What's on the menu this week? How about Cream Stew and lots and lots of
pickles? The honored guests for this feast should be the nation's TV
producers, who really ought to dine out with regular folk more often. That
way they could see what we'd like to order instead of what they force us to
pick from their limited menus.
The networks spend enormous amounts of energy tracking the ratings, but
wouldn't their time be better spent polling viewers on what they would like
to watch? It's like being at a restaurant where you have your choice of four
kinds of potatoes while local diners would really rather have a nice,
soothing bowl of rice with a few crunchy pickles on the side.
It is also very doubtful viewers would choose Cream Stew (the comedy duo of
Shinya Ueda and Teppei Arita) if they had another option.
The two host Warai no Kin Medaru (Gold Medal for Laughs, Fridays, 9 p.m., TV
Asahi network). I caught a few minutes of it while waiting for the news on
Feb. 3, and it includes a gallery of 22 young entertainers, two announcers
and the Stew themselves. Other than providing "work" for over two dozen
tepid entertainers, I can't find any redeeming value in it. Prime time has
been hijacked, and the networks don't seem to have a clue about how to take
it back.
TV Asahi, a network long known only for its news and cartoons, is finally
figuring out what drama viewers want. Offering characters people can
identify with, solid stories and a careful mix of the traditional and the
modern, the network has surprised the industry by rising in the cumulative
drama ratings. Jukunen Rikon put them on the map last quarter, and the
Seicho Matsumoto tale Kemono Michi (Thursdays, 9 p.m.) and Aibo (Wednesdays,
9 p.m.) are hits this quarter. The Sugako Hashida drama special Fufu, which
aired Feb. 4, should also earn great ratings. It was one of the few dramas
in recent memory to keep me glued to my chair. Hashida, a true master, knows
what viewers want and gives it to them.
TBS is having much more trouble trying to satisfy viewer appetites. Its
Thursday night offerings are floundering badly. Gachibaka at 10 p.m. is an
unappealing GTO clone. At 9 p.m., Byakuyako is even more perplexing. Two
children are involved in the murder of the father of one of them. They grow
up attempting to keep it secret and ride out the statute of limitations. In
this disturbing era of real-life crimes by and against children, who wants
to watch that sort of thing? What are they thinking at TBS?
Rondo (Sundays, 9 p.m., TBS network) is another example. Last week, Za
Terebijon magazine reported the producer and director were confident they
had a real winner and believed it would especially appeal to male viewers.
If they had done their homework on the nation's TV dining habits a bit more
carefully, they would have seen that this was about as likely as Razor Ramon
HG donning a business suit.
The preseason hype led the public to envision a romance between leads Yutaka
Takenouchi and Choi Ji Woo. That brought in respectable 20 percent ratings
the first week. By week two, the series dropped five points in the Video
Research tally. It will be lucky if it can hang onto the 15 percent survival
ledge.
As this column pointed out several weeks ago, there were two problems. The
story was dark and depressing and the characters spoke through interpreters,
squelching the romantic angle in the first episode. Who wants to see the
darling Choi abused by a spooky underground syndicate with political
connections? Not much chance for a sweet romance or a happy ending there.
Had they done a light comedy introducing Choi as Takenouchi's new next-door
neighbor and let her collapse on his doorstep with a fever, he could have
nursed her back to health with a nice bowl of Japanese rice gruel and a
pickled plum. And the series would probably be resting comfortably on 30
percent ratings right now.
Never underestimate the power of pickles.
The best-rated TBS series Yaoh (Fridays, 10 p.m.), a tale of host club
denizens and the guys who light their cigarettes and pour their champagne
for them, has risen to No. 5 in the drama ratings on its understanding of
pickle psychology. In a recent episode, they had the very popular Becky cast
as a bicultural young woman out to find the Japanese mother who left her
behind as a child. Becky's character wants answers and longs for the taste
of her mother's eggplant pickles. Mom now has a life on the Japanese lecture
circuit and hangs out at host clubs. Through the help of our hero-host they
confront each other indirectly in a Q-and-A session at one of the mother's
speeches.
"What would you do if you were reunited with your daughter?" Becky asks.
Mum's reply includes the line: "I'd make her eggplant pickles." They don't
confront their issues and nothing is really resolved. Yet when the girl
heads home alone she is satisfied in a way. The appropriate chord has been
struck with the audience. We're all envisioning the taste of those juicy
little purple pickles.
Traditional pickle-making is definitely in fashion this year. In Kaze no
Haruka, the heroine's father, who has spent 15 years trying to find himself,
now is finding his way by creating pickles that warm the hearts of all who
nibble them.
Producers who try to fathom what the public wants without seriously studying
viewer psychology are in a pickle, but they can get out of it if they just
provide something as crunchy as takuan pickled daikon, as smooth as
vinegared red turnip slices, as salty as a nice Chinese cabbage and as
colorful as a pickled eggplant. Never, never underestimate the power of
pickles.
(Feb. 9, 2006)
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