Network clings to teen scene
NY Daily News 5/17/00
Eric Mink

Coming off the worst season of its five-season existence, WB shows no signs of
reconsidering its basic game plan: Young adult viewers are the Holy Grail; the
way to get them is with shows that appeal, initially to teenage girls.

Of the six new shows WB is adding, for example, one is an ABC castoff: "Sabrina,
the Teenage Witch." Another, an hour-long drama scheduled for Thursdays,
"Gilmore Girls," follows the lives of a teenage girl and her teen-looking single
mom.

A third, "Grosse Pointe actually spoofs the teenage/ high-school-angst dramas
that are the meat-and-potatoes of the WB schedule.

The new shows join "Buffy," which began life as a show about a teenage girl
fighting horrible monsters; "Angel," about Buffy's monster-turned-good-guy
boyfriend now out on his own; "Dawson's Creek," teens in a small town;
"Charmed," barely post-teenage sisters who discover they're witches and then
fight monsters; "Felicity," or teenage girl goes to big city to grow up;
"Popular," about high school cliques; and "Roswell," about teenage space aliens
in a small New Mexico town.

What WB seems to unwilling
--------------------

? or perhaps unable? to consider is that there may be
a limit to how many of these sorts of shows its target audience is inclined to
watch, or even capable of watching regularly.

That's not to suggest that they're bad shows. "Buffy" can stand proud among
network television's best dramas, for example, and "Roswell" is a wonderfully
surprising combination of sly coolness and honest emotion.

But the saturation potential becomes especially problematic when quality starts
to slip. Both "Felicity" and "Dawson's Creek," for example, struggled with
mediocre starts last season. Young viewers quickly sought alternatives. Both
shows recovered creatively as their seasons wound down, but any network built on
the loyalties of teens and young adults is constantly battling this group's
tendency to move on to the next hot thing.