It’s Fall Preview time! NBC has made its 22-minute fall preview special available online and, as I wrote a few weeks ago, it will be shown on several cable channels and eventually on NBC itself before the new season starts. Supposedly it will be aired some 300 times. You can watch it for free online at Hulu if you’re in the United States:
Note: The video is no longer available.
I haven’t watched a full fall preview special in years. With all the promotional material made available online they’re almost worthless and hardly anyone watches them. But they must be of some value or else the networks wouldn’t continue churning them out.
NBC’s fall preview specials over the past 10 years have usually featured a supporting cast member from one of the network’s series {usually from one of their sitcoms} as host/hostess, introducing slickly produced excerpts from the new shows, along with delivering “comedy patter” inbetween the segments [most of the material is often downright mediocre]. This is what happens when a conglomerate THINKS it knows how to package “entertainment”, without ever understanding what makes an entertaining special {or fall schedule} tick. ‘RGJ’ is quite right when he said most fall preview specials these days are “almost worthless”….NBC’s in particular.