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May 2008 Archives
ABC Rescues NBC's "Scrubs," While NBC Launches First Fall Promo and NBC NY Anchor Drops the 'F' Bomb
May 13, 2008 8:41 AM
Today I'm diving into New York's upfronts, and will report later from ABC's presentation late this afternoon, so please check back for updates and first impressions of the new series. Meanwhile, among ABC's morning announcements to the press are two very welcome returns by veteran series -- while, last night on NBC, two promos broadcast during NBC's telecast of Medium definitely got my attention, for very different reasons.
The best early news out of ABC is this: One, the network has picked up NBC's Scrubs, a wonderful sitcom that still has lots of life in it. Two, ABC renewed Boston Legal, the David E. Kelley series that is one of the most outrageous, and certainly is the most topical, shows on network prime time today. And among ABC's new lineup is Kelley's adaptation of the British series Life on Mars. Good news all around.
Now for the NBC promo news.
The nationally televised promo was for Christian Slater's My Own Worst Enemy, a new series scheduled to premiere on NBC in the fall. It may be the first new show promoted on air by any broadcast network, so give NBC credit, at least, for trying to build buzz early. The networks all would be wise to follow suit: Audience levels have fallen so much this season because of the strike, the networks should start promoting the concept of a big fall launch before viewers vanish for the summer.
The other promo worth noting was local, an on-air ad for the upcoming 11 p.m. ET newscast -- but since WNBC-Ch 4 is the East Coast satellite NBC affiliate for DirecTV, millions of other viewers, outside the New York area, also got a chance to see it. And to hear it, which, in this case, was a lot more significant.
Channel 4 co-anchor Sue Simmons was promoting a consumer story about food prices, and saving money on grocery bills, when the on-air image shifted from grocery items to a ferry boat. Simmons clearly -- VERY clearly -- could be heard saying, "What the F... are you doing?" Except her expletive wasn't deleted.
Simmons apologized, during the 11 p.m. newscast, for the "unfortunate incident." Call it a "dialogue malfunction" -- and wait for the FCC to be all over this one. If even one complaint is filed -- and, in this case, it should be -- Simmons' angry outburst could cost WNBC a lot of money in FCC fines, and could cost Simmons a lot, too, by tarnishing her station's "happy news team" reputation.
My Own Worst Enemy, indeed...
Being Up Front With the Network Upfronts
May 12, 2008 7:04 AM
This is Upfronts Week, the week in which the networks (except for NBC, which jumped the gun last month) unveil their fall slates for advertisers. Starting tomorrow with ABC, I'll be there -- but, for the first time, reporting for my website, not for a newspaper.
It's the latest phase of my post-career transition, as I set out to redefine what it is I do and how it is I do it. Before, I was at the New York Daily News, competing with the other big-city dailies to deliver and analyze the respective network schedules for the next day.
But now that I'm on a website, am I competing with wire services instead, trying to get out all the news as fast as possible? Do I still need to break down each network's full proposed schedule? Or should I do something different now, and hone in on finding and championing what look to be the most enticing new shows?
The truth of the matter is, I'm not sure, and I won't know until I get there. I may post several times a day with breaking news, or I may present daily wrap-ups. I don't even know which shows might grab my attention. Sight unseen, the most exciting prospect, to me, is the return of Joss Whedon -- of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly fame -- to series television, with Fox's Dollhouse, starring Eliza Dushku, who played Faith on Buffy and Angel. But that's sight unseen.
This week, clips of that show, and most others, will be sights seen -- though the strike had some series sold on the basis of only a script or pitch. Whatever the sights are, and the most interesting offerings, I'll report them here. I'm just not sure how, or exactly when.
Please stay tuned -- and beginning tomorrow, keep checking back. There's a new RSS link to the site, if that'll help. And if you know what that is.
(If you do, perhaps you could explain it to me some time.)
The Aloha TV Season: You Say Hello, I Say Goodbye
May 9, 2008 7:25 AM
In Hawaii, "Aloha" means both hello and goodbye. Consider 2007-08 the Aloha TV Season, because just as we've welcomed our favorite shows back to the schedule, it's time to say farewell again.
Last night, Scrubs and 30 Rock presented their NBC season finales. Survivor calls it quits for the season Sunday with its traditional live climax, Brothers & Sisters also bows out, and next week offers a long now-you-see-them, now-you-don't parade of series making their last bows until fall.
Samantha Who? and Medium vanish after Monday. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is gone after Tuesday. Thursday serves up the final 2007-08 installments of My Name Is Earl, Smallville, Supernatural, ER and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. A week from tonight is the final Moonlight, while Saturday Night Live stops going live after a week from Saturday.
And next Sunday, nine days from today, marks the season's final fresh episodes of Desperate Housewives, The Simpsons, Aliens in America and Everybody Hates Chris.
Aloha as in goodbye, Desperate Housewives. The next day, Aloha as in hello, American Gladiators.
Oh, poi...
HBO's "Hear and Now" Is A Treat for the Eyes -- and Ears
May 8, 2008 8:23 AM
Geese.
That's the image, and the sound, I can't shake after watching HBO's Hear and Now, the evocative, emotional, breathtakingly personal documentary by Irene Taylor Brodsky.
The documentary, premiering tonight at 8, is Brodsky's up-close-and-super-personal study of her own parents, Paul and Sally Taylor, both of whom have been deaf since birth. At age 65, they decided to risk the same operation and get fitted with cochlear implants, giving them the chance to hear, for the first time, the world and people around them.
Hear and Now spends more than a year with them. Home movies let us know how they met and married as young adults and spent their lives together, raising a hearing daughter and outfitting their lives with inventions generated by Paul, a professor. Brodsky films her parents taking a solitary winter walk, shortly before undergoing the operation.
Overhead, geese fly by and make that unmistakable honking sound. Well, unmistakable to us -- inaudible to them. Brodsky achieves exactly what she set out to do there: to make us notice the sounds we take for granted, and to imagine what life would be like without them.
And then, on the flip side to imagine what it would be like to hear those sounds, and others, for the first time. The daughter and her camera are in the room when her parents have their implants turned on for the first time, and hones in on their faces as they absorb their firs auditory experiences. He hears an electric tone, and his eyes widen with amazement. She says "Hello," to herself, and can't believe what she's hearing. Or that she's hearing.
"What does it sound like?" the doctor asks Paul, the professor.
"That's a tough question," Paul replies deliberately (subtitles help us understand what they're saying when their speech patterns aren't clear). "It's like, how do you describe what green looks like?"
Because this is real life, and because Brodsky is an unflinching filmmaker, Hear and Now has its sad moments as well as its happy ones -- plenty of them, in fact. But late in the film, when the two of them go out on another winter walk and discuss whether the geese are communicating by honking, well, it's a moment I'll never forget.
And I'm guessing it's a moment they, and their daughter, will never forget, either.
CBS Calls Indiana for Clinton, Then Sweats Hours Waiting for a Second Opinion
May 7, 2008 7:44 AM
For a while Tuesday night, and into Wednesday morning, there were fewer than 15,000 votes between CBS and a potentially huge embarrassment.
Almost six hours after Katie Couric presented a prime-time newsbreak awarding North Carolina to Barack Obama and Indiana to Hillary Clinton, no other network had yet called a winner in the Indiana race.
Couric called the races at 8:09 p.m., projecting the results, at it turned out, correctly. But in Indiana, the margin was so small, and the amount of missing votes from one key county so crucial, that as time went on, the race tightened, and tightened, and tightened. So, I suspect, did some of the sphincters at CBS News. (Sorry. Couldn't resist. And I'm talking biologically, not insultingly.)
At CNN, Larry King complained to John King about the missing votes, which stretched the suspense to the other side of midnight, wondering why they just couldn't call and get them. At Fox News, Karl Rove started doing his complex math as the first tallies from Lake County finally came in, and announced with surprise that, if Obama held to those percentages, he might actually win the state. And at MSNBC, the "A" team of Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann went off the air at 1 a.m. ET, with the race, for a few more minutes, still undecided.
Finally, more than six hours after the Indiana polls closed, the cable networks began to call it for Clinton. Politically, Clinton's win in Indiana, by the thinnest of margins, avoids an avalanche of really bad press. Obama's decisive victory in North Carolina erased Clinton's gains in Pennsylvania and elsewhere in delegate and popular counts, but her narrow victory allows her to save face and keep going.
The same is true for CBS and Couric. Had Gary, Indiana gone a little stronger for Obama, and had he claimed a late-night, 11th-inning upset, CBS would have been scolded fiercely today, and for a long time to come, for letting competitive eagerness get in the way of journalistic accuracy. It wasn't exactly "Dewey Defeats Truman!," or even "It's Ford!," but CBS risked a big chunk of its credibility by reporting so firmly so quickly.
This time, it's no harm, no foul. But next time there's a race that close, will CBS be out there alone again? And if so, does that mean its analysts and pollsters are more accurate than the competition -- or just more reckless?
"Two and a Half Men" Spoofs "CSI" -- But Not for the First Time
May 6, 2008 9:03 AM
Even by sweeps-month TV standards, it's a bizarre crossover stunt: writers on the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men and the drama series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation taking a stab at writing an episode of each other's shows. The CSI version of Men aired last night, and the more comedic version of CSI airs Thursday.
So far, it's a fun stunt. But it's not the first time Two and a Half Men has tweaked this particular CBS drama franchise.
More on that in a minute. First, some observations about last night's Men...
It's too bad that Robert Wagner, as the brothers' brand-new father-in-law, was enlisted as the corpse. He was lots of fun on this show. But the casting of Jamie Rose, as the detective investigating his mysterious death, was perfect -- a dead-on (so to speak) tribute to Marg Helgenberger's sexy, red-headed detective on CSI.
Also perfect was the end-of-show Chuck Lorre vanity card, a weekly feature which, this week, was turned over to the writers from CSI, who described their transfer into the strange new world of the situation comedy -- "a world where the only rule is whether or not it makes you laugh, where actors say exactly what's on the page so it better be funny right down to the syllable, and where puns are the lowest form of humor." The CSI writers thanked everyone at Two and a Half Men "for making us all feel stupid," and closed by saying, "We look forward to returning the favor this Thursday night at 9."
Very funny. Even funnier, though, was an episode from a previous season of Two and a Half Men, in which Alan's sexy young bride at the time, Kandi (played by the delightful April Bowlby), auditioned for, and won, the part of a forensics investigator on a new TV crime series. That episode of Men ended with Alan and company watching her TV debut in disbelief, especially because of the blatant display of cleavage.
And what was the name of that new, sexed-up CSI spoof? Look below...
CBS Goes to the Dark Side of the "Moonlight" Promos
May 5, 2008 7:43 AM
Viewers tuned to CBS last Friday night may have caught something that made their jaws drop. I know my jaw did...
It was the CBS on-air promo for next week's Moonlight, which warned that there were only two first-run episodes left in the season -- and basically threatened viewers with the show's impending absence.
"You'll miss them when they're gone," CBS warned of these last remaining romantic vampire dramas. "So don't miss them when they're on."
What colossal nerve.
First, I won't miss Moonlight, thanks. It's not that good a show. But what this ad is doing is saying, basically, that these shows presented on broadcast TV are precious jewels. If we don't watch them, it's our fault.
Sorry, but in a strike-crippled season, especially, that's not the way it works. Moonlight won its time slot last week, but overall prime-time broadcast viewership is down since the writers' strike began in November. Millions of people, literally millions, went elsewhere for their entertainment. In a few weeks, when the May sweeps end and summer programming begins, they'll repeat, and probably increase, that driven-by-boredom migration.
The question now becomes, or ought to: Can the broadcast networks field a compelling enough lineup in the fall, and promote it properly enough, to woo those lost viewers back to the fold? Here's a hint, networks. To do so, make better programs than Moonlight -- and promote them better than by scoldng viewers that they have a duty to watch.
If watching TV is a duty, not a pleasure, the networks are the ones at fault.
"You'll miss them when they're gone" is a harsh, threatening line that can be repeated right back to the networks -- referring to their viewers.
Watching Ringo Starr Now and Then -- As in 2008 and 1981
May 2, 2008 7:05 AM
Ringo Starr talks with Dave Stewart about his life and career, and his new album, tonight at 11 p.m. ET on HBO's Ringo Starr: Off the Record. He also talks about his life and career, and his then-new album, on the new DVD John, Paul, Tom & Ringo: The Tomorrow Show, with Tom Snyder. Those two interviews, more than a quarter-century apart, make for a fascinating contrast.
On tonight's HBO special, Starr is completely at ease. That's because Stewart, the host of these infrequent Off the Record shows, collaborated on Starr's new CD, Liverpool. So when Stewart pulls out old album covers and asks, in effect, "Why did the Beatles cross the (Abbey) road?," Starr doesn't act bored by the question.
(The answer: After tossing around a bunch of complicated ideas for that album cover, they simply decided it would be easier to go outside and walk across the street. The same lazy problem-solving process eventually ended up with them going to the rooftop, rather than some exotic location, for their final live concert.)
Most of the stories are old, as is most of the footage. The fun part comes when Stewart, of Eurythmics, picks up his guitar and coaxes Ringo behind a drum kit. What comes out of that is lots of casual talk about how Ringo came up with some of his signature drum fills, and why he plays a right-handed drum kit even though he's left-handed.
On Shout Factory's John, Paul, Tom & Ringo: The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder, three programs are presented over two discs. One is Snyder's 1980 tribute to John Lennon, featuring his 1975 interview that was Lennon's last. There's also a 1979 interview with Paul McCartney when he was with Wings, and a 1981 interview with Ringo Starr.
It was Snyder's first interview with Starr, and it was divided into two parts -- half with Ringo himself, and half with Ringo accompanied by recent bride Barbara Bach. In part one, Ringo and Snyder, both puffing away on cigarettes, banter nervously as Snyder finds ways of putting his guest at ease. That ease becomes evident only once Bach joins them, and Snyder begins by asking her whether she married Ringo Starr or Richard Starkey (his real name). She smiles, and says she married Richie.
For the rest of the segment, Ringo becomes Richie, talking unguardedly about his wife, himself, and his life at that point, the year after Lennon's death. (You can order the DVD here -- and if you're a Beatles fan, you should.)
It's fun comparing the two Ringos -- the vintage and the current ones -- but it's also a total joy watching hours of Snyder on Tomorrow.
What a natural, fascinating broadcaster.
NBC Slips from Must-See to Please-Watch TV
May 1, 2008 8:04 AM
Hoping to boost the audience levels for two of its Thursday sitcoms, Scrubs and 30 Rock, NBC has swapped their positions in the Thursday lineup. The newly shuffled prime-time lineup, which took into effect last week just as the May sweeps began, now looks like this: My Name Is Earl, Scrubs, The Office, 30 Rock, ER.
It's just the latest in a long line of NBC's Thursday night flip-flops, swaps, disappearing acts and acts of quiet desperation.
The sad truth of the matter is, NBC used to own Thursdays for decades, ever since The Cosby Show hit like a tsunami in 1984, no matter how good or bad the sitcoms it televised. Routinely, NBC would sprinkle sub-standard comedies between its reliable hits, expecting viewers to sit still for almost anything. And, for the most part, they did.
The irony is that, now that NBC has a wall-to-wall lineup of excellent, inventive, delghtful comedies, Must-See TV has turned into Please-Watch TV. With Cosby, Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld and others, NBC ruled Thursdays, and was a dominant number one in the time slot. Now NBC, with its most solid lineup in years, is number four... and slipping.
Last week, when NBC shifted its Thursday lineup, Earl was fourth in its time slot, behind not only Survivor on CBS and Ugly Betty on ABC, but drawing two million fewer viewers than Fox's Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Scrubs, transplanted to 8:30 ET, did even worse. It was within only about a half million viewers of being lapped by Al Diablo con los Guapos, on Univision.
At 9 ET, the fact that NBC's The Office actually gains viewers from its lead-in, against Top 10 powerhouses CSI and Grey's Anatomy, is impressive, but 5th Grader trounced it, too. And 30 Rock, the best comedy on TV right now? According to A.C. Nielsen, last week's audience was only 300,000 viewers ahead of Univision's Pasion. Ay caramba!
NBC could claim, I guess, that after so many fourth-place showings in the time slot, ER deserves credit for finishing third. But that's only because Fox doesn't broadcast nationally at 10 ET, and stops competing.
The real shame is that NBC's Thursday lineup should be supported, but the truth is that there are more watchable broadcast-TV shows on this night than on any other. The networks are playing chicken on Thursdays, jockeying for weekend movie advertising, and NBC, right now, is running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
And after so many years of taking its Thursday audience for granted, there's no sense crying fowl.
