You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
Nashville – the TV show.
It’s numbers through two weeks have been staggering here in Nashville.
We’re talking Shenia Twain takes her top off in public eye popping staggering!
The question is, will this country show last around the country?
Does the show have enough Honk in New York City? Does it have enough Tonk in China town?
My mother is an East Coaster through and through.
“Do you like the new show?” I ask.
“I don’t like country music,” she quickly replies.
My mother has time for watching Nashville like she has time for a wrong way New York City cab driver taking Madison Avenue during rush hour.
And there it is.
With a title like Nashville, you expect slide guitars and boots and country vixens taking off their shirts down by the river.
If that isn’t what you want then Nashville might not be for you.
Nashville in many ways is a reconstituted, honky tonk version of Dallas, the super hit of the 80’s.
If you didn’t like Oil or fake boobs or big Stetsons, then you didn’t like that show either.
Apparently Boobs and Oil will always be a requisite because 80 year old Larry Hagman is still taking acting viagara on some cable channel in Dallas remakes.
So Nashville is 2 episodes in and the ratings in Music City are big, like Titans winning playoff games big. Like the Country Music Awards big.
That’s great for the 10pm news on the abc affiliate. Instead of a 5 rating Thursdays through Tuesdays, the station gets an 11 rating on Wednesday night.
That’s like playing darts and 1 of the darts you throw hits the bulls eye.
The problem is 6 of the 7 darts you throw hit the wall and the waitress serving table 14.
Talk to Nashvillians and they like the show. But they never say wow the acting is stellar or the story lines superb. They say, hey did you see the Blue Bird Cafe? or Did you see how they called the State Capitol the Mayor’s office? It’s like a visual tour bus of our own city.
The question is, how many helicopter shots can you cram into one show? This is not L.A. with more visual opportunities than an adult film convention.
You can only sweep over the Cumberland River, the State Capitol, and Liepers Fork so many times.
I just saw an old producer of mine in the show. He wasn’t an extra in the background of a bar, he was an actor, with as much face time and dialogue as some of the stars. Are you kidding me?
How good can this show be if they give that much creative propietary license to a guy who couldn’t even produce one of my Messed Up stories.
Has the show all ready peaked around the country. The program will probably continue to do well here. But if Atlanta, San Diego and New York City viewers say “SO WHAT?” then in the end, Nashville will be what it has always been; the third coast, a hidden gem of a city that is always on the brink of becoming big time but ends up being a second fiddle to the major zip codes in this great nation of ours.
And you know what. That’s OK too.
Nobody wants to be the next traffic jam in Atlanta or the next fake smile in Los Angeles.
And that is crazy.