September 2009 Archives

CW's "The Beautiful Life" Is Cursed, But Not Kickoff Cursed

September 30, 2009 10:00 AM

CW's The Beautiful Life TBL, its glossy new drama starring Mischa Barton, was scheduled to present its third episode tonight, but don't look for it. Two strikes -- two telecasts -- and it's already out.

Its replacement, for tonight at 9 ET, is a rerun of Melrose Place. That quick-kill fate may seem like a curse, but The Beautiful Life is not the latest victim of The Kickoff Curse. The series that's cursed this season, if the Kickoff Curse is going to come true again, is none other than... Melrose Place itself...

What is the Kickoff Curse, who invented it, and how reliable is it? Good questions all. Here are the answers.

The Kickoff Curse says, simply, that the new TV series to beat the others to the starting gate in a given season -- in other words, the show that takes a calculated head start by premiering earliest among all new freshman series -- will fail to survive to see a second season.

Who invented it? I did, decades ago. I had more spare time back then.

How reliable is it as an indicator of first-year failure? Over one 12-year stretch, it claimed a dozen victims in a row. And in the 34 years since a network intentionally jumped the gun in hopes of giving a new series some early attention, only six series lived to fight another day. Or, at least, another year.

Last year, for example, NBC's America's Toughest Jobs was first to arrive. It's gone, and isn't coming back. The year before that, it was Fox's Nashville, which went Nowheresville. And the year before that, in 2006, it was Fox's Vanished, which... vanished. So the past three years, the Kickoff Curse is 3 for 3.

This season, CW's Melrose Place, premiering September 8, inherits the Kickoff Curse. With Heather Locklear coming aboard soon, maybe this series can survive the curse, but not many have. Most prominent among the survivors are the CBS sitcom Alice in the 70s, ABC's newsmagazine Primetime Live in the 80s, Fox's sitcom Roc in the 90s, and the Fox drama Prison Break in the current decade.

And except for a pair of fairly recent sitcoms from the now-defunct UPN network, Girlfriends and One on One from 2000-01, those are the only survivors of a curse that began way back in 1975, during the Gerald Ford administration.

The most famous victims of the Kickoff Curse include ABC's fabulous 1994 teen drama My So-Called Life, starring Claire Danes; 1984's Call to Glory, an ABC drama starring Craig T. Nelson that explored the Kennedy-era 1960s the way Mad Men is doing now; and 1990's Hull High, the NBC series that was the last show to attempt a weekly high-school musical series until the current Glee.

For the record, and for your amusement, here's the complete list of shows that faced the Kickoff Curse, along with their respective fates. Only shows which are underlined survived the curse.

Remember any of these? If most of the names don't ring a bell... well, that's the point.

YEAR.....NET.....SERIES

2009......CW.....Melrose Place (fate unknown)
2008.....NBC.....America's Toughest Jobs
2007.....Fox.....Nashville
2006.....Fox.....Vanished
2005.....Fox.....Prison Break
2004.....Fox.....North Shore
2003.....NBC.....Whoopi
2002......WB.....Family Affair
2001.....UPN.....One on One
2000.....UPN.....Girlfriends
1999.....UPN.....Grown Ups
1998.....Fox.....Holding the Baby
1997.....UPN.....Good News
1996.....Fox.....L.A. Firefighters
1995.....Fox.....The Crew
1994.....ABC.....My So-Called Life
1993.....Fox.....Front Page
1992.....ABC.....Covington Cross
1991.....Fox.....Roc
1990.....NBC.....Hull High
1989.....ABC.....Primetime Live
1988.....NBC.....Baby Boom
1987.....NBC.....Private Eye
1986.....CBS.....The Wizard
1985.....CBS.....Hometown
1984.....ABC.....Call to Glory
1983.....NBC.....We Got It Made
1982.....NBC.....The Powers of Matthew Star
1981.....ABC.....Best of the West
1980.....CBS.....Ladies' Man
1979.....ABC.....240-Robert
1978.....NBC.....Dick Clark's Live Wednesday
1977.....CBS.....The Betty White Show
1976.....CBS.....Alice
1975.....CBS.....Big Eddie

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A Week Into the New TV Season, What Do YOU Think?

September 28, 2009 12:41 PM

There are more of us writing at TV WORTH WATCHING, dispensing more opinions all the time, and you can find our thumbnail summaries of our reactions to the new fall shows by clicking on the FALL PREVIEW banner on the main page.

But now that the fall 2009-10 TV season is a week old, and you've had a chance to sample most of the new shows, the ball's in your court. What shows hooked you enough to tune in? Which ones were disappointing, and which ones impressed you, and why?

Click on the banner for a refresher list, and comment away. Did Modern Family make you laugh? Did Flashfoward pull you in? In your estimation, was The Good Wife good? And so on...

It's time for US to read YOU for a change...

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Park Yourself In Front of the TV for PBS "National Parks"

September 25, 2009 6:56 AM

Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET (check local listings), PBS presents the latest multi-night documentary by Ken Burns: The National Parks: America's Best Idea. You expect, and you get, endless arrays of stunning still and moving images of nature at its rawest -- gorgeous gorges, and so on. But what's so unexpected, and so uplifting and fascinating, are the human stories...

The National Parks runs nightly, Sept. 27-Oct. 2 -- Sunday through Friday -- and will gobble up more than a dozen hours of videotape, blanks DVDs or DVR time. Clear the room, because, just like a national park, this is a destination you'll be eager to revisit.

There's so, so much to learn here. If you're well-traveled, you'll smile at familiar sights, captured in period photographs and in swoon-worthy new film footage. But few people -- and an episode interviews one of them -- have been to all the country's national parks, so every episode is likely to transport you to a place you've never gone.

By the time National Parks is over, though, I'm betting there will be at least a few places you'll be busting to visit.

National Parks is produced by Burns and longtime collaborator Dayton Duncan (shown at right), and written by Duncan.

It's so clearly a labor of love for Duncan that, in the sixth and final installment, he shows his hand, and includes home-movie footage of his first family vacation to a national park, when he was nine.

He and his family, leaving their Iowa home to visit a few parks in 1959, arrived in Yellowstone Park two days after a serious earthquake hit, 50 years ago -- and, like many people interviewed in this documentary, considers his first brush with nature on that scale to be wholly transformative. (That's him waving in the picture above.)

Episode one explains how Yellowstone became the country's first national park, and the next three episodes detail the slow, amazing path in took for American lands to be set aside for posterity. And watch for such special treats as vintage footage from film's early years, of adventurers tackling the Colorado River and Mt. McKinley in the early 20th century.

Geographically, the program spans the entire country, from volcanic Hawaiian lands and northwest glaciers to Florida's soupy Everglades. And in terms of including ideas, National Parks is just as all-inclusive.

Themes, obsessions and subjects from previous Burns works keep threading it and out of this narrative: slavery, baseball, Mark Twain, race, Abraham Lincoln, WWII, even Scott Joplin's ragtime music. But there are new figures to learn about here, in great and unforgettable depth.

John Muir. Stephen Mather. These people and their ideals are brought back to life, just as the issues facing the parks are brought to life in such uncomfortably timely segments as President Jimmy Carter's standoff with frontier-mentality dissidents in Alaska. Corporate Industrial interests and their designs on ravaging nature for profit is by no means a new story -- but, sadly, it's no less relevant today than when the giant sequoia were being felled and logged.

The National Parks, over its six powerful nights, shows us America the Beautiful.

In so doing, Burns and Duncan show us Television the Beautiful as well.

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Big News, and Lots of It: Emmy Reaction, Breaking News of Exciting Fresh TV Import, and TVWW's New Fall Preview!

September 21, 2009 11:38 AM

Busy, busy day. Reaction to Sunday's Emmy Awards, news that one of my favorite TV shows screened at RomaFictionFest is coming to the U.S., and -- just in time for the television season -- TV WORTH WATCHING presents its annual overview of the new fall season. Strap on your seat belts. Here we go...

My reaction to the 61st Annual Emmy Awards on CBS, as well as my personal overview of the fall season that starts officially today, can be heard (and read) at the Fresh Air with Terry Gross website after about 5 p.m. ET today by clicking HERE.

Basically, it boils down to this: Neil Patrick Harris is a keeper. So is the idea of bundling all but the major awards by genre. (How the heck did THAT idea elude awards show producers for so long?) And though I loved the idea of introducing stars almost perversely, by citing one of their least remembered credits, I'd up the ante next year by adding video as well. Make it REALLY embarrassing for them, and enjoyable for us.

Nothing I saw last night altered my opinion that Justin Timberlake could bring back the variety series genre if given a chance, and if so inclined. And now, I'm starting to think, so could Neil Patrick Harris. By the way: What Matthew Weiner said at the very end while receiving the evening's final award, when his Mad Men won Outstanding Drama Series for the second straight year, is absolutely true. What's bad for broadcast TV, as the cable universe expands and viewers seek programming elsewhere, is good for fans of quality TV. So long as SOMEBODY pays for it, that is.

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When I covered RomaFictionFest, I enumerated some of my favorite series, and expressed hope that some of these intriguing international TV productions eventually would find their way to our shores. Well, I was just informed, by one of the executive producers of one of those productions, that a deal was just struck to bring Underbelly, Australia's home-turf, reality-inspired reply to The Sopranos, to the United States.

The series, as I described it upon my return from Rome, is about the rise of organized crime, and sometimes not-so-organized crime, in Australia. Underbelly has won as Best Drama Series in that country, and currently is in production on season three. All three seasons have been contracted for U.S. telecast by DirecTV, which will unveil the series on its 101 Network early in 2010, just after its new run of Friday Night Lights episodes has concluded.

According to my Roma festival Deep Throat (nothing untoward implied there), DirecTV's presentation will begin with season two, which is a full-season flashback to the 1970s, before presenting the more modern era dramatized in season one. Both seasons, though, are full of sex, violence, drugs and rock 'n' roll. A good time should be had by all. And, just as Weiner said at the Emmys, it's one more case of enjoying quality TV wherever you can find it.

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Finally, since this is the day after the Emmy Awards, it's also the day of the launch of the 2nd Annual TV WORTH WATCHING Fall Preview. (As all good journalist students know, there can't be a FIRST Annual anything, because the tradition hasn't been set.)

Last year, we had three TV critics contributing. This year, we have more than twice that -- and even (especially?) when we disagree, the more the merrier. We'll be updating often, so click daily on the colorful Fall Preview banner, and it'll take you to the fall wrapup. The next three new shows to premiere are listed up top, and the whole batch is listed alphabetically beneath that first row. As the shows evolve, so may our opinions, so keep visiting.

And thanks, publicly, to all you TV WORTH WATCHING scribes, you loyal wretches, you abused Bartlebys. Today, the Fall Preview. Tomorrow -- or, at least, in the next few months -- a full site redesign, with column space you won't have to share.

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Craig Ferguson: Amusing, Honest, Literary Autobiography Author -- on Purpose

September 18, 2009 7:07 AM

Craig Ferguson's autobiography hits stores next week -- and his American on Purpose, subtitled The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot, vaults instantly to the top of its narrow but rarefied genre: it's the best memoir ever written by a late-night talk-show host.

And if that doesn't sound like high enough praise, it's meant as quite the compliment...

Johnny Carson, who had decades of fabulous inside stories to tell, never told them between the pages of a book. But Steve Allen, the original host of the Tonight! show, turned out tons of them, almost as prolifically as he wrote songs. But his books, at least the ones about his own life and career, seemed dictated as much as written. Jack Paar, who succeeded Allen on Tonight, had a conversational writing style in his memoirs, too, but both its style and content were up a few notches.

Other prominent late-night show hosts have either been notoriously silent in terms of autobiography (David Letterman, Conan O'Brien), or have worked with co-authors (Dick Cavett). But Ferguson, who already has penned movies and a novel (2007's entertaining Between the Bridge and the River), is as much a writer as a standup comic or TV host.

In American on Purpose, which you can buy at a substantial discount by clicking HERE, he proves it -- on almost every page.

Ferguson has the detachment to see his past without apologies or nostalgia, and the literary talent to make memorable observations about the various triumphs and mistakes in his life, and the environments around him.

As a "plump" young boy getting the chance to travel from his native Scotland to the United States for the first time, he recalls the simple thrill of getting his passport ("I felt like James Bond"). He remembers the time, while running from a gang of kids intending to do him harm, he came within a few yards of being flattened by a railroad train ("I still have dreams where I see the driver's face").

And he talks candidly of the early experiences with religion-generated violence that formed his political viewers as a young teen: "I believe in a constitution which separates church from state," Ferguson writes. "I've seen what happens when they get in cahoots."

Ferguson's story is compelling enough on his own: his rambling path from construction work and odd jobs (including being a bouncer at a club) to acting and comedy, his alcohol and drug-fueled "Lost Weekend" that lasted more than a decade, and his often tempestuous relationships with friends and lovers.

One genuinely entertaining, and genuinely nice, aspect of Ferguson's writing is that, while he is very hard on himself throughout the book, he is quite forgiving of others. In Hollywood memoirs, not many ex-lovers and ex-wives get off as easily, or are recalled as fondly.

He's also got some very vivid show-biz stories, from doing standup as a bellowing character he called Bing Hitler to getting cast as the ineffectual boss on The Drew Carey Show. But Ferguson downplays most of his skills and achievements, except for the times when he himself is shocked by how far he's come. He admits this feeling readily, whether he's taking his parents to the Grand Canyon or hosting the White House Correspondents' Dinner, with President Bush as the guest of honor.

But it's the writing that gets me -- the way he writes so lovingly about an uncle, "Gunka James" -- and, as well, about his son, Milo, and about his parents. Long-time viewers of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS surely remember the stunningly emotional and honest show in which Craig reacted to the death of his father. After reading American on Purpose, you'll get an even better sense of what a loss that was, and his mother's death as well.

In fact, this autobiography, while being the opposite of boastful, manages to explain a lot. It explains how Ferguson developed the gifts that allow him to improvise, night after night, the most entertaining and unpredictable monologue on television. It explains why he puts such a premium on friendship, why he became such a voracious reader and readable writer, and, most germane to the book's title, why he sought, and is so proud of, his American citizenship.

The only flaw with American on Purpose, as I see it, is that HarperCollins made the painful error of accidentally omitting Craig's acknowledgments at the end of the book. Ouch. Even though Ferguson announced that on his show, and mined it for humor, every author can imagine what a sinking feeling that must have caused.

So here's the deal, Craig: If you want to send your acknowledgments to TV WORTH WATCHING, we'll print them here, in full. For your memoir, as well as your place in American TV history, you've more than earned it.

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TV History All Over the Place: Larry Gelbart Friday, "Bonanza" Saturday, Leno Tonight

September 14, 2009 11:12 AM

TV history seems to be everywhere all of a sudden. News broke Friday of the death of Larry Gelbart, whose TV triumphs go back to the Golden Age with Sid Caesar. Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of the Ponderosa clan. And tonight, Jay Leno takes the TV talk show into very significant virgin territory...

I know of only a few members of the Television Critics Association, and I was one of them, who lobbied especially hard for Larry Gelbart to be honored with the TCA Career Achievement Award this year and last, to no avail. Now the only way to honor him is posthumously -- but in the history of TV, few writers spanned as many eras, or created as many out-and-out classics, as Gelbart, who died last week at age 81.

Movie fans will, or should, know him for such screenplays as Tootsie, and Broadway audiences for the book (with Burt Shevelove) of Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. But on TV, check out Gelbart's impeccable career highlights:

In the 1950s, he wrote for Sid Caesar on both Caesar's Hour (with Mel Brooks) and The Chevy Show (with Woody Allen). Most obituaries credit him with writing for Caesar's Your Show of Shows -- but they're wrong.

In the 1970s, Gelbart developed, for CBS, the TV version of the movie M*A*S*H, presiding over one of the best TV series ever made.

Also in the 1970s, he created NBC's United States, a "romantic dramedy" with no laugh track, starring Beau Bridges and Helen Shaver, that was decades ahead of its time.

Then, in the 1990s, he wrote an HBO telemovie called Barbarians at the Gate, starring James Garner as a tobacco tycoon in a comic dramatization of the ruthless battle to buy out a major tobacco company.

In short, Larry Gelbart achieved TV greatness in the 50s, 70s and 90s, and that's just for starters. What other TV writer, living or dead, can make that claim? I don't think there is one.

Goodbye, Larry.

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More TV history: Saturday was the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Bonanza on NBC, a series that made its first appearance on September 12, 1959. By 1961, it was TV's number two show. By 1964, it was number one -- a position it held for years, until, ahem, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour managed to eat into some of its audience and dent its TV supremacy.

Bonanza was presented in color from the very start, and scheduled initially on Saturday night so that families out on the town could see this color Western on the new TV sets demonstrated in hardware and appliance store windows -- and, as a consequence, eagerly line up to buy color TV sets made by RCA, which was NBC's parent company.

By the way: When Bonanza premiered in 1959, the Western already was TV's dominant prime-time genre, overwhelming the schedule even more than reality shows do now. In 1958-59, for example, eight of the Top 10 TV shows were Westerns, with the top four spots going to Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Have Gun Will Travel and The Rifleman.

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Finally, INSTANT television history. Jay Leno isn't the first Tonight Show host to take his act to prime time after leaving his late-night nest. Steve Allen did it, and so did Jack Paar (and so, for completists, did Ernie Kovacs). But those were either as specials, or weekly shows. No one else has stripped across the board, Monday through Friday, the way The Jay Leno Show is, beginning tonight at 10 ET on NBC.

Even here at TV WORTH WATCHING, we have different opinions about whether this is a good move or a bad move. My position is that, if you're a fan of quality scripted TV, it's bad, because it eats up so many hours of prime time. But the flip side is, NBC of late is so infatuated and infested with bad programming anyway, five hours of Leno could be a marked improvement.

His success, though, would be copied by other networks, resulting in even FEWER hours available for such already precious gems as ABC's Pushing Daisies and NBC's Life, neither of which could survive past two seasons in the current, stifling TV climate. So make no mistake: What happens this week, and in the near future, will impact television history greatly.

And it's no laughing matter.

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Beatles Fans, Repeat After Me: "Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine..."

September 9, 2009 10:48 AM

Today is September 9, 2009. It's no coincidence, given how much stock Yoko Ono Lennon puts in numerology, that this is the day the Beatles and their surviving heirs have selected to release the biggest batch of Beatles merchandise in a generation.

The day breaks down, by day, month and year, to 09/09/09. Or, to quote the opening moments of "Revolution No. 9" from The Beatles, a.k.a. the White Album: "Number nine, number nine, number nine..."

So why is this newsworthy on a site called TV WORTH WATCHING?

Arguably, because the conclusion of The Beatles Anthology is shown tonight at 9 p.m. ET on both VH1 and VH1 Classic.

But that's a weak argument.

A better argument is because The Beatles: Rock Band, the interactive musical video game that is released today, has been peppering its song elements as "videos" on MTV. Less of a surprise, when you realize that MTV also owns the Rock Band game franchise.

Finally, no matter where you turn today -- network news, entertainment newsmagazines, even CNN -- you're likely to see coverage of the release of this new videogame, and of the boxed-set CD remastered re-releases of the entire Beatles musical catalog.

Two members of the Beatles are dead. The group itself stopped recording 39 years ago. And yet, today, they're generating the kind of fuss last seen by which rock group?

It's a rhetorical question.

And here's another: Are the Beatles, today as well as they were in 1965, the Kings of All Media?

Answer: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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15 TV Things to Look Forward To This Month

September 4, 2009 7:12 AM

This TV season hasn't generated a lot of buzz, but there are plenty of reasons to come back to the TV set. This month alone, without breaking a sweat or making an exhaustive list,or including AMC's ongoing "Mad Men," I counted 15. Here they are, in order of telecast. Mark your calendars, and plan accordingly...

Sept. 9 -- Glee premieres. This Fox series just repeated its sneak-preview pilot, and next week launches for real as a regular Fox series. It's a dance-filled, music-filled, smile-filled story about a high school performing arts troupe, and it's edgier and funnier than that might sound.

Sept. 13 -- True Blood season finale. I can't wait. This HBO series has provided me as much viewing joy as any TV series this summer. Make that this year.

Sept. 14 -- The Jay Leno Show. His first night on NBC in prime time. You HAVE to watch, just to see whether he pulls it off. At least I do.

Sept. 17 -- Fringe season premiere. Last season, this Fox series ended with a history-warping alternate timeline setting, a world in which, among other things, the Twin Towers remain standing. What's next? No idea -- which is why you need to tune in.

Sept. 17 -- Community premieres. This NBC ensemble comedy, featuring Chevy Chase as one of many people looking for new directions at a community college, has a way to go, but it's good enough, at the start, to sample and support.

Sept. 18 -- Dollhouse returns. This Fox series by Joss Whedon got better as its freshman season progressed, so a new year should begin on a high note. Here's hoping.

Sept. 20 -- Curb Your Enthusiasm season premiere. The much-promoted Seinfeld story line doesn't kick in for a few episodes, but no matter: This HBO Larry David series is TV comedy at its highest watermark. Welcome back, Larry. I've never missed an episode, and don't intend to start now.

Sept. 21 -- House returns. And he's still in that mental institution, playing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to the clinic's staff. Great premise -- and a great starting point for another fine year with Hugh Laurie and company.

Sept. 21 - Heroes returns. Last season, this NBC drama was very dissatisfying, but maybe there will be an instant course correction this season. I'll tune in to see... but my patience is wearing thin.

Sept. 22 -- The Good Wife premieres. Julianna Margulies stars as the wife of a politician (Chris Noth) who is imprisoned for various nefarious misdeeds, and the opening hour of this new CBS series has you empathizing strongly with her, and eager to see more. Not many new dramas this season achieve that successfully.

Sept. 23 -- Modern Family premieres. This ABC series may be the one new broadcast TV comedy that breaks out quickly, and with good reason. Three very different families, each with its own characters, problems and lovable quirks. Stars include Ed O'Neill.

Sept. 24 -- Flash Forward premieres. Is this ABC series, pictured at the top of this column, the next Lost? No one knows yet. But if it is, you'd better be around from the beginning. It's hard to jump on these TV trains once they've left the station.

Sept. 26 -- Saturday Night Live returns. It's not an election year, but still...

Sept. 27 -- Ken Burns' The National Parks premieres. The most beautiful, inspiring documentary series since Planet Earth. And it's not just about the parks and its creatures, but also about the people responsible for setting aside these lovely lands for public use.

Sept. 27 -- Dexter returns. It's about time -- and, like HBO's True Blood, this Showtime series is all about diving into a weekly dose of TV wow.

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Themes to Me, And to Others, That TV Is Missing a Musical Best Bet

September 1, 2009 9:55 AM

I love TV theme songs. Always have, and always will, even if more and more networks and TV production companies seem to hate them.

This week, I've been quoted, along with TV music master of all knowledge Jon Burlingame, in an article by Mark Dawidziak of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. What Mark has to report about the state of the TV theme song of tomorrow, and remember about the state of them yesterday, is well worth reading...

You can read his main article in yesterday's Plain Dealer by clicking the link HERE. Then you can read his enjoyable sidebar, where he collects the best TV theme songs of all time in various categories, by clicking HERE. That one ought to jog a few memories, and start a few arguments.

And finally, you can click to our TV JUKEBOX page right here on TV WORTH WATCHING, and listen to some of my favorite theme songs, by clicking HERE.

I hope it's all music to your ears. Or eyes...

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