Oh, great, now they're going to ruin August, too

Traditionally, July was the cruelest of months for TV critics, because that was when the horror of the Television Critics' Association's summer Press Tour occurred, three weeks of 10-hour days of untrammeled yammering from showrunners about the deep metaphysical underpinnings behind a show about a fat boor and his hot wife or from actors about their characters' "journeys."

Well, now they've pushed it back so that it'll eat up a significant chunk of August, too, according to Variety:

"A significant reason for the move is that this year with so many shows having no pilot episode in the can because of the writers strike, there were several panels that were somewhat unproductive. Crix had a hard time discussing the show with cast and crew when they hadn't seen anything yet."

Hahaha, "several" panels were "somewhat" unproductive. Variety continues:

"In one particular exchange, 'Kings' star Ian McShane started ripping into a scribe who wasn't quite sure of where the show's story takes place."

Well, to be fair, critics weren't allowed to see the pilot before the press conference (and are still waiting, in fact). And Francis Lawrence and Erwin Stoff, producers of this David-and-Goliath update, didn't seem to be too sure of where the show's story took place, either, as you can see from the transcript:

("Off with the scribe's head!")

QUESTION: What world does this take place in? I mean are -- the flag is not -- it looks like the U.S. military, but the flag is not the U.S. flag. Are these literally kings?

FRANCIS LAWRENCE: Yeah, what we did was we created an alternate world so it's a world that feels very familiar. We shot it in New York, but we changed the landscape and we sort of built everything from the ground up. The country is run by a monarchy. Ian is the king. We changed -- you know, it's a country that's run by the metric system, so signs change. The military uniforms are slightly different. Obviously the flag is different. We've gotten sort of rid of almost all the signs of pop culture from the world. We started from the ground up and decided what are all the little details that you need to change in a world that makes it feel different yet still familiar so that it's relatable.

QUESTION: You know, we didn't get pilots to look at, and sometimes we can get an idea from looking at the clips. Not so much this time.

(snip)

QUESTION: You know, you say you're creating an alternate world and so obviously you can't have it filled with recognizable celebrities and pop culture from this world, but I just wonder are you going to deal with that at all in that world? I mean, are you going to have any sort of -- I mean, what do people do when they're not deciding what to do next as king or when they aren't involved in some action of import to the plot in the arc of the story? I mean, are they going to sit down and watch TV? Are they going to have books to read? It can be a very -- I mean, like "Star Wars" has no pop culture. I mean, there are no magazines on the tables in any of the apartments or whatever, but it's in the future so they can get away with it. But if you're going to be here, I just wonder --

ERWIN STOFF: If I might, a very sort of simple way to think of it is that the show takes place in a country that you haven't heard of, is that the show takes place absolutely today in a country which you haven't heard of. And any of the things available to us are available in the world that the show takes place in.

IAN McSHANE: I mean, there's no apocalyptic voice coming on, saying, "It's the year 2025. The world is in disarray. These people are" -- we don't wear an overall or some kind of strange one-piece.

QUESTION: So there's a United States, there's a China, there's a Russia. So it's this world. It's just not a country we know?

MICHAEL GREEN: Not necessarily, no.

FRANCIS LAWRENCE: It's a familiar world.

QUESTION: OK. Now you're not making any sense at all.

FRANCIS LAWRENCE: Thank you.

IAN McSHANE: Did you say you're not making any sense or we're not making any sense?

MICHAEL GREEN: No, he said we're not.

IAN McSHANE: We're not making any sense? Is that what drama's about? Isn't drama -- excuse me - for your ignorant remark. Isn't drama based on the fact -- we're not making any sense? What the hell kind of question? You ask a question. You want an answer or not? The world -- drama is built on biblical -- biblical -- the greatest novel written by 50 people ever. If you can't get a good story from that, you can't. What do you expect, it all spelled out for you now, that you should know what kind of pop culture of we're going to refer to Britney Spears' new child?

QUESTION: No, no, no. But the answer to the question was that it's a country I've never heard of, but it's going to be filled with all the things that are available to me in this world. So I naturally followed up by making sure I understood in saying is it this world? And then, no, it's not necessarily this world.

IAN McSHANE: It is this world, yes. It's what he said. He never said --

FRANCIS LAWRENCE: The difference is -- the difference is that you don't have Starbucks. You have a coffee. It's not a Starbucks. You don't have a BlackBerry, but there's phones and cell phone. There's no Britney Spears, but people sing songs.

*

There's no Britney Spears? Can we move there?

Anyway, here I was, thinking that the reason the networks skimped on the screeners this year was because of the writers strike when in fact they were hoping for little skirmishes like this one with the talent calling TCA members boobs and wastrels. Turns out another (probably bigger) reason they're pushing this back is so that the networks can actually benefit from all the coverage and blogging and blathering that emanates from Press Tour: Scheduling the event closer to the actual beginning of the fall season helps the broadcast networks; cable networks who launch shows in the summer and critics who could use the extra time to process all the material that comes from the event, not so much.