structure it to follow the same Scooby Doo formula?? I don't understand. Now, to be fair,
Castle is usually cranking out 23 or 24 eps per season, so they do have to put a lot of filler eps in there. But still, as the series goes on it feels like more and more filler/cookie-cutter formula and less substance eps.
In a sense, it's entirely unfair of me to lump
Covert Affairs in with
Castle on this topic, because
Covert has actually done a FAR better job than most other shows at evolving and constantly striving to improve. Not only did it step outside its original mission-of-the-week formula starting in season 3, it completely re-invented itself as a serialized and much more serious show. It continued its evolution on that path in season 4, and while I don't think it has always been successful in its quest to give itself and its characters more depth, I still love the fact that it's at least making an honest effort to do so. I didn't even bother watching the show until season 3 for this exact reason, and then I finally watched because I had major respect for the writers/producers/etc. for having the balls to kinda turn the show on its head a bit, with good results.
So then, given all this, why the hell are the season posters still so damn lame and generic looking?? Here's the first two seasons, for reference:
I mean, could these things possibly be any more generic?? "Single woman. Double life." "Under Cover Girl." The only way they could be more bland is if they were literally just pictures of saltine crackers or like, Gap ads. It's no goddamn wonder I refused to watch this show in seasons 1 and 2. To be fair, the show itself was pretty generic too at this point, so at least the posters fit a theme there. Still, it did have a
bit more substance than you'd think just from looking at these things.