James Frey is the author of "A Million Little Pieces" and "My Friend Leonard."
I am a consumer of television. I watch it to be entertained, nothing more. I don't learn anything from it, I'm not a better person because of it, it doesn't inform me in any meaningful way. I watch it to laugh, to be scared, to be thrilled, to get away from the world for a little while. If I see something good, I might be in a better mood. If I see shit, I don't really care.
Each of the past two years, I wrote a pilot for the Fox network. Neither got picked up, which is probably a sound indicator of my skills as a creator of television shows. I have also made a number of disastrous appearances on television over the past year. Both have taught me that I should avoid participating in the medium for the rest of my life. That being said, I still think about it, because what I want to watch isn't available.
When I was growing up, I loved private investigator shows like "The Rockford Files," "Hammer" and "Magnum P.I." They all followed a fairly simple formula: beautiful woman arrives with case, P.I. takes case against his better judgment, P.I. starts working on case while driving a bad-ass car, case proves dangerous and troublesome and P.I. gets knocked out at least once, P.I. solves case at the last minute due to stunning combination of brain and brawn, P.I. sleeps with beautiful, and now grateful, woman who brought him the case. It's a perfect formula for an hourlong show. You know what you're getting each week, and you watch because you love the main character.
I miss good P.I. shows. There aren't any on anymore. "Monk," which is on the USA network, is the closest thing, but Monk is an obsessive/compulsive weenie. The show is violence-free, sex-free, humorless and boring. There are no car chases, no explosions, no boobs. Monk mumbles, winks and twitches, his sidekick follows him around explaining his brilliance and weirdness. It's an insult to the genre. Every time I come across it, I turn the channel as fast as my thumb allows.
I want to see a new P.I. show. I think the time has come. We have been bombarded by scientific crime shows for the past few years ("CSI" in all of its forms, "Numb3rs," "NCIS," "Criminal Minds"). Gus Grissom is smart, and he solves cases like a motherfucker, but sooner or later, they're going to run out of ways for him to use DNA. Character-based crime shows have all but disappeared and are primed for a comeback.
The one I want to see takes advantage of the license creators of TV shows are given in today's world. The violence will be bigger and louder, the women dirtier and in smaller outfits, the hero will smoke, spit and swear. Spillane did it in words 50 years ago, someone should be able to do it with sound and images now. The show would have a flawed, muscle car-driving, antihero P.I. He would get drunk, drive fast, kick ass, solve cases and charm the ladies. Tonally, it would be something like Todd Phillips or Quentin Tarantino, with humor and irony balancing the sex and violence. It would have all the staples of the genre: a beautiful woman, now gone, who broke the P.I.'s heart in the past, a bumbling sidekick, a cop who is an ally, a higher-ranking cop who is an enemy. There will also, of course, be the one case that got away, and that the P.I. is constantly thinking about and trying to put to rest.
A generation of young men grew up watching, and loving, the same P.I. shows I did. Now they get shows about hair follicles and facial ticks. It's time to get back to basics, and get back to what young men, and men of all ages, love: ass kicking, cars, laughs and women. Somebody will do it at some point soon, and when they do, I guarantee them at least one loyal viewer.
Next page: Heather Havrilesky: "Bankruptcy by Design"
