Lessons From Lone Star

What can we learn from the swift cancellation of Fox's new drama "Lone Star" after only two episodes?

First: You need to reach your audience out of the gate. If your show doesn't get good ratings from the start, it will be gone. How strong is the beginning of your show or movie?

Second: No one knows for sure if a show will succeed until the audience gets a chance to see it. The best film and television programmers are right more often than they're wrong, but even they don't know for sure. "Lone Star's" fate is one more proof of the great William Goldman's statement about the film business: "Nobody knows anything."

Clearly Fox thought "Lone Star" had great potential. They scheduled it on Mondays after "House," one of their most popular shows. The high-salaried cast included veteran stars like Jon Voight and David Keith and many attractive young actors,led by star James Wolk. A team of experienced writer/producers spent a great deal of time and money on writing and production values. Yet the show's premiere lost more than half of the audience "House" delivered and was close to the lowest rated show in that time slot. I saw both episodes of "Lone Star" and believe I know what went wrong.

Viewers didn't like James Wolk's lead character, Bob. In the first scene of the first episode we see Bob leaving his middle class girlfriend, who he loves, to travel for his job. It turns out this nice young man is married to a different pretty girl, who is filthy, Texas oil rich. Then we learn this same nice young man is actually a con man, who married the girl so he could rob her family. That's where they lost me, although I stayed to the end for professional reasons. Why should anyone root for a crook?

Some shows featuring criminals have achieved success on television -- but in those shows the thief was usually reformed and working for good guys. "White Collar" on USA is a current example of that show. The producers may have thought the audience would sympathize with the hero because he felt bad about being a con man and said he wanted to go straight. But he didn't.

The second episode of "Lone Star" had even lower ratings than the first, despite receiving a promo spot in almost every break of "House," and Fox had no choice but to cancel the show.

Third: It's much better for your piece if your main character is struggling to do good than if he's passively accepting his evil role.

Fourth: If you ever become a network programming executive, have a deep bench. Fox can afford to cancel Lone Star because they have episodes of the more popular series "Lie to Me" in the can to start playing next week.