CBS Upfront Update: Dog and Pony Show, Minus the Pony

Partway through the CBS upfront presentation at Carnegie Hall, Entertainment President Nina Tassler promoted one of her network's new summer entries, a reality series called The Greatest American Dog, by having an actual dog run across the stage and greet her, then wait for its cue to exit, stage left.

It was a typical network dog-and-pony show -- only without the pony.

Instead, there was Craig Ferguson of The Late Late Show, who hosted the event with much more enthusiasm and humor than it may have deserved. After a lengthy presentation by others about the "multimedia cyber experience," a complementary approach embracing TV, the web, mobile devices and video games, Ferguson retook the stage and said, "Thank you, guys, who are very enthusiastic about things I don't understand."

The place I was looking to be enthusiastic was when CBS showed actual clips from the shows on its new schedule. For summer, it's noteworthy that CBS made room to present its dog show, but not to risk showing its controversial, upcoming free-love 1970s-vintage Swingtown to the assembled advertisers.

And for midseason, CBS showed scenes from Harper's Island -- and instantly popped whatever magic bubble that might have been generated by the show's description earlier in the day. That's why getting these first impressions is so helpful --- and, often, is so depressing.

For the fall season, CBS unveiled five new series -- two comedies, three dramas -- and, as noted in the last blog, made one of its biggest scheduling moves by attempting a second night of sitcoms. The crowd at Carnegie Hall reacted very positively to one comedy, Worst Week.

To me, though, I'll have to reserve judgement on that comedy, and on a couple of the dramas, until I see the entire pilots. So far, I've yet to see a single new series whose first taste was so intoxicating that it earned the "most promising" honor right out of the box.

But there's still Fox, so there's still hope. Last year, ABC's Pushing Daisies wowed me that early. The year before that, so did NBC's 30 Rock.

All I want -- all I'm looking for -- is another first-impression thrill like that. Stay tuned. I am.