Archive for July, 2010
Day 2: All About Show Stealers: Laura Linney,”Episodes,” Maggie Q…and “Idol”?
Posted by Melanie McFarland in Casting alert, Commentary, TCA Summer Press Tour 2010, Tune In Info on July 30th, 2010
It’s a funny thing, TCA Press Tour. On the one hand, as Daily Beast editor Kate Aurthur pointed out in a tweet, the networks profess to hate it. The Tour costs them a lot of money, time, and sanity. They put on a show for us, and often get nothing but griping about their products in return.
Without Press Tour, however, think of all the wrangling they’d have to do when major TV news implosions occur. Phones would be ringing off the hook. Reporters would be jockeying for position and screaming if they don’t get the story angles they want when they want it. Mass hysteria.
Tour is also something of a mixed blessing for TV writers. Entertainment business news is breaking all the time, but it certainly seems to go nuclear when most of us are brought together in a hotel ballroom. Often the news is very inside baseball, such as the sudden resignation of ABC Entertainment head Steve McPherson on the first day of Tour, followed shortly by trade reports that he was the subject of a sexual harrassment probe. Critics care because McPherson’s the guy we talk to about ABC’s lineup, and as such, some of us like to imagine we have something of a relationship with him.
So things of this nature happen, we express shock! (Not really.) Alarm! (Actually, executives get spectacularly booted all the time. Right, Ben Silverman?) Then we sharpen our knives for the network’s executive session. Sadly, the word is that ABC isn’t having one. (UPDATE: On Friday ABC announced that ABC Family’s Paul Lee had officially been named as McPherson’s successor, so there will be a short session on Sunday after all.)
This news has very little impact on the typical viewer. As such, it was quickly swept under the rug when Fox’s (highly orchestrated?) “Idol” bombshell exploded late this afternoon in the form of a Variety story announcing Ellen DeGeneres‘ sudden and not altogether surprising exit, either by choice or by force. That, people care about.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit. “Idol” dominated the early evening news, but Showtime opened the day with four panels, three of them actually worth our time.
The day started with a tour of “The Big C,“ which stars Laura Linney and officially premieres August 16, although you can watch the pilot right now. In the half-hour dramedy, Linney plays a woman who receives a cancer diagnosis and decides to take what time she has left and live it to the fullest.
Whether the show becomes a hit depends largely on how much people are willing to spend time with a character who may be outlandish and hilarious, but is dying before their eyes. It’s a tough sell. But there’s no denying the cast’s chemistry and the absolute luminosity of Laura Linney. The entire panel was something of an eat-pray-love fest as the stars talked about the beauty of living in the now. After Oliver Platt asked, “Why do we start to live beautifully when we get a death sentence?” and Gabourey Sidibe pointed out, “whatever plan you have for your life, you are wrong a lot of times,” it was hard not to commit for at least a few installments.
Once that panel’s high wore off, though, I remembered a vexing truth about Showtime comedies: they’re not particularly funny. “Comedy” seems to be a term the premium cable channel uses because it’s more succinct than “half-hour oddity,” or “30-minute award nomination bait.”
Happily we were reminded of that by watching the clip for “Episodes,” an upcoming comedy about a disastrous American remake of a nice British series. The clip reel was genuinely hilarious, and what exchanges we saw between series star Matt LeBlanc and his British co-stars Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan were gut-busting.
Executive producers and writers David Crane (“Friends”) and Jeffrey Klarik (“The Class”) consistently made us giggle as they described the horrific sausage making process a series goes through as its churned through the Hollywood machine, which is precisely what “Episodes” is about. It’s a shame we have to suffer through a slew of substandard comedies this fall while we wait for it; “Episodes” premieres in January.
Keep reading for more details on “Dexter” and a breakdown of the CW panels.
TCA Day 1: CBS Starts With “Big Bang,” Ends In the “$#*!”
Posted by Melanie McFarland in TCA Summer Press Tour 2010, Tune In Info on July 28th, 2010
Jim Parsons and Kaley Cuoco. Courtesy of WireImage.
Sometimes skepticism gets in the way of everyone’s enjoyment. This idea occupies the same flavor territory as “ignorance is bliss.” It is a vote for the willful flooding of the brain with seratonin and other happiness-inducing substances, something that often happens when we turn off the internal mechanisms that regulate intellect in favor of turning on, say, G4′s late night programming.
The next eleven days are not part of this idea. At the Television Critics Association’s Summer Press Tour, currently underway at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, CA., skepticism hangs heavily in the air. There are a couple hundred of us here, and we’ve seen the fall pilots. Not only that, we get to confront the people who are bringing them to us — executives, producers, and the stars — and find out what they were thinking.
That, in essence, is the point of TCA: to look under the hood of each network’s programming and see whether the new fall crew has any hope, or if old favorites are worth sticking with. A pilot can look perfectly fine, but unless the people writing it know what they’re doing, it won’t have a chance as a series. The opposite can be true as well; “30 Rock’s” pilot, for example, was mediocre. That’s putting it kindly. But after a chat with Tina Fey, it was easy to have faith that it would improve. Midway through the first season, it did.
All of this is in service of you, the television viewer. You know how difficult it is to decide what to watch in the best of circumstances. Now the networks and cable channels want you to make room for new series, most of which won’t make it through the winter.
Mind you, there are a few CBS shows that we can say, with a degree of certainty, that you’ll be happy to load onto your DVR. CBS’s new crop looks fairly typical and as such, its TCA day was generally painless and free of controversy…save for the panel for “$#*! My Dad Says.” Even that wasn’t awful, per se; rather, it did precisely what a TCA panel is supposed to do. It showed us why that show, in its present incarnation, is destined to crash and burn.
At one point, “$#*!” executive producer Max Mutchnick explained how he and David Kohan came to be a part of the project by saying, and this is a real quote, “We got involved because, when we heard this and we read about this, we saw Justin’s beautiful tw*ts.” Yes, that’s right — he referred to tweets by using a vulgar reference to female genitalia. And he kept on doing it.
By the time Mutchnick tried to correct himself by calling tweets “twits” and about the 10th time series star William Shatner referred to it as “The Twitter,” the panel had lost control of the room. It was a beautiful cringeworthy moment.
Overall, CBS started the day with its greatest assets and stumbled on down the mountain from there. Keep reading for the full diary.
Emmy Noms: Did They Do Right By Us This Time?
Posted by Melanie McFarland in Commentary, Emmy Awards, TV News on July 8th, 2010
The morning of the Emmy nominations usually plays out like a summertime version of the Festivus traditional Airing of Grievances.
This year, however, there was more cheering than griping. Some would say this is not necessarily a “new” idea, since the tides seemed to turn our way last year — meaning, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences voters’ tastes may have at long last aligned with critics and the public’s. Let’s give an example: A few years ago, most people would have expected Emmy voters to snub “Lost” in its final season. Perhaps the thought would be that it was too complex for its own good or, having won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama in 2005, that its moment had already been acknowledged.
But “Lost” will get its shot in the category once again, alongside CBS’s deserving new series “The Good Wife,” HBO’s fan favorite “True Blood” (which began to soar, creatively speaking, in its second season), Showtime’s “Dexter,” and AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men,” a two-time winner already.
Nominees for Best Actress in a Drama include the usual suspects ( as in “The Closer’s” Kyra Sedgwick, “Damages’” Glenn Close, and “Law & Order: SVU’s” Mariska Hargitay), the easily predictable but deserving nomination for “The Good Wife’s” Julianna Margulies…and hello, January Jones! “Man Men’s” Betty Draper showed a variety of colors last year, and Jones took the storyline and ran away with it.
Our next gift-wrapped present: Fox’s “Glee,” a welcome addition to the Outstanding Comedy mix (just one of its 19 nominations) and another one of those no-brainers that probably would have come up empty on past nomination rounds. ABC’s “Modern Family,” on the other hand, was a shoo-in, and joins past winners “30 Rock” and “The Office,” both on NBC, as well as Showtime’s dark half-hour “Nurse Jackie” and HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
Among “Glee’s” nominations were individual nods for Lea Michele and Matthew Morrison in actress and actor categories.
Also very much expected was the nominations avalanche for HBO’s “The Pacific.” The premium cable channel’s latest World War II epic racked up 24 nods, nearly a quarter of HBO’s total of 101. That also means that for a straight decade, HBO has led in total nominations. (Since HBO has had a pretty good year, we’re not yawning this time.)
A complete list of Emmy nominees is, of course, available here.
This is not to imply that everything’s rosy in TV Land today. The voters are getting more things right these days, but Emmy being Emmy, there are enough snubs each year to make TV fans groan loudly and painfully. Here are but a few.
Katey Sagal in "Sons of Anarchy"
1. No Best Actress in a Drama nod for “Sons of Anarchy’s” Katey Sagal. Now, while this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone familiar with Emmy’s habits — we’ll elaborate in a moment — Sagal gave a beautifully multifaceted performance as SAMCRO’s matriarch Gemma Teller Morrow. We won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen the second season yet, but Sagal took an incredibly difficult plot twist and a controversial treatment of its aftermath, and handled it with dignity, fragility and in the final moments of the season, a sense of controlled power.
The problem is that the second season opener of FX’s “Sons” was overwhelmingly difficult to watch, even for diehard fans, because of what happened to Sagal’s character. The way she dealt with it in subsequent episodes may have rubbed people the wrong way. Emmy voters tend to behave more cautiously than the average viewer. In other words, Katey probably knew she would be sleeping in this morning.
2. No nomination for “Modern Family’s” Ed O’Neill. Given the above snub, we’re wary about mentioning some alleged “Married with Children” curse, but someone should give this kind of omission an official name. How about, the Eva Longoria Parker Snub? As in, the kind of snub where everyone else in the cast gets nominated, but you come up empty?
Not that we’re quibbling with the nods for Ty Burrell, Julie Bowen, Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Plus, whenever Sofia Vergara says “cop-cake,” this writer giggles. (I am not the giggling type, so that has to be worth something.) But honestly — why not show Ed some love? We all love Duckie, but did Jon Cryer really need to get nominated again? Discuss.
3. “Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains” — denied! “Survivor” is another past winner and frequent nominee in the reality competition category, but this season was arguably one of the best in the show’s history. Even if you want to debate that point, one thing you’d be hard-pressed to defend is Emmy’s choice of “Project Runway” over “Survivor.” Did “Project Runway” ever deserve an Emmy? Of course. Does the most recent season deserve it? Uh…no.
4. No love for any of the leads from “The Pacific.” Yes, the miniseries led HBO’s pack in terms of total nominations. Yes, the odds that viewers watching the Emmys telecast will get the chance to see Jon Seda, James Badge Dale and Joseph Mazzello on the stage at some point are rather high. That does not lessen the sting for anyone who watched these men make us gasp and tear up for 10 episodes. Additionally, while it’s hard to feign surprise that Rami Malek was left out of the supporting actor mix, we sure think he deserved to be acknowledged.
5. Ditto for anyone from the cast of “True Blood.” Again, Emmy voters, thanks for acknowledging the show. But maybe next year you’ll have seen enough to realize that what makes it so addictive are stellar performances from the likes of Alexander Skarsgård and Nelsan Ellis. That’s OK, we’ll wait.
But let’s give credit where credit is due. There are some snubs that we’re completely fine with.
Thank you, Emmy, for leaving Katherine Heigl out this time around, giving someone who actually appreciates having a job on a good TV show a shot at some hardware.
Bless you, Emmy, for giving the Heisman hand to Jay Leno in favor of a nod to “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.” Surely that scored big points with Team Coco.
We are also completely fine with you denying major category recognition to Charlie Sheen, “24“, “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Family Guy” and, although it seems odd to credit you for doing so, “Jersey Shore.” Admit it, voters. You know you thought about pandering to the kids.
Your turn: Were you satisfied with this round of Emmy nominations?
Day 3: NBC Wants You Back!
Posted by Melanie McFarland in Commentary, TCA Summer Press Tour 2010, TV News on July 31st, 2010
“Everything on television is born under a death sentence, they just don’t tell you when the execution date is.” – Dick Wolf, creator and executive producer of the “Law & Order” franchise
But what’s done is done…we hope.
On Friday, network executives Angela Bromstad and Jeff Gaspin humbly expressed their hope that viewers are willing to get over the multiple betrayals and move forward. Join us, they said in so many words, won’t you?
This fall NBC has a couple of decent shows — and the guts to let “30 Rock” air a live episode on October 14 — so they’re not completely blowing smoke. That said, none of the critics here seem particularly excited about NBC’s new crop. The J.J. Abrams-created romantic spy dramedy “Undercovers” is a bit of an exception; most poeple seem to like it, but even that excitement is slightly muted.
Instead, as we watched most the new candidates make their cases onstage, we couldn’t help thinking of Dick Wolf’s fresh quote on a TV show’s life expectancy. Among the seven new series NBC showcased, only “Undercovers” has a pilot indicating the show could have the goods to make it to a May finale. Another, “The Event,” is already pleading for your faith that it knows where it’s going, and a third, “Outlaw,” is banking on the audience’s decades-long love affair with Jimmy Smits. The L.A. version of “Law & Order” is still casting and, according to Wolf, still figuring out what it’s going to look and feel like.
Then there’s “Outsourced” and “Chase“…we’ll rip into those in a bit.
Read the rest of this entry »
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