November 2007 Archives
Yesterday, The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers offered the Writers Guild of America a generous package called the “New Economic Partnership” in an effort to end the writers strike. Details weren’t available about the pact … until now.
Item 1: Upfront profit participation. As this is a bold new initiative, we the producers are offering as part of our partnership the opportunity for you the writers to invest in the projects in which you participate. If the production doesn’t make any money, well, welcome to our world. If, on the other hand, it does become wildly successful, we will graciously reimburse your investment to you.
Item 2: New media profit participation. Not many people know this, but your home computer or laptop is actually an ATM machine. To collect any profits from all online ventures and downloads, simply go to the website or iTunes store in question. If there are any profits due you, they will be ejected from the disk-drive slot in your computer in the form of crisp $20 bills. If not, well, be patient; we’re bound to make some money off your writing eventually.
Item 3: DVD profit participation. We will give you a copy of any DVD you have a writing credit on, free of charge. If you already have a copy, you can take it to Amoeba for a handsome payout of $3 or $4.
We the producers hope you choose to take advantage of this groundbreaking offer. If not … well, while you’re out there picketing in front of our studios, make yourself useful, willya? Bring a chamois to polish our cars while we’re driving through the front gates.
And with that, Your Mayor is going to take some well-deserved time off. While on the road with my intrepid guard-dog schipperke, I may find the time to produce handsome snippets of edification. Then again, I may not. Take care, good luck with the ongoing negotiations and have a splendid week.
So much for the news blackout during the ongoing talks between writers and producers: AMPTP issued this statement this evening:
"The AMPTP today unveiled a New Economic Partnership to the WGA, which includes groundbreaking moves in several areas of new media, including streaming, content made for new media and programming delivered over digital broadcast channels. The entire value of the New Economic Partnership will deliver more than $130 million in additional compensation above and beyond the more than $1.3 billion writers already receive each year. In response, the WGA has asked for time to study the proposals. While we strongly preferred to continue discussions, we respect and understand the WGA's desire to review the proposals. We look forward to resuming talks on Tuesday, December 4.
“We continue to believe that there is common ground to be found between the two sides, and that our proposal for a New Economic Partnership offers the best chance to find it."
No details, of course, on what the New Economic Partnership entails, but at least this eschews the sort of bellicosity that has been the hallmark of prior statements. Perhaps an end is in sight after all, and L.A.’s fiscal Armageddon can be avoided.
Kathy Griffin hacked off a lot of Christians when she won an Emmy for her Bravo reality show “My Life on the D List.” “No one had less to do with me winning this award than Jesus,” she declared, which is true enough, but then she went even further, inviting Jesus to do something He quite obviously would not be interested in doing.
In doing this, Griffin managed to p!ss off more people than actually had probably heard of her before. And, in “Kathy Griffin: Straight To Hell,” she manages to take a 30-second incident and expand it into about 15 minutes of pretty funny stand-up material.
Performing before a sold-out crowd in a huge theater in Chicago (I remembering seeing her in a venue so small that it couldn't've held the front row of the audience in this special), she reveals that her controversial acceptance speech was, in fact, written by a friend who works on the Nickelodeon show “Zoe 101.” She recalls that a Tennessee religious group took out a full-page ad in USA Today protesting her speech, marveling, “I couldn’t get Bravo to give me a tenth of this!” She concedes, “I’ve probably f@&#ed myself out of another Emmy.”
The rest of the show is given over to her discussing her obsession with “To Catch a Predator” as well as her trademark dishing on/trashing of celebrities. Paris Hilton, Paula Abdul, Larry Craig and Dr. Phil take the hardest lumps, as she takes us behind the scenes at a CNN event celebrating Larry King’s 50th anniversary in broadcasting and the Rosie O’Donnell-Elisabeth Hasselbeck dustup on “The View” (she suggests “a show called ‘The Makeup Room at “The View”’”).
Hard to say if what she shares tonight – particularly a major TMI moment with Barbara Walters that concludes the special – will get her barred from the show. But then, everyone in Hollywood should know what they’re getting themselves into if they allow Griffin within their radius. Perhaps having her around is Hollywood’s equivalent of a normal person going on a reality show – it’s probably not a good idea, but it just seems irresistible.
- “Kathy Griffin: Straight To Hell:” 9 tonight, Bravo.
Tonight’s installment of “Dirty Sexy Money” reveals a blockbuster dirty though not all that sexy Darling family secret; discovers Tripp (Donald Sutherland) experiencing a rare lapse of ethical uprightness, even if it’s dubiously motivated; finds Karen (Natalie Zea) climbing back into the saddle, none the worse for wear after the recent dissolution of her fourth marriage; flashes back to the last time Nick (Peter Krause) saw his late father (Peter Strauss); unveils some rare, cutthroat spin on Letitia’s (Jill Clayburgh) behalf; directs Darling family nemesis Simon (Blair Underwood) to peel yet another Darling from Tripp’s tight-knit clan; throws Brian (Glenn Fitzgerald) in the pokey for last week’s bribery attempt and offers an update on Patrick’s (William Baldwin) condition after his wife had the moxie to gun him down.
But my favorite subplot involves Jeremy (Seth Gabel), who has been trying to impress a girl (Sofia Vergara) without letting her know he’s obscenely wealthy – he wants her to love him for being him, dammit, even if the “him” he’s showing her is a complete and utter lie.
Gabel is hilarious in tonight’s episode – he’s more Paris Hilton in her clueless mode than his twin sister Juliet (Samaire Armstrong), who’s pretty clearly patterned after her. When he takes his burgeoning girlfriend to a dump of an apartment (he paid set decorators handsomely to grunge it up) he’s passing off as his home, she lifts her nose and declares, “This place is not good.” Delightedly, he responds, “Yeah, right?” When she expresses doubt that their relationship is not going to work out,” he protests at his oblivious best in his wimpy bleat, “That’s like financial racism!”
The circuitous machinations of Jeremy’s schemes ultimately scores a result that’s a little predictable, but Gabel’s portrait of buffoonishly self-absorbed big-heartedness is an ingeniously witty concoction. How many times do we have to say this: This show deserves a bigger audience.
- “Dirty Sexy Money:” 10 p.m. Wednesday, ABC Channel 7.
CNN thoughtfully provided me with these links to clips offered for this evening’s Republican Presidential YouTube debate in Florida, but what would really be great is if they actually made the debate’s roster of questions:
* First, a serious one from Kirk Douglas, who expresses his concern for our future generations and wonders what the candidates would do for them.
* Finally, the Ghost of Richard Nixon asks a question that genuinely deserves to be asked: What, if any, are the extents of Executive Privilege? Can a President withhold vital information as he sees fit? (Gee, outside of Nixon, who could he be thinking about…?)
Anyway, the Democratic YouTube debate was pretty surreal (remember the guy with his semi-automatic “baby?”), and YouTubers, thanks to CNN having to herd the candidates toward this debate like so many cats, have had plenty of opportunity to be creative with their questions, as evidenced above.
Perhaps this will be the first-ever Presidential-debate-as-performance-art. Worse things could happen.
- Republican Presidential candidate debate: 5 tonight, CNN.
Friend to Your Mayor Joe Rhodes is rightfully proud of his story on “Futurama’s” resurrection via DVD (“Bender’s Big Score” comes out today, with three more direct-to-video disks due out in the next year). He writes:
“I am 12 years old. And thus was very proud of getting this quote into my Futurama story in the NYT today:
"‘There is a profusion of buttocks,’ Mr. Cohen admits. ‘We pushed it a little bit in the buttocks department.’"
(For those who desire context: Portions of the story take place on a nude-beach planet filled with alien backsides.)
An interesting portion of the story discusses how it was possible to produce these films for DVD with a budget similar to its primetime incarnation and expect to be profitable (though the films will eventually be turned into episodes that will air on Adult Swim), particularly in light of the producers crying poor over the residual debate during the ongoing writers strike.
I advised Mr. Rhodes that were he to have his own blog, he could write the word “buttocks” to his heart’s content. Though I, personally, prefer the word “douchebag.”
The Hallmark Channel has come up with an interesting campaign to get you – or guys at least – to watch its movie “All I Want for Christmas” this Saturday at 9 p.m.: By dangling the suggestion that you just might have what it takes in order to date its star, Gail O’Grady.
Bars, the Hollywood scene and online dating apparently having failed Ms. O’Grady, she has now turned to the Hallmark Channel to play matchmaker, which it has, with zeal:
CAN YOU WIN GAIL O’GRADY’S HEART? reads the subject header in its Email, followed by this copy:
“Gail O'Grady plays a single mom with no time for dating who suddenly finds herself with thousands of suitors after her young son wins a national essay contest to find mom a husband in the Hallmark Original Movie ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS. How easy is it to date the sexy star of ‘Boston Legal?’ ‘You have to be able to sit in the floor for hours on end and play Legos with my three-year-old son,’ says O'Grady. ‘The main man in my life is short, but he's adorable!’ His mom's cute, too!”
Actually, that sounds more like a playdate with her son than a date with her, but anyone who would like to take Hallmark and Ms. O’Grady up on this unusual but gracious offer, please leave a comment with the usual singles pabulum – likes, dislikes, how many strolls on the beach you manage in a week, your notion of a romantic night out, where you see yourself in 10 years (oh, wait – that’s a job interview question), etc. – and I’ll forward them along to the Hallmark Channel, who I’m sure will send them along to Ms. O’Grady. Just promise me you’ll invite me to the wedding.
Susanne Daniels is an executive currently running the cable network Lifetime. Her husband Greg is a writer/executive producer who did the unthinkable, transforming the American version of “The Office” into something akin to its brilliant British counterpart (and, to some minds, exceeding it, since it has run so much longer than the original’s 13 episodes).
The writers strike, in the Daniels’ case, is something of a civil war, pitting wife against husband – network executive vs. writer.
When speaking with Susanne on Monday – for a forthcoming story on her book about her days as a WB executive (“Season Finale,” written with Variety’s Cynthia Littleton), she spoke of one little skirmish in the residual wars which lie at the heart of the strike.
“Over Thanksgiving,” she recalled, “I downloaded [NBC’s] ‘Chuck’ – I hadn’t seen ‘Chuck’ yet and I watched a bunch of episodes online. And my husband came in and saw me doing it and he said, (in an incredulous voice) ‘You’re downloading a show online?’ and I said, ‘I think you should get paid for it, but yes! I’m doing it! Don’t get me wrong – I think you should be paid; I’m on your side, but can’t I download it if it’s there?’ He didn’t want me to download the shows!”
(Residuals being a huge sticking point in the ongoing strike, many writers are advocating not downloading episodes, watching episodes online or buying DVDs at this point.)
So what’s it like being in a marriage at ostensibly ideological loggerheads these days?
She replied, “I don’t think it’s fair for the studios to say that they aren’t making enough money when they need to go back and look at the whole system. I think the writers are asking for very little – 2 and a half percent, for goodness’ sake. You can’t say they’re asking for too much money when they’re asking for a percentage that little of the download – they’re clearly bringing in incremental advertising. I have been persuaded by certain by people I know, and I am on the writers’ side of this (chuckling knowingly), but I think there are problems in the system that need to be addressed.”
She continued, offering a suggestion as to where savings for producers might be found:
“I was just in New York, where the Broadway stagehands are also striking. I met with a Broadway actress, and I don’t want say her name, because I don’t think she’d want to be quoted, but she’s a famous Broadway actress who’s interested in being on TV. She said, ‘On the one hand, the stagehands are incredibly helpful to you as an actress when you’re backstage and they do so much for you. I don’t want to sound like I’m ungrateful. On the other hand, you go backstage and look around and you go, what do all you people do? There’s a stagehand who does this (Daniels moved her coffee cup incrementally in one direction) and there’s another stage hand who does this (she moved the cup in another direction). There’s a little too many. We want to pay the stagehands who work. We don’t want to pay all the stagehands.’
“And that’s what the argument’s about,” Daniels concluded. “I think there’s an analogy there a little bit. I think things have gotten out of control in terms of the production and the way it’s done. You always hear about these indie movies that are fabulous and are done for five cents – how come this [production] costs $1 million and that [one] costs $100 million? There are controls throughout the system that really need modifying.”
Consider a can of worms officially opened. Though any action upon Daniels’ observation could have a devastating effect on Hollywood’s below-the-line workforce, if you’ve ever been on a set and seen the scores of production assistants and grips and gaffers standing around endlessly waiting for a scene to be shot, you can tend to wonder what they all actually do.
Well, someone at “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” must be going through a messy divorce and getting taken by his wife: Tomorrow night’s episode involves an unfaithful wife and a man (Mark Valley) who doesn’t know his son actually isn’t. Another character even gets to rail, briefly, how unfair it is that divorced men must bankroll their exes, their exes’ lovers, and the progeny created by them. As the ugly triangle is revealed, the wife has some unsavory and unpleasant things occur along the way. It forces Stabler (Christopher Meloni) to question whether his recently estranged/now extremely pregnant wife Kathy (Isabel Gillies) is carrying his child.
Actually, this is a curlicue episode where that plotline is only the second of three semi-connected stories, the last of which is the compelling one, involving the much-promo’d scene in which Kathy is direly injured in an auto accident alongside Benson (Mariska Hargitay). That leads into a particularly intense sequence as firemen and paramedics race to rescue Kathy from the crushed car and deliver the baby as she both goes into labor and flatlines.
It all begins innocently enough (by “L&O: SVU” standards, at least) with a 3-year-old lost on the streets with blood on him. Turns out his nanny, who is revealed to be a Mormon slut, has been raped and murdered in his home, and his father is clueless about his wife’s promiscuity.
These plotlines are, more or less, quickly dispatched: Benson gets the perp in the Mormon murder to confess awfully easily; the little boy, focused on assiduously in the early acts, is forgotten by the end, his narrative unresolved.
Which brings us to the cataclysmic car crash. At NBC, vehicles coming out of nowhere to plow into cars carrying main characters have become the new black: “Bionic Woman” is entirely contingent upon one, and there was one on “Chuck” last night. “SVU’s,” as melodramatic as it is, rather ingeniously complicates the relationship between Stabler and Benson, who, you may recall, got cozy while he was estranged from Kathy.
The “Law & Order” franchise has rather assiduously avoided its characters’ personal lives, but at least here, now that they’re embracing them, they’ve found a pretty compelling way to do so.
- “Law & Order:” Special Victims Unit: 10 p.m. Tuesday, NBC Channel 4.
Instead of original episodes with scab writers, NBC is hoping to generate interest in “Tonight Show” repeats with theme weeks. Admittedly, they can be pretty anemic themes, but good to see that at least someone’s trying to think out there.
This week: The First Time Some Big Stars Sat Down with Jay. This sort of recycles NBC’s “It’s new to you” campaign that attempted to get viewers to watch reruns of shows they might have missed (that one didn’t work so well). And if you do remember any of these episodes, the only reasonable explanation can be that you’ve been in a coma since just after it initially aired; otherwise, they, in fact, will be new to you.
Though how much fun it will be to hear Julia Roberts work up enthusiasm for “The Pelican Brief,” Matt Damon tout his upcoming “The Legend of Bagger Vance” or Johnny Depp shrug off “Don Juan DeMarco” remains to be seen. And how we’ll be able to figure out which movies we’ll want to see this holiday season without our precious celebrities chuckling it up with Jay and Dave is anyone’s guess.
Tonight: Tom Hanks (from 1992).
Tuesday: Julia Roberts (1993).
Wednesday: Matt Damon (2000).
Thursday: Jennifer Aniston: (1995).
Friday: Johnny Depp (1995).
Suggestions for future themes: Rehab Week (Britney, Lindsay, David Hasselhoff, etc.), Slammer Week (Paris, Lindsay again, Nicole, Tom Sizemore, etc.), Celebrity Race-Baiting Week (Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, Rosie O’Donnell, Andy Dick, etc.).
Mark my words: You’re gonna crack open a book yet before this strike is over.
So TV Guide asked the Presidential candidates what they watched on TV, and after no doubt consulting with their advisers and spin-meisters, here’s what they came up with:
* Hillary Clinton: HGTV makeover shows, “Grey’s Anatomy,” “American Idol,” “Dancing with the Stars.” Her all-time favorite, however, is “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
Analysis: Safe choices all: Her ostensible viewership of three of the most popular programs on TV establishes her as part of the mainstream, not some radical fringe, and including “Grey’s Anatomy” indicates she hasn’t completely lost touch with her feminine side. The HGTV makeover shows offer a sly reference to the makeover she hopes to give the White House as well as American foreign and domestic policy, though, really: What Presidential candidate has time to watch HGTV makeover shows?
* Barack Obama: “Spongebob Squarepants,” “M*A*S*H” and “The Wire.”
Analysis: More quirky, more personal choices, though he can wriggle his way out of the eccentric choice of “Spongebob” because he notes it’s a show he watches with his daughters; its mildly subversive subtext gets transformed into a family-values sort of deal. “M*A*S*H” connects with both the anti-war and TV Land contingents, but does his inclusion of “The Wire” suggest he, like the show’s producers, believes the War on Drugs cannot ever be won?
* John Edwards: “Boston Legal,” Fred Thompson’s turns on “Law & Order.”
Analysis: The shout-out to Thompson indicates both a willingness to reach out across the aisle in a display of bipartisanship and a hint that Thompson may have better career choices than Presidential candidate. As for “Boston Legal,” you can take the guy out of the civil-litigator world but you can’t take the civil-litigator out of the guy. I’d’ve figured him more of an “NCIS” guy, since he reminds me of a better-coifed Mark Harmon.
* Dennis Kucinich: “The Tonight Show,” “The Late Show,” “The Daily Show,” “The Colbert Report” and “Saturday Night Live.”
Analysis: He only likes the shows that mention him (because good luck finding the news networks doing so). He gets points for admitting that he doesn’t mind when they make fun of him (which they invariably do), but points subtracted for including the invariably unfunny “SNL” and usually unfunny “Tonight Show.”
* John McCain: “Prison Break,” “because as a fellow prisoner, I always dreamed and plotted how I would break out of the Hanoi Hilton.”
Analysis: Seems a decent enough response, if you’ve never seen the show. On the other hand, if you have, you realize that evil governmental conspiracies are a huge component – and that, honestly, the show is downright perverse.
* Mitt Romney: “Lost” (“a very captivating plot, and if you live a busy life, escape is always welcome”).
Analysis: This would’ve played better had he offered this a year or more back, when the show was actually popular. The Book of Mormon has a very captivating plot with escapist elements, as well.
* Fred Thompson: “SportsCenter.” “I always need to stay up on my Titans, Vols, Vanderbilt and, of course, my Memphis Tigers.”
Analysis: Like virtually every answer he’s given since he actually became a candidate, it’s pretty week. Not the “SportsCenter” part – it establishes him as a man’s man, and all that – but his fan’s myopia suggests an unwillingness to consider alternative points of view (can USC fans trust him? can Yankees fans? Mavericks or Lakers fans? and why no love for the Grizzlies?) that could signal a return to the political gridlock we already have in Washington. And could the fact that he didn’t mention any Hollywood product while happily accepting money from Hollywood be construed by an opponent’s spin-meister as hypocrisy of some sort?
* Mike Gravel: “Wonder Showzen,” “Extreme Elimination Challenge,” “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List.”
Analysis: Well, I made that up. But I wouldn’t be surprised.
As the writers and producers return to the bargaining table for the first time in nearly a month (key quote: "Both sides need to shut up and stay in the room until they get this resolved," one labor insider said. "They've shown that this can't be negotiated in the press or on the picket line"), the hope is that the news blackout will put an end to the “So’s your mother!”/“I know you are but what am I?” sparring that highlighted the negotiations heretofore.
Meanwhile, Variety unveils a survey of its readership that reveals that though two-thirds are sympathetic to the writers, most also believe that in the end, the producers will end up getting more of what they want.
Only 19% believe the writers will get most of what they’re seeking (among only WGA members, the total goes up to only 21% –even SAG members are more optimistic, with 27% thinking the writers will work out a good deal, while only 11% of directors and IATSE members expecting good tings for the writers), while 44% believe the producers will win out. Writers are just a smidgen more optimistic here, as well, with 42% projecting the producers to prevail. Half or more than half of the Directors Guild and IATSE members polled expected the producers to kvetch all the way to the bank.
71% think (hope?) the strike will end within three months; 29% believe it could last from three months up to a year. All believe the strike will hurt them financially, including 82% of the writers themselves. 31% said the strike was a mistake, though only 16% of the writers and 15% of the actors. 77% think viewers will watch less TV as a result of the strike, as opposed to only 15% who think people will go to fewer movies. (Full results here.)
Meanwhile, Nikki Finke reports that a deal is kinda sorta already done and that the thing may be resolved by Christmas. Or maybe not. So we’re still a long way away from hearing “God bless us, everyone” or “Bah, humbug.”
Headline in The Onion: “Writers’ Strike To Hit TV Land in 14 Years.” Onto more on this otherwise quiet day:
* If this thing keeps going, it’s going to cost the L.A. economy $21 million per day. By contrast, the ’88 strike cost about $3 million per day.
* Since renewed talks will begin Monday, some writers who are also showrunners will return to their producing duties. Some already have on the hush-hush. Also: Writers are wary of separate negotiations between the Directors Guild of America and AMPTP. Peter Lefcourt warned writers who are also directors that their negotiating as directors would be like “Hitler dangling a separate peace in front of Stalin.” Sounds like everyone hates everyone in Hollywood.
* The WGA’s no-writing-during-the-strike rule actually hurts writers. So probably a bunch of them are working on spec scripts while no one’s looking.
* If sending peanuts to CBS could get them to renew “Jericho,” then perhaps sending pencils to producers might weaken their resolve to screw the writers. Or at least that’s the hope of this vaguely amusing YouTube clip. One commenter pointed out: “If the writers put out as much funny stuff before the strike as they have after the strike, maybe people wouldn't have abandoned TV.”
In this clip, King discusses the non-terview. Amusingly, it lasts more than twice as long as the interview itself. Bizarrely, King reveals that Adams actually stuck around until the end of the show after he walked off.
And in this clip, CNN's Lola Ogunnaike further deconstructs the incident. Pretty impressive how the absolute absence of news becomes news itself.
Not sure what the big deal is. The White House has been throwing press conferences then refusing to answer questions for years.
Thanksgiving Day miracles tragedies
Winds and cartoon balloons: They’re part of a Thanksgiving tradition in New York, where the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade can be more dangerous than any full season of “Survivor.”
In 1997, a Cat in the Hat balloon, buffeted by 37-mph winds, careened into a light post, breaking it and injuring four, including one woman who spent a day in a coma and won a multimillion lawsuit against the city. It was the worst tragedy involving the Cat in the Hat until the Mike Myers movie. Other balloons collapsed due to wind gusts, though with far less carnage.
In 1993, a Sonic the Hedgehog balloon collided with a Columbus Circle lamppost, injuring an off-duty police officer.
In 2005, the chaos baton was handed to an M&M balloon, which pretty much did the same thing: It melted into a lamppost, not in your hand, only this time it injured a woman in a wheelchair and her 11-year-old sister. The following year, the city decided that the balloons should hover at far lower levels in order to avoid such high winds, although some argued that balloons should be erased from the mix altogether.
Thursday’s forecast for New York? Warm, with rain expected in the late afternoon. Here’s hoping the “Today” show cast offering voice-overs will be prepared to ad-lib should more anarchy ensue. At any rate, it adds a little drama to a pretty staid event.
* Thousands of striking writers marched down Hollywood Blvd. this afternoon in a two-hour rally. Alicia Keys performed and homeless guys (or guys pretending to be homeless guys) wielded signs reading “Bums support writers.”
“One crucial fact that has been somewhat overlooked during the strike is that we, the members of the AMPTP, as producers of television programs and motion picture entertainment, have always believed that writers should be compensated when their work is distributed through new media and that they deserve to share in whatever success new technologies create. … We believe that a new, fair deal is possible. As an industry, we have done such deals before. We will do them again.”
* Meanwhile, CBS News employees repped by the Writers Guild have voted overwhelmingly – 81% were in favor – to approve a strike. A walkout is not imminent, though the network unsurprisingly deemed the vote “unfortunate.”
* Not unexpectedly, late night ratings are in freefall now that everything’s in repeats (from 37% for Leno to nearly 50% for “Saturday Night Live;” “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” are hurting, too, down 35% and 28%, respectively.
"‘If I were someone like Les Moonves, I'd be scared,’ [Tony] Gilroy [writer/director of ‘Michael Clayton’] says. ‘You don't want your employees thinking about opening their own store around the corner. We might be really tough competitors.’”
* An update on how many more original episodes of your favorites you have remaining to enjoy.
“As the strike drags on, an entertainment-starved audience might soon turn on Hollywood,” warns a former “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” writer (who isn’t). His musings are accompanied by a photo of a sad-eyed Tina Fey.
Against my better instincts, I watched the first two episodes of “Frank TV,” the no-budget sketch show featuring “Mad TV’s” celebrity impersonator Frank Caliendo.
It’s not awful, but then, it’s not very good, either. When the whole point of a show is recognition humor (because the jokes themselves aren’t particularly sharp), you know you’re in for a bit of a slog. But, hey: Every other late-night series is in repeats.
Caliendo personally seems like a nice enough guy. Some of his impersonations are amusing enough (his John Madden is so withering I don’t see how the real version manages to show his face in public anymore). He introduces sketches before a live-studio audience (that must’ve been thrilled to discover that they had hired a babysitter and driven to the studio only to discover that most of the bits had been pre-taped) on a generic sitcom set over which he kind of overly ooh’s and ah’s. He brings members of said audience up onto the set to serve as co-hosts, which tends to result in, tonight at least, not a whole lot. (Next week’s co-host gets a little more air time, because she has a Paris Hilton anecdote.)
But as with most sketch-comedy shows, the sketches themselves tend to be one-joke ideas (Al Pacino’s over the top! Robert De Niro’s borderline menacing!) that run far too long. The political skits (one about Bill Clinton – who’s a horndog! – tonight, one about George W. Bush – who’s not terribly bright! – next week, both focusing on their most obvious peccadilloes) aren’t, naturally, political, but they’re not funny, either. And next week’s episode is padded with home-movie footage of Frank coaxing his son into impersonating Bush that, well, Frank and all of his relatives will no doubt find quite endearing; the rest of us, not so much.
- “Frank TV:” 11 tonight, TBS.
Here’s an announcement that’ll have you on your knees imploring your deity to pleasepleaseplease end this writers strike: The cast of “‘Celebrity’ Apprentice” was announced today, further proving that TV reality shows have a fairly skewed notion as to what constitutes celebrity.
The ones you’ve likely heard of:
* Vincent Pastore (“The Sopranos”’ Big Pussy, whose career has slept with the fishes ever since his character did the same)
* Gene Simmons (who can’t whore himself fast enough: Did you know there’s a KISS credit card now?)
* Stephen Baldwin (whose career consists of “The Usual Suspects,” documentary tributes to “The Usual Suspects,” “Celebrity Mole,” “Celebrity Blackjack,” “Celebrity Fear Factor” and a bunch of movies you wouldn’t watch on a bet)
* Carol Alt (former supermodel, current hockey groupie)
* Lennox Lewis (former heavyweight boxing champ)
* Marilu Henner (she starred on “Taxi” back in the day)
The ones whose faces you can’t place but whose names may sound faintly familiar:
* Trace Adkins (a country singer whose oeuvre includes, seriously, the ditty “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”)
* Nadia Comaneci (Olympic gymnastics gold medalist at the ’38 Berlin games, or some such)
* Omarosa (she played the bitch in the first “Apprentice” series)
The ones you have no idea who they are
* Tiffany Fallon (Playboy model)
* Tito Ortiz (Ultimate Fighting Champion)
* Piers Morgan (judge on “America’s Got Talent”)
* Jennie Finch (Olympic softball player)
* And Nely Galan, who has the distinction of being an executive producer on one of TV’s most ghastly productions ever, “The Swan,” in which depressed women subjected themselves to plastic surgery and then competed in a beauty pageant and then went back to being depressed.
Donald Trump insists this is the cream of the crop of the 125 who were desperate for some face time with a TV camera. We can only wish Courtney Peldon, Bai Ling, Carrot Top and Stephen Hawking better luck next time.
“Walk Hard:” The Dewey Cox Writers Strike Story
With renewed talks between writers and producers scheduled to begin, as we’ve previously noted, next Monday, and the holiday week truncating strikers’ walking-the-picket-line activities, there’s still plenty of strike updates:
* Turns out that television production isn’t the only thing affected by the strike: Two movies have had to push back their start dates, if they’ll ever get made at all. But, since they’re movies I likely wouldn’t see, even on a bet – the sequel to “The Da Vinci Code;” an Oliver Stone movie starring Bruce Willis – I’m not all that broken up about this.
On the other hand, Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to “Borat,” “Bruno: Silly Gay Character Humiliates Unwitting Imbecilic Fashion Designers For To Make Americans More Antipathy to German Eurotrash,” may also be affected. Some of this story's reportage seems disingenuous, however, as rumors strongly suggest the film has already been filming for quite some time now, and the anonymous producer’s bluster – “I will write and fix it” – sounds too idiotic too be taken seriously.
* Discoursing on the stagehand strike that has darkened the lights (and stages) of Broadway, the New York Times offers this taunt in the direction of the writers: Ha-ha, the pen may be mightier than the sword, but the stagehand is actually mightier than the pen:
“(T)he stagehands, who began striking almost a week after the writers, are most likely the ones who will be heading back to work first. The writers still confront the stalemate over distribution of revenues from digital content. So how will 400 or so (mostly) beefy guys in Manhattan accomplish what currently seems beyond the reach of the 12,000 members of the writers’ guild?
“Begin with the fact that the stagehands have actual leverage — the ability to shut down moneymaking entertainment that occurs at a specific time and place. Writers are increasingly part of a digital economy, where entertainment comes from every direction, and shutting off the spigot is next to impossible.”
Meow. Well, good point, I guess, but what would these stage hands be doing if someone hadn’t actually gone to the trouble of writing those plays and musicals gracing 42nd Street?
* Years of effortless charming has apparently not taught Ellen DeGenerous how not to step into a deep wide swatch of crap: She opined to the Daily News’ Greg Hernandez, of her decision to cross the strike line to continue her talk-show, “It’s just the hardest thing in the world to drive on this lot.”
I’ll try to not let having watched a documentary on the genocide in Darfur Sunday evening color my response to DeGeneres’s “It’s all about me” comment, but will note that it might be just a smidgen harder for writers who make a whole lot less than she and are sacrificing their relative long-term financial comfort in order to get their fair share of the Entertainment-Industrial Complex’s financial pie.
* Sarah Silverman offers her quite diplomatic thoughts on the producers’ stance on the strike, which will no doubt assuage the AMPTP when they resume talks: “My instinct is that they’re douchebags. … These are people who have families and kids and jets.”
* Strike or no strike, ABC has thrown down with “Dirty Sexy Money,” giving it a (fairly meaningless, at this point) full-season pickup, and since the show is so clearly lacking in sexual chicanery, is adding Lolita Davidovich to the cast as yet another potential mistress.
As we’ve noted, it’s a bit of a mystery as to why this show isn’t doing better, but it’s heartening that ABC likes it enough to extend this ephemeral ray of hope.
* This blog’s latest favorite new movie, “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium” (which just has to be the most desperate-sounding title ever), pretty much tanked at the box office this weekend, suggesting that only certain writers should go on strike for months and months on end. Just think how much better this film would’ve been if Anton Chigurh of “No Country for Old Men” (which is really this blog’s favorite new movie) had been allowed to roam free through it, laying to utter waste the bland banalities that cluttered the production.
* To justify the “Walk Hard” headline, here’s a “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” clip with enough d!ck puns to sustain you for the entire week.
At last, some good strike-related news: On Monday, Nov. 26, after fattening themselves on Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing, writers and producers will sit down and glare at each other renew talks in an effort to reach a settlement. The strike will continue, of course, with a demonstration/rally in Hollywood on Tuesday. Strikers will take the rest of the holiday week off, and resume just as talks commence on the 26th.
First order of business, reportedly, will have AMPTP president Nick Counter requesting strikers to tone down the picket signs speculating on the length of his genitalia.
In a statement, officials said: "No other details or press statements will be issued." Which was a huge surprise, since they haven’t exactly been issuing very detailed information for the past month anyway.
* Meanwhile, in case you were feeling the love a little too much from that previous item, don’t: NBC informed the casts of “The Office,” “30 Rock” and “Bionic Woman” that they were suspending them on half-pay for five weeks. Sony told the stars of “’Til Death” and “Rules of Engagement” that they’re getting put on unpaid hiatus. And Warner Bros. TV upped the ante, threatening job losses on its shows, including “Pushing Daisies,” “ER,” “Without a Trace” and “Cold Case.”
* NBC, as expected, has acquired “Quarterlife,” the MySpace drama about whiny tech-savvy twentysomethings from “thirtysomething” creators Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick. “Quarterlife” debuted last Sunday; two eight-minute installments are currently available (on the above link). NBC will knit these installments together into hour-long episodes.
Due to the show’s ownership structure, “Quarterlife” is exempt from the writers strike, meaning it can remain in production indefinitely.
Tributes are pouring in from around the globe to the late Norman Mailer, the esteemed egotist and pugnacious author of such acclaimed works as “Advertisements for Myself,” “The Prisoner of Sex,” “Tough Guys Don’t Dance,” “Of Women and Their Elegance” and something called “The Naked and the Dead.” I chanced upon Mailer late one evening in 1987 in a tavern in Flatbush, and it was a memorable occasion, one Mailer later wrote about in his picaresque “The Castle in the Forest,” his last published novel.
Mailer was sitting alone in a booth in a corner, his face ashen and forlorn, no doubt because he was cradling a tepid Coors Light. I rambled in, full of youth and the bluster that comes with it, with a clutch of drunken friends looking to spoil someone’s evening. I sent them to the bar to clean out the establishment’s tequila supply, boisterously called out to Mailer, “Scoot over, Tubby!” and head-butted him, sending him careening into the nearby wall.
“Jesus, what the – ,” Mailer sputtered. “Can’t you just leave me alone? I’m content to sit in this hazy darkness with the ghosts of my failures and the memories of what was never to be.”
“Can it, Norm,” I bellowed. “I’m here to ramble elegiacally about manhood, about mistresses, about evil and Japanese manga. And you’re going to listen!”
“Please,” he whimpered, and off I was, delivering a magnificent soliloquy on faith and mortality. I punched a hole the size of a fist into the concrete wall (to this day, the knuckles of my right hand are granulated powder) and laughed the keening laugh of a colossus astride a braying goat.
My hail chums brought over a case of Jose Cuervo Especial, and one by one I knocked each bottle back, as an ordinary man would a shot glass. To this day, my blood-alcohol content level measures .23.
“If I’m not mistaken, you like to gaze into the abyss, stare evil in its face, and walk away with a sorrowful wisdom,” I told him. “This is me, unimpressed,” I continued. “What do you know about evil? I, sir, can teach you about evil, for I cover the television industry!” Mailer’s face curdled ever so slightly, and he swallowed anemically.
“You think you know women, don’t you, Mailer?” I asked rhetorically. “You stabbed a broad once, am I right, and that imbues you with insight into the spectral majesty that is our fairer sex? Well, do you see that dame over there – ” and, here, I pointed to a specimen of inordinate pulchritude at a nearby table trying desperately not to make eye contact with me – “do you see her? You do, don’t you?” I pulled a revolver tucked into my belt in the small of my back and shot her in the clavicle. “Well, now I think I know a little bit more about women than you do!”
I leaned into Mailer, my breath rancid with hubris, and bit off a chunk of his left ear, spitting it to the floor with a rueful laugh. “And now if you’ll forgive me, Norman, I have a previously arranged assignation with one Miss Tipper Gore.” I lurched from the booth, picked up the chunk of Mailer’s ear I had spat to the floor, wiped it off with a cocktail napkin and tucked it into a pocket. Chortling like fiends, my entourage and I ambled from the bar into the nascent dawn in search of greater truths and more tequila. Mailer crawled under his table and curled into the fetal position.
I learned much from Norman Mailer that night. Such as, don’t be such a douchebag.
“Nov. 17 at 11:30 p.m., the UCB Theater will host ‘Saturday Night Live-ON STRIKE!,’ which, according to Playbill, will feature a collection of the best sketches from the show and musical guest Yo La Tengo. It will be hosted by Michael Cera of ‘Superbad’ and ‘Arrested Development.’
“Nov. 19 at 8 p.m., the cast of 30 Rock will perform ‘30 Rock-ON STRIKE!,’ a live performance from an episode of the Emmy Award-winning comedy.”
Needless to say, the shows are already sold out.
Someone in L.A. should take this idea and run with it, though the local UCB is awfully tiny. But I’m sure some theater would thoughtfully open its doors to “The Office-ON STRIKE!” But they better do this quick, while someone in town still has a little discretionary income to throw around.
* Next year’s awards shows won’t be terribly funny without writers honing their jokes. Then again, when are awards shows ever really funny? (The Golden Globes float along without jokes; they just get their attendees really gassed for America’s bemusement.)
* And one awards show has already bitten the dust thanks to the writers strike. Of course, since it’s TV Guide’s Online Video Awards, that hardly qualifies as a tragedy.
“It is impossible to make money off the Internet, and if you don’t believe me, Google it.”
(Someone, somewhere, is going to wrangle all the satirical shorts into handy DVD form and make some serious money. Of course, the writers won’t see a dime.)
And producers fire up another (mock) web page with their response:
“And what would TV be without reality programming? Totally awesome, I know. But humor me. Because now that we’re free of these bloodsucking, baby-hating, gold- and candy-eschewing writers, reality can finally cast off its leg braces, and run free! FREE! RUN, REALITY PROGRAMMING, RUN!
“We’re developing so many new reality shows, that there isn’t space in the physical known universe to list them all. But here’s a delicious sampling.
* CELEBRITY BEER PONG
* PIMP MY PANCREAS
* ARE YOU GONNA EAT THAT?
* EYE SWAP
* AMERICAN RABBI
* THE NEXT TOP REALITY SHOW
* ARE YOU SMARTER THAN THE GIRLS NEXT DOOR?”
In the real world, producer Gavin Polone (“Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Tell Me You Love Me,” “My Super Ex-Girlfriend” and, uh, “Celebrity Blackjack” and “Celebrity Temps”) dropped a few scuds on the writers on the Fox Business Channel:
On how the writers’ strike is benefiting the studios:
“This strike, right now, at this point in time, is positive for the earnings of all these studios, I’m sure…Now, these companies are so vertically integrated that they’re going to make money from a lot of different sources…They’re making more money right now because they’ve lowered their costs…The studios are using this as an excuse [to save money]…What’s going to happen is that the people who aren’t watching Lost right now are going to say I’ll go watch something else on ABC Family, which is still owned by Disney. The same corporate conglomerate will still make money.”
On how the writers’ strike is benefiting producers:
“In a weird way, it has allowed me to push forward a lot of scripts that would normally have taken a long time to get to the point where they could be produced because everyone likes to tinker with them. Not having the writers available, and having the threat of a SAG strike, which is potentially going to happen on June 30th, has gotten the studios to not tinker at all with the scripts and to push more things into production because after June 30th they might not be able to produce anything.”
On how long the strike will last:
“I think it’s going to go on for quite a long time. I think it could go one for easily six months. This whole thing is a debacle. It really has been mishandled by the Writers’ Guild.”
On the writers losing their leverage:
“They [the writers] just gave away their leverage. All their leverage was before they called a strike. That’s when they had the gun to the heads of the studios. They misread the strength of the studios at this particular time and those running the studios. These aren’t guys you can push around by walking outside of their houses with signs. Sumner Redstone isn’t going to give in because he sees people with signs outside of the studio.”
Sunday at 11 a.m. on AMC’s “Shootout,” you can hear Peter Bart, Peter Guber and Marc Norman discuss the strike, including these ripostes:
Norman on WGA members’ sentiments before the strike:
“I’m on the negotiating committee. We went to a meeting with 3000 writers downtown at the Convention Center about a week ago. There were open mikes in the audience. We, on the negotiating committee, and we, on the board, sat on a dais and let writers express their feelings about what we were about to do. The mikes were open for two and a half hours and not one person spoke against the strike. The most common emotion expressed was why are we not striking now, why are we waiting until Monday. How long that will last I cannot say. However, in 1988, there was already a verbal, vocal minority in the Guild against the strike and those people undermined the strike and are the reason it had an unhappy outcome. Those people don’t exist at this time or haven’t shown up yet. I have never seen the Guild stronger.”
Norman on the final moments of Sunday’s negotiations and why the WGA decided to strike:
“I was in the room of the Sofitel hotel on Sunday and I saw us (WGA) give up 50% of our main issues to make a deal. We gave up DVDs to make a deal on the Internet and we were hoping that would induce the other side to responding on the Internet issues and it didn’t.”
Host Guber on studio leadership during the Writers’ Strike:
“There isn’t a leader that I see in the studio system that there were in the 80s with Lew Wasserman or somebody who can grab the ear of the other studios, hold them and really catalyze them into a result.”
Guber on how the strike may affect advertising and audiences:
“I’m not sure the audience will come back they way they did in 1988 and there’s a reason why. In 1988, you didn’t have the Internet. You didn’t have video games. Now you have alternatives. In four years, the advertising dollars are going to double on the Internet, but maybe in two years or one year if the strike continues.”
Host Bart on why the studios may have wanted the strike:
“There is a body of thought that the major conglomerates that own Hollywood really wanted a strike or at least don’t resent one because they can unload a lot of production deals and deadwood. It’s a nice way of ‘writing’ off some problems.”
"The striking Writers Guild [of America] members are fighting an important battle to protect their creative rights. These writers deserve to be compensated fairly for their work, and I commend their courage in standing up to big media conglomerates. As someone who has walked picket lines with workers all across America and as a strong believer in collective bargaining, I hope that both sides are able to quickly reach a just settlement."
Hey, Gordon Ramsay is looking for more restaurants where he can scrape maggots off the walls of underpowered walk-in refrigerators. So if you’ve ever eaten somewhere that had you projectile-vomiting for days thanks to its imbalanced e.-coli-to-cumin ratio, and want to do that joint a solid, let ’em know that Fox’s “Kitchen Nightmares” is looking for more crappy eateries to humiliate-then-resuscitate for its next season.
Per the press release:
Please contact the following -
Tami @ 310-387-6775: Atlanta, Chicago, Texas, Indianapolis, Detroit, Alabama, New Orleans
Debbie @ 917-374-7614 or Lisa @ 917-678-9996: NY/Tristate Area, Boston, Philadelphia
All other cities consult this website, or call: 1-866- 226-2226, or Email: KitchenNightmares@theconlincompany.com.
Thanks to an evening spent less-than-jubilantly puking out the window of a friend’s car, I can think of a certain Silver Lake Mexican restaurant on Sunset Blvd. that should seriously consider contacting these folks.
As the writers strike prepares to conclude the second of its 48-week run, here’s the latest:
Item! Who knew? America loves its writers. Polls show an overwhelming majority support the striking writers – a Pepperdine poll found that a measly 4% were behind the producers. Another poll, underwritten by KABC Channel 7, found 8% sympathetic with the CEOs and titans of industry. (Who knew that 8% of America were CEOs and titans of industry?)
The bad news: It may not matter. “But how that [public relations] weapon might ultimately help the writers accomplish their strike goals is not completely clear. … (C)onsidering competing issues such as the war in Iraq, it may not be that easy to get the general public outside the Hollywood bubble to care.”
Item! Networks are, surprise surprise, tightening their belts. (Hey, if they want tips on how to squeeze blood from a stone, they should contact my bosses.)
Item! More back-channeling: Networks are cozying up to late-night hosts to try to get them to return to the air. No doubt this is because ABC's newsmagazine "Nightline" is beginning to dominate the late-night ratings. The big problem: “Nobody wants to be the first to go back.”
Item! Networks aren’t sure what to do about their idled actors, but SAG has a suggestion: Pay them.
“In SAG's view, studios have three basic options for dealing with TV series contracts under the force majeure rules: put actors on hold at full salary; put them on a five-week suspension at half their regular salary; or outright terminate them, though they can be recalled when production resumes. Complicating matters is that studios may deal with various shows and thesps in different ways.”
Given this, prepare to hear soon about the cancellation of a lot of the new series. Once all their original episodes have been burned off, that is.
Item! Considering life without TV, 42% told incredulous pollsters they’d spend those empty hours reading (subscription required). Then, they laughed and said, “Naw, man, just f@%&in’ with you. I’d probably just spark up some bud and stare at my lava lamp.”
Item! A new blog, Get Back in That Room, lists the people who have reported to the site that they’ve been laid off due to the strike. Total to date: More than 300. (And, given how slow the Daily News blogging system is these days, probably another 100 or so have been added since I initially tried to post this entry.)
Item! Boyoboy, does Judith Regan have some dirt on Fox News’ cozy relationship with Rudy 9iu11ani. (Yeah, I know it’s not a strike story, but it’s really hilariously juicy nonetheless.)
* A Bright Eyes lyric
David Bianculli, who was a punchline in a rough cut of a “Sopranos” episode (excised before it aired) and whom Donald Trump mistook me for during an interview (surely, those credentials alone are enough to establish his credibility), explains Stephen Colbert as beautifully and insightfully as anyone could want. Maybe he cobbled all my Colbert blog entries together in one wonderful essay or maybe he’s just really good. Even I suggest the latter.
… other than the fact that there won’t be one soon, is NBC’s “Bionic Woman.” It has p!ssed away more than half of the audience that tuned in for its debut. Last night, a scant 6.3 million viewers showed up – far fewer than CBS’s “Criminal Minds” (15.7m) and ABC’s “Private Practice” (11.45m); even Fox’s “Kitchen Nightmares” trounced it with nearly 7m viewers.
Even worse – “Life,” a show NBC didn’t have a whole lot of faith in, for the first time last night did better than “Bionic Woman” (close to 7m).
Guess they didn’t rebuild it, better than before.
Given that everyone in Hollywood will soon be having a lot of time on their hands, they might want to consider auditioning for CBS’s “Big Brother,” the reality competition that consists mainly of sitting around in front of a battery of TV cameras and wondering how you’re being depicted before the nation.
Years and years ago, I spent a weekend in the Big Brother house (they had a lot of Ikea furniture, some of which broke when you sat on it; I understand they’ve since upgraded), so I can explain the drill: You drink a lot. Or, you wait until an appropriate hour so you can begin drinking. If you’re an @sshole, you try to make everyone else’s lives miserable.
That’s about it. Anyway, CBS is doing its first cycle of the show outside of the summer months because it’s not expecting the strike to end anytime soon and this can fill three or more hours of primetime a week. So they’re looking for people who are either jobless or homeless or just like attention, and they’re conducting auditions throughout the country, beginning this Saturday in Los Angeles and Columbia, South Carolina. One is a late-night troll at a bar; that should be interesting.
Here’s the online application (along with a photo of a jerk giving the devil sign; be aware that’s the sort of person you’ll likely be hanging out with), and herewith, the audition schedule:
Nov. 17
Los Angeles: Exclusive Casting Studios, 7700 Sunset Blvd. (12 Noon-3 PM)
Columbia, S.C.: WLTX-TV, 6027 Garners Ferry Road (10 AM-2 PM)
Nov. 18
New York: NY Castings, 243 West 30th Street, 3rd. Floor (12 Noon-8 PM)
Here's today's story on the rest of the TV season in its entirety. Good luck stifling your gag reflex.
With the writers strike soon to conclude its second week, no one is expecting it to be resolved anytime soon – the sides haven’t even scheduled a return to the bargaining table. Which means the networks have been busily looking to fill the holes in their schedules that will be left when their scripted shows run out of fresh episodes.
Some networks have a few scripted midseason replacement series that they’ll be able to introduce, though some of these may have completed as few as six episodes. All have started snapping up reality and/or prime-time game shows, though a preponderance of recent network reality shows dating back to this past summer have met with disappointing viewership.
Fox, despite losing “24” for the season – only eight episodes were completed before the strike, and the network acknowledges that the show is most successful when an entire season runs straight through – finds itself in the strongest position should the strike wear on, thanks to its “American Idol” juggernaut. Traditionally, the series commands six of the network’s 15 hours of programming during its initial weeks, and can easily be expanded throughout its run.
Moreover, expect more newsmagazines to infiltrate the airwaves. CBS’s “60 Minutes” may package sundry segments into themed specials (celebrity profiles, etc.) and “48 Hours Mystery” could increase production. NBC's “Dateline” might expand to three telecasts per week. ABC's “Primetime” newsmagazine is developing spin-off series such as “Family Secrets,” “Medical Mysteries” and “The Outsiders.”
Herewith, shows announced as being available to the networks for the remainder of the season. Networks may also plug series from their sister cable networks into schedule holes. Where available, premiere dates are listed.
ABC
ABC enjoyed the greatest success of any network with its new scripted shows, with four – “Samantha Who?”, “Private Practice,” “Pushing Daisies” and “Women’s Murder Club” – luring large enough audiences to garner renewals for a second season. Though the strike may dilute the momentum of those shows, the network has a number of scripted and reality shows to tide it over for the remainder of the season.
“According to Jim:” Jim Belushi’s long-running sitcom, initially cancelled, was eventually brought back as a midseason replacement.
“Miss Guided:” Sitcom starring Judy Greer as a high-school guidance counselor whose own life could use some direction.
“Cashmere Mafia:” From “Sex and the City’s” Darren Starr, this dramedy starring Lucy Liu, Miranda Otto, Frances O'Connor and Bonnie Somerville as four friends who also happen to be high-powered businesswomen was pulled from a debut later this month to enhance the schedule later in the season.
“Eli Stone:” Drama starring Jonny [cq] Lee Miller as an attorney on a spiritual quest.
“Notes from the Underbelly” (premieres 9:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 26): Second-season debut of the sitcom about young couples coping with parenthood.
“Duel” (premieres 8 p.m. Monday, Dec. 17, continuing through Sunday, Dec. 23): This game show rewarding bluffing receives “Deal or No Deal’s” launch – a full week of originals at a time most shows are in repeats.
“Dance Wars: Bruno Vs. Carrie Ann” (8 p.m. Mondays beginning Jan. 7): “Dancing With the Stars” spinoff focusing on two choreographers.
“Oprah’s Big Give:” The summer series highlighting talk-show host Winfrey’s altruism returns.
“Here Come the Newlyweds:” The comic “Newlywed Game,” re-imagined.
“Wanna Bet?”: Celebrities raise cash for charity by deciding whether other contestants can perform odd, unlikely and embarrassing stunts.
“Wife Swap:” The spouse-switch reality show returns.
“Supernanny:” The tough-love child-discipline reality show returns.
CBS
CBS experienced a rare disappointing fall, as none of its new series really clicked (though “Moonlight” performed serviceably on Fridays, where expectations are lowered); “Viva Laughlin” was quickly cancelled after but two episodes.
“Swingtown:” “Ice Storm”-type drama about ’70s swingers, starring Molly Parker (“Deadwood”).
“Jericho:” Last season’s post-apocalyptic drama was cancelled, then brought back, after a campaign by its fans, for seven additional episodes.
“The New Adventures of Old Christine:” Though Julia-Louis Dreyfuss won an Emmy for her comic turn as a divorcee remaking her life, ratings were wan, but it returns as a midseason replacement.
“The Captain:” A comedy writer whose career is on the skids (given this strike, whose isn’t these days?) moves into an apartment complex populated by eccentrics in this sitcom. Jeffrey Tambor and Raquel Welch co-star.
“Comanche Moon” (9 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 30, 9 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 1 and Wednesday, Jan. 2): Miniseries sequel to “Lonesome Dove.”
“Million-Dollar Password:” Regis Philbin hosts this prime-time resurrection of the classic game show.
“Big Brother:” The summer perennial reality competition series pitting houseguests seeking to remain in a Studio City home in its first spring incarnation.
“Do You Trust Me?”: Quiz show hosted by Tucker Carlson in which contestants must rely upon, rather than vanquish, one another.
“Power of 10:” The Drew Carey-hosted game show on pop-culture polls returns.
As usual, new cycles of “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race” will return.
Fox
The network, which traditionally stumbles in the fall only to rebound come January, did well this year thanks to post-season baseball, Tuesday’s “House”/“Bones” tandem and its perennially popular Sunday-night lineup of animated comedies. Plus, it has the lion’s share of the college-football bowl games. However, its Friday fall reality series (“Nashville,” “The Next Great American Band”) quickly tanked.
Fox also has the Super Bowl on Sunday, Feb. 3, which it will follow with an original episode of “House” featuring guest-star Mira Sorvino.
“Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” (premieres 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 13; thereafter, 9 p.m. Mondays through March 3): Spinoff of the “Terminator” movies, starring Lena Headey (“300”), Summer Glau (“Firefly,” “Serenity”) and Thomas Dekker (“Heroes”).
“New Amsterdam” (premieres 9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22): Drama about immortal New York police detective John Amsterdam (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who will become mortal only upon encountering his true love. Fox first moved this series off the fall schedule, then cut its order of episodes to s