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October 2009 Archives
GUEST BLOG #60: DIANE HOLLOWAY Ponders the Future of "Southland"
October 29, 2009 10:54 AM
[UPDATE: TNT announced Monday morning that it has picked up Southland, to air all six episodes shot for this season (and the seven that aired on NBC last season), starting Jan. 12. Contributor Diane Holloway has already explained why it's worth watching...]
[Bianculli here: Contributing critic Diane Holloway returns to a topic she first addressed in April. She regrets that circumstances have forced her to do so -- but I'm just happy she's been writing for TV WORTH WATCHING for that long...]
NBC Lets "Southland" Go -- But I Can't
By Diane Holloway
You might logically think that writing weekly columns for this site for a mere seven months isn't nearly long enough to indulge in the critic's version of a rerun. But you would be wrong. My passion for a certain show has gotten the better of me, so I'm touting it again.
Way back in April, in one of my first TVWW blogs, I praised NBC's gritty new cop drama, Southland. In fact, I compared it to Hill Street Blues, perhaps the original gritty cop drama, which I had just watched on DVD.
You may recall that NBC unceremoniously dropped the ax on Southland -- two weeks before its October second-season premiere. After weeks of rumors, it now appears all but signed-on-the-dotted line that Southland will return, moving from NBC to TNT.
Why this solution isn't reached for other shows deemed not quite popular enough for broadcast but perfectly acceptable in the cable universe is beyond me. The late-great Arrested Development would have been perfect for FX... or even HBO. It definitely deserved a longer life than it had on Fox.
The details have yet to emerge regarding Southland. Will TNT air only the six new episodes already filmed for NBC? Will TNT rev up production and shoot at least six or seven more for the second season? And will TNT launch its new acquisition with a repeat of the first season's mini-run that began in April?
All of the above questions are still to be answered -- but thanks to TNT for doing the right thing here and breathing new life into a prematurely canceled series.
For those who missed it, Southland was created by John Wells and premiered Thursday nights on NBC, in the time slot of Wells' long-running masterpiece, ER.
The ensemble cast included Austin actor Ben McKenzie (Junebug, The O.C.) as a rookie Los Angeles cop partnered with a tough veteran, played by Michael Cudlitz. Regina King and Tom Everett Scott played another cop duo, with a half-dozen other lesser-known but stellar actors rounding out the cast.
The series was noteworthy for its filmic quality and an abundance of bleeped-out four-letter-words. None of the language was gratuitous, mind you, but it was unusual for a broadcast network program to use such dialogue.
TNT, which boasts considerably milder police originals such as The Closer and Saving Grace, likely will not alter the tone of Wells's drama. That's good.
But Southland would have been more at home on FX, where at least some of the bleeps could be replaced by words. The Shield, Rescue Me and Nip/Tuck push the envelope for content and language, and Southland could have nestled among those series more comfortably than the good but relatively tame TNT shows.
Assuming this Warner Bros. deal between NBC and TNT goes through, Southland at least will live on in some capacity. Serious dramas on NBC were doomed by the network's shortsighted decision to air The Jay Leno Show every weeknight in prime time.
If Leno tanks (who among us doesn't think it will?), NBC may regret letting Southland go. Too bad... that's the price to be paid for ignoring quality.
------
Diane Holloway was the TV critic for the Austin American Statesman for 30 years, until the downturn in the newspaper business prompted her to take a buyout. She's now sniffing out other possibilities. Before newspapers, she worked in Washington for the Library of Congress, the American Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. Maybe something entirely different is next. Or not.
The Time Has Come: I'm Grounding Myself Until My Room Is Clean
October 26, 2009 10:02 AM
The Best Bets will continue daily, but I'm taking a few days from writing a blog because I just can't stand it any more. Not the blogging -- the mess. My basement office, and everything in it, desperately needs some attention...
When I launched TV WORTH WATCHING in November 2007, I posted a picture -- seen at left here -- of what my basement office looked like then. What you can't see in the photo are the 12 TV sets attached to various satellite and cable systems, or the shelves of old Movies Unlimited display cases filled with VHS and DVD offerings.
What you can see, though, is that it was a manageable environment.
No longer. Writing The Book saw to that.
The picture at the top of this blog is what my office looks like now. It's only the tip of a very messy iceberg -- for two years, every neat pile of research material turned into clumps of used references, and soon I couldn't even get to the desk without crab-walking, tiptoeing and sliding. Now the place looks like Pompeii after the volcano exploded, except instead of ash everywhere, there's just a mess.
My phone message banks are full, and haven't been emptied in months. My computer needs defragging, and so, I suspect, do I. And yet, at this moment, I'm still teaching full-time, and doing Fresh Air, and assembling video materials for use with publicity appearances for Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, which -- hint, hint -- comes out December 1.
So basically, I need to take a few days from blogging to focus on getting things back to normal. When I was writing the book, I called these rare but much-needed breaks "Smothers Days." I don't know what to call them now. Maybe you can tell me.
But keep coming back for the Best Bets, and smiling at the mess I have to clean up. Sigh...
GUEST BLOG #59: Tom Brinkmoeller Leads Us On a "Nature" Walk
October 23, 2009 6:38 PM
[Bianculli here: This weekend, contributing writer Tom Brinkmoeller tracks down the executive producer of the long-running PBS series Nature, to explain the birds and the bees. Or, at least, the bees and the stallions...]
Run Like a Stallion, Sting Like a Bee --
As Presented on Public TV
By Tom Brinkmoeller
Nature starts a new season on PBS this Sunday (8 p.m. ET; check local listings) with the third segment in the fascinating story of Rocky Mountain wild horses, "Cloud: Challenge of the Stallions." Naturalist-photographer Ginger Katherns has followed Cloud, a wild stallion, from its birth to its role as a powerful leader among this rare group of untamed horses.
Katherns' instincts in documenting, from the beginning, the life of what would become an extraordinary animal have resulted in a beautifully shot nature trilogy that lets viewers see places and witness events few people experience.
Otherwise-difficult access to places and events pretty accurately summarizes the role Nature has played since it started its run on public television in 1982. Natural-history programming was a virtually empty category in U.S. television at the time, said Nature Executive Producer Fred Kaufman in a recent interview.
He has been with the series since the start, and has led the effort since 1991. The BBC successfully had been producing high-quality natural-history shows for some time, and the new PBS series imported the British network's shows in its early days.
"There really wasn't a market in the U.S. for that type of show at the time," he said. "As a result, we paid sort of a wholesale price" to the BBC producers.
It wasn't too long before original Nature programs were being produced. The transition has been very successful. To date, the series has won 10 Emmys, three Peabody Awards, and received the Sierra Club's first-ever award to a television show. At 28 seasons, it's a successful long-distance runner, and its long-time hold on the 8 p.m. Sunday spot underlines its popularity. It remains a staple in many homes for intelligent, accessible family programming.
A key to its continued success is its ability to expand the original concept and adapt to changes in viewer sophistication and advances in technology.
"For the first 10 years, you would have been hard-pressed to find a person in any (Nature) scene," Kaufman said. Also, he added, all early shows also were exclusively shot on film. But the people who produce the footage now help tell important parts of the stories, and the transition to videotape -- and then to high definition -- were changes that made the series even better.
In 2007, a Nature episode, "Silence of the Bees," used a special camera that allows a dramatic slow-motion effect and the same endoscopic video technology used by surgeons to go inside bee colonies. The technology helped to better explain the phenomenon that has been devastating the world's bee population.
It also won the series a Peabody Award for the episode.
Kaufman's confidence in the production's singular excellence sank dramatically the night it aired, and winning awards was far from his thoughts. An hour before "Silence of the Bees" premiered, the hit CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes aired an in-depth story on the same topic.
"My jaw dropped," he said when he saw the piece. "They did a great job."
He worried the Nature special would suffer from overexposure. That was not the case. Kaufman said a Peabody judge explained Nature was given the prize because it not only explained the issue as well as 60 Minutes, but also "because of the way we filmed the bees... that bumped it up a bit."
Kaufman oversees the production of 13 new episodes each year. In deciding which shows get produced, they follow a simple directive: "What haven't we done that we can do that the audience will enjoy?" Some ideas come from inside, while others are generated by a network of researchers and nature videographers that has grown over the years. A stretch of 18 months to three years can occur between the approval of an idea and its completion, he said.
This season's shows will take close looks at the first days of life for all kinds of animals ("Born Wild: The First Days of Life," Nov. 1); the efforts of some South African snake handlers to improve the image of s dangerous snake ("Black Mamba," Nov. 8), and the first year in the life of a female humpback whale ("Fellowship of the Whales," Nov. 15).
New episodes in early 2010 will focus on wolverines, the giant pythons that live in the Everglades, and confrontations between Yellowstone's bears and wolves.
--
Tom Brinkmoeller did some research and discovered a few PBS series have been on longer than Nature: Washington Week ('67); Sesame Street ('69); Masterpiece Theatre ('71); Great Performances ('72); Austin City Limits and Nova (both '74); Newshour ('75) -- all TV Worth Watching.
GUEST BLOG #58: Diane Holloway is waiting for Wanda
October 22, 2009 12:03 PM
[Bianculli here: Contributing critic Diane Holloway hasn't seen The Wanda Sykes Show yet, but that won't stop her from writing about it... with qualified enthusiasm...]
Wanda Sykes will be wild (a fearless prediction)
By Diane Holloway
TV critics frequently get asked if they've actually seen a program they reviewed. I always found that an odd question, especially coming from editors who should have expected credible work from an employee. How could I review a show if I hadn't seen it? Wouldn't that be dishonest?
Let me state for the record that I never once reviewed a show without seeing it. Now let me explain that this blog is not a review but an anticipation, based on a long-standing guffaw affair with the upcoming show's star.
I cannot wait for The Wanda Sykes Show to arrive on Fox. I'm a little bit giddy about it. The Saturday night talk/comedy/variety show debuts Nov. 7 (at 11 p.m. ET), taking on late local news and the first half-hour of Saturday Night Live.
It may turn out to be awful, in which case I will follow-up this love letter with a heartfelt mea culpa. But I'm optimistic that this late-night show on Fox is going to be the perfect venue for the caustic comedian, giving her freedom beyond the mundane limits of The New Adventures of Old Christine if not quite the raunchy open pastures of HBO.
Not that I don't love Sykes' standup routines. Unapologetically, I do. Her 2006 HBO special Sick and Tired had me howling for days. Some lines still make me chuckle -- like the advantages of getting older and, well, "not giving a #!#." Grocery sacker asks if she wants paper or plastic? She answers, "I don't give a @#!*."
Granted, Sykes' humor may be a bit too irreverent for some viewers. Not everybody thought her routine at this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner, delivered in front of President Obama, was appropriate. Regarding photos of the shirtless president, Sykes turned to Obama and snapped, "Please, I don't need to see your nipples!" Or this month's HBO special, I'ma Be Me, which, among other things, marveled at TV's flood of "broke dick" commercials.
Of course, we don't really know what the Fox show will be. The network describes the hour-long show as "topical, innovative and irreverent." It is said to include commentary and panel discussions on current events. We don't know who the panelists will be, but probably not Rush Limbaugh or George Will. Yet, maybe? You just never know with Sykes, and that's one of the many reasons I love her.
The late-night show format also will include "field segments," shot outside the studio. Maybe Sykes will go to grocery stores and ask if they want paper or plastic.
Honest, dangerous and smart as a whip, this Emmy-winner (for writing on Chris Rock's old HBO series) could spice up Saturday nights, which have been in a major lull now that SNL no longer has the presidential campaign to mine. I'm hopeful. I'm excited. And I really hope I'm not wrong, because that mea culpa would be embarrassing to write.
Postseason Baseball Delivers Drama, If You Can See It, Find It -- Or Stay Awake for It
October 21, 2009 11:31 AM
A friend called Monday night, knowing I was a big Phillies fan, to share in the joy of Philadelphia's bottom-of-the-ninth, two-out comeback victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers, right after Jimmy Rollins hit the game-winning two-run double. The phone call woke me up. I'd passed out on the couch the inning before, after a long teaching day...
Thanks goodness for TiVo, which let me rewind instantly and see the dramatic victory, albeit without the live-action drama.
TiVo also allowed me, since I had that evening's House on my Record list, to catch the final overtime innings of Fox's coverage of Monday's New York Yankees-Los Angeles Angels Game 3. That afternoon game had gone 13 innings -- long enough for the final 45 minutes to play in prime time. Next week, when the weekly ratings are released, that'll be a big unexpected boost for Fox.
It also meant both the American and National League games, for more than a half hour, were televised simultaneously, a definite TV rarity. Of course, the Phillies-Dodgers game was on TBS, available only to cable subscribers, which some of my Philadelphia friends have grumbled about.
But tonight at 8 ET on TBS is Game 5, which could send the Phillies to the World Series, and tomorrow night at 8 ET on Fox is the Yankees-Angels Game 5, which could do the same for the Yankees. Those and any subsequent games in both division series, except for a Saturday afternoon AL game should a sixth game be necessary, will have the same 8 p.m. ET starts, making for late nights, bleary eyes -- and, for me, maybe another unexpected but welcome wake-up call.
Back from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood -- And What a Warm, Inspiring Place It Was
October 19, 2009 3:23 PM
I just spent a few glorious days at the Fred Rogers Center, an inspiring facility at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA. It's a place devoted to the development of children, and worthwhile children's media, and it's populated by employees, executives, fellows and advisors that leave no doubt that Mister Rogers' mission is in the best of hands...
For one thing, they didn't name the place the Fred Rogers CENTRE, with snooty spelling. Fred would have wanted things plain and simple, and the Center is a warm and unstuffy environment indeed...
Much of what we were shown, or discussed, during the days of presentations was off the record, or left to the Center itself to announce and publicize. But one thing that knocked me out was a touch screen exhibit that allowed you to select and watch clips from Rogers' amazingly long and influential TV history.
I saw one clip I've never seen before, and from this point on will never forget: a scene from a prime-time special in which he and his puppets react to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.
That one clip, that one chilling moment of pure honesty and genuine concern, drove it home, all over again, why Fred Rogers was unique, and invaluable, as a children's TV host.
If you have any personal memories of watching Fred Rogers' TV shows, as a child or parent, I'd love you to share them.
New Monty Python Mega-Documentary: And Now for Something Completely Entertaining
October 16, 2009 7:36 AM
[Bianculli here: The hotel system crashed, so this blog's initial posting was incomplete until I returned to Philadelphia and a friendlier online access system. Here's the full deal, complete with photo, link, etc. Sorry.]
Beginning Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET, The Independent Film Channel presents a six-day, six-hour documentary series honoring the 40th anniversary of Monty Python's Flying Circus. You can expect new details, big laughs, fresh insights and, yes, you can even expect the Spanish Inquisition...
Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut) is presented in one-hour nightly installments beginning Sunday. It's a fitting, funny tribute to a groundbreaking comedy troupe, and it's a special you'll want to record as well as watch, to enjoy on repeated viewings.
You can read, and hear, my full Fresh Air with Terry Gross review of this new IFC documentary by clicking HERE. And plan ahead, because IFC is pairing these nightly hours with other treats from the Python vault: series, specials and movies. Enjoy it all. Forty years later, it remains mind-bendingly fresh, and odd, and funny.
GUEST BLOG #57: Tom Brinkmoeller on TV's coolest road trip
October 15, 2009 7:25 AM
[Bianculli here: Contributing writer Tom Brinkmoeller delights in unearthing TV treasures from the remote spectrum of broadcast TV. This time he's outdone himself, and champions a show I've never even HEARD of, much less seen...]
On the road again for revelations
By Tom Brinkmoeller
In 1967, Charles Kuralt invented a television genre when he began documenting simple and interesting parts of America and its people with his series of "On the Road" reports for CBS News.
In 1995, soon after Kuralt ended those reports, three guys from a Kansas public television station accidentally picked up the thread. And they've been having nothing but fun with it ever since.
Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations is a half-hour series that finds outsider art in all corners of the country, has fun making the discovery, and tries to include the creators of that art. It's a road trip with a trio of the coolest tour guides ever on public TV -- a kind of a Monty Python meets Rick Steves mix that tells you a lot about what you're seeing and makes you laugh at the same time.
It's one of those small, obscure public television series that's a delight to discover, so if you see it on the schedule where you live, don't pass it up. Where Kuralt's reports reflected the decorum of CBS in its "Tiffany network" era, the guys behind Roadside -- producers Mike Murphy and Randy Mason, with videographer Don Mayberger [left to right in photo at top] -- look at their subjects with a decidedly Midwestern point of view. Kuralt's detached smile has been replaced with more than a few hearty laughs and endless bad puns. Most of the charm is in the presentation.
The Rare Visions trio is, in fact, a quartet. The "world's largest ball of videotape" -- 70-pounds-plus -- has had its own seat in their van on every road trip since the series began. It's their own version of outsider art.
Mason said by phone from Kansas City's KCPT that the series is "about people creating stuff they want to. Some of it's art, and some is not. They're just making it because it's something they can do and share. We never make fun of an artist." (A New Orleans artist named Big Al made this piece of folk art.)
That's the approach that made Georgia resident Gary Arnold a fan. "(They) feature people that are marginalized and categorized by society as 'different,' or 'eccentric,' or just plain crazy," said Arnold, who often enthuses about the show online. "(The show) doesn't present these marvelous individuals to their viewers as freaks in a freak show, to be mocked and jeered at, but as visionaries to be celebrated."
RVRR starts its 13th season early next year, but it began simply as a rebuttal to what was perceived by Kansas residents as an insult to their state. A New York Times story had named Kansas the worst tourism state, and KCPT programming executives Mason and Murphy decided to hit state roads with videographer Mayberger to prove the mighty Times wrong. They spent five days on their project, turned it into an hour-long special, and were surprised when its showing resulted in a large viewer response. "We had thought it was going to be a one-show thing," Mason said.
That reaction convinced the station's management to expand the idea. In early 1996, the three rented a van and shot enough non-Kansas footage for six more shows. "The smart money would have said that's it," Murphy said.
But the show's popularity has resulted in 72 more episodes, shot in all but two of the 48 contiguous states. (Connecticut and Delaware haven't yet made the cut. They found this gas station in Decatur, Texas.) They limit their road time to two weeks each year -- "The joy we have in traveling with each other by the end of those two weeks becomes somewhat diminished," Murphy said -- then return to Kansas, where each episode takes about three weeks to edit.
An early fan wrote a four-page letter of praise and included two checks -- one to the station and a larger one to the RVRR team to make their road life a bit nicer. They estimate they have driven nearly 70,000 miles in the rented van that's a step or two down from the motor home Kuralt used as home base. Motels and meals aren't fancy.
But "I look forward to it every year," Murphy said. "How could you not be happy seeing America like this? It is this very visceral thing. You get up every morning, start driving and eventually you see something really cool."
That enjoyment is contagious.
[Check your local public TV station's web site for air times. In New York, WLIW/21 runs Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations Friday nights at 11:30 p.m., while in Philadelphia, WHYY's Y ARTS digital subchannel runs it Thursday at 4 p.m., Saturday at 10 a.m. and Sunday at 10:30 a.m.]
--
Tom Brinkmoeller travels vicariously through good TV travel shows. He thinks there ought to be a medal for people who drive 70,000 miles so non-travelers can see strange things and meet amazing artists.
Taking a Travel Day -- To Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
October 14, 2009 7:54 AM
Today I'm heading out over the Ben Franklin Bridge and deep into the western part of Pennsylvania, heading for Latrobe, PA, for the annual meeting of the Fred Rogers Center Advisory Council. This year, for the first time, I'm a member of the council...
What I'll be able to provide, other than comic relief and emotional support, I have no idea. But I'm honored to be a part of anything associated with the late Fred Rogers, whose influence on children's television -- and on millions and millions of current and former children -- is incalculable.
I'll report from the other end of the conference about the wonderful ideas being bandied about there, to use TV and new media to encourage and educate children, rather than exploit and distract them. But if I don't get on the road soon, I'll be late arriving to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and I wouldn't want that.
Can you say "rude," boys and girls?
What a Blast: Two Blasts from My Distant Past Check Back In
October 12, 2009 7:47 AM
When I teach my film and TV courses at Rowan University, I tell my students that I started writing, as a TV critic for a daily newspaper, when I was about their age. This weekend, I heard from the newspaper editor who gave me that opportunity -- as well as from a college professor who made me want to be one myself...
The editor is Ed Johnson, who ran Florida's Gainesville Sun when I was a college senior at the University of Florida, majoring in journalism. During an Applied Journalism course just before I got my degree, I was assigned to the features department, where I was allowed (thanks, Diane Chun!) to write a review of a brand-new NBC series aimed at college kids: Saturday Night Live.
After the review ran (see visual proof above), Ed called me into his office (a first for me, and just about the only time, over my career, that a summons to the editor's office meant good news) and made me an offer. Would I be interested in writing four more reviews, as a tryout, at $5 a pop? I said yes instantly, and not only because of the whopping payday. That was my "in" -- and I've been a TV critic ever since.
So when Ed posted this note to TV WORTH WATCHING last week, I was thrilled:
"While searching Amazon for a copy of The Bianculli Name in History ($29.95), I ran across reference to Dangerously Funny. The description sounded so much like the book you claimed to have been working on since the last century I was compelled to order a copy, hoping it is that effort's result. Surely it must be so, and I offer congratulations. Also, best wishes for happy and prosperous holidays. -- Good Old Ed"
So thanks, Ed. Send me your address, and I'll send you a book. You can give the copy you ordered to someone else. Call me!
And speaking of calls, this weekend I got a call from Mickie Edwardson, who taught one of my absolute favorite courses at UF, when I stuck around to get a Masters (while still writing a TV column for the Sun, as did Mickie: She was the film critic, while I covered TV). It was an advanced scriptwriting course, and those of us in the class learned so much and enjoyed it so much, we kept it going unofficially afterward by meeting occasionally at Mickie's house.
This is a woman who was respected and feared in equal measure by most students -- she had a similar reputation to that of John Houseman's Professor Kingsfield from The Paper Chase -- but I adored her instantly, and still do. I couldn't have smiled any more widely when she told me, over the phone, she still remembered one of the things I said in one of her classes. "Today," she said to open the session, "we're going to talk about redundancy." I shouted out, "Again?"
Great to hear from you, too, Mickie. You taught me to write more crisply, to analyze scripts for flaws, and generally to be a better critic. Good luck on YOUR book -- and if you can finagle a way to get me down to UF for a guest-lecture appearance somewhere, go to it.
Dinner, with you and Ed, is on me.
GUEST BLOG #56: Diane Holloway on TV's Friday night sights
October 8, 2009 1:40 PM
[Bianculli here: Contributing critic Diane Holloway shines her Friday night lights on that evening's broadcast prime-time programming, and finds reasons for both cheer and disdain. Personally, I like Fox's Dollhouse more than she does, but I'm clearly in the minority. Even the genre fans flock in larger numbers that hour to Syfy's new Stargate Universe -- and that's on cable...]
Please, networks, don't give up on Friday night
By Diane Holloway
Is Friday night making a comeback on network TV? Or is it still one of the spots where prime-time series go to die?
Yes, I realize that scheduling is less and less important in the Age of DVR. Thursday night viewers no longer have to choose between Grey's Anatomy and CSI. They can watch them both, whenever the mood strikes, and they can even add The Office to the mix.
But there is still something to be said for when and where a show airs -- if only because it seems that viewers are more likely to set their DVRs to record on a weekday or a Sunday than they are on a Friday or Saturday night.
Let's get Saturday out of the discussion right away, because this is the least-watched night of the TV week, and justifiably so. About the only thing new on network TV is gruesome true crime on 48 Hours. Wait, Fox has Cops and America's Most Wanted. But who cares?
Fridays, on the other hand, might be making a comeback. Maybe network programmers figure the sour economy will keep folks home that night, so they're scheduling accordingly. CBS has three hours of fresh prime time now. So do NBC (at least for now) and Fox.
ABC has been rerunning a couple of its so-so new series (Flash Forward and The Forgotten), leading into new episodes of 20/20. But this month, ABC will bring back new installments of Supernanny (ick) and Ugly Betty (yeah!).
CBS picked up NBC's dropped Medium to pair with Ghost Whisperer for a supernatural double-bill. The Big Eye wraps up Friday night with the durable Numb3rs. I'm not a fan of any of these shows, but viewers enamored of emotional women and the things that haunt them have something to look forward to.
Whether NBC wants to or not, the network has its fifth night of The Jay Leno Show, preceded on Fridays by fresh chapters of the nearly-dead Law & Order and yet more crime/scandal with Dateline. But good news is coming. On Oct. 23, the very promising cop drama Southland returns. It was a bad sign when NBC bumped Southland from Thursday's old ER spot, but at least it got picked up. We'll see how it fares on Fridays.
As for Fox, well, that network's younger viewers aren't likely to be home watching or recording the awful new comedy Brothers, the awful returning comedy 'Til Death or the tawdry melodrama Dollhouse.
But it wasn't such ancient history when Friday nights were prime viewing time. NBC ruled the '70s with Sanford & Son, Chico & the Man, The Rockford Files and Police Woman. In the '80s, the network struck gold with the hip-and-cool Miami Vice.
And who can forget the Friday night blockbuster Dallas? From 1978 until 1991, millions stayed home to see who J.R. was going to swindle or screw. VCRs were starting to catch on then, but most people watched the Ewings' nighttime soap shenanigans live, so they wouldn't miss out on the water-cooler chatter.
Today's splintered audience prohibits Dallas-size blockbusters on any night of the week, and Friday remains a less-popular TV night. But it's good to see the networks aren't giving up entirely. Maybe there's life yet in that little corner of the schedule. For the sake of Southland, I hope so.
------
UPDATE Thursday 7 p.m. ET --
Turns out it's too late for Southland. NBC just pulled the plug after six second-season episodes were produced (and none televised). Read more here.
Great News: My Smothers Brothers Book Arrives In Time for the Holidays
October 5, 2009 9:17 AM
Due to advance interest from at least one major bookstore chain, the publication date of my Smothers Brothers book has been moved up. Instead of arriving the first week of 2010, the book now will be in stores December 1, in plenty of time for holiday gift-giving. For me, that's a great Christmas gift already...
Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, will be published in hardcover by Simon & Schuster's Touchstone. The cover, which I've shown here once before, looks like this, except for a last-second addition of part of a blurb by filmmaker Ken Burns.
Here's the part of the blurb the editors and designers decided to add to the cover:
"This is a superb, at times moving, portrait of an entire age -- seen through the dramatic careers of two endlessly interesting entertainers." -- Ken Burns
On the back cover, there also are blurbs by Mason Williams and David Steinberg, both of whom were integral parts of the original Comedy Hour. And while a lot of what Mason sent was used, a portion was cut for length, but I liked it so much, I'm presenting it here:
"This book does a first class job of reporting the icebergian facts. The tip of the iceberg (the show itself), the mass of corporate and government intrigue/maneuvering underneath (CBS and Washington), and the eventual meltdown (firing/cancellation) that gave rise to the sea of change that saturates TV today." -- Mason Williams
I love the way Mason thinks, and writes. The description of the book as "icebergian" is especially amusing to me, perhaps because I wrote the book at what some might consider a glacial pace. Fifteen years from first interview to final manuscript. That's why I'm so happy Dangerously Funny finally is coming out, and, thanks to recent politics and policies, is dealing with a subject that's as topical and meaningful as ever.
So here's the big push, and the big news. Dangerously Funny is now available for pre-order, and will arrive in plenty of time to give, and even mail out, as gifts. Amazon has the book available at a substantial discount, which you can order by clicking HERE. Or, if you're a Barnes & Noble loyalist, you can order HERE, and members get an even deeper discount.
Wish me luck -- and, if you want, please order a copy or two. Remember, ordering from Amazon by linking through this site gives a small kickback to TV WORTH WATCHING, so buying the book that way as a gift actually makes it three good deeds in one. I sell a book and get royalties, the site gets a small percentage, and you get to give someone the book for the holidays.
So act now, or soon. Publication day is less than two months away, and counting. At least I'M counting...
Imagine, If You Will... The 50th Anniversary of "The Twilight Zone" Goes Largely Unnoticed
October 3, 2009 11:13 AM
Friday -- October 2, 2009 -- was the 50th anniversary of Rod Serling's classic CBS anthology series, The Twilight Zone. Yet neither CBS nor Syfy bothered to make a big deal of it. Or even a small one...
This weekend, for example, Syfy is showing a couple of early-morning showings of the original series, including (at 5:30 a.m. ET Sunday) Billy Mumy and Cloris Leachman in "It's a Good Life," the 1961 episode about a kid with the power to control the world around him. And the Chiller network is showing a small gaggle of episodes of the 1980s remake series on Sunday, including (at 1:30 p.m. ET) a remake, starring Terry Farrell, of the classic "After Hours" episode, starring Anne Francis as a woman trapped in a department store.
But that's it. CBS, the network that spawned the show half a century ago, did nothing. Not even a prime-time retrospective special, which would have been a Friday night natural.
But here at TV WORTH WATCHING, we try not to forget the classics. My own Zone favorites are legion: Telly Savalas being terrorized by a taking doll in "Living Doll"; the studies of relative beauty in "The Eye of the Beholder" and "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You"; William Shatner terrorized on a plane in "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"; Burgess Meredith as the last man on Earth in "Time Enough at Last"; the rampant paranoia of "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street"; and so many more.
Of them all, "Living Doll" creeped me out the most.
"My name is Talky Tina," the little doll told the frightened father, "and I'm going to kill you!" The voice of Talky Tina, I learned years later, was provided by Jone Foray, the same woman who provided the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel.
When I teach TV history at Rowan University, to students in their late teens and early 20s, there basically are three shows from TV's Golden Age that most of the class -- yet by no means ALL of the class -- has seen before signing up for class. I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners and The Twilight Zone. And that's it. That's the Holy Trinity of Vintage TV.
Our correspondents, though, have longer memories, and share them here:
A Less Experienced Brioux, On An Early TV Writing Assignment, Feels Like a Deadhead
By Bill Brioux
My most vivid Twilight Zone memory was almost worthy of a Rod Serling script. On that signpost straight ahead could have been written, "Warning: Clueless journalist."
It occurred in the mid-'80s, when CBS tried to revive the series. It was an uneven revival, featuring scripts from writers like Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke and even an aborted attempt by Harlan Ellison. Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman got a little face time on the revival; one episode, featuring Sid Caesar as a past-his-prime magician, stands out in my memory.
I was living in LA at the time, and as a photo editor and writer for TV Guide Canada was just starting to get into this racket.
A photographer I knew back then introduced me to her boyfriend, an amiable Texan who knew this guy who was re-doing the music for the series. He figured he could get him on the phone if I wanted to interview the dude. Why not, I thought, looking to fill space in the TV magazine's front page "Grapevine" column.
The call came through, and we talked about staying true to the original melody, so closely identified with the old black and white series. This guy was a guitarist, and said he tried to add a bit of a rock edge to the iconic theme. He was a pleasant gent on the phone and seemed happy to talk about being pulled into the Twilight Zone.
It wasn't until I sent the short piece back to the office in Toronto that an editor asked if I knew who the hell I had just interviewed. It was a name I was not, at the time, that familiar with. It lay somewhere between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. Submitted for your approval: Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead, a rock icon now found only in... The Twilight Zone.
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Brinkmoeller's Most Memorable 'Zone' Episode, But for A Surprising Reason
By Tom Brinkmoeller
Having watched nearly every Twilight Zone episode during its network run, many more than once during syndication, it is amazing that only one has stayed in this Boomer brain so long. "Time Enough at Last," starring Burgess Meredith as book-loving Henry Bemis, never was completely completely erased from my memory.
Miniscule recap: Bemis loves reading more than almost anything, making him a ridiculed person by those who know him. He works at a bank and takes his book and his lunch into the vault one day so he can be alone. The vault shields him from a nuclear blast, and he learns he's the only one spared from the bomb. Initial reactions of fear are replaced when he realizes he now has all the time in the world to read. He surrounds himself with books, prepares for a feast, then breaks the glasses on which he is so dependent.
My adolescent brain was at first sucked into the horror of being totally alone. Then, as I thought about it over weeks, I realized it wasn't such a horror story after all. And I got a bit angry with the previously perfect Mr. Serling. Bemis had books, he had food, he had a neutron-bomb world in which most things survived, though people didn't. Even though semi-blind, I was sure he just didn't sit down and give up. I was certain he eventually stumbled over a magnifying glass, another pair of glasses, an optical store.
It was a clever ending, very Republican by my way of thinking, but way short of reality. Few people, when facing a high wall, don't look for another route. That's why this episode stayed with me, I believe. Buying into another's vision of gloom and despair without examining the situation on your own is so simple-minded it's plain stupid.
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Ed Martin Surveys the Entire 'Zone," From Original Series to Remakes and Marathons
By Ed Martin
The highest compliment I can pay to The Twilight Zone is to admit that after decades of enjoying this classic series I still look forward to Syfy's annual marathon during the New Year's holiday. Not that I sit and watch every episode on December 31st or January 1st, but I happily dip in and out to briefly savor some of the finest television ever produced, not to mention the work of dozens of wonderful actors, most of them very early in their careers.
I can't say that I have a favorite episode -- seriously, how can you choose a single gem from dozens? But the one that first comes to mind whenever I think about the show is "The Invaders," in which a hardscrabble, axe-wielding woman who cannot speak (played by Agnes Moorehead) desperately seeks to defend her isolated home from two small robot-like aliens after they land their ship on her roof.
After fearing for the woman through much of the episode and breathlessly watching as she smashed their ship and killed them, I was completely thrown by the shocking reveal that the aliens were actually American astronauts that had crashed on a planet populated by giants. It was a lot for my young mind to wrap itself around and I still get a chill when I think about it.
An episode I am thinking more about now more than I did then is "To Serve Man," about seemingly benevolent aliens who come to Earth and declare their intent to help mankind. The visitors leave behind a book written in their language after a meeting at the United Nations, the title of which translates to "To Serve Man," which convinces everyone to trust them and accept their outsized generosity.
They cure diseases, turn deserts into farmlands and offer free passage to their home planet -- a Utopian world, they claim, that would be the ultimate vacation destination for harried humans, thousands of whom excitedly decide to make the trip. All that big love turns instantly to terror when the people working to decipher the tome realize that it's an alien cookbook featuring humans as a tasty ingredient in its many recipes! As I reflect on this episode I can't help but wonder how nasty the seemingly benevolent aliens will turn out to be in ABC's upcoming sci-fi thriller V. Will they also be hungry for human flesh?
There are three other episodes I watch for during those Syfy marathons: "Long Distance Call," "It's a Good Life" and "In Praise of Pip," all three featuring a very young Billy Mumy at the start of his career.
Mumy was one of the biggest child stars on television during much of the Sixties, and was best known as one of the stars of Lost in Space. (I'm a big fan because I looked a lot like Mumy when I was that age, which earned me the grade school nickname Will Robinson. That was a cool nickname to have back then, because Mumy was one of the coolest kids on TV.)
In keeping with his television persona, Mumy played a good kid in "Long Distance Call" and "In Praise of Pip," but he went unforgettably against type in "It's a Good Life," as a malevolent brat who could alter reality to suit his spontaneous desires.
The one and only Cloris Leachman played Mumy's terrified mother in this memorable 1961 tale, which was remade as one of the three features in the regrettable 1982 Twilight Zone movie. The story continued in 2003 in a sequel episode on UPN's short-lived Twilight Zone, with Mumy and Leachman both reprising their long-ago roles.
Letterman's Surprise Admission: An Unexpected Late-Night Time Bomb
October 2, 2009 8:03 AM
The expectations and predictions regarding Jay Leno's move to prime time, and Conan O'Brien's inheritance of NBC's Tonight Show, were thought to be the biggest moves regarding the late-night TV wars of 2009. All of that might be eclipsed, though, by what happens next after David Letterman's surprising Thursday night admission...
What are we to make of all this? On CBS's Late Show with David Letterman, Letterman delivered his "story" candidly, unemotionally but incompletely: For the past few weeks, he's been blackmailed by someone threatening to expose Letterman's sexual encounters with certain female staff members. The inference, though nothing was made clear, is that at least one of these took place after Letterman married his long-time girlfriend earlier this year.
A grand jury has gotten involved, and a sting that caught the blackmailer in the act -- but what does this do to Letterman's image, and audience, and program, and reputation?
Show business is so weird and unpredictable, the only accurate prediction is to guess that one of three things will happen. One, the controversy, as it develops, will have no measurable effect. Two, Letterman will lose viewers, just as he was gaining substantial ground opposite O'Brien in the 11:35 p.m. ET time slot. Three, the controversy, because of America's fascination with all things prurient, will bring Letterman even more viewers.
My guess is that this is an unexploded bomb that may or may not go incendiary, depending upon what happens in the next few weeks, how Letterman handles things, and how it's received. But no one saw THIS coming. And I wonder: Among the late-night comics, who will consider this fair ground for humor?
Will Leno or O'Brien, who got the Tonight Show though Letterman did not? Will Craig Ferguson, whose paycheck is SIGNED by Letterman? And will Letterman himself return to the topic, or avoid it assiduously?
Who would have thought that, in looking for a reason to make the late-night TV rounds this fall, the most compelling reason would be provided by a Letterman scandal? Stay tuned. Definitely.
GUEST BLOG #55: Diane Holloway cruises TV cityscapes
October 1, 2009 11:31 AM
[Bianculli here: TV critics, like other people, should know their place. But in contributing critic Diane Holloway's case, the sense of place given off by a TV show has a lot to do with how much she enjoys it...]
Appreciating TV with a sense of place
By Diane Holloway
Over the years, some of my favorite TV shows have starred places as well as people. Apparently, I need specific geography to be entertained.
This rich addition almost always applies to dramas rather than comedies, at least partly because comedies rarely leave the confines of a studio. And it doesn't really matter where the characters are when they're trolling for yuks.
For a place to be truly part of an ensemble, the writers have to do more than mention it occasionally and shoot a few exterior scenes from a helicopter.
Grey's Anatomy, for example, is set in Seattle, but aside from aerial views and the hospital being named Seattle Grace, the self-absorbed docs could be emoting from anywhere. There's absolutely zero sense of place.
The Law & Order franchise, on the other hand, showcases the look and feel of the city of New York almost as much as the ensemble casts. Everything from the cops and the crimes to the courts and the legal eagles are distinctly New York.
Compare Law & Order to CSI: NY, and you see a world of difference. The New York portrayed in the CSI Big Apple spinoff is all shiny and clean, with a forensic lab that looks like a sci-fi movie set. The city in CSI could just as easily be Minneapolis.
Because of its inherent drama, New York has been a favorite setting over the years. NYPD Blue certainly reeked of the city, and currently so does Rescue Me. Although it doesn't really trot around the city, Mad Men is very New York in its angst and atmosphere. A show about advertising in the 1960s couldn't really take place anywhere else, but Mad Men does exceedingly well in playing up the urban ambience.
The only thing better in my book than a show with a sense of place is a show that is defined by its place -- like Frank's Place, one of my all-time favorite shows. Its run was brief (1987-88), but Tim Reid's magnificent love letter to New Orleans was simply brilliant. From the opening titles, we could smell, hear and see the city. Gumbo bubbled, jazz wailed, and people oozed creole charm.
More recently, Anthony Anderson's post-Katrina crime drama K-Ville also starred New Orleans, and it did a remarkable job of showing the tragedy faced by the city after the devastating hurricane, as well as the optimism of its surviving sons and daughters.
Of course Dallas oozed its city, too. The 1980s sudser featured big hair, big music, a big villain (hello, J.R.!) and big, big money. Could a juicy prime-time soap about wealth and intrigue, ranches and oil wells be set in, say, Atlanta? No. It had to be Texas, and it had to be Dallas.
Creators seem to be drawn to very cold or very warm cities. Snow and icy breath do make for impressive cinematography. The Windy City made us shiver from opening to closing credits on Chicago Hope and ER. And other shows' sparkling water and beaches look sexy and inviting.
TV has had something of a love affair with certain cities -- Boston, Los Angeles and Miami, just to name a non-New York trio.
Boston Legal, St. Elsewhere and Cheers gave us a distinctive flavor. Boston Legal didn't exactly comb the streets near Back Bay or Faneuil Hall, but devoted Bostonian David E. Kelley sure knew how to blend exterior footage and New England characters.
Los Angeles was portrayed as slick and modern in L.A. Law years ago, but The Shield, Southland and occasionally even The Closer showcase the grittier back alleys of that city.
Miami Vice set a distinctive visual style for the Latin-infused urban sprawl in South Florida, and today's Burn Notice [photo at top] picks up a similar vibe. When its protagonist isn't slicing and dicing, Dexter gives us a keen sense of Miami, too. But CSI: Miami never seems to step beyond the homes and lifestyles of the super-rich.
Some shows can get away with taking place in Anywhere, USA. Hill Street Blues never identified its locale, and nobody has ever figured out where those Desperate Housewives really live.
But it's a tasty enhancement when shows involve us not only with stories and characters, but also a specific place. Wonder why nobody has come up with a drama about keep-it-weird Austin . . .
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Diane Holloway was the TV critic for the Austin American Statesman for 30 years, until the downturn in the newspaper business prompted her to take a buyout. She's now sniffing out other possibilities. Before newspapers, she worked in Washington for the Library of Congress, the American Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. Maybe something entirely different is next. Or not.
