March 2009 Archives

A Few Minutes About Andy Rooney...

March 30, 2009 7:03 AM

I adore 60 Minutes. I love that the oldest surviving TV show in prime time is still among the very best. I'm thrilled that it caters to intelligence rather than panders to stupidity. Living up to its name, it's 60 minutes of outstanding television.

Well, 55 minutes, anyway...

"A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney," the closing feature most weeks, has ended the show on an off note. This isn't ageism, or a rejection of tradition. On the contrary: It's a dissatisfaction with what appears to be creative laziness.

Look, you're not going to find me complaining about a veteran journalist holding onto a high-profile post. A job on 60 Minutes is the closest thing on TV to a tenured position, and television is the better for it. At 80 90, Andy Rooney represents a segment of the population heard from much too seldom, and he's done some really good work over the years. I still remember, and treasure, his reports for the public TV series The Great American Dream Machine -- and that's almost 40 years ago.

But of late, Andy Rooney has started sliding into a caricature of himself. I can't recall the last piece he presented which required him to leave his office. He's done reports on what's in his desk drawers, what's in his incoming mail, and what his desk is made of. He's even done a piece in which - I swear -- he complained about the spelling of the word February. (See picture above.)

This on one of the best, most-watched shows on television, enjoying one of its strongest journalistic seasons in years. No wonder Craig Ferguson, on his own CBS series, makes fun of Andy Rooney more and more frequently.

In Sunday's installment on 60 Minutes, Rooney read letters sent to him by viewers. One of them nailed it on the head: "Andy, you need to get out more." Please do that, Andy, or consider abdicating your high-profile throne.

A decade ago, when CBS mounted its ill-conceived 60 Minutes II spinoff, it tried other people in the Andy Rooney slot, including comedian Jimmy Tingle. That didn't work at all, but now or later, the network will have to confront the necessity of replacing Andy Rooney.

The heir to that throne can't help but skew younger. Even Larry King would shave five 15 years off the total. But what 60 Minutes and CBS should be looking for is someone who can end the show with energy, vitality and creativity -- without sacrificing Rooney's best quality, a definite and often defiant point of view.

Suggestions?

If you want someone as smart, and wide-ranging, as the rest of 60 Minutes, hire Robert Krulwich, the PBS and NPR science host and commentator whose sense of humor is as contagious as his sense of wonder. He'd be different. And, I suspect, he'd be fantastic.

If you want someone to connect to the average viewer, and to continue Rooney's tradition of being obsessed with the minutiae of daily life, why not go straight to the top and hire Jerry Seinfeld?

A few minutes a week should fit into his schedule nicely -- and if there's one guy who can entertain by talking about nothing, Seinfeld's the guy.

Or, if you don't want a guy, but a woman, why not go with Bonnie Hunt?

She's covering a lot of the same territory on her daily talk show already. And if Andy Rooney can spend time on 60 Minutes delivering a rant about the R's in February, why can't Bonnie Hunt deliver a rant about the rats in her kitchen? Yes, she has her own show already. But so does Anderson Cooper, and he gets to be on 60 Minutes anyway.

Finally, there's Craig Ferguson. He does a funny Andy Rooney impression already -- all arms and snarls and eyebrows -- and, on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, already ends each show by taking a few minutes to ask viewers what they learned on the show that night. And even if Ferguson just riffs for a bit at the end of 60 Minutes, as he does at the beginning of his own show, it would be a perfect piece of cross-promotion for a late-night CBS talk show that has more than earned the support.

I'm not trying to push Andy Rooney out of a job -- just to prod him into taking it a little more seriously again. And, at the same time, I'm doing what CBS should be doing: looking down the road to the next move on the chessboard.

Krulwich, Seinfeld, Hunt and Ferguson are some of my nominations. What about yours?

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Hey, Look! Another Smothers Day!

March 27, 2009 6:38 AM

Expect several of these in the next few weeks, which I hope to be the last few weeks, as I work my way to the other end of this manuscript.

Please, please be patient. I'll keep refreshing BEST BETS daily, Diane Werts is still writing constantly and wonderfully - and more guest blogs are coming next week.

But if I don't finish this book soon, my publisher will finish ME.

Back to the Sixties...

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28 Years of NBC Thursday Drama Excellence -- Great Streak, But It's Almost Over

March 26, 2009 12:13 AM

I love the way NBC's ER is winding down. Rather than wait for next week's two-hour finale to serve its veteran and current characters, the series has been doing it every week, with moments that are touching, revealing, surprising and eminently satisfying. Shane West, as Dr. Ray Barnett, made a surprise appearance to cap last week's show with a perfect grace note.

Tonight's penultimate episode (10 ET) is another must-see treat. But next week, ER will end. The week after that, Southland will premiere, continuing a tradition of ambitious quality Thursday NBC dramas that goes back 28 years. Yet no matter what, that streak won't make it to 29...

For most of the 1970s, NBC's final hour of prime time was a mess. Eight shows, over eight seasons, came and went quickly from 1973-1980, including such memorable (or forgettable) flops as Kate Loves a Mystery, the horrendously ill-conceived spinoff of Columbo. Finally, in January 1981, NBC threw a midseason desperation pass that changed everything: Hill Street Blues.

Critics saved it that first year, and the Emmys did the rest. Hill Street changed the cop show, and and the drama series, and TV history forever. And when Hill Street went off the air, NBC moved another Steven Bochco series, L.A. Law, into the Thursday slot, where it thrived until ER replaced it in 1994.

ER has been there ever since. And when it leaves next week, another John Wells drama series, Southland, premieres. But whether it becomes an instant hit, or slides away at season's end, Southland will not stay put in the 10 p.m. ET Thursday slot for NBC, and carry the time-slot streak of quality drama past its 28th year.

That's because, this fall, Jay Leno will be there instead. Nothing against Leno, but NBC has just voluntarily sacrificed one of its proudest, most marketable legacies of the past 30 years. There's a big difference between Must-See-TV and May-As-Well-Watch-If-Nothing-Better's-On-TV -- even if NBC doesn't seem to recognize it.

Or care.

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Another "Smothers Day" -- Remember, Patience Is a Virtue

March 23, 2009 12:38 PM

...And that's directed at my readers, not just my editor.

We're getting there, so please be patient as I take another day or two off from the BLOG to keep writing the now-overdue Smothers Brothers book. Keep coming back for the BEST BETS -- and, believe it or not, for ANOTHER new writer joining the TV WORTH WATCHING stable of veteran contributors.

Meanwhile, poke around through the site, and read the recent stuff by Diane Werts, PJ Bednarksi and Ed Martin. Enjoy them all. I sure do...

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Spring Break for My Students, Smothers Marathon for Me

March 16, 2009 6:26 AM

My students at Rowan University are taking off for spring break this week -- and I'm using the time, I hope, to nail down the final chapters of my Smothers Brothers book.

I'll keep providing BEST BETS every day, so keep coming back. But as for BIANCULLI'S BLOG, for the next few days, give me a break. Literally. Please. My book editor has been patience personified, but that won't last forever.

Meanwhile, for the record: I loved Jon Stewart's evisceration of Jim Cramer, and the way ER handled the secret return of George Clooney, and the way Battlestar Galactica is winding up. But enough of this. Back to the brothers...

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With "Kings," NBC Does Something Different -- And Interesting

March 12, 2009 10:40 AM

The best thing about NBC's new series Kings, which premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, is how unusual it is. It's like Dallas, but with a biblical spin, and with lots of allegorical undertones. It's not subtle, but it IS different. On NBC, which seems hell-bent on churning out enough TV guano to choke itself to death, that makes it almost shockingly intriguing.

And, best of all, it stars Ian McShane, the powerfully magnetic star of HBO's Deadwood...

A dry summary of Kings threatens to make it sound more simplistic and uninteresting than it is. It's set in modern times, in a city named Shiloh that's not unlike a spiffed-up New York -- but a city whose nation is in the midst of a volatile border war (like the current Israeli-Palestinian standoff) with Gath.

As soon as you put fictitious names to these lands and events, it sounds sci-fi silly, especially when the young hero of the piece, David Shepherd, goes singlehandedly against an enemy tank named Goliath, and wins.

Yes, it's David vs. Goliath. And yes, David has six older brothers, which makes him the proverbial seventh son. And yes, the last name of Shepherd is symbolic, too, just as the warrior Goliath in the biblical account came from Gath. And so on.

David was a busy guy, and not just with a slingshot -- or, in this telling, a hand-held missile launcher). He later was crowned king (thousands-year-old spoiler alert!) and had an illicit, child-bearing affair with Bathsheba. David, as a religious leader, figures in stories revered in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

And now here he is on NBC, as played by Chris Egan. By slaying Goliath, and simultaneously saving the life of the king's son Jack (Sebastian Stan), David is ushered instantly into the opulent, treacherous royal court of McShane's King Silas.

David isn't seduced by the big city, but he IS seduced, or at least enchanted, by the king's daughter Michelle, played by the very enchanting Allison Miller. (The Old Testament calls the king's daughter Michel, and the king Saul, but the broad strokes are familiar.)

Other prominent players in this TV court include Susanna Thompson as Queen Rose and Eamonn Walker as an influential reverend, Ephram Samuels. (Quality TV lovers will recognize them both: her from Once and Again, him from Oz.) Almost no one is to be trusted, and even David, in the first four hours, shows he is capable of being tempted by less than noble virtues.

"We give up what we want when we want power," King Silas tells his closeted son at one point. "Hope lies in bravery," another character intones in another scene. "We need hope."

In Kings, the lessons learned and the topics tackled -- uneasy peace negotiations with hostile enemies, a nation's rebirth through dynamic leadership, and cynical opportunists threatening to stifle progress at every point -- may be biblical in origin and inspiration. But they're no less timely than the Middle Eastern conflicts recounted in both biblical and newspaper accounts.

Michael Green, who wrote for NBC's Heroes, is the creator of this unusual new series, and populates it with characters who are often duplicitous, seldom saintly, and almost never predictable. The entire enterprise, in tone and scope, feels like an attempt to make a weekly TV series by modernizing, in diluted but recognizable form, both the Bible and Shakespeare. And there's symbolism almost everywhere, especially in the butterflies and pigeons.

As aspirations go, you could aim a lot lower. NBC almost always does, so give it credit for Kings, and give Kings a chance.

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NBC's "Chopping Block": Off With Its Head

March 11, 2009 8:22 AM

Any show that replaces Knight Rider on the NBC schedule has to be an improvement. But why, and how, did tonight's new Chopping Block series (8 p.m. ET) make it so marginally close?

As TV cooking-competition reality shows go, Chopping Block deserves an immediate beheading...

Don't get me wrong. I love reality-TV cooking shows, when they're done right. I was a very early proponent of Iron Chef (for proof, go to the FRESH AIR FAVES part of this website, scroll down, and listen to my 1988 Fresh Air review), and an instant, constant booster of both Top Chef and Gordon Ramsay's best series, Hell's Kitchen.

But Marco Pierre White, who once helped train Ramsay, does himself and the genre no favors with Chopping Block. One of his constant mantras is that small details matter, and another is that freshness counts. Well, there's absolutely nothing fresh about Chopping Block -- and almost every detail rings false.

The premise is similar to Hell's Kitchen, in which two teams of apprentice chefs are pitted against one another in a competition to provide the better dining experience. (Instead of Red and Blue teams, White's crews are Red and Black. Viva originality!)

The twist, such as it is, is that the chefs arrive in teams, as on Amazing Race -- mother-daughter, brothers, married couples -- and compete and are eliminated accordingly.

And there's a guest judge each week, as on Top Chef -- except that on Chopping Block, it's a restaurant critic who's slipped in anonymously to both dinner services, and asked to render verdicts on both. What this does, in essence, is neuter the show's purported star. All White does, as the guest critic renders a verdict, is sit and nod.

Nor does he interact that much with the chefs under his tutelage, other than to offer quick cooking lessons as the day's menu is prepared. Ramsay, on his shows, never strays far from the trenches. White, for most of Chopping Block, is above or beyond it all, speaking to the TV audience directly and spouting more one-line platitudes than Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard's Almanack.

Worst of all, in the first two shows, is that the menus are uninspired and uninspiring, and the same can be said for most of the contestants. In both of these first shows, when the going gets tough, the chefs are eager to get going. They're not so much eliminated as volunteering for execution -- which, once again, takes White out of the equation of his own show.

The executive producers, David Barbour and Julian Cress, previously teamed for the 2005 Australian version of Celebrity Circus, and that's about it. In selecting the behind-the-scenes chefs for his own TV kitchen, Marco Pierre White settled for amateurs... and the cooks, on and behind the camera, combine to spoil his reality-TV broth.

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Does Ken Burns Need a New Sponsor -- Or a Federal Bailout?

March 10, 2009 12:02 PM

You can't blame this on the current economic crisis, because Ken Burns has known for a year what only now is being made public: General Motors is ending its decades-long corporate sponsorship of Burns and his invaluable PBS documentaries.

GM spokeswoman Kelly Cusinato, while calling Burns "the gold standard of documentary filmmaking," has let it be known that this fall's latest Burns nonfiction epic, The National Parks: America's Best Idea, will be the last one benefiting from GM funding.

With GM asking for even more bailout money, that makes sense. Though the automaker financed only a third of Burns' productions, not including certain marketing and publicity costs, taxpayer dollars deserved for GM can be much better spent.

Besides, Burns has a deal with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting providing partial support for his documentaries through 2017, so all is not lost. Enough is lost, though, for Burns to need other corporate sponsors to maintain his current production and development pace -- and to need them in a chokingly tight economic climate.

It would be a sin if Burns couldn't find such a sponsor. Apple, Google, are you listening?

But Masterpiece Theatre, the flagship program of al PBS dramas, lost its ExxonMobil funding five years ago, and still hasn't found a proper substitute. If we cut the flow of funding to the man behind The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz and The War, then who, in the next decade, will make the great documentary on, say, Subprime Mortgages: America's Worst Idea?

Maybe taxpayers should be asked to fund Burns' Florentine Films directly, by checking off a box on a future federal fax form. Or get stimulus money from the government, to create jobs in the much-neglected documentary sector.

Gold, right now, is more valuable than ever. The gold standard of documentarians, you could -- and should -- say the same thing about him.

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Nathan Fillion Makes ABC's "Castle" a Comfy Place to Visit

March 8, 2009 9:57 PM

If you're a Joss Whedon fan -- and all quality TV enthusiasts should be -- you're already sold on Nathan Fillion's roguish charms, thanks to his starring roles as the space cowboy in Firefly and the hammy hero in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. In ABC's Castle, anyone who watches should be equally enthusiastic.

Nathan Fillion, in this role no less than his others, is a natural-born TV star...

He's got the easy manner of a Bruce Willis or a James Garner, with the same gift for playful comedy and arrested adolescence. In Castle, he plays a bestselling mystery author, Rick Castle, who's teamed temporarily - then more permanently -- with a beautiful, tightly wound NYPD detective named Kate Beckett, played by Stana Katic.

The dynamic is a little similar to that of detectives Charlie Crews and Dani Reese on NBC's Life, but not as sharp. Castle creator Andrew W. Marlowe stacks the deck with his odd couple, so that Castle -- at least at the start -- is always right, and Beckett is exasperated but intrigued. Making them more equal would have made the chemistry stronger (and the show better), but Fillion is more than up to carrying most of the load.

"He is like a nine-year-old on a sugar rush," Beckett complains of the womanizing, quick-thinking author. But she's stuck with him anyway, when a series of murders point to someone who's copying the crime scenes in his novels. He's horrified of that -- but he plays poker with a bunch of fellow novelists, and he's a little thrilled to brag to them about it, too.

"In my world," Castle tells her, "that's the red badge of honor. That's the criminal Cooperstown!"

And in the pilot, there's an extra kick: the authors around his poker table, playing themselves, include James Patterson and Stephen J. Cannell. Cannell, in his TV days, wrote The Rockford Files, and he'd be a natural to write for, as well as appear on, Castle.

Castle's just his type of character -- and Nathan Fillion, like James Garner, is just his type of actor.

And, by the way, Castle could USE some sharper writing, to match the sparkle of its leading man.

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"Breaking Bad" Returns Brilliantly, With Even More Intensity

March 6, 2009 6:56 AM

Last season, American Movie Classics' Breaking Bad was one of the more delightful surprises of the year. Bryan Cranston's performance, creator Vince Gilligan's dark vision, and the show's relentless, involving dramas and crises -- they combined for a seven-episode blast of high-octane, darkly comic, intensely dramatic television.

Sunday night at 9 ET, Breaking Bad returns for season two. Somehow, it's even more intense -- and even more impressive...

First off, anyone who missed the first season of this boldly original drama series, which presented only an abbreviated seven-episode run last year because of the writers' strike, can catch up tonight (Friday) at 8 p.m. ET, when AMC presents all eight episodes in a very convenient marathon. Cranston won an Emmy for his portrayal of high school teacher turned meth manufacturer and dealer Walter White, and those episodes easily explain why.

What Walt is doing is heinous, illegal, and not without repercussions. His motives, however, are pure: He's dying of cancer, and wants to leave his pregnant wife (played by Anna Gunn from Deadwood) and cerebral-palsy-stricken teen son (played by RJ Mitte) enough money to provide for them and pay his own deathbed medical bills.

But purity of motive doesn't mean much when he's dealing with deadly drug dealers, and investigated by DEA agents including his own brother-in-law (Dean Norris).

Breaking Bad is written in serialized form, and the new season's first three episodes concerns Walter, and former student turned meth-sales partner Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), as they strike an uneasy deal with a psychotic meth dealer named Tuco. He's played by Raymond Cruz, who's more familiar from the other side of the thin blue line, as Det. Julio Sanchez on TNT's The Closer. Here, he's so scary, so volatile, and so mad-dog unpredictable, every encounter with him is a high-tension, highly risky affair.

And what Breaking Bad does to add to the tension, besides its finely tuned writing, acting and directing (Cranston himself directs the opener), is to eliminate background music almost entirely. More than almost any series I can remember, Breaking Bad plays out against eerie, uncomfortable silence. No music bumpers between scenes, no dramatic underscoring during the climaxes and confrontations -- almost nothing unless there's a musical montage at the end of the show. The starkness is haunting.

So is Cranston's performance, which is so total, so real, you forget it's a performance at all. You just feel for poor Walter, and hope for him to dig out of the latest hellhole into which he's found himself, even when it seems there is no escape, no way out, and no possible path to survival.

Just like Walter's own death sentence.

But in following Walter on his desperate final journeys and adventures, Breaking Bad has given us one of the most lively, and thrilling, TV shows of 2009.

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Late-Night TV Chess: Thanks to a Bishop, Craig Ferguson Is King

March 5, 2009 6:51 AM

Archbishop Desmond Tutu showed up for an improbable, unprecedented visit to CBS's The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson Wednesday. It's the show the Ferguson folks should submit for Emmy consideration this year -- and it's also the show that should end all sensible speculation regarding the late-night TV wars.

I have seen the future of late-night TV, and his name is Craig Ferguson..

I've been enthusiastic about this Scottish import since he first appeared on The Late Late Show -- even before he got the job, when he was one of many guest hosts given on-air tryouts. But what he's done since taking over -- shaping his show, finding his voice, and every so often shifting gears from the silly to the serious -- couldn't really have been predicted by anyone. Probably not even Ferguson himself.

With his quick wit and friendly manner, Ferguson has a gift for putting guests at ease: He's a world-class flirt, but charms men as easily as women. He has note cards on his desk for each interview, but makes a big show of ripping them up at the start, signalling to the audience, and to the guest, that this conversation need not be rigidly managed.

The decision to book Desmond Tutu to counter all the fuss of Jimmy Fallon's opening week as Conan O'Brien's replacement on NBC's Late Night is, in itself, all you need to know about Ferguson. It's not going to get the ratings, not this week -- but it should get lots of attention. In any case, it makes a very strong statement that Ferguson's talk-show sandbox, on occasion, is big enough to accommodate adults.

Ferguson isn't the first late-night host to conduct lengthy, serious conversations with important guests outside of show business. That would have been Steve Allen. Then Jack Paar, whose conversational style Ferguson most emulates. Both of them made room for special shows featuring politicians, poets, physicists , artists and others. And, more recently, Johnny Carson (on occasion, as with Carl Sagan on astronomy), Dick Cavett, Tom Snyder, Bob Costas and David Letterman.

Right now, Letterman's the only other one in late-night, besides Ferguson, who could interview Tutu competently. Letterman's recent interview with the U.S. Airways "Miracle on the Hudson" crew demonstrated that he's still got strong skills when he wants to tackle serious topics, and talk to people outside the normal Hollywood orbit.

But Ferguson did much more than that, something unique and invaluable. From the very start, he let the studio and home audience know that this visit by Tutu was something different, and special. Then he did an off-the-cuff lengthy monologue that amounted to nothing less than an entertaining, understandable, shockingly thorough history of South African politics and colonization.

It's easy to recognize Ferguson as a natural entertainer, but in Wednesday's show, I saw something new: He's a natural teacher as well. What a wonderful lecture, putting the next guest, and the issues they were about to discuss, in perfect perspective. The best lectures don't feel like lectures, but like stories, and Ferguson told his chosen stories beautifully, punctuated by very funny asides and jokes.

And when Tutu came out, the Archbishop laughed when Ferguson ripped up his note cards, and giggled with glee even before Ferguson asked his first question. "You're crazy," Tutu told him, but with an admiring tone. An Archbishop may not often be greeted with such breezy irreverence -- and it may be just as rare to be talking to someone with such a comfortably conversational command of such topics as religion, politics, history, marriage, faith and forgiveness, all of which Tutu and Ferguson discussed for the rest of the show.

I can think of three times when an interview on a TV talk show has proven inspirational, to me, almost beyond measure. The first was when Bill Moyers interviewed mythologist Joseph Campbell on PBS. The second was when a dying Dennis Potter, author of The Singing Detective, was interviewed on British TV and spoke about treasuring life. (In this country, Letterman's final interview with Warren Zevon, with his advice to savor every sandwich, is a rough analogue.)

Ferguson's talk with Tutu ranks as the third.

"Have you found out how powerful telling one's story can be?" Tutu asked Ferguson at one point.

"A little bit, yeah," Ferguson replied. "I know a little bit about that."

Ferguson could have elaborated, and explained to Tutu that he has come out on his TV show, at certain times, to drop the jokes and speak seriously and honestly: about his past alcoholism, the death of his father and the death of his mother, to name just three unforgettably powerful TV hours. But he didn't. He let Tutu keep going. The show, that night, wasn't about Craig Ferguson -- and knowing that was what made it so fabulous.

Near the end, Ferguson asked Tutu about his reaction to the election of Barack Obama. Tutu danced in his chair, told a story, then made a remark that Ferguson politely challenged, ending the show on a marvelous discussion about American foreign policy and perception.

Well, almost ending it. The show actually ended, as usual these days, with "What Did We Learn on the Show Tonight, Craig?," a segment in which the host removes his tie, puts his feet on his desk, and summarizes the preceding hour of TV.

Usually, it's nonsense -- but on this occasion, there was a palpable sense of awe, and maybe even an understandable undercurrent of pride.

"That," Ferguson said of Tutu, "is the single most impressive human being I have ever met."

Everyone interested in the late-night TV wars must seek out an online replay of this hour with Tutu. CBS should replay it in prime time, as a substitution for one of its Saturday night reruns. Or pre-empt The Amazing Race for a week and replay the "Tutu Talk" right after 60 Minutes, where the audience, and the flow-through, would be perfect.

To me, though, Wednesday's show marks the end of the late-night chess match. Thanks to the bishop, Ferguson should be crowned the new king. All the other newcomers and contenders are just late-Knights. Or pawns.

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Second Impressions: NBC's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," Day Two

March 4, 2009 8:41 AM

Night two of NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon was loose enough to improve a bit upon opening night, but consistent enough in where it faltered to permit some more focused criticisms and advice.

So here it is...

Pulling a celebrity, in this case New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, out of the audience was a fun cameo spot. The bit leading up to it, a series of fake Facebook entries, was unfunny and interminable -- but its payoff, Bloomberg, was fun.

Planting celebrities in the audience is an old Saturday Night Live trick, but it's actually an even older trick, going back all the way to Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town more than 60 years ago. Junk the Facebook, keep the cameos... and keep a bit of long-standing TV tradition alive.

Bloomberg was given a joke about how awkward the previous night's Fallon-Robert De Niro interview was, and Fallon later made another disparaging reference at his own expense. Good. The road to recovery begins with admitting one's mistakes.

So was Fallon better interviewing last night's guests, Tina Fey and Jon Bon Jovi? Yes and no.

In both interviews, there were moments that worked, but minutes that didn't. Talking to Tina about the Oscars worked. Talking to her about a party she attended with Fallon didn't.

And the fan karaoke bit, with an audience member singing "Wanted Dead or Alive" as Jon Bon Jovi watched, was a painful sort of American Idol road company -- until he joined her, and saved the bit.

Other observations: The monologue jokes were flatter than Kansas, again. There aren't that many in the monologue, so they should be better -- a lot better. And since this has happened two nights in a row, in warrants mentioning, and an instant correction: When a guest moves over to the couch, don't forget to widen or cut back occasionally for reaction shots. Otherwise, there's no reason for that guest to stay.

From now on, for a while, Fallon and company will get to work out these and other kinks in relative solitude. Opening night was a moth-to-flame media event, and last night offered the Fallon-Fey reunion, but now it's going to level out to business as usual.

And tonight, at 12:35 a.m. ET, the really serious late-night viewers will be focusing on CBS and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, where the guest is Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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First Impressions: NBC's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" Debut

March 3, 2009 8:15 AM

You can't judge a new talk show by opening night. It takes weeks, months (and years, if you get them), to work out kinks, throw out what doesn't work and rind a comfortable style and rhythm. But the very first impressions of Monday's premiere of NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon had plenty of early indicators.

Here's what was a hit, and a miss, from opening night, and what areas need expanding, or need work...

WHAT WORKED:

The cold open with Conan O'Brien, shown still packing his things for the transition, was a shrewd and funny beginning. Nice start.

Another nice start: the opening credits, showing Fallon as a blur against New York streets and locations, with a solid theme and nice, solid type on the title sequence. So far, so very good. And even the solid blue curtain from which Fallon emerged to deliver his opening monologue was a nice retro touch.

The "Slow Jam News" bit with the Roots, which ended the monologue, was clever too -- the only scripted comedy bit in the inaugural hour that worked well.

Justin Timberlake's appearance was entertaining, partly because it's rare to see a talk show guest much more at ease than the host. That was the case here, even with their shared history and mutual enjoyment -- but Justin's impressions of John Mayer and others entertained Fallon so heartily, it was hard not to go with that flow.

(When Timberlake showed a clip of his new MTV reality show, though, it played like a spoof, but wasn't supposed to be.)

And when Van Morrison closed out the hour performing, that would count as a hit in my demographic, but quite possibly more of a miss to Fallon's target crowd. Which leads us to...

WHAT DIDN'T WORK:

The monologue. Fallon was good reading punch lines on "Weekend Update," so he'll probably grow into this. His delivery was tentative, but that's expected, and fully excusable, at this point in the game. But the level of the jokes themselves has to rise. Quickly.

The audience. They were so stoked to be there on opening night, they bordered on hecklers.

Pretaped skits. The "Blonde Mothers" profile, the Robert De Niro "Space Train" spoof -- both were unfunny and unnecessary.

"Lick It for Ten": This game-show spoof routine brought up three audience members to lick things -- like a lawn mower -- for $10. Instant slow-motion replays only elongated the agony.

If this is conceived as a recurring bit, I beg the producers to reconsider.

"Lick It For Ten"? I'd pay not to see any more of this, so here's my offer: "Scrap It for Twenty."

WHAT NEEDS WORK:

The interviews. Fallon should watch and study his De Niro interview carefully, to observe how little time he actually gave de Niro to talk and respond.

Instead, Fallon took time to do his own De Niro imitation (I know, it was so De Niro could return fire and imitate Fallon, but that didn't work, either), and told De Niro a story about going to a basketball game with Jack Nicholson. At the end, De Niro said that he didn't hear a question. Precisely.

I like Jimmy Fallon, and I think he may grow into this just fine. But at the desk, interviewing people, what he has to understand very quickly is that making his guests look better is what will make him, and his show, shine rather than stumble.

Celebrities are interviewed, and asked questions incessantly, from the moment they become famous, so it's a common trap for them to presume that being on the other end of the Q&A is just as easy. It isn't. One of the things that must be mastered, to do it well, is to be interested in the guest's answers, and to actually listen.

When De Niro was talking about his TriBeCa Film Festival, Fallon could be seen mentally shifting ahead to the next bit of business. The talk in a good talk show involves being present for the conversation, and for being genuine rather than ironic.

These skills will take time to develop, but time, for now, is on Fallon's side. And tonight at 12:37 a.m. ET, when Tina Fey shows up, he has a terrific chance to make a measurable, very early course correction.

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Talk Show History Is Written Tonight, In a New Game of Late-Night Chess

March 1, 2009 8:35 PM

Jimmy Fallon succeeds Conan O'Brien as host of NBC's Late Night tonight (12:35 a.m. ET). It's a battle that won't be won or lost overnight, or in a week or month -- but the battle is waged regardless. And like the opening moves of a chess game, what starts simply soon will lead to tiny, subtle, significant variations...

In the head-to-head battle between Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS (also at 12:35 a.m.), Fallon should win the initial fight for A-list guests. With Lorne Michaels as executive producer, and so much at stake, decades of favors can be cashed in.

But there are other considerations at play here, as each side advances its first pawns in this game. Booking the guest, or landing the "get," is only half the game in this game. The other half is what you do with the guest after you land them.

Tonight, for example, the addition of Justin Timberlake to Fallon's opening-night show is a shrewd move. When Timberlake was guest host on Saturday Night Live, and appearing as quiet Robin Gibb opposite Fallon's easily angered Barry on the recurring "The Barry Gibb Talk Show" sketch, the results were hilarious. If their chemistry as themselves is a fraction as entertaining, Fallon will get off on the right foot.

But in aiming primarily for the frat-boy audience, the Late Night under Fallon may not be able to take full advantage of many of Michaels' closest assets. Will the average Fallon fan care about, say, Paul Simon or Randy Newman? The real measure of this new Late Night, in the months to come, will be centered on how Fallon relates to his guests, and vice versa.

And that's where Craig Ferguson has an advantage. He may have to work harder to land certain guests, but he always always connects with him once they show up. Paris Hilton, in her first appearance on the show, started out wary and hesitant, but within minutes was laughing, relaxing, and actually, honestly conversing.

It's no wonder she agreed not only to be Ferguson's countermove for Fallon's opening night, but to appear in a series of prime-time comedy promos sprinkled within Monday's CBS sitcoms.

Viewers of each show are likely to be pleased by what they see tonight -- but who will be watching whom?

And, in these Internet-obsessed days of TV afterlife, whose clips will be distributed more enthusiastically tomorrow and the day after?

Tomorrow night, with Tina Fey, should belong to Fallon. Wednesday, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, should go to Ferguson -- certainly in days-after buzz, if not network viewership. Tutu's booking is a statement in itself, and should please old Late Late Show fans while drawing new curious ones, and generating many next-day stories and blogs.

And so it will go for a while: pawn takes pawn, while the big pieces jockey for position, look for weakness and plan their respective attacks.

For now, my advice is to slip back and forth and sample both. Late-night TV is one of those glorious dayparts where television has real, significant history. These host shifts are like comets: They don't come around very often.

NBC's Tonight Show has had four permanent hosts in more than half a century of operation -- Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and Jay Leno -- and is about to get a fifth.

Late Night, in more than 25 years, has had two -- David Letterman and Conan O'Brien -- and tonight will get a third.

The Late Late Show, in more than a dozen years, has had three -- Tom Snyder, Craig Kilborn and Craig Ferguson. And Late Show with David Letterman on CBS and Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, since they launched, have had one host each.

It's a game board where the players don't move or change all that often. But tonight, there's a new game afoot, and the first move in what will be a fascinating year for talk-show hosts, producers, critics and viewers.

In chess notation, mark tonight's first moves as: d3 e5.

And the game, as they say, is afoot. Stay tuned...

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