Network TV Shows: February 2007 Archives

When I saw Brian Austin Green several months back on the red carpet at the DVD release for "Beverly Hills 90210." he playfully smooched former co-star Jason Priestly for photogs. Now I realize he was just rehearsing! According to The Hollywoodwood Reporter, Green will play a gay man in a new comedy pilot from the creators of "Will & Grace." The untitled CBS project, from David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, is about two friends and writing partners, one straight and one gay (Green), and the women working with them (Jessica Capshaw, Vanessa Lengies). The project is loosely based on Kohan and Mutchnick's friendship.
Green proved he had terrific comic chops co-starring on ABC's comedy "Freddie." He was the funniest thing about that show, kinda like Barney on "How I Met Your Mother." Trivia: Did you know that Brian played Donna Mills son on "Knots Landing"? I did!

By this time, we pretty much know that there is no ratings backlash toward "Grey's Anatomy" resulting from ABC's decision to keep Isaiah Washington on the show after his homophobic remarks directed at co-star T.R. Knight. Still, it's pretty astonishing that ratings have actually been going UP. The show kept up its torrid pace durings sweeps, handily beating "CSI" head-to-head and giving ABC the win Thursday in the adults 18-49 demographic. "Anatomy" averaged 25.6 million in the adults 18-49, according to preliminary estimates released Friday by Nielsen Media Research. That continues its strong streak recently atop last week's 25.2 million viewers which was the highest demo ratings since the September premiere.

It's been two weeks of cliffhangers. Last week, Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) falls into the ocean while trying to save a man's life. She is discovered by her true love Dr. McDreamy (Petrick Dempsey) but it might be too late. She looked dead at the end of Thursday's episode.
Now, I know the show is named after her and Meredith is a key character but I say kill her off! She gets on my nerves! I mean, when Valerie Harper was fired from her sitcom "Valerie" in the late 80s, CBS temporarily renamed the show "Valerie's Family" before settling on "The Hogan Family."
Let's say Meredith Grey does kick the bucket. What do you think the show should be called??
I'm thinking "McDreamy's Anatomy."

It was such a touching scene on "Desperate Housewives" last night. Poor Bree Van de Kamp (an obviously very pregnant Marcia Cross) wakes up in the hospital after falling from a ladder and there is her angelic son Andrew, comforting her and telling her it's going to be all rigjht.
This is the kid who, at the end of last season, she dumped on the side of a road! This is the scheming kid who blackmailed his mother, who let his boyfriend sleep over just to tick off Bree, and who, driving recklessly, ran over neighbor Carlos' mother with his car. He was so much FUN!
Andrew must have been such a blast for actor Shawn Pyfrom to play. Now, if he has any lines at all, he's a little angel...as if he's become something of a Stepford son! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. As his sister Danielle said in last night's episode: "I liked you better when you were a psychopath!"
Me too...
Some other thoughts on the latest installment of DH: this was really the "Dixie Carter Show" and the woman who played the lovely Julia Sugarbaker for so long on "Designing Women" showed us how evil and murderous a character she can be. In a flashback scene, her character of Gloria kills her son's mistress. He walks in on the bloody scene. She looks at him, holding a wrench and says very matter-of-fact: "It was self defense. What's done is done." As the two prepare to bury her, Gloria grabs a pair of pliers and starts yanking out her teeth: 'You don't want her to be identified by her dental records do you?" she asks her incredulous son. Fast-forward to the present: Gloria laces Bree's soup with sleeping pills then tries to drown her in the bath tub. When Andrew tries to stop her, she knocks him out with her cane. Son Orsen, hospitalized after falling off the roof of a hospital, finally bounds in to save Bree from his mother who then promptly has a stroke.
The final scene is of mother and son at the hospital when Orsen says to Gloria with barely contained glee: 'Good news mother. The doctor says your stroke has left you completely paralyzed."
It was just delicious!

"...make Chicken Piccata!"
Oh, I love it. The deliciously flamoyant Perry Pearl (played by Sam Harris) returned to the CBS sitcom "The Class" on Monday night and brightened up things considerably. The actress who plays the wife of the seems-so-gay-but-is-straight Perry has left the show but writers found a way to incorporate Perry into the Valentine's Day episode. He shows up to Nicole's house for an interior decorating job and gets snowed in along with Duncan who is Nicole's high school boyfriend and now contractor. Perry insists on making a Valentine's Day dinner. "This is my holiday," he said. "This and Thanksgiving and Christmas and the Academy Awards!" When Perry flounces out of the kitchen holding some Pears Flambe, he says: "At our house, it's not Valentine's Day unless there's something flaming!"
I had been wondering if Perry would end up coming out as gay but now I have no idea since Monday's episode indicated that he and his wife has a rather robust sex life: "We have a highly sexual relationship all the time - but throw in Cupid and some roses and it's SING OUT LOUISE!"
I was encouraged a bit that Kyle, whose boyfriend has been absent from the show since like, November, at least got to talk to him on the phone to acknowledge his existence: "Oh God, I miss you so much," he said.
So do we!

He doesn't talk about his personal life but his professional life is fair game. This item was in Marylin Beck's column that I thought I'd share: "How I Met Your Mother" regular Neil Patrick Harris says his character, Barney, on the CBS sitcom is becoming an homage to the late John Ritter — who was also a master at physical comedy. "I've suddenly become Jack Tripper," says Harris, referring to Ritter's character on the '80s series, "Three's Company." "I begged them for pratfalls, and I'm getting them. We've got some really, strangely funny things coming up." Harris admits since the addition of the more physical comedy, "I took some headers … I bruised my legs up a lot recently because I couldn't move my legs in the episode we were doing, so I was doing wacky walk for a while." He adds, "I can hurt myself, but if I laugh at myself when I watch the DVD, then it's all right. It's all for the sake of comedy, and the bruises heal."

Unless a post-gayhab Isaiah Washington pops off again (hey, you never know), it seems that it is back to business on "Grey's Anatomy." My guess is that we might see his role minimized ever-so-slightly from here on end but I base that on nothing but a hunch. At any rate, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the medical drama-soap opera had its highest demo rating since its September premiere carried ABC to a primetime win Thursday even as the premiere of "Survivor" came out ahead of ABC's "Ugly Betty" and NBC's sitcoms at 8 p.m. The demo win means most viewers between the ages of 18-49, the group advertisers most covet since, I guess, people 50 and over don't spend money? They've never seen my mother at the mall!
"Grey's Anatomy" averaged 24.9 million viewers and a 10.7 rating/25 share in adults 18-49; it was its highest rating in the demo since its premiere in September. That came in ahead of "CSI" (22.3 million, 6.8/16) at 9 p.m.
"Survivor" won at 8 p.m. with 15.9 million viewers and a 5.8/15; it was the lowest premiere ever for a "Survivor" and down 17% from last year's "Survivor: Panama" and down 11% from "Survivor: Island" in the fall. "Ugly Betty" (14.3 million, 4.7/12) wasn't any slouch either, riding high after its Golden Globes and SAG wins. It remained even with its demo performance last week, which was the highest rating since it premiered in September.

I haven't been keeping up with the FOX sitcom "The War at Home" but I sure am glad someone at AfterElton.com is as the sitcom continues to portray the journey of Kenny (Rami Malek) who was kicked out of his house after coming out to his parents and comes to live with the family of his best friend. The gruff family patriarch Dave (Michael Rappaport) would seem an unlilkely source of support for Kenny but he does what Kenny's parents, and any parent of a gay kid, should do: he parents him.
This week's episode had Kenny going out on a date and Dave has a talk with him about safer sex. He does so because wifeVicky (Anita Barone) , when realizes Kenny has a boyfriend, insists Dave talk with him about safe sex because she’d “…like to keep him from getting AIDS.�
Dave starts off talking about how comic books come wrapped in plastic for their protection (hint, hint). Things proceeded to considerably more detail as Dave attempts to demonstrate how gay sex works with a very funny montage of hand gestures. He then explains that all men are animals so when you get two men together it’s different than regular sex “…where there is some girl there to say no to everything.�
AfterElton reports that next week "Dave steps up to the plate when Kenny and his new boyfriend Dylan are told they can’t attend the school’s Sadie Hawkin’s dance. No doubt Dave will fumble and say some foolish things, but it will be in service of doing the right thing, and I, for one, can’t ask for much more than that."

I was just lamenting a few days ago about how Perry Pearl, the gayest "straight' man on television, had disappeared from the CBS sitcom "The Class" along with Kyle's boyfriend. Well, Kyle's boyfriend is still MIA but Perry, played with much hilarity by Sam Harris. will be featured on Monday night's show. According to TellyNelly (see my blogroll for a link), while redecorating their spacious pad, Perry ends up stuck at Yonk and Nicole’s home and makes the most of the storm by cooking an elaborate meal for Duncan and Nicole.  Meanwhile, Kat and Kyle get stuck at Ethan's apartment.

Last season, the wonderful teenage sociopath Andrew Van de Camp (Shawn Pyfrom) had lots to do on "Desperate Housewives" including blackmailing his mother Bree. Andrew also spent some time with his boyfriend locking lips and more.
Those were the days...
This season, Andrew has been reduced to glorified extra. In the last original episode, I think he literally had maybe one line. He was sitting on the sofa eating chips and tells his mother that his stepfather had gone across the street. Couldn't Andrew have been sitting on that sofa with his boyfriend? I am stunned by his being put on the back burner this way and very disappointed given that the show's creator, Marc Cherry, is a gay man who took great pride in revealing that Andrew is gay after the show had become a blockbuster. This way Cherry did not have to run it by the network and face possibly interference.
But given that the network is ABC, and that a show on that network, "Brothers & Sisters," has the most fully-realized gay character in all of television (Kevin Walker played by Matthew Rhys), I doubt it would be much of a problem.
Then we have the CBS sitcom "The Class" which I still like but liked a lot more when the gay character on the show, Kyle (played by Sean Maguire) was actually in scenes with his boyfriend. The boyfriend has been absent for several episodes as Kyle becomes closer pals with the straight Ethan (Jason Ritter). Also absent from the show has been openly gay actor Sam Harris who was showcased each week as Perry Pearl, the gayest straight man ever. Some people had trouble with Harris' character who seemed so obviously gay to everyone but himself and his high-strung wife. But I personally thought Harris was hilarious in the role.
And perhaps most disappointing of all is what happened this season on NBC's 'Heroes." I don't watch the show but followed a controversy that was well-reported on AfterElton.com. The character of Zach, best friend of the regenerating cheerleader Claire, was originally gay but was quietly changed.
Show creator Tim Kring has said in an interview before the show's debut that Zach, played by Thomas Dekkar, is gay. AfterElton said that Dekkar's management insisted the character of Zach not be gay. Kring later told the Web site that indeed, the character was changed from gay to straight but said the change occurred only because of the needs of the story.
"I am very sorry this has caused concern for the readers of your website. It was certainly not our intention to confuse the issue of Zach's character being gay," Kring wrote in an e-mail. "We have too much respect for our audience to do that intentionally. However, it has simply become too complicated behind the scenes to push this issue further with this particular character. We apologize for misleading the audience, and wish that we could have handled things better on our end. But making a TV show is often a very imprecise business."
When these gay characters fade from prominence and instead we get homophobic ad campaigns for Snickers bars during the Super Bowl, it is concerning and a reminder of how far gays still have to go on network television.
For now, Kevin Walker is carrying the flag for all of us.