Imagine you’ve been watching a TV show since August.
You tune into this show every week. It’s had 13 episodes, and every single one of them has been good. Some, like the season premier, were simply outstanding. Others may not have had quite as much excitement, but they ended up being a success regardless.
This show isn’t just some little daytime show either. It’s on a premier weeknight spot. It competes against other primetime shows, and its viewership didn’t fold under the competition.
The network had said that if this show made 13 quality episodes without a flop, that the show would be given the premier TV slot to air their finale in front of the whole country. The network had been running this deal for 10 years now, and they’d followed through for every single show that had met the criteria in the past.
After the 13th episode, the network executives got together and made the shocking decision to replace the show in the premier slot with another show.
This other show was also outstanding, don’t get me wrong. Many would say that this show had higher highs and was capable of delivering a better episode for the big finale. But this show had not had the same consistency as the show it was replacing. It had had multiple weeks where it was nearly outdrawn by smaller, lower quality shows, including one just 2 episodes before the finale. It even had an episode early on in the season where it was dominated in ratings by another big show, despite having the advantage of receiving more promotion. Our show that was snubbed out of their big finale had not had any slipup of that degree.
The network executives ignored the signs of weakness of the second show, and pointed to the fact that its most recent episode had been a huge success in a major timeslot over another bigtime show. They suggested that the show showed potential that it was the best show in the country with this performance, and decided that they wanted to explore if this was the case by letting its finale take the premier slot.
The first show, its fans, and many viewers around the country were stunned. Their show had done everything that could have been asked of it. Week in and week out, it put forth successful episodes, and had the perfect resume. They thought that they had done what it takes to deserve their big, highly-promoted finale. They argued that the second show was getting unfair treatment because they had had very successful seasons in the past and had large, loyal fanbases. There was immense uproar about this snub.
The executives tried to excuse the decision by saying that the lead actor of the first show’s medical emergency that prevented him from acting in the last few episodes lowered the potential for the finale. Perhaps they were right about this, but in the episodes following his absence, the show still did well, and the other actors picked up the slack admirably. The executives had expressed no such concern over the lead actor’s absence until they realized that they had the opportunity to replace the show with the second show. Many viewers rejected the legitimacy of the executives’ reasoning, but the executives held firm with their choice.
The actors of the first show were heartbroken. They felt that they had earned the chance to star on the big stage and get their big break, but were instead told that they wouldn’t have this chance, and would instead be given a far less promoted and funded finale in a less desirable TV slot. The members of the cast, all the fans, and viewers around the country were irate that they would not get to see the show play out to its full potential. Maybe the executives were right that the second show would perform better, but they felt it was wrong that the first show wouldn’t even be given the chance.
Okay, that’s it for the metaphor. There’s already been a ton of online discourse about this so I figured I’d put my own spin on it at least.
Florida State got screwed out of their College Football Playoff berth. It sucks that they won’t get the chance to compete to finish an undefeated season in the national championship game. I think it was a pretty crooked thing for the committee to do and I’m sure there were some biases involved. The playoff system is stupid, and I’m glad it’s going to a 12-team system next year. Despite this, I do think Alabama is a very good team and I think the playoffs are still going to be very fun to watch this year.
If Florida State beats Georgia in the Orange Bowl, though, I do hope they claim a national championship, a la UCF in 2017. That would be awesome, and frankly, deserved.
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