Unemployment Lines

What is it with network television's season-ending obsession with job loss?

By D. K. Holm
Special to MSN Entertainment

If the vastness of television somehow taps in to both the zeitgeist and mass subconscious of our culture at the same time, what are we to make of the 2006-2007 season finales? What fears or worries are producers touching on? What national upheaval are we going through that only the cultural antennae of television have picked up? Because almost every season finale ended on a similar note: Someone, somewhere in the show, lost a job.

Actually, it's a little more complicated than that, at least insofar as there was a great deal of variation on this common theme. The simplest version saw Assistant D.A. Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) on "Law & Order" hand in his resignation after his boss, Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson), minimized McCoy's role in a celebrity murder trial. Branch didn't accept it, and the viewer's assumption was probably meant to be that McCoy would be back next season (though the political aspirant Thompson won't).

Meanwhile, over on "Criminal Minds," Supervisory Special Agent Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner (Thomas Gibson) spent most of the hour trying to justify his employment as head of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis unit to his boss, Erin Strauss (Jayne Atkinson, of "24"). The episode's surprise ending had upstart newcomer and senator's daughter Special Agent Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster, who came in to replace Lola Glaudini) assigned the undercover task of helping Strauss end Hotchner's career.

In the medical world, "Grey's Anatomy" ended with several people not getting the job of chief of surgery at Seattle Grace, which reverted back to Dr. Webber (James Pickens Jr.), while George's wife, Callie (Sara Ramirez), was named chief resident, a job Bailey (Chandra Wilson) wanted. Meanwhile, George (T.R. Knight) failed his intern test and chose to leave Seattle Grace altogether.

On "House," the eponymous acerbic physician (Hugh Laurie) managed to lose all his little ducklings: Foreman (Omar Epps) quit earlier in the season, Chase (Jesse Spencer) was impulsively fired, and Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) resigned in solidarity with Chase. Are there any doctors left in this "House"?

Other shows have further variations. The whole of the current season of "The Shield" has been preoccupied with Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) holding on to his job in the face of much opposition. "Boston Legal" wrapped up its third season with Jerry "Hands" Espenson (Christian Clemenson) back at the firm; "Veronica Mars" ended the season (and the series) with Keith Mars' (Enrico Colantoni) future as police chief in question; the last few episodes of "30 Rock" dealt in part with Jack Donaghy's (Alec Baldwin) executive position in jeopardy; the whole future of "The Unit" now hangs on a governmental probe; the incident-heavy finale of "Ugly Betty" had Daniel (Eric Mabius) resign his editor's post to his brother/sister Alexis. On "My Name Is Earl" the titular character lost his recently-landed job because he chose to sacrifice himself so that another might go free. And Homer Simpson has been going back and forth on his safety inspector job at the nuclear power plant, though it is only one of about 156 jobs Homer has had on "The Simpsons" over the years.

Finally, on the only network program that is actually about ordinary old jobs, "The Office" ended the season with Michael (Steve Carell), Jim (John Krasinski) and Karen (Rashida Jones) all failing to get the new corporate position, which turns out to be Jan's job (and she is subsequently fired). When Michael fails to get it, he returns and takes back his old position as Scranton branch manager, kicking Dwight (Rainn Wilson), whom he'd assigned as a replacement, back downstairs. Oh, and to our surprise, Ryan (B.J. Novak), whom we didn't know had even applied for it, does get Jan's old job.

Clearly America is worried about its jobs. Or maybe it is only Hollywood writers and show runners, whose guild is poised for a joint East and West Coast simultaneous strike.

But movies were there first. Back in the late 1990s, Hollywood issued so many films on the theme of the horror of the workplace that it was almost a genre unto itself. Call it heroic alienation. Some of the premiere films in the cycle were "American Beauty," "Office Space," "Fight Club," "In the Company of Men," and "Clockwatchers." Meanwhile, television, which has always alternated, especially in sitcoms, between the household setting and the workplace, began to evince a greater anxiety about jobs and survival on the job.

What's curious about most shows set in the workplace is how much fundamental equanimity there is among co-workers. Sure, there's the occasional spat, affair, or competition, contrived to punch up a story line. But for the most part, staff members all love each other so much. "Grey's Anatomy" takes this to extremes, with its constant closet fumblings and roundelays of inter-office romance. This surely runs counter to the experience of most working Americans, who hate all their co-workers just as much as their co-workers hate them back.

This is where "The Office" excels, as it does in so many other areas. There is a palpable tension among the fellow employees of Dunder-Mifflin, who otherwise have nothing in common. Yet they cling to their unrewarding jobs just as you or I do, fearful of change and of losing a certain income. Television, in its monolithic bumbling, apparently has stumbled onto something with its season-ending exploitation of viewers' subterranean fears of being dumped from their jobs. Clearly, other shows and new series developers would be wise to get with the program and start exploring with more realism the essential experiences of American life, or face their own form of cancellation. Or in the words of Donald Trump, "You're fired."