May 2007 Archives
Ben “Quality with Noise” Silverman’s first order of business as newly installed head of NBC-Universal-Kmart-GE’s-trivection-oven-unit? Trying to lure Donald Trump and “The Apprentice” back to NBC.
Given “The Apprentice’s” abject ratings this past season, that would seem a pretty desperate move: Trump’s show drew numbers almost as bad as those for “Friday Night Lights,” which – oh, never mind.
On the other hand, it could be just a conciliatory, face-saving gesture toward an obviously wounded (yet still-powerful, if only as a TV wrassler) Trump. Which would make Silverman a nice guy. If only industry people were nice guys to folks who weren’t already wealthy and influential.
Nickelodeon today announced that it is partnering with Marriott to create “a breakthrough new lodging resort brand and concept for travelers seeking fun and adventure: Nickelodeon Resorts by Marriott.” Travelers will be slimed upon entering the lobby.
Well, no, but those traveling on business who inadvertently book a stay at one of these just might feel as though they have been. Although “Mr. Marriott” (the press release gave his full name, but I prefer the mysterious (or is it businessman-as-fun-and-alliteratively-playful-character?) nature of the above moniker, as it appeared in the New York Times-style press release) thinks those without kids will also clamor to stay at a semi-luxury hotel with a lot of unrelated rugrats underfoot:
“Besides being a great new family destination, we believe that ‘Nickelodeon Resorts by Marriott’ will attract younger adults, the young-at-heart, and meeting travelers, especially people who travel on business with their families. As younger boomers and Gen X'ers enter prime child-rearing years, their clear preference for seamlessly mixing business with leisure and family fun will mesh perfectly with the ‘Nickelodeon Resorts by Marriott’ concept," said Mr. Marriott. (Aren’t “younger boomers” closer to departing rather than entering their prime child-rearing years?)
The first of these Vegas-for-virgins resorts is expected to open in San Diego in 2010, with 20 forecast to be open or under construction by 2010. There will attractions strewn throughout the grounds of each, tied into Nick’s characters like Spongebob Squarepants and Dora the Explorer, and guest rooms will have character themes as well (hmm … these guys seem to be relying on the notion that their characters will have an evergreen shelf life amongst a particularly fickle demographic; these places could turn into Knott’s Berry Farm pretty quickly).
And, of course: “Retail offerings will be a key element of the guest experience, with Nick-themed retail items available that are exclusive to the resort, as well as a ‘Nick Pix’ photo studio and Nick.com Cyberzone, where kids and families can safely surf Nick.com and Nickjr.com content online, and view resort-specific information. A large game room featuring the latest and most popular video and traditional table top games will be available for all resort guests looking for added family entertainment and interaction.”
No wonder some guy in a suit and possessing a terrifically stilted public speaking style intoned, “The Marriott and Nickelodeon partnership provides an extremely compelling investment opportunity by pairing the hotel industry leader with the top kids’ entertainment brand. Together, we will create fantastic destinations that we are confident will be a great economic success.”
Also, per the press release: “The resort will encourage sophisticated adult interactions” – ah, so Mommy and Daddy will be getting something out of this, after all.
I’m sure someone, somewhere, is enchanted by the vision of hundreds of impish, shrieking youngsters running roughshod over acres of arcade games (the first step in a natural progression in growing up to become drunken adults stumbling through rows of jangling slot machines), a veritable cacophony of acquisitiveness being marketed as innocence, but if these take off, the dystopian world depicted in “Children of Men” can’t come soon enough.
Mike Darnell, the Karl Rove of Fox’s reality programming, must be kicking himself that he didn’t come up with this idea first: A TV network in the Netherlands will air “The Big Donor Show,” in which a terminally ill woman will choose the recipient of one of her kidneys amongst three contestants.
“The program is unfitting and unethical, especially due to the competitive element, but it's up to program makers to make their choices," said the country’s Education Minister (how’d he get involved?); nevertheless, the government will not try to quash the show.
More fun facts: The kidney may not even be the right match for the winner, and viewers can vote for their favorite moribund candidate, though the final decision still rests with the donor herself, whose inoperable brain tumor might play out as a wild card when she picks the winner.
You just know that if Fox did this, the contestants would have to run obstacle courses with their dialysis machines.
*UPDATE: As my commenter noted, the show was a fraud, putatively to "raise awareness" of the need for organ donors. On Friday night, "Nightline" called it "tasteless." A fraud? Tasteless? Sounds like a real reality show to me.
CBS would like you to know that despite all the media hoopla surrounding shows like “Heroes,” “Lost” and “24,” in the last week of sweeps when shows were presenting their season finales, its own series, “NCIS,” averaged more viewers than any of them – 14.14 million, to be precise. By contrast, “Lost” had 13.86m, “Heroes,” 13.48m, and “24,” 10.31m.
Of course, “NCIS’s” audience skewed a little older than the demographic most sought after by advertisers, and those other shows no doubt all lured more viewers aged 18-49. On the other hand, none of those other shows had to go up against “American Idol’s” final night of competition, either. (Though, to be fair, “Lost” may have arguably had a tougher task – the first 75 minutes of its two-hour finale aired opposite the announcement of the new “American Idol.”) “NCIS” ranked No. 5, among all primetime programs (“House,” the top-rated scripted series on the season, ended its run the previous week), behind only the competition and results finales of “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars.”
OK, so CBS wanted you to know that, and now you do. Carry on.
Jeez, I can’t bother to work up enough energy to mock MyNetwork’s new fall schedule, which was announced yesterday, let alone analyze it. So here’re bits from the press release, along with an occasional wan observation:
Here’s MyNetwork president Greg Meidel: “MyNetworkTV strides forward this fall as we offer a slate of programming packed with compelling subjects and vibrant personalities from proven producers. The new schedule offers diverse choices, including action-packed sports to real-life, human interest dramas.”
(If they can’t muster up a canned quote any more enthusiastic than that, how can anyone wrest themselves from their torpor to care?)
(The sports, by the way, are volleyball and smacking each other silly.)
Here’re the shows:
“IFL Battleground:” “Follows the athletes, coaches and personalities of the International Fight League, the world’s first professional mixed martial arts organization to compete in a team format.”
“The Academy:” Actually, this one’s already on Fox Reality, so come fall they’ll be repeating the series about recruits training to become L.A. Country deputy sheriffs.
“Jail:” “John Langley, the creator and producer of ‘COPS,’ now takes us behind bars with ‘Jail.’ Shot on-location in cities across the U.S., ‘Jail’ follows prison inmates from their initial booking through their first moments in the slammer. Each episode captures the harsh and sometimes humorous reality of what happens to criminals once the sheriff throws away the key.”
(Can you imagine anyone stupid enough to sign the release form to appear on this? That must be where the “sometimes humorous reality” comes in, when the cons realize what they’ve signed and how proud their friends and family will be.)
“Divorce Wars” (working title): “An intense real-life look at couples struggling to hold on to their relationships. Husbands and wives tackling issues ranging from financial hardships to infidelity enter the ‘Divorce Wars’ house for five days, submitting themselves to 24-hour surveillance and counseling, to try one last time to find happily ever after.”
(Because nothing sensitively alleviates an already tense situation than a battery of omnipresent cameras. Again, even for those most desperate to get on TV this would have to be considered an absolute final destination.)
“Meet My Folks:” “Parents get to decide who dates their children. Potential love interests are put to the ultimate test through a series of revealing secret interviews, fun tasks and the all-knowing lie detector. When parents play matchmaker, dating gets a lot more interesting.”
(“Interesting,” perhaps, but probably not a whole lot more successful. Incidentally, this show will air after “Divorce Wars,” when in fact it’d be a natural to run beforehand, so viewers could enjoy the whole circle-of-life thing when it comes to relationships in one evening of television.)
“Thursdays and Fridays will continue to be “My Movie” nights, with titles such as Rocky I-IV with Sylvester Stallone; “U.S. Marshals” with Tommy Lee Jones, Wesley Snipes, Robert Downey, Jr. and Joe Pantoliano; “The Amityville Horror” with James Brolin and Rod Steiger; “Carrie” with Sissy Spacek; and Guy Ritchie’s “Snatch” with Brad Pitt and Benicio Del Toro.”
(Movies 30 years old and older and utter box-office tank jobs – pretty sweet lineup you got there, MyNetwork. It's the NetFlix Queue from Hell.)
“The network has also partnered with FOX Reality and Mentorn USA to develop all new episodes of “Paradise Hotel” for debut in March 2008. Shot on-location in Mexico, the program will follow a group of single people living in a luxurious resort and competing to see who can stay in the hotel the longest.”
(Not enough information provided there – how hard would it be to stay in a luxurious resort? I think I could manage that. Is there something trying to oust them, like a plague of zombies? Is this a crossover where the IFC ninjas start beating on the contestants until they flee? Or is the wait staff just a little unduly surly and the participants are particularly thin-skinned so they bolt looking for more amenable accommodations? Certainly they wouldn’t be so crass and unoriginal as to have people voted out – could anyone sit through another reality show where people get voted out?)
Ah, well: “Following is the MyNetworkTV primetime series schedule for Fall 2007. New shows are in CAPS.”
Monday
8 p.m. “IFL Battleground”
Tuesday
8 p.m. “THE ACADEMY”
9 p.m. “JAIL”
Wednesday
8 p.m. “DIVORCE WARS” (working title)
9 p.m. “MEET MY FOLKS”
Thursday
8 p.m. “My Thursday Night Movie”
Friday
8 p.m. “My Friday Night Movie”
Saturday
8 p.m. “IFL Battleground” repeat
Not that The CW affiliates have anything to crow about, but how much must the former WB and UPN affiliate station managers – proud, valiant men and women who no doubt, perhaps even as recently as a year ago, had love for the medium of television and believed in it as a force for good – how much must these folks who didn’t land The CW be fighting the urge to open their wrists with a straight razor when they see that that’s their fall lineup?
Last week, USA Network premiered “The Starter Wife” at the Pacific Design Center – yes, even TV productions have rated splashy premieres with red carpets for a few years now. (Blame “It’s not TV; it’s HBO.”) Quite the event: I’ve never attended a premiere – for a movie or TV series – that served booze both before and after the screening.
Even Gigi Levangie Grazer, author of the novel upon which “Starter Wife” is based, noted afterwards, “It was as big as any premiere I’ve been to, and I’ve been to a few.” (She’s Brian Grazer’s wife, so there’s that, and although she was engaging in typical Hollywood hyperbole, she wasn’t by a whole lot.) (At this point, let’s put aside the question of why USA felt the need to ply guests with alcohol before the screening.)
But that’s hardly the point here. The point concerns the USA Network’s naughty new logo, which you’ll have to link to here if any of the rest of this is to make any sense to you.
After the screening, I was speaking to one of the many representative from NBC-Universal, which had arranged this event and had arranged for USA’s logo to be thrown on nearby building facades, and part of our conversation went something like this:
Your Mayor (referring to logo on a distant wall): The other day I was looking at USA’s logo, and perhaps I have too much time on my hands, but it occurred to me that one of the vowels approximates one gender’s flaccid sex organ, and the other vowel looks a little like a too-titillated gland of the other gender.
NBC-Universal representative: Wow, you do have too much time on your hands. (Further good-natured berating of Your Mayor’s pathetic peccadilloes.) (Protracted pause, while considering the logo on the distant wall.) Omigod, I completely see what you’re talking about.
Thoughts, anyone? Do certain letters in USA’s new logo need to, in the current parlance of the Cleveland Cavaliers, need to “rise up?”
For more than a month, I had been trying to get NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly on the phone for a story we had discussed a while back.
Guess we know now why he wasn’t returning my calls.
In January, Reilly declared: “There's been a lot of conjecture, instability, and I can tell you from the top of the organization down it just has never felt better, you know, the support I have gotten from Jeff to do what I wanted to do creatively and to build the team. And what I really feel right now inside the building is a confidence back in terms of what we're doing and a confidence I tell you I have in the individuals with -- to a person, the people we have working with us at NBC I hope to work with for a long time and that feels really good to be able to say that. It's actually shockingly weirdly becoming fun again, which has been -- people are saying ‘What's that feeling that we have? Oh, that's fun.’”
So much for that. Reilly was the fall guy for NBC (though, in typical blundering-network style, he got ashcanned mere months after signing a lucrative three-year extension on his contract, so NBC – the network preaching austerity, the one that announced its intentions late last year to strip its 8 p.m. hour with low-budget reality nonsense – will be forking over a nice wad of cash to him nonetheless, with no headaches attached). The network has been in trouble since the middle of Jeff Zucker’s tenure as Entertainment president; he now, of course, runs the whole show as NBC-Universal president and CEO, a career trajectory we should all be so lucky to chart. Reilly was essentially brought in to perform CPR on a coma patient; he was kind of like the new “War Czar:” He was there to take the blame when things inevitably didn’t improve fast enough.
Despite a fairly spectacular cave-in near the end of the past TV season, Reilly decided to proceed with patience, bringing back low-rated new shows like “30 Rock” and “Friday Night Lights” and low-rated old shows like “Law & Order” and adding only four new dramas to the schedule when a lot of programmers would’ve thrown a lot more new shows up against the wall in hopes that a couple would stick. Of the new shows, one is potentially great: “Chuck,” an action-comedy about a techie who inadvertently gets the entire CIA database downloaded into his brain, which sets him up for a lot of unexpected (and unwanted) derring-do and danger and international intrigue. Unlike a lot of shows in this genre, “Chuck” refuses to take itself seriously, which makes it quite refreshing. (Following the success of “Heroes,” NBC kind of overloaded on the sci-fi-y stuff, with “Bionic Woman” and “Journeyman,” about a newspaper reporter who can travel back in time, both of which take themselves very seriously indeed. (If I were “Journeyman,” my first order of business would be to go back and stop Al Gore from inventing the Internets, so I’d have a smidgen of job security.))
So Reilly’s out and Ben Silverman’s in, with a snazzier title and reportedly greater leeway. As TV executives go, Reilly was a more honest, straight-shooting kind of guy; Silverman tends to talk a little more in industry-ese.
“Quality with Noise” would be a great name for a band, but it feels like one of those rubrics that sound like what one’s bosses want to hear but may in fact be reductive, contradictory and perhaps untenable (another popular one: “smart but accessible”). At least Silverman has already, for good or ill, chosen the epitaph for his tenure at NBC when he eventually, inevitably departs.
Al Gore may have made global warming cool, but he’s tilting at windmills to suggest that Americans shed fatty infotainment from our daily diets in favor of the granola of the hard news of the day.
When Lindsay Lohan demonstrates the most piquant qualities of the product created by the distillery that planned to host her 21st birthday party bash by bashing up her ride, we want, nay, deserve to know. As for the complicity we may share for our inattentiveness and tremulousness in the run-up to a now spectacularly botched war cooked up by a leader who petulantly holds his breath and keens loudly until he gets his way and wrecks our nation’s global reputation the way Lohan did her car, well, who wants to keep up with that sort of thing? That sh!t’s depressing!
Yet here’s Gore, kvetching that we’re not paying attention to the things in life that really matter: “What is it about our collective decision-making process that has led us to this state of affairs where we spend much more time in the public forum talking about – or receiving information about – Britney Spears shaving her head or Paris Hilton going to jail?”
Gore also assailed the “destruction of the boundary between news and entertainment” and warned that we as a people are “vulnerable as a democracy to mass and continuing distraction.”
Well, excuse me, but a “mass and continuing distraction” seems to be the only logical way to contend with a war that has served to create more terrorists, a woozily punch-drunk economy in which America’s chief export is its jobs and the specter of a future environmental landscape that’ll make “A Boy and His Dog,” “Children of Men,” “Blade Runner,” “The Omega Man,” “Soylent Green,” “28 Days Later,” “Waterworld,” “Escape from New York,” “Hell Comes to Frogtown,” “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” and Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” collectively look like a tea party. We’re like Hugh Laurie’s Gregory House, popping Vicodin like they’re breath mints to stave off our pain and anxiety, only our Vicodin is “Access Hollywood.”
Thoughtfully, the White House seems to agree, as it has done everything it can to curtail coverage of the war in Iraq. Fewer than 100 journalists remain embedded with the troops, fewer than the 143 media employees killed during the war. And: “In an operational security slide presentation … for military supervisors, media is defined as a ‘nontraditional’ threat in the same category as drug cartels.”
But then, we’re not doing our job as well as we might, either: Only 5.5 million people watched “National Bingo Night” on Friday, and fewer than 3 million tuned in last night to Fox’s latest reality sensation, “On the Lot.” Both of those shows are premium-grade when it comes to shutting down the old cerebrum, and they’re opportunities being squandered. We can – and must – do better.
(Incidentally, other headlines linked on the page with the Al Gore story include “Mexicans Boo Miss USA” and “Boy Bags Wild Hog Bigger Than ‘Hogzilla.’” Gore has his work cut out for him.)
The media has been assailed, rightfully so, for being wussies when it came to reportage building up to the war with Iraq.
Here’s an interview I did which ran on in the Daily News March 20, 2003, two days before “Shock and Awe.” Obviously, it changed no one’s mind, but I offer it, on this Memorial Day, as an effort to reduce the number of those planted at Arlington Cemetery, a chance to demonstrate that the media, which seemed out of touch in those days, actually did care:
Daily News of Los Angeles (CA)
NATION'S PRESS GUILTY OF MYTHOLOGIZING WAR?
March 20, 2003
Tag: 0303200065
Section: U
Edition: Valley
rop
Page: U8
Source: David Kronke
Staff Writer
The New York Times reporter Chris Hedges has covered wars in the Falkland Islands, El Salvador and Bosnia, as well as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the first Gulf War (where he eschewed the prevalent pool reports and was captured for eight days by the Iraqi National Guard). His experiences and reflections are gathered in the book ``War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning'' (Public Affairs; $23), which was a National Book Critics Circle Awards finalist. ``It will rattle jingoists, pacifists, moralists, nihilists, politicians and professional soldiers equally,'' said one review.
Like others, Hedges is concerned about how the media, particularly TV news divisions, have covered the debate about Iraq and how they will carry through in the impending Gulf War, which may have already started by the time you read this.
So far, critics haven't given the media high marks. Charles Kupchack, former member of the National Security Council and author of ``The End of the American Era,'' which argues that the United States will in the coming years alienate itself from its former allies, decries the lack of debate on Iraq. ``One of the things we've always been reassured about this country is that it's a marketplace of ideas,'' he says. ``If we go to war, that's fine, but we should have all sides of the debate exposed. But that's not happening. Democracy is not being served.''
In February, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., on the floor of the Senate, leveled a similar complaint: ``There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing. ... We are truly sleepwalking through history.''
Rick Ellis of AllYourTV.com suggested that a few reasons news networks have shied away from questioning the Bush Administration's policies is that they are assuming it will be a short war, ``so they're already planning their aftermath stories. Their thinking goes, 'War's gonna happen anyway - why waste time on whether we should be in it?'
(Interjection: What was deleted from this story at the time was the fact that MSNBC had cancelled Phil Donahue’s show from its schedule, because its executives were worried that Donahue’s anti-war concerns would be construed as anti-American at a time when most new networks were flying American flags and championing destroying Iraq. Still, this story did actually run in the Daily News at a time when such stories were pretty much considered, in light of W’s “You’re with us or with the terrorists” propaganda, heresy.)
Hedges won't be in the Persian Gulf this time. He's lost too many friends and colleagues in battle, he says, and besides, ``I'm old.'' He knew he had had enough when he found himself, at age 42, trying to keep up with 17-year-old Palestinians with bags of Molotov cocktails fleeing from Israeli snipers. He spoke with the Daily News last week about his book and how he sees the media's coverage:
Q: According to your book, the media is simply doing its job in a time of warfare by stoking the fires. But how soon before a war does the media have a responsibility to focus on honest reportage of the pros and cons of the impending battle, before it gets absorbed in the breast-beating? It seems there never was a period of skepticism with Iraq.
A: I don't think the media has much of a period of skepticism. It's better at parroting back jingoism. That's become part of the war effort, where you see Dan Rather saying, where do I sign up, where you see TV anchors wearing flag lapel pins. There's a real sense that they believe they're doing their bit for the country. Those people who function as social critics find that in the rush of war, they're unable to resist the call to arms. Those who do resist find themselves lonely and reviled.
If these outlets looked at their role as being one of a public service, of course they'd examine the issues. But since they no longer see it that way - they just see another act in the circus tent - they're not going to do anything.
But the credibility of the press suffers disastrously. The lie of war is the lie of omission. There's a huge disconnect between the soldiers, who know the reality of the situation, and seeing how it was covered.
Q: How much does the simplistic reporting on the behalf of TV news reporters make it difficult for people to digest serious reporting?
A: It makes it difficult. People don't want to ingest it. People don't want to hear it. It's so much fun, while the economy is crumbling and we're getting stripped of our civil rights, to walk down the street, beating war drums.
There are two medias now. There's print - The New York Times, Washington Post - and they're pretty good. And then there's broadcast media, and that's just become entertainment, all about commercials and ratings. There was never any hope of any significant contributions in reportage from them from the beginning. CNN knows full the mythic narrative of war - they're selling the narcotic of war, and it's very good business - it's how (William Randolph) Hearst built his empire. Broadcast is shameless. There is not even an attempt made to report the facts; news is judged in terms of its entertainment value. Those at The New York Times who raised the right questions were doomed from the start.
But we'll have a horrible hangover when it's over. Or we'll have a collective amnesia. But it's lonely and hard not to join the party.
Q: Were you surprised at how the White House press corps sort of rolled over at Bush's press conference?
A: It was pretty typical of what happens in wartime. Wars always begin with the murder of innocence. To question the cause is interpreted as sacrilege - that's always how wars begin. Again, this was no exception.
Q: So to paraphrase Aaron Sorkin: We can't handle the truth?
A: That's correct. The myth of war exhilarates us: It's powerful, noble and good. The reality is, it's dirty and venal and forces us to confront our capacity for evil. But it's more pleasant to imbibe the elixir.
We were pretty ignorant before, now we're really ignorant. But I wouldn't romanticize the past (coverage and protests of war) too much. In wartime, everyone falls into lockstep. It's definitely worse now, but it's always bad in times of war.”
On March 22, “Shock and Awe” began.
Dammit, people, forget those blockbuster sequels in the motion-picture theaters, it’s “National Bingo Night!” Get your head in the game, already!
In an announcement today that surprised – well, I’m sure, someone somewhere – ABC announced that Rosie O’Donnell, fresh from her latest roundelay with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, would not be returning to the show.
ABC News’ story (linked above) even hints at the bemused exhaustion a lot of people have had with O’Donnell’s hijinx: It begins, “The saga is over.”
The requisite ABC guy was quoted expressing his requisite regrets: "We had hoped that Rosie would be with us until the end of her contract three weeks from now, but Rosie has informed us that she would like an early leave. Therefore, we part ways, thank her for her tremendous contribution to 'The View' and wish her well."
("We wish her well?" That's precisely the sarcastic fare-thee-well the Fox News Channel offers someone it has just eviscerated.)
The requisite Barbara Walters gushing: “Rosie contributed to one of our most exciting and successful years at ‘The View.’ I am most appreciative. Our close and affectionate relationship will not change.”
The requisite Rosie quote: "I'm extremely grateful. It's been an amazing year and I love all three women."
O’Donnell loved all three women so much she reportedly departed the “View” offices with a farewell trashing, and some photos of Hasselbeck lining production walls had mustaches scrawled on them, courtesy Rosie’s chief writer. I’m beginning to think the wrong show is titled “House of Payne.”
And Donald Trump got to use the words “disgusting” and "disaster" one last time as he declared, “A great service was done by getting her off the airwaves.” Actually, we were thinking the same thing about "The Apprentice."
Rosie’s blog seems to be treating the announcement like something akin to a death in the family. She posted a video montage of her “View” days to a Cyndi Lauper tune, “Sisters of Avalon.”
(Again, per ABC’s snarky story: “Lauper sings, ‘And a distant drum rumbling under ground gently guides me on...’ O'Donnell has been guided on...on from ‘The View.’” Well, that’s either snarky or ineptly sentimental.)
She also contributed another poem that begins:
“nothing is loud enough today
i have blown too many speakers”
I’m sure that means something far different to her than it does to, say, me. The poem moves on, however:
“did u hear
a squirrel attacked a woman
its true
it was in the paper”
(We’ve noted Rosie’s fixation on squirrels in the past.)
And, finally, not as an entry but as a general statement, she offers this:
“no new questions
taking a little break”
We’ve discussed Stephen Colbert’s war against Wikipedia, in which he has “invited” fans to alter entries in the online encyclopedia. For example, imagine my surprise one night to discover, per Colbert’s directive, that “reality” had been redefined as “a commodity.”
Tonight, Colbert’s guest was Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who’s nothing if not a good sport: During the interview, Colbert threw out a few "facts" – Einstein tended alpacas, oxygen is poison, librarians are hiding something – and within seconds each page was locked down by the Wikipolice. I did manage to see oxygen redefined as poison, however, and had to quit breathing momentarily; if you click on the link, you’ll be spared such horror, as the page will likely read “This article is currently protected from editing to deal with vandalism.”
As if Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Keith Olbermann aren’t bringing the hammer down hard on the Bush Administration, now a sparrow has also decided to enter the sphere of political satire and commentary.
Not exactly TV-related, but it traversed my Email in-box alongside a TV-related Email, so:
(By the way, this one is absolutely true.)
“One publisher is attempting to answer today's decline of in-flight readership with One Flight Fiction®, a six-book series designed with busy travelers in mind. A new imprint from Banda Press International, One Flight Fiction® offers a refreshing alternative for travelers who constantly find themselves wishing they had time to read-and finish-a good book by the time their plane touches down. Featuring "read times" of 0-1, 1-2 and 2-3 hours, One Flight Fiction® delivers a complete and entertaining story to fit any busy schedule or literary taste.
"‘We would find ourselves purchasing novels during our travels, many of which were abruptly set aside afterward, never to be picked up again,’ says Amber Skoubye of Banda Press, who, along with her husband Dan, is the publisher and creator of One Flight Fiction®. ‘We wanted to create a series of books that can be read in three hours or less: during a flight, lunch break at work or even while waiting for your child's activities to end.’
“The six new titles from One Flight Fiction® include Breaking Stride, a modern story of two dedicated runners giving their all for a race; Home to Wyoming, a journey through the Wild West; The Looking Glass Call, a timeless and mysterious coming-of-age story; Dreamers, a futuristic tale exploring issues of genetics and evolution; Summersville, a haunting tale of ghosts and folklore; and Perceptions, a small-town mystery.
“Each title features a personalized book length depending on the amount of time you have in your schedule to relax and read a book. Hopping a short, one-hour flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco? Pick up a title with a 0-1 hour read time. Been meaning to pick up a book but lack the time or attention span? (Italics mine.) Try Breaking Stride, an inspirational tale of teamwork that can be finished in two hours or less.
"‘One Flight Fiction® opens up the true joy of reading to a much broader audience,’ says Skoubye. ‘People who thought they might never be able to finish a book again can sit down and read a story cover to cover, no longer frustrated by time constraints.’”
Oh, Jeez: Where to begin? Do people really buy books based on their length, not whether their subject matter might possibly be of interest? (Notice how only one paragraph glibly skims through what the books are about, while all the others trumpet the fact that the books don’t take long to read – well, the press release seems to be saying, the books may be crap but they won’t eat up too much of your time, and at that next cocktail party you can impress that potential special someone with a desultory chuckle and the phrase “I read a book the other day.”)
Aren’t novels with a “0-1 hour read time” actually called short stories? Isn’t there some sort of paradox in dumbing-down something that’s supposed to make you feel smart?
All that said, do they want me to author one? What do they pay? If it doesn’t take long to read, how long can they take to write? I could probably expand upon my powerful evisceration of caveman-directed prejudice in a day or two.
* Note: This report derives from an early-Thursday East-Coast feed. As car ads state, your mileage may vary.
After Wednesday’s apocalyptic clash of cultures on “The View” between Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck (which seemed to get even Joy Behar’s skin crawling), one would have hoped for something of a détente today. Alas, one would have been disappointed, as the battle escalated into actual bloodshed.
It began innocently enough, with a chipper discussion of dessert toppings. But when Elisabeth declared Redi-Whip her favorite, O’Donnell assailed Hasselbeck’s views as “puerile and uninformed, just like every other asinine thought that dribbles out of your mouth, like a trollop familiar with too many drunken sailors.” Rosie, instead, championed Cool Whip.
Hasselback jokingly replied, “Well, I cede this debate to you, Rosie, since you’re clearly the expert when it comes to fattening foodstuffs,” and the studio audience, which had tensed up, emitted as one a relieved, good-natured guffaw. But frictions escalated as conversation drifted, predictably enough, to politics, specifically the Oklahoma Rail Act of 1897, created by Congress to protect armadillos from getting squashed by freight trains.
O’Donnell groused that Congress willfully defanged the measure during the 1950s and ’60s, when interstate highways traversing the country were being built in record numbers, further endangering the beleaguered armadillo. Hasselbeck interjected that suggested regulations – such as retrofitting all automobiles with foam-rubber protection devices that would gently bump armadillos off the nation’s freeways – were “Draconian, particularly in light of the conservative, anti-regulatory mood informing Washington at the time.”
Behar, sensing the rising tension, attempted to deflect the conversation with a wan, stale joke about Sanjaya Malakar, but Rosie was having none of it. “Elisabeth, have you ever seen a living armadillo outside of a zoo?” she demanded.
Hasselbeck sputtered, “Well, uh, no, but I haven’t seen one in a zoo, either…” when O’Donnell pounced: “That’s my point, kewpie-doll! You sit there in those cheery Gap summer dresses, professing to be pro-life, but the fact that this country is nothing but a rolling death trap for hundreds of thousands of innocent armadillos means nothing to you! We've become nothing more than a nation of crushed shells lying by the side of the road!”
“I may not have seen an armadillo, but I’ve encountered more than my fair share of scaly, waddling subliterates!” Hasselbeck shot back, causing co-host Barbara Walters to swallow the upper plate of her dentures.
At that, O’Donnell sprang from her seat and began pummeling the pregnant Hasselbeck, inducing labor and, eventually, the premature birth of Elisabeth’s infant, whose limbs O’Donnell set upon, announcing amidst her angry gnawing, “The last thing this world needs is another pious puzzlewit justifying the clueless war crimes of a President whose reckless, bratty policies have been abandoned by 72 percent of the populace!” Behar tried to alleviate the confrontation by making a joke about Fox’s new reality show “On the Lot,” but since no one had seen it, her bon mot fell flat.
Hasselbeck then prayed to her Lord to smite O’Donnell, and, somewhat unexpectedly, He quickly complied. Walters, standing, shocked, over O’Donnell’s lifeless form, and realizing there was no overhead camera for her to turn to and shriek “Noooooooooo!” to, instead declared: “We’ll be right back. We hope.”
When the show resumed, the remaining cast cheerfully interviewed Ramzan Kadyrov, designer of infant novelty bibs.
Ah, McHomophobe, we hardly knew ye. Or we knew too much about ye. Anyway, ye had to go.
Yes, reports are leaking that Isaiah Washington will not be returning to “Grey’s Anatomy” in a regular capacity after referring to co-star T.R. Knight with a not very nice word and then doing it again after the Golden Globes, only by way of saying he hadn’t done it the first time. Apparently his gayhab didn’t take.
But one of Washington’s pals stuck up for him, declaring, “They won’t get rid of Isaiah because, with Kate [Walsh] leaving, they don’t want to ruin the magic.”
Magic? Ah, that’s what they’re calling it these days, sort of like “tripping over my Chihuahua” is a euphemism for, well, something.
Why should I be the only one to have all the fun/suffer all the pain? TV Week is offering trailers for most of the new fall series online, but be warned: If your DSL is as dodgy as mine, you probably can’t play along. I received the following message:
“The connection speed detected will cause a potentially unviewable experience.”
Well, that’d be the case anyway if you’re watching “Cavemen.”
Additional upfront update: Fox’s seven new scripted series arrived today. Which leaves only CBS and ABC holding out on us.
Fox’s “American-Idol”-only-for-filmmakers reality show “On the Lot” debuts tonight after the real “AI,” and though Fox didn’t provide a full screener, they did thoughtfully provide about the first five minutes of the first episode for scrutiny. Which, given those five minutes, is about all I would’ve been able to get through anyway.
It’s your standard-issue reality show set-up – host explaining what precisely Hollywood is to those unfamiliar with the concept, contestants talking about how being on the show’s a dream come true, explications of the notion of “competition,” more contestants talking about how – no, really, you just can’t imagine – being on this show is such a dream come true, a big awesome prize awaits someone but only if you’ve got what it takes (actually, it’s not even that big a prize – just a development deal, and most development deals result in absolutely nothing; at least with "Project Greenlight," the winner, so to speak, got to make an actual movie even if no one actually saw it), yada yada yada.
And it appears, from the sheer number of contestants, that viewers won’t soon be getting to see any significant amount of footage from the work that the contestants do. We will seem them engage in copious product-placement, however. So clearly, they’re not looking for any originality out of these aspiring movie directors.
- “On the Lot:” 9 tonight, Fox (Channel 11).
… Except that technically, on Monday’s season finale of “Heroes,” they didn’t stop the exploding man. They just changed the place where he exploded. So we still need to know exactly how to stop an exploding man, you know, for future reference.
Other questions/comments (obviously, if you TiVo’d the episode, you won’t want to read any further until you’ve actually seen it):
* I didn’t see the past couple of episodes, so can anyone tell me if they explained why the streets of New York were completely empty except for the occasional “Heroes” cast member? Because, usually, they’re, you know, not.
* For a while, it seemed, they had dialed back on the corny narration, but, boyoboy, they ladled it on tonight: “Why are we here? What is the soul? Why do we dream?” At least that, of course, was followed by a replay of Lindermann’s messy lobotomy. Answer: “The soul is what gets jazzed when watching a guy’s brain get sucked out of his skull.”
* Plotting seemed alternately sloppy – Sylar allows himself to get played, again, by Hiro?; Peter’s unexplained journey through the past in order to receive key plot points – and fairly clever in the way they managed to get so much of the cast in the same place for the final showdown (though how did Claire know where to turn up?).
* Re: Peter’s journey through the past: He’s told, “In the end, all that really matters is love.” Aw, c’mon, not quite: In the end, all that really matters on “Heroes” is an average of one grisly scene and one unforeseen plot twist per episode. Even Tina Turner has long suspected that love has nothing to do with it, and I doubt she’s ever seen the show.
* So there’s a little girl who knows where everyone else with secret abilities is on the planet. Of all the superpowers available out there, how much must it suck to get handed that essentially useless and largely self-endangering one?
* Nathan and Peter’s mom must’ve dealt in with the bad guys – they seemed awfully anxious to go blow themselves up. And so “Heroes” scratches Milo Ventimiglia? Kiss the teen girl demographic goodbye come next season.
* Claire was revealed to be Peter’s niece, and there were a few moments of almost-kinda frisson between them earlier in the season, and she couldn’t bring herself to shoot him, even if it meant saving the world, though clearly not for familial reasons. Discuss.
* Every series would be a hit if it featured one Ali Larter v. herself catfight per episode.
* You know, Sylar just doesn’t seem that clever a guy to roust his way through the “Heroes” lineup as easily as he did. That pronounced forehead of his suggests he could star on “Cavemen” sans makeup. Yet take a look at his performance tonight:
Round 1: Sylar v. Ando. No contest; a knockout prevented only by Sylar’s typically lunkheaded villainy w/r/t prolonging Ando’s torture.
Round 2: Sylar v. Hiro. Aborted mid-clash, due again to Sylar’s villainously vainglorious preening. Hiro and Ando escape.
Round 3: Sylar v. Parkman. No contest: Down goes Parkman! Down goes Parkman!
Round 4: Sylar v. Bennett (“Call me ‘Noah’”): No contest, though credit HRG with creating, apparently out of thin air, a sling for his bum arm. Maybe he has secret powers, after all: the ability to conjure over-the-counter medical supplies. (OK, so there’s one even lamer than that little girl’s.)
Round 5: Sylar v. Peter. Again, no contest: Milo is forced into a moment of extreme overacting, and Sylar even manages those extra few game-changing seconds of villainous gloating: “Turns out you’re the villain, Peter – I’m the hero.”
Round 6: Sylar v. Hiro II: The Quickening: At best, a draw. Sylar takes the shiv, but apparently escapes and transforms himself into a cockroach, while Hiro disappears until an afterthought of a coda of an epilogue finds him popping up in 17th-century Japan.
So there you have it: Unhinged doofus Sylar v. “Heroes”’ fighting elite, and Sylar wins in a TKO. Maybe in season two the “Heroes’ll” find a proper Professor X, a really smart guy to properly herd them when battling hyper-powered morons.
* OK, so we pretty much know Peter and Nathan won’t be back for season two, but the rest of the estimable body count was a cheat: D.L. seemed to have been offed in a previous episode, and he’s still hanging in there. Parkman took a chestful of his own gunfire, but they resolutely refused to write him off definitively. Sylar got poleaxed, and yet, during the episode-ending mumbo-jumbo, it was suggested he managed a messy getaway, too, although he seemed to have morphed himself into a cockroach. (Yet another pointless superpower!) (This ending recalled the last shot of “The Departed,” where the rat scuttled on the windowsill.) They even brought back the long-dead Simone, suggesting that on “Heroes,” there’s no such thing as too dead.
* OK, so here’s your next assignment: Next season, in addition to “Heroes,” NBC will fill the spaces in between new episodes with something called “Heroes: Origins,” which will offer stand-alone shows introducing potential new characters with different powers for whom viewers can vote into future episodes of the series. So let’s help them out, shall we, with suggestions for future heroes and their secret abilities.
I’m currently developing a handful, including a woman who can chew nervously at her cuticles while maintaining nails that look immaculately manicured, and an tremulous guy who, in times of moderate danger, can transform himself into a gosling so adorable no evildoer can render it harm.
Somehow, I suspect, you can do better, and, as they say at England’s The Guardian, “comment is free,” so offer us your worst, or best, or most middling. We invite it all.
* Oh, and re: HBO’s commercial for “John from Cincinnati” during the episode: Given all the “Heroes”’ abilities, being capable of hovering a couple of inches off the ground hardly seems all that big a deal.
Mediaweek is reporting today that advertisers like The CW’s new fall lineup, thanks to shows like the teen-angst epic “Gossip Girl.” Because it’s, as they said in “The Hudsucker Proxy,” “you know – for kids.”
Meanwhile, they’re not so bully on Fox shuffling its schedule in January, consigning “Bones” – which made some inroads this past season – to Friday, the network’s perennial Dead Zone. Advertisers aren’t so keen on NBC’s new remake of “Bionic Woman,” either, or ABC’s “Cavemen” (no! really?) or CBS’s “Viva Laughlin” (advertisers being longtime opponents of musical comedy, having lobbied Congress in the 1990s to pass the No-Singing,-No-Dancing-as-Entertainment Directive; the legislation died in committee).
“Bionic Woman” reprograms the ’70s series into a more sinister, paranoid animal. Here, Michelle Ryan stars as a bartender with a high IQ (if it’s so high, then why is she a bartender?) almost killed in an automobile accident – that was no accident at all. Her equally brilliant boyfriend, who survived the punishing wreck with just a couple of scratches, patches her together with militarized body parts (because, you know, our nation would be crippled by a sudden bartender shortage). Turns out he’s part of a shadowy government agency attempting to create high-tech soldiers. As with “The X-Files,” “Battlestar Galactica” (both shows contributed executive producers to this venture) and “Heroes,” unnerving questions of the “Who’s the good guy?/Who’s the bad guy?” variety carry the day.
“BW’s” pilot concludes with a hellacious catfight between our new bionic woman and the first bionic woman – no, not Lindsay Wagner; Katee Sackhoff (so that’s why “Battlestar Galactica” killed off Starbuck), who went nuts, went rogue and promises to be a burr in the backside of all involved. After the two women tussle, they seem well-satisfied with their little workout, a sequence that will no doubt invite all sorts of conjecture and stir prepubescent boys for reasons they cannot fathom.
The great thing about “Desperate Housewives” is that you can not watch it for a few episodes (or a season) and then tune in and you find you still really don’t care all that much.
On last night’s season’s finale, a couple of the DH’s actually became housewives again, Gabrielle discovered she had made yet another huge mistake, and Edie offed herself. (Of course, that’s what viewers were led to believe; no one actually saw the face belonging to the person whose feet were dangling in the final shot; when next season opens, we could just as likely discover it was someone none of the DH’s knew who lived across town.) It makes sense that Edie’d off herself because the writers never seemed to make much of a concerted effort to integrate her into the main storylines. On the other hand, it doesn’t make much sense that Edie’d off herself, since she was such an amoral, Type-A sort and those people, unfortunately, never kill themselves.
Does this mean Edie will take on the cloying voice-over narration chores next season?
Only 18.4 million viewers took in the season finale, a drop of nearly 25% from last year’s closer. If things get worse for the show, Edie’ll be the lucky one.
What is the value of a TV writer’s blood? It’s a question posed early and often in Jeffrey Stepakoff’s “Billion Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved Dawson's Creek and Other Adventures in TV Writing” (Gotham House, $26), a book anyone serious about breaking into the TV business has probably already pored through (though it’s been out just a little more than a week), and a book anyone considering an assault on the industry would do well to read.
Your Mayor greatly enjoyed “Billion Dollar Kiss,” and not just because the author was my first interviewee ever to salute me as the Mayor of Television when I got him on the phone. Part memoir, part trenchant analysis of the TV industry and all utterly entertainingly readable, it may be the closest the Television industry has to “Adventures in the Screen Trade,” William Goldman’s immortal dissection of the film business. (Though Stepakoff has stepped away recently from the industry, entrenching his family in Atlanta, the networks would be well-served by his sane insights into their struggles.)
Stepakoff worked on a lot of shows, such as (the ones his author bio on the book flap mentions) “The Wonder Years” and “Dawson’s Creek” and (many not mentioned on the book flap, like) “Simon & Simon,” “Major Dad” and “Sisters.” He made a lot of money, and was somewhat astonished that he was doing so. Stepakoff never seems to develop the world-weary cynicism most of his colleagues fall into, though he scarcely remains the wide-eyed innocent who began his career back in the late ’80s. (In the book, he does something that seems a bit of an industry no-no: He actually explains, step-by-step, how much TV writers make – for the first-run of a series’ episode, for its repeat and on and on if it goes into syndication. And it’s impressive money.)
The author takes readers into writers rooms, where desperate scribes throw anything at the wall, hoping something will stick (though I imagine his account is just a smidgen sanitized). He examines the shameful disparity in minority writers in TV, but, rather than ascribing the situation to institutionalized racism, he blames in on a more subtle (and more myopic) issue: Showrunners simply prefer to hire people they’re friends with, people they’re comfortable hanging out with, and many of them just don’t have that many minority friends. (Though, if you think about it, how likely is it that a showrunner is friendly with only very talented writers?)
And he examines the death of the sitcom, which began, he notes, around the time the FCC allowed the broadcast networks ownership of the shows they aired. Before that, he points out, boutique TV studios such as MTM churned out quality programming because they could work relatively independent of network meddling; afterwards, network executives fretted over every detail, fairly emasculating the actual creators of the shows.
The title refers to the chaos and tantrums that exemplified life on “Dawson’s Creek” in seasons two and three, before its course was righted by Greg Berlanti (who later created “Everwood,” similarly rescued “Brothers & Sisters” from its own chaos and will have “Big Shots” on ABC in the fall) with a simple edict: The show was about a love triangle between Dawson, Pacey and Joey.
Stepakoff stepped into the industry at the best possible time, by his reckoning, as he also essays the crazy period in which even fairly green TV writers found networks and studios throwing insane amounts of money at them for mere development deals.
Some might find the more personal details in the book a little indulgent, but they’re there to give the reader a fuller view of a writer’s life, not just on the lot, but how personal affairs affect professional considerations (which, in the end, provides even fuller insight into how the industry works). Stepakoff name-drops some industry icons – Steven Bochco, John Wells, etc. – but the only time the book really left me feeling a bit cheated was his seemingly truncated account of his brief but memorable collaboration with David Milch, the bomb-throwing genius behind “NYPD Blue,” “Deadwood” and the upcoming “John From Cincinnati.”
I just know Stepakoff has some great Milch stories and that he’s holding back on us. Looks like I’ll have to contrive to interview him again.
Only 6 milion rubes tuned into ABC's "National Bingo Night" on Friday.
The Republic is safe.
How quickly a network rushes the pilots of its new series to critics can be a measure of its enthusiasm for its upcoming fall slate. Or, at least, its wish to simply appear as though it’s very enthusiastic about its fall slate. (In the past, The WB and Fox sent out screeners of “Everwood” and “Prison Break,” respectively, before they announced their fall lineups.)
By that measure, our winners are NBC and The CW, both of which had screeners of its fall pilots in my hands within 24 hours after their upfront presentations. Still waiting for ABC, Fox and CBS, but then, those networks are successful these days and can afford to play hard to get.
So, yes: I have copies of both “Bionic Woman” and “Gossip Girl,” of both “Life” and “Life is Wild,” of “Reaper” and “Journeyman.” They’re all clearly marked: NOT FOR REVIEW. And, of course, I’ll be obeying that edict. Check back soon as Your Mayor previews (different animal entirely) what the networks hope you’ll be finding entertaining four short months from now.
In the television-justice system, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups: The producers who commit aesthetic crimes, and the TV critics who warn people to stay away from such offenders. These are their stories.
Tonight’s episode of “Law & Order” could’ve been its last on NBC – there was talk of moving the series over to TNT, talk squelched when the network announced on Monday that the show, now wrapping up its 17th season, would return midseason, after football. So it’s no longer a swan song, but it concludes with a hint at cast changes to come.
Probably the most interesting thing about tonight’s episode, however, is Jeffrey Tambor’s guest turn as a simpering, melodramatically empathetic and camera-loving judge. “Law & Order” had already offered up its take on Anna Nicole Smith’s death; here’s a thinly veiled take on that clown Judge Larry, who presided over the custody battle of her infant daughter. (Larry’s probably miffed he wasn’t offered the part.)
Of course, the case Judge Larry’s doppelganger presides over is nothing so banal as a custody hearing. It’s your standard-issue splashy murder trial, involving a former Senator (Harry Hamlin) with rage issues and a wildly dysfunctional family with everyone beating on everyone else, resulting in two newly mangled corpses. Violence, sexual deviance, rampant substance abuse and an utter lack of even nominal control over basic social instincts – not your typical dynastic family (well, perhaps you’re intended to detect faint echoes of the Kennedys), more one you’d find in a trailer park somewhere.
I’ll spare you the details, but note that the episode features the words “vagina” and “bitch,” a coroner who, noting a wooden spoon found in an unlikely orifice of a murder victim, desultorily adds, “That reminds me, I have to bake a cake,” and Hamlin blurting out when a melee in his home overturns a shelf of books, “Hey, hey, hey! Those are my first editions!”
Anyway, the show could’ve devolved – or is it elevated? – into inspired humor had Tambor been allowed to run with his role as the judge and transformed him into a truly blithering boob. But you know “Law & Order” – it’s earnest to a fault, and doesn’t like to be laughed at. Though Fred Thompson, potential Presidential aspirant, does manage a wry, self-reflexive moment at the end of the episode.
Anyone want to bet that Thompson won’t run for President because he knows he’ll get sick of journalists who think they’re clever yakking about his “Law & Order” platform?
- “Law & Order:” 10 tonight, NBC (Channel 4).
Just a reminder: “National Bingo Night” debuts tonight. ABC’s boasting that 3 million Bingo cards have been downloaded. 3 million viewers would be a disaster during sweeps. And if people will watch and not play along, then our country is lonelier and more pathetic than one’s heart can bear to imagine.
Here’re some of the rave reviews the show is earning:
“A high-concept attempt to low-ball the viewer!” – New York Times
“It’s official: Network TV has run out of ideas!” – Boston Herald
“No amount of low lighting and dramatic music can hide the fact that in the end, what we've just seen is still a game of bingo!” – New York Daily News
“It will probably flunk out after its brief run!” – Louisville Courier-Journal
“Wow, this is bad television!” – Winston-Salem Journal
“If viewers win, they too will get prizes or cash. In other words, they may actually get paid for watching this show. Well, in all honesty, I can't imagine any other reason for watching it!” – Toledo Blade
“If this is the best ABC can offer during May sweeps, an important period for ad dollars, it makes you wonder what shows the network turned down. “Let’s Watch Lettuce Grow”?” – Boston Herald again
Sure, it’s no “According to Jim,” but it’s pretty safe to say that no series will duplicate a fraction of the achievements of “The Simpsons,” which will air its 400th episode Sunday.
My advice: Skip the first five, six, maybe seven minutes (which, besides not being all that funny, has pretty much next to nothing to with the main thrust of the episode), and you may think it’s one of the show’s best.
Entitled “You Kent Always Say What You Want,” it focuses on newsman Kent Brockman’s sorry predicament when Homer knocks a mug of hot coffee in his lap on-air and Kent says something that this blog can only approximate with symbols like these: #%$*.
Lisa predicts Kent’s fate by noting, “There are a lot of religious watchdog groups out there keeping the world safe from the horror of free expression.” Sure enough, Ned Flanders, self-proclaimed “God’s little bellyacher,” finds himself “imploring people I never met to pressure a government with better things to do to punish people who meant no harm for doing something no one ever saw.”
That would seem to be enough trenchant social commentary for a week’s worth of broadcast-network television right there, but then, Kent explains the oft-noted disparity between the conservative bent of the Fox News Channel and the anarchic ways of the Fox network itself: “Fox deliberately runs shows that will earn them huge fines which are then funneled through the FCC to the Republican party.” (Over the years, “The Simpsons” has been at least as astute a critic of its corporate owners as any TV critic.)
Ladies and gentlemen, it has been said that the ugliest truths can only be revealed via the goofiest of comedy. Well, that’s been said, but it hasn’t really been proven. Actually, it may not have even been said. Nonetheless, let it be said here that not only has “The Simpsons” been hilariously inspired on and off for two decades now, but it has also been the sole source of revelation of our nation’s ugliest truths. Particularly those involving just how bad Bart can be when parental involvement is sadly lacking. Yes, without “The Simpsons,” our social ills could reach epidemic status.
I just realized I’ve done two fairly positive entries in a row about a single network. I’ll try to avoid such sentimental simpering in the future.
- "The Simpsons"' 400th episode: 8:30 p.m. Sunday.
Boy, did Fox learn its lesson. After last year’s tediously bloated two-and-a-half-hour leviathan of an upfront presentation, network Entertainment president Peter Liguori introduced 10 new shows, issued a few random announcements (“House” will air after the Super Bowl next February) and paraded his sundry casts before advertisers and media folks assembled in New York in one brisk hour.
And it must be said: Pretty much every single new scripted show looks, at the very least, viable, and most much better than that. So, let’s just sift through them, shall we?
Dramas
“K-Ville:” Anthony Anderson and Cole Hauser play cops struggling with rising crime rates in post-Katrina New Orleans. The NOLA twist makes this intriguing.
“New Amsterdam:” An immortal New York homicide cop. Sounds goofy, yes, but the cut-down of the pilot made it look like it worked.
Midseason dramas
“Canterbury’s Law:” Juliana Margulies plays kind of a female “Shark.” She looks to do it well. “Rescue Me’s” Denis Leary is one of the executive producers.
“The Sarah Connor Chronicles:” A TV “Terminator” spin-off with lots of kick-@ss action.
Comedies
“Back To You:” Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton star as fractious Pittsburgh TV-news anchors. The star power alone should engage viewers, at least initially.
“The Return of Jezebel James” (midseason): The new show from “Gilmore Girls”’ Amy Sherman-Paladino seems to feature a (gasp) laugh track, which seems guaranteed to put a drag on her trademark machine-gun-fire banter (though it could’ve been inserted for upfront purposes only). Parker Posey stars as a high-powered New York editor incapable of having children; she recruits her slovenly sister (“Six Feet Under’s” Lauren Ambrose) to serve as a surrogate mom. (Oddly enough, a husband and/or boyfriend didn’t seem to be in Parker’s mix, so maybe that’s her problem – she might want to look into that before getting her sister knocked up.)
“The Rules for Starting Over” (midseason): Four newly single friends must relearn their dating skills in this broad comedy from the Farrelly Brothers, whose comedic sensibility would seem to be, at its best, shall we say inappropriate for network TV, even Fox. It seemed a little watered-down by their standards but tried to compensate with manic antics. Rashida Jones is one of the friends, which (SPOILER ALERT!) would seem to give us a hint as to what’ll happen in tonight’s “Office” season finale. (I threw that spoiler alert up waaay too late, didn’t I? Ah, you’re gonna watch anyway.)
Reality shows
“Kitchen Nightmares:” Sociopathic, bullying restaurateur Gordon Ramsay tries to turn around struggling eateries, mainly by shivving the chefs.
“The Search for the Next Great American Band:” Well, the title pretty much says it all, though even Liguori allowed that it’s too long-winded. What about just “Battle of the Bands?” From the “American Idol” folks.
“Nashville:” Aspiring country singers seek stardom in a gauzy, soapy show. It’s from the “Laguna Beach” folks, so that explains the manner of presentation.
Fox’s fall 2007 schedule (as always, * indicates new show; ** indicates new timeslot):
Sunday
7 p.m. Football overrun
8 p.m. “The Simpsons”
8:30 p.m. “King of the Hill” **
9 p.m. “Family Guy”
9:30 p.m. “American Dad”
Monday
8 p.m. “Prison Break”
9 p.m. “K-Ville” *
Tuesday
8 p.m. “New Amsterdam” *
9 p.m. “House”
Wednesday
8 p.m. “Back To You” *
8:30 p.m. “’Til Death” **
9 p.m. “Bones”
Thursday
8 p.m. “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?”
9 p.m. “Kitchen Nightmares” *
Friday
8 p.m. “The Search for the Next Great American Band” *
9 p.m. “Nashville” *
(both are working titles)
Saturday
8 p.m. “Cops”
9 p.m. “America’s Most Wanted”
Fox’s 2008 schedule:
Sunday
7 p.m. “King of the Hill” **
7:30 p.m. “American Dad” **
8 p.m. “The Simpsons”
8:30 p.m. “Family Guy” **
9 p.m. “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” *
Monday
8 p.m. “K-Ville” *, **/“Prison Break”
9 p.m. “24”
Tuesday
8 p.m. “American Idol”
9 p.m. “House”
Wednesday
8 p.m. “Back To You” *
8:30 p.m. “The Return of Jezebel James” *
9 p.m. “American Idol”
9:30 p.m. “’Til Death” **
Thursday
8 p.m. “Fifth Grader”
9 p.m. “Canterbury’s Law” *
Friday
8 p.m. “Bones” **
9 p.m. “New Amsterdam” *, **
Saturday
8 p.m. “Cops”
9 p.m. “America’s Most Wanted”
Thoughtfully, The CW invited Your Mayor to watch its upfront presentation online this morning, rather than go to the bother of arranging a satellite feed for local journalists, sparing the network the expense of plying me with a glass of orange juice and a bagel, and sparing me the ordeal of sitting through The CW’s upfront presentation (given my shoddy DSL service, all I did was spare myself 90 minutes of glitches, freeze frames and system failures).
Given The CW’s rather spectacular collapse in its inaugural season, major adjustments had to be made. Noise had to be made. Big, splashy series had to be made. Attention had to be paid. Attention had to be justified.
Eh, not so much.
The CW failed to fare well this season because its schedule was mainly a patchwork quilt of old WB and UPN shows, with no new breakout hits to distinguish it. The network seems to have learned its lesson, a bit, but still doesn’t seem to realize that in order to call attention to itself over the hundreds of cable networks out there, it needs a big, defining series and can’t just pretend to be a network doing business as usual.
Despite dumping five scripted series and moving another to midseason, The CW rebounded with a mere four new scripted series. The rest of the schedule will be given over to inexpensive reality programs and magazine-style shows, including one that essentially will be telling viewers their time would be better spent online. And the difference between The CW and MyNetwork is … ?
The CW did schedule one ambitious series – “Life is Wild,” based on “Wild at Heart,” which appeared recently on BBC America and shot in South Africa. It’s about a dysfunctional blended family that uproots itself and heads to South Africa, where it renovates a decrepit lodge on a game reserve. The British version was a little hokey, but was heartfelt. This could be The CW’s signature show, except for the fact that it’s utterly unlike everything else on the network and it’s on Sunday, where the network got absolutely buried this past season.
“Gossip Girl” will probably do well for the network – it’s based on a popular series of young-adult novels and