TV Critics Tour Blog
By Bill Goodykroontz The Arizona Republic
Wednesday July 13, 14:06:18 PM PT

What about Bob?

Love Bob Newhart. Who doesn't?

Newhart was here Wednesday to talk about Bob Newhart: Unbuttoned, an American Masters episode that airs July 20th.

"I don't think of myself as an American Master," Newhart said, with classic understatement. "I'm glad they do."

They and everyone else. Newhart made his name as a comedian, of course, but he's had a largely underrated influence on TV comedy. The Bob Newhart Show -- the one where he's a psychologist -- is rightfully considered a classic. Not a week goes by when I don't say, to myself or out loud, "You can't do it, you can't do it, nobody can eat a whale." But Newhart, in which he played a Vermont innkeeper, also holds up surprising well.

While he's had a couple of misfires since, it's hard to think of a more comforting presence on-screen. And how cool was it when he showed up in a recurring role on Desperate Housewives?

His persona -- understated, gracious -- holds up in person, as well. Asked how he overcame stage fright the first time he performed stand-up, he said, "I just pretended, well, like I have for the last 45 years, that I knew what the hell I was doing."

He does. One of the interesting things about listening to the older comics talk is learning how much they study other comics, still. Newhart is a fan of Jerry Seinfeld, Garry Shandling, the usual suspects. But like alomst every other comedian, he holds a special place for Richard Pryor. Asked which three comedy albums -- other than his own -- have been the most influential, he said, "Any three of Richard Pryor's."

That's what's fun about a session like this -- seeing these guys, who seemingly come by their talent so naturally, talk about the work they put into their careers. If you grew up watching Newhart on TV, as I did, you tend to think of him as this isolated, Saturday-night sitcom presence; he existed, so far as any of us knew or cared, inside that show. So it's wild when he talks about John Belushi stopping by his dressing room and telling him he got his autograph as a kid at a Cubs' game.

Plus, and most importantly, the guy's still funny.

8pm:
FNC: 2,299,000
Paula Zahn: 719,000
Nancy Grace: 831,000
Return to Flight: 230,000
CNBC: 71,000
FWIW, 8pm FNC is O'Reilly.

Usually they note it as O'Reilly, but I assumed since they marked it as FNC last night perhaps there was a fill-in host for Bill?
I don't know, I was watching baseball.

And apparently I didn't have all that much company as I watched the All Stars.......

MLB All-Star Game Draws Poor Ratings

By Jon Lafayette TVWeek.com

Another lopsided American League victory left Fox with the lowest-rated MLB All-Star Game ever Tuesday night.

The game drew an 8.1 household rating and a 14 share, down from 8.8/15 in 2004. But Fox noted that the game was still the highest-rated program in prime time and its 4.3 rating among adults 18-49 -- down from 5.0 last year -- doubles the summer average of the Big 4 networks.

Baseball's midseason classic remains the highest rated all-star event in sports. The Fox telecast drew the biggest audience for the network since the "American Idol" finale May 25.

Perhaps the baseball Gods were getting revenge for the deplorable way Ernie Harwell was treated in the pre-game show (it wasn’t Jeannie’s fault – the producers had tried to cram too much material into 40 minutes and they made her cut the Hall of Famer off).

Or perhaps Fox was being punished by the God of Reality TV for similarly absurd decisions made post-game, an as obviously stunned Miguel Tejada was told he had just won a Corvette.

But rather than focus on his reactions, Fox's producer cut away to nearly half a minute of pre-taped shots of the car. The network easily could have stayed with Miguel to savor his entire reaction and then spent the time to give Chevrolet its commercial.

All in all, it was very shoddy decision-making from the production truck, and the ratings reflect it:

All-Star fade-out

Smallest aud in 35 years for baseball classic

By RICK KISSELL Variety.com

Though baseball has tried upping the stakes for its All-Star Game, ratings continue to decline, with Tuesday's contest on Fox drawing the smallest aud in at least 35 years.

Although it won every half-hour from 8:30 to 11 and gave Fox its highest-rated telecast of summer, the All-Star Game settled for a 4.3 rating/13 share in adults 18-49 and 12.33 million viewers overall, according to Nielsen, peaking in the 9:30 half-hour ET.

This is a dropoff of more than 1.5 million viewers from last year and makes it the smallest audience for the "Midsummer Classic" since at least 1970. The 18-49 dropoff was a similar 14% (4.3/13 vs. 5.0/15).

Game, which now rewards the winning league with home-field advantage for the World Series, remains the most popular such contest among the major sports. The NBA All-Star Game averaged 8.08 million viewers on TNT in February, and the NFL's Pro Bowl drew 6.16 million one week earlier on ESPN.

Some All-Star Ratings Notes:

(The Associated Press) "...St. Louis, where the game drew a 23.3/34, was the highest-rated market for the third straight year, followed by host Detroit, at 22.5/33, up 58 percent from last year's 14.2/21. With four members of the World Series champion Red Sox in the starting lineup, the game drew a 19.5/33 in Boston, an increase of 54 percent from last year's 12.7/23.

The famous 1971 All-Star game, when six future Hall of Famers homered at Detroit's Tiger Stadium, got a 27.0 rating and 50 share on NBC, and it was watched by an average of 16.23 million homes. That was in an era when ABC, CBS and NBC dominated the ratings and there was little or no competition from cable television..."

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Life Aquatic
If you grew up nerdy like I did, there are probably soft, fuzzy memories of Jacques Cousteau's undersea adventures buried deep in your brain, some washing to the surface on occasion, like sea glass. Jean-Michel Cousteau hopes so, anyway, because he's picking up where his late father left off with a six-part HDTV series airing this coming spring titled "Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Adventures." Cousteau plans to explore undersea creatures along the Northwest Hawaiian Archipelago, sharks in French Polynesia and South Africa, whales throughout the seas and wildlife in America's National Marine Sanctuary System. What clips were presented to critics displayed crystalline views of the deep, and it looks quite stunning. At least that's what my inner geek is telling me.

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According to KQED, the producing PBS station, The six shows in the Ocean Adventures series are:

The Gray Whale Obstacle Course

Gray whales migrate farther than any other whale species, and they pass some of the world's largest cities and some of the most polluted coastlines. The Cousteau team follows gray whales from the nursery lagoons of Baja California north to feeding grounds in the Bering Sea.

America's Underwater Treasures

Imagine a world with the dazzling beauty of Yosemite and the sweeping vistas of the Grand Canyon, but a world little known and rarely visited. This world is the National Marine Sanctuary system, thirteen underwater parks created along America's shorelines. Deep in underwater canyons, atop ocean-floor volcanoes, in a coral rich ecosystem around an oil rig, in fertile bays, and among the ragged remains of shipwrecks, Jean-Michel and his team visit fantastic glowing octopods, frolicking harbor seals and sea otters, nighttime carnivals of coral spawning, and right whales dodging 300,000 ton tankers.

Ghost Ships of Truk Lagoon

Truk Lagoon is a necklace of beautiful tropical islands in Micronesia that crest a volcanic seamount. The Japanese transformed Truk into a massive hub of dry docks and airfields to store over 365 fighters and torpedo bombers, and American forces destroyed it in one of the most ferocious series of bombing raids of World War II. Truk Lagoon is a ghostly graveyard of Japanese destroyers, cruisers, submarines, and freighters, but new lighting techniques and HDTV will diminish the murkiness of shipwreck footage.

Voyage to Kur

Jean-Michel and his crew board Searcher, a 96-foot research vessel, and head for the most remote island group in the world, the Northwestern Hawaiian Archipelago. The ten tiny spots of land that arc 1,200 miles from Kaua'i seem like insignificant real estate, but they are blanketed with nests of more than fifteen million seabirds, their beaches are crowded with green sea turtles and rare monk seals, and their fringing reefs are thick with coral fish and sharks.

Sharks: At Risk

Long feared as an object of terror, sharks are gaining a new reputation as their numbers are decimated with unprecedented speed. In Sharks: At Risk, Jean-Michel will explore shark behavior and explain how the massive demand for shark fins in the growing middle class of China is depleting shark populations around the world. Along the way, the team will capture the graceful dance of mating dolphins and exotic undulations of flounders reproducing.

If you read the earlier post about cable news prime-time ratings, the following report should come as no surprise:

Meyers Exiting CNBC Prime Post
Broadcasting & Cable

According to an internal e-mail, likely from CNBC President Mark Hoffman, Bob Meyers is being replaced as CNBC's prime time and weekend programming chief.

According to the e-mail, which was signed "Mark," Meyers will "transition from his Prime Time leadership role to assist me with a series of projects related to the execution of key business initiatives at CNBC."

A search has begun for a replacement, but in the interim, Susan Krakower will take over prime and weekend programing.

Last August, Meyers named Krakower to a program development position--she had shepherded The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch.

The e-mail praises Meyers for overseeing the development of Big Idea and Mad Money with Jim Cramer (another Krakower project), for his efforts in digital media and with CNBC.com, and as "a key player on the team that managed the on-time and on-budget construction of our new state of the art facility in Englewood Cliffs."

Meyers' goal had been to make the net's shows "a little edgy and irreverent"--Kramer's show certainly fills the bill--with an "entertainment veneer."

But prime time has had its troubles.

Back in May, Dennis Miller exited his weekday talk show. Miller had been on the net since January 2004, but the audience never got very large--100,000 viewers for example. Miller's exit followed closely that of Tina Brown, who ended her weekly prime time show, Topic A with Tina Brown, which got even weaker ratings, averaging about 75,000 viewers.

A CNBC spokesperson had not returned a call for comment at press time on.

Followup: “The Neighborhood”

In This Neighborhood, Reality TV Falls Short

By FELIX GILLETTE The New York Times July 14, 2005

AUSTIN, Tex.--Early this summer, when Faye Rencher first saw advertisements for an ABC reality program called "Welcome to the Neighborhood," she barely took note. Seven families would compete to win a suburban house, while three families in the neighborhood judged their suitability. Yawn.

But soon, thanks to an unexpected house-hunting coincidence, Ms. Rencher wanted to know everything about "Welcome to the Neighborhood." Everything.

Ms. Rencher and her husband, Terrence, were moving to Austin, Tex., from New Jersey and had found what seemed a perfect place to raise their 3-year-old daughter, Siena: a spacious house on a cul-de-sac in a development called the Circle C Ranch. Then the owner told them that "Welcome to the Neighborhood" had been shot less than 100 feet from the front door.

In the following days the Renchers kept a vigil in front of the television, hoping to catch an advertisement for the program. When it came on, they paid close attention.

According to the commercial, "Welcome to the Neighborhood" pitted seven "nontraditional" and minority families - Mexican, Asian, black, gay, tattooed, witchcraft-practicing, strip club-working - against one another for the approval of three middle-class white families, the Stewarts, Daniels and Bellamys.

"The ads painted the neighborhood like they were these judgmental, upper-class, white suburban people," recalled Ms. Rencher, who, like her husband, is black. "We were like, uh-uh, that's not going to work."

But the couple decided to buy the house despite their misgivings. Then, just as they were getting ready to move in, ABC canceled the program because of criticism by housing and civil rights groups, including the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the National Fair Housing Alliance. Television critics applauded, calling the program an embarrassing debacle.

The Renchers said they were disappointed. Now they would not get an advance peek at their worrisome new neighbors on television. They would have to do it in person.

Around 7:30 last Friday night, the Renchers and their daughter visited their new neighborhood. As they reached the top of the cul-de-sac, a big blustery man with a deep Fourth of July sunburn approached. Ms. Rencher recognized him from the advertisements as one of the judges - the one who said, "I will not tolerate a homosexual couple coming into this neighborhood," and seemed to think he ran the place.

"I wasn't real comfortable with that," said Ms. Rencher. "I was like, O.K., so there's a hierarchy in the neighborhood?"

The man introduced himself as Jim Stewart and invited them to the neighborhood's weekly outdoor soiree, already in full swing. The aroma of barbecue drifted off a grill. A dozen people sat in folding chairs sipping beer. The Renchers found themselves surrounded by smiling men and women. The five minutes they intended to stay stretched into three hours. It was somebody's birthday, and Mr. Stewart, whom everyone called the governor, wandered around pouring shots of tequila.

"They were real nice," Ms. Rencher said a few days later, expressing relief. "And they like to party. We like that. That fits right in with us."

As for Mr. Stewart, "He was really easygoing and laid-back and funny," she said. "Not some dictator guy who was going to be like, 'Your lawn hasn't been mowed in two weeks.' "

Later that night, the Stewarts, Bellamys and others piled into a neighbor's living room to watch a review tape of the first two episodes of "Welcome to the Neighborhood" - the same two episodes that triggered criticism from civil rights advocates and reviewers. After the screening the general sentiment among the neighbors seemed to be: That's it? That's not so bad.

Mr. Stewart said if viewers were able to watch all six episodes they would see him and his neighbors as more than the one-dimensional characters he believes were portrayed. During production of the program, he said, he learned not to make snap judgments about others. But now it seemed the entire country had rushed to judge him, including residents of Circle C Ranch.

On an online community bulletin board neighbors complained that if the program had been shown, the Stewarts, Bellamys and Daniels would have tarnished the neighborhood's image. One resident speculated that the negative press could drive down property values.

In separate interviews, all three families said the most difficult part - worse than accusations of bigotry and harsh stares in church - had been the requirement that they reject six of the seven families.

"Once we got to know them, I can't say there was one family that we wouldn't have wanted here," Mr. Stewart said. "When it started getting down to three or four families, it really got tough, to the point where you didn't want to do it. But somebody had to go."

The competitors are contractually forbidden to talk to the news media about the specifics of the program. But The New York Post, along with residents of the neighborhood not directly involved with the program, identified the gay couple as the winners: Steve and John Wright, a white couple with an adopted black child.

The Wrights have yet to move in and would not comment for this article. But some in the cul-de-sac said the arrival of the Renchers, without any voting by neighbors, has been a return to normalcy. In America today, thanks to fair housing laws, one does not generally get to say no to a potential neighbor. As Mr. Bellamy will tell you, not getting to pick your neighbors is an underappreciated blessing in this country.

The Emmy nominees will be announced early Thursday morning. Here’s one final column with a few pre-Emmy thoughts:

Beyond desperation

Emmys may not notice, but many of season's best moments didn't involve housewives

By Karla Peterson San Diego Union-Tribune

With "Friends" and "Frasier" out to pasture and "The Sopranos" temporarily out of circulation, this year's Emmy Awards will not be business as usual. Unless you are in the "Desperate Housewives" business. And then you'd better start clearing some shelf space now.

With newbies like "Desperate Housewives," "Lost," "House" and "Grey's Anatomy" grabbing big ratings and critical buzz, Thursday's Emmy nominations should be awash in fresh blood and Red Bull-ish energy. Not to mention a whole lot of estrogen.

But in their rush to embrace their newest pets, the members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences are likely to overlook some of the TV year's friskiest people and most indelible mome served to go, but viewers definitely deserve a second look at Daly.

UNDERSERVED WOMAN OF THE SUMMER: The supporting cast is getting stronger and the scripts aren't the sketch pads they used to be, but Kyra Sedgwick's steely magnolia performance in "The Closer" continues to outpace the fair-to-middling show by a country mile. The TNT crime drama was the surprise smash of the summer, but if the show doesn't give its leading lady the support she has earned, that would be criminal.

DEAD MAN SHOCKING: His double life as a ruthless gang lord and a budding real estate developer made Stringer Bell (Idris Elba) one of the most riveting characters on HBO's "The Wire," so it's no surprise that his death at the hands of a vengeful hit man lewwft viewers bug-eyed and breathless. Kudos to "The Wire" for knocking off such a pivotal figure, and curses for depriving us of actor Elba's commanding presence.

BLAST OF A PAST: Hurley's Lotto triumph was a kick, and Sawyer's sad family history made us love him for more than his dimples. But the best of the "Lost" back-story twists belonged to Locke (Terry O'Quinn), who boarded the doomed plane in a wheelchair and emerged from the crash as the boar-hunting, knife-throwing survivalist who would save them all. Bonus props to the show for giving O'Quinn ... who turns 53 this week ... the perfect showcase for his menacing charms.

FIANCEE OF THE CENTURY: For the sake of "Super Size Me," she suffered through boyfriend Morgan Spurlock's all-McDonald's diet, and all of the unappetizing side-effects that came with it. So when filmmaker Spurlock decided to inaugurate his FX documentary series "30 Days" by living on minimum wage for one month, fiancee Alexandra Jamieson went along for the bumpy ride. Neither bugs nor illness could convince Alex to dump Morgan for a guy with central heat and no principles, which makes her a winner in our book. Not to mention really super.

DOOR MAT TO DIE FOR: Remember that hilarious moment in "The Office," when Michael the crazy boss pretended to fire Pam, the hapless receptionist? Wasn't that a hoot? Of course it wasn't. Which doesn't mean we could stop watching. Thanks to actress Jenna Fischer's perfectly pained performance, Pam emerged as the heart of NBC's heartlessly funny sitcom. Michael and his crazy crew made us laugh, but Pam made us feel bad about it later. Somebody give that girl a case of Kleenex and a corner office!

THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTNING, VERY, VERY FRIGHTENING!: He was a camera-hogging, eye-liner abusing, ego-maniacal ham, and this season of "American Idol" was never the same after he got the boot. But anyone who saw Constantine Maroulis bulldoze his way through Queen's ridiculously fabulous "Bohemian Rhapsody" will never forget him, or their dawning amazement that he was actually pulling it off. Mama mia, how could they let him go?

BEST SACRIFICE FLY (AWAY): To long-suffering "Desperate Housewives" husband Rex Van De Kamp (Steven Culp), who survived a sex scandal, a delinquent son and the very-scary Bree, only to be slowly and unglamorously poisoned by his geeky pharmacist. Rex, we knew ye way too well, but we'll miss you and your bad habits anyway.

BEST ATTEMPTED HOMICIDE: Hugs and inappropriate kisses to swingin' Charlie O'Connell, who did his lecherous best to kill off the wilting "Bachelor" franchise by acting like the kind of toxic bachelor who needs his own hazmat suit. The fine minds at ABC renewed the failing show, but thanks to Charlie, we know how to handle it. Bartender, a round of body shots! On the house!

'Housewives,' 'Grace' nab 15 Emmy nominations

HBO dominates made-for categories

By JOSEF ADALIAN, MICHAEL SCHNEIDER Variety.com

Even while taking note of hot newcomers like "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost," Emmy voters still seem slow to embrace change.

ABC's red-hot frosh "DH" and "Lost" both snagged noms for best comedy and drama series, respectively. And there were plenty of new faces mentioned in the acting categories, including semi-shockers like Patricia Arquette for "Medium" and Hank Azaria in Showtime's little-seen "Huff."

Not as surprising: Three of the four main "Housewives" -- Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman -- will duke it out in the lead comedy actress category.

But Emmy can't shake its love for the familiar.

"The West Wing" and "Six Feet Under" took up two of five categories in the best drama category, despite predictions they'd be overlooked. The reality competish category was also a virtual carbon copy of year's past, albeit with one surprise: Bravo's "Project Runway".

Overall, HBO once again led the noms, with 93 mentions -- down from a year ago. CBS was second with 59 noms.

And the major nominees are...

COMEDY SERIES
"Arrested Development" (Fox)
"Desperate Housewives" (ABC)
"Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS)
"Scrubs" (NBC)
"Will & Grace" (NBC)

DRAMA SERIES
"Deadwood" (HBO)
"Lost" (ABC)
"Six Feet Under" (HBO)
"24" (Fox)
"The West Wing" (NBC)

MINISERIES
"Elvis" (CBS)
"Empire Falls" (HBO)
"The 4400" (USA)
"The Lost Prince (Masterpiece Theatre)" (PBS)

ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
"Arrested Development" (Fox) Jason Bateman
"Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS) Ray Romano
"Monk" (USA) Tony Shalhoub
"Scrubs" (NBC) Zach Braff
"Will & Grace" (NBC) Eric McCormack

ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
"Boston Legal" (ABC) James Spader
"Deadwood" (HBO) Ian McShane
"House" (Fox) Hugh Laurie
"Huff" (Showtime) Hank Azaria
"24" (Fox) Kiefer Sutherland

ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIE
"Elvis" (CBS) Jonathan Rhys Meyers
"Empire Falls" (HBO) Ed Harris
"The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers" (HBO) Geoffrey Rush
"Warm Springs" (HBO) Kenneth Branagh
"The Wool Cap" (TNT) William H. Macy

ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
"Desperate Housewives" (ABC) Marcia Cross
"Desperate Housewives" (ABC) Teri Hatcher
"Desperate Housewives" (ABC) Felicity Huffman
"Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS) Patricia Heaton
"Malcolm in the Middle" (Fox) Jane Kaczmarek

ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
"Alias" (ABC) Jennifer Garner
"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (NBC) Mariska Hargitay
"Medium" (NBC) Patricia Arquette
"The Shield" (FX) Glenn Close
"Six Feet Under" (HBO) Frances Conroy

ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIE
"Back When We Were Grownups" (Hallmark) Blythe Danner
"Dawn Anna" (Lifetime) Debra Winger
"Lackawanna Blues" (HBO) S. Epatha Merkerson
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" (ABC) Halle Berry
"Warm Springs" (HBO) Cynthia Nixon

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
"Arrested Development" (Fox) Jeffrey Tambor
"Entourage" (HBO) Jeremy Piven
"Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS) Peter Boyle
"Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS) Brad Garrett
"Will & Grace" (NBC) Sean Hayes

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
"Boston Legal" (ABC) William Shatner
"Huff" (Showtime) Oliver Platt
"Lost" (ABC) Naveen Andrews
"Lost" (ABC) Terry O"Quinn
"The West Wing" (NBC) Alan Alda

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIE
"Elvis" (CBS) Randy Quaid
"Empire Falls" (HBO) Paul Newman
"Empire Falls" (HBO) Philip Seymour Hoffman
"Our Fathers" (Showtime) Christopher Plummer
"Our Fathers" (Showtime) Brian Dennehy

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
"Arrested Development" (Fox) Jessica Walter
"Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS) Doris Roberts
"Two And A Half Men" (CBS) Holland Taylor
"Two And A Half Men" (CBS) Conchata Ferrell
"Will & Grace" (NBC) Megan Mullally

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
"Grey's Anatomy" (ABC) Sandra Oh
"Huff" (Showtime) Blythe Danner
"Judging Amy" (CBS) Tyne Daly
"The Shield" (FX) CCH Pounder
"The West Wing" (NBC) Stockard Channing

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIE
"Elvis" (CBS) Camryn Manheim
"Empire Falls" (HBO) Joanne Woodward
"The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers" (HBO) Charlize Theron
"Warm Springs" (HBO) Jane Alexander
"Warm Springs" (HBO) Kathy Bates

GUEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
"Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS) Fred Willard
"Will & Grace" (NBC) Victor Garber
"Will & Grace" (NBC) Jeff Goldblum
"Will & Grace" (NBC) Bobby Cannavale
"Will & Grace" (NBC) Alec Baldwin

GUEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
"ER" (NBC) Red Buttons
"ER" (NBC) Ray Liotta
"The L Word" (Showtime) Ossie Davis
"NCIS" (CBS) Charles Durning
"Without A Trace" (CBS) Martin Landau

GUEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
"Desperate Housewives" (ABC) Kathryn Joosten
"Desperate Housewives" (ABC) Lupe Ontiveros
"Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS) Georgia Engel
"Malcolm in the Middle" (Fox) Cloris Leachman
"Will & Grace" (NBC) Blythe Danner

GUEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
"Huff" (Showtime) Swoosie Kurtz
"Joan of Arcadia" Cloris Leachman
"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (NBC) Amanda Plummer
"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit/Trial By Jury" (NBC) Angela Lansbury
"Nip/Tuck (FX) Jill Clayburgh

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE IN A VARIETY OR MUSIC PROGRAM
"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" (Comedy Central) Jon Stewart, Host
"The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" (NBC) Jay Leno, Host
"58th Annual Tony Awards (2004)" (CBS) Hugh Jackman, Host
"Tracey Ullman Live & Exposed" (HBO) Tracey Ullman, Performer
"Whoopi Back To Broadway - The 20th Anniversary" (HBO) Whoopi Goldberg, Performer

MADE FOR TELEVISION MOVIE
"Lackawanna Blues " (HBO)
"The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers" (HBO)
"The Office Special" (BBC America)
"Warm Springs" (HBO)
"The Wool Cap" (TNT)

VARIETY, MUSIC OR COMEDY SERIES
"Da Ali G Show" (HBO)
"The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" (Comedy Central)
"Late Night With Conan O'Brien" (NBC)
"Late Show With David Letterman" (CBS)
"Real Time With Bill Maher" (HBO)

VARIETY, MUSIC OR COMEDY SPECIAL
"77th Annual Academy Awards" (ABC)
"Everybody Loves Raymond - The Last Laugh" (CBS)
"The Games Of The XXVIII Olympiad - Opening Ceremony" (NBC)
58th Annual Tony Awards (2004) (CBS)

Fox gets in step with ABC's dance success

By Joanne Ostrow Denver Post TV Critic

Nobody ever went broke tweaking a hit reality TV format to make it a little meaner and a little splashier.

The recently concluded "Dancing With the Stars" on ABC was an undeniably sweet and watchable contest in which nobody was grossed out or injured.

The mere sight of professional dancers moving their bodies in proximity to mere mortals was spellbinding enough. To see dancers attempt to train nondancers - celebrities, no less - and ease them around a floor was almost too entertaining to be true.

Who knew ballroom dancing could have the appeal of an Olympic sport? Heaven, I'm in heaven.

And perfect posture, whether upside down or backward? My heart beats so that I can hardly speak. I seem to find the happiness I seek, when John O'Hurley's with Charlotte dancing cheek to cheek.

Now it is Fox's turn to tinker with the formula, making it more relevant to the Fox audience. The one drawback ABC found in "Dancing With the Stars" was the average median age of 51 was "too old" in advertising terms. Fox's goal is to lower the median age. Less strictly ballroom, more sidewalk krump.

"So You Think You Can Dance," debuting Wednesday at 7 p.m. on KDVR-Channel 31 with a two-hour premiere, will bring hip-hop, krumping and general attitude into the game. Fox's trot hopes to kick the ABC series in the keister.

Krumping, or clown dancing, sort of an update of break dancing, originated in South Central Los Angeles. It involves elaborate face-painting, and that aspect has moved various cultural anthropologists to draw connections to African tribal war paint. If you thought O'Hurley was the height of dancing cool, you may not be ready to be krumped.

For the Fox show, producers auditioned dancers in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles and, as befits a reality game from the producers of "American Idol," they rounded up the best and the worst to give viewers an idea how hard this contest really is.

The fun lies in visually sorting the bodies that feel the music naturally and move to it in some sort of spiritually uplifted way, versus the bodies that move through time and space under the influence of gravity.

No Fox reality competition is complete without the humiliation round in which the geekiest misfires are trotted out for our enjoyment. In "So You Think You Can Dance," the really rhythmless are banished from the floor in the early going.

A winning 50 who make it through the initial round are invited to Hollywood to work with five top choreographers, who will later judge them.

The dance divas:

Alex Da Silva, who specializes in salsa, mambo, tango and swing dancing.

Brian Friedman, who has choreographed Britney Spears, Hilary Duff and Beyoncé.

Dan Karaty, who debuted on Broadway in "Footloose," and who has danced with Spears and choreographed her videos and tours.

Mia Michaels, choreographer for Celine Dion's show at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, has worked with Madonna, Ricky Martin and Prince.

Mary Murphy, national dance judge, is technical dance teacher and founder of the Champion Ballroom Academy.

If you liked the tame version on ABC - and nearly 15 million viewers did, making it the most-watched show of the summer - you won't want to sidestep the Fox follow-up.

ABC goes for the gold in 'Hooking Up'

Verne Gay Newsday

Many of us can thank our lucky stars that we never have to click on a Web site called match.com, but if need, curiosity, desperation or (ahem) professional duty lead us there, this is what we see:

Discreetly placed below the ad tag line -- "Love is complicated. Match is simple" -- there's a browser box that asks the lovelorn to specify the desired sex, age and location of their prospective mate (The age of prospective mates ranges from 18 to 120).

These generous parameters offer the possibility of a vast meat market with a near-limitless number of stalls. The Lucky Stars crowd already has long-held and especially cruel biases about the Lonely Hearts crowd -- that they're burdened by sad-sack personalities or have faces only mothers could love -- but the sheer bulk of this site and others also suggests that they're part of a genuine social phenomenon. Maybe not everyone's looking for Mr. or Ms. Right, but God knows, millions are, and there must be something in American culture that's forced them to click their way to intimacy.

ABC News enters this fertile area of inquiry Thursday night with "Hooking Up," a five-part summer series and latest installment of the worthy "24/7" franchise that began five Julys ago with a look at Johns Hopkins Medical Center.

This time out, ABC has wisely dropped the "24/7" moniker, now a meaningless and overused cliche, but the idea remains the same. Follow a group of people around with a camera crew for weeks on end, hoping that they unfurl the secrets of their lives, and these will bear some resemblance to the secrets of our own. It's a clever conceit that sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, but almost always makes for engrossing TV. Series producer Terence Wrong did his job so well last summer that the New York Police Department, subject of a particularly fine "24/7" portrait, threatened to boycott the program.

"Hooking Up" is hardly perfect and is, in fact, a guileful ratings grabber. Conspicuously engineered for women, 18-34 -- advertiser manna -- ABC has missed an opportunity to explore a much wider landscape. Moreover, "Hooking Up" is devoid of context. Good luck to viewers seeking answers to questions like "How big is this cyberworld?" or "What does it all mean?" Then there's the vital "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" question, too, as in "How dangerous is this?"

But ye who enter will find it terribly hard to leave. "Hooking Up" is almost a Rorschach test for viewers, partly designed to gauge feelings about love, intimacy, mental health and that cruelest of human endeavors, dating. Mostly, it's hard-core voyeurism. Watch these sad souls seek love -- or whatever -- with the tacit assumption that the pot at the end of their rainbow will be filled with cow pies.

Thursday night we meet Lisa, who declines to tell prospects her real name or that she's a doctor because "they'll bring the engagement ring to the first date." There's Cynthia, the 34-year-old manager of a hair salon who loves guys, sex and, one assumes, the sheer lunacy of serial dating. There's also Claire, who is an advertising executive working on the Viagra account.

Then, there is Amy. She's 28, from South Dakota, in real estate, and conspicuously on the hunt for desirable DNA. "I want to makes babies ... I need to do it soon." She quickly hooks up with Chris, "a professional poker player." Oh, dear ...

Wrong's raiders shot 1,200 hours of footage starting last May, all of it in New York. So after a while, a Seinfeldesque existentialism starts to bleed into the frames.

The obvious question in all of this: Who would ever agree to a camera crew in their face with the potential for humiliation a virtual certainty? Wrong, who met his future wife when both were correspondents for ABC in Israel, persuaded match.com, Craigslist and Nerve Personals to post a request for potential candidates "and I got about 500 responses. I said you've got to be courageous enough to come in to do a preinterview -- and that led to several hundred flaking off ... and I said that as long as you're dating online, we're going to be there."

He explained that there were "definitely" men who declined to date women when they found out about the omnipresent camera crews, "but a lot of people said yes, including our main characters, just out of curiosity."

After a year of shooting, most of "Hooking Up's" heroines ended up in the loss column, which may be a comment on either the Web sites or the wisdom of allowing ABC News producers along on dates (maybe both). But Wrong says one woman who appears in a later episode did get lucky. She just happened to be a dominatrix. Oh, dear ...

ESPN, NBC IN ALL-OUT BATTLE

By Andrew Marchand New York Post

With Al Michaels deciding between offers from ESPN and NBC to call the NFL in 2006, a battle of words has broken out between leaders of the two networks.

On a conference call to officially announce the hiring of Cris Collinsworth for NBC's studio show yesterday, NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol said that Michaels' decision comes down to his desire for money or for better games.

"I've let Al meander through what I think is a very, very tough choice that he has to make," Ebersol said. "Between what clearly is the best package, [NBC's] Sunday Night package, with the flex schedule, the playoff games, the two Super Bowls, the NFL Kickoff season opener every year vs. an incredible monetary offer from his long-time bosses at Disney, which I'm sure is a combination of doing the [Monday] Night package and continuing his role on the NBA. It's a lot of money and not a number that I can get even remotely close to."

Mark Shapiro, ESPN's executive vice president, returned volley during an interview with The Post.

"First off, the NBA and NFL deals are not linked so to insinuate that Al would be making a decision based solely on the combined compensation of NBA and NFL duties is inaccurate," Shapiro said. "Dick is the king. Dick Ebersol is simply laying a foundation to justify when and if NBC loses Al Michaels to ESPN."

Michaels, who did not return a call seeking comment, made around $5 million to work MNF and the NBA on ABC last year. He also has access to a private jet to shuttle him to NFL games.

NBC is reluctant to give Michaels too much, because Bob Costas — who is expected to be in NBC's studio — still does not have a contract for next year. Neither ESPN nor NBC would reveal what they are offering Michaels.

If Michaels chooses ESPN, Ebersol made it pretty clear yesterday that Tom Hammond would be his next play-by-play choice. If Michaels goes to NBC, Mike Patrick would likely retain his ESPN NFL play-by-play role.

As for Collinsworth, he signed his six-year deal and left Fox for NBC, even though Ebersol failed to give him the assignment he craved.

"To tell you the truth, I wanted to do the games," Collinsworth said.

NBC hopes to add Costas, ABC's Michaels to '06 booth
By Michael Hiestand USA TODAY

As NBC announced Wednesday that it signed Cris Collinsworth as a studio analyst, NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol also said he is close to casting Bob Costas for an NFL role — and waiting to hear if ABC's Al Michaels wants to join the network's NFL crew.

NBC's coverage of NFL Sunday night games begins in 2006. Collinsworth, who had been with Fox since 1998 and worked with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on Fox's top game broadcast team last season, won't return to Fox's coverage this season.

Collinsworth, who already works with NBC's Costas on HBO's Inside the NFL, said he was interested in the NBC job partly because it "gives me a chance to work with Bob Costas again." (But Collinsworth, during an NBC conference call, also joked, "Working with Bob, you definitely have to get to the makeup room first. Otherwise you end up looking pretty plain.")

NBC hasn't announced that Costas will be in its Sunday night NFL studio. But Ebersol said Wednesday that the network might "close the deal any minute."

As for Michaels — who is about to work the last season of Monday Night Football on ABC before it moves to ESPN in 2006 — Ebersol said he has "let Al meander through a very tough choice."

The way Ebersol defines it, that choice is between NBC's "clearly" better NFL package, which will include elements ESPN won't have such as Super Bowls and flexible scheduling, and the "incredible monetary offer" from ABC/ESPN that he can't come "remotely close" to matching.

Ebersol said he "recognizes this is really a tough dilemma" for Michaels and has "left it an open issue with him for six weeks."

Michaels, who probably would continue to call the NBA Finals on ABC if he stays, has declined comment. ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys said Wednesday, "Monday Night Football is special, and no one knows that more than Al Michaels."

If Michaels stays with ABC/ESPN, Ebersol said, NBC's Tom Hammond will be at the "absolute top of any list we put together" for the play-by-play announcing job.

Collinsworth cited "loyalty" to NBC, which gave him his first national TV job in 1990, as one reason for his return. And while praising Fox management, he said the NBC job would give him a more convenient travel schedule and present him with a "tremendous opportunity for me to do the most important thing in my life — be around my (four) kids."

Collinsworth, who was a track reporter for NBC's coverage of the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, probably will get some Olympic TV exposure on NBC; Ebersol said Collinsworth will "probably have a nice role" in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy.

And Ebersol said Collinsworth is "free" to continue appearing on HBO.

But with NBC having signed ABC's John Madden as its game analyst, Collinsworth acknowledged that he's not getting everything he wants: "I wanted to call games" — although, he added, Madden is "the gold standard" of NFL TV game analysts.

Collinsworth also noted this wouldn't be the first time he ended up in an NFL studio when he wanted to be at stadiums calling games.

While at NBC in the 1990s, Collinsworth was calling NFL games with Marv Albert before Ebersol talked to him about moving into NBC's NFL studio.

Collinsworth said of that discussion, "I drank a little of (Ebersol's) Kool-Aid, and the next thing I know I was in the studio."

THE EMMY NOMINATIONS: Hardly 'Desperate'

"Lost" and "Desperate Housewives," two new blockbuster hits for ABC, were among the top nominees announced this morning.

By Barbara A. Serrano Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

"Lost" and "Desperate Housewives," two new blockbuster hits for ABC, were among the top nominees when the 57th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards were announced this morning.

The series about a crew of plane crash survivors was nominated for best drama, while "Desperate Housewives," a satire about the sordid lives of six women living in suburbia, was tapped for best comedy.

Three of the "Desperate" housewives were nominated for best actress — Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman. Eva Longoria, who portrays a haughty former New York runway model cheating on her husband, was overlooked a second time for a major award this year. She was passed over in this year's Golden Globe awards.

Both shows lifted ABC, which struggled for prime-time viewers in recent years, out of the basement in ratings this year and consistently ranked among the top 10 shows in the 2004-2005 season.

Nominations were announced in an early morning ceremony at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre in Los Angeles. The Emmys are to be broadcast from the Shrine Auditorium on Sept. 18 by CBS.

As usual, HBO, the premium pay-cable channel, did well in the awards competition, with 93 Emmy nominations, including for two of its series — "Deadwood" and "Six Feet Under," as well as for several of its made-for-television movies, including "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers," "Warm Springs," and "Lackawanna Blues."

"Deadwood's" Ian McShane, who portrays a bar owner in a dreary western South Dakota town, drew his first nomination for best actor in a drama series.

"Everybody Loves Raymond," which just ended its ninth season on CBS, was nominated for best comedy, one of 13 nominations. Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton, who portray a squabbling couple living in Long Island, also got nods in the best actor and actress categories for a comedy.

Other best comedy nominees included "Will & Grace" (NBC), "Arrested Development" (Fox) and "Scrubs" (NBC), which didn't do well in the ratings but acquired a loyal following among its viewers.

"The West Wing," NBC's long-running series, was nominated for best drama, though it had one of its more lackluster years in ratings. HBO's "Six Feet Under," which underwhelmed the critics, also is in the running.

"Lost," a breakthrough show for ABC with its multiethnic cast of characters, drew a total 12 nominations.

Fox's "24" also was tapped for best drama, while Kiefer Sutherland drew another nomination for best actor.

"House," a debut hit about a medical team that diagnoses mysterious diseases, was snubbed in the Emmy nominations, but its lead actor, Hugh Laurie, was nominated as best actor in a drama.

Among the popular shows passed over in the top categories were "Grey's Anatomy," "CSI," and "Nip/Tuck."

'Desperate Housewives' and 'Lost' Lead Emmy Nods
By JACQUES STEINBERG The New York Times July 14, 2005

Two new series that helped pull ABC out of a prime-time ratings slump this past season - the guilty-pleasure suburban comedy "Desperate Housewives" and the eerie post-plane-crash drama "Lost" - are among the shows that led the list of nominees for the 57th annual prime time Emmy Awards, which were announced this morning in Los Angeles.

"Desperate Housewives" collected 15 nominations, including best comedy series. Three of its stars were nominated in the lead actress category: Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman. (Left out were Eva Longoria and Nicolette Sheridan.) "Lost" was nominated 12 times, including in the category of best dramatic series, but also for two of its supporting actors: Naveen Andrews and Terry O'Quinn.

Tying "Desperate Housewives" as the most recognized comedy series, with 15 nominations, was "Will & Grace," the long-running NBC sitcom that saw its ratings slump this past season. Among its nominations was one for best comedy series, as well as for lead actor (Eric McCormack) and supporting actress (Megan Mullally).

CBS's "Everybody Loves Raymond," which ended its nine-season run in May, picked up 13 nominations, including best comedy. Each of the series five main leads was also nominated: Ray Romano (actor); Patricia Heaton (actress); Brad Garrett and Peter Boyle (supporting actor) and Doris Roberts (supporting actress).

HBO, even without a regular Emmy favorite, "The Sopranos," in its lineup this past season, drew attention for several made-for-television movies, including "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers," a biography of the comic actor, and "Warm Springs," about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt; each received 16 nominations.

In tallying the results by network, HBO, which led last year's nominations with 124 (20 of them for "The Sopranos") did so again this year, though with just 93. The premium cable channel was followed by CBS with 59, an increase of 15 over last year; NBC with 54, a loss of 11; ABC with 51, an increase of 18; and Fox with 49, an increase of 18.

The winners of this year's Emmys, as selected by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, will be announced on Sept. 18 in Los Angeles.

Wednesday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Emmy By The Numbers
(Broadcasting & Cable)
HBO Gets 93 Emmy Nominations

Here are the totals, by networks, of today’s Emmy nominations:

HBO – 93
CBS – 59
NBC – 54
ABC – 51
FOX – 49
PBS – 23
Showtime – 17
A&E – 10
FX – 8
TNT – 8
SCI FI – 7
USA – 6
Comedy Central – 5
Commercials – 5 (No network affiliation)
Discovery Channel – 5
Bravo – 5
Cartoon Network – 4
The History Channel – 4
Lifetime – 3
Nickelodeon – 3
UPN – 3
Animal Planet – 2
BBC America - 2
WB – 2
Disney Channel – 1
ESPN – 1
Hallmark – 1
IFC – 1
MTV – 1
TCM – 1

PBS is finding 'Masterpiece' a hard sell to sponsors

By Gail Shister Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist

LOS ANGELES - The absence of a corporate angel for Masterpiece Theatre continues to baffle PBS executives, but they promise the show will go on.

"We'll find the money," says co-chief programmer Jacoba Atlas. "We will always find the money to get the gems we don't want to see go anywhere else."

There will be far fewer gems, however, until the public network finds a corporate underwriter to replace longtime sponsor ExxonMobil, whose annual $7 million contribution ended in December.

Since Masterpiece debuted in 1971, ExxonMobil had been its sole underwriter. PBS is picking up the tab for two more seasons, but at half the previous budget. That translates to about seven titles over 20 Sundays this season - half the output of previous years.

A co-production with the BBC, Masterpiece has a core audience of "highly educated, higher-income" women over 50, says a rep for the program. Though that's not the most prized demographic, PBS president Pat Mitchell can't understand why the network's crown jewel is such a tough sell.

"Nobody has an explanation," she said yesterday in an interview during the TV critics' summer meetings here. "I've seen a lot of people. It's a big list - about 20 big-time companies that could easily afford to do this. I've been really close a couple of times, but no sale.

"Every time I find myself sitting next to a corporate CEO, I bring it up. I'm not giving up. I know we'll do it. Nobody's going to let Masterpiece go away."

The fall season is not without marquee material. Rupert Everett will star in the two-hour Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking on Oct. 23, and Helen Mirren will do her seventh turn as Inspector Jane Tennison on Prime Suspect in the spring.

Also on the slate: Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped and a four-hour miniseries about Elizabeth I, The Virgin Queen. An eight-hour adaptation of a Charles Dickens novel is in the works, but Atlas won't reveal which one.

Part of Masterpiece's funding problem may be caused by the relative youth of many of the heads of media agencies, according to Mitchell. Typically, these agencies now decide which programs corporations should invest in, she says.

"They're generally run by 30-, 40-year-olds who don't have the same sense of allegiance or respect for the franchise in the same way these CEOs do, who grew up with it and watched it with their families. It's a sale you've got to make with the CEO."

Atlas' theory is that ExxonMobil had its name in Masterpiece's title for so many years and the series became so closely identified with one corporation that it would be an uphill battle for another to create a new identity.

Speaking of identity, Mitchell wonders whether Masterpiece "needs to find another Alistair Cooke" to reignite its panache. The distinguished Brit became an icon while hosting the series for 22 seasons, until he retired in '92. (Its last host, columnist Russell Baker, left in '04.)

Hosts don't necessarily make a difference, Atlas says. When Dame Diana Rigg left PBS's Mystery! after the '03 season "purely for economic reasons," it didn't affect audience size, she says.

Mitchell is shopping Mystery! and Masterpiece as a $13 million-a-year package deal that would offer corporations "a really big footprint all year long."

Atlas would like to see PBS "rebrand" both shows as a Sunday-night British drama event. (How about "The English are coming"?)

"To get new money or new energy into something, you don't necessarily change all its direction, but you reposition it in people's minds. That way, you might be able to bring in a different kind of corporate underwriter."

NBC NEWS "TODAY' MARKS 500 WEEKS IN 1ST PLACE
( July 14, 2005 )

(New York, N.Y.) - Thursday, July 14 – President Clinton was in his first term, OJ Simpson was found not-guilty, America was watching Forrest Gump in the movies and discovering the Internet at home. It's been nearly ten years, an extraordinary 500 weeks, since "Today" began it run as America's number-one morning news show. Now, after covering countless news events and an unprecedented amount of hours in first place – Katie, Matt, Al and Ann want to thank the hundreds of "Today" staffers and millions of viewers who have kept the show in first place for nearly a decade.

And in no exception, NBC News' "Today," continues to dominate the morning news race as it took the week of July 4 with 5.2 million viewers. "Today" won the week in A18-49 by 605K (+36%) and in A25-54 by 465K (+22%)

For the week of July 4-10, "Today" led with a 4.2 household rating/16 share and 5.2 million viewers. "GMA" remained in second place with a 3.8/14 and 4.8 million viewers. CBS' "The Early Show" finished third with a 2.0/8 and 2.4 million viewers.

Versus the same week last season, "Today" was up rating W/A 18-49 (+15%/+13%) and rating W/A 25-54 (+12%/+5%). Season-to-date, "Today" is outperforming GMA in total viewers by 576,000 (+11%), in Adults 25-54 by 493,000 (+20 percent), and in Adults 18-49 by 572,000 (+29 percent).

"Today II" finished the week with a 3.3/11 and 4.1 million viewers. Not only did it beat "The Early Show" across the board in homes, total viewers and key demos for the week - but it also beat "The View." Versus the same week last season "Today II" was up in homes (+3%) and total viewers (+2%).

'Housewives,' 'Grace' nab 15 Emmy nominations


Wow, there's a few catagories there where I don't think you can even pick a clear winner..

BTW, I thought the term 'actress" was outmoded, an actor is an actor, male, female or otherwise..?

George, I think NBC's bluster about the "Today" show is fascinating, considering it just hurriedly fired the exec producer and Katie has been hit with some remarkably unkind press lately. (I don't remember seeing this kind of stuff a few weeks ago when "Today" squeaked to a win by just a few thousand viewers.)

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see "GMA" regroup and make a successful charge at #1 this fall, although "Today" should be able to grab the lead back at Turin for the Olympics.

At any rate, it's a morning horse race again, despite the rather arrogant tone of NBC's news release.

Let's be honest: 500 weeks, almost ten years, is a very long time in TV and "Today" has performed extremely well. But unless NBC has some kind of resurgence in prime time this fall, the momentum may well return to "GMA".

Surprising debut for ABC's 'Brat Camp'

Reality show averages a 3.8 among adults 18-49

medialifemagazine.com---ABC could very well have another summer reality hit, and this one is a bigger surprise than "Dancing With the Stars." Last night's two-hour debut of “Brat Camp,” a show where troubled teens get bundled off to nature camp, averaged a 3.8 rating among viewers 18-49 and 10.28 million total viewers, according to Nielsen overnights.

During the first half hour the show posted a 2.7 rating among 18-49s. But that jumped to a 3.6 at 8:30, then to a 4.3 at 9 and finally to a 4.6 at 9:30, the night’s highest-rated half hour among 18-49s. All told, the show grew 70 percent from start to finish among adults 18-49.

The final average was not quite as good as the 4.3 18-49 rating and 13.48 million viewers ABC earned for the debut of the surprise hit “Dancing with the Stars,” but it's still one of the top premieres of the summer.

Its success is somewhat puzzling. "Brat Camp" got very bad reviews and came a month after ABC debuted "The Scholar," another show about kids that has done terribly on Monday nights.

But perhaps viewers are more willing to watch a show where there's some real conflict, as there is with the parents, kids and camp directors on "Brat Camp," than one about students competing for college scholarships.

Bruised: Cruise tantrum costs 'Today'
NBC push for mileage from Lauer set-to backfires

By Toni Fitzgerald medialifemagazine.com

“Today” is definitely feeling the heat from ABC’s “Good Morning America,” but in its efforts to stay ahead it may be trying too hard.

Case in point: In the days after the June 24 show in which Tom Cruise snapped at host Matt Lauer, NBC took to promoting the much-talked-about run-in with the promise of outtakes of the interview to pull in viewers who had not seen the original.

It didn’t work. In fact, it looks like it actually drove some viewers away.

For the week ended July 3, the week after Cruise’s Friday interview, “Today” averaged 5.2 million total viewers. That was down 5 percent from the previous week, when an average 5.5 million watched.

More significantly, “Good Morning America” got closer to "Today" than it had been in several weeks. Before all the Cruise chatter began, the second-to-last week of June, “GMA” was pulling 4.8 million viewers, or about 700,000 behind “Today.” That figure was about flat at 4.7 million the week after Cruise was on "Today," but the gap between them narrowed to about 500,000.

During the interview, Cruise, who belongs to the Church of Scientology, called psychiatry a pseudo-science and said that drugs shouldn’t be used to treat mental illness. When Lauer disagreed with him, Cruise accused him of being glib.

It’s not hard to see why the “Today” producers thought they had a big audience-puller. The celebrity news shows were all a-flutter over the story, as were the supermarket tabs. And MSNBC.com lit up with visitors viewing a stream of the Lauer-Cruise interview, with some 2.5 million eventual streams.

But NBC may have been misreading the signals. The ultimate effect may have gone beyond curiosity on the part of the public to disgust. Americans have a long history of intolerance when it comes to their favorite actors' opinions about the larger world of politics, and it appears they may be even less tolerant when it comes to actors' thoughts on the more arcane area of depression and its proper treatment.

It appears Cruise's somewhat wacky behavior of late has not hurt his new movie, “War of the Worlds,” which has gotten good buzz and has Steven Spielberg as its producer.

But it has certainly roused anger. A new web site, tomcruiseisnuts.com, has popped up and 15,000 have signed an online petition saying they won't see "Worlds" because of Cruise's behavior.

Deadlocked FCC Puts Ownership Deregulation Proceedings on Hold

By Doug Halonen TVWeek.com July 14, 2005

Unable to agree on how to proceed with the controversy over media ownership deregulation, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday put an indefinite hold on proposed proceedings to determine whether to relax the rules.

The FCC commissioners were scheduled to formally unveil a proposal Thursday seeking public comment on how to respond to a federal appeals court decision that overturned an effort by agency Republicans to loosen the rules last year. The U.S. Supreme Court in June refused to review the appellate court decision, kicking the issue back to the FCC.

Sources said the FCC -- deadlocked with two Republicans and two Democrats -- couldn't resolve a number of key issues related to the proceedings, including how to respond to requests for public hearings on the controversy. The panel's two Democrats -- Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein -- oppose deregulation, and they want Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, to commit to a series of public field hearings, independent research projects on effects of deregulation and an assurance that Mr. Martin won't try to attack the individual regulations piecemeal.

Industry lobbyists have been urging the agency to attack the rules, particularly one that bars daily newspapers from buying broadcast stations in their markets, one at a time, on the theory that the rules are more vulnerable separately than in a package.

Sources said Mr. Martin, a proponent of deregulation, doesn't want to tie his hands with procedural commitments now because the White House is expected to give him a Republican majority at the agency soon. With a third Republican vote at the agency, Mr. Martin won't have to defer to the agency's two Democrats, who currently have the power to hold him in check. "As long as Martin doesn't have three votes, [the FCC's two Democrats] have leverage," said Andrew Schwartzman, president of the activist Media Access Project.

Senate Appropriations Restores CPB Funds
By Bill McConnell Broadcasting & Cable
The Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday voted to restore more than $100 million the House wants to strip from 2006 funding for public television.

The measure proposes restoring $400 million in fiscal 2008 advance funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as well as providing $35 million in 2006 for CPB to pass on to rural TV stations needing help constructing digital television facilities and a $40 million installment for the replacement of Public Television’s aging satellite interconnection system.

In addition, $25 million was approved for Ready To Learn, the PBS program for funding educational shows. The measure also would earmark $11 million for Ready To Teach.

“Without this victory, our stations would have been in a severe financial bind. Some smaller stations would have gone off of the air, with the entire industry being placed at risk from a very negative ripple effect,” said John Lawson, president and CEO of the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS). APTS applauds the leadership of Subcommittee Chairman Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), and the tireless efforts of APTS members stations to mobilize their supporters and achieve this victory. “We’ve really had a public referendum on the question of federal funding for public broadcasting, and Congress has responded.”

If approved by the Senate and agreed to by the House, the restored money would bring the total of PBS funds restored from a House Appropriations Committee bill that would have slashed public broadcasting funds to $211 million.

The House Appropriations Committee measure would have cut 45% from 2005 funding levels.

A June 23 vote by the full House previously restored $100 million for CPB by a two-to-one margin. Funding Ready To Learn and Ready To Teach, the digital television transition, and the satellite interconnection system remained unfunded in the House version.

PBS spokeswoman Ronnie Gunnerson said the Senate Committee vote indicates broad bipartisan support for maintaining the quality of public broadcasting constraints on government spending. "Even in this austere budget climate, public broadcasting's collective efforts are recognized and appreciated by the public and the Congress," she said.

“Hooking Up” Dater’s Complicated Past
By Mark Lasswell Broadcasting & Cable

In the ABC News documentary series Hooking Up, about Internet dating, which begins airing tonight, Dr. Lisa Aptaker quickly emerges as someone who’s less than straightforward with her potential romantic partners. Her credibility problems may extend beyond the dating arena.

Dr. Aptaker, a New York gynecologist, told KSAT-TV San Antonio yesterday that she was recently discharged from the U.S. Army when the military found out about her participation in the ABC series. “Very quickly, when it became known that this show was about to air, I was literally pushed out,” she said.

An Army spokesman declined to comment on the case, citing privacy concerns, but he indicated that Hooking Up was not the cause of unhappiness with Dr. Aptaker at Fort Sam Houston’s medical training center in Texas.

And, indeed, the issue may have had more to do with professional matters.

Last November, the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings supported the Department of Health Board of Medicine’s refusal to grant Dr. Aptaker a license to practice.

The “Findings of Fact” in the matter (www.doah.state.fl.us/ros/2004/04-0683.doc) paint a portrait of someone with a troubled work history who is prone to rancorous dealings with medical colleagues and public meltdowns over personal relationships. The papers also noted that Dr. Aptaker “is under investigation in New York for issues related to patient care and her behavior.”

The physician agreed to submit to a series of psychological tests in 2003 as she contested Florida’s initial refusal to grant her a license. One of the tests, according to the findings of fact, found that “She responded to the test items by claiming to be unrealistically virtuous. In other words, she depicted herself the way she wished other people to view her instead of providing a realistic depiction.”

KSAT reported yesterday that Dr. Aptaker was inspired to join the Army because she wanted to lend her help in Iraq.

TV Critics Tour Blog

By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Run Revs up MTV

It made the "Osbournes" into "Eight is Enough," and more tragically, Nick and Jessica into known entities. In October, MTV hopes to bring its take on "Father Knows Best" into modern times -- again-- by invading another celebrity's fly supercrib. Again.

Whose house? "Run's House." That's Reverend Run, the guy who made us trip over our Adidas shoelaces about two decades ago.

And yes, he told critics this morning, he really is a Reverend. "I can marry you or bury you right now."

At that moment, I became fairly certain this show will succeed where "Meet the Barkers" did not. Because that statement, placed in the right situation, almost rivals that punchline from "The Cosby Show": "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out." That, and the fact that when he's confronted with the price of the luxury car his daughter wants -- more than $30,000 -- he deals with the sticker shock by saying, "I gotta pray on this."
More eye-widening breaking news came from the man accompanying Reverend Run and his hip-hop mogul brother Russell Simmons on the podium: Series co-producer Sean "Puffy-P.Diddy-New Moniker Coming Soon" Combs.
Uh huh. The style-setting rap bazillionaire intends to alter his name once more. "Because I can."
And now I ask you to contemplate what the worst part of the scenario he presented this morning.
a) That he will probably change his name to something that is, in all likelihood, dumber and more inscrutable than "P. Diddy," and will shove it down our throats until we profess to love it through rivers of tears;
b) That he's heading back to the studios soon to record another album -- remember, now, this is the man who laid rhymes over Christopher Cross's "Sailing," the perfect background music for a morphine drip;
c) That he says he's creating a character, a dress up, Ziggy Stardust-inspired persona, "something eccentric....it's fun, you know what I'm saying? But it's something you have to watch old rock stars to get."

Oh man. I gotta pray on this.

A Place Between Shock and Sameness

No critic can truthfully tell you she jumps out of bed on the morning of Emmy nominations filled with either anticipation or dread. The truth is, it's more of a mix of mildly optimistic ambivalence.

Oh sure, on blogs today and papers tomorrow, declarations of surprise that Academy of Television Arts & Sciences voters actually watch television will abound, as well as commentary about Emmy maintaining the status quo.

This year, as last, it's a combination of both. We might even call it the new usual. Series too huge to ignore got the nod, the perennials ("24," "The West Wing") sprouted on the list again, and even Showtime's "Huff" got some love.

One also must acknowledge how tough it had to have been to select candidates for best miniseries and made-for television movies when there really weren't many truly deserving selections. (Good lord, "Elvis" made it.)

Still, the nominations list did raise my sleepy eyebrows a couple of times, either in quiet, pleasant shock or in wondering what in the heck is going on.
Which is an apt transition to discussing a few performer nominations, starting with ...

.. Patricia Arquette, for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, specifically NBC's "Medium."

Are you kidding me?

Don't get me wrong, I have re-evaluated "Medium" and it's a fine enough diversion, but not because of Arquette's multifaceted performance. Good lord, she throws on baggy clothes, shuns hair product and that's good enough for Emmy? Did no one on the committee notice "Deadwood's" Molly Parker (Alma Garret) or Robin Weigert (Calamity Jane)? Even Kristen Bell ("Veronica Mars") would have been a better choice.

No matter. Check out the rest of this category, and you get a pretty clear idea of who the favorite is:

-Glenn Close ("The Shield," FX)
-Frances Conroy ("Six Feet Under," HBO)
-Jennifer Garner ("Alias," ABC)
-Mariska Hargitay ("Law & Order: SVU," NBC)

On the other hand, seeing "Scrubs'" Zach Braff get tapped for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series -- thanks, "Garden State" -- was a nice surprise. Ditto for "Scrubs" in the Outstanding Comedy box.

Honestly, if Emmy had filled its space with "According to Jim," the critics and audiences would probably rebel. Checking out the actor's and his show's competition, they probably won't win. Neither, for that matter, should "Will & Grace," which proved to be barely watchable last season. Still, think of it as wool socks at Christmas. It's the thought that counts.

ACTOR
-Jason Bateman ("Arrested Development," Fox)
-Eric McCormack ("Will & Grace," NBC)
-Ray Romano ("Everybody Loves Raymond," CBS)
-Tony Shalhoub ("Monk," USA)

COMEDY SERIES
-"Arrested Development" (Fox)
-"Desperate Housewives" (ABC)
-"Everybody Loves Raymond" (CBS)
-"Will & Grace" (NBC)

"Desperate's" Nicollette Sheridan's omission in the Lead Actress in a Comedy is a semi-bitter pill, but what do you expect? It's Patricia Heaton's year to get funerary votes for "Everybody Loves Raymond." And Emmy just wouldn't be Emmy if it didn't get Jane Kaczmarek's hopes up for the sixth year in a row. Depending on how long "Malcolm in the Middle" lasts, and what happens this year, the woman may end up being the Susan Lucci of primetime TV.

She and Heaton face -- who else?
-Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher Felicity Huffman ("Desperate Housewives," ABC)

Had "Deadwood's" Ian McShane not gotten a nom for Oustanding Lead Actor in a Drama, there might have been a lot of televisions flying off balconies this morning. By rights, this should be his second nomination. "House's" Hugh Laurie's nod was somewhat expected, but with Emmy, you never know. Notice: No Martin Sheen!

The rest:
-Hank Azaria ("Huff," Showtime)
-James Spader ("Boston Legal," ABC)
-Kiefer Sutherland (24, Fox)

Lastly, in the Outstanding Drama Series nods, the two shows that are always there, Fox's "24" and NBC "The West Wing," deserve to be here more than they had in past years. Where as HBO's "Six Feet Under" has seen better seasons ... but again, it's on it's way to the grave. They're up against "Deadwood" (HBO) and "Lost" (ABC).

A brief list of others deserving congratulations: Sandra Oh ("Grey's Anatomy," ABC) and CCH Pounder ("The Shield," FX) for supporting actress in a drama; Naveen Andrews, Terry O'Quinn ("Lost," ABC)and Oliver Platt ("Huff," Showtime) in the supporting actor drama category; and Jessica Walter ("Arrested Development", Fox) for supporting actress in a comedy.

A Map to Bob Dylan

Another's efforts to make you feel like part of an exclusive club can be such a pain sometimes. PBS was put in that unfortunate position over the theatrical screening of "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan," a Martin Scorsese film airing in two parts at 9 p.m. on September 26 and 27.

A work of this magnitude, particular one running under the "American Masters" banner, is typically shipped to critics for review well in advance of its airdate.
But film's producers and Dylan himself, one of the most bootlegged recording artists in history, are nervous about piracy, so if we wanted to see it, we either had to sit through three and a half hours in one butt-numbing take, or wait until the DVD's official street date, September 20. The soundtrack hits stores on Aug. 30, but never mind -- what was done was done, and the grumbling was loud and long.

But I endured the screening, and can answer the question of whether it was worth the trouble with a short anecdote.

Moments before walking into the screening, I admitted to someone who had just finished talking about Dylan's genius that although I respected his contributions to modern music, I was never a fan.

Whenever I have revealed this, the expression on the listener's face, no matter who he or she is, is the same one that person would wear if I have just told them I eat scrambled toddlers for breakfast. It is a admittance of having a terrible, unforgivable blind spot. (I have to add I'm glad Benicio Del Toro, who snuck into the screening disguised as a hobo, wasn't within earshot this time. I would have wilted to see the same expression on his face because I kind of respect him.)

The point of the story is this: After seeing the three-and-a-half hours "No Direction," I understand that reaction, because in this detailed account of Dylan's development between 1961 and 1966, Scorsese has at last painted a portrait of the soul driving the music.

That was a necessary puzzle piece to understanding Dylan's allure, and something I'd been missing until now. We'll go into more detail closer to the airdate, but the short answer is: Yes. Any music fan should circumvent whatever obstacles are in his or her way to see it. Just make sure you have an extra pillow for your posterior.

Hooking Up

Immersed as I am in La La land, I nearly forgot about tonight’s premiere of "Hooking Up," a five part "documentary" series from ABC News running at 9 p.m. on KOMO/4. Notice two things about that sentence – the fact that it slipped my mind, and the quotes around the word documentary.

In my estimation, and maybe this is naïve, a documentary produced by a network’s news division -- even one on online dating -- should have some greater worth beyond titillating one’s emotions with a mélange of disappointment, comedy at the expense of others, and car-wreck rubbernecking. News? Hardly. Try reality television masquerading as some version of journalism, so insubstantial that I barely remembered I had watched it.

THE EMMY NOMINATIONS: A toast to storied TV

Broadcast series make their best showing in years, led by newcomers such as "Housewives" and "Lost”

By Scott Collins and Susan King Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
(Times staff writers Merrill Balassone, Maria Elena Fernandez, Barbara A. Serrano and Brian Triplett contributed to this report)

After several years of declining viewership and cultural influence, broadcast series crowned a banner season at the 57th Annual Primetime Emmy nominations Thursday, with ABC's first-year blockbusters "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" leading the way with a combined total of 27 nods.

With 51 total nominations, ABC wasn't the only network basking in Emmy glory. Fox received the highest number of nominations — 49 — in the network's 20-year history, thanks largely to 11 apiece for the low-rated comedy "Arrested Development," last year's winner, and the spy thriller "24." And for the first time in more than a decade, CBS, the most-watched network, led the broadcast tally with 59, including 13 for its flagship comedy series, "Everybody Loves Raymond," which ended its nine-year run this year.

After years in which cable hits such as HBO's "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City" mopped up awards and reality shows ruled the ratings, the reemergence of broadcast dramas — led by the water-cooler phenomenon that is "Desperate Housewives" — was striking.

"Network dramas are holding their own again. The viewers proved that with the ratings, but now the nominations are also acknowledging that," said Damon Lindelof, co-creator of "Lost," the desert-island thriller with an ensemble cast that became an unlikely hit and helped lift ABC from a desperate fourth place in the ratings.

"Housewives" creator Marc Cherry said the Emmy nominations could affect network dramas for years to come: "Hopefully all the networks paid attention to what ABC did last year and that it took more risks," he said. "I think what we've learned is that the next big hit is going to be something unexpected."

The stiffest Emmy competition in recent years had often been for comedy, but this year the action moved to drama. The category was so strong that some critical and fan favorites — such as FX's "Nip/Tuck" and "The Shield" and CBS' "CSI" forensics franchise — were largely passed over.

HBO, which had irked broadcasters by dominating the Emmy contest for the last five years, remained a potent force, with an industry-leading 93 nominations. The premium cable outlet earned 16 apiece, the most for any program, for its original biographical movies "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" and "Warm Springs," about Franklin D. Roosevelt's struggle with polio. "Empire Falls," HBO's star-studded miniseries about small-town life based on Richard Russo's novel, netted 10 nominations, the most for any limited-run series.

Still, cracks are clearly showing in HBO's dominance. The network earned 31 fewer nods than last year, a testament to the eroding power of its original series lineup. The mob hit "The Sopranos," last year's drama winner," won't return until early next year and thus wasn't eligible this time around, and perennial favorite "Sex and the City" ended its run last year.

The revisionist western "Deadwood" led HBO's series count with 11 nominations, including outstanding drama series and best actor (Ian McShane as a violent, foul-mouthed saloon owner). But the heavily promoted "Entourage," a comedy about a young Hollywood star and his lifelong pals, got just three mentions, none in a major category. "Six Feet Under," a comedy-drama about a family-owned funeral home, which got 23 nominations in 2002 and 16 in 2003, received just five nods for its fourth and penultimate season — though one of them was for the big prize: best drama series.

HBO executives shrugged off any comparison with the network's high tally last year, which they say was an anomaly.

"Last year was kind of a perfect storm. We won more Emmys than all the broadcast networks combined, so we looked at ourselves and said, 'This will never happen again,' " said HBO Chairman and Chief Executive Chris Albrecht. As for this year, "We got two out of five nominations in the best drama category. Not sure what's wrong with that."

In some ways, HBO's prior record may have been too dominating for its own good. One TV historian suggested that broadcasters may have learned their lesson from cable and succeeded in developing more sophisticated dramas that have finally connected with viewers.

"If you go back into the '70s and look at the list for five nominees for best drama, before cable, there's absolutely no comparison," said Robert J. Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. Today, "the television drama is so much more sophisticated."

True to their sometimes contrarian habits, members of the North Hollywood-based Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which oversees the Emmys, honored several series whose appeal has long since faded with viewers — or that never caught on in the first place.

NBC's sitcom "Will & Grace" slipped badly in the ratings without "Friends" as a lead-in but still managed to tie "Desperate Housewives" with 15 nominations, the most for any series. The comedy is headed into its eighth and final season.

"I felt like somehow I'd gone back in time to 2000," joked "Will & Grace" star Eric McCormack. "We didn't think it would be a big year for us."

NBC's "The West Wing," a four-time winner as best drama but a program whose highest ratings are likely in the past, still drew five nominations.

"HBO's little-watched Depression-era drama "Carnivàle" earned eight nominations, even though the network has already decided not to renew it for another season. After four seasons, NBC's hospital comedy "Scrubs" finally broke through with nods for best comedy and lead actor (Zach Braff). But the series has struggled in the ratings, and new episodes won't return until midseason next year. Executive producer Bill Lawrence took the opportunity Thursday to chide NBC for keeping "Scrubs" off the fall schedule (see related story on Page 26).

"It's definitely a really great loyal fan base that's always stuck with the show," said Braff. "It's never been a runaway 'Friends'-type of hit."

Three of the four "Desperate Housewives" leads — Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman — will square off in the outstanding actress category (Eva Longoria, who was earlier snubbed for a Golden Globe, came away empty-handed). But the risqué soap opera will compete in the comedy, not drama, category. Its studio, Touchstone Television, submitted the series as a comedy, presumably to boost odds of winning due to a dearth of hit sitcoms.

Other actors enjoying acclaim for first-year series included Hugh Laurie — nominated for his acerbic, pill-popping doctor on Fox's hit "House" — and Patricia Arquette, the longtime feature lead honored as a detective with spiritual powers in NBC's midseason hit "Medium." Arquette will compete in the lead dramatic actress category opposite another film star, Glenn Close, nominated for a one-season-only role as Capt. Monica Rawling on FX's gritty cop drama "The Shield."

Many of TV's most popular shows were lightly represented in the nomination tally. CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," TV's most-watched drama and a past Emmy contender as the best in that category, saw just four nominations — and none in a major category. ABC's medical drama "Grey's Anatomy," a critically acclaimed midseason hit, merited only three nods, including for supporting actress Sandra Oh.

Fox's "American Idol" — the Tuesday edition of which was TV's most-watched regular series for the 2004-05 season — garnered six nominations, the most for any unscripted series. But it will likely face a formidable foe in CBS' "Amazing Race," which earned five nominations (tied with CBS' "Survivor") and has already won two Emmys for outstanding reality series.

PBS, which has been embroiled in controversy over alleged political bias in programming, drew 23 nominations, including a nod for outstanding miniseries with Masterpiece Theatre's "The Lost Prince" — the first nod for "Masterpiece Theatre" in eight years — and five nominations for the multi-part "Broadway: The American Musical" documentary.

Other highly nominated programs included Showtime's drama "Huff," HBO's movie "Lackawanna Blues" and the 77th Annual Academy Awards, hosted by Chris Rock. Each received seven nominations.

CBS will telecast the awards from Los Angeles on Sept. 18.

'Scrubs': Comatose but praised

By Lynn Smith Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 15, 2005
(Merrill Balassone and Maria Elena Fernandez contributed to this report)

After watching their show shuffled around for four years, then dropped from the fall schedule announced in May, the cast and crew of NBC's "Scrubs" can feel good about their work, said the comedy series' creator, Bill Lawrence. The show about medical residents, starring Zach Braff, received four Emmy nominations Thursday: for best comedy series, actor, casting and multi-camera picture editing in a comedy series.

"Scrubs" developed a loyal fan base and sales of its DVD went well, Lawrence said. But with network television driven relentlessly by ratings, he said, the cast and crew were constantly told they were failing, even though they felt they were doing good work. "It's got to be embarrassing for NBC," he said. "They put other shows on the air and they didn't seem to get nominations. Maybe this will shame NBC to put it back on earlier."

Kevin Reilly, entertainment president of NBC, called the nominations "long overdue." But Reilly acknowledged the difficulties the show has faced, some of them created by the network. " 'Scrubs' has traveled a winding path, that's for sure," Reilly said. "It's a show that has been among the best produced and consistently creative shows on TV, but it has struggled to find a wider audience and I think the network has struggled to try and find the best way to position it, and frankly not always helped it. Lots of moves make it harder to establish a habit."

Lawrence said he understands the business reasons behind the executives' decisions. In a competitive network environment, "You have to deliver immediately or you could lose your job," he said. Still, NBC used to point proudly to shows like "St. Elsewhere" regardless of how well they did in the ratings, Lawrence said. The nominations might help get that kind of perception back for "Scrubs," he said.

"I'm just thankful the audience stuck with it," said Braff, who won a Golden Globe nomination for his role. "Our whole gang started to kind of give up on expecting anything on nomination morning. It was really a surprise."

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A New Hope for Top Models

Given how slavishly "America's Next Top Model" viewers watch young women claw their way to the title, you'd think it would mean something. A job on Project Runway. A gig as Isaac Mizrahi's muse for his Target line. Anything slightly significant.

If only. Yoanna House hosts a bargain fashion series for The Style Network. Eva Pigford scored a spokesmodel gig for a drugstore cosmetics brand. We haven't seen what Naima Mora can do yet, but a year from now, I wouldn't go looking for her in Milan.

We feared Adrianne Curry, the first Top Model, was lost -- until she ensnared the heart of an anal retentive former "Brady." You'll have the chance to witness it for yourself when "My Fair Brady," kicks off on September 11.

Yes, the Curry, 22, and 47-year-old Christopher Knight (aka Peter Brady) met in "The Surreal Life" house, the spawning ground for the gruesome, trumped up relationship between Brigitte Nielsen and her foofy-foofy, Flavor Flav.

But unlike the act that preceded them, Adrianne and Christopher's love is for real. "I tried to resist her advances," he says in a voiceover as Adrianne wriggled around on what looked like a strip club stage, "but resistance is futile."

In all fairness, if you watched their relationship unfold on "Surreal Life," a part of you wants to cheer for the pair. Knight was the house nice guy, Curry made doe eyes at him from their first moments together, unaware that he's one year younger than her mother and two years older than her dad.

Which is why the Top Model was made to explain why the twice-divorced Knight is such a catch. "Everybody knows men my age are after one thing, and we all know exactly what that is, and it's absolutely not commitment or being kind."

'Desperate' and 'Lost' -- the words for this year's Emmy nominations

By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle Television Critic Thursday, July 14, 2005

Los Angeles -- Television's two breakout hits from last season — "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" — were, as expected, justly rewarded with Emmy nominations on Thursday. But it was also equally unsurprising that Emmy voters proved themselves and their actions both desperate and lost, rubber-stamping series that had no business being nominated and skipping hordes of deserving choices along the way.

Then again, rage against the Emmys is always easy. The truth is, every year it's a mixed bag of blunders and surprisingly astute acknowledgements — and this year is no different.

With 15 nominations for "Desperate" and 12 for "Lost," Emmy voters duly recognized ABC's stunning reversal of fortune and, without their usual one-season lag time, the two series that had viewers gabbing at the proverbial water cooler.

It was also an impressive showing for television's finest comedy, Fox's "Arrested Development," which proved last year's win was no fluke by garnering 11 nominations, including outstanding comedy series, a lead actor nomination for Jason Bateman, two supporting nominations for Jeffrey Tambor and Jessica Walter, plus three of the five writing awards, trumping both the darling "Desperate" and the departed "Everybody Loves Raymond."

There was a sense of wonderful righteousness to see HBO's "Deadwood," easily the class act of the nominated dramas, finally get that recognition, along with Ian McShane as lead actor.

Other positive surprises were Glenn Close from FX's "The Shield" and Patricia Arquette from NBC's "Medium" making the cut for outstanding lead actress; Jeremy Piven getting the nod as supporting actor for his work on HBO's "Entourage"; CCH Pounder finally breaking through as supporting actress in a drama for her fine work in FX's "The Shield"; "Scrubs," getting its very first nomination for outstanding comedy series, and the out-of-nowhere recognition for Showtime's drama, "Huff," with seven nominations.

Yet it's always the puzzling, annoying and ridiculous oversights that get your attention. Both HBO's comedy "Entourage" and its drama "The Wire" failed to get series nominations. Whereas Emmy voters have proven in years past that they have almost no knowledge of "The Wire" — one of the top five dramatic series on television without any question — failing to give a nod to the buzz-heavy "Entourage" while recognizing the haggard and past-its-prime "Will & Grace" is outright criminal. How in the world did "Will & Grace" get 15 nominations? Who knew there was enough ink in Hollywood for such rubber stamping?

It's equally outrageous — but understandable — that "Rescue Me" on FX didn't get a series nomination or land a spot in the lead acting category for Denis Leary. The problem may have been that stablemates "The Shield" and "Nip/Tuck" — both dramas — split the votes. While the nominations that all of these series did get are validation for FX, a cable channel surging forward with quality, it doesn't dull the disappointment over "Rescue Me" or even the very deserving Michael Chiklis.

In other what-were-they-thinking moments, "The West Wing" was also a deluded selection for best drama (an argument could be made — and with some logical vigor — that even HBO's "Six Feet Under" was a misguided choice in this category). Better to see both "The Wire" and "Rescue Me" than those.

Why Emmy voters keep thinking that Jennifer Garner deserves her fourth consecutive lead actress nomination for ABC's "Alias" is beyond comprehension, as is the second consecutive nomination for Mariska Hargitay from NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit." Hargitay's abilities are considerably overrated but not on the order of Garner's.

The preoccupation with "Will & Grace," which used to be a enormously better and exponentially funnier in earlier years, must end. While it was a heart-warming surprise to find Zach Braff getting his first Emmy nomination as lead actor for "Scrubs," the inclusion of Eric McCormack for "Will & Grace" and even the normally deserving Tony Shalhoub in USA's "Monk" are dubious. This goes directly back to snubbing "Entourage."

One of the wrenches thrown into the nominating process was "Desperate Housewives" being entered as a comedy (series and actors can choose which categories they want to enter). While it's decidedly more of a drama, the move did pave the way for "Lost" to jump into the drama category, ousting "CSI," which some will consider a major snub.

"Lost" landed both Naveen Andrews and Terry O'Quinn in the supporting actor category — one thick with talent given the presence of Alan Alda from "West Wing" and Oliver Platt from "Huff." (William Shatner getting a nod over virtually anyone from "Deadwood" is just obscene).

Showtime's "Huff" is easily the stunner in this year's Emmy nominations field, with Hank Azaria getting the nod in the notoriously difficult best actor category (he joins McShane, Hugh Laurie from Fox's "House," James Spader from ABC's "Boston Legal" and Kiefer Sutherland for Fox's "24").

With Platt in the supporting actor category and Blythe Danner in the supporting actress arena, that's a formidable showing for "Huff," a series few people can claim to have seen.

One reason for more surprises this year is that HBO stalwarts such as "The Sopranos," "Sex and the City" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" were not eligible ("Sex" had ended its run and the other two didn't air in the nominating season). On the comedy side, retired big leaguers like such as "Friends" and "Frasier" also opened the door.

With Emmy nominations, it's often better to count your blessings, such as being pleased about BBC America's "The Office Special" getting two nominations (outstanding television movie and writing for same) than it is getting hung up on snubs to Lauren Graham and the WB's "Gilmore Girls," or Kristen Bell and UPN's "Veronica Mars."

You can only hope for so much with Emmy voters.

Dispatches
By Matt Roush TV Guide.com

For every drop of refreshing new blood in this year's Emmy field, there's a stubborn residue of tired old blood. The Emmy nominations are an annual rite of frustration in which every positive breakthrough is balanced by an aggravating snub.

This year is no different. As expected, last year's instant hits on ABC, Desperate Housewives and Lost, got their due, leading the comedy and drama pack respectively (although Housewives was tied with the academy's longtime, and inexplicable, darling Will & Grace with 15 nominations).

But because of the TV academy's regrettable devotion to faded perennials like Will & Grace, The West Wing and Six Feet Under, newer and fresher shows like Entourage and all of FX's remarkable dramas were left off the list of best series. (In what world are Six Feet and West Wing superior to Rescue Me, Nip/Tuck and The Shield?) As for WB and UPN's best shows, Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars, they and their networks may as well not exist to this moribund organization.

Going down the long, long list of nominees, you can't help but notice how every cheer is countered by a jeer. Just one case in point: The Shield. Glenn Close gets nominated, as she should, but not Michael Chiklis. At last CCH Pounder gets nominated, but not the season's most riveting villain, Anthony Anderson. You win some, you lose some. The Emmy way.

Which is why, even as we celebrate all of the Housewives who got nominated, including first-among-equals Marcia Cross, the focus goes on the one left out: Eva Longoria, an adorable prime-time newcomer whose spitfire character may be seen as lacking the poignancy and pain (and perhaps chops) of the other leads.

Likewise, while we revel in Lost's 12 nominations, including well-earned nods for directing and writing, we're sorry that only Terry O'Quinn (a lock as Locke) and Naveen Andrews were singled out of that great ensemble. Similarly, 24 deserved its 11 nods, but ignoring Shohreh Aghdashloo — while Stockard Channing chalked up yet another nomination for her barely visible West Wing first lady — is just shameful.

And when it comes to the often overrepresented HBO, more puzzling lapses. Deadwood star Ian McShane finally got his nomination, but this time, the rest of the supporting cast (including the amazing Robin Weigert and Brad Dourif) were left out. And not a single Deadwood script, with all of that marvelous Shakespearean dialogue, was nominated in the writing category. As expected, Entourage scene-stealer Jeremy Piven got noticed, but the show itself didn't make the best comedy cut.

Among the positive developments: the arrival at long last of Scrubs and its affable star Zach Braff in the comedy field, thanks to Friends' departure and the absence of Curb Your Enthusiasm. (But what of the supporting cast, including the always-worthy John C. McGinley?) And thankfully, Jason Bateman and Jessica Walter joined the list of Arrested Development nominees this year.

In drama acting, how terrific for House's Hugh Laurie and how unexpected for Huff's Hank Azaria to get nominated. And in the drama actress category, what a surprise for Medium's Patricia Arquette to defy the skeptics and get nominated for her offbeat performance.

In supporting categories, I was happy to see Grey's Anatomy's Sandra Oh and, in comedy, Two and a Half Men's Holland Taylor and especially the hilarious Conchata Farrell. (How ironic for this show to have none of its men nominated, though.)

The nicest surprise in the made-for-TV movie category was the inclusion of BBC America's The Office Special (thankfully, the NBC remake was shut out from comedy contention). The biggest omission was Showtime's Our Fathers, which deserved a best picture nod over TNT's sentimental The Wool Cap. In miniseries, I was glad to see USA Network's The 4400 but sorry that Sci Fi's Farscape sequel was ignored. In reality, how cool for Project Runway to be in the company of The Amazing Race and Survivor. Maybe next year America's Next Top Model can get into the mix.

One final thought: Did Blythe Danner do anything on TV that didn't get a nomination? She is in three categories this year: for her supporting rule in Huff, for her lead performance in CBS' Back When We Were Grownups and for a guest comedy performance on Will & Grace (one of my favorite categories, which also includes Everybody Loves Raymond's wonderful Georgia Engel, Malcolm in the Middle's Cloris Leachman and, from Desperate Housewives, Kathryn Joosten (who will always be Mrs. Landingham to me) and Lupe Ontiveros.

Neal Justin Minneapolis Star Tribune July 15, 2005

LOS ANGELES -- "Desperate Housewives" arrived in the Emmy neighborhood with a bang when the 57th annual Emmy Awards nominations were revealed Thursday morning. But, as a whole, industry voters weren't desperate enough.

With old war horses such as "The Sopranos" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" ineligible with no new episodes this past season, and favorites such as "Frasier" and "Sex and the City" living in Florida retirement homes, it was the perfect opportunity to honor some brash new kids on the block -- shows such as "Rescue Me,"Entourage,"The Wire" and "Nip/Tuck."

So what did Emmy voters go cuckoo for? "Will & Grace." You know, the one about the two (giggle, giggle) gay guys that feels as if it has been around since Uncle Miltie first put on a dress. It received 15 nominations, its most in a single year, and tied with "Housewives."

Other nominated shows that have seen better days include "Six Feet Under," which died creatively long ago; "24," which is quickly running out of gas, and "The West Wing," which had a fine year but not one that deserved a spot as a real contender.

Of all the longtime Emmy nominees, I could muster up warm feelings only for "Everybody Loves Raymond," which ended its run with its best season, one that, in a just society, would finally put supporting actor Peter Boyle in the winners' circle and upset the overhyped "Housewives." Of course, the chances of that happening are about the same as Teri Hatcher having sushi with me this weekend.

How much interest is there in "Housewives"? My bet is that today's "buzz" story in Hollywood will be Eva Longoria, who did not join co-stars Hatcher, Felicity Huffman and Marcia Cross in the lead actress category. Nicolette Sheridan failed to get a supporting-actress nod, but that's about the equivalent of crabgrass. Longoria's shunning was an all-out house fire.

Some tears should be shed for Lauren Graham, who so richly deserves an Emmy for her work on "Gilmore Girls" but never gets nominated.

Or for the overlooked "Rescue Me," TV's finest drama. I was positive that star and co-creator Denis Leary would get a nomination. When -- oh, when -- will the industry forgive him for "Operation Dumbo Drop"?

At least Dudley Riggs veteran Peter Tolan got a nod for directing the "Rescue Me" pilot. (Note to Emmy virgins: An award for directing TV is worth about as much as a parking voucher.)

It's not that voters didn't go out on a limb in some categories. It's that they smoked too many banana leaves once they got out there.

"Huff"? Yes, Showtime's mediocre baby got all kinds of attention, including nominations for best comedy and one for star Hank Azaria. Patricia Arquette of "Medium" for best dramatic actress? Guess voters worried that if they ignored her, she'd use her spooky powers to turn them into chickens or, worse, theater people. Holland Taylor and Conchata Ferrell as supporting actresses on "Two and a Half Men"? Maybe they'll have to change the show's title.

I will applaud the academy on a few choices. "Scrubs" star Zach Braff got some long overdue best-actor recognition. Best-comedy-actor nominee Hugh Laurie of "House" and Sandra Oh, nominated as best actress for "Grey's Anatomy," represented promising new shows. Ian McShane of "Deadwood" and Jason Bateman of "Arrested Development" made the best-actor cut after having been left out last year.

But nobody could be celebrating more than Blythe Danner, who got three -- count 'em, three -- nominations for her work on "Huff,"Before They Were Grownups" and "Will & Grace." Let's see daughter Gwyneth Paltrow pull that stunt.

On the flip side, there's Angela Lansbury, who got her 18th nomination thanks to steely guest appearances on two "Law & Order" franchises. Why is this bad news? Because she has never won before and she'll be reminded of it every minute from now until the awards presentation Sept. 18.

Now, that's a desperate woman.

TELEVISION REVIEW
'Galactica' promise isn't lost in space

By Maureen Ryan Chicago Tribune staff reporter July 15, 2005

Don't think of "Battlestar Galactica," which returns at 9 p.m. Friday on Sci Fi Channel, as a sci-fi show. Don't even think of it as "The Shield" in space, which is probably the handiest short description of the program.

"Battlestar Galactica," which returns with a typically stylish and provocative season opener, is probably the best example we have of faith-based television.

It was a leap of faith for Sci Fi to take a chance on this program, which follows the 50,000 human survivors of an attack by the mechanized Cylons, a race that can appear human and that was invented by humans.

But that faith was rewarded by viewers, who looked past the show's genre label to find a well-acted, rewarding drama. Viewers made "Battlestar" a hit for Sci Fi, and critics were converted as well.

"This is my fourth series, and I never dreamed the one that would hit would be science fiction," says Katee Sackhoff, who plays pilot Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. "That's surprising."

Not so surprising, when you figure that, in addition to supplying plenty of action, meaty stories and smart characterizations, the show confronts the big issues of the day -- our day -- faith and God among them.

The survivors of the Cylon attack, who are searching for the birthplace of mankind while trying to avoid annihilation, have to figure out how to govern themselves now that all their institutions and leaders have been blown up and threats loom within their own society. They have to figure out what they believe -- in their own polytheistic faith, or in the "one true God" of the Cylons, who are quite spiritually inclined for a race of ruthless killers.

And all this philosophical exploration does not happen on a clean, tastefully decorated starship (credit must go to production designer Richard Hudolin and director of photography Stephen McNutt for making everything on "Battlestar" look so wonderfully beat-up).

As the season begins, the head of the fleet, Commander William Adama (Edward James Olmos), is covered in blood, after being shot by a Cylon who had been cloned to look like a member of Adama's crew. The increasingly tough president, Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell), is in a grimy cell, after she and Adama clashed over who was in charge of the battered Galactica fleet.

And Col. Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan), Adama's right-hand man and a closet drinker, is covered in sweat, trying to figure out how he's going to save the fleet now that the Cylons have found it again.

"The realistic basis of this [show] -- that's what makes it different," Olmos said from the show's Vancouver set. "You can relate to it on a visceral level. It just feels gritty. It feels like it's happening right now. That's what really made it come alive for a lot of people."

And nobody pretends to have all the answers. "There's a scene coming up where [Starbuck] has her gun drawn, but she just sits there," says Sackhoff, whose character is trapped on a Cylon-occupied planet with a fellow pilot, Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, who turns out to be a Cylon. "[Starbuck] doesn't know who to put the gun on in the moment. She's the one person we've seen very trigger-happy and very outspoken about killing Cylons, but she doesn't know what to do."

But it'd be unfair to paint "Battlestar" as only an exploration of philosophical dilemmas, because it's mostly about believable people in extreme situations. As "Chief" Galen Tyrol, Aaron Douglas is the personification of the capable enlisted man who has no time for bungling officers. As Gaius Baltar, the scientist who got humanity into this mess by consorting with a hot blond Cylon, James Callis is a twitchy, lustful delight.

Trouble looms for the "Battlestar" fleet. Because Boomer is pregnant.

TELEVISION REVIEW
'Galactica' promise isn't lost in space

By Maureen Ryan Chicago Tribune staff reporter July 15, 2005

As the season begins, the head of the fleet, Commander William Adama (Edward James Olmos), is covered in blood, after being shot by a Cylon who had been cloned to look like a member of Adama's crew.


Sounds like this was written by someone who has only watched as much as she needed to in order to write this review.

Thursday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Jul 11, 2005 8:00 AM, ENG Update e-newsletter

WRKN-TV in Nashville, TN, and KRON-TV in San Francisco later this year will employ the one-man-band video journalist (VJ) model for all of their newscasts, according to owner Young Broadcasting.

The goal of the VJ model will be to maximize each station's news gathering capacity to achieve a higher news story count by furnishing news department staffers with light, handheld HD cameras.

Reporters, editors and photographers at WKRN-TV, as well as some anchors, will begin an intensive eight-week training session with Michael Rosenblum, an expert on video journalism. (For more on Rosenblum, see “Video journalists extend reach of BBC without adding costs” .

The first WKRN-TV newscasts featuring VJ reports are expected to begin airing by the end of July. The KRON-TV news team will begin training with Rosenblum later this year.

WKRN-TV president and general manager Michael Sechrist envisions VJs giving the station an edge in the market. Using VJs will allow the station to increase the number of stories it reports, “which will differentiate our brand from our competitors while attracting a larger audience," he said.

Relying on VJs rather than the traditional two-man crew of reporter and videographer “will empower a new breed of broadcast journalist,” according to Mark Antonitis, president and general manager of KRON-TV. The VJ model will give the station “stories that have a singular and unique voice,” he said.

Because one person will be controlling the entire process under the VJ model, more efficient news gathering will come into play as time won't be expended shooting extra footage for editors who are not familiar with the background or nuances of the story, he said.

Placing numerous VJs in the field rather than be limited to eight to 12 two-man crews will also allow the stations to increase the level of specialized beat reporting. In turn, this will lead to the development of VJs who develop familiarity with a specific beat and will be able to produce more in-depth segments that inform viewers about issues affecting their communities.

In addition to purchasing new Sony Z-1 HD cameras to support the VJ model of newsgathering, both stations will acquire other new equipment for its VJs, including Dell laptops equipped with Pinnacle Systems editing software.

Jul 11, 2005 8:00 AM, ENG Update e-newsletter

WRKN-TV in Nashville, TN, and KRON-TV in San Francisco later this year will employ the one-man-band video journalist (VJ) model for all of their newscasts, according to owner Young Broadcasting.


Interesting, I'll have to watch for that. It's too bad NBC lost out on the purchase of KRON as it's one of the very few stations I can actually get OTA, problem is they have zip as far as any to watch.

Friday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

At HBO, a Series of Disappointments

By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Saturday, July 16, 2005; C07

BEVERLY HILLS, July 15--"The Sopranos" will be back in March, and the head of HBO said Friday he has absolutely no idea whether show creator David Chase will do another season after that. Now that we have that out of the way:

HBO chief Chris Albrecht, delivering the latest in his interesting series of lectures on how the media should cover the pay-cable network, said that reporters who have written about its ratings of late "don't have a real understanding of HBO's business."

The ratings are down, by the way.

By late June, the fifth season of "Six Feet Under" had drawn an average audience of 2.2 million for its Monday telecasts -- down 40 percent compared with its fourth season, which launched at the same time of year. Factoring in repeats, the mortuary drama was averaging just under 5 million viewers per week, which was off almost 20 percent from last year's nearly 6 million. HBO has since decided to move "Six Feet Under" back to Sunday nights.

Albrecht told reporters at Summer TV Press Tour 2005 that the change was not about the ratings, it was about HBO suits saying to each other, "What are we doing?"

At the time, HBO said its research had showed that, despite massive promotion, most viewers did not realize "Six Feet Under" had been moved to Monday, so the network decided to ship it back to Sunday. Of course, one way to know that HBO subscribers were not aware that "Six Feet Under" had moved to Monday would be to look at the drop in ratings.

Anyway, when HBO moved the show back to Sunday last weekend, it clocked 2.2 million viewers.

Meanwhile, "Entourage" has been down this season compared with last, though the most recent episode did equal a series high of 2 million when "Six Feet Under" returned to the same night. And Lisa Kudrow's new series, "The Comeback," which had been averaging around 1.1 million by mid-June, last weekend came in at under 1 million viewers for the episode's Sunday telecast.

One critic noted that HBO is laboring without many of its "water cooler" series -- "The Sopranos," "Sex and the City" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" -- and wondered what was missing from the newer crop of shows.

Albrecht disagreed. "Entourage," it turns out, is a water cooler show. " 'Entourage' is everywhere," Albrecht explained patiently, like someone talking to a much loved, though very dimwitted young child.

"Deadwood" is another water cooler show because, he explained, so much has been written about "Deadwood" that has nothing to do with the show.

It's true that one of the biggest reasons for HBO's ratings declines has been the lack of powerhouse lead-ins like "The Sopranos," which attracted millions of viewers to the network to watch each episode's first showing on Sunday nights.

Then there's "Carnivale," which was canceled, Albrecht said, because it was a period piece shot on location and by its third season had become an enormous investment; plus, it was not a big success in overseas sales.

Ratings aside, HBO is doing just fine, Albrecht insisted, because while it does not sell advertising like the broadcast networks, people have to pay a monthly fee to get HBO. Plus, he explained, it owns almost everything it airs. That's good when it comes to things like DVD sales. Then there are those sales to overseas markets, and lately HBO has gotten serious about afterlife in the United States, selling shows such as "Sex and the City" into syndication.

"HBO is, and will continue to be, the most profitable network in the world," Albrecht said with a smirk but without any numbers to back him up, noting that parent company Time Warner does not break out HBO numbers. Gotta love him.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"Extras" Excitement

Heaven knows HBO's obsession over the entertainment industry can be tiresome. That said, it has gotten one thing right in pairing the fifth season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" with the premiere of Ricky Gervais's new series "Extras," both arriving Sept. 25. "Curb" has 10 episodes this time around, "Extras" gets six for its first outing.

"Extras" is the brainchild of Gervais and writing partner Stephen Merchant, who co-created "The Office" with him. The duo appeared via satellite from London, and Gervais goofed off for critics, flashing his winning smile after every subtle punch line. Gervais's stock has risen Stateside since he introduced us to the world's worst boss David Brent, and "The Office Special," snagged two Emmy nods on Thursday.

This time Merchant gets to have fun in front of the camera too: He's playing the blundering agent to Gervais' luckless, middle-aged movie extra Andy Millman, an actor deluding himself into thinking he has a shot at the A-list when he's not even in the alphabet.

Such a premise might have seemed like a natural sell to the home of "Entourage," "Curb," "The Comeback" and that awful George Clooney/Steven Soderbergh project. But as Gervais explains, the comic potential inherent to being an extra was the key.

"Ego is a very big well of comedy for us," Gervais explained. "And if David Brent's ego is big, the ego of an actor is like a Tyrannosaurus Rex."

Merchant considers their partnership to be in the spirit of traditional duos such as Laurel & Hardy, and revels in putting Gervais in the underdog position this time. He knows viewers will relate. "Whenever you get an idiot in charge of your life," he explained, "that's a sure recipe for comedy and fun."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kathy Griffin: D-Lite!

And now, we return to Bravo, and Kathy Griffin's appearance for "My Life on the D-List," airing 10 p.m. Wednesdays starting Aug. 3.

Griffin's one of those "wind 'er up and let 'er go" stars network suits love, because critics would rather let her entertain them than ask tough questions. It isn't as if we have a choice, or wanted one. We set 'em up, she knocked 'em down. One of us asked about the "celebreality" craze, and she zipped off.

"I think people just love celebrities," Griffin said. "I mean, when I was a kid, there were magazines like 'Parade' and stuff, and 'Rona Barrett's Hollywood' and stuff. And now it's just worse."

She grinned maliciously, done with the warm up portion. "That's where I come in."

I'll just pull out the gold nuggets.

"...I mean, I don't know if you're watching 'Being Bobby Brown,' or as I call it, 'Mr. and Mrs. Crackerson,' but I mean, who knew they were that insane?...I sweat watching it."

"Here's the thing: I'm a purist. I love my reality. I watch them all...I watched 'Chasing Farrah' until the chased her and they caught her. Turns out she was just a crazy old drunk. That's the denouement of 'Chasing Farrah,' by the way."

"See, everybody, when I meet all the celebrities and they say, 'Am I on the D-list?' I always say, 'You know what? No, Mario Lopez, you're on the A.' I find that, like, nobody else wants to admit to being on the D-list."

"I'm going to bite and scratch until I get on the 'C,' but that's as high as I go."

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"Sopranos" Alert!

Yeah, that title's a cheap stunt. But I know you want to know what HBO knows about whether or not those rumors of a seventh season are true, and how the sixth and allegedly final season, currently in production, is shaping up.

If anybody can answer those questions, it is HBO Chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht, who spoke to us a couple of hours ago. I just got out of the session, so let's cut to the Chase. Chris?

"(Series creator) David Chase is very happy, and I don't know," Albrecht told critics before we could even ask.

Someone prodded him to elaborate. "David was so charged after...last season that I honestly believe that he feels like there's more to tell than just what he's got planned for this season. On the other hand, David has always been most concerned about leaving the audience feeling great about the show," he said.

"And that is...I know he knows he can tell more. But I think if he felt he's got 12 more episodes in him, but only 11 of them are going to be really good, and the last one wasn't going to be, he would in his mind make the decision not to do it instead of taking that risk."

Movie? Could happen, but don't get your hopes up.

"David is obsessed with doing his job well," Albrecht continued. "And part of, I think, why he hasn't figured out the answer to that question is, he's figuring out how to make the best use out of today's shoot and today's time in the writing room."

The only certainty: The sixth season gets rolling in March 2006. But you knew that.

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Entertaining Shows About the Arts

That's Bravo's latest story, and it's sticking with it. Selling her channel as cable's premier destination for shows about fashion, theater, film and music, Bravo president Lauren Zalaznick spoke about the home of "Being Bobby Brown" as if it were the height of cable cult-cha.

Kathy Griffin fondly refers to Brown's new show as "Mr. and Mrs. Crackerson," but more on her in a couple of hours.

Should you consider buying Zalaznick's illusion to justify your addiction to "Queer Eye" and the rest -- don't. Sure, she made us "ooh" at the thought of following "Project Runway" winner Jay McCarroll as he dives into the New York fashion world in "Project Jay," a one-hour documentary announced today ... but wait.

In virtually the next breath, she mentioned the August 17 premiere of "Battle of the Network Reality Stars." This series displays Evan Marriott, Richard Hatch and everyone else you want to forget, debasing themselves in tugs-of-war and other bouts of stupidity. And you will watch. Oh yes, you will.

"We think viewers will really want to watch what happens when Charla from 'The Amazing Race'" -- that would be the little person from the fifth cycle -- "battles 'The Swan' on a jousting log," Zalaznick said. And by uttering those words, she provoked demons into zestily spit-polishing whatever contraption awaits her soul in the underworld.

Oh, I kid. Because I know she's right.

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Some Things Simply Should Not Be Done

While I do not doubt Paula Deen is a better cook than I am -- she has a Food Network Show, I do not -- and that culinary creativity should be limitless, I don't think I'd ever let her make me a pizza.

This is a woman who touted the merits of using Velveeta in fudge. OK? It may be good, but it's Velveeta. In fudge. Chocolate and cheese. That's a Ween album, not a treat.

While chatting about Food Network's upcoming "All-Star Kitchen Makeover," she told us the story of re-doing a small kitchen for a young couple (shown via satellite bustling around their pristine new cooking space). As a final surprise, she made them a pizza, blending the marinara sauce with cream cheese -- Deen hearts dairy -- and topping it off with collard greens and a ham hock. They were going to pay for that kitchen one way or another, I guess.

"I'm telling y'all, it was goooood," she said. Then she turned to the screen and asked her pals if they remembered the pie.

The wife paused, and through a tight but generous TV smile replied, "How could we forget?"

Isn't that precious.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Bill Goodykroontz The Arizona Republic

HBO and the return of Tony

How pervasive is The Sopranos?

This pervasive. Here is the question posed to Chris Albrecht, the chairman and CEO of HBO, when he spoke to critics Friday afternoon:

"You don't know, but can you guess?"

This is a guy whose network airs several high-profile shows -- Deadwood, Entourage, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm, etc. -- but that's all it took.

"I honestly believe that (executive producer David Chase) feels like he's got more to tell than what he has for this (upcoming) season," Albrecht said.

On the other hand, Albrecht said Chase has always wanted to go out on a good note, not stretching things thin for the sake of making a few more episodes. So Albrecht said that he still doesn't know if there will be another season after the sixth.

Oh, and that sixth? It's set to premiere in March of 2006. And Curb Your Enthusiasm is scheduled to start its new season on Sept. 25th. Mark your calendars.

HBO and Albrecht no doubt welcome both returns (as do I, and anyone else who loves great TV). Much has been written and said, including by me, about how HBO has lost some of its buzz, how shows like F/X's Rescue Me and The Shield are what critics and viewers talk about when they talk about TV. And the resurgence of network shows, led by rookies Desperate Housewives and Lost, add to the feeling that the thrill, if not gone, is certainly waning.

Albrecht is a confident guy who has always extolled the virtues of his network, and not without reason -- it's a money-making machine for Time Warner Inc. And for years, it's produced, simply, the best shows on TV. But with The Sopranos ending after its next season, maybe (see above), Six Feet Under definitely ending after its current run and Sex and the City already done, the network could use another hit, no matter how Albrecht wants to spin the business model.

Then again, here's a prediction: When The Sopranos returns, a big chunk of the buzz will, too. It's not a cure -- Rome hitting big would be, though a bloody, violent period piece might be a tough fit for that -- but Tony and families will certainly be a powerful band-aid.

At HBO, a Series of Disappointments

By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Saturday, July 16, 2005; C07

BEVERLY HILLS, July 15--"The Sopranos" will be back in March, and the head of HBO said Friday he has absolutely no idea whether show creator David Chase will do another season after that. Now that we have that out of the way:

HBO chief Chris Albrecht, delivering the latest in his interesting series of lectures on how the media should cover the pay-cable network, said that reporters who have written about its ratings of late "don't have a real understanding of HBO's business."

The ratings are down, by the way.

By late June, the fifth season of "Six Feet Under" had drawn an average audience of 2.2 million for its Monday telecasts -- down 40 percent compared with its fourth season, which launched at the same time of year. Factoring in repeats, the mortuary drama was averaging just under 5 million viewers per week, which was off almost 20 percent from last year's nearly 6 million. HBO has since decided to move "Six Feet Under" back to Sunday nights.

Albrecht told reporters at Summer TV Press Tour 2005 that the change was not about the ratings, it was about HBO suits saying to each other, "What are we doing?"

At the time, HBO said its research had showed that, despite massive promotion, most viewers did not realize "Six Feet Under" had been moved to Monday, so the network decided to ship it back to Sunday. Of course, one way to know that HBO subscribers were not aware that "Six Feet Under" had moved to Monday would be to look at the drop in ratings.

Anyway, when HBO moved the show back to Sunday last weekend, it clocked 2.2 million viewers.

Meanwhile, "Entourage" has been down this season compared with last, though the most recent episode did equal a series high of 2 million when "Six Feet Under" returned to the same night. And Lisa Kudrow's new series, "The Comeback," which had been averaging around 1.1 million by mid-June, last weekend came in at under 1 million viewers for the episode's Sunday telecast.

One critic noted that HBO is laboring without many of its "water cooler" series -- "The Sopranos," "Sex and the City" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" -- and wondered what was missing from the newer crop of shows.

Albrecht disagreed. "Entourage," it turns out, is a water cooler show. " 'Entourage' is everywhere," Albrecht explained patiently, like someone talking to a much loved, though very dimwitted young child.

"Deadwood" is another water cooler show because, he explained, so much has been written about "Deadwood" that has nothing to do with the show.

It's true that one of the biggest reasons for HBO's ratings declines has been the lack of powerhouse lead-ins like "The Sopranos," which attracted millions of viewers to the network to watch each episode's first showing on Sunday nights.

Then there's "Carnivale," which was canceled, Albrecht said, because it was a period piece shot on location and by its third season had become an enormous investment; plus, it was not a big success in overseas sales.

Ratings aside, HBO is doing just fine, Albrecht insisted, because while it does not sell advertising like the broadcast networks, people have to pay a monthly fee to get HBO. Plus, he explained, it owns almost everything it airs. That's good when it comes to things like DVD sales. Then there are those sales to overseas markets, and lately HBO has gotten serious about afterlife in the United States, selling shows such as "Sex and the City" into syndication.

"HBO is, and will continue to be, the most profitable network in the world," Albrecht said with a smirk but without any numbers to back him up, noting that parent company Time Warner does not break out HBO numbers. Gotta love him.


I like Entourage,but the problem is if you watch Entourage it's only a 30 minutes.

So at 10:30 you either watch the last 30 minutes of another show or watch the Comeback.How people just tivo the Entourage and watch another time.

Shows that have been tivoed don't count in the ratings do they?

Where do you find the ratings #'s for HBO programming?

HOB's ratings are reported on a sporadic basis -- at least in the entertainment media. In fact, since "The Sopranos" and "Sex/City" have not been on, usually the numbers get leaked by another channel pointing out the ratings sldie for HBO.

If you like, I'll see if I can find a source and post the HBO (and other premium ratings) more consistently.

The Host Whisperer

By JACQUES STEINBERG The New York Times July 17, 2005

LOS ANGELES--His hair still wet from a workout and his feet bare, Craig Ferguson, the new host of "The Late Late Show" on CBS, was roughing out the monologue for that night's program before an audience of one.

The joke was about what it would be like to win a new lottery that tops out at more than $500 million.

"You could buy Alabama," Mr. Ferguson mused as his listener, who sat across a desk from him at CBS Television City here, giggled audibly. "You could buy a big luxury home on the coast of California and then laugh as it falls into the ocean."

But at a certain point, as the jokes began to fly a little too fast, two hands, flat with the palms down, extended toward Mr. Ferguson from across the desk.

"Calm down," the man attached to those hands said quietly. "Don't get too high."

That soothing voice belonged to Peter Lassally, who is known, at least in high-level network talk-show circles, as "the host whisperer."

A longtime confidant of both Johnny Carson and David Letterman, who worked on Arthur Godfrey's radio and television shows in the 1950's, Mr. Lassally, 72, came out of semiretirement late last fall to groom one last host. And not just any host. Mr. Lassally's latest quarry is a 43-year-old actor from Scotland who never had a talk show, had limited stand-up experience (mostly in Britain) and was primarily known to Americans - those who might have recognized him - as Mr. Wick, the oleaginous boss on "The Drew Carey Show."

But the host whisperer had a hunch. Tapped by "The Late Late Show" last summer to find a replacement for Craig Kilborn, who had abruptly quit, Mr. Lassally decided that Mr. Ferguson reminded him of how he felt watching Mr. Letterman, or even Carson, at similar stages in their careers. Never mind that Mr. Ferguson had a burr so thick that Mr. Lassally - hard of hearing in his left ear as a result, he says, of standing too close to Paul Shaffer's Letterman band one night - had trouble understanding him, at least at first.

"He was completely fresh and original," Mr. Lassally recalled thinking after watching Mr. Ferguson last November, part of a parade of actors and comedians who auditioned on-air. "He was enormously charming and likable. And he was a grown-up, which is not natural since late-night talk shows aim for the young men audience, that small-niche audience. I felt that he could find a female audience that we never had before."

"I know I sound like a guy in love," said Mr. Lassally, who is not prone to hyperbole. "When I see real talent, it excites me."

Once he decided to push for Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Lassally faced two main challenges. One was to persuade CBS, as well as Mr. Letterman and the executives of his production company, Worldwide Pants, which owns the show, to give an untested talent the coveted 12:35 a.m. time slot on the network each weeknight.

He also had to preserve Mr. Ferguson's natural gifts - his Garrison Keilloresque ability to tell a yarn, his occasionally naughty knack for flirting - while putting him through a crash course in "how a host behaves." The headings on Mr. Lassally's syllabus, if there were one, would probably include the paramount importance of listening to a guest, the necessity of suppressing facial tics you never knew you had and the perils of flapping one's lapels before sitting down.

And all this had to be imparted in just three weeks last December, between the time Mr. Lassally and Rob Burnett, the president of Worldwide Pants, told Mr. Ferguson he had the job and his first show, scheduled for Jan. 3.

Mr. Ferguson, elated but anxious, said he drew reassurance only from the thought that he was in such experienced hands. He vowed to soak up everything Mr. Lassally had learned during more than a half century of variety-show television. In a run arguably unlike any other in broadcasting, Mr. Lassally moved from producing Godfrey to Carson to Mr. Letterman to Mr. Kilborn's predecessor, Tom Snyder, while still taking time to nurture Jon Stewart, the comedian Steven Wright, Garry Shandling and even Mr. Shandling's sitcom alter ego, Larry Sanders. (Yes, the host whisperer ministers to fictional hosts as well.)

Suddenly, Mr. Ferguson was Luke Skywalker being inducted into the secret ways of a noble, desk-bound Jedi by Mr. Lassally's Yoda; Eliza Doolittle having her diction polished by his Henry Higgins; and, in Mr. Ferguson's favorite analogy, Cat Ballou being whipped into a late-night gunslinger by Lee Marvin's drunken, has-been Kid Shelleen. (Mr. Ferguson finds that comparison particularly amusing, given Mr. Lassally's creased slacks, shined loafers and gentlemanly bearing.) "You're sitting in a physics class with Isaac Newton," he said, finally settling on an image he thought might please his mentor.

Mr. Lassally's other disciples are no less reverent. "He would be the first person I went to, if I had a failed marriage, to find out why it didn't work," said Mr. Shandling, who was steeped in the Lassally canon when he first substituted for Carson, on 24 hours' notice, in the early 1980's. "You could probably show him a tape of how you communicate in a relationship and he'd say, 'Well, you're not listening to her.' " Of course, Mr. Shandling added, that diagnosis would invariably be followed by the admonition, "You spent too much time with her and you needed to bring on the musical guest."

MR. LASSALLY'S life didn't always seem destined for comedy. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, to a father who worked as banker and a coffee trader, and his family fled to the Netherlands in 1938, as Europe teetered on the brink of war. At the time, Mr. Lassally was 5. (In Amsterdam, his older sister, almost 10, shared a classroom with Anne Frank.)

The plan had been for the family to move from the Netherlands to Britain , but "we couldn't get out in time," Mr. Lassally said. In 1943, just after losing his father to cancer, Mr. Lassally, then 10, was imprisoned with his mother and sister in a Nazi concentration camp, Westerbork. Over the course of a two-year internment, the family, which was Jewish, would be shuttled from there to Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia.

By 1947, the family had been liberated and had made its way to New York. As Mr. Lassally's mother and sister settled in Jackson Heights, Queens, he was sent to Canton, in upstate New York, where an uncle who worked as a doctor at St. Lawrence University was designated to teach him English.

After graduating from Newtown High School in Queens, and briefly attending St. Lawrence, Mr. Lassally took his first job, in 1951, as an NBC page.

Television was in its infancy. "I was just completely taken by broadcasting," he recalled. "First I thought I wanted to be a director. Then I thought, no, I really want to be a producer."

At NBC - where he met his wife, Alice, then a writer, to whom he has been married 47 years - Mr. Lassally moved rapidly through the ranks of radio shows including "Monitor," "Nightline" (which helped propel the comedy career of the duo Nichols and May) and "The Nation's Future."

It was in the late 1960's, while working as a producer for Godfrey, that Mr. Lassally was approached by Joanne Carson, the talk-show host's second wife. She wanted him to produce a show for her. Though it never materialized, Mr. Lassally was soon hired by her husband, then eight years into his "Tonight" show run.

Mr. Lassally stayed with "Tonight" as one of two executive producers for the next two decades, until Carson retired in 1992. Among his primary roles was to engage Carson after the show in a post-mortem. With blunt words that belied an almost shy bearing, Mr. Lassally would tell Carson what had worked and what had bombed. Invariably, he said, Carson told him not to worry, that a bit or joke would "play better at home." It often did, Mr. Lassally said.

After Carson retired, Mr. Lassally became the executive producer of Mr. Letterman's show, first at NBC and then CBS.

That the two formed a close bond was evident in January, when Mr. Lassally was Mr. Letterman's main guest on the first show he taped after Carson's death. Now it was Mr. Lassally - visibly nervous, and obviously grieving, in his first network television interview - who had to be calmed on camera by Mr. Letterman.

Since January, Mr. Ferguson has been the one who's received coaching.

In his early weeks on the air, Mr. Ferguson said Mr. Lassally - a senior vice president of Worldwide Pants who has effectively served as executive producer of "The Late Late Show" - helped cure him of a "creepy, wolflike laugh" and of his tendency to "dance around like a drug-crazed hippie."

But Mr. Lassally said Mr. Ferguson, a natural listener at ease in front of the camera, didn't need much help at all. His most visible contribution was to advise Mr. Ferguson to drop the dozen one-liners he had used, almost as a crutch, at the outset of each show.

But what to do in place of those jokes? Mr. Ferguson found the answer on the first show after Carson's death. Asked by Mr. Lassally to open the show with a story about his personal connection to Carson - whom he had never met - Mr. Ferguson told of coming to the United States in his teens, with his father, and being amazed at how one show could make a country feel like "a small town and just a wee bit less frightening."

Mr. Lassally, who usually watches the show from the control room, was so moved that he went out to the soundstage to embrace Mr. Ferguson. Now, Mr. Ferguson opens each show with a story or a riff or a rant.

As Mr. Ferguson has eased into his role, he has also enjoyed ratings higher than those of any of his predecessors on CBS. During this year's May sweeps, for example, he drew an average of 1.9 million viewers each night - 600,000 fewer than Conan O'Brien on NBC, but 82,000 more than Mr. Kilborn had in the same period last year, according to Nielsen Media Research. And, just as Mr. Lassally hoped, part of that increase is more women watching.

Recently, Mr. Ferguson has begun tweaking Mr. Lassally with occasional flashes of defiance. He has even stopped wearing a tie on camera, the only such gesture with which Mr. Lassally strenuously disagrees.

And on the June 15 show, as Mr. Ferguson sat down at his desk, he committed a deliberate violation of Lassally etiquette: he flapped the lapels of his jacket.

"Yeah, I'm doing it," Mr. Ferguson said, right into the camera. "I feel like doing this tonight. I won't do it again. But you know what, I can't live by your rules, man."

As he sat in the control room, the host whisperer smiled broadly.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer July 16, 2005

Adam Carolla, Outta Controla

Twenty years of Discovery Networks has taught millions many things, but the most important spot of knowledge may be this: A beast is usually at its most dangerous when cornered.

Demonstrating that today was Adam Carolla, forced to appear in front of a room full of people he loathes for the second time this week. He was here two days ago for his Comedy Central show "Too Late With Adam Carolla," debuting in August. I missed that session, but it must not have gone well, because in the middle of the press conference for his TLC show "The Adam Carolla Project," due Oct. 5 at 10, kid had a meltdown.

Carolla's taken some knocks from us, but he should perhaps remind himself that he has two television series and as he told us, several homes. Whereas I'll bet many of the critics here are wearing their underwear inside out because we can't afford the hotel's laundry service.

Before Chernobyl, a little about the show: "The Adam Carolla" project is TLC's testosterone-drunk answer to "Trading Spaces." The comedian and master carpenter bought his childhood home and undertakes a do-it-yourself renovation using the most half-assed crew he could find.

"I think a lot of people have their own home improvement nightmares," he said. "And then they turn on the TV, they see everything going great, and...that makes them depressed. You're going to watch this show and feel great about your personal home improvement nightmare."

The calm before the storm, ladies and gentlemen. After he said that, all someone had to do was ask the former co-host of "The Man Show" and "Loveline" about a failed sitcom that apparently never happened...and, as you can read here, the session quickly tumbled south.

"Hold on. Listen, why don't you just go to the bar, write whatever (expletive) you're going to write. Just write the show sucks and I'm using my own money and I'm -- just go and write it now and leave me alone, would you? Jesus Christ," he yelled.

"Write something (expletive) about the show and give the mike to someone else, please. I don't care if any of you like the show. It's going to be a great show, and you'll just be wrong. Everyone hated 'The Man Show,' and everyone had a problem with 'Loveline.'"

Actually, I wanted to tell him I liked "Loveline," but by then the lunatic was on a roll. "Everyone has a problem with everything I do, but the shows are good. So there you go. Thank you. Thank you! Oh, 'The Man Show,' minus four stars, minus three stars, I got minus a million stars! You look up at night when you're in Colorado, that's how many stars I got minus! Fine! The shows go on! Everyone likes the shows!"

Then a Discovery executive must have hit him with a tiny tranquilizer dart, because he calmed back down to his usual level of surliness and started ragging on Ty Pennington.

Better Ty than me, I say.

harley1:
I am not sure if the folks who TiVo shows get counted in the "official" Nielsens.
But there is a very large sampling of TiVo owners who are counted continually. Literally TiVo can report on what was recorded (and watched) the previous night.
As a matter of fact, TiVo, which has been financially struggling, believes its research capabilities could a big money maker very soon.
On a monthyl basis USA Today lists the top 10 programs recorded by TiVo owners. I usually post that list in the "Latest News" in the first post in this thread.
(But as I do with all ratings, I remove them after a week -- or sooner in the xase of daily numbers -- to comply with the wishes of Nielsen.)

Saturday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Do you know if HBO has ever cancelled one of their programs mid-season? If not, The comeback should be the first...this show is unwatchable. I know it's unlikely as Mr. Albrecht seems quite arrogant and I find it hard to believe he would ever admit they made a programming mistake. Instead the HBO propaganda machine goes into high gear blaming everyone but themselves. First, they claim it's a "high concept" show that needs time(i.e. the audience isn't bright enough to grasp it)...we get the show, it's just not entertaining. Then they spin SFU's move back to Sunday as a move that was prompted by research that SFU fans didn't know about the move...we all know it was a move to boost the ratings of the lagging new Sunday night lineup. Well the numbers are in and SFU held it's Monday #'s, Entourage got a boost(and a renewal I might add) and people still don't want to see the hideous Comeback. What's next intertwining five minute segments of the comeback into the next installment of the Soprano's? BTW, what was the lowest rated HBO series of recent memory?

A Season With Lots of Love

By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Sunday, July 17

Two important themes have already emerged at Summer TV Press Tour 2005.

No, we're not talking about Why Are There So Many New Paranormal Series and Why Are There So Many Shows (mostly on HBO) About the Entertainment Industry -- two themes you've probably read about elsewhere. That's kids' stuff, the musings of press-tour flibbertigibbets -- the kind of journalist who probably wound up wearing a toga at the HBO ancient Rome-themed party on Friday night.

Serious students of television have, after careful observation, unearthed two bigger issues: Jennifer Love Hewitt and Adam Carolla.

Jennifer Love Hewitt -- "Love" to her friends -- and Adam Carolla are doing enough TV-related projects to program a minor broadcast network. Why, we want to know? And we're here to find out.

Something in the water has caused multiple TV suits at such far-flung places as CBS, ABC Family and AOL Television to conclude that what we crave in these troubled times is more Jennifer Love Hewitt. She actually kicked off Summer TV Press Tour 2005, appearing in a skintight black skirt and black peasant blouse tastefully unbuttoned at the top last Monday afternoon to announce the nominations for the AOL TV's Top 5 Viewer Awards, including such must-see-TV moments as Brit Brit and Kev having lots of sex on UPN's "Chaotic," girl-on-girl kissing on "The O.C.," Ken Jennings losing on "Jeopardy!," Paula losing her mind on "American Idol" when America boots rocker Constantine, and, of course, armadillo sex on David Letterman's late-night show.

After reading, perkily, the list of nominees, Love posed, Betty Grable-esque, at a computer on a plexiglass dais up on the stage while pretending to cast the first vote as a paparazzi mob screamed "Love -- to the right!" and "Over here, Jennifer, one more time!"

Friday, Jennifer Love Hewitt popped up in the clip of an upcoming ABC Family flick called "If Only," playing a super-sweet impetuous musician damsel in distress (actually dead damsel to be completely accurate) whose slightly self-absorbed but extremely gorgeous British boyfriend (Paul Nicholls) gets one of those do-over opportunities for their last day together again, with lots of helpful advice from a wise and kindly taxi driver played by the enormously talented Tom Wilkinson, who is probably wishing he could have one of those do-overs right about now.

Sadly, Love was not able to join us that day at the tour to talk about the challenge of playing a dead woman perkily.

But, she's on the calendar to appear early next week during CBS's portion of the tour. She'll speak to critics about the challenges of portraying, perkily, a super-sweet impetuous antique-store-owner chick who talks to dead people, while keeping an eye on her little white T-shirt to make sure it slips down her cleavage just enough to attract the elusive 18-to-34-year-old male audience. But not so much as to cause Brent Bozell to rev up his laptop and fire off another of those fire-and-brimstone complaints to the Federal Communications Commission. Yes, Love does all that and more in the new CBS drama "Ghost Whisperer."

In the interim, Adam Carolla has already appeared twice at Summer TV Press Tour 2005. Yesterday, he smacked down a critic when he came to pitch his new home renovation show for Discovery's The Learning Channel.

Carolla had appeared at the tour just the day before, to pitch his new late-night talk show "Too Late" for Comedy Central. That seemed to have gone well, with Carolla regaling the Mostly Men Who Cover Television with some of his of his "Man-Show"-esque schtick:

"I'd rather date an ugly woman than an attractive woman, so I get to be boss. You know what I mean? . . . You marry a troll and you're in charge . . . .Sure you take a beating in the bedroom but it's worth it."

We actually missed most of it while chatting up Comedy Central boss Doug Herzog in the back of the room as to what the heck is going on with missing-in-action, grossly overpaid show host Dave Chappelle. (Comedy Central boss to TV Column: "The ball's in [Chappelle's] court . . . if you see him tell him to phone home.")

Critics appeared to be having a good time. The next day, however, things got ugly. One critic began a question by noting that Carolla had starred in a short-lived sitcom. Which Carolla said, unpleasantly, was not the case.

"After 15 years [covering the TV industry] you all run together," responded the critic.

"Just go write 'The show sucks' and leave me alone!" Carolla shouted. "Go write something [poopy] about the show and give the mike to somebody else.

"Everyone has a problem with everything I do, but the shows are good," he complained. "So there you go . . . 'Minus four stars' . . . I got minus a million stars . . . .Fine, the show goes on and everyone likes the show . . . Next question . . . You got an axe to grind, go up to your room and write something [poopy]."

Later, another critic noted that he'd done a short-lived reality show.

"That was after the failed sitcom," Carolla snapped, about "me and a Hungarian soccer team" living in cramped quarters on a dry-docked submarine.

Things usually don't get this nasty until the second week.

piratess: Usually HBO buys a specific number of episodes -- maybe 13, often fewer. In my memory there is no instance of HBO cancelling a series before running all available episodes.
I agree with you about Comeback, though :)

(And welcome to the AVS Forum and the HOTP thread.)

Someone forgot to roll out the red carpet at the press parties

By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic Monday, July 18, 2005

HOLLYWOOD -- Ah, the glamorous life in Tinseltown.

A few of you have written asking why, oh why, I haven't spilled anything about notorious celebrity-laden network parties that enliven the TV critics' "press tour" previewing fall shows. Believe me, I would be doing so if there was anything to tell. Here's the skinny.

The first cable party was hosted by BBC America and featured Up With People's lost descendants, shaking their cakes while we munched on salmon Wellington. No celebs you would recognize. Big whoop. I could have thrown that party.

Night two was HBO's outdoor "Rome"-themed event. Ordinarily, I'm not one to complain about any network's hospitality. Honestly. But check this out: The glamorous fare at the Rome party included: artisanal cheeses you could drizzle with honey ... but, why? There was a bead-stringing station, an archery range, a pottery section, a listless drum circle and uncomfortable seating. Fabric remnants I'm assuming were left over from the HBO central office's interior renovation were offered to us as togas. Middle-age guys obligingly stumbled around in them, when they weren't getting foot massages.

I have taken to describing the party as arts and crafts hour at HBO's Uptight Bohemian Luau, or Eugene, Ore., for short.

More germane to my reason for being here -- no actors you really want to hear from. No Peter Krause, no Michael Imperioli -- I didn't even see Turtle from "Entourage." Not a great sign for a premium network if even your second-tier talent isn't floating around.

The night's most memorable star? A white horse some poor soul led around the party that a) was male and thinking about a sexy mare, if you're picking up what I'm putting down; and b) had recently consumed a fiber-rich meal, evidenced when he raised his tail a few feet away from a buffet table. An employee had to run up to Mr. Ed's backside with a bucket. That made me feel a lot better about my job.

Then there was night three and Discovery Channel's 20th anniversary jamboree. It has taken us this long, but finally we have famous people! Not A-list famous people, or even a few killer B's. We're talking Marilu Henner, John Ratzenberger and Adam "Crazytime!" Carolla. Beggars can't be choosers.

I was heartened, however, to see Stacy London and Clinton Kelly from "What Not To Wear." They were all smiles and looking as impeccable as you would expect -- Clinton in a pinstripe suit, Stacy in a beautiful emerald green dress and strappy silver heels. I was wearing my favorite trousers, comfortable shoes, jacket, tank and my leather Kangol hat. Journalists are not known for our fashion sense. Maybe you can see where this is going.

I had TV's best style coaches in the room and nothing else to do, so I walked up and introduced myself. They seem like warm, genuine, very sweet people. Then I did what any other fool in my situation would do. "OK, I know you get this question all the time, but I'm writing a blog. OK? Please help me."

I stepped back to give them a full view, expecting them to compliment me on my excellent balance of comfort and style. Not really, but there I went.

"What's wrong with my outf--"

"Your pants are too short, your jacket's not long enough, and what are you doing with that cap?"

Smiles, everyone, smiles.

" ... Oh. OK," I said, shocked and appalled, Clinton and Stacy still beaming like angels. "Thank you."

"Also," Stacy added, with a warm, sisterly concern, "those shoes are really square. But, really, why are you wearing that cap?"

"She likes it!" Clinton interjected in my defense. (Thank you, sir.)

"But I don't," Stacy insisted. "Why are you wearing it?"

I am in the middle of a Hollywood party. Marilu Henner's nearby. "Because I didn't do my hair," I muttered.

"So, what do you need to do?"

" ... Um, my hair."

"No. What do you need to do?"

I suddenly felt less like an interviewer than the dumbest Jedi recruit taking a pop quiz administered by Yoda. Badly dressed, you are. Painful it is to look at you. Sensing this, Stacy mercifully dragged me into the bathroom, where she removed my cap to reveal the mop underneath. I looked in the mirror and saw a mess that made Buckwheat's Afro look fierce.

Long story short: I got some much needed coaching, and without having to throw away my clothes and Kangol, which Stacy would have to pry from my cold dead hands. My cold ... dead ... hands!

The bad news is, as Stacy was getting a look at the robin's nest atop my noggin, in walked Marilu Henner.

Wish I could say, "And then I woke up," but sadly, I was wide awake, living in a nightmare of my own making.

Par-tay!

Sopranos alert (not)!

I know you want to know what HBO knows about whether those rumors of a seventh season of "The Sopranos" are true, and how the sixth and allegedly final season, currently in production, is shaping up.

If anybody can answer those questions, it is HBO chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht, who spoke to us Friday night.

"(Series creator) David Chase is very happy, and I don't know," Albrecht told critics before we could even ask.

Someone prodded him to elaborate. "David was so charged after ... last season that I honestly believe that he feels like there's more to tell than just what he's got planned for this season. On the other hand, David has always been most concerned about leaving the audience feeling great about the show," he said.

"And that is ... I know he knows he can tell more. But I think if he felt he's got 12 more episodes in him, but only 11 of them are going to be really good, and the last one wasn't going to be, he would in his mind make the decision not to do it instead of taking that risk."

Movie? Could happen, but don't get your hopes up.

"David is obsessed with doing his job well," Albrecht continued. "And part of, I think, why he hasn't figured out the answer to that question is, he's figuring out how to make the best use out of today's shoot and today's time in the writing room."

The only certainty: Season six gets rolling in March 2006. But you knew that.

Discovery takes flight with Sept. 11 docudrama

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter)—Four years after losing one of its own employees aboard United Airlines Flight 93, Discovery will telecast a docudrama about the successful efforts of the passengers to derail the Sept. 11 terrorists' plan for the hijacked airliner.

"The Flight That Fought Back" is a two-hour special about the 41 men and women aboard a San Francisco-bound airliner, the fourth hijacked plane on 9/11, who learned through phone calls with relatives of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center and decided to take action.

It was through their efforts that the hijackers, knowing they were about to be overtaken, crashed the Boeing 757 in a Shanksville, Pa., field. Its target was believed to be either the White House or the U.S. Capitol.

"Forty strangers from across the world banded together and took an action which helped to save this whole country from a further disaster," said Jane Root, general manager of Discovery Channel, during the network's presentation to the Television Critics Assn.'s Summer Press Tour at the Beverly Hilton. The show airs the evening of Sept. 11 on Discovery.

One of those passengers was Elizabeth Wainio, a Discovery Stores retail manager who was traveling to a business meeting.

Anyone telling the story of Flight 93 has been hampered by the fact that it's a criminal investigation, one that the government has not been completely forthcoming about even four years later. Only family members have been allowed to hear the cockpit voice recorder, which the 9/11 Commission said concluded showed that the hijackers deliberately crashed the plane just as the extraordinary men and women aboard the flight were just about to reach the cockpit.

Executive producer Phil Craig said they pieced the story together through interviews with family members who talked to the passengers in the hour before the crash, eyewitnesses who saw the plane go down and other documentary evidence and other sources.

About 50% of the two hours are recreated drama using actors and 90% is based on either tapes or what family members and airline employees who spoke to the passengers after the hijacking recalled. There's a bit of invented dialogue from one of the passengers, federal law enforcement officer Richard Giordano.

"I think it's the most accurate account that's yet been produced I would not use the word definitive because the copies of the voice recording have only been released in part," Craig said.

Discovery is not the only network to focus on the 9/11 attacks in announced programming this fall. National Geographic Channel will also have a four-hour documentary into the causes of the attack; and an ABC miniseries is planned for sometime in 2006.

Thanks for your response...still wondering if u know what is the lowest rated HBO Original is in recent memory.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Any More Show Time for "Fat Actress"?

Folks, I'm taking it easy today. Mostly because this morning, instead of being greeted with the usual pleasant music I expect upon booting up my laptop, it screamed, "I'll...swallow...your...SOUL!"

That could have been my imagination, but still. It was off-putting. However, I do have this to report from yesterday's Showtime session: A second season of "Fat Actress" has not yet been decided upon, and for two reasons.

One, Kirstie Alley has lost 42 pounds. "We're trying to figure out exactly what a second season would be creatively because she isn't as heavy as she was in the first season," said the premium channel's entertainment president, Robert Greenblatt.

Speaking of those creative issues, that brings us to reason two: It wasn't particularly funny. Not a whole lot of people watched.

Don't you weep for Alley. Even if she doesn't get another season, I bet she can see her feet when she looks down.

And she did the network plenty of good. "It was the most publicity we've ever had for a show, and we're trying to figure out what the future might be, or whether it was a sort of one time kind of thing," Greenblatt said.

Showtime keeps on coming up with more reasons to watch it, with or without Alley's promotional heft. Near the top of the list is "Masters of Horror," an anthology series of one hour fright flicks from directors like Joe Dante, Mick Garris, George Romero and John Landis. That's due, appropriately enough, around Halloween.

On a more serious note, Showtime has partnered with Lifetime to produce "Speak," a film about a teen girl coping with the aftermath of date rape. Both cable channels will air it simultaneously on Sept. 5.

But the series drawing the most attention by far is "Sleeper Cell," which I'll discuss in greater detail in Tuesday's column.

"The Boondocks" Cannonballs the Adult Swim Pool

My list of reasons Cartoon Network's Adult Swim brings me joy includes "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," "Harvey Birdman," "The Venture Brothers" and "Inuyasha." This morning, it grew by a bit: Aaron McGruder's scathing, propriety-free animated version of "The Boondocks" joins the lineup at 11 p.m. October 2. (Shameless product promotion -- You can savor his comic every day in your friendly neighborhood Seattle P-I! But anyway...)

With a voice cast that includes Regina King, "Friday's" John Witherspoon, "Reno 911!'s" Cedric Yarbrough and "Malcolm in the Middle's" Gary Anthony Williams, this may be Adult Swim's most ambitious addition yet. The comic is so unrelenting that it has ticked off a number of celebrities, including Jesse Jackson (an easy mark) and Vivica Fox (whom you don't want to mess with).

"I really thought she wanted to beat me up. She might," said the calm and rather wiry McGruder, whom Ms. Fox could easily take in a street battle.

We should all be thanking the fates the actress hasn't tracked him down -- and that "Boondocks" didn't end up as some watered-down waste on the Fox network, which was once a tangible possibility.

Had that happened, critics wouldn't have been laughing at the clip shown today. That is, when they weren't gasping at the use of the racial epithet rappers and white suburban teenagers have been spitting with ease since N.W.A. released "Straight Outta Compton."

Prepare yourself -- the dreaded N-word is coming to Cartoon Network's night-owl animation block. "I understand that word offends people," McGruder said. "Look, that's what late-night cable is for, I guess. You don't have to hear it at 8 o'clock, but you sure can hear it at 11:30 or 11 o'clock on Adult Swim if you so desire. It will be there for you."

Although we haven't seen an entire episode, I have no problem saying that if the cartoon is as good as the comic, I intend to consider it Adult Swim's apology for "Robot Chicken" and "Tom Goes to the Mayor."

"Wanted": A Role That Doesn't Require Cross-Dressing

If Kyra Sedgwick is the reason audiences are captivated by "The Closer," the frightening, edgy grit in TNT's "Wanted," premiering 10 p.m. July 31 (with a TV-MA rating) will likely be its main draw.

This new show from "Homicide: Life on the Street" writer Jorge Zamacona follows a specialized team of law enforcement agents hunting down the 100 most wanted criminals in Los Angeles. "Wanted's" cast runs the gamut from Gary Cole as the Everyman trying to keep his wits about him, to Saliva lead singer Josey Scott, playing the team's tech genius.

Viewers should also recognize Lee Tergesen, who played the tormented Tobias Beecher in the landmark HBO series "Oz." For the benefit of those who didn't keep up with the prison drama's twisted twists, Tergesen's character shared a poisonous love affair with a psycho played by "Law & Order: SVU's" Christopher Meloni.

Recently he appeared in FX's "Rescue Me" as the new guy in Ladder 62. Three episodes in, his co-workers glimpsed him wearing women's bondage gear in a burning S&M parlor. Notice a pattern yet?

Tergesen did, good-naturedly pointing it out this morning while telling us about his decision to take "Wanted."

"Jorge called me when he was still putting the pilot together, and I wasn't available. So when it got picked up, he called me again and said he wanted to create this character Eddie Drake for me," he recalled. "And when I found out that if Eddie had sex at all, it was going to be with women... that's what really attracted me.

"Not to say anything against Chris Meloni. He's a wonderful lover," he joked.

And his "Rescue Me" character? Done, as far as he knows. "Once you wear pleather, really, can you go back? I don't think so."

I think we're all with him on that one.

"The Closer" Clinches It

Hard to fathom, but it occasionally takes more than 20 minutes for a show's cast and crew answer a stock question along the lines of, "What is it about (insert program here) that appeals to audiences?" And for the star: "When did you know that this show had catapulted you into major fame's section of the stratosphere?"

At this morning's Turner session, the producers and stars of TNT's summer hit "The Closer," the scripted series with the highest rated premiere in cable history, couldn't quite answer the first question beyond stating the obvious -- it's a procedural, and a pretty good one.

Series star Kyra Sedgwick, the main reason to watch it on Mondays at 9, dithered around in answering the second before hitting it squarely on the head. "Hey listen. I was asked to be on the cover of Playboy," she said. "Can you believe it? At 39! That was awesome."

Don't get too excited. "I said no. But I was forced into saying no! My agent said I couldn't do it... But it's great. Thirty-nine, wonderful. I'm ready to enjoy some fruits of labor. But right now, we're just in the labor."

The fruit platter may arrive soon -- "The Closer" recently was picked up for a second season.

Piratess:
I think "Comeback" is getting close ... I'll try to do some research...but give me a day or two, please!

Flat-screen TVs give hotels a new look
The death of the armoire?

By Robert Cross[B] Chicago Tribune[/V] staff reporter July 17, 2005

For me, a hotel usually has two doors to open, and there's a surprise behind both. Door No. 1 has the room number on it and swings open to reveal what kind of environment I'll be renting for the next day or so. Surprisingly often, the surprise is a pleasant one

Door No. 2 would be the door on the armoire. I'm confident I'll find a television set inside. But what kind? Will it be large or small? Its picture blurry or sharp? Will it access a wealth of cable channels, movies and games? Will it have a mini-bar beneath? A remote control with working batteries?

A friend who often takes long driving trips to "clear the brain" said he felt as if the same TV set was following him across the country. But I've always believed that each television armoire contains those aforementioned surprises and a little local knowledge. One might have a channel devoted to the week's school lunch menu. Another possibly would offer CNN World News, read by plummy-voiced Brits with wide neckties. A few have even been programmed to say "Welcome, Robert Cross."

Now the hotel industry is taking those armoires away and putting in flat-screen sets that stand immodestly on desk-credenza-dresser units or hang on the wall--right out in the open and competing with the cheesy landscape paintings. This flat-screen trend is seeping into the luxury brands of such major chains as Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt. The Omni Chicago Hotel this month became the first "all-suites, all-plasma TV" hotel in Chicago. Soon enough, flat screens may work their way down to the very lowest end--those motels that always did lack armoires and still advertise "Color TV" on the marquees.

It's my understanding that armoires originally were designed to hold clothing. In Louisiana, closets once were taxed as if they were another room, so people learned to hang their garments in that tall box with doors. Upon entering an old-fashioned accommodation in New Orleans, say, you still might encounter two armoires--one for the television and another for pants, jackets and skirts.

But the big hotel chains are leaning away from quaint and charming furniture in order to bring us high-tech. As America crawls toward a high-definition broadcast standard and the liquid-crystal displays and plasma screens improve in quality and drop in price, the hotel room will begin to look different.

"About 18 months ago, we began to change the brand standard," said Gary Dollens, vice president for product and design at the brand called Hyatt Hotels Corp. "We said when any renovation is occurring in our hotels, we will eliminate the armoires so that we aren't stuck with this big old clunky piece of furniture for the next seven or eight years before we can renovate that room again."

When a major hotel undergoes renovation, it isn't just the clunky armoire that disappears, Dollens said. The entire roomful of furniture goes down the freight elevator to make way for new stuff.

Why all the gut jobs? Perhaps influenced by home-decorating cable shows that might be labeled, collectively, as "Pimp My Family Room," Americans seem to be going through a massive fix-up craze. So the lodging industry is compelled to follow suit.

"When people go to hotels, they want to see at least what they have in their own house and, generally, something nicer," Dollens said. "They want a nicer bedroom, a better bed, a more unique bathroom. All of that has been driving some of the design process over the last few years."

And Dollens predicted that guidebooks may have to adjust their ratings standards if their inspectors still consider armoires a plus. "A lot of the traditional things that are used to measure hotels are looked upon differently today. For example, to earn the AAA 4-diamond award, you had to have crown molding in the guest room. Well, there are certain contemporary styles where crown molding is inappropriate."

Design change eventually will eliminate one of my favorite hotel rituals. Armoire-bound TVs usually could slide out a few inches on a board that swiveled slightly to the right or left. Designers evidently assumed that guests preferred watching television from bed. I like to watch sitting in a chair. Sometimes I'm forced to move the entire armoire and get a bit of much-needed exercise in the process.

If that proves impossible, I pull up a chair next to the bed and use the bed as a sort of side table to keep the popcorn within easy reach.

So the coming innovations threaten to drastically alter my own hotel room ergonomics. For example, Marriott International has unveiled a new "room package" to be installed at a hotel in Cleveland later this year. The flat screen TV sits atop a credenza next to a desk that can be made to swivel toward the unit. A laptop connection allows the user to employ the set as a giant computer screen, or split the screen and watch a movie while working on the spreadsheets.

"There is no armoire there any more," said Marriott spokesman Matthew Carroll. "It's gone."

Well, where did it go?

Probably to a company like Hotel Surplus Outlet in Los Angeles, which just relieved the Beverly Hilton of 500 rooms' worth of unwanted furniture. Turns out somebody else did want it. "We probably sold 300 of those rooms to other hotels," the president and owner of the salvage company, Donald Fenning, told me. "Seventy rooms just went to a hotel in British Columbia, 70 went to a hotel in Las Vegas . . ." And the others went to hotels scattered across the continent.

"We always get the armoires," Fenning said, "whether or not a hotel has switched over to something else."

Meaning armoires wear out, and the hotels that maintain the armoire lifestyle must go out and purchase new ones or buy the discards from tonier hotels as they go flat-screen.

One reason armoires wear out is because guests like me probably try a little too hard to make the TV swivel or to shove the clunky thing to a more suitable location.

Fenning said the armoires his company salvages often go to college housing facilities or private homes.

I don't plan to buy one. I already have an armoire at my house. It's filled with unused pottery.

But if I'm ever in British Columbia, I'll keep an eye out for a hotel advertising "70 brand-new rooms!" If the sign also mentions "Color TV," all the better.

Thanks, you're the best.

Summer competition ready to heat up

By MIKE MCDANIEL Houston Chronicle TV Editor

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. - Television refuses to call it quits this summer.

On broadcast TV, Rock Star: INXS, Brat Camp, Hooking Up and Big Brother 6 all have debuted within the last 10 days, and Fox will unveil the reality series So You Think You Can Dance on Wednesday. Next week, UPN will go hunting for its own rock star with R U the Girl With T-Boz & Chili, and NBC will premiere the David E. Kelley reality series The Law Firm. At least two more shows bow in August.

But the number of network offerings is puny compared to the 32 shows cable will launch over the next month and a half.

Why is this happening?

For the old guard, it's about retaining as many viewers as possible in advance of the traditional fall premieres.

For the cable networks, it's about attracting as many new viewers as possible in advance of those fall premieres.

Traditionally, all the networks use the summer press tour to tell the Television Critics Association about its fall and winter offerings. But that's not true this year for cable, which spent a substantial portion of its five TCA days promoting shows that will premiere over the next six weeks.

ABC Family, for example, served up tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, whose reality series kicks off Wednesday. Likewise, A&E levitated illusionist Criss Angel here for his mind-bending show, which also debuts Wednesday.

Here's a closer look:

Court TV

ABC Family exec Paul Lee admits "we really got lucky with this one." Hot off her Wimbledon win, Venus Williams and her sister Serena star in a six-episode reality series, Venus & Serena: For Real (9 p.m. Wednesday). The show, which follows the pair off the court and on, was shot before Wimbledon so it could air in the window between that tournament and the U.S. Open.

The series will show "how hard we work and all the drama in between," Venus said. "People are going to see that we laugh more than anything else and that we're normal people in somewhat of an abnormal environment."

"We thought we were a perfect match with ABC Family," said Serena, explaining why the show is airing there instead of, say, MTV. "We're the Williams sisters. We're a really close family."

You won't see them cursing or doing anything that would compromise their beliefs.

"We were brought up Jehovah's Witnesses and Christians," Serena said. "We consider ourselves role models."

"Absolutely," Venus added, "because in the end, what we have is our reputation. And I want my mom and dad (who will be seen in the series) to be proud of us."

Freaky deaky

In Episode 1 of Criss Angel: Mindfreak (9 p.m. Wednesday, A&E), the illusionist levitates himself four feet off the ground — in front of Las Vegas witnesses.

"Look, a lot of what I do is completely real," the longhaired Houdini said as he faced a roomful of skeptics. "A lot is completely an illusion. What I do is blur the lines between them and leave it up to the audience to determine what is what."

In future episodes, he is set ablaze for 46 seconds without hand or face protection, and suspends himself on a cable by using pins attached to his shoulders.

In front of the critics, he put a string of needles in his mouth and pulled it out from his belly button.

Angel is as good or better than David Blaine.

"Who?" he said.

David Blaine. Is he a rival, colleague or fraud?

"I'll let him answer that," Angel said.

"All I'll say is, I look in front of me, I don't look over my shoulder.

"The truth is, I think competition is healthy. So at the end of the day, if David Blaine and I go head-to-head — which is my frustration with him because he said we would but he doesn't return my calls because I think his biggest fear is me — it's healthy and it elevates an art form."

HBO hot for Hollywood
…but is cabler's strategy too 'inside'

By DENISE MARTIN Variety.com


HBO has renewed "Entourage" for a third season, but the real discussion at Friday's Television Critics Assn. press tour circled around the pay cabler's recent programming penchant for everything Hollywood.

As for "Entourage," chief exec Chris Albrecht announced a pickup of at least 13 episodes.

Second cycle of the half-hour show premiered last month to modest numbers (1.6 million, down from its first-season average), but it has seen some lift since "Six Feet Under" moved from Monday back to Sunday nights, where it now leads into "Entourage." Show's Jeremy Piven, who stars as talent agent Ari Gold, just nabbed an Emmy nom for supporting actor.

Regarding a spate of recent press criticizing the cabler's attraction to "inside Hollywood" shows --"Entourage," "The Comeback," "Unscripted" and the upcoming Ricky Gervais-created comedy "Extras" -- Albrecht said only that the showbiz world attracted "a tremendous amount of interest."

Though programming execs never specifically sought out more showbiz yarns, "The best ideas we heard resulted in shows," he said.

HBO's next two series projects are decidedly unshowbizzy: Epic series "Rome" bows Aug. 29, and Playtone-produced comedy "Big Love," about a polygamist and his wives, debuts early next year.

"Entourage," "Comeback" and "Unscripted" have delivered subpar firstrun ratings, but Albrecht asserted that buzz for "Entourage" is hotter than ever. Albrecht also stood by "Comeback," which was almost universally panned by critics. Topper credited the skein's creative merits but acknowledged, "It is a challenging show to watch. ... I'm curious to see the rest of it."

HBO also revealed it has moved into production on the Tom Hanks/Gary Goetzman-produced miniseries "John Adams" and greenlit the mini "Elizabeth I" starring Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons.

Albrecht reminded reporters that HBO is not dependent on its premiere-night ratings -- a topic of much discussion since "Sex and the City" signed off. Network remains focused on an episode's weekly cume as a measure of viewership, Albrecht said, comparing HBO's business to that of a movie studio, which looks at the total box office of a pic's run, not just the opening-week performance.

Like execs from other pay cablers, he noted anecdotal evidence suggesting on-demand usage among paying subs is high. That data, however, cannot yet be measured by Nielsen.

Albrecht said HBO will spend in the ballpark of $300 million on its next two marquee events: "John Adams" and likely "The Pacific," also from Playtone.

Meanwhile, he confirmed HBO would continue to use Sunday as its main launch night for original programming. Recent experiment moving the final season of "Six Feet Under" to Mondays -- a strategy meant to open up a second night of programming -- resulted in some of the show's lowest ratings.

"That was a mistake," he said. HBO moved the mortuary drama back to Sunday nights two weeks ago.

Then there's the will-they-or-won't-they future of "The Sopranos." Before anyone could ask, Albrecht took a pause and said, "And ... I don't know!

"I honestly feel like (creator David Chase) has got more to tell," he said, but he didn't yet know what Chase's decision would be.

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" will be back for a fifth season this fall.

NBC U TURNS PROFIT DESPITE PEACOCK FALL
By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK, Daily Variety, 7/18/2005



NEW YORK -- NBC Universal continued to turn a healthy profit for giant parent conglom General Electric in the last quarter, even with the Peacock's costly tumble in primetime.

Still, GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt told investors during a conference call Friday that NBC has to "do better on the programming front."

"We're going to have to get an improvement in primetime ratings. We have a robust business model, and the volatility has to come down," Immelt said, at the same time stressing the overall might of NBC is "just great."

NBC U's operating profit jumped 27% to $979 million in the second quarter, on the strength of DVD sales and cable nets, including USA Network and the Sci Fi Channel. Profits were boosted by the recent deal to buy out Barry Diller's stake in Vivendi Universal Entertainment, held by Diller's IAC/InterActive Corp.

Revenue at NBC U jumped 35% to $3.86 billion during what Immelt described as "one of the best quarters" in the entire conglom's history. GE reported double-digit profit growth across all of its 11 divisions.

Immelt said the Peacock's primetime ratings would have to improve if NBC U wants to stay on par with other GE divisions in terms of profit growth in 2006.

The GE topper said NBC continues to feel the loss of "Friends" and "Frasier," and predicted a 20% decline in revenue in the current quarter.

Immelt said NBC still has plenty of growth points, including the recent deal to bring NFL games to Sunday night and the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Immelt agreed the May upfronts were particularly tough for NBC. Peacock wrote $2 billion in upfront business -- down $900 million from last year.

"The great news is that film and DVD are very strong, cable up over 100%. DVD sales were 6% ahead of our plan," Immelt said during the earnings call, calming investor concerns that the DVD market is going bust.

GE chief financial officer Keith Sherin also touted the box office performance of "The Interpreter," which ended the second quarter with more than $150 million in worldwide box office receipts.

For the quarter ended June 30, GE's net income rose to $4.65 billion, or 44¢ a share, compared to $3.75 billion, or 36¢ a share, during the same quarter a year ago.

GE's revenue climbed 13% to $42 billion last quarter from $36.78 billion the year before, including businesses GE acquired over the past year.

GE shares were down 10¢ to close at $35.53 in trading Friday upon the earnings news.

(Willa Paskin in New York contributed to this report.)

Sunday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

There at the creation: Fred Silverman
He invented NBC's 'must-see' scheduling strategy

By Kevin Downey medialifemagazine.com

It was a May day in 1981 when Fred Silverman left his office in New York’s Rockefeller Center. He would not return, not that day or ever again. Silverman had been president and CEO of NBC for three years. He left that day very much a failure, and he would have been hard-pressed to find many who disagreed.

NBC was in the tank, the No. 3 network behind ABC and CBS, and the board of RCA, which then owned the network, was scouting for his replacement. Silverman, the man Time magazine just three years earlier had touted on its cover as “TV’s Master Showman,” was jumping before he got pushed.

But what Silverman left behind was one of modern television’s great legacies, what would become known as Must See TV, the programming dynasty that was NBC's Thursday night. Through Silverman’s successors, Grant Tinker, Brandon Tartikoff, Warren Littlefield and Garth Ancier, NBC would rise to dominate network television for two decades, as no network had ever done before, and it would do so against the rise of cable and the internet and video games. If there was a golden age of television, it was roughly the two decades ending the century, from 1984 to 2004, and NBC was network television at its best and most innovative.

That reign only ended this past season. Just why it ended is a tangled story that would take a book to tell. But the quick version is that of a legacy misspent. Must See TV was allowed to whither through neglect. Quite simply, NBC had been so successful for so long that it had forgotten how it had gotten there. Caution had stepped in where imagination and risk-taking had driven programming decisions. The good people had left, frustrated by meddling from the corporate suits above. The network’s competitors, foremost CBS under Les Moonves, had begun to look a lot like NBC when it still had its groove.

For Silverman, who after NBC went on to launch a string of hit series as an independent producer, including “Matlock” and “Diagnosis Murder,” the NBC of 2005 has come to look an awful lot like the struggling network he was hired to bail out almost three decades ago, in 1978.

The irony, of course, is that the network this past broadcast season was again in last place, but this time at No. 4 for the first time ever in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic. On top was Fox, which didn’t exist when Silverman ran NBC, followed close behind by CBS then ABC.

For media people, and those working in television, the thinking behind Must See TV can only seem obvious. It’s simply the way television is done. But it was not always the case.

At its simplest, the idea behind Must See TV means owning a night of the week, Thursday for NBC. The idea is to dominate that night with a block of programming, such that people tune in at 8 and stay until the late news, without changing the channel. In time, with that one night in place, the network moves to build a second night, using the first to promote that night’s shows. Then from there it moves on to a third night, and then a fourth, and so on.

But this strategy was not common to network television in its early years. Silverman first used and perfected it at CBS, where he rose to head programming in the early '70s, at a time when it was the top network.

CBS’s night was Saturday. In 1973 the lineup was: “All in the Family,” “M.A.S.H.,” “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Bob Newhart” and “Carol Burnett.”

Then, in 1975, Silverman took over as top programmer at ABC, lured away by the challenge of turning around the perennial No. 3 network. He made Tuesday night ABC’s night to shine, and that network quickly passed CBS to become No. 1. ABC’s Tuesday lineup in 1977 was "Happy Days,” “Laverne & Shirley,” “Three’s Company,” “Soap” and the drama “Family.”

Silverman was refining the concept at NBC when he left that May day in 1981, with Thursday its must see night. That year NBC’s Thursday lineup was “Harper Valley,” “Lewis & Clark,” “Diff’rent Strokes,” “Gimme a Break,” and at 10, “Hill Street Blues.” The four-sitcom/one-drama block would stay in place on NBC’s schedule until “The Apprentice” debuted in 2004.

At NBC, Silverman chose Thursday because it seemed the most logical night for the network to revamp, with the promise of making it that much more competitive. Only later, much later, did Thursday night become hugely attractive to advertisers, especially movie studios, for promoting movies the following weekend. And as NBC’s ratings went on to soar on that night, it became even more valuable, and at one point accounted for an estimated 40 percent of NBC’s primetime revenue.

Significantly, Thursday’s decline in ratings this past season goes a long way to explain the network’s sharp decline in sales this upfront from $2.8 billion to $2 billion in the space of just one year.

But back to NBC in 1978. Silverman, after just three years at ABC, had been hired away by NBC to pull that network out of its nosedive. It was a daunting challenge, for sure. Silverman faced the prospect of competing against himself, in effect, pitting a suffering network against two he could take credit for making No. 1.

NBC since the mid-50s had trailed CBS, only once narrowly beating its rival, until it was displaced by ABC, but it was not through its artful programming as it was a lack of competition and a general lack of programming sophistication at all three networks.

Media people are inclined to think of television as a mature industry but in many ways network television is younger than its years. Thirty years ago, ABC wasn’t really a full-fledged network, with its affiliate network still under construction. Programming strategies were comparatively primitive. Primetime was filled with variety shows, something left over from radio, and westerns and cop dramas. There was little thinking about synergies among shows on particular nights, or putting schedules together that would flow smoothly from one to the next, targeting one demographic to ensure they would sit down and stay seated for the night. The legacy of radio was still pervasive; as a true mass medium, you programmed for everyone. You presumed that the entire family was sitting before the TV set. There was one demographic: the American viewer. The variety show was the archetype in this regard, singer followed by juggler followed by sword swallower followed by a tap dancing duo. Somewhere in that mishmash there was something to amuse everyone.

NBC’s programming seemed even more of a crazy quilt. NBC had essentially one top-30 show through most of the 1970s, “Little House on the Prairie.” Silverman was shocked to learn that a previous programming chief had disliked series, so he didn’t order many of them. But specials and movies? He couldn’t get enough so he larded up the schedule with them. Three months into the job, Silverman cobbled together a lineup out of eight hours of movies and an hour variety show he had inherited. Combined, they counted for nearly half of NBC’s primetime schedule.

Silverman had figured turning NBC around would take three to five years, but that was before he saw the work that needed to be done. The RCA board had a quicker turnaround in mind, and they were not happy when after three years under Silverman NBC was still No. 3. In early 1981 Silverman lost an ally when Edgar Griffiths, RCA’s chairman, was pushed into retirement. In a few months, Silverman too would be gone, having decided to abandon the struggle in the face of a hostile board.

But by then Must See TV had taken modest roots. It did so in “Hill Street Blues,” a gritty cop series inspired by movie “Fort Apache, the Bronx” and created by Steven Bochco. “Hill Street Blues” was never a huge ratings hit but was a frequent Emmy winner, bringing credibility to the network. Silverman had also green-lighted “Cheers,” which ran for 11 seasons on Thursdays.

Thursday night was on its way. “The Cosby Show” debuted in September 1984, instantly catapulting NBC to No. 1 on Thursdays, a position it wouldn’t lose for the next 20 years. NBC not coincidentally was No. 1 in ad revenue most of those years. Other shows that populated the Must See TV lineup in those years: “Frasier,” “L.A. Law,” “Seinfeld” and “Friends.”

But no less important, Silverman left a legacy of talent. They were executives he had nurtured, such as Tartikoff, who with Silverman’s replacement, Tinker, took the Must See TV foundation and built it into a 20-year institution. The last to leave was Ancier, in 2001.

Here's what TV critics are thinking about
By MARK McGUIRE Albany, NY, Times-Union Staff writer July 18, 2005

We join our regularly scheduled Television Critics Association Press Tour, already in progress ... .

TCA is the shorthand for the organization of North America's television critics, columnists and writers -- and our biannual gathering in and around Hollywood. This year we are in Beverly Hills: When things get dull, look for me by the see-ment pond.

One by one, broadcast and cable networks come before the group and pitch new shows. Executives talk about how they'll build on the previous year's success, or how last season's decline was an aberration. Expect combative NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker to do a two-step worthy of "Dancing with the Stars" as he tries to explain how the once-proud Peacock has taken a nose dive.

Producers and stars from upcoming new shows as well as a smattering from returning dramas and comedies will appear on stage and use words like "organic" and "chemistry" and say things like "It has to be on the page."

The beauty, of course, is that the critics already have seen the new shows. That's what I've been doing the past month, grousing along the way. Overall, it's a pretty good crop. But critics can spot the clunkers -- dead shows walking that will be forgotten by Thanksgiving -- even as they are being painted by Hollywood types as the next "Friends," "CSI" or "Lost."

What makes the whole dog-and-pony show unique is we get to grill the dogs and ponies. There's something endearing about the forced accountability, the need to defend your record before assembled reporters -- and through us, the public. Don't even try presenting a show like "Mullets" and calling it filet.

I'm joining the tour this year in time for the broadcast portion. Some questions I and many others will have:

* Where are the "Desperate" knockoffs? : The freshman ABC hit of 2004-05 seemed the most likely candidate to spawn clones, but the several stabs at skewed suburbia died during pilot season.

* Why is television turning into one big remake of "Monster Chiller Horror Theater"? : Look for a lot of aliens and the paranormal in upcoming shows, from ABC's remake of "The Night Stalker" to the WB's simply titled "Supernatural." It seems that networks are trying to tap into the spooky mysteriousness of ABC's other hit, "Lost."

* CSI (Completely Saturated with Imitators)? : Is there a way to rip off "CSI" that hasn't been tried yet? Maybe with pets? Sock puppets? There are more than a few more clones coming our way that will tax your forensic-procedural threshold.

* Can comedy bounce back? : There's no returning comedy this fall that ranked in the Top 10. "Two and a Half Men," which takes over CBS' marquee 9 p.m. Monday time slot from the departed "Everybody Loves Raymond," finished 12th.

That said, there are several intriguing comedies on the horizon: Arguable the best comes from -- I kid you not -- UPN. "Everybody Hates Chris" arrives from executive producer (and narrator) Chris Rock, who chronicles his 1980s youth growing up in a tough section of Brooklyn, but attending a distant all-white junior high school.

* Wither reality? : This cheap schedule filler has been a staple of television's menu the past five years. And the good ones will continue to generate heat and ratings; note the staying power of "Survivor."

But the offerings are pretty slim at the start of the year. The biggest newcomer will be "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart," which will have to walk the tightrope of trying to out-Donald Trump while restoring her image following her recent stay in Che Federale.

Over the next several weeks, hopefully we'll have answers to some of those questions.

Or at least get to see some really good dance moves.

Do you know if HBO has ever cancelled one of their programs mid-season? If not, The comeback should be the first...this show is unwatchable. I know it's unlikely as Mr. Albrecht seems quite arrogant and I find it hard to believe he would ever admit they made a programming mistake. Instead the HBO propaganda machine goes into high gear blaming everyone but themselves. First, they claim it's a "high concept" show that needs time(i.e. the audience isn't bright enough to grasp it)...we get the show, it's just not entertaining. Then they spin SFU's move back to Sunday as a move that was prompted by research that SFU fans didn't know about the move...we all know it was a move to boost the ratings of the lagging new Sunday night lineup. Well the numbers are in and SFU held it's Monday #'s, Entourage got a boost(and a renewal I might add) and people still don't want to see the hideous Comeback. What's next intertwining five minute segments of the comeback into the next installment of the Soprano's? BTW, what was the lowest rated HBO series of recent memory?

Recently Entourage comes to mind from Zap2it:

"Entourage" drew only 1.89 million viewers for its first airing, well behind Sunday night companion "Six Feet Under," which had an audience of 3.66 million.

Also K Street is the most recent show with the shortest run I can recall and as noted HBO does not only take shows at ratings value. Production cost vs DVD sales and critical impact seem to factor in as well. For example Entourage just got picked up for season 3.

from Zap2 it

'Entourage' Hangs on for Third Season at HBO
(Saturday, July 16 08:03 AM)
By Rick Porter
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) With three fresh Emmy nominations and a buzz level that belies its rather soft ratings, HBO's comedy "Entourage" has earned a third season.

Chris Albrecht, president and CEO of HBO, announced the pickup Friday (July 15) during HBO's session at the TV Critics Association press tour. He says the deal was completed only a day or so before that, so he couldn't offer a lot of details.

He does say, however, that the pay-cable network will aim for "as many episodes as we can get" from the deal, with 13 probably being the minimum. The show is running for 14 episodes this summer, following an eight-episode first season.
"We'll see if [creator] Doug Ellin will hire some more writers," Albrecht says jokingly.

"Entourage" earned three Emmy nominations Thursday -- for Jeremy Piven's performance as shark-like Hollywood agent Ari Gold, for David Frankel's direction of the pilot episode and for outstanding casting for a comedy series.

The series, which follows a rising movie star (Adrian Grenier) and his group of friends/hangers-on as they navigate the showbiz world, has earned fairly strong critical praise and a devoted following -- albeit not a large one. It's averaging under 2 million viewers per week in its premiere slot this season, although HBO doesn't look just at ratings when deciding which shows to renew.

Frankly, I have yet to see more than a few examples of the alleged "fairly strong critical praise" for "Entourage".

Sinclair and Dish Rattling Sabres
Aug. 1 Deadline
By Linda Moss multichannel.com

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. warned that it may have to pull its TV stations off EchoStar Communications Corp. Aug. 1 if a retransmission-consent deal extension isn’t worked out.

Sinclair and the direct-broadcast satellite provider had a two-month extension of their expired retransmission agreement, and both sides have been in discussions on that renewal. But the extension itself is now set to expire Aug. 1.

“We recently offered to extend the agreement for an additional month to allow us additional time to negotiate with EchoStar, but EchoStar has unfortunately refused to agree to such an extension,” Sinclair said on its Web site.

“Although we remain willing to negotiate with EchoStar and hope to reach a long-term agreement, a risk exists that our television stations will no longer be carried on the Dish Network after Aug. 1,” the site added.

Sinclair vice president and general counsel Barry Faber said talks have been ongoing since the extension was granted.

“We extended [the old retransmission-consent agreement] once before, and we have been working very diligently getting a deal done,” he said Monday.

EchoStar declined to comment in too much detail about Sinclair, but spokesman Steve Caulk did say, “We are negotiating and we hope to reach a fair agreement by the end of this month that will allow us to continue broadcasting the Sinclair stations.”

Sinclair Monday started to run a crawl on its TV stations to warn viewers that the signals may soon be off Dish so that Dish subscribers can try to make other arrangements to receive the stations, according to Faber.

“We don’t want people to wake up Aug. 2 and go to watch something and it’s not there, or that to be the first time people see an announcement that it’s not there,” Faber added. “We want to give them a little notice.”

Frankly, I have yet to see more than a few examples of the alleged "fairly strong critical praise" for "Entourage".
That's because it's all in Albrecht's head, just about everything I've seen says it's garbage. I think HBO needs to get the idea that everyone is fascinated with what goes on inside Hollywood out of their head. I'm not sure what audience they think they are playing to with this stuff.

I say, bring back Z-Channel, I'm sure you remember that one Fred... :) :D

As a recently posted column (in fact several of them) noted, HBO is getting the reputation for very inside Hollywood stuff. It is even bothering those of us who live here and are aware of the entertainment scene.

Personally I think the programmers have struck out on about their last ten at bats and perhaps new blood would help. But barring that they had better beg David Chase to add another season of "The Sopranos" -- even though it probably wouldn't air until 2010 or so.

I have found it virtually unwatchable in recent months, but that it my personal taste, and I try to provide postings that show all sides of the programing spectrum -- as the next posting, from Joanne Ostrow, will attest. I strongly disagree with her on at least four of her selections -- but you may find some (or all) of these shows to your liking

(And ah yes, Z Channel is a hallowed memory in Los Angeles)

Wisteria Lane's future: Dark

The Chicago Tribune---Next season on "Desperate Housewives": darker storylines and some dastardly deeds by a new neighbor.

So says the show's creator, Marc Cherry, still buoyant from the show's 15 Emmy nominations, tying "Will & Grace" as the year's top-nominated series.

"Thrilled, thrilled, thrilled!" Cherry said. "I can't even think of another word. I was just really, really happy."

He promises that next year will bring "more surprises, twists and turns.

"We're going darker with some of the storylines, and Alfre Woodard's (new neighbor) character is just up to no good on that street," he said.

Cherry and series star Marcia Cross, who plays "Housewives"' uptight heroine Bree Van de Camp, carefully dropped second season tidbits Saturday at a panel discussion dubbed "Queer is Just a Frame of Mind on Wisteria Lane" -- part of Outfest 2005: The 23rd Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

Cherry is gay, as are some of the others on his writing staff.

DEATH MARCH WITH COCKTAILS [B]
[B]Where have all the flowers gone? Listen and learn
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle July 18, 2005

Beverly Hills -- There is a spine-tingling, effortlessly great moment in Martin Scorsese's documentary "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan," when watching TV for a living seems like a gigantic mistake and the lure of music's visceral gut punch is almost too much to bear. It's 1966 in London, and Dylan, folk icon, has gone electric. He is young, wiry and full of marshalling genius -- he was probably never cooler. "Traitor!" someone yells. "What happened to Woody Guthrie, Bob?" another yells. Boos ring out, and Dylan, in a check suit and pointy shoes, drolly steps to the microphone and says, "These aren't British songs, they're American songs."

Beautifully audacious. In comes the guitar and drums, and Scorsese's camera captures the backdrop: a huge, wall-size American flag. "Judas!" someone else yells later. But it's too late by then. "Like a Rolling Stone" is filling the hall -- rock 'n' roll has just put a knife in folk music.

For all the emotional fulfillment one gets watching expertly crafted, brilliantly nuanced and superbly performed television, sometimes there's no real substitute for rock 'n' roll.

And so there was a keen sense of anticipation when PBS decided to screen "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan" to roughly 100 people last week. It was one of those rare moments on the Death March with Cocktails: a desire to actually watch something. Even better, it was the first time the 3 1/2-hour film, with loads of never-before-seen footage, was going to be seen by anyone in the world.

That's probably one reason why actor Benicio Del Toro snuck in, hat pulled low, and slunk into a screening-room seat on the Fox lot. The film, which will air in two parts on Sept. 26 and 27, had been a well-guarded secret. Apparently, Dylan didn't want a bunch of TV critics -- possibly some among us less scrutable than others -- loading the DVD onto the Internet or using it for a mortgage on a new house thanks to the deep pockets of some rich Dylan nut.

We were told that this was it: Watch it on a studio lot in July, and use your memory to review it in September. Perhaps that and the film's length are one reason the herd was thin. But those who didn't see it missed out. "No Direction Home" is the latest in a well-orchestrated campaign of legacy building and deification for Dylan, but it's absolutely essential viewing. Dylan's manager kept private a wonderfully honest, far-ranging on-camera interview with Dylan that forms the backbone of the documentary. Those interviews, apparently filmed a handful of years ago, were not even seen by Scorsese -- a Dylan fanatic who had already shot "The Last Waltz" -- before filming began.

There must have been something in the air down here last week. A musical vibe crept in that was unmistakable. Even before MTV was set to arrive with its bevy of music stars and the related product they will push out to the masses, stodgy old PBS had, of all people, seminal rapper Chuck D on the scene to promote yet another public television documentary, "Get Up, Stand Up: The Story of Pop and Protest."

That film will air Sept. 28, one day after the Dylan documentary ends, so it can be said right now: Fall is going to rock. But there was also something oddly out of place about all of this work in the pipeline: Where are the protest songs of today? Is that ideal part of an era long gone, rising only as a blip on the screen when Billy Bragg decides he's got something to say, or when Bright Eyes goes on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and belts out "When the President Talks to God" while a clearly uncomfortable Leno squirms? Maybe it's too easy to say the protest song is now musty enough to be documentary material -- after all, Matthew Sweet's searing "Holy War" randomly popped up and blared out on the iPod between these two PBS events -- but it is hard to escape the notion that, for what it's worth, protest is dying out in the current musical climate.

"You can't quantify everything by the amount of gross figure something sells in order for it to be something that works," Chuck D said, sounding optimistic. "I think the next Bob Marley could be here right now. The next Pete Seeger could be here right now."

Could be. But certainly the golden age of protest songs culled from topical stories is long over. That's made abundantly clear in "No Direction Home," in what may be construed as some heavyweight myth shattering. As the film documents Dylan's rise -- and remember this film is sanctioned by Dylan -- it suggests that not only was Dylan barely interested in being a protest singer, or even a folk singer, he was resolutely unreflective. "I can't self- analyze my songs," Dylan says at one point. He refutes that he ever changed his name in honor of the poet Dylan Thomas. He tells Studs Terkel on a Chicago radio station that "Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" isn't some apocalyptic bomb song and, despite one reporter's desperation for interpretation, Dylan says his choice of clothing on the cover of "Highway 61 Revisited" has no deeper meaning than that's what he decided to wear.

And Joan Baez, whose contributions to the film are both insightful and funny, recalls how Dylan never thought much about the meaning of his lyrics, but they shared a laugh about how people in the future certainly would.

It doesn't really matter. When Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, charging into "Maggie's Farm" and "Like a Rolling Stone" to the horror of the masses, Pete Seeger included, it's just about one of the greatest rock 'n' roll moments you'll ever witness.

Seeing that -- and seeing Chuck D walk off the stage to "Fight the Power" -- brought a welcome rush of adrenaline to the ensconced critics here. Those moments were reminders that it's one thing to see, a whole different thing to feel.

As a recently posted column (in fact several of them) noted, HBO is getting the reputation for very inside Hollywood stuff. It is even bothering those of us who live here and are aware of the entertainment scene.

Personally I think the programmers have struck out on about their last ten at bats and perhaps new blood would help. But barring that they had better beg David Chase to add another season of "The Sopranos" -- even though it probably wouldn't air until 2010 or so.

I have found it virtually unwatchable in recent months, but that it my personal taste, and I try to provide postings that show all sides of the programing spectrum -- as the next posting, from Joanne Ostrow, will attest. I strongly disagree with her on at least four of her selections -- but you may find some (or all) of these shows to your liking

(And ah yes, Z Channel is a hallowed memory in Los Angeles)
Yes, Curb Your Enthusiasm was about as far as they needed to go with the insider stuff, with stuff like Comeback, Entourage, Unscripted and K-Street(a Hollywood of Capitol Hill) it bothers me that a show like Carnivale gets pulled, while expensive to make, it was vastly superior to the aforementioned garbage, excluding CYE. I also find it ironic that HBO is now touting the critical acclaim of The Wire, a show which was basically in HBO's trash bin at the end of last season.

Bidding farewell to 'Summerland'
WB series ends its two-season run tonight at 9 PM ET/PT
medialifemagazine.com---When the WB debuted "Summerland" last summer, it was a surprise hit. Just a year later, viewer interest has faded after a long midseason layoff, and now the series ends tonight.

Not that WB viewers are happy about it, as a visit to the network's web site quickly shows. One visitor to the "Summerland" page posts: "Why is it that when a show keeps families interested weekly, it seems to be cancelled? I think Summerland is a great show! It opens up discussions that we as parents, need to discuss with our children. I think you need to reconsider canceling Summerland."

A fellow viewer cynically responds, "If it isn't a reality show, or a show w/a lot of sex ...it will get cancelled."

On tonight's finale Nikki tries to play matchmaker with Ava and Johnny, but Johnny's not sure he's ready for another relationship. Meanwhile, Bradin considers giving up surfing after his sponsor intentionally depicts him as a bad boy, and then thinks about a relationship with Erika.

Here's to hoping the series finale at least ties up these relationship loose ends.

Dance fever

By VIRGINIA ROHAN [B[northjersey.com[/B]

Blame it on the bossa nova ...

Or maybe on the salsa, tango or a new British invasion.

Whatever the reason, America's got happy feet right now.

ABC's "Dancing With the Stars," based on a big hit in the United Kingdom, was a surprise summer sensation here. The show's July 6 finale pulled in more than 22 million people, the biggest audience of any summer show since "American Idol" wrapped up its first season in September 2002.

"If you were watching the Internet the day after, hundreds of thousands of people were talking about 'Dancing With the Stars' - and this was the day of the London bombing," says pop culture maven Robert Thompson, adding a personal observation: "I've run into many a husband that is being dragged to dance lessons because of that show."

This week, Fox introduces "So You Think You Can Dance," an "Idol"-like venture from the creators of that Fox phenomenon. Whereas ABC's dance show was strictly ballroom, this one, a joint venture of Britain's 19 TV Ltd. and dick clark productions, will run the gamut.

"What this show will do is show a sort of history of dance," says executive producer Nigel Lythgoe. "Hopefully, we'll bring a whole range of dancing back."

On Fox's competition series, five choreographers will work with dancers skilled in everything from ballroom and ballet to salsa, jive, hip-hop, tap and ... krumping?

"It's a new form that for me looks a bit like if you were going to sign an argument, with feeling. ... They move their arms very, very fast," Lythgoe says. "It's the cutting-edge of dance styles at the moment. But there are very few people who can do it. Probably a very few people want to do it."

Krumping (and "clowning") can be seen in David LaChapelle's new documentary "Rize," which spotlights the athletic dance style from South Central Los Angeles. And this isn't the only film about dance. Another documentary, the critically acclaimed "Mad Hot Ballroom," chronicles a dance competition for fifth-graders in New York City.

There's also Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez' recent "Shall We Dance?," an Americanized version of a 1997 Japanese film.

"It's really a story of a man whose life is boring and the dance simply picks it up," says Garrett Smith, director of the National Museum of Dance & Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., a fan of Gere's performance. "He danced because it really freed up his spirit. That's what dance does."

Clearly, we are dance-crazed at the moment, but will it last?

"If we take 'Dancing With the Stars' out of the equation, I'm not sure we want to call this a trend yet, like we saw in certain parts of American history where dance became huge," says Thompson, who's founding director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.

"When a show like this catches the public's fancy, a minirevival comes off the back of it," says executive producer Conrad Green of his ABC venture, citing the hoopla over "Saturday Night Fever" and movies like it. "Whether the people take up ballroom and stick with it remains to be seen. But it's definitely been good for the dance movement."

Indeed, business at Arthur Murray International is up 25 to 30 percent over a year ago, reports John Kimmins, the company's executive vice president. He says the spike began late last year with "Shall We Dance?" and surged anew because of "Dancing With the Stars."

So, what is it about dance that intrigues us right now? And how to explain the success of the ABC show, which paired professional dancers with an eclectic roster of celebrities (from former heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield to "Bachelorette" Trista Rehn)?

"What's especially interesting is there was no million dollars here, no contract to be a movie star, but just a trophy," says Thompson, who has very little interest in dance but quickly got pulled in. "I thought, what are they thinking? ... But all you had to do was spend five minutes with this show to realize this was not 'Surreal Life.' There was something that was so sincere, so family-friendly about it, after 25 years of dripping irony."

Green agrees.

"There aren't many shows that everyone can sit down and watch together," he says. "Also, the stars are trying so hard, and there's nothing demeaning about it. Add all those things together and you've got something quite compelling."

Lythgoe believes that a huge portion of the home audience is "alienated by television nowadays," and these disenfranchised viewers gravitated to the ABC show. He adds, "I'm hoping to grab that audience ... and bring it younger, too, like 'American Idol.' We appeal to the grannies, at the same time as we appeal to the grandchildren. And I'd love to do the same with this."

But Lythgoe also traces the current popularity to the fact that dance, of all types, is deeply rooted in our culture.

"Certainly, this country has had a wonderful history of dance through Busby Berkeley, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, 'West Side Story,' an incredible history," he says, citing, too, great tap dancers like Bojangles. "It has always been there."

Could there also be a link between the current minitrend and the uncertainties of these times? From the 1930s on, when Hollywood started to capture this ephemeral art form on film, dazzling dance sequences have often provided comfort to the masses.

"The reason that people dance has to do with the lifting of the spirit. If you watch Gene Kelly in 'Singin' in the Rain,' you're watching a dance expression of exuberance," Smith says. "Busby Berkeley had all those dancers tapping, and those art deco settings. They were fabulous and they were meant to lift the spirits of those people who were going through the Depression."

Lythgoe says that his new Fox show is a search "for America's most versatile dancer, with personality." One drawback, from a viewer's standpoint, is that the show lacks the star-making potential of "American Idol." Though the winner gets $100,000 and an apartment in New York for a year, Lythgoe concedes, "It's a great springboard into a dancing career. But they're not going to be the next Kelly Clarkson or the next Carrie Underwood. You can't really release anything as a dancer unless it's the next home video of 'Teach Yourself Hip-Hop.'Ÿ"

But "So You Think You Can Dance" does have one classic element that may grab hold of American audiences.

Says Lythgoe, "They're just kids trying to follow a dream, and for me, there's a lot of heart and soul with it."

Aliens to abound on fall TV lineups

Ellen Gray Philadelphia Daily News|

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - There are going to be more otherworldly critters on broadcast TV this fall than even Tom Cruise can be expected to take on, and that's fine with Sci-Fi Channel President Bonnie Hammer.

In fact, Hammer, who also heads the USA Network and prefers to call the sci-fi series that both networks program "speculative fiction," is happy to take some of the credit.

"I think we've helped it come of age, whether it was some of the early stuff that Sci-Fi was doing, starting back with 'Taken' and then kind of moving a little bit into USA with 'The 4400,' " Hammer told TV critics here Friday, insisting that it's "phenomenal" that the major networks are working her side of the galaxy. The "upside is because there's so much more appetite and network exposure with shows like 'Medium' and all the others that are coming on this year will give people the license to admit that they actually like sci-fi and therefore will be a window back to the channel," she said. "They'll be a little bit more open to, 'OK, yeah, I guess I do like science fiction.' "

Not every cable programmer's so welcoming when the big guys invade their turf. Food Network president Brooke Johnson, for instance, couldn't be happier that Fox's "Hell's Kitchen" arrived this summer overheated and underwatched.

"I think it's wonderful that the broadcast networks are not very good at this," she said. "I encourage them to continue in that vein."

Still, given the Food Network's fanatical audience, it's always puzzled me why no broadcaster has figured out a way to cash in on that sort of culinary porn (and why NBC wasted Emeril Lagasse on a sitcom), but Johnson thinks it's because "we're serious about cooking, and they're not. They're just interested in getting the most number of younger viewers they can to watch," she said. "We are just interested in talking to people that care about food."

[COLOR=orangered] Quote of the day C: [/COLOR

"I just sort of closed my eyes and thought of England."

- British actress Polly Walker on a sex scene that's already one of the most-talked-about moments in HBO's series "Rome," which premieres Aug. 28.

Roman invasion

HBO's new series, “Rome,” conquers another toga-period drama
and catapults its lead actor into the spotlight

By CHASE SQUIRES, St. PetersburgTimes TV columnist July 18, 2005

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Ray Stevenson is huge. Well, big, anyway.

But he's going to be huge.

In one of television's emerging patterns this year, HBO is going back to ancient Rome next month with a 12-episode drama called Rome. It's deadly politics, rowdy bar fights, epic battle scenes, blood, backstabbing, and lots and lots of gettin' nekkid.

Call it Deadwoodicus.

In the middle is Stevenson. Six feet, 4 inches tall, 225 pounds, and powerfully built. He's kind of George Clooney on steroids. By the time Rome completes its run, the Irish-born English actor will probably be a star, and a very real candidate to replace Russell Crowe when Hollywood gets tired of that actor's notoriously bad behavior.

But on Friday night, amid toga-clad TV critics and surrounded by faux Roman ruins and waiters serving tuna tartare and lamb shanks at an HBO party, Stevenson had the time to talk with anyone who wandered by.

He came late to acting, he said, daring at age 27 to give up an interior design career that he liked in his hometown of Newcastle. He went to acting school.

"I've always wanted to create, to act, to be part of an art," he said. "I've just always known that."

He soon learned there was more to the game than acting.

"It's all about meeting the right people," he said. "That took a bit."

Now 41, it only took him 14 years to become an overnight success. Rome is his first really big role, after working as a London stage and TV journeyman. His biggest Hollywood role before Rome was playing Dagonet in last year's film King Arthur.

For a first monster role, his portrayal of brawling soldier Titus Pullo is a knockout.

Rome is epic in scope. HBO footed the bill to send an all-British cast, in partnership with the BBC, to Italy for a 14-month shoot. The sets are massive. The cast includes hundreds, maybe thousands, of extras, clad in period garb, smashing each other with swords and spears and clubs. The result is mesmerizing.

At its heart, Rome is a buddy picture set in turbulent times. Stevenson's character and the character of Lucius Vorenus, played by Kevin McKidd, are soldiers returning from the battles in Gaul around 52 B.C. to find Roman general Gaius Julius Caesar in a power struggle. The two form a friendship in a blast furnace of political upheaval.

"Everything that's around them is being turned into quicksand," Stevenson said. "The whole fabric of their lives and the structure of their society is completely mixing around. And in that, they formed a kind of interdependency almost. That's where their reality is. It's very human."

Desperate for a new watercooler show to pick up the burden from The Sopranos, as both Carnivale and Six Feet Under fade, HBO hasn't committed to a second season for Rome yet. But the door is open, network executives say.

They can only hope viewers don't mix up Rome with ABC's tepid toga party Empire, which is currently airing and was filmed at about the same time as Rome. The casts ran into each other after work in Roman bars and restaurants, but the actors said they never considered themselves in competition.

They were right, there's no competition. Empire failed; Rome rules.

But why make either? While viewers this fall are being fed a diet of science fiction (it's being called "speculative drama" now) riding the popularity of ABC's Lost, one of the subcurrents appears to be ancient Rome. It's apparent there's a trend brewing when the History Channel jumps in with a special, Rome: Engineering an Empire.

"It was a moment in history that's pivotal in Western history," Rome producer Bruno Heller said. "If things hadn't turned out the way they did at that particular point, the world that we live in now would be very different. And it was a gold age of literature and art, so it lives on in a very resolute way still today. It's the transformation of a republic into an empire. I think America is dealing with that issue now."

Project historical consultant Jonathan Stamp echoed that theme, that the United States may be grappling with some of the issues of centralized power and a role in the world that Rome went through.

"Bruno's right there when he says there's something particularly resonant about that particular point in Roman history, just now, and maybe particularly here in the United States," he said. "You're looking at a point in the city's history when it's wrestling with all the problems of whether or not it should expand, have an empire; how you mix power and responsibility, all sorts of things that have tremendous resonance for contemporary American experience."

Big picture issues are nice. Reflecting the American experience is nice. But there's another reason, Stamp allowed.

"In practical terms, perhaps another of the things that's contributing to it is the enormous success of Gladiator. Just in commercial times, I think it made it evident that you could do something epic and Roman and achieve enormous success with it."

Funny he should mention Gladiator. Wasn't Russell Crowe in that? Russell who?

We're going to need a very large handbasket where we're going

By Robert P. Laurence San Diego Union-Tribube Television Critic July 18, 2005

BEVERLY HILLS – Can't get enough celebrity gossip?

Going gaga over show business?

Well, the limits of your appetite are about to be tested.

Cable is going Hollywood.

Whether it's because the public is actually that fascinated with every fleck of Tom Cruise's dandruff, or only because actors, hip-hoppers, producers and programmers have really convinced themselves that they and their friends and relations are the most TV-worthy people on the planet, this fall they'll be their own favorite subjects.

More than a dozen new programs about Hollywood, about being a celebrity, about following celebrities and near-celebrities around, about nobodies who would like to be celebrities, about people who almost got to be celebrities once and are still desperately clinging to that 16th minute of fame, are in the wings.

Most of those programs that bring new meaning to the phrase "famous for being famous" come from the usual sources – MTV, VH1, E!. But they're also being produced by formerly high-toned Bravo, as well as ESPN, the Discovery Channel and Court TV.

Nearly 200 members of the Television Critics Association, here on their semiannual excursion to preview what's new in TV, have been subjected to pitches for those shows, and many others, over the past four days. It's not unusual for the stars of 18 or 20 new talk shows, made-for-cable movies and series, plus any number of network executives to conduct press conferences in various meeting rooms of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in a single day.

Hallmark, a digital channel scrambling for attention, corralled actors from five movies, plus talk show host Naomi Judd, for a single 45-minute session. So nobody lifted an eyebrow when a question about Pope John Paul II, the subject of one movie, led to another about the place of "Beverly Hills 90210" in TV history, asked of Luke Perry, a "90210" actor now in a Hallmark production.

Hallmark, at least, is not joining the celebrity-reality stampede. Not yet.

Bravo has not been able to resist. Founded as a cable home for the finer things in TV, once considered a potential rival to PBS, Bravo on Aug. 17 will present "Battle of the Network Reality Stars." Thirty-two contestants from 16 reality shows will compete in athletic contests, just like the network stars did in the "Battle" show of the 1970s.

"Sideline reporters" (I'm not making this up) will include leftovers from "Real World" and "The Bachelor," plus the infamous Omarosa from "The Apprentice."

More of cable's Hollywood-celebrity shows:

"Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive" – Children of the rich and famous mosey on horseback for 100 miles in Colorado. E!, Aug. 7.

"Stalkers in the Shadows" – What Hollywood stars do to get rid of stalkers. From Court TV. No date announced.

"My Fair Brady" – Both of you fans of "The Surreal Life" will remember when former "Brady Bunch" role player Christopher Knight fell hard for Adrianne Curry, winner of the "America's Next Top Model." You can watch their romance progress on VH1 starting Sept. 11.

"ESPN Hollywood" – If a halfback or a shortstop shows up at a movie premiere, "ESPN Hollywood" will be there. "All the latest sports-entertainment news," is the promise. Aug. 15 on ESPN2.

"Run's House" – Cameras follow the day-to-day life of Rev Run (formal name Joey Simmons, of Run-DMC), rap star and now an ordained minister, his wife and five children. MTV calls it "the first hip-hop reality sitcom." October.

"Going Hollywood" – Young folks work as interns for Kevin Spacey, Robert Evans and Method Man, dreaming that one day they too can walk that red carpet. TLC in October.

"The Showbiz Show With David Spade" – Hoping to make an entire series out of a sporadically successful "Saturday Night Live" routine, Spade says mean things about the stars. Comedy Central in September.

"Situation: Comedy" – "Will & Grace" co-star Sean Hayes searches for a good script for a new TV comedy show from among 10,000 submitted by hopeful writers. July 26 on Bravo. [B][COLOR=orangered]

Now, a few things folks at TCA really did say:

Naomi Judd, who with daughter Wynona once formed the country duo the Judds, remembered the day "15 years ago when the Mayo Clinic told me I had less than three stinking years to live. Of course, I said, 'No way. I'm going to live to see the day that Wynona does not blame me for all of her problems.'"

Rev Run, asked exactly where his church is: "I don't have a church because I still I have an obligation, I believe, to serve the world. And I think a church would be too small for me."

Comic Adam Carolla, whose late-night talk show debuts Aug. 8 on Comedy Central, already knows he can't compete for Hollywood's A-list stars, or even for disaster victims who already gravitate to Katie Couric.

So he's "already creating our own human interest stories," he said, "by taking people, throwing them in the water and chumming it. When they get their leg bitten off by a shark, they're already contractually obliged to do our show first. ... We got guys crashing airplanes, we got people being mauled by pumas."

As much as I like to bash HBO of late...I do understand their renewing of Entourage. Although it is not critically or commercially acclaimed, the numbers they do receive are from the core demographic for whom the show is aimed.

Very, very true.

But what I find most disappointing about HBO is that it used to find shows that appealed far beyoind their core demographic.

That is what break-out "watercooler" TV shows do: "The Sopranos" and "Sex In The City" for HBO; "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" for ABC; "CSI" for CBS, and "Amertican Idol" and "House" for Fox.

All appeal far beyond their targeted demographic. It seems to me "Entourage" is nowhere near the quality of those programs. In my mind, it is a pale and supposedly young-skewing ripoff of "Curb Your Enthusiasm".

I've already posted a story from Variety (post #3848) that suggests the target demographic for HBO has become Hollywood.

If their target demographic is Hollywood then their even losing that battle. Although Entourage is not my cup of tea...I can see where their going with it. I think the show does have a buzz around it, and with say a Sopranos lead-in it could garner some pretty decent numbers. As for The Comeback, I don't think they have a plan...what was funny to 45 people at the Groundlings in 1988 is painfully unamusing in 2005

Sci Fi net flies on Friday

'Stargate,' 'Battlestar' bring in big auds

By JOHN DEMPSEY variety.com

NEW YORK -- The Sci Fi Channel delivered stratospheric primetime ratings for the season premieres of its July 15 lineup of scripted series "Stargate SG-1," "Stargate Atlantis" and "Battlestar Galactica."

Three-hour block beat all other basic-cable networks for the night in adults 18-49 and 25-54. "Galactica," beginning its second season, harvested 3.05 million total viewers, its best number yet, and finished first among all networks, broadcast and cable, in men 25-54 and men 18-49.

At 8 p.m., "SG 1" kicked off its ninth season with 2.61 million total viewers, which was 5% more than its eighth-season premiere in January.

"Stargate Atlantis," at 9, began its second season with 2.78 million total viewers, 6% up on its debut in January.

And to me "Entourage" isn't great, but is watchable and entertaining -- how can you not love Jeremy Piven as the sleazeball agent? "Curb", on the other hand, is excruciating. I watch few shows where I want to punch the lead character in the nose so, alas, I can't watch that one after sampling a couple of eps.

"Entourage" is no legendary series like "Sopranos" or "Sex and the City". But thank heaven it's not "The Comeback".

Magical Medicine on TV
How Realistic is “House”?
(And Does It Matter?)

By SANDEEP JAUHAR, M.D. writing in The New York Times July 19, 2005

On the Fox television show "House," a misanthropic, pill-popping, grizzled über doctor named Gregory House leads a group of impossibly bright young physicians in the department of diagnostic medicine at a teaching hospital in New Jersey.

Dr. House and his team solve medical mysteries with the flair and resourcefulness of private investigators. On a recent show, doctors made multiple visits to the home (even the school bus) of a teenager with convulsions before determining that he had a rare pesticide poisoning.

My wife, a general internist, finds the show absurdly "unrealistic." "Doctors don't do that," she cries whenever a House physician blithely ignores the boundaries of medical subspecialties. (The same doctors, for example, might perform cardiac catheterization, gastrointestinal endoscopy, bone-marrow biopsy and liver ultrasound.) I agree the show is unrealistic, but for a different reason. It portrays a world where doctors have time to solve problems.

I have worked in teaching hospitals in New York for seven years, first as a resident and now as an attending physician, mentoring residents and fellows. Over this period, I have discerned a gradual decline in the intellectual climate of these institutions. It has been dispiriting to watch. Of all the places one might expect doctors to be curious about medicine, teaching hospitals should be first.

Young doctors I work with today seem disengaged and mentally fatigued. With patient rosters of 15 or more, they are preoccupied with getting their work done. Interesting cases tend to generate anxiety, not excitement. Mysteries are, by and large, abhorred.

I recently met a pulmonologist, a soft-spoken woman who told me that she used to work on the staff of a teaching hospital in New York City but had gone into private practice a few years ago. I asked her why. "I loved to teach," she replied sadly, "but the residents and fellows just didn't seem to want to learn. They had other things on their minds.

"I met an intern the other day," she went on. "He was asking me questions about a case we were managing together. I told him that it was wonderful to see a young doctor so curious about medicine. He said: 'Thank you for saying so. Now can you tell my chiefs because they are always telling me that I am too inefficient?' "

Doctors in teaching hospitals today are operating in a kind of Zip drive, where patients are compressed into smaller and smaller space. There are probably several reasons: sicker patients, quicker patient turnover, administrative pressures to cut costs, even rules limiting work hours.

Work-hour restrictions, which limit residents to 24 hours on call, with 3 additional hours to hand off patients, were instituted in 2003. They were supposed to improve the learning environment, but in fact they have had the opposite effect.

Today I see staff reflexively calling consultants, not because they have legitimate questions but because they don't have the time or inclination to think through a difficult case for themselves. Unlike Dr. House, no one wants to take on challenging cases, so they are tossed back and forth between consultants.

In his 1999 book "Time to Heal: American Medical Education From the Turn of the Century to the Era of Managed Care," Dr. Kenneth Ludmerer, a Washington University physician and historian, bemoaned the deteriorating intellectual environment in teaching hospitals.

He wrote: "Most pernicious of all from the standpoint of education, house officers to a considerable extent were reduced to work-up machines and disposition-arrangers: admitting patients and planning their discharge, one after another, with much less time than before to examine them, confer with attending physicians, teach medical students, attend conferences, read the literature and reflect and wonder."

Today, everyone in medicine wants a number, a lab test, a simple objective measurement to make a diagnosis. Unlike Dr. House, few have the time or patience to cope with uncertainty. We want to make medicine easier than it deserves to be, easier than it actually is.

Which is why I like to watch "House." The show reminds me of the wonders of medicine. It allows me an hour each week to relish the magic and mysteries of my profession, even if it's only on TV.

Between Series, an Actress Became a Superstar (in Math)

By KENNETH CHANG The New York Times July 19, 2005

On her Web site, Danica McKellar, the actress best known as Winnie Cooper on the television series "The Wonder Years," takes on questions that require more than a moment's thought to answer.

"If it takes Sam six minutes to wash a car by himself," one fan asked recently, "and it takes Brian eight minutes to wash a car by himself, how long will it take them to wash a car together?"

"This is a 'rates' problem," Ms. McKellar wrote in reply. "The key is to think about each of their 'car washing rates' and not the 'time' it takes them."

Ms. McKellar, now a semiregular on "The West Wing" playing a White House speechwriter, Elsie Snuffin, is probably the only person on prime-time television who moonlights as a cyberspace math tutor.

Her mathematics knowledge extends well beyond calculus. As a math major at the University of California, Los Angeles, she also took more esoteric classes, the ones with names like "complex analysis" and "real analysis," and she pondered making a career move to professional mathematician.

"I love that stuff," Ms. McKellar said last month during a visit to Manhattan after a play-reading in the Hamptons. Her conversation was peppered with terminology like "epsilons" and "limsups" (pronounced "lim soups").

"I love continuous functions and proving if functions are continuous or not," she said.

She may also be the only actress, now or ever, to prove a new mathematical theorem, one that bears her name. Certainly, she is the only theorem prover who appears wearing black lingerie in the July issue of Stuff magazine. Even in that interview, she mentioned math.

Ms. McKellar was 13 when "The Wonder Years" started in 1988 and when it ended five years later, she took a respite from acting to attend U.C.L.A. She expected that she would resume acting when she graduated, and she expected that she would major in film.

In her freshman year, though, she found that she missed the structured logic that she had enjoyed in high school math, and she started taking math classes at U.C.L.A. "I felt my brain was getting mushy," she said.

To her surprise, she excelled. Later, she was surprised by her surprise, because she had done well in math classes from elementary school through high school. But she had never considered studying math or science in college.

"It wasn't like I thought about it and thought, 'No, I can't do that,' " she recalled. "It just never occurred to me."

Next, she took the more complicated complex analysis course. The professor, Lincoln Chayes, invited her to enroll even though she had not taken all of the prerequisites. And then she had another class, real analysis, also taught by Professor Chayes.

She quizzed him with enough questions that he offered her and another student, Brandy Winn, the opportunity to tackle some original research, the first time he had given a research project to undergraduates.

For a simple model of magnetism, Professor Chayes thought that they might be able to prove a property that would indicate when the magnetic field would line up in a certain direction.

Professor Chayes tutored the two women for months on the background knowledge they would need. Then the students spent months more, up to 12 hours a day, working on the proof.

"I thought that the two were really, really first rate," Professor Chayes said.

Sometimes, they spent days on an approach before finding an obvious flaw. Other times, they thought they had finished, before Professor Chayes would find an error or oversight. And, finally, Professor Chayes found no more gaps.

A paper with an imposing title - "Percolation and Gibbs States Multiplicity for Ferromagnetic Ashkin-Teller Models on Z²" - appeared in a British mathematical physics journal, and Ms. McKellar presented the findings at a statistical mechanics conference at Rutgers, the only undergraduate to speak.

Today, the proof is known as the Chayes-McKellar-Winn theorem.

Ms. McKellar had toyed with the idea of going to graduate school. "She certainly had the capability and talent to do that," Professor Chayes said.

But by then, she had decided to return to acting. The academic world, she said, was too isolating and lonely.

Professor Chayes said he was not disappointed. "I think disappointed is too strong," he said. "I would have been even happier if she were doing what she is doing now coupled with a career in mathematics."

Since graduating in 1998 with highest honors, Ms. McKellar has reappeared on television, in her recurring role on "The West Wing," and as a guest star on shows like "NYPD Blue" and "Navy: NCIS." Her voice has been heard in the cartoons "King of the Hill" and "Justice League." She has also written and directed a couple of short films.

The other member of the math proof team did continue in math. Ms. Winn, now Dr. Winn, completed her Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Chicago this year.

At U.C.L.A, Dr. Winn had decided to major in math before even meeting Ms. McKellar.

But she said she had not expected to continue in the field beyond her bachelor's degree.

"Pretty much because of Lincoln and Danica, I did go on," Dr. Winn said.

Ms. McKellar remains enthusiastic about math.

She even managed to combine math and acting for one role, in a production of "Proof," the Pulitzer-winning play by David Auburn, in her hometown, San Diego. She played the main character, a young woman who claims to have solved a complicated mathematical proof.

"I don't think there is any other time in my life when I knew that this role was supposed to be for me," she said.

At an audition, the casting director asked about what she knew of math. Ms. McKellar said she was co-author of a mathematics proof.

"She went into a five-minute explanation," said Sam Woodhouse, the artistic director of the San Diego Repertory Theater. "Which was a stunning and mystifying five minutes."

Ms. McKellar said she hoped to be a role model for future mathematicians, especially middle school girls. She testified to a Congressional subcommittee in 2000 about how to draw more women into science and math.

She has just signed on as spokeswoman for the Math-a-Thon at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, where children work through a book of math problems, and their friends and family pledge money to the hospital for each problem that is solved.

For several years, Ms. McKellar has also been answering math questions at danicamckellar.com under the "mathematics" link. It helps her maintain some of her skills, although she sometimes needs to consult old notes and textbooks.

"I have all of them since the seventh grade, except for my ninth-grade geometry book," she said, "which my sister used when she was in ninth grade, and she sold it at the book sale when you sell your books back.

"I was like, 'You sold my book?' She's like, 'Yeah.' 'But that was mine.' She's like, 'Oh, oops.' I have every other book."

To the person asking about the time it would take to wash a car, Ms. McKellar worked through the calculation of how long it would take if Brian and Sam worked together.

The answer: a little less than three and a half minutes. "Yes, I think they should work together," she wrote. "It gets done much more quickly that way."
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http://danicamckellar.com/
http://danicamckellar.com/math/percolation.pdf

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer
America's Next Top Tyrade

Today was what we call a "TCA Day," a day without network or cable-sponsored sessions. I know that sounds like a day off, but it isn't. Half of us went to the "Deadwood" set, and the rest of us -- myself included -- headed to Hidden Hills Ranch, which was about as pleasant as a boiling day in Iraq. Appropriate enough for a visit to FX's "Over There" set, where we saw Hollywood's replication of a war zone, strewn with bombed out houses and charred vehicles.

Though it was a simulation, seeing the set jerked me back into some semblance of reality after spending days inside of a luxury hotel. Far more important events are afoot in the world. Far more important people are making decisions that affect all of our fates.

So, please. Would somebody pass that information along to Tyra Banks? Because I didn't get her the message between her panel for "The Tyra Banks Show," the supermodel's coming daytime talker (airing in Seattle on KING/5 and/or KONG/16) and the panel for Al Gore's speedy news network Current.

But I came close beforehand. Standing in the lobby, I suddenly heard a staccato CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK of designer heels stabbing the tile in unison. I turned around to see a phalanx of serious pixies surrounding Miss Banks, who had her eyes cast downward and looked a tad miffed. She glanced up for a moment to meet my gaze, and managed a weak, "mm-kay, please don't talk to me" grin.

Minutes later, Tyra was onstage smiling broadly, yammering about the value self-empowerment, all the ways she wanted to keep it real with her generation of under 35 young women (which, by the way, includes untouchables like me), her plans to honestly discuss sex on her show, and her recent discovery of Target's fashion department.

She also revealed that a runway would play a central role in "Tyra Banks." It will stand for empowerment. Yeah. You know what other program used a runway as a symbol of empowerment? "Jenny Jones."

That's not even the half of it. I overheard from a hotel staff person that Banks' people requested they clear a swath through the lobby so this goddess among sweaty mortals could sashay through unmolested.

The staff person's response was something along the lines of, "Yeah. Uh huh. By the way, Al Gore is here." Did the former Vice President of the United States ask them to disperse the rabble? I'd bet not.

This gave me insight into her hissy fit for the cameras during "Top Model 4." Who can forget it? "You have no idea what I've been through! But I'm not a victim. I grow from it and I learn!" Well, now I have a clue as to where that pain comes from. It's a hard life when the hoi polloi won't step aside for you, isn't it?

Oh, Tyra. You really are one of us.

I agree with you about "Curb", rogo.

I think one of HBO's problems -- maybe even its major problem -- is that the level of cable production has risen across the board. Just to name just a very few, there is "The Shield" on FX, and "The Closer" on TNT and a host of quality programs on Sci-Fi.

And the quality of HBO's offerings has arguably not kept pace.

So in an era of hundreds of choices, those offered by HBO are far less distinctive than they used to be.

Frankly, I love "The Sopranos". But next March I will most likely TiVo Tony so as not to miss the weekly doings on Wisteria Lane.

1970s made-for-TV movies thrived and survive today

By DIANE WERTS NEWSDAY

They were calling TV "a vast wasteland" back in the 1960s, when escapist fare like "The Beverly Hillbillies" topped the network Nielsens. Prime time offered light amusement that seemed silly or forgettable. Hollywood movies weren't much meatier.

But as controversy heated up around the Vietnam War and social issues, the big screen got serious. Glossy movies gave way by 1970 to the real-world concerns of maverick directors, including Martin Scorsese and Robert Altman.

TV wasn't about to be left behind. Smarter new series such as "All in the Family" and "Medical Center" brought contemporary political and social issues into the lives of their beloved characters. And the three broadcast networks - a monolithic force in the days before cable and VCRs - began stretching beyond the constraints of the hour and half-hour series.

Made-for-TV movies were born - longer one-shot storytelling that could tackle anything and everything in this contentious new world.

"In the 1970s, the television movie was the most prestigious program in television," says Ron Simon, television curator at the Museum of Television & Radio. "It would examine issues and bring some of the finest talent together to think about something of national importance."

Race, homosexuality, mental illness, domestic abuse and other hot topics hit home, galvanizing a public that learned to turn to TV for thought-provoking fare. "It was something that united the entire country," says Simon, "and led to almost a rebirth of creativity for the networks."

If that isn't a big part of our TV heritage, what is? TV Land, the cable channel devoted to that legacy, now moves beyond sitcoms and dramas, too. This week for the first time, TV Land salutes "Movies of the Week" by screening nine memorably powerful films created for the small screen.

"Made-for-TV movies are a big part of the TV experience," says TV Land president Larry W. Jones. "These were truly television events. Whether you saw them or not, you knew people who watched them, and they got a lot of chatter and conversation."

And in a way that's hard to imagine now, when hundreds of channels fragment the viewing audience. When ABC's "The Day After" dramatized a nuclear attack in 1983, nearly half the country's TV sets tuned in. Even a sentimental saga such as "Brian's Song," depicting the cross-racial friendships and cancer death of Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo, lured a third of the nation's households to its 1971 ABC premiere.

"Brian's Song" wasn't even a much-hyped event. It was just another weekly offering in ABC's top-rated "Movie of the Week" series (1969 to 1975), which premiered a 90-minute film each Tuesday night. CBS and NBC also ran "MOWs" constantly. By 1979, the three networks made 150 TV movies a year. The genre's success led to even longer-form fare in such multi-part miniseries as "Roots" and "Shogun."

Of course, this glut meant not every TV movie was a gem. Many were disposable mysteries or romances, titillation along the lines of "The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders," even suspensers such as Steven Spielberg's "Duel," in which a faceless truck driver terrorized motorist Dennis Weaver. TV movies also helped finance series pilots.

And TV movies, like any pervasive art form, delivered their share of classics. With that "vast wasteland" itching to get some respect, network MOWs got gutsy. At a time when homosexuality was barely mentioned, ABC's "That Certain Summer" (1972) sensitively explored a teen's realization that his father (Hal Holbrook) and a male friend (Martin Sheen) were more than just pals. Multiple personality disorder came alive in NBC's "Sybil" (1976), breaking star Sally Field out of the "Flying Nun" mold. History was examined in NBC's "The Execution of Private Slovik" (1974), in which Sheen played the only American soldier executed for desertion during World War II.

That isn't to say 1970s TV movies broke every mold. Network standards held firm. Profanity was prohibited. Political statements couldn't be overt enough to scare sponsors. And no nudity. Director John Erman remembers being told not to show a baby's buttocks in his 1977 ABC film "Green Eyes," with Paul Winfield as a Vietnam War soldier returning to find the child he'd fathered.

"Even by the time of 'An Early Frost,'Ÿ" Erman says of his 1985 NBC gem about a family whose son (Aidan Quinn) is dying of AIDS, "there was still a lot of paranoia. We had everybody breathing down our backs, from the church to the censors to the sponsors." Yet the film humanized an often-politicized disease and those affected by it. "That's what I was proud of, that in both 'Roots' and 'An Early Frost,' we were able to change the way people thought and looked at certain situations."

That impact is unlikely today. "I think it's really hard to have happen that kind of cultural phenomenon," says TV Land's Jones, "when you have so many entertainment choices."

Erman laments that "the chance of a show really capturing viewers' imagination on network television is very, very slight. If viewers are going to watch those kinds of shows, they look to cable now, because they know the strictures of network television and they know network television just doesn't want to take a chance."

'Dancing' producer addresses controversy

By Maureen Ryan Chicagp Tribune staff reporter

Let's put one television controversy to rest right now.

The perfect score that Kelly Monaco and Alec Mazo got on the finale of "Dancing With the Stars" -- a score some fans of the show felt was unjustified -- actually didn't matter. Producers knew Monaco and Mazo were going to win before the finale even began.

"Even if she got quite a low score, she would have won" based on audience voting in the week preceding the July 6 finale, according to Conrad Green, executive producer of the surprise ABC smash.

Green categorically denies that producers had any input into the final scores the three judges gave Monaco and Mazo. And none of the trio knew how their fellow judges were going to rate the routine.

"I think if they had known they were giving three 10s, they would have considered it differently," Green says, adding that judges were likely taking into account the difficulty of Monaco and Mazo's routine and their rise from low scorers to the top tier of dancers.

Though Monaco's win wasn't assured because of the fact that she's on another ABC show, "General Hospital," her victory may have been partially courtesy of the rabid fans of the soap.

"I guarantee there was no agenda for the show from ABC. They would have been delighted whoever won," he notes. "People can conspiracy theorize as much as they want to, but Kelly had a huge following throughout the public vote."

Still, he'd like to do "Dancing" differently next time, and allow viewers one week to vote on the finalists' last routines. On the recent "Dancing" finale, viewers were voting on the previous week's dances.

And Green would love to get started soon on the next edition, which might have a longer run, though no start date has been firmed up.

"I think the thing people got into is how hard [the dancers] tried," Green says. "It's good fun, and there aren't that many shows without meanness in them."

'Fat Actress' Kirstie Alley may lose more than weight

By Gail Shister Philadelphia Inquirer TV Columnist

Kirstie Alley may be too thin to play Fat Actress.

Because the once-corpulent Alley - now a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig - has dropped more than 40 pounds, odds are only 50-50 that her hit comedy will return for a second season, says Showtime entertainment boss Robert Greenblatt.

"Honestly, I didn't think she would change her figure so quickly," Greenblatt said in an interview Saturday at the TV critics' summer meetings here. "She looks radically different, and beautiful. She's down 40 to 45 pounds, and I think she's still going."

In Actress, Alley plays an exaggerated version of her own Hollywood story - an older, overweight thespian fighting for work in an industry that worships post-pubescent whippets in dolls' clothes.

Actress' mega-hyped launch brought unprecedented exposure to the network, Greenblatt says. Though he and Alley had some "creative issues" with the show, Greenblatt says her recent weight loss presents a larger challenge.

"I thought if it was 10 or 25 pounds, we'd be able to hold onto it and then expand the show, but I'm not sure it's still there. It would have to shift into something different.

"We could do something like cross 'fat' out of the title and just substitute another word. I don't know if that makes sense, or if the show was a one-time phenomenon. I don't think the weight issue is really relevant to her anymore."

Greenblatt understands about weight. His sister lost 200 pounds through diet and exercise "and it changed her life... . Good for Kirstie that she's lost all this weight. I have no belief she'll want to put it back on anytime soon. She looks and feels better, and I think her health will be better."

Alley is stoked for another season of Actress, Greenblatt says. If that doesn't happen, "we'll try to do something else with her."

Going for 7?

This is not a recording. If David Chase decides to go another season with The Sopranos, it's news to HBO chairman Chris Albrecht.

"I'm sure in his own head David knows what he's doing, but he certainly hasn't shared it with us," Albrecht said in an interview Friday.

Season 6 of HBO's mob hit launches in March. Creator Chase says it's absolutely, positively, cross-my-heart-and- hope-to-die the last season - the same thing he said after seasons 4 and 5. Now he's reportedly mulling No. 7.

"I've said to David, 'Look, you let us know. If this is it, this is it. If you think there's more, you tell us when and where,' " Albrecht says. "I'll never say it's over until the final episode is shot. That's how I'll know it's over."

Judging by Chase's enthusiasm this season, it may not be, says Albrecht. Sopranos is midway through production on 13 episodes, give or take. (See below.)

"I think he was genuinely invigorated by the response to the show last season. It propelled him into this season, and with all that energy he has, it's made him see some things he didn't think were possible before."

Still, Chase, whose chronic anxiety about whether viewers like his show defies comprehension, worries most about the audience tiring of Tony (James Gandolfini), Carmela (Edie Falco) and the gang, Albrecht says.

Fat chance. As for how many episodes he'll produce this season, Chase, like David Milch (Deadwood) and David Simon (The Wire), has carte blanche, according to Albrecht. He's supposed to do 13, but if he decides on a seventh season, the number "may be adjusted up or down."

There was no adjusting for Carnivale, which got the hook after two seasons. Albrecht says the expensive period piece, shot on location, was underwhelming in overseas sales and on DVDs.

Passionate Carnivale fans deluged HBO with more than 50,000 e-mails in one weekend, trying to save the show. "We knew there was a big fan base, but we were surprised by the amount of time people took to lobby for it," Albrecht says.

I agree with you that the level of cable programming has risen across the board but I still think we all agree HBO's level has dropped has dropped dramatically. Matter of fact, I believe if HBO didn't have such a large marketing budget it would no longer be considered the leader in original programming. Furthermore, Mr. Albrecht better hope that David Chase has more in the tank or he actually might have to switch out of auto pilot...a lot of marginal shows have ridden the coattails of that show and SATC.
Sorry guys...I have to disagree with you on Curb.

The essence of a BOC
Jul 18, 2005 11:40 AM, Transition to Digital e-newsletter

Introduced in the last Transition to Digital newsletter, a broadcast operations center (BOC) can be conceptualized using a four-layer model consisting of physical, media network, applications and security layers. The discussion begins with the physical layer.

All the systems required for production workflows that process, distribute and assemble audio, video and graphics, comprise the physical layer of a BOC. In addition, all fundamental support for the entire building/infrastructure is also part of this layer.

The physical layer is implemented by various combinations of core, processing, distribution and assembly system resources. To get an idea of the intricacy of each system, the major components will be briefly described.

Core systems

Every building has core systems that enable installation, operation and maintenance of resources. A BOC requires the usual core systems plus a few that are particular to TV facilities.

AC power, HVAC and UPS systems may have digital components, but sinusoidal power is analog. Analog and digital signals are susceptible to EMI, RFI and other forms of noise. Look at the elaborate coding techniques used in ATSC 8-VSB modulation or the shielding coax cables. The need for a clean, stable power source is imperative.

IFB and all other production and support communications must be installed, configured and maintained. Communication while on air must be 100 percent reliable with appropriate back up. If any equipment malfunction or operator error threatens the integrity of the on-air signal, support must be reached instantaneously.

Command, control and monitoring (CC&M) uses GPI and RS-422, but is evolving to include RJ-45 network connection and TCP/IP networking methodologies. It is challenging to interface these varied types of signals into a reliable integrated system.

Processing systems

Digital production occurs on the baseband “essence” layer. Essence can be defined as analog or digital, audio or video with the common property of being a continuous real-time signal.

Where there was once one analog NTSC presentation format, now there are many DTV choices: 1080i, 720p and 480i. Transcoding from interlaced to progressive scanning or between various raster formats must be done on a pixel by pixel basis, which is essentially a baseband process.

Audio processing and distribution, once solely analog, has been supplemented by AES and MADI digital streams. Digital audio has higher fidelity and less line noise. On the other hand, drop a bit and at best you get silence, at worst a loud noise.

Graphic effect (GFX) building happens in RGB color space and will be converted to an appropriate video format and file structure. Illegal colors can be produced because CG systems use the full 8-bit, 0-255 range, whereas ASTC legal colors are limited to the16-235 range. QC is extremely important and difficult in that encoding, decoding and transcoding artifacts that become noticeable on the physical layer. Conformance to legal color space must be verified, unless you’d like viewers to see saturated, bleeding reds. Remember, just because your graphics equipment can create it, doesn’t mean your encoders or transmitters can properly send it.

Distribution systems

Moving signals through the production process can be done in several ways. Analog component video distribution requires three precisely timed distribution signals for each component, plus each channel of audio requires an additional channel. And any needed H and V sync signals require two more channels.

Using SDI rather than component video reduces the required discreet signal paths to one and also eliminates the need for component timing and precise cable lengths. The H and V sync signals are a part of the SDI. By embedding audio in an SDI signal, only one wire is necessary for everything, greatly simplifying routing and distribution.

Audio distribution can be either embedded, discreet, TDM or Dolby E. If audio is embedded, it will follow the video, on a single wire, but must be de-embedded for any processing. Separately, the available backout of an SDI stream requires that embedding/de-embedding equipment be placed in the signal distribution path. TDM processing allows audio to travel on a single wire and must be multiplexed and de-multiplexed at the appropriate points. Dolby E uses lossless compression to move multiple channels of audio on wire pairs. Discreet audio requires an individual wire for each signal, significantly adding to the audio router port count. Consider carefully all of these and your station’s operational factors. Handling audio for TV used to b simple — today it is a much more complicated process.

Assembly systems


Integration of audio, video and graphics elements is done in both program control rooms (PCR) and master control rooms (MCR). Insertion and switching of audio, video and graphics is done on the physical layer, SDI and AES being the primary essence format.

Insertion and switching is a real-time activity. A production switcher, loaded with macros, controls the firing of servers. CC&M communication typically occurs over a combination of LAN, RS-422 and GPI interfaces. The result must be the seamless assembly and presentation of program elements. You get no second takes.

A decision will have to be made as to what type of house sync (tri-level, H&V or composite NTSC) will be distributed in a facility. Signals must be timed to house sync for production and master control switching. Lip sync has become challenging due to compression encoding and decoding delays that vary for audio and video during the production workflow. These delays must be compensated for when the essence is reconstructed as a baseband signal and the final program is assembled. There is no better way to look stupid than to broadcast a segment that has a lip sync error!

The more you know, the less you know

In the past, technical mastery of physical engineering layer principles and practices was sufficient. A broadcast chief engineer was required to possess technical mastery of all technical aspects of physical layer systems.

However, with the addition of IT technologies there is a danger in possessing only a little knowledge. As an engineer studies the hardware, software and conceptual engineering of any of the four BOC layers with which they are less familiar, it should rapidly become obvious that the more you learn about any technology, the more details there are to learn and master.

Preparing for and passing the Certified Broadcast Television Engineer (CBTE) exam can help assure that technical personnel possess the requisite knowledge of physical broadcast infrastructure. It can be particularly helpful to have your IT personnel also pass SBE CBTE certification.

The path to be taken

An important design consideration is implementing an infrastructure with a physical layer that can stand on its own if any or all of the media network, application or security layers crash. You don’t want corrective action to be impeded by a login lockout. Nor would you want a computer to freeze, taking you off the air or a congested network to prevent the timely transfer of a hot graphic for a breaking news segment. Implementing a failsafe end-to-end SDI signal path can avoid this problem.

With analog NTSC simulcast still required during the DTV transition, all broadcasters will have to live with the challenge of dual format production and dissemination. Until NTSC is retired, you will be on the air and transitioning at the same time. You are required to accomplish the nearly impossible task of changing the airplane from a propeller-driven model to a digital jet while keeping everything flying safely.

Reading sources

SBE bookstore: www.sbe.org
SMPTE bookstore: www.smpte.org/smpte_store/books

Relevant standards
SMPTE: www.smpte.org/smpte_store/standards
SCTE: www.scte.org
CEA: www.ce.org/standards/StandardsCatalog.aspx

Monday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

I think this speaks to a topic we have been discussing:

Cable dramatically better

By Dusty Saunders Rocky Mountain News TV critic July 19, 2005

HOLLYWOOD - When veteran TV critics gather here on a semiannual basis, there's some reminiscing about the good ol' days of network television drama.

We can recall sitting in a huge hotel screening room in January 1981, watching the first episode of NBC's Hill Street Blues on a huge monitor.

This, of course, was in an electronic stone age. (DVDs? A style of male underwear, right?)

We knew that Hill Street Blues, with its gritty, innovative storytelling, would lead the way into a new era of bolder, more creative weekly network TV drama.

Cable drama in that era was an afterthought, if even a thought at all.

Basic cable, in its start-up stage, aired reruns of network dramas. And as the networks moved on in the '80s and early '90s to produce series like St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law and China Beach, cable viewers were offered low-budget series like Silk Stockings and Pacific Blue, which one critic recently described as "Baywatch on bikes."

Today, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, "the TV drama times are a changin'."

While network television offers several worthy weekly TV dramas, basic cable is gradually taking over the genre, both in quality and quantity.

And if there is such a thing as water-cooler conversation about TV dramatic series, it concerns The Shield, Nip/Tuck and Rescue Me (on FX), Monk and The 4440 (USA), The Closer (TNT) and Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi Channel).

The latter makes the original 1971 ABC space journey almost seem cartoonish.

The rise of quality weekly drama series on cable channels can be traced to several factors:

• The continued growth of basic cable in U.S. homes. With cable now past the 70 percent mark, millions of American viewers can now watch USA as easily as CBS.

• Cable's programming system is more viewer-friendly. Rarely does a cable network introduce a series and then yank it off the schedule after a few weeks because of low audience ratings.

Normally, 13 episodes are produced, aired and repeated.

If a series doesn't find an audience, it will go out of production. But at least viewers know they can make a 13-week investment.

Contrast this to network television's operations. In March, ABC introduced Eyes, a stylish adventure starring Tim Daly as the saucy head of a high-tech private eye firm in Los Angeles.

While getting positive critical response. Eyes didn't initially draw decent Nielsen ratings on Wednesday night opposite NBC's Law & Order and CBS' CSI: New York. ABC canceled it after four airings.

• The reality bug has bitten and badly infected the networks, thus hampering creativity.

In the '90s, an occasional quality summer series would emerge, the prime example being CBS's Northern Exposure, a quirky comedy-drama that, after finding popularity in midsummer 1990, went on to become a major regular-season hit.

Now the networks roll out cheap, often tawdry reality series that are produced at half the cost of a scripted drama hour.

But such formula television is often costly in the long run. Viewers are going for a wider variety of programming on cable.

Monk, starring Tony Shalhoub as the obsessive-compulsive detective, is the poster show for cable drama. (Most view Monk as a drama with comedic overtones.)

Monk probably would not have made it on network television because it doesn't follow a predictable formula.

Andy Breckman, the series' creator/executive producer, recently told the Hollywood Reporter: "I can't imagine our show being done anywhere else.

"Monk is a series that has broken so many rules and is so quirky that it's hard to imagine a broadcast network having understood what to do with it."

Cable networks won't steal viewers away from Desperate Housewives, Lost and the CSI franchises in the fall.

But previews of the initial (pilot) episodes of the fall network dramas (on DVD, of course) show that none has the winning style of Monk or the dramatic intensity of Rescue Me.

And coming up June 27 on FX cable is Over There, television's first dramatic, fictional look at the war in Iraq.

This should provide morning-after water-cooler talk.

The creator and co-producer? Steven Bochco, who brought Hill Street Blues to network television 25 years ago.

Yikes!

In my post about quality basic cable shows I forgot "Monk".

HBO's next wave

The Detroit Free Press July 19, 2005
• "Rome," a lavish ancient history epic of Julius Caesar, sandals, spears, sex and violence. Weekly drama debuts Aug. 25.
• Ricky Gervais ("The Office") stars in "Extras," a comedy about a hapless English actor on the fringes of show business. Debuts Sept. 25.
• Larry David's B&C:"Curb Your Enthusiasm." New season debuts Sept. 25.
• "Big Love," the polygamous stories of a Utah man with multiple wives. Early 2006.
• "Sopranos" returns for its final season. March 2006.
• "John Adams," author David McCullough's biography, produced as a miniseries by Tom Hanks. 2006.
• Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons will star in "Elizabeth I" miniseries. 2006

Fredfa: Is there any way you can get me the numbers for this past Sundays Hbo lineup?

• Ricky Gervais ("The Office") stars in "Extras," I am really looking forward to this show. If this is half as funny as David Brent in The Office, this will be a smash hit for HBO.

I think one of HBO's problems -- maybe even its major problem -- is that the level of cable production has risen across the board. Just to name just a very few, there is "The Shield" on FX, and "The Closer" on TNT and a host of quality programs on Sci-Fi.

And the quality of HBO's offerings has arguably not kept pace.

So in an era of hundreds of choices, those offered by HBO are far less distinctive than they used to be..

Huh?

Gotta disagree there. As far as I am concerned, "The Wire" is the best show on TV. "Deadwood" is nipping at its heels; consistently brilliant this year. "The Sopranos" will be back. "Entourage" is not quite at that level but is a sharp satire of Hollywood. "Curb" is sometimes too painful to watch, I agree, but at other times it is flat-out brilliant. Although it's never been my cup of tea, some people swear by "Six Feet Under"--at least in prior years. It'll be interesting to see if HBO can pull off "Rome." HBO has also programmed excellent TV-movies, such as "Sometimes in April" and "Empire Falls."

No question FX is coming on strong. "The Shield" had perhaps its best year, and I like "Rescue Me" even more. It has some interesting new shows coming up soon. Right now, it's no. 2 on my remote.

But for my money, there is a sizable drop off to the next tier on cable (or over-the-air). Of course, that's why there are horse races.

If only HBO had originated "EZ Streets", the greatest killed-too-early show ever!

Well expressed points, jahgreen (and welcome to the thread!)

We disagree, obviously, but intelligent discussion is what this thread tries to foster and we are always happy to see such dialogue.

piratess -- it usually takes a week or more to get premium channel numbers (if they are available to the public at all).

Remember, ratings are generally supported by advertisers -- or by stations/networks interested in impressing advertisers. Thus the HBOs, Showtimes, etc. of the world don't get their ratings at anywhere near the same speed as the commercial networks

(Sometimes when they are very, very good the premium networks will let them slip out, but even then it happens rarely. )

But I'll see what I can do about HBO this week.

Hemmer Heads to Fox

By Allison Romano Broadcasting & Cable

Cast-off CNN anchor Bill Hemmer will get a berth at rival Fox News Channel. Hemmer, who most recently co-hosted CNN’s morning show, American Morning with Soledad O’Brien, will be a weekday anchor and correspondent for Fox.

Hemmer spent 10 years at CNN as an anchor and reporter. He started his TV career as a sports anchor for WCPO Cincinnati.

Fox is solidly out in front of CNN in ratings, but executives and anchors from the networks often swipe at the competition.

When Hemmer’s former American Morning partner Paula Zahn defected from Fox to CNN several years ago, Fox News chief Roger Ailes said a dead raccoon would have attracted better ratings.

More recently, new CNN chief Jonathan Klein has been fond of saying that CNN covers news while Fox talks about it.

Hemmer lost his American Morning post last month when CNN opted to bring in Miles O’Brien.

The network offered Hemmer a spot as White House correspondent, which he rejected.

As long as we are talking about Fox News Channel….

Greta Van Susteren makes her mark at Fox
The "On the Record" host is finding an audience for her warts-and-all-style news show
By Matea Gold Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 20, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Greta Van Susteren had about 90 seconds until airtime. But seated behind a crescent-shaped desk in a brightly lit studio on a recent night, the Fox News Channel host wasn't paging through her notes or checking her make-up. She was responding to e-mails.

Her fingers flew over a laptop propped up on the desk, dashing off a response to one viewer about a development in the disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway in Aruba, a case she has followed closely for more than a month. She told another where he could send a letter of support to Holloway's mother. A third gave her an idea for a question she posed to a guest later in the show: Just who was paying the legal fees for two of the suspects?

Van Susteren had already answered hundreds of messages earlier in the day, and there were still 2,821 unread e-mails in her inbox. That's just the way she likes it; she gazed at the blinking screen with contentment.

"I much prefer to interact with the viewers than just talk at them," she said. "It's where I think the business is headed."

At a time when the television news networks are cautiously experimenting with ways to pull back the curtain on the news-making process, the former criminal defense attorney has embraced a warts-and-all transparency as a hallmark of her 3-year-old Fox show, "On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren."

She spends more than two hours a day answering e-mails, often culling the messages for tips that she incorporates into the program. She also conducts an online conversation with viewers through her blog, "GretaWire," the most popular on the Fox website, drawing more than 150,000 hits a day.

In recent entries, she explained how bad audio quality marred a recent interview she conducted via videophone, posted e-mails from viewers urging her to dress better and wrote about her often fruitless efforts to extract information from the Aruban authorities.

Her online musings are written in the same matter-of-fact, blunt tone that characterizes her nightly show, which offers little of the sharply opinionated banter for which Fox has become notable. On air, Van Susteren's persona is more dogged investigator than brash talk show host. She peppers guests with a series of open-ended questions delivered in the flat timbre of her native Appleton, Wis., often challenging an interviewee who makes a strong assertion by asking skeptically: "What is your level of certainty about that?"

The 51-year-old, who acknowledges that she's politically more liberal than most of her Fox counterparts, has developed a strong following at the top-rated news channel, which she joined in 2002 after 10 years at CNN. She's drawn an average of 1.5 million viewers so far this year, according to Nielsen Media Research, far outstripping the competition in her 10 p.m. time slot.

Her coverage of the Holloway case has been especially successful. In the last two weeks, her ratings were up 59% over the same period last year. "On the Record" has drawn an average audience of more than 2 million viewers on 18 nights during the last two months, beating out Fox stalwart Bill O'Reilly half a dozen times.

Van Susteren's willingness to expose the behind-the-scenes workings and her dispassionate approach to stories make her an unusual star in the often-shrill world of cable news.

"She's one of the straightest people doing legal analysis because the whole business has gotten progressively over the top," said MSNBC host Tucker Carlson, who worked with Van Susteren at CNN.

Her measured style stands in sharp contrast to that of other analysts like former prosecutor Nancy Grace, whose heated interviewing tone on Court TV and Headline News has drawn both fans and detractors.

"I'm a little old-fashioned," Van Susteren said. "I believe in the constitution.... I don't believe everybody arrested is guilty. I don't believe everybody arrested is innocent."

The former trial attorney, who first came to prominence with her commentary of the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995, never believed she would last long under television's unforgiving glare.

"I don't consider myself the glamorous type," said Van Susteren, who — even after a much-publicized eye-lift — maintains a no-frills style. The diminutive host (she's just under 5-feet-3) wears boxy blazers and buttoned-down blouses, even in the humid Aruba air. "It's still a bit curious to me why I'm still standing."

Bill Shine, Fox News' senior vice president of programming, credits her "hard-working, scrappy" personality, noting that she brings a steely competitiveness to the job.

"She has a drive like almost no other," Shine said. "She loves to win."

With "On the Record," Van Susteren is not limited to legal topics, and is often drafted to anchor coverage of major stories, like last year's presidential election. But she's most in her element when she delves into trials and unsolved cases, like Holloway's disappearance in Aruba on the last day of her high school graduation trip in May.

The Fox host decamped to the island for much of June and July — flying back home to Washington on the occasional weekend — and approached the story like a prosecutor building a case. She retraced the 18-year-old's last known activities and scored exclusive interviews with the parents of the three boys who have been detained for questioning. Holloway's mother and stepfather appear on the show almost nightly.

Some analysts view her focus on the Holloway story as symptomatic of cable news' emphasis on entertaining stories over informative ones.

"It does strike me that the cable news industry is exploiting the story for ratings," said Jeffrey McCall, a communications professor at Depauw University in Greencastle, Ind. "I think it would be hard for them to go on the air with a straight face and say, 'This is important to you.' "

Some of her audience agrees. In a message Van Susteren posted on her blog last week, one self-described "avid viewer of Fox News" said she has stopped watching the program because of its incessant coverage of the Holloway story, adding: "I just wish there was other news you thought newsworthy — like the war, London bombings, other missing children."

Van Susteren did fly back to Washington to help anchor coverage of the London bombings and said she plans to devote significant coverage to the upcoming selection of a Supreme Court nominee. Still, she said she understands why some disapprove of her focus on the story.

"You can put it in the National Enquirer and you trivialize it very easily," she said. "But I can also make the argument that there are issues that are very interesting and fascinating. Just the emotional aspect — this is a mother who is desperately looking for her child."

Van Susteren describes her journey from the courtroom to the television studio as one of happenstance.

She first got a taste for law growing up in Wisconsin, where her father was a state court judge. After getting a law degree from Georgetown Law Center, she was hired as a research assistant by litigator John Coale, who was immediately struck by her tenacity.

"When she used to do criminal work, she would be all over the neighborhood looking for witnesses to know more about the case," Coale recalled.

They married in 1988, and eventually opened a firm together. Both are Scientologists, a subject they declined to talk about. "I don't discuss money, sex or religion," said Van Susteren, adding that she has not closely followed Tom Cruise's recent remarks about the controversial religion's views on psychiatric drugs because she's been busy in Aruba.

Van Susteren won her first murder case when she was 27 and worked for almost 15 years as a defense attorney, trying "a lot of horrible, ugly murder cases." She expected to spend her career in the courtroom.

Then in 1990, the CBS affiliate in Washington asked Van Susteren to provide legal commentary of then-Mayor Marion Barry's drug and perjury trial. The next year she joined CNN to analyze William Kennedy Smith's rape trial.

Still, she did not foresee the appetite viewers would have to watch attorneys dissect cases on television. When Court TV launched that summer, Van Susteren dismissed the notion of a 24-hour court channel as "a huge snore."

But the Simpson trial four years later confirmed the interest in real-life court dramas, and Van Susteren's analysis on CNN gained her a following. After the trial ended, CNN tapped her to host a daytime legal affairs program, "Burden of Proof," and later a prime-time news analysis show called "The Point."

She left in late 2001, dissatisfied with the management.

"I had many wonderful years at CNN," she said, but added that her experience soured after Time Warner merged with AOL and the cable channel endured layoffs and a succession of executives. "The morale was so bad that it just wasn't fun."

Van Susteren approached Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes and said she was struck by his straightforwardness. They sealed a deal with a handshake.

Her move to a channel with a reputation for a rightward tilt surprised even her close friends, especially since Coale — a wealthy litigator — is a major donor to Democratic candidates. Van Susteren herself was called a "Clinton apologist" by some conservatives during Bill Clinton's impeachment.

But despite the unlikely pairing, she says she's found the right fit at Fox.

"The difference here is that you have a management that stands behind you and you know that you have job stability," Van Susteren said.

She demurred when asked if she believes Fox lives up to its "fair and balanced" tagline, saying, "I don't agree with any news outlet on every new story or every guest that's booked." But she added that she does not feel any pressure to hone to a Republican line: "We don't sit around in a dark room and drink Kool-Aid or anything like that."

Van Susteren's online postings are remarkably forthcoming about the inner workings of a channel known for zealously guarding its image. On Monday, she wrote in detail about the scramble that ensued Friday when a power outage at her Aruban hotel cut off communication with the New York studio a minute before airtime, forcing another anchor to open the show.

She plans to expand her online offerings by posting interviews that don't make the program and wants to be the first at the cable channel to podcast her show.

"Sometimes we do really stupid things and I put that stuff in, too" she said. "I really have this thought that people want unvarnished news."

If only HBO had originated "EZ Streets", the greatest killed-too-early show ever!

One could also make that argument for the brilliant "Firefly" of a couple of years ago. But "EZ Streets" would come in a strong second, IMO. Both shows were flat-out amazing and deserved a better fate from their host networks. I agree that EZ Streets, relentlessly dark and provocative, would have been a perfect fit for HBO.

At least we'll get to see more of the Firefly crew when the motion picture (Serenity) based on the series debuts in theaters at the end of September. The remarkable cast of EZ Streets will, sadly, never be reunited.

Huh?

Gotta disagree there. As far as I am concerned, "The Wire" is the best show on TV.
Regarding The Wire, Dominic West is to only appear in a few episodes this year, trying to remember where I read it, might even have been here. Even though the focus has supposedly changed from the dealers vs cops formula for this season, having two of the main protagonists missing from the show, it should be interesting to see how it does.

I wish HBO would pick up "Eyes".
They'd get a bonus of the seven un-aired episodes (or is it eight) and would have a good headstart into a second season.

CBS Defends Multiple Crime Dramas

By John Consoli mediaweek.com July 19, 2005

CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler told a Television Critics Association summer press tour audience today that she is not concerned about the many procedural crime dramas dominating the network's prime-time schedule.

"Our viewers haven't told us that," she said. "We have struck a chord with our audiences," she added, stating that the ratings for most of those shows are solid and growing or holding their own.

"We will let our viewers tell us when they've had enough [of these types of shows]," Tassler said. "While many of the shows on the surface might seem to be alike or of the same genre, they are actually different. There are different crimes, different looks, different tones and different styles," she said.

Tassler also said CBS research shows that different viewers are watching different shows on the network, and not everyone is watching every crime drama. Many viewers watch because they bond with the characters on a respective show, she added.

Tassler also took a swipe at cable, stating that the broadcast networks have "reclaimed the water cooler [talk] from cable" among viewers. She credited ABC this past season for its hit shows Desperate Housewives and Lost, but added that CBS started the ball rolling over the past few years with CSI, Survivor and Without a Trace.

While CBS is looking to add a solid serialized drama to its schedule, Tassler added that "you can't just bottle or pre-package a show like Desperate Housewives." She said CBS continues to look at scripts with the hope of developing a hit in the serialized drama area.

Tassler said the network also continues to try to bring more young viewers into the tent. In that regard, she said, following the airing of the Sunday movie Martha Behind Bars during the opening week of the season (Sept. 25), the network will air a number of younger-skewing action movies in the weeks following. Among them, Mayday, about an airliner accidentally hit by a Navy missile; The Hunt for the BK Strangler, based on the true story of the Midwest serial killer; Time Bomb, about a threat received by Homeland Security during a football game in Washington, D.C.; and Vampire Bats, about an insect specialist turned college professor, who finds the creatures have invaded the campus.

CBS Retooling Long-Form Strategy

By Christopher Lisotta TVWeek.com July 19, 2005

In the wake of the success of ABC's "Desperate Housewives," CBS will focus more on younger- and male-skewing "popcorn movies" for its "CBS Sunday Movie" to better program against the hit show, said Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment, at the network's executive session Tuesday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour.

Ms. Tassler said the fall movie schedule would be "heavy with action and suspense" and be a good fit from a promotional standpoint "in our Sunday NFL broadcasts."

The airline disaster movie "Mayday" is scheduled to air Oct. 2 while "The Hunt for the BTK Strangler" is set for Oct. 9. The terrorist-plot-in-a-football-stadium thriller "Time Bomb" is scheduled for Oct. 16, with "Vampire Bats" set to run Oct. 30 and the four-hour "Category 7: The End of the World" airing in two parts Nov. 6 and 13. "Martha Behind Bars," which profiles the trial and conviction of home d%E9;cor empress Martha Stewart, will open the Sunday movie season on Sept. 25.

CBS is also considering a series pickup of its drama pilot "Love Monkey," Ms. Tassler said. The Sony Pictures TV/Paramount Network Television production is "a strong possibility for midseason," she said. "Monkey," which is based on Kyle Smith's book about a music executive who gets fired and then dumped by his girlfriend, had been in contention for the fall 2005-06 schedule but was not announced as a pickup at CBS's May upfront presentation for advertisers.

For its second season, Ms. Tassler announced "CSI: NY" would be getting a new cast member and some changes to its tone, with the show appearing "more vibrant" and incorporating "more elements of humor."

"We're upbeat about our continuing evolution of 'CSI: NY,'" Ms. Tassler said, noting that the "CSI: NY" offices will move out from underground to above ground and that series regular Hill Harper will move from the morgue into the field to create more interaction with the show's other characters.

Ms. Tassler said she was "pleased with the quality" of the network's new reality series "Rock Star: INXS," which has been a solid performer but not a breakout hit like ABC's summer reality offering "Dancing With the Stars."

"It's not a broad-based ratings success," she said of the show, "but it's doing OK with younger viewers."

She compared "Rock Star" to "Big Brother," which she said became one of CBS's "core reality franchises" over the course of time.

Ms. Tassler's presentation marked CBS's first press tour in 10 years without Viacom co-Chief Operating Officer Leslie Moonves leading the network's executive session.

Despite Mr. Moonves' responsibilities as the head of Viacom's newly formed CBS Corp., Ms. Tassler said he would remain involved with the network.

"He is as involved as ever," she said. "CBS is the jewel in his crown."

Ms. Tassler fielded numerous questions about the cancellation of family drama "Joan of Arcadia," calling the decision to pull the Friday night show from CBS's schedule "a big disappointment" to the network and to her personally.

Despite being on the air two seasons, Ms. Tassler said, the show had lost 24 percent of its audience halfway through its first season.

"No matter what we did they didn't come back," she said of the show's initial viewers.

Ms. Tassler said the overall theme from last season was the creative strength of the broadcast networks as a whole over the cable networks.

"Network television turned a corner this year," she said. "We reclaimed the water cooler from cable."

Miniseries set on Pope John Paul II
CBS says its project on the late pontiff will get Vatican support and is a "papal page-turner."
By Scott Collins Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 20, 2005

It may not outdo "The Da Vinci Code" for sheer thrills, but CBS' programming chief says the network's miniseries about Pope John Paul II promises to be "a papal page-turner."

Speaking Tuesday at the semiannual Television Critics Assn. press tour in Beverly Hills, CBS entertainment President Nina Tassler told reporters she had just finished reading the script for the first of two planned episodes dramatizing the life of the Polish-born pontiff, who died in April at age 84.

The network has not set a date for the premiere of the miniseries, which will star Ian Holm as the elderly pope and Cary Elwes as the young Karol Wojtyla, who became John Paul II in 1978.

CBS said last month that the Vatican would cooperate with the project.

Tassler — whose boss, Viacom Co-president and Co-chief Operating Officer Leslie Moonves, had a rare absence from the press tour due to a corporate scheduling conflict — said the movie will set Wojtyla's spiritual journey against the Nazi attack on Poland in 1939 and other dramatic events.

"It tracks, in a very personal and emotional way, how he got his calling," Tassler said. "It's a papal page-turner."

In fact, compared to CBS' other planned movies, the papal miniseries sounds fairly sober-minded.

As the only broadcast network that still carves out a weekly slot on its schedule for made-for-TV movies, CBS has had some success by moving away slightly from family-oriented or women-in-trouble dramas in favor of thrillers or biographies that can be summed up in a single phrase, such as "Spring Break Shark Attack" in March.

CBS, the No. 1 network in total viewers, is hoping such movies will attract younger viewers, although Tassler stressed that the network remains committed to broadcasting to as large an audience as possible.

The season promises more in a similar vein.

The network announced premiere dates for "Martha Behind Bars" (Sept. 25), with Cybill Shepherd as imprisoned domestic diva Martha Stewart; "The Hunt for the BTK Strangler" (Oct. 9), a ripped-from-the-headlines story of the notorious serial killer; "Vampire Bats" (Oct. 30), a horror tale starring Lucy Lawless; and "Category 7: The End of the World" (Nov. 6), a sequel to the network's disaster flick "Category 6: Day of Destruction."

When asked whether the pope's life was being sensationalized, Tassler quickly noted the Vatican's cooperation and that the network was working with the same producers who created "Jesus," the popular and well-received biblical miniseries that aired in 2000.

Newhart is a master of the ordinary

"American Masters" examines the button-down mind of the comedian
By Robert Lloyd Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 20, 2005

If it feels surprising to find comedian Bob Newhart the subject of tonight's edition of the PBS arts series "American Masters" — and it does, a little — it says more about the persona he's spent a career projecting than it does about the quality of his work.

Even on the several series that have borne his name, in every possible permutation ("The Bob Newhart Show," twice; "Newhart" and "Bob"), he has contrived to be less than the dominant figure — a reactor, a listener nonpareil, a harvester of silence. As comedian-director David Steinberg puts it in Kyra Thompson's film "Bob Newhart: Unbuttoned," "Bob is a regular guy — he just happens to be a genius at being a regular guy." Ordinariness has been his stock in trade — not that of the everyman, exactly, but rather the extraordinary ordinariness of what Newhart himself describes as "the last sane man left in America."

Newhart is especially easy to underrate because he never seems to be working hard, or working at all — "underpowering," costar and director Peter Bonerz calls him. As a stand-up comedian headlining a sitcom, he was not taken for an actor, which is to say, it was assumed he was merely "playing himself." (That he was indeed an actor is asserted many times here, though it is also asserted that the person on-screen was an honest reflection of the person off.) Lacking the overt neediness of many comics and possessing no shtick wilder than his trademark stammer or crazier than a prop telephone, he was the still center around which everyone else revolved. He got laughs by playing the straight man — "He would make a line funny by not spinning it," observes David Hyde Pierce — though, as this documentary demonstrates, he could also deliver a punch line, play drunk or walk into a door with the best of them.

That there is more to Newhart than has met the eye is shown through clips of the comic in both stand-up and sitcom mode, shaped by the commentary of friends, family and associates, including Suzanne Pleshette, Bill Daily, Marcia Wallace, Tom Poston and Julia Duffy from his two hit sitcoms (the two that were not hits are quickly glossed over), along with Buck Henry, Tommy Smothers, Larry Gelbart, Tim Conway, Don Rickles and Garry Shandling. Shandling, who displays his copy of "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart," the bestselling 1960 album that made the former accountant (who lived with his parents until age 30) a star almost overnight, sums up the Newhart effect: "The secret is they found Bob Newhart, who is an edgy guy underneath it all, and they put him in a softer format."

His sitcoms were not formally ambitious, politically hot-button or expressive of current national obsessions or trends. They were character comedies, a little surreal around the edges — as psychologist Robert Hartley, Newhart was surrounded by neurotics, and as innkeeper Dick Loudon, he dealt with the pixilated inhabitants of a rural small town whose roots go back to Capra and Sturges — but in the Norman Lear-driven context of their time they were conservative. At the same time, says Shandling, Newhart was "revolutionary in some quiet, small way." His series were adamantly adult, for one thing — there were, on his insistence, no children around. (When writers prepared a pregnancy script, Newhart's response to them was that he liked it, but "who are you going to get to play Bob?") And "Newhart" ended with one of television's truly astonishing moments, in which the entire series is suddenly transformed into a dream — dreamed by the main character of his previous show. On the one hand, this is just a funny idea, delightful and disturbing; but it's the sort of thing many credentialed toilers in the field of postmodern fiction would have given their tenure to have done.

It's an engrossing and increasingly funny 90 minutes, though I must confess I am a particular sucker for hearing talented people discuss their work — a reminder that although talent is inborn, accomplishment is not accidental. And this pleasure is further magnified by that of hearing other people who know something about the subject express their own informed views. It creates a kind of contagious excitement. "American Masters" specializes in artistic biographies — personal details come into play, as necessary, but the work is refreshingly paramount — with no prejudice as to popular versus high art. Obviously there's a need to focus on performers who have been around long enough to be called "masters" — no John Mayer here, not yet — which means that many of its subjects are old or dead. Newhart is in his mid-70s but hardly retired. He plays concerts, makes movies and has a recurring role on "Desperate Housewives." But there's something good in this too: It encourages the young, if they can be torn away from their crazy rock videos and nutty computer games, to respect experience.

No mention is made of the "Hi, Bob" drinking game.

'American Masters — Bob Newhart: Unbuttoned'

Where: PBS Stations
When: 8 PM Wednesday (in Los Angeles; check local listings)
Ratings: TV-PG-L (may be unsuitable for young children, with an advisory for coarse language)
Bob Newhart...Self

HD goes racin’
Sony starts engines with NASCAR race

From bizjournals.com

On Monday, Sony Electronics Inc. signed a letter of intent to be the title sponsor of the Labor Day weekend NASCAR Nextel Cup race at California Speedway. The race, formerly the Pop Secret 500, will be called the Sony HD 500. The fall race will be the eleventh held at the Fontana, CA, speedway.

According to Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal, the deal is for two years, with 2007 and 2008 being option years, and the deal is estimated to be in the low- to mid-seven figures annually, so if Sony exercises its option years, it will invest about $10 million in the venture

Sony is an associate sponsor of Penske Racing South's No. 12 Alltel Dodge, driven by Ryan Newman. For the race, it will shift to primary sponsor, with the car being the No. 12 Sony HDTV Dodge.

The race will be held on Sept. 4. California Speedway is a wholly owned subsidary of Dayton Beach, Fla.-based International Speedway Corp.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer

When Blogging, Les is More

On the morning of CBS's first day, critics don't think about what to wear as much as we contemplate how to gird ourselves for what's to come.

See, the first day brings the executive session. And the executive session means
an appearance byLes Moonves, co-president of Viacom. Moonves is a showman who relishes confronting us with a blustery windstorm of arrogance and vitriol. The best part of it is, he ribs us and insults other network heads (NBC's Jeff Zucker is a favorite target) through an industrially bleached smile.

We emerge from these twice-annual experiences feeling like we've just showered in a tea of poison and lies, but with a notebook full of pithy quotes. Good times!

This morning Moonves was stuck in New York, leaving us with his sweeter partner in the Crime Broadcasting System, Entertainment President Nina Tassler. Tassler spun everything like the cold-blooded network python that she is, but it was more akin to a graceful twirl than a tornado.

Still, she did have answers to some of your e-mailed questions, and other tidbits that may drive you to bump up the level of your Netflix subscription -- the highlight being CBS's intention to redefine the meaning of papal bull.

CBS has a four-hour miniseries in the works about Pope John Paul II starring Ian Holm, with Cary Elwes as young man who would be Il Papa. Tassler desribed it as "a papal page turner."

Before we dive into that, here are those answers you asked about:

1) Why did CBS cancel "Joan of Arcadia"?

This is actually a more interesting answer than the obvious statement about "Joan's" criminally low ratings during its second and final season.

According to Tassler, "Joan" lost 24 percent of its viewers midway through the first year, and never got them back. A quarter. Not good. But then, the season in which "Joan" premiered was perfectly dreadful, so it was already swimming upstream in sewage.

"'Joan of Arcadia' being canceled was a big disappointment for all of us and me personally," said the woman who helped wield the ax. Yeah, yeah, boo hoo. Next!

2) Why did CBS cancel "Judging Amy"?

Here's what Tassler said: "'Amy' was a classy show. It served the network very well. Great writing, great cast. We're just taking a bet and putting a new show in that time period that we hope will do better. But we're very, very proud of 'Amy.'"

What she really means is, "Amy" skewed too old for a network bragging about raking in younger viewers. The series replacing it, "Close to Home," is about a happily married young female prosecutor (Jennifer Finnigan) returning to work after her maternity leave.

The widdle baby angle may be more likely to draw in that 18-49 demographic --that, and the fact that Finnigan's onscreen husband is Christian Kane, who's luscious enough to slather on a biscuit.

But Tassler would never, ever say that. "The shows that are on the schedule now appeal to an older audience, a younger audience -- again, we want to cast the net as widely as possible. And in bringing in our viewers, we are bringing in 18-49 as well," she said.

In addition to that, CBS was proud to declare "Habemus Papam! "

That some network would make a miniseries about Pope John Paul II is no earth-shaking news. And CBS, which has yet to announce a title or airdate for the project, is treading carefully by working in conjunction with Vatican historians.

"What I found so compelling and so interesting is, it's this journey that this man went on," Tassler said. "He was a resistance fighter, he was an actor, he lived in very turbulent times, and it really tracks in a very personal and emotional way how he got his calling.

"I call it a 'papal page turner' because the backdrop in which the story takes place is very exciting and very dangerous and very suspenseful. As a character, there's something incredibly heroic and relatable about him."

Glory be.

Now, maybe this news has a few of you worried that CBS is abandoning the bold new direction it took last season, when it started airing such profound contributions to television cinema as "Spring Break Shark Attack" and "Locusts."

Don't you fret -- an assortment of Sunday night telefilm treasures awaits us, including "Vampire Bats," (Oct. 30) "Time Bomb," (Oct. 16) "The Hunt for the BTK Strangler" (Oct. 9), "Mayday," (Oct. 2) and what is sure to be a personal fave, "Category 7: The End of the World," (Nov. 6 and 13).

Remember, you aren't obligated to watch any of these. I am.

There is one CBS flick I'm sort of looking forward to: "Martha Behind Bars," which comes to us Sept. 25. Happily, critics will have a chance to chat with Cybill Shepherd tomorrow about the challenges of reprising the role, and making the transformation from genteel Martha to M. Diddy.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Bill Goodykroontz The Arizona Republic

Missing Moonves

For the first time in years, Les Moonves didn't address critics during CBS' executive session.

Too bad.

Moonves, who has been working as co-president and co-chief operating officer for Viacom, the company that owns CBS, along with about 10,000 other things, was in New York for a board meeting. (In a proposed split, Moonves will run CBS Corp.)

Moonves is a former actor, and it shows. His sessions almost always involve a lot of laughs, self-promotion, CBS promotion and whacks and digs at other networks, particularly down-on-its-luck NBC and its head, Jeff Zucker.

Moonves is supposed to arrive tomorrow, but for the executive session Nina Tassler, the president of CBS Entertainment, answered questions in his stead.

Sometimes.

What she did more often, when pressed to say, for instance, whether producers of the crime procedural shows have gone too far in portraying the violence done to victims, was trot out a varation on, "We let the audience tell us" answer. Seriously, it was like her brain had it on a save/get key or something.

This is not to say that Moonves doesn't dodge questions. He does. Everyone here does; it's probably part of the job interview. But if you get Moonves going, he'll often follow a pat answer with a sentence or two of truth, telling you what he really thinks.

Tassler didn't do that. Of course, she doesn't want to publicly disagree with Moonves. (It's probably too harsh to say that you can't see his mouth move when she talks, but it is clear who the boss is). Perfectly understandable. But getting much of an opinion out of her about anything, other than how excited she was about the new fall CBS lineup, surprise surprise, was tough.

Has she ever disagreed with Moonves on scheduling?

"Hmm." Long pause. "No."

I'm stunned.

In fairness, Tassler didn't dodge every question. When, for instance, she was asked if there would be a sequel to CBS' heavily promoted but relatively low-rated miniseries Elvis, which ended before getting into the fried-peanut-butter-sandwich-eating days, she hemmed and hawed until pressed further.

So there will never be a sequel?

"I never say never, but I kind of doubt it."

Yay! An answer! Sort of!

She did say that she had read a script for the first night of a CBS movie in the works about the life of Pope John Paul II and described it as a "Papal page-turner." That was kind of funny.

But in the main she low-balled her answers, even when given the opportunity not to. Hey, Moonves always takes a shot at Zucker, who then returns fire, as well, someone said. You want to give it a go?

Guess.

"They do it so well, I would dare not challenge them," Tassler said, to the great surprise of no one. Then, a line that got plenty of unintentional laughs: "It's all in good fun. They have a great relationship."

Look, Tassler seems to be a perfectly nice person, she's clearly a qualified nextwork executive, she didn't get this great a gig by accident, her fall lineup really is pretty good, all that. But when you're stuck in a room for three weeks listening to people talk, every little bit of entertainment value counts.

Last week’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Crime not a problem
Eye doesn't blink at drama-riddled sked

By MICHAEL SCHNEIDER Variety.com


Critics may bemoan CBS' hefty slate of crime dramas, but viewers still seem to have a hunger for procedurals, the net said Tuesday.

With three "CSI" editions, as well as the skeins "NCIS," "Without a Trace," "Numbers," "Cold Case," newcomers "Criminal Minds," "Close to Home" and two hours of crime repeats on Saturday, Eye's sked overflows with investigation dramas.

But entertainment topper Nina Tassler, kicking off CBS' portion of the summer TV Critics Assn. press tour, said she didn't believe the genre had been oversaturated.

"Our viewers haven't told us that," she said. "And especially with the way our numbers are performing ... clearly we've struck a chord with our audience. I think we'll just rely on our viewers to tell us when they've had enough."

With CBS leader Leslie Moonves attending a Viacom meeting in New York, Tassler flew solo at the CBS executive session -- marking the first time Moonves was absent from the press conference since joining the Eye in 1995. (Moonves will fly in for dinner with reporters tonight.)

With Moonves not onstage, questions focused on Tassler's entertainment domain rather than outside fields, such as CBS News. And Tassler opted to pass on one of Moonves' favorite sports: tweaking rival NBC exec Jeff Zucker.

"They do it so well, I would dare not challenge him," Tassler said of the Moonves-Zucker ribbings. "They have a good relationship. It's all in good fun."

When asked whether Moonves -- whose empire now includes CBS, Infinity Radio, Viacom Outdoor, Showtime and Simon & Schuster -- had pulled back from programming duties, Tassler quipped, "Well, you know Leslie.

"He has obviously got a lot more responsibilities," she said. "He's got a bigger job. But he is as involved as ever. As he said before, CBS, that's the crown jewel. He's very involved in the day-to-day runnings of the company. When we need him, when I seek his counsel, he's always there."

Asked about CBS' decision to air more popcorn thrillers like "Vampire Bats" in the Sunday night movie slot, Tassler said the net was looking to target younger viewers and counterprogram ABC's "Desperate Housewives" juggernaut.

"The truth is these movies are fun," she said.

Concurrently, Eye announced the early lineup for its fall movie slate, beginning with the Martha Stewart telepic "Martha Behind Bars" on Sept. 25, followed by "Mayday" (Oct. 2), "The Hunt for the BTK Strangler" (Oct. 9), "Time Bomb" (Oct. 16) and "Vampire Bats" (Oct. 30). Net previously announced that "Category 7: The End of the World" would air Nov. 6 and 13 (Daily Variety, June 27).

Net didn't announce any season premiere dates.

As for CBS' upcoming Pope John Paul II miniseries, Tassler said the net did feel some urgency to get its longform on before ABC's rival project but that she felt good "about the quality and auspices of the script."

"I actually just read the first night, and I said, 'It's like a papal page turner,' " she said. "It's a very compelling and relevant story."

Meanwhile, Tassler praised the network TV landscape, noting that broadcasters had "turned the corner this year."

"We've reclaimed control of the water cooler from cable with shows like 'CSI,' 'Survivor,' 'Lost,' 'Desperate Housewives' and 'American Idol,' " she said. "These are the shows that people are talking about at the water cooler, in the cul-de-sacs, at the coffee shops and in the chat rooms."

The Politics Of Programming
Rod Lurie is betting that a female, and independent, president will resonate with politically divided viewers
By A.J. Frutkin Mediaweek.com

Bags of Red Vines licorice are flung across a table at the offices of ABC's fall drama Commander-in-Chief, where creator Rod Lurie and his staff have mapped out the show's first 13 episodes. United States President Mackenzie "Mac" Allen withstands cabinet shakeups and family turmoil and must choose whether or not to intervene in a Darfur-like African genocidal war. All in a day's work for the president. Except this one is played by Oscar winner Geena Davis.

Mac comes to power unconventionally. Two years after she's elected vice president, her Republican boss dies from a sudden illness. Most White House staffers would rather see Mac, a political independent—oh, and a woman—resign than take the oath of office, leaving the job to the ambitious and arch-conservative House Speaker Nathan Templeton (Donald Sutherland). But after Templeton expresses to Mac his disdain for her—and for her gender—she defies expectations and assumes the nation's top job.

Call it political fantasy. After all, at a time when the nation's ideological pulse is beating to the right, the notion of a woman in the White House seems improbable at best. The only thing more far-fetched is that a West Point graduate like Lurie came up with it.

"I like women," he says, frankly. Perhaps best known for writing and directing the 2000 feature film The Contender, Lurie traces Commander's genesis back to that movie. In it, Joan Allen plays vice presidential nominee Laine Hanson, whose confirmation process is derailed by a conservative senator. Lurie acknowledges that Mac is a descendant—if not an extension—of Hanson. In fact, he says he first offered the role of Mac to Allen, who declined due to scheduling conflicts (so he settled for naming Mac's character after the actress).

Lurie credits his 12-year-old daughter with providing his career's female-friendly focus. "When you become the father of a daughter, you want to believe she has all the opportunities to become whatever she wants to be," he says. "And the truth is, women just don't in this country, at all."

Lurie also believes writing for women makes good business sense. In an entertainment industry dominated by male stars—from Brad Pitt to Tom Cruise to Will Smith—"very few people are writing specifically for women," Lurie says. "So I don't have much competition."

Regardless of her political affiliation—or lack thereof—Mac seems to bring as much idealism to her job as does Josiah Bartlett, the president on that other Washington-set drama, NBC's The West Wing. But Lurie says the two shows are completely different.

There's the obvious female factor, of course. But more important, whereas the lives of Bartlett's White House staff are as crucial to The West Wing's storylines as Bartlett, Commander's focus will remain on Mac and the issues that "cross the threshold of the Oval Office," Lurie says.

Another distinction between the two series resides in Sutherland's character. Lurie initially refers to Templeton as the show's "villain." But then he quickly revises his description, saying, "I want to rephrase that because Donald gets upset when I use that word. We have an antagonist on our show. And that's what he really is, because to many people in the audience, he's not going to be a villain."

Indeed, Lurie's self-editing reveals not only his own political leanings—he's an avowed liberal—but the quandary that most TV writers find themselves in today when portraying the machinations of Washington insiders. For a medium in which success is defined by drawing as broad-based an audience as possible, advertisers and network execs continue to question whether Hollywood's liberal politics risk alienating viewers, most notably those in the so-called red states.

The West Wing's own ratings trajectory seems to underscore that gap. The series, which premiered in 1999, enjoyed its greatest success during Bill Clinton's White House tenure. And its decline came in the wake of Clinton's departure, not to mention the rise of a new national conservatism. Even CBS chairman Les Moonves got squeamish when it came time to air the network's made-for-TV movie The Reagans last spring, shifting it over to Viacom's pay cable net Showtime.

Lurie acknowledges it's no coincidence that Mac is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. "If this show attacks anything," he says, "it's the two-party system, which tells us that there is only red and blue, when there's also white and black and yellow and brown and green and many other colors, and that we don't have to be philosophically attuned to one side."

For ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson, presenting all aspects of the political debate is key to the show's success. "Rod is terrific at looking at situations from many different angles and giving them all voices, and that's the most important thing for this show," McPherson says. "All sides need to be represented."

Advertisers agree. "I think given what happened with The West Wing, and the fact that we did enter into a red-state mentality in the last year, making Mac an independent could help keep the audience as broad as possible," says Stacey Lynn Koerner, Initiative's executive vp/director of global research. Lurie admits he had considered casting Mac as a Republican. But ultimately he decided against it. "I can't write to a belief system that I can't swallow myself," he says, adding that's why he brought several politically conservative writers and producers onto his staff, including Stuart Stevens, who ran the last two media campaigns for President George W. Bush. What's more, Lurie promises that Templeton won't be the show's only, er, antagonist. "We're going to have some villains who are Democrats too," he adds.

Further softening the program's political tone is the fact that ABC is marketing the show as a family drama, not just as a political one. So much so that Commander is one of three fall series that had their development partly funded by the Family Friendly Programming Forum. "If there was any shred of a chance that advertisers thought this show was too partisan, they never would have given the series its seed money," explains Shari Anne Brill, vp/director of programming at Carat USA.

The show's broad appeal is clearly evident in the pilot's nonpolitical scenes, which often feature Mac's husband (Kyle Secor) fumbling through his demotion from chief of staff to First Husband.

Such humor is a far cry from Lurie's previous TV series, Line of Fire. The gritty ABC drama, which premiered in December 2003, focused on an FBI unit tracking a Mob cell. Although critics liked the series, viewers didn't. Lurie thinks he knows why. "The show was overly relentless in its violence and sexuality," he says, adding that Commander's lighter touch is a direct result of the lessons he learned on Fire. "You can't be in a dark place all the time," he says. "You've got to put a smile on people's faces. After all, you're a guest in their living rooms."

The other lesson he learned was the importance of a lead character. Although he says Fire initially was to revolve around actress Leslie Bibb's portrayal of a young FBI agent, Bibb's schedule didn't jibe with the show's demands. "So it became more amorphous," Lurie admits. "And we ended up without anybody really being the center of the show." That won't happen again, he assures, noting that Commander is anything but an ensemble drama. "It's the Mackenzie Allen show."

Fire launched during the final months of Lloyd Braun and Susan Lyne's joint tenure overseeing ABC's prime-time schedule. But it was developed at sister studio Touchstone Television, when McPherson was its president, prior to being named programming chief at the network. Having formed a strong bond with Lurie on Fire, McPherson says he was eager to get back into business with him.

But with several networks courting Lurie this past season, the real question may be why Commander's creator landed back at ABC. The project's deal was signed before the network hit it big with Lost and Desperate Housewives. And Lurie says that's partly why he returned. "We thought we were going to be the comeback show," he says, laughing. Also, without a hit on ABC's schedule, Lurie adds he assumed there would be more openings for Commander. By the time Commander went to pilot, however, the network already had strengthened its Sunday and Wednesday nights. Combined with Monday Night Football returning for its final season next fall, and the uphill battle that Thursdays still present, some of the best time slots had been snapped up.

Although buyers have heaped praise on the drama, several advertisers are taking issue with Commander's Tuesday 9 p.m. berth. "I just wish it had better lead-in support," Carat's Brill says, noting that the drama follows sitcoms According to Jim and Rodney. "To come out of two weak comedies is not the best scheduling."

McPherson says he's not looking at the comedies as a "platform for Commander." Rather, just as the network bucked conventional wisdom with Lost and scheduled the new drama on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. last fall, McPherson says he sees Commander—paired with Boston Legal at 10 p.m.—as an entry point for drama viewers. "Every time period out there is challenging," McPherson says. "Barring putting it after Desperate Housewives, there just aren't a tremendous number of easy choices to make and say, 'That's a no-brainer.'"

And following Housewives was never really an option. With the midseason drama Grey's Anatomy performing beyond expectations there, McPherson says he wasn't ready to split them apart. "We wanted to leave Sunday night intact," he adds. "That makes sense to us."

What makes sense to Lurie is the notion of a big, glossy drama set in our nation's capital—despite a tough time slot, or the fact that The West Wing is in decline, or that every political show that has ridden West Wing's coattails has failed. But Lurie stresses that Commander is not a political show. "It's a presidential show," he adds, hoping that such a distinction will set Commander apart. "The president is the most powerful person on the face of the earth. If I can't mine great drama out of that, then I might as well be selling Good Humor [ice cream]."

Cable Networks Chase Viewers
With Risky Format Changes
Rush for Ratings Leads to Content Overlap
Watching 'Karate Kid' on ESPN
The Small Screen By Joe Flint The Wall Street Journal July 20, 2005

Is "Smokey and the Bandit" a Hollywood classic?

Over the last several years, cable channel AMC has had quite a makeover. Gone are the revered old movies, often in black and white, shown commercial-free. Now the network, whose name stands for the American Movie Classics it once offered, regularly runs contemporary films, studded with commercials, that hardly live up to the network's original ambition to showcase great cinema.

The changes to the channel were so radical that Time Warner Inc.'s cable arm, which carries the network into more than 10 million homes, told AMC parent Cablevision Systems Corp. that it was in breach of its contract and risked being dropped. After a protracted legal battle, the New York State Supreme Court last week ruled that Time Warner Cable can drop AMC for breach of contract if it so chooses.

AMC is one of many cable networks that have drifted far from their original programming strategy in a bid to grab bigger audiences and more ad dollars. Often, the shift involves abandoning old material -- movies, sporting events -- for newer fare, or deviating from narrowly drawn formats to include a wide array of programming. MTV and sister network VH1, for example, have for years de-emphasized music videos in favor of reality shows and heavy doses of pop culture and nostalgia.

These changes can annoy viewers, who object to increasingly homogenized content on cable even as the number of channels grow. For the cable providers who carry the networks, the situation is more complicated. They might welcome the higher ratings that a more popular format attracts. But if the new format competes with other channels, as was the case with Time Warner's complaint about AMC, the response can be chilly.

While the court in the Time Warner-AMC dispute didn't explore whether such films as "Flashdance," "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Friday the 13th, Part VI," which make up an increasing proportion of AMC's programming, fit the definition of classic, it did decide that AMC's shift in strategy had violated its 1993 deal with Time Warner. The contract between the cable company and the network called for the service to air movies primarily released before 1960. AMC now also features original shows such as "Shootout," a weekly series about the inner workings of the movie business.

AMC's new format has achieved one crucial measure of success -- higher ratings. According to Nielsen Media Research, AMC's prime-time audience has jumped almost 25% since 2000, to just under one million viewers. More importantly, viewers age 18-49, a key demographic for advertisers, have increased by 51% in the same period.

In theory, that should make Time Warner happy. After all, its cable systems get to sell local ad spots on AMC. If the channel is attracting a bigger and more demographically desirable audience, the value of those spots should increase. A win-win, right?

Not quite. Problem is, Time Warner Cable already carries a number of channels that show relatively current movies aimed at that age group, including USA, Comedy Central, FX, and Time Warner sister channels TNT and TBS. Adding another one, the cable giant says, isn't beneficial, and it could upset subscribers who want a variety of services.

"You put a lineup together and you hope to achieve a mix of programming that appeals to a household," says Fred Dressler, executive vice president of programming for Time Warner Cable. When a channel changes direction "you end up with similar programming that is of the lowest common denominator." Time Warner hasn't indicated that it is planning to drop AMC, and previously has tried to renegotiate the contract. With the court ruling, Time Warner should gain leverage to cut a more favorable deal. AMC, which has said it plans to appeal the verdict, declined to comment.

AMC is one of many channels that has changed its identity. Discovery and TLC, once considered cable television's educational networks, now are little more than reality and makeover feasts. A&E and Bravo have shed their high-brow aspirations in favor of such shows as "Growing Up Gotti" and "Being Bobby Brown." The lineup at VH1, complained reader Sean Malone in a recent email, features "reality shows about strippers, overweight celebrities, Jerry Hall, has-beens living together and Hulk Hogan."

Even E!, whose programming already seemed to be in sync with popular culture, has reached beyond Hollywood lately for programming fodder. Recent "E! True Hollywood Stories" include episodes about serial killers, Amber Frey and Nascar. E! Chief Executive Ted Harbert says the line between entertainment, Hollywood and pop culture has blurred, making these topics fair game for E!

"If it is on the cover of 'People' magazine then it is on the cover of E! as well," says Mr. Harbert. The wrong thing to do, he adds, "would be one more clip show about Cameron Diaz." E!, which is majority-owned by Comcast Corp., hasn't had any complaints from cable operators about broadening its coverage, Mr. Harbert says.

ESPN Classic, created as an outlet to show memorable old sporting events, now often runs movies such as "The Karate Kid," along with replays of recent big games. During this year's NBA finals, one game was shown on ESPN Classic the very next day. An ESPN spokesman explained that in that instance the match-up was part of the channel's "instant classic brand." It also is a way for ESPN parent Disney to squeeze a few extra ad dollars out of the NBA contests, which drew disappointing ratings for the company's ABC network. As for ESPN Classic's movie programming, the spokesman acknowledged that there are some films that "stretch a little bit" for the sports connection.

Not all cable operators call foul when a network changes course. Matt Bond, executive vice president of programming for Comcast, the largest U.S. cable operator, says CourtTV became more appealing, and more successful, once it began moving outside the courtroom. "They moved to a more blended construct of entertaining product that was broader than courtroom coverage and it proved to be a success."

Format changes at cable networks rarely result in court battles. And when they do, as in the case of the AMC fight, the outcome won't necessarily lead to a broader mix of programming, as Time Warner has suggested. Viewers who are pining for AMC to revert to commercial-free, classic film channel are probably out of luck.

The Bruce Springsteen song, "57 Channels (And Nothin' on)" had it half-right. These days, the 57 channels have the same thing on. As more and more cable channels aim for similar audiences with similar styles of programming, the brands and the ratings that they worked so hard to establish will evaporate. Shifting gears sometimes makes perfect sense -- not every format or programming strategy can stand the test of time. But chasing the latest fad is rarely the answer.

Fall TV Preview: There are lessons for HBO in its 'Rome'

By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer Television Critic

From what we know of the ancient Romans, they thought highly enough of themselves to spread their incredible fabulousness all over the place. Think of it as modern history's first successful PR campaign, only instead of tchotchkes, they used swords, spears and whips.

What can we say, it worked. Rome dominated, for a long time. Eventually, its unsustainable expansion, and no shortage of narcissism, ushered the empire's fall.

One can understandably see the parallels between Rome and "Rome," HBO's 12-episode spectacle of stabbings, sex and scourgings, kicking off Aug. 28.

A few seasons from now, viewers may look back at "Rome" as the apex of HBO's folly.

Complicated sets, costumes and a production hiatus -- all taking place in the real Rome -- conspired to make this the most expensive series in the channel's history. The New York Times listed its cost at about $100 million.

For "Rome" to make economic sense, the show has to do what it was born to do -- it must make viewers buy it as the new face of HBO quality, and do it fast.

The desperation is on, you see, because when one scans the cable horizon, it's plain to see barbarians are no longer at the gate. They're over the wall and starting to upend carts. And their banners do not read Showtime.

We've talked about this at great length many times before, but you cannot discuss cable's quality without using HBO as a barometer. Without it, we'd still be stuck in an age of easily forgotten six-episode series, crusty movies and sitcom reruns.

During the past five years, its fountain of creativity has trickled down to inspire basic cable, uplifting the quality and range of broader reaching fare.

Maybe that's why there isn't much left up top besides "Deadwood." "Six Feet Under" and "The Sopranos" are going, "Sex and the City" is gone.

At the same time, terrific programming is on the march at FX, which adds Steven Bochco's "Over There," a drama set on the front lines of the Iraq War, to a stunning roster that includes "The Shield," "Nip/Tuck" and "Rescue Me."

"Over There's" skilled cast and writing make it raw, relevant television, destined to provoke debate after its premiere July 27.

But it is not the first high-quality drama to emerge from basic cable this summer. That honor belongs to TNT, which made history when "The Closer's" premiere garnered the highest ratings for a debut in cable history.

In fact, when critics at the Television Critics Association summer gathering in L.A. told cast and producers of "The Closer" about the time spent on "Rome" -- 14 months resulting in 12 hours -- they all laughed hysterically. An episode of "The Closer," they told us, takes seven days to shoot.

"The Closer" has already reached more viewers than "Rome" has a prayer of doing. "Wanted," coming on July 31, could open even bigger.

Even Lifetime's stepping up its game to reach beyond its core female audience. It has Mira Sorvino starring in "Human Trafficking," a miniseries about the international trade in sex slaves, coming in October. While this sounds like a classic women-in-peril conceit, the clip looked a lot like a procedural.

Showtime's roster has steadily improved over the past year or two, but most people wouldn't know it. The series that got the biggest publicity push within the past year was "Fat Actress," and most of that was free. Unfortunately, it wasn't even the channel's best work.

In a fair world, Showtime's Emmy nominated "Huff" and "The L Word" would have more of a presence at the watercooler. They don't, which is depressing when you realize that Showtime has three shows with potentially major appeal on the way.

August brings the suburban pot comedy "Weeds," October sees "Masters of Horror," and December yields "Sleeper Cell," starring Michael Ealy as an American Muslim agent who infiltrates a terrorist cell.

"Sleeper Cell" looks more pointed than anything HBO has in the offing, and surely will draw comparisons to the much loved "24" -- only, being a product of premium cable, it can add a frightening realism Jack Bauer will never match. Quite a selling point.

The odds of most viewers not being aware of "Sleeper Cell" is pretty high because, as Showtime chief executive officer Matt Blank explained, the channel's programming and marketing budget is about $300 million or $400 million short of HBO's, which has been reported to have 27.5 million subscribers to Showtime's 14 million.

And that is the primary reason HBO is still high on its image of itself and the industry it still leads. Much has been made with its Hollywood obsession, a trend that started years ago with "Arli$$" and "The Larry Sanders Show," but it's spinning out of control. In addition to "The Comeback," "Entourage" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm," HBO's new comedy hope is its Sept. 25 debut of "Extras," created by "The Office's" Ricky Gervais and his writing partner, Stephen Merchant.

"Extras" is exactly what it sounds like, as Gervais mines the comedy inherent to being a guy with delusions of grandeur that usually end up on the cutting room floor. Admitting a bias toward Gervais, "Extras" probably will work. His character, Andy Millman, knows he's a loser, knows he's has zero sex symbol potential. He's a Hollywood outsider like most of us.

And so, Gervais and "Curb's" Larry David will be offered as reasons why HBO still determines which subjects to imitate, even if that subject's mimicry is lower and lower on the food chain.

Mind you, the fact that Hollywood life has wafted across cable with the potency of J. Lo's cheapest perfume is more the fault of MTV and VH1, which have been on top of "celebreality" all along.

Doesn't matter who started it, because now we're invited to chase Hollywood wannabes with Bravo's competition "Situation: Comedy" (July 26) and TLC's "Going Hollywood" (October). IFC will have industry satire both animated (Bob Balaban's "Hopeless Pictures") and mockumentary ( "The Festival") as of Aug. 19. Comedy Central is expecting "The Showbiz Show with David Spade" in September.

ABC Family's aiming for quality with "Venus & Serena: For Real," premiering tomorrow at 10 p.m., a six-episode series showing the Williams sisters (and Serena's Jack Russell terrier, Jackie) off the court.

On the cheaper end of the spectrum is Bravo's "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List" due Aug. 3, and "Battle of the Network Reality Stars" on Aug. 17. Even Court TV found a way to exploit cheap Los Angeles royalty by bringing in Tori Spelling and Lisa Rinna for "Hollywood Stalkers." Granted, one could argue it jumped into that business with O.J.

With that as an alternative, being in the shadow of "Rome's" glory may not be so terrible. History Channel intends to weigh in with "Rome: Engineering an Empire" soon after "Rome's" premier, and National Geographic has announced "Hannibal v. Rome."

But one must remember why Rome fell. Some would blame its arrogance -- the empire's leadership cannibalized itself, collapsing from within years before the barbarians snacked on its borders. HBO executives would do well to read that portion of history, and not just for background on its new show.

`Galactica' is a stellar hit for Sci Fi Channel

Maureen Ryan The Chicago Tribune

The second season of "Battlestar Galactica" kicked off with a bang Friday, garnering the Sci Fi Channel show's highest ratings to date. "Battlestar Galactica," which attracted just over 3 million viewers, was the No. 1 basic cable show for adults age 18 to 49, and the No. 1 overall show among men age 18 to 49, beating out all network and cable competition in that key demographic.

Sci Fi Channel's other Friday offerings, "Stargate Atlantis" and "Stargate SG-1," which added Beau Bridges and "Farscape" star Ben Browder to the cast, also saw growth. "SG-1," which began its ninth season Friday, pulled in 2.6 million viewers. "Atlantis" snared almost 2.8 million viewers.

Weekly Ratings Notes
Bad children, good ratings
By Gary Levin USA TODAY

•Brats rule. The premiere of ABC's Brat Camp, a reality show about wayward children, opened strongly with 10.4 million viewers, easily Wednesday's top show. It replaced Dancing with the Stars.

•Rock slide. Mark Burnett's latest reality series, CBS' Rock Star: INXS, landed with a thud Monday; it earned fourth place with 5.5 million viewers. Tuesday's first regular performance episode improved to a decent 6.1 million following Big Brother, but Wednesday's first results show stumbled anew with 4.7 million. This week, the Wednesday show shifts a half-hour earlier, to 9 p.m. ET/PT.

•Bad date. ABC News' provocative Hooking Up, a five-part documentary about online dating, premiered with a mediocre 5.1 million viewers Thursday, ranking below a CSI rerun and UPN's wrestling.

•Strikeout. Fox's coverage of baseball's All-Star Game hit a record-low 12.3 million viewers Tuesday and was down 12% from last year, but ranked first for the week among young-adult viewers. Elsewhere in sports, ESPN's Home Run Derby scored 6.3 million Monday, ranking first among prime-time cable shows, and the ESPY Awards hit a record-high 3.2 million.

•Murder = ratings. Lifetime's latest fact-based movie, Murder in the Hamptons, scored a cable-solid 4.8 million viewers Monday.

•Sci-fi fun. Sci Fi Channel's second-season premiere of Battlestar Galactica tied January's opener with 3.1 million viewers Friday, while companions Stargate: SG-1 (2.6 million) and Stargate: Atlantis (2.8 million) each rose slightly from last season, turning in solid numbers for the cable network. But USA's Monk, which hit a series high with last week's season opener, slid 22% to 5 million.

•Pauly low. Pauly Shore's Minding the Store, a new reality series about his family's venerable L.A. Comedy Store, didn't get many laughs from TBS viewers: Only 1.4 million watched Sunday's first episodes.

•Dose of reality. ABC's The Scholar (3.5 million viewers), NBC's Average Joe 4 (4.8 million) and CBS' The Cut (3.9 million) all tied or set record lows last week.

'Barbershop's' style makes the cut

DIANE WERTS Newsday July 19, 2005

LOS ANGELES - "Barbershop" just may point the way to reviving situation comedy. When Showtime's series adaptation of the urban slice-of-life movie arrives Aug. 14, it could make the networks' fall sitcoms seem superfluous.

Writer-director John Ridley ("Platinum," "Undercover Brother") has deftly downsized the big screen hit's casual neighborhood chitchat, philosophizing and attitude. The characters surrounding young Chicago barber Omar Gooding ("Playmakers") pop off the small screen in zippy half-hour episodes that zigzag through daily anecdotes involving an assortment of eccentric personalities. This single-camera study doesn't need to push "clever" plots or punchlines. Just hanging loose with these opinionated souls is plenty fun enough.

"The inherent danger is just giving people exactly what they expect," Ridley told critics at his Saturday press tour session. The "Barbershop" movie, which found unexpectedly broadbased appeal, "had a great sense of time and place and it was an entree for a lot of people into a world that they just hadn't been into." Though the series also reverberates with black culture, it's the texture of the place these people live, not their reason for being. Even the shop's white barber is a local guy rather than a racial foil.

"In this day and age," says Ridley, who also delivers politically unpredictable commentary on NPR, "I don't know that there's really much divide in terms of race. I mean, if you look at Bernie Mac, if you look at Dave Chappelle, if you look at the upcoming 'Everybody Hates Chris,' they cross into the same territories as you would find in 'Arrested Development' or 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' or 'The Office.'"

"Barbershop" taps into those shows' broad range of storytelling tools. Cameras are hand-held for immediacy, and shots are edited to bump up against each other as witty punctuation. The funky format skips time to illustrate what characters say or to plunge us into the street scene that shapes them. Their verbal jousts crackle and fizz with laughs and warmth. The pace is tight, these people are real, and the show cares more about them than getting the next guffaw.

I wish HBO would pick up "Eyes".
They'd get a bonus of the seven un-aired episodes (or is it eight) and would have a good headstart into a second season.NOOOOO!!! Not HBO!

I only got to watch this show in HD because I had recorded it on my HTPC during the season (we don't get to watch anything live) and got to it in the summer. If HBO picked it up, I'd have to subscribe to HBO, subscribe to HD (I have Dish, but no HD), buy/lease an HD PVR, and pay for the monthly PVR fee (the SD PVR I have now was grandfathered in, so I pay no monthly fee). The show would cost me over $1000 on HBO.

NBC needs to pick it up. It'd be a refreshing change to their lineup.

Xesdeeni

(From Marc Berman’s Programming Insider column of Wednesday July 20 2005 at Mediaweek.com)
LIVE FROM THE TCA SUMMER PRESS TOUR

Press Tour 2005: Welcome to the Beverly Hilton Hotel

Believe it or not, it's that time of the year again -- the Summer Television Critics Association Press Tour in picturesque, populated and perennial sunny Los Angeles. As a precursor to the new TV season, about 200 TV critics across the country gather to meet, greet and schmooze with some of the new and returning faces in primetime (both in front of and behind the camera) next season. Following an executive session with each network are individual series panels of about one half-hour to 45-minutes in nature, which gives the hungry members of the press a chance to interact with the talent and creative staff. Each evening caps off with a gathering of some sort, and each day is chock full of news, information and, on a good day, some controversy. There no better arena out there to gather this much information about the small screen in one condensed period of time.

With the hype and the spin at full speed, my goal, as always, is to tell you what looks positive -- and what doesn't -- in primetime next season based on a) what I see and hear at the panels, and b) where each individual show is scheduled. Always remember, as good -- or bad -- as some of these shows may be (and the emphasis seems to be on the latter next season), where the show airs is often the most important ingredient. Without a good time period and/or the support and patience of the network, the future is always clouded with uncertainty.

Although I still pine for the classy, but out of the way, Ritz Carlton Hotel in quaint Pasadena, I must say that the Beverly Hilton Hotel in the heart of Beverly Hills is not too shabby, particularly with not one, but two Plasma TV's in the room. Even the worst screened pilot looks better on a Plasma TV!

On that note, I'll begin with CBS, which kicked off the first of its two day gathering yesterday.


CBS: Opening Executive Comments

While there was buzz aplenty for CBS last year at the Summer Press Tour (and rightfully so, I might add), of concern for this TV critic is potentially too much of a good thing. Since half of CBS' line-up (including repeat rotation Crimetime Saturday) is comprised of crime related themed programming, once the genre loses steam (and it will eventually) there could be plenty of holes to fill. But since the category at present is healthy, it's safe to predict that CBS is heading into 2005-06 poised for more momentum. Of the network's six new series, in fact, the addictive looking Criminal Minds with Mandy Patinkin has the best shot of succeeding despite facing ABC's Lost.

According to CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler, who flew solo without corporate boss Les Moonves, "At CBS, our strategy remains to broadcast to everyone. And, in the process, we have reached more young viewers and expanded our definition of success. Our success is based on a deep roster of hit programs across every night in every genre."

Continued Tassler:

"Everyone at CBS is geared up and ready to face the new challenge, which is to stay on top and continue to attract new viewers. Comedy was really our first priority heading into development season, and we wanted to reinforce Monday, and expand our brand of comedy. In drama, we wanted to capitalize on the growing number of younger viewers coming to the network and try some different types of dramas. Not resting on our laurels, six of the returning seven dramas will be adding new characters next season. We're upbeat about the continuing evolution of CSI: NY."

Although new dramas Close To Home, Ghost Whisperer and Threshold are all long-shots, and there is no guarantee of success for upcoming generic looking comedies How I Met Your Mother and Out Of Practice, as long as Survivor, CSI, CSI: Miami, Without A Trace, NCIS, The Amazing Race, Two and a Half Men, 60 Minutes and Cold Case continue to thrive (sorry CBS, but I just don't consider CSI: NY a long-term keeper), the network will likely lead the troops in households, total viewers and adults 25-54. Considering how close the race was among adults 18-49 this season, don't rule CBS out of a potential upset in the demographic either, particularly if Fox's aging American Idol loses any luster.

Even so, I must question a few of Tassler's crowing points including:

1. If comedy was such a priority, why are there only two new sitcoms on the schedule? Sorry, but I just don't buy the spin on upcoming midseason sitcoms with Jenna Elfman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

2. CBS had to reinforce Monday because Listen Up, with Jason Alexander, never caught on, and Still Standing barely lived up to its title by the end of the season.

3. CSI: NY, which creamed NBC's competing Law & Order early in the season, lost steam as the season progressed and is unlikely to regain momentum with ABC's Invasion (which leads out of Lost) in the competitive mix.

4. If CBS really wanted to try different types of dramas, instead of two new science-fiction dramas and two more crime related dramas, something of a family related nature might have been beneficial.

5. Like ABC and NBC, CBS has given up hope on Saturday and does not have a hit show on the evening. As good as 48 Hours Mystery is, few viewers unfortunately watch on Saturday.

That said, you still have to congratulate CBS for doing something that is almost impossible to do. Not only is the network now attracting younger viewers, the core older folks are still intact, and that is likely to continue in 2005-06.


On the CBS Panel Front:

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
Monday 8:30 p.m.

The Premise:
Narrated through flashbacks from the future by former Full House Dad Bob Saget, the horrifically title How I Met Your Mother is a comedy about a 20something year old guy named Ted (Josh Radnor) and how he fell in love.

Lead-in: The King of Queens
-Competition: Wife Swap (ABC), Surface (NBC), Kitchen Confidential (Fox), All Of Us (UPN), 7th Heaven (WB)

The Scoop:
While one look at the young cast would lead you to believe that CBS is looking for the next Friends, the twist is the narration and knowing which characters end up together. "We want to be about a guy searching for the right person who he hopefully will fall in love with," said Craig Thomas. "We want to explore the process of that search rather than finding the answer right away."

The Reality:
Although relocated lead-in The King of Queens (which successfully ran in the Monday 8 p.m. time period from 1999-2003) is not as strong as it used to be, if How I Met Your Mother can hold the King of Queens audience CBS could have a minor hit here. Considering the competition is far from severe, the bar of comparison is former failed occupant Listen Up, and HUT levels are higher at 8:30 p.m., this should not be particularly difficult to do. Word of advice to CBS: shorten the title. No one watching How I Met Your Mother will stand at the water-cooler the next day and remember what the name of this show is.

Chance of Survival for How I Met Your Mother (Based on a scale of 1-1 to 10-1): 4-1
Did You Know?:
Neil Patrick Harris' former Doogie Howser, M.D. sidekick, Max Casella, went from wisecracks to brawls in his occasional role as Benny Fazio on HBO's The Sopranos.

CLOSE TO HOME
Tuesday 10 p.m.

The Premise:
In this new legal drama, The Bold and the Beautiful star Jennifer Finnigan plays a young, aggressive prosecutor with a perfect conviction record who tries cases that take place in her suburban community.

Lead-in: : The Amazing Race
C ompetition: Law & Order: SVU (NBC), Boston Legal (ABC)

The Scoop:
Although Close Too Home has been compared to Desperate Housewives and Medium (which, in the case of Medium, I'm not sure why), the show was apparently in development before both shows premiered.

The Reality:
While you can't blame CBS for trying to find a new generation of hit dramas, there is no way the unproven Close To Home, a new legal drama, will succeed opposite two established legal oriented series -- NBC's Law & Order: SVU and ABC's Boston Legal. If the network wants to finish a respectable second in the Tuesday 10 p.m. hour, it should consider bringing back the canceled Judging Amy, which still had an audience, for midseason.

Chance of Survival for Close To Home (Based on a scale of 1-1 to 10-1): 9-1

Did You Know?:
Prior to Judging Amy, which aired in the Tuesday 10 p.m. hour from 1999 to 2005, the last successful regularly scheduled series to air in the time period (excluding the Tuesday Movie) was Lou Grant in the fall of 1977.

OUT OF PRACTICE
Monday 9:30 p.m.

The Premise:
A family of physicians (including Henry "The Fonz" Winker and West Wing star Stockard Channing) share the same profession but have very little else in common. Laugh track, please!

Lead-in: Two and a Half Men
Competition: Monday Night Football (ABC), Las Vegas (NBC), Prison Break (Fox), Half and Half (UPN), Just Legal (WB)

The Scoop:
According to Joe Keenan: "One of the things that we were interested in exploring with the show is the way that a family splinters apart but somehow stays together. The relationship between the parents remains very close despite the fact that they're divorced because they still have three children whose lives they are very involved."

The Reality:
Considering the lead-in is the relocated Two and a Half Men, a bona fide success, and the lead-out is the top-rated CSI: Miami, you would have assumed CBS would have saved this protected time period for the crème of the crop -- not the bottom-of-the-barrel. Although I always advise readers not to judge a series by the pilot telecast, Henry Winkler and Stockard Channing would be wise to keep their part-time gigs on Arrested Development and The West Wing. Out Of Practice, which could be out of gas by midseason, is reminiscent of the short-lived The Brian Benben Show, which briefly aired in this time period out of Everybody Loves Raymond in the fall of 1998. Although the premise was not the same, lack of laughs was the similarity.

Waiting in the wings to replace Out Of Practice is either Old Christine with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, or Everything I Know About Men with former Dharma & Greg star Jenna Elfman.

Chance of Survival for Out Of Practice (Based on a scale of 1-1 to 10-1): 8-1

Did You Know?:
Stockard Channing tried, but failed to make an impact the sitcom genre with two CBS sitcoms -- Stockard Channing in Just Friends in the spring of 1979, and The Stockard Channing Show one year later. Thankfully, she is leaving her name off this series title!

GHOST WHISPERER
Friday 8 p.m.

The Premise:
Inspired by famed medium James Van Praagh, former Party of Five star Jennifer Love Hewitt plays a young newlywed who discovers she has the ability to communicate with ghosts who to cling to living because they have unfinished business to attend to.

Competition: Supernanny (ABC), Three Wishes (NBC), Bernie Mac/Malcolm in the Middle (Fox), What I Like About You/Twins (WB)

The Scoop:
When asked about replacing Joan of Arcadia, according to Kim Moses: "We look at ourselves as getting a slot on the fall schedule, and we're in completely different worlds. And I had mentioned the Gallup poll and the ghost research that we had done. And we believe that's why CBS is putting this show on the air, not in place of Joan of Arcadia, but because it warrants a different demo and a different following than the other shows that the network has on the their schedule."

The Reality:
Let's be honest -- cutie-pie Jennifer Love Hewitt (who doesn't look a day over age 16) is not convincing as a confused woman talking to dead people. That said, I doubt viewers will tune-in for a glimpse of the former of Party of Five star doing her darndest to act after a long week of work. Although the light competition would suggest that Ghost Whisperer has a shot in the Friday 8 p.m. hour, mindless reality on ABC (the returning Supernanny) and NBC (Three Wishes) are more logical options. Jennifer Love Hewitt would have been better off making ordinary people's dreams come true on Three Wishes, then this confusing mumbo-jumbo.

Chance of Survival for Ghost Whisperer (Based on a scale of 1-1 to 10-1): 10-1

Did You Know?:
Although everyone remembers Jennifer Love Hewitt from Party of Five, Ghost Whisperer is actually Love's sixth regularly scheduled primetime series. At age 13 she was featured in Fox comedy Shaky Ground (1992-93), followed by The Byrds of Paradise (ABC, 1994), McKenna (ABC: 1994-95), Party of Five (Fox: 1995-99), and Time of Your Life (Fox: 1999-2000). Obviously, she has experience communicating with the dead!


Press Tour Tidbits: Notes of Interest

More Grammy Awards on CBS:
The annual Grammy Awards telecast will remain on CBS through at least 2011.

Knots Landing Reunion:
If you're a fan of this 1979-93 classic, mark your calendars for this fall on CBS when the troubled inhabitants of TV's most famous cul-de-sac reunite for a walk down memory lane. Present at the Press Tour were Michele Lee, who in 14 seasons never missed an episode of Knots Landing, Joan "Poor Val" Van Ark, and TV's sexiest villainess, Donna Mills. If the similar appeal Desperate Housewives on ABC can garner 15 Emmy Award nominations in season one, it's a shame no one recognized the true value of this classic serialized drama.

Good News for King of Queens:
Based on the fast affiliate ratings, a repeat of veteran CBS sitcom King of Queens moved back into its old Monday 8 p.m. time period this week with a first-place 5.4/10 in households, 7.56 million viewers and a 2.6/ 9 among adults 18-49.

Speaking of King of Queens:
Sadly, another year has passed with no Emmy recognition. Yet, NBC's grating Will & Grace snags 15 more nominations. Sometimes you have to wonder!

Isaac on Style Network:
Clothing designer Isaac Mizrahi, who was in conversations to his own syndicated talk show last year, is heading to Style Network in late 2005. In his new series, Mizrahi will cover beauty, fashion, style, pop culture, home, garden, fashion, diet, pets and love.

CBS Entertainment Chief: She Could've Danced All Night

By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Wednesday, July 20

For reasons we don't clearly understand, chicks who become suits in the TV industry are constitutionally incapable of giving straight answers to TV critics' questions.

On the other hand, they're beautiful to watch as they dance around them.

Take CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler, performing solo for the first time Tuesday during the CBS executive session at Summer TV Press Tour 2005.

Usually, the Women of Viacom TV, including Tassler (who replaced Nancy Tellem when she was upped to president of CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group) and UPN chief Dawn Ostroff, do a pas de deux with Leslie Moonves, CBS CEO and Viacom co-chief operating officer, during these network executive Q&A sessions.

This time, he wasn't joining them. Critics love Moonves. He's not much of a dancer, but he can answer a question like nobody's business.

On the other hand, Tassler, who's been on the job a mere 10 months, already is one of the best dancers the TV industry has ever produced. One of her most graceful bits came when a critic asked where CBS would draw the line on "how much mayhem you can cause to the poor victims" on procedural crime dramas. (If you've ever watched an episode of "CSI," you know what he was talking about.)

"We look to our audience to tell us when they've had enough," Tassler pirouetted. Plus, she said, there are "different crime elements represented in each different show" with "different looks" and "different tones" and "different styles."

"There is something for everybody, and the audience seems to be on board," she explained.

"But have you reached the point of telling the producers to dial back a little bit and maybe not cut the head off or light the body on fire?" asked the persistent critic.

"We trust our producers to be creative in their storytelling and follow their creative path," Tassler tapped.

"So you haven't admonished them at this point?"

"Again, we trust our producers -- and we've got Program Practices. When we've gone too far, they let us know," Tassler waltzed.

"So you have admonished them?"

Tassler, changing costumes, began to do the funky chicken.

And she got her krump on when one critic asked whether she had ever disagreed with Moonves:

"Hmmmm. No."

Critics seemed offended by CBS's Sunday telefilm strategy, which brought us "Spring Break Shark Attack." And who can forget "Locusts!" (CBS promo: "If you can hear the buzz -- it's too late!") For this coming season, the network has planned a "Locusts!" sequel, "Vampire Bats," in which Lucy Lawless reprises her tour de force performance as a voracious-insect specialist, now a college professor in search of a simpler life and who is caught up in the investigation of the death of a student whose body is completely drained of blood, and realizes that the killers are vampire bats that have mutated because of a tainted water supply.

"We know we're up against a juggernaut" on Sunday nights, Tassler said, referring to ABC ratings magnet "Desperate Housewives." "So we're trying some high-concept, popcorn movies."

During her solo debut, Tassler stumbled just once, when she called the network's upcoming miniseries about Pope John Paul II a "papal page turner."

Critics, who can be so unkind, seized on that mistake in an otherwise flawless dance; you've probably read the trade paper headline:

"CBS Prexy Plugs Papal Page Turner to Hix Crix."

"When I hear you say it's a papal page turner, that worries me -- what kind of sensitivity are you taking with this story, and what do you think people will learn from it?" asked one critic (who afterward noted to The TV Column that this is the same network that gave us the miniseries "The Reagans." Or, to be completely accurate, did not give us "The Reagans.") Tassler, recovering her step, began to do the lambada all by herself, which is hard to do:

The PJPII mini has "really top-drawer" production values, she said, explaining that Karol Wojtyla had been a resistance fighter and actor before becoming pope and "lived in very turbulent times," adding that when she called the project a "page turner" she was referring to the "backdrop of the story," which is very "exciting and dangerous and suspenseful."

"Is the pope attacked by locusts?" snapped one critic.

"No -- vampire bats," she responded.

Brava!

Jennifer Love Hewitt, making her second appearance at Summer TV Press Tour 2005, says that since starring in CBS's new one-hour series "Ghost Whisperer" as a woman who talks to dead people, she's no longer afraid every two seconds that she's going to be run over by a bus.

"I was terrified of death -- I'm not now," she said, batting her false eyelashes and flicking her tumbling auburn tresses at the throng of smitten Reporters Who Cover Television, who had packed themselves around closely to ask more questions after her show's Q&A session.

"I live every day for the moment -- I don't want unfinished business" when she dies, she explained perkily, while the little diamond cross and two diamond hearts sparkled on the delicate chains around her neck.

In her new series, Hewitt's character helps dead people to resolve their "unfinished business" so they can "cross over." Not coincidentally, professional dead-person talker-to James Van Praagh, who worked on two highly rated talking-to-dead-people flicks for CBS, is a co-executive producer on "Ghost Whisperer."

Shows about dead people are hot because "people want to know what death is" and "not everybody is comfortable going to a therapist," but they are comfortable watching TV, Hewitt explained, her chest heaving softly in her ivory lace bustier. Since Sept. 11, 2001, she said, people have been concerned about the topic because we continue to "lose all these extraordinary" people who are fighting "to take care of our country and our better lifestyle."

"When we lose a person, we lose one of our kind," she explained.

Patricia Arquette's role as a woman who talks to dead people, on NBC's "Medium," is very different from Hewitt's role as a woman who talks to dead people, she told the adoring crowd of Reporters Who Cover Television, because Arquette's character has been married a long time, while Hewitt plays a newlywed. And Arquette's character solves crimes, while her character does not.

"You know what?" she asked rhetorically during the Q&A session. "My character is absolutely one of my favorite people I've been introduced to."

And, better yet, this was "the easiest job in the world" because, Hewitt said -- while noting "I really shouldn't say this" -- no acting was required.

"The hardest thing for me to do was not to cry in every scene."

Tuesday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Paul Duke, Voice of 'Washington Week,' Dies

By Joe Holley Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 20, 2005; B06

Paul Duke, 78, a veteran newsman who for 20 years was the calm and mellow-voiced moderator of "Washington Week," the longest-running news program of the Public Broadcasting Service, died July 18 at his home in the District. He had acute leukemia.

Mr. Duke was already a respected Washington journalist when he took over as host of the program in 1974. He had worked for the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal and NBC, but at PBS he developed something akin to a cult following as he presided every Friday night over a thoughtful, good-humored discussion of the week's news with four respected journalists.

Mr. Duke set the tone for the print professionals who appeared on the show, then called "Washington Week in Review." They were -- as they are today -- men and women who didn't shout, didn't pontificate and didn't take sides.

"Paul is very serious about journalism," former longtime panelist Charles McDowell told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the occasion of Mr. Duke's 1994 retirement. "Like some people care about religion, he cares about journalism. To him, the end of the world is to hear good journalists screaming at each other, playing to the camera."

Mr. Duke often lamented the noisy intrusion of show business into the news business. "I'm a rather old-fashioned journalist in that I believe we lay it out but are not judgmental," he told the Post-Dispatch. "Now a lot of reporters are judgmental. I'm not sure this is a healthy trend."

Mr. Duke's easygoing nature became something of a running joke in Washington. At a 1987 dinner in honor of "Washington Week in Review," then-Senate Minority Leader Robert J. Dole observed: "Paul Duke had a mild case of charisma, but as you can plainly see, he was able to shake it off."

Paul Welden Duke was born in Richmond, where he began publishing his own handwritten neighborhood newspaper at age 13. He was delivering newscasts for a radio station at 16 and had his own 15-minute nightly sports show at 18.

Despite that early experience, he once wrote that, as an English major at the University of Richmond, he had no idea what he would do after graduation. "I had no burning ambitions, no consuming goals," he recalled in an article for the university's journalism department.

Also, his mother looked askance at his becoming a journalist. "Back in the 1940s, journalists had the image of being drunks and bums and ne'er-do-wells," he recalled in a 1994 Washingtonian magazine story written by Ken Adelman.

He took a basic journalism course his senior year simply because he needed the credit. Taught by legendary professor Joe Nettles, the course hooked him. After Mr. Duke graduated in 1947, Nettles helped him get a job covering sports for the Associated Press in Richmond.

A year later, he was writing a weekly "Virginia Sports Reel" column, but reporting on Virginia's civil rights battles began to take more and more of his time. It also won him a promotion to AP's Washington bureau in 1957.

The civility and professionalism that Mr. Duke embodied did not prevent him from being an aggressive reporter. In 1994, Washington Post columnist and occasional "Washington Week" panelist David Broder recalled that at the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Duke was part of a trio of congressional reporters -- along with Alan L. Otten and Robert D. Novak -- that, in Broder's words, "may have been as strong a team as any news organization has ever had on that beat." Mr. Duke covered Congress from 1959 to 1963 as well as the 1960 presidential campaign.

In 1963, he moved to NBC, where he covered Capitol Hill for 10 years. Eager to do live broadcasts about the political news of the day, he switched to public television in 1974. Hosting "Washington Week in Review," seven years old at the time, was part of the deal.

During his tenure, the show's average audience increased from 1.5 million to 4.6 million. It won both an Emmy Award and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for outstanding journalistic achievement.

Mr. Duke contributed articles and opinion pieces to numerous publications, including Reporter magazine and The Post, and won an American Film Festival Blue Ribbon for a documentary on Harry Truman's surprise victory over Thomas Dewey in 1948. He also made documentaries about the Berlin Airlift and John F. Kennedy's campaign for the presidency.

The Watergate scandal, he said, was the most emotional story he ever covered, but it wasn't "the greatest story." That, he told Adelman, was a story about Lady Wonder, a horse in Richmond who told fortunes, found missing objects and helped solve love problems.

After his retirement from "Washington Week" in 1994, he lived for nearly two years in London, where he contributed special reports to "Washington Week" on European political matters and news analysis for the BBC. He also provided a weekly "Letter from London" to WETA-FM in Washington.

In 1999, he came back for a short stint as moderator of "Washington Week" after his successor left in a dispute with PBS.

Mr. Duke liked to tell of a letter he received in 1992 from a man accusing "Washington Week" of outrageous bias.

Mr. Duke sent him a one-line response: "Biased which way?"

The viewer came back with his own one-line response: "Biased both ways!"

His marriage to Janet Johnston Duke ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife of 20 years, Janet Wachter Duke of the District; a son from his first marriage, Paul F. Duke of Los Angeles; a stepdaughter, Amy Rider of Richmond; and a step-grandchild.

Surprise!

ABC officially announced today it has renewed “Dancing With The Stars”.

Which stars will be waltzing and how many episodes will be in the next flight will be announced later.

What seems clear is that “Dancing” will change time slots. It’s 9 PM ET/PT time period is occupied during the winter months by “Lost”.

TCA Notebook
By John Consoli mediaweek.com

CBS Keeps the Grammys

CBS and The Recording Academy have signed a new five-year extension that will keep the annual Grammy Awards on CBS through 2011.

Survivor's Westman Debuts on The Bold and the Beautiful

Survivor Palau winner and New York City firefighter Tom Westman will make his daytime TV drama debut with an appearance on Wed. Aug. 10 on CBS' The Bold and the Beautiful. He will appear in scenes with series regular Lorenzo Lamas, who plays a firefighter on the show.

E!'s Harbert: Net Can Run Two Years of Stern Repeats

E! Networks president and CEO Ted Harbert says E! has two years of repeat options on The Howard Stern Show in yearly segments, which could keep the show on in repeat until June 2007, if they decide to exercise them. The show is no longer in production pending his move to satellite radio.

Harbert said "E!" will not be involved if a television show evolves from Stern's new satellite radio show.

Harbert said he is in the process of determining what show would work in the current Stern timeslot on E!, 11 p.m. weekday nights. "I didn't think Howard was going to be around forever, so there's development to try to keep that male audience that's been watching E! for 10 years [in the time period]," he told a Television Critics Association audience in Los Angeles on July 17. The rest of the day's audience on E! is more female. He said possible Stern time period replacements are Party at the Palms or Wild on Tara.

"Since there is 10 years of viewer habit with male appeal, we're trying these shows. And I'm goiing to figure that out over the next six months."

Bravo Launching Million-Dollar Listing: Hollywood[/B][/COLOR]

Bravo will launch a new series in 2006 called Million-Dollar Listing: Hollywood, a six-episode show chronicling the "high-stakes, cut-throat world of real estate," the network announced during the Television Critics Association's annual summer press tour in Los Angeles on July 15. Each episode will follow realtors as they undergo the mental and physical juggling acts required to keep their lives afloat, while competing to sell houses in a competitive environment.

The cable network, this fall, will also launch a new show called Great Things About Being, with each consisting of a five-part, nightly strand that will look, tongue-in-cheek, at how different groups are portrayed in society. For example, "great things" about being a red state, being gay, being fat, being 30, and being blonde.

Williams Sisters Starring in ABC Family's Venus & Serena

Tennis pros Venus and Serena Williams, who will star in an upcoming ABC Family reality show based on their lives called Venus & Serena: For Real, said they decided to do the show because they are role models for young women and want to offer up some positive images for them.

Said Serena, "We consider ourselves role models and we always thought that a lot of teenagers and a lot of pre-teens look up to us, and they say, 'You know, I want to be like them. They're positive, and they're fun. And yet, they know how to be competitive and they know how to stay close at the same time. So we thought that would be a good aspect to show a lot of teen girls out there, and boys, too, of course."

The show has already been filmed and is now being edited. Shooting was completed just before Wimbledon, which Venus won. Executive producer Fernando Hernandez said he does have Wimbledon footage which he hopes to incorporate as an epilogue to the series.

Nat Geo Channel Offers Cable, Satellite Nets Inside 9/11

The National Geographic Channel, as a public service, announced July 17 that it will make its four-hour mini-series, Inside 9/11 available to all cable and satellite operators to simulcast free to their viewers that don't currently receive the network.

The NGC has carriage with all of the nation's major cable and satellite TV providers, and the network has a reach of 55 million homes.

Now in production, Inside 9/11 will premiere over two nights, Sunday, Aug. 21 and Monday, Aug. 22, from 9-11 p.m. The mini-series will offer a comprehensive examination of the events leading up to the 9/11 disaster, starting in 1982 with the Soviet-Afghan War, the emergence of Osama bin Laden, and will culminate with the aftermath of Sept. 11.

'Star Trek's' James Doohan Dies
The actor is immortalized for having responded to the command, "Beam me up, Scotty."

From The Associated Press 9:01 AM PDT, July 20, 2005

James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original "Star Trek" TV series and motion pictures who responded to the command "Beam me up, Scotty," died early today. He was 85.

Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said.

The Canadian-born Doohan was enjoying a busy career as a character actor when he auditioned for a role as an engineer in a new space adventure on NBC in 1966. A master of dialects from his early years in radio, he tried seven different accents.

"The producers asked me which one I preferred," Doohan recalled 30 years later. "I believed the Scot voice was the most commanding. So I told them, 'If this character is going to be an engineer, you'd better make him a Scotsman."'

The series, which starred William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as the enigmatic Mr. Spock, attracted an enthusiastic following of science fiction fans, especially among teenagers and children, but not enough ratings power. NBC canceled it after three seasons.

When the series ended in 1969, Doohan found himself typecast as Montgomery Scott, the canny engineer with a burr in his voice. In 1973, he complained to his dentist, who advised him: "Jimmy, you're going to be Scotty long after you're dead. If I were you, I'd go with the flow."

"I took his advice," said Doohan, "and since then everything's been just lovely."

"Star Trek" continued in syndicated TV both in the United States and abroad, and its following grew larger and more dedicated. In his later years, Doohan attended 40 "Trekkie" gatherings around the country and lectured at colleges.

The huge success of George Lucas's "Star Wars" in 1977 prompted Paramount Pictures, which had produced "Star Trek" for TV, to plan a movie based on the series. The studio brought back the TV cast and hired a topflight director, Robert Wise. "Star Trek -- The Motion Picture" was successful enough to spawn five sequels.

The powerfully built Doohan, a veteran of D-Day in Normandy, spoke frankly in 1998 about his employer, Paramount, and his TV commander:

"I started out in the series at basic minimum-- plus 10 percent for my agent. That was added a little bit in the second year. When we finally got to our third year, Paramount told us we'd get second-year pay! That's how much they loved us."

He accused Shatner of hogging the camera, adding: "I like Captain Kirk, but I sure don't like Bill. He's so insecure that all he can think about is himself."

James Montgomery Doohan was born March 3, 1920, in Vancouver, B.C., youngest of four children of William Doohan, a pharmacist, veterinarian and dentist, and his wife Sarah. As he wrote in his autobiography, "Beam Me Up, Scotty," his father was a drunk who made life miserable for his wife and children.

At 19, James escaped the turmoil at home by joining the Canadian army, becoming a lieutenant in artillery. He was among the Canadian forces that landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. "The sea was rough," he recalled. "We were more afraid of drowning than the Germans."

The Canadians crossed a minefield laid for tanks; the soldiers weren't heavy enough to detonate the bombs. At 11:30 that night, he was machine-gunned, taking six hits: one that took off his middle right finger (he managed to hide the missing finger on the screen), four in his leg and one in the chest. Fortunately the chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case.

After the war Doohan on a whim enrolled in a drama class in Toronto. He showed promise and won a two-year scholarship to New York's famed Neighborhood Playhouse, where fellow students included Leslie Nielsen, Tony Randall and Richard Boone.

His commanding presence and booming voice brought him work as a character actor in films and television, both in Canada and the U.S. Oddly, his only other TV series besides "Star Trek" was another space adventure, "Space Command," in 1953.

Doohan's first marriage to Judy Doohan produced four children. He had two children by his second marriage to Anita Yagel. Both marriages ended in divorce. In 1974 he married Wende Braunberger, and their children were Eric, Thomas and Sarah, who was born in 2000, when Doohan was 80.

In a 1998 interview, Doohan was asked if he ever got tired of hearing the line "Beam me up, Scotty."

"I'm not tired of it at all," he replied. "Good gracious, it's been said to me for just about 31 years. It's been said to me at 70 miles an hour across four lanes on the freeway. I hear it from just about everybody. It's been fun."

Funeral arrangements were incomplete.

CBS sagging with sinking 'CSI' reruns
Down 11 percent in adults18-49s this summer
By Toni Fitzgerald medialifemagazine.com

It’s finally happened: People have had their fill of endless “CSI” reruns.

“CSI” and “CSI: Miami” repeats did very well last summer among adults 18-49, but ratings are down this summer while rookie “CSI: NY” is well behind both programs.

“CSI” averaged a 4.6 18-49 rating to this point in the summer last year. Last week it averaged a 4.1, down 11 percent.

“CSI: Miami” averaged a 4.4 last summer through mid-July but fell to a 2.5 last week, a difference of 43 percent. “CSI: NY” also averaged a 2.5 last week, tying for 16th for the week ended July 17.

“Perhaps ‘CSI’ has reached some sort of saturation point,” says Brad Adgate, senior vice president and corporate research director at Horizon. “It’s on four or five times a week. There’s also more formidable competition than there was a year ago.”

For the first seven weeks of the summer, CBS’s weekly average has dipped 13 percent from a 2.4 last year to a 2.1 this year. Its averages on Monday and Thursday nights, when “CSI: Miami” and “CSI” air, are down 25 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

Of course, weaker lead-ins have not helped the shows. Last week reality shows “Rock Star” and “Big Brother” preceded the two “CSIs,” and neither one topped a 3.2. This same week last year, both lead-ins were above that.

So long as it doesn’t carry into the regular season, the “CSI” burnout is not a huge worry for CBS, which is tied for second place with Fox this summer behind ABC. But it could be more of a concern next summer.

CBS head Les Moonves always brags about his network’s reliance on reruns and not reality while staying competitive each summer. If those reruns continue to falter, CBS may move toward more reality next year.

Fredfa: I read in a Washinton Post article today that the Comeback drew 786,00 viewers this past Sunday...still looking for SFU and Entourage #'s though.

It's a bright, new 'CSI: NY'

By MARISA GUTHRIE New York Daily News Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 20th, 2005

BEVERLY HILLS - "CSI: NY" will lighten up this season - literally.

"We weren't happy with the look of the morgue, the lighting," said Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment, of the New York City-set offshoot of the network's popular procedural franchise.

This season, the show will move from its dank headquarters to a sparkly Manhattan high-rise. And Hill Harper, who plays reclusive coroner Dr. Sheldon Hawkes, will be sprung from the morgue to work the streets with Gary Sinise and Melina Kanakaredes.

"We're very lucky that [executive producer] Jerry Bruckheimer ... is very involved [in 'CSI: NY']," said Tassler, "and we were able to revamp the show based on what we learned in season one. It had to find its own rhythm. It has to find its own look."

Producers shoot some exteriors for "CSI: NY" in New York, but the bulk of the show is filmed on the same Burbank lot as "CSI" and "CSI: Miami."

Despite that, said Tassler, "they've now really got the tone, the style, the rhythms of New York."

The network will add two more procedurals to its fall schedule, the Bruckheimer-produced "Close to Home," about a suburban woman returning to work as a prosecutor after the birth of her first child, and "Criminal Minds," about an elite team of profilers, starring Mandy Patinkin.

Tassler brushed off the notion that the network's procedurals are approaching the saturation level.

"We're really lucky to work with top quality, Class A producers, directors and writers," said Tassler, "and they really pride themselves on being original thinkers.

"They access stories from different points of view. These shows have different looks, different sensibilities. I would love to think that every member of our audience is watching every show every week, but the truth is they're not. People are picking and choosing what appeals to them."

Lisa Kudrow Sheds Phoebe's Skin
The Former 'Friends' Actress Is Starring in Her Own 'Comeback.' Not So Dumb, Huh?

By William Booth Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 20, 2005; C01

LOS ANGELES—Lisa Kudrow is squinting in the sun on the hotel patio. Pleasure to meet you. So tell us everything about Brad and Jen. There is a beat, a professional pause, and then Kudrow gives that little nose crinkle, a trademark tell perfected over a decade of playing the ditz twins Phoebe and Ursula Buffay on "Friends," and snorts, "Yeah, right."

In the iconography of the "Friends" ensemble, Kudrow played the space cadet(s), but she is actually known off-screen as "the smart one." Perhaps because she graduated from Vassar and studied biology? Her area of interest: the evolution of the biochemistry of human emotion. A burden. Or not.

"When I was first playing Ursula and Phoebe, because people would think you're dumb, they end up saying things in front of you that they wouldn't say in front of a guy or somebody who they thought was paying attention or would do something with the information, like it was way over my head," she says. "That could be useful."

Now she is doing something interesting with her career, first in the new HBO show "The Comeback," a dark comedy about a network sitcom and reality TV, which she co-created with Michael Patrick King, of "Sex and the City."

And also in the new movie "Happy Endings," by the writer-director Don Roos ("The Opposite of Sex"), which is an ensemble drama masquerading as a comedy about: family, betrayal, relationships, lies, longing, children, and Javier the Latino masseur and hottie sex worker. The reviewers are mostly liking it. (It opened Friday in Washington and select other cities.)

First, "The Comeback." The Sunday-night series is about the bottomless need and delusional sado-pathology of a C-level television actress, the character Valerie Cherish, as she struggles to return, way past her stamped expiration date, in a "Friends"-like retread about four sexed-up twenty-somethings. Valerie assumes she is going to play one of the swingles, but her role is switched to the batty upstairs landlady, Aunt Sassy, and she is not the mother of jokes but their butt. To make matters worse, Valerie's stab at a comeback is the subject of a reality TV show, which is pitiless.

So, to refresh: "The Comeback" is a TV show about a TV show within a TV show. Valerie is a piñata for the evil show-runners and network suits. Not that Valerie is sympathetic. She would score a zero on the self-awareness scale. She is a damaged being, but still manages to be appalling. And funny. It's a neat trick.

"A dog pile of humiliation," says Kudrow, of her character's travails on the back lots of Burbank. "But she'll take it. Because her goal is over there." She is pointing off toward the Hollywood Hills. "And this is nothing. Nothing. She can take anything. That's how much she wants it. She doesn't need it, financially. Doesn't need to work. But it's not like she's an artist, either. She just wants celebrity and that's it."

But it's strange, Kudrow says, the feedback she is getting about the show. Many viewers, instead of laughing at Valerie, have begun to cheer her on. "They've invested in what she wants and they want her to have it," she says.

Though the show has not attracted huge numbers -- 786,000 viewers last week -- "The Comeback" is the kind of program that its viewers and TV critics feel strongly about. "Teeters on wonderful," wrote Tom Shales of The Washington Post. "The saddest comedy on television," pronounced Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times. On Web sites devoted to audience critiques of TV shows, the viewers seem divided. To say the HBO series is a dark comedy doesn't quite get it right: Some viewers confess they actually wince; others guiltily inhale the anti-Hollywood fumes.

"I love it," says David Crane, the co-creator of "Friends." "Your heart breaks every week, which is weird for a half-hour comedy experience." Crane, of long experience in the world of network TV, says: "It's truthful. They're going after everybody, and they do it really well. You don't watch and think, God, I'm so glad I'm in television."

Is it real? Is the business so cruel? Crane says, well, look at former stars on their reality TV venues -- shows like "The Surreal World" with Bronson Pinchot or "Fat Actress" with Kirstie Alley -- and "The Comeback" starts to look tame.

"You have to admire her, for the guts to come out and do this," says Danny Jacobson, writer, producer and co-creator of the Paul Reiser sitcom "Mad About You," on which Kudrow got her start on network television. She had a recurring part as an airhead waitress, a role that then morphed in Phoebe on "Friends," an "innocuous" show that Jacobson confesses he was not a big fan of, though he is of Kudrow.

"She is a really, really talented actress," Jacobson says, but like Henry Winkler, as the Fonz, "Lisa is going to be Phoebe for the rest of her life and her kid's life. That's the way it is with TV," with a character played for 10 years on a hit show. "So I applaud her taking chances." (Jacobson, too, is high on the HBO show and hopes it finds its audience.)

From the outline of "The Comeback," one might think the project is Kudrow's revenge, her re-spin of "Friends," but she insists it has little to do with the popular NBC comedy, now in endless rerun.

"I certainly was not drawing on any experience on 'Friends,' " which Kudrow describes as a mostly intelligent, supportive, creative enterprise (and a certainly lucrative experience at $1 million per cast member per episode in the later years). "I was interested in this character," she says.

Valerie Cherish was hatched, Kudrow says, back in the early 1990s, pre-"Friends," when she was a member of the improv troupe the Groundlings in L.A. "Truth is that I created this character in a three-minute monologue sketch called Favorite Actress on a Talk Show. You know, so phony, so self-promoting. Talking about her favorite causes, the environment, that ego out of control." Here, Kudrow becomes Valerie on Leno. "Okay, so save the planet, please, as a favor to me." Beat. "I'll love ya for it!"

Patrick Bristow, now a director and teacher at the Groundlings, was a student and then a cast member with Kudrow in the troupe in the early 1990s. She wasn't as polished then, but "everyone knew she was the one who was going to pop," and break out into TV and film, as did former Groundling alums Will Ferrell, Phil Hartman and Chris Kattan.

"She had this velvety, dry delivery," Bristow recalls, and she also was developing a way to do comedy that hid as much as it revealed, so that the audience leans in and feels this discomforting embarrassment for the character, and then gets a release when she delivers the joke. "Those uncomfortable silences, it's almost too much, but you're just waiting to hear what comes next," Bristow says. (And in that style, many have compared Kudrow's long, uncomfortable pauses on "The Comeback" to the technique used on the BBC and now NBC versions of "The Office.")

Whatever a viewer might make of "The Comeback," the social satire has in its cross hairs two intertwined pop culture targets: the network sitcom, which Kudrow believes is dying, and reality TV, which is competing with the traditional and stale sitcom-form and, more ominously, degrading society, she says. This is not an entirely fresh critique. But it is compelling, coming from someone so on the inside, biting the hand that fed her.

"It's really hard, almost impossibly hard, especially when the shows get shorter and shorter," Kudrow says of today's sitcoms. Many 30-minute programs have now been reduced to less than 20 minutes of actual comedy -- the other 10 minutes consumed by advertisements. "And you need some moments that an actor can take so that they can ground a character. So it can't just be setup, joke, setup, joke, like laying pipe. I think that's one of the problems. So desperate for success." Does she include her former co-star Matt LeBlanc, now starring in the "Friends" spinoff "Joey," in that assessment? She says she does not. And so we politely move on.

Kudrow understands TV is a business chasing eyeballs. But she thinks, too, that the days of broadcast might be numbered, that it all might be heading for a pay-per-view world.

The flip side of the sitcom, Kudrow says, is reality television. On "The Comeback," she says, "The setting for Valerie is reality TV because it all went together: someone who is willing to sell herself out completely and entirely. Reality TV was made for her. She is such a willing participant in her own demise. But to watch her on a new sitcom, there's just no room for her, because audiences are getting younger and younger, and they need to appeal to audiences. . . . That's the world. A desperate woman in a desperate world."

It can feel kind of scary, Kudrow says, the extent the reality shows and contestants will go to. "Andy Warhol? You know? We're way beyond that. Everyone is entitled and demanding and insisting on their 15 minutes of fame, and they don't care what for. Everyone can be famous now. For what, I don't know."

A lot of talk about desperation here, from a comedic actress, no? Kudrow says she never planned to make it her life's work to play the brainless. Before success, "my characters weren't dumb blond girls. It wasn't my strength. But for auditions, a cold reading, when you have to make a quick choice, one that's comedic . . . " she says. "You find a twist, and dumb is always easy." Any regrets? "I'm fine," she says, "really," and gives a squint, to show, you know, it's okay that she is now fabulously wealthy beyond anyone's dreams. No harm done.

But there is something in her latest roles that shows a different actress stirring beneath Phoebe Buffay. In "The Comeback," Kudrow is over-the-top, all id, but there is this vulnerability. In "Happy Endings," the movie, she plays Mamie, a woman in her late thirties (Kudrow is actually 41) who channels twitch and tension, who sees in life something about to bite her on the ankle.

The Roos film is an indie-style, arty, talky ensemble piece, shot in L.A. in a quick 30 days on a tight budget, with four overlapping story lines -- a hard film to market. Kudrow's character seeks a son she gave up for adoption when she was a teenager, a son sired by her stepbrother (Steve Coogan), who turns out later to be gay and is experiencing problems with his boyfriend and their lesbian couple friends, one of them played by Laura Dern, who is, you know, indie royalty. They're joined by Tom Arnold, who plays a rich sugar-daddy with a good heart, who has a quickie with Maggie Gyllenhall (more indie cred; recall "The Secretary"?), a scammer and lounge singer. And then there's Bobby Cannavale, who plays Kudrow's love interest and is the masseur who gives bored Beverly Hills trophy wife-types their "happy endings" on the massage tables for $175 a session, plus tip. Oh, and there is another show-within-a-show, in this case a bad student documentary.

The film is a comedy but it manages to be sad. The director, Roos, says he wrote the Mamie role with Kudrow in mind. "I don't think there's a better actress working today," Roos says, and compares her to Gwyneth Paltrow. Reckless praise? Roos says no.

"What Lisa can do -- show pain, but then hide it behind her mask -- but it bleeds out. And then she does that and she can make it funny." A kind of triple back flip. "Because you have the sense you not only know what the character is feeling, but what she is thinking, what's going on between her ears."

Kudrow says it's the cracks. "He liked that. That the camera captures those moments when you're thrown by what's happening to you, and you think you recover quickly enough so the viewer doesn't notice, but they always do. It works with comedy. That moment when someone is exposed and covers it up is what's funny. It works the same with tragedy. The covering-up," she says. "I think that's universal, don't you?"

that's the one fred...u r always one step ahead.

Not in this case: you beat me to it.

TV Critics Tour Blog

By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer Television Critic

Five and a Half Primetime Nibbles...

--Last night, CBS threw a lovely Stars Party at The Hammer Museum, where many of us were yanked into corners by the cast members of "CSI: NY." It was kind of like walking through New York City's Meatpacking District at night. Series creator Anthony Zuiker even planted a kiss on my cheek.

That shows you how desperate they are for you to know that next season, the New York office relocates to a high rise, and Sheldon Hawkes (Hill Harper) is being yanked out of the basement and into the field. Yeah. I could hardly contain my myself either.

--Though attached to the CBS comedy "Out of Practice," yesterday afternoon Stockard Channing told critics she was still committed to three more episodes of "The West Wing." She also predicted President Bartlet would be out of the White House by Christmas.

-- While we're on the subject, this morning the producers of "Two and a Half Men" revealed their intention to woo Martin Sheen for an appearance next season. The regal Holland Taylor, who plays Charlie and Alan Harper's delightful witch of a mother, weighed in enthusiastically. "All I can say is, Martin Sheen had better come on, and he'd better come on to me."

-- On a side note, this came after CBS tried to kill us with Charlie Harper's version of the breakfast of champions, which included virgin Bloody Marys, donuts and cold pizza. There's your "half."

-- And now, a "Children of the '80s" treat. Jon Cryer is recording the commentary portion of the 20th anniversary re-release of "Pretty in Pink" on DVD. "Which Molly (Ringwald) crapped out on!" he added. He knows of no plans along the lines of the celebratory hoopla made over "The Breakfast Club" at the MTV Movie Awards.

"Maybe I'll have a little party with cupcakes," he mused.

Then someone asked Angus T. Jones if he had ever seen any of his co-stars' films. In fact, he had.

Jones mentioned Sheen's "Men at Work." "A classic," Sheen deadpanned in response.

He also took in Conchata Ferrell's "Mr. Deeds." "Another classic!" she laughed.

And "Pretty in Pink?" Nope. Then Cryer turned to the kid.

"'Hiding Out'?" he suggested. "No?" No.

Oh, Ducky. Will you ever win?

Two Reasons to Hope "Mother" Makes It

This is one of those shows that could go either way.

What "How I Met Your Mother" has going for it: A romantic plot, an adorable cast, and a twist at the end of the pilot.

What gets annoying fast: A framing device that has Bob Saget narrating off-screen as a father telling his kids how he met their mom in the year 2030. Yep, the entire series is one long flashback. About one potentially boring story.

What could tip the balance in "Mother's" favor ever so slightly: The presence of Alyson Hannigan ("Buffy's" Willow Rosenberg) and Neil Patrick Harris ("Doogie Howser"). Harris is Barney, the series' likable jerk and good friend of Ben, the main character. Hannigan plays Lily, the longtime love of Ben's best friend.

And, hey, it's Willow! And "One time? In band camp?" girl from the "American Pie" movies. How can you not love her? She's working on another yet-to-be titled movie right now, by the way. It's a parody of romantic comedies due out in January.

Speaking of movies, both of their roles in "How I Met Your Mother" seem to have been inspired by their past work in movies, not iconic television parts.

For example, in one scene, Lily makes a comment about liking to be spanked. Hannigan knows what you're thinking: "'What's my name? Say my name, b-tch!"

"I don't know why this keeps following me! I hope (the sitcom) doesn't play too heavily on that, because I don't want people to be like, 'Well, that's just the 'American Pie' movie," she said.

"But it was fun. I love that kind of scene."

And Harris' Barney borrows no shortage of qualities from the nightmare version of himself presented in "Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle." They're pretty much the same guy, except this being network television, Harris probably can't hump a car seat while rolling on Ecstasy. (Darn that Standards and Practices!)

It's kind of funny that it took playing himself (but not really) in a pot movie for people to finally get over seeing the actor as "Doogie Howser, M.D."

"I think people weren't expecting me to be so extreme, and to still wear it OK, so that was a big one for me," he said. "...When the (sitcom) script came out, I got a call from a friend who said, 'Oh, you have to make it stop! They've written you and it's horrible, and you have to read it!' I read it, and I thought it was hilarious. So it commenced from there."

You get your foot in the door in whatever way you can, folks.

Sure, Fonz, Blame Your Parents for The Shark Bit

In Hollywood, reputation is everything.

Superstition? It has its place.

In the pop culture universe, the two occasionally intersect. There's the idea of a show jumping the shark, defined by a single moment that signals to the audience its decline has begun. The concept sprung from the regrettable "Happy Days" scene in which Fonzie (Henry Winkler) literally jumped over a shark on water skis.

It was a dark evening in television, a very dark evening indeed. I like to think Winkler's portrayal of Barry Zuckerkorn on "Arrested Development" restored balance to the universe, though.

Then there are alleged show killers, actors and actresses who have a knack of starring in pilots that never air and series that give up the ghost before sweeps. Their very presence is said to curse a program, and the list includes Jason Gedrick, Steven Eckholdt, and the lovely, gregarious Paula Marshall.

So, what happens when a show killer and Shark Jumper Zero come together in one pilot? Actually, great things. Marshall and Winkler are on a CBS sitcom with Christopher Gorham, Stockard Channing and Ty Burrell called "Out of Practice." Gorham, by the way, has been on three series in three years. Two of them are gone, but that's an excellent average.

And happily for all of Gorham's, Marshall's and everyone else's fans, this comedy about a dysfunctional family of M.D.s and one Ph.D. is genuinely funny.

Whether or not it lasts is up to the audience, however -- not Marshall's karma.

"I don't think I was ever responsible for anything being cancelled. I feel really fortunate that people keep hiring me," Marshall told critics during yesterday's panel.

But she does mind the label when one of her shows dies, such as "Cupid," or "Snoops," or "Cursed," or...you get the idea. "It's frustrating, because I never know when I can do the kitchen over. I never know when that money is going to come in...I do half a season and half a season."

In the same way an actor isn't responsible for a show's longevity, neither is she, or he, to blame for television scenes that scar us for life. Ideas such as shark jumping come from writers who deserve to be flogged.

Winkler takes his part in the shark jumping incident in stride -- and dropped a hint (probably a false one, but heck, I'll share) as to its origins.

"I do have every picture of me on water skis, you know," he told us. "My parents were from Germany, and I was a water ski instructor as a counselor in camp. And they would say to me, 'Tell zem you water ski. Zis will be good for the Fonz!'"

"And I did."

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Paul Brownfield The Los Angeles Times July 20, 2005
Martin Sheen to guest on 'Two and a Half Men!'

Admission: I have eaten more food off of CBS' dime in the last 24 hours than I think is technically correct under the Times' ethics policy. That's not to say the spread was exactly impressive last night at the CBS party, held in the courtyard of the Hammer Museum in Westwood (Volvo SUVs in a valet parking scrum in the underground garage, etc.) and not at the Getty, which I thought was a place you could buy your way into but anyway. A sushi station was the highlight. There, standing in line like an idiot, I argued with Lynette Rice of Entertainment Weekly about whether "CSI: New York's" Gary Sinise was wearing a hairpiece. She said no, I said yes ("It's a little one," I said, mimicking what my father used to tell me, "You can't just think in terms of wigs. Like, for instance, that one Kevin Dobson over there is wearing...").

If you cover television this can be, you know, how you live your life.

And if I'm wrong about Sinise I'll clarify in a future post. Clarifying in a future post is the only way I can blog. The whole point of blogging, as it's been explained to me by people in the office who throw around the word "blog," is that it's supposed to be sarcastic and immediate. I can think sarcastic but not so much immediate. So in that spirit I'll probably be running second-day clarifications.

As in, clarification: Yesterday I said "Ghost Whisperer" is a rip-off of "Medium." But of course it's also a rip-off of "The Sixth Sense."

One show "Ghost Whisperer" is not a rip-off of, I'm pretty sure, is "Two and a Half Men." They're first up this morning, day two of CBS day of press tour, here at the Beverly Hilton, otherwise known as the House of Merv. And get this: They have the caterers wearing these "Two and a Half Men" Bermuda shirts that apparently they can't even keep, as I overheard the discussion between several employees.

At 9 a.m., it was time to meet the millionaires and multi-millionaires behind "Two and a Half Men." But boy, what a dud this session turned out to be. I was hoping series creator Chuck Lorre was going to spout off about how his top-rated comedy didn't get an Emmy nomination while "Will & Grace" did, and "Everybody Loves Raymond" did, and "Arrested Development" did.

But Lorre was disappointingly unperturbed, like he'd come from therapy and was feeling that feeling you feel after therapy, relatively centered and upbeat, and the reporter/critics in the room, for some reason, kept asking about the acting craft. Did they realize this was the people from "Two and a Half Men" before them?

All these questions about how this or that actor gets into his or her character. It's a sitcom - don't they all get into character when a bell goes off?

Oh, well. You learned Martin Sheen'll be on the show next season. And this clarification from CBS head of publicity Chris Ender: The "Two and a Half Men" shirts the Hilton waitstaff can't keep are "from wardrobe" on the show. Meaning that Charlie wears them and they want them back, which doesn't quite add up, but, I don't know, that's all I know at this point.

OK, this is a real stretch, but I find it interesting. Hope you do, too.
Gerry Thomas, inventor of TV dinners, dies
Associated Press

PHOENIX - Gerry Thomas, who changed the way Americans eat - for better or worse - with his invention of the TV Dinner during the baby boom years, has died at 83.

Thomas, who died in Paradise Valley on Monday after a bout with cancer, was a salesman for Omaha, Neb.-based C.A. Swanson and Sons in 1954 when he got the idea of packaging frozen meals in a disposable aluminum-foil tray, divided into compartments to keep the foods from mixing. He also gave the product its singular name.

The first Swanson TV Dinner - turkey with cornbread dressing and gravy, sweet potatoes and buttered peas - sold for about $1 and could be cooked in 25 minutes at 425 degrees. Ten million sold in the first year of national distribution.

It was fast and convenient, and fit nicely on a TV tray in the living room, so that you didn't have to drag yourself away from your favorite television show.

Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, said the TV Dinner "started a change in American eating habits bigger than any change in culinary history since the discovery of fire and cooked foods."

The TV Dinner fit in with societal changes at the time, when more women were entering the work force and did not have the time to spend all day preparing dinner, Thompson said. It also helped introduce the notion of "modular" eating: If there were only two people at home, you put only two dinners in the oven.

"Some people claim that the TV Dinner was the first step toward breaking up the American family because it made it possible for everybody to eat in a modular way," Thompson said. "That was going to happen anyway. The redefinition of the American family was going on anyway."

In a 1999 Associated Press interview, Thomas recalled that the inspiration for the TV Dinner came when he was visiting a distributor, spotted a metal tray and was told it was developed for an experiment in the preparation of hot meals on airliners.

"It was just a single compartment tray with foil," he recalled. "I asked if I could borrow it and stuck it in the pocket of my overcoat."

He said he came up with a three-compartment tray because "I spent five years in the service so I knew what a mess kit was. You could never tell what you were eating because it was all mixed together."

Since interest in television was booming, he added: "I figured if you could borrow from that, maybe you could get some attention. I think the name made all the difference in the world."

"We had the TV screen and the knobs pictured on the package. That was the real start of marketing," Thomas said.

The TV Dinner drew "hate mail from men who wanted their wives to cook from scratch like their mothers did," Thomas said, but it got him a bump in pay to $300 a month and a $1,000 bonus.

"I didn't complain. A thousand dollars was a lot of money back then," he said.

After the Campbell Soup Co. acquired Swanson in 1955, Thomas became a sales manager, then marketing manager and director of marketing and sales. He left the company after a heart attack in 1970.

He later directed an art gallery and did consulting work.

"It's a pleasure being identified as the person who did this because it changed the way people live," Thomas said. "It's part of the fabric of our society."

Thompson said that until last year, Thomas had spent one day each summer talking to Thompson's history of television class for graduate students.

"This was really fun for them," Thompson said. "This was like meeting a great American industrial legend. So many things we take for granted remain anonymous. We know the architect that designed St. Peter's, but who knows the architect that designed that basic ranch-style house?"

The TV Dinner, Thompson said, is "one of the few things we've got that we actually have the human being who had his fingerprints all over it."

The NY Times obit:
James Doohan, Scotty on 'Star Trek,' Dies at 85

By JOHN SCHWARTZ The New York Times July 20, 2005

James Doohan, who faked a Scottish burr to create one of television's most endearing characters, Chief Engineer Montgomery (Scotty) Scott of the U.S.S. Enterprise, died today at the age of 85.

Mr. Doohan, who had Alzheimer's disease, died of pneumonia at his home early this morning, said his agent, Steven Stevens.

Whenever Captain Kirk said "Beam me up, Scotty" or its many variants, he was talking to the character played by Mr. Doohan, an irascible engineer whose cries of "Captain! The engines canna take nae more!" and references to warp speed and dilithium crystals have resonated through popular culture since 1966, when the original Star Trek's three seasons began.

He later appeared in seven Star Trek movies and in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," a series set 75 years after the original Star Trek was to have taken place. (The time gap was explained by Mr. Scott's having jury-rigged a form of suspended animation by sending himself into a pattern buffer in the transporter and keeping his matter circulating in the unit through continuous diagnostic loop. Like all Star Trek explanations, it sounds good if you say it fast.)

In that show, Mr. Scott expressed astonishment at the approach of that ship's engineer, Geordie LaForge, to telling his captain how long it would take to work through a particular problem. "Oh, you didn't tell him how long it would really take, did you?" When Mr. LaForge said he had, Mr. Scott replied with exasperation, "Oh, laddie, you've got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker!"

James Montgomery Doohan was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 3, 1920. He was the youngest of four children, and his father, Mr. Doohan would later write in his memoir, "Beam Me Up, Scotty," was an abusive alcoholic. Mr. Doohan served in World War II, and was struck by six bullets during the D-Day Invasion in Normandy. One of the bullets blew off his middle right finger, an injury he would later conceal from the Star Trek television cameras.

Married three times, he is survived by his third wife, the former Wende Braunberger, and seven children. The four children from his first marriage, now grown, are Larkin, Deirdre, Montgomery and Christopher; his third marriage produced three children: Eric, Thomas and Sarah, who was born in 2000 when Mr. Doohan was 80.

When he first auditioned for the role of ship's engineer with Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, Mr. Doohan read the lines with a variety of accents, including French and German. "They both decided an engineer has got to be a Scotsman," Mr. Stevens recalled.

Mr. Doohan became so closely associated with his character that it was difficult for him to get other parts. But if he resented having taken a role that all but ended his acting career, he did not show it, said Walter Koenig, who played Ensign Pavel Chekov in the original television series and rode the lucrative convention circuit with him.

"He accepted it," he said. "He delighted in the attention."

Mr. Stevens, the agent, said that Mr. Doohan "loved the idea that he'd be in an airport and somebody from Kenya or some Middle Eastern country would come up and say, 'You're Scotty!' And he'd stop and take pictures." He even enjoyed the endless gantlet of conventions, Mr. Stevens said. "Some people might think, 'Ugh - the poor guy's got to sit and sign autographs.' He'd have done it for free."

Mr. Doohan influenced a generation of engineers, who saw him as role model. The Milwaukee School of Engineering awarded Mr. Doohan an honorary doctor of engineering degree in 1993 "after a survey of students revealed that a large number of respondents said the character Scotty's 'engineer' title piqued their interest in the field," said Kathleen McCann, a spokeswoman for the school. "He brought the field of engineering to the forefront of pop culture," she said in an e-mail response to questions.

When he attended a special James Doohan Farewell Star Trek Convention last summer, using a wheelchair but alert, one of the people who spoke at the ceremony was Neil Armstrong, the first person to actually walk on the soil of another world and a "Star Trek" fan. According to accounts of the event, Mr. Armstrong said he hoped his next command would be a Federation starship, and added "if I get that command, I want a chief engineering officer like Montgomery Scott."

Mr. Koenig said that the night before the event, he held a dinner in Mr. Doohan's honor. There were many tributes and many stories, Mr. Koenig recalled, "and a lot of laughs all around." Mr. Doohan - as always - basked in the attention and love.

Mr. Koenig said that at the end of the evening, as Mr. Doohan was being wheeled out, he slowed for a word. "He said it was nice, but it was a lot too long," he recalled with a laugh.

Mr. Doohan requested that his remains be shot into space, and his family has arranged through Space Services Inc., a Houston company that provides "memorial spaceflights" and which also sent the remains of Mr. Rodenberry and Timothy Leary into space in a 1997 flight.

Godspeed, Scotty
By Maureen Ryan Chicago Tribune staff reporter

Almost 40 years ago, a journeyman character actor took a role on a show about space travel.

Why is it that we all still remember the role played by James Doohan, a.k.a. "Star Trek's" Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, who passed away at age 85 on Wednesday?

It's not just because "Beam me up, Scotty," became a legendary pop-culture catch-phrase.

It's because we identified with the exuberant chief engineer that Doohan created. Scotty was the working stiff. He was not one of the exalted beings lording over the bridge of the Enterprise. No, he was the overworked guy in engineering, the sweaty, busy guy in charge of keeping the darn thing running.

Who hasn't been there? The boss says, "I need you to do this Herculean task now. In fact, I needed it yesterday. Why haven't you finished yet?"

And you nod your head and say, "Sure, no problem." Even as the sweat breaking out on your brow leaves the distinct impression that you really don't know how you're going to do whatever impossible job you've just agreed to do.

Not that the bigwigs see your sweat. They're off to the next Hugely Important Decision, the next crisis, the next alien babe.

You're left getting the ship underway again within an hour. Good thing you told the boss that you'd need three!

That's what a smart worker does -- give the boss a somewhat realistic idea of how long the job will take ("You'll have it on your desk in the morning!"), knowing that the boss'll want it sooner ("End of business today, got that?"). Even though you know that, if you really buckled down and got cracking, you could get it done by about 4:30 p.m. and still have time for a Starbucks break.

That's what Scotty represented -- the cunning intelligence of the grunt worker. Do the impossible enough times and your bosses will take it for granted. Scotty did the impossible time and again, and always tweaked things just a little bit so that he'd come out looking good.

But he wasn't devious or shiftless. The Enterprise was his first priority and his only love. Scotty was just a guy who, like us, had to figure out on the fly how to manage the expectations of the muckety-mucks.

"But Captain, she can't take it!" he'd yell in that Scottish burr of his, as Captain Kirk tried yet another crazy maneuver with Scotty's beloved ship.

But she could and did take it, because Scotty was there to fix the warp plasma manifolds or whatever and make it all run smoothly again.

It's the Scottys of this world who keep it running. And that's why we loved him. Because he was one of us.

Godspeed, Mr. Doohan. Thanks for doing that Scottish accent so well. Most of all, thanks for giving us working stiffs someone to root for.

Although FX is not HD, the quality programming keeps coming, some day we'll have the picture quality to match the programming,

From the San Francisco Chronicle, 07/20/05

TV's next great series is set in Iraq. And it's on FX. Change your regime.

Tim Goodman, Chronicle Television Critic

Over There: Drama. 10 p.m. Wednesday (starts July 27). FX.
BEVERLY HILLS -- It's probably too late to say that cable channel FX is in the midst of its coming-out party -- it already has three critically acclaimed dramas in "The Shield," "Rescue Me" and "Nip/Tuck." But it's not too soon to say that by next week, FX will have changed the playing field of cable television.

Not only is the channel premiering a fourth series that is aggressively daring -- an Iraq war drama called "Over There," which marks the first television series about a war that is currently ongoing -- but also two comedies one week later.

All of them are excellent.

If you're keeping track at home, that makes FX a ridiculously gaudy 6-for- 6 when it comes to original scripted programming, a feat with which only HBO can compare. (Add the unscripted series "30 Days" from "Super Size Me" director Morgan Spurlock, and this network is batting 1.000).

If "The Shield" put FX on the map, and "Nip/Tuck" and "Rescue Me" reinforced the notion that something serious was happening here, it could be "Over There" that takes this channel to a new level of viewer awareness.

Created by Steven Bochco ("NYPD Blue") and writer Chris Gerolmo ("Mississippi Burning"), "Over There" takes the battle in Iraq and makes it another kind of living-room war. FX has gone out of its way to make the series as nonpolitical as possible -- and succeeds at letting the war be a backdrop, not a statement. The real stories in "Over There" are the personal connections of the soldiers fighting it, how they change because of what they see or do, and how going to war affects their home lives.

Whereas "MASH" was set in Korea to avoid direct comparisons to Vietnam ("China Beach" tapped into Vietnam as well, much later), there was always a safe distance about the war at hand. "Over There" is about Iraq while we're in Iraq, which sets up all kinds of unknown scenarios -- the biggest among them being the question of whether Americans will watch a drama that is already playing out on newscasts and in newspapers every day.

Allowing for a change in the times and also its placement on a cable channel, "Over There" is decidedly more graphic and raw than anything preceding it. Gripping and intense (a hallmark of FX dramas), beautifully shot and pierced with wonderful dramatic turns, "Over There" establishes itself as television's next great series. No fall drama on any broadcast network next season can compare.

"Over There" begins with the war in Iraq well under way. It is, essentially, shot in the present tense. American troops are holding down the fort, so to speak, and all the tragedy and unpredictability of the situation as it plays out in daily headlines is fodder for the series.

Next Wednesday's pilot will give viewers a kind of jarring introduction to the show. A fresh bunch of Army recruits is seeing its first duty in Iraq. You're getting to know the characters at the same time they're getting to know each other, as they're trying to familiarize themselves with a foreign country and hostile situations. It doesn't take very long for "Over There" to create a shocking sense of disorientation, along with the adrenaline rush of danger. This is clearly a series for adults, by the way, so be forewarned.

Bochco and Gerolmo's idea is to drop viewers into battle without much backstory for the characters sets the mood. By the end of the first episode a clearer sense of who's who emerges through the dust and darkness. Chris "Sgt. Scream" Silas (Erik Palladino) has just spent a year in Iraq and is on the eve of returning, only to be told his stay is being extended and he'll have a bunch of newbies to lead. There's Frank "Dim" Dumphy (Luke Macfarlane), an intellectual Cornell grad who begins to internalize what he sees (and it doesn't take long for him to see it); Avery "Angel" King (Keith Robinson), who enlists in the Army when his dream of joining a professional choir fails; Maurice "Smoke" Williams (Kirk "Sticky" Jones), a life-long stoner who's distrustful of white soldiers, not to mention a new Arab American, Tariq Nassiri (Omid Abtahi), who joins the unit; and Bo Rider (Josh Henderson), the newest recruit, who has dreams of playing quarterback in college, using the GI bill to supplement is partial scholarship.

Since the war in Iraq also features female soldiers, we get Esmerelda "Doublewide" Del Rio (Lizette Carrion), a new mom called up to fight, leaving her husband to take care of the kid at home; and Brenda "Mrs. B" Mitchell (Nicki Aycox), the newest female recruit, whose paralyzing fear soon gives way to a whole new and decidedly more dangerous persona.

If "Over There" simply duplicated the horrors of roadside bombs and suicide missions, it would be little more than a dramatic interpretation of the news. What makes it work are the smaller story arcs: marriages and relationships falling apart or facing new woes; the uncertainty of each mission; boredom; the convoluted, ongoing and very dangerous game of friend-or- foe with the Iraqi people; and the seemingly minor but equally complex day-to- day interpersonal relationships with peers and superiors.

"Over There" wastes little time tackling the Iraq conflict -- the second and third episodes, about a dangerous roadblock and capturing a prisoner are even better than the pilot -- while deftly avoiding controversy by keeping overt politics out of the storyline.

Television is often, and erroneously, derided as being escapist, but you can count on a few channels to really dredge up and delve into complicated issues. FX is probably the most audacious in its approach. It tackled hero worship and the complex nature of post-Sept. 11 America in "Rescue Me" when no one else wanted to. It's one thing for a procedural drama like "Law & Order" to boast of "ripped from the headlines" stories; it's quite another to tackle a war as it rages on.

And while "Over There" is bound to get tons of ink, FX branches into the comedy arena in two weeks with bold and hilarious offerings that add immeasurably to the channel's importance.

"Starved" -- about eating disorders -- is wildly original and will likely draw love-it-or-hate-it reactions. "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is about three friends who own an Irish bar in Philly, but it somehow manages to veer twistedly into topics like racism, abortion, underage drinking, molestation, gun control, cancer and death.

Not exactly network fare.

Despite having three of television's finest series already in the stable, FX is not a basic cable destination for some people. That's no longer an acceptable excuse. You've got one week to find out where over there really is.

UPN 'Mars' lands on CBS

By JOSEF ADALIAN Variety.com

"Veronica Mars" is heading into CBS' orbit.

In a first for the Eye, net has apparently agreed to air four episodes of UPN's critically loved drama to expose the low-rated skein to more viewers. Warner Bros. TV-produced hour, from exec producers Joel Silver and Rob Thomas, snagged a second-season greenlight despite its Nielsen troubles.

Move marks the first time CBS will air programming from sister net UPN. A few years ago, UPN briefly ran repeats of CBS' "The Amazing Race."

Eye plans to air a double shot of "Mars" on July 29 from 8-10 p.m. Two more episodes will air Aug. 5 and 12 at 8 p.m.

Move is low risk for CBS and could have a big upside for UPN.

CBS won't have a regularly scheduled series in the Friday-at-8 slot until the fall, when "Ghost Whisperer" premieres. "Mars" will essentially give CBS three weeks of what, to most of its audience, will be firstrun fare.

UPN, meanwhile, gets to expose its signature returning drama to a much broader audience. Net has already been airing a repeat of the show's first season in its new 9 p.m. Wednesday night timeslot in advance of the "Mars" season-two premiere Sept. 21.

Key CBS affiliates were briefed on the plan before it was finalized, insiders said. Scheduling is expected to be announced today by UPN entertainment prexy Dawn Ostroff.

I'm excited about "Over There" and "Sleeper Cell".

(From Marc Berman’s Programming Insider column of Thursday July 21 2005 at Mediaweek.com)
LIVE FROM THE TCA SUMMER PRESS TOUR

CBS: Day Two

Since the relocation of Two and a Half Men to Monday at 9 p.m. is pivotal to the success of CBS next season, the network opened the day with a panel on the underrated comedy. Present were Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, Angus T. Jones, Holland Taylor, Marin Hinkle, Melanie Lynskey, executive producer Chuck Lorre, and my personal favorite, Conchata Ferrell, who I still fondly recall from short-lived 1975 classic, The Hot L Baltimore. One look at this affable bunch and it's obvious why Two and a Half Men is a hit. The chemistry is extraordinary, and there is every reason to believe it will keep the torch lit in a time period that was once home to I Love Lucy, The Danny Thomas Show, The Lucy Show, The Andy Griffith Show, Mayberry R.F.D., Here?s Lucy, Maude, All in the Family, MASH, Kate & Allie, Newhart, Murphy Brown, and Everybody Loves Raymond.

Since no discussion with Charlie Sheen is complete without some reference to his sordid past, here is what one brave member of the press asked him, followed by his response:

Question:
"Is playing the character of Charlie a little bit like a recovering alcoholic being a bartender? Do you ever feel like this was the good old days?"

Sheen:
"Nice analogy. I don't know if that's completely true because my personal life and my life around this character are so completely different that I have been grateful being able to leave this guy behind at work while I go back to a more responsible, mature existence."

As for what lies ahead for Two and a Half Men, expect more complicated stories for young co-star Angus T. Jones, more potential airtime for co-Emmy nominees Conchata Ferrell and Holland Taylor, and more potential sexual ambiguity for Marin Hinkle as uppity Judith. With Emmy Award nominations announced last week for both Conchata Ferrell and Holland Taylor for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, let's hope additional members of the cast and the show itself is recognized next season. Move over Will & Grace -- it's time that Emmy noticed what was really worth honoring.


On the CBS Panel Front:

THRESHOLD
Friday 9 p.m.

The Premise:
A government contingency analyst (Carla Gugino) hand-picks a team of experts after the U.S. Navy discovers that an extra terrestrial craft has landed in the mid-Atlantic ocean.

Lead-in: Ghost Whisperer

Competition: Hope & Faith/Hot Properties (ABC), Dateline (NBC), The Gate (Fox), WWE Smackdown! (UPN), Reba/Living With Fran (WB)

The Scoop:
What seems obvious apparently isn't to David Goyer. When asked why there is a glut of shows this fall dealing with science fiction elements, instead of stating the main reason -- ABC's successful Lost, of course -- here is what Goyer said:

"I think it's a reaction. There is a lot of global anxiety in the world right now. What recently happened in London and what's going on in Iraq and the West Bank. People are scared, and historically when people are scared and nervous there?s been an increase in science fantasy horror."

When asked about the future of Threshold, Goyer optimistically responded:

"We know how the first three seasons, plus seasons four through six, if we get that far, and the whole thing ends."

The Reality:
Considering the poor track record of any new show premiering amongst 30 some-odd other freshman series in a fall season, the ending might come sooner than anyone things. Although the pilot for Threshold was indeed worth watching, an unproven lead-in coupled with five other new scripted science fiction dramas (the most ever historically) may not bode well for the future of Threshold.

To give Threshold a better shot at success, flipping it with new drama Close To Home on Tuesday (where it would lead out of young skewing The Amazing Race) could be an advantageous counter-programming maneuver. Like lead-in Ghost Whisperer, the biggest obstacle Threshold faces is getting enough viewers to commit to a serious drama at the end of a long work week. While it certainly worked for CSI when it launched it Friday at 9 p.m. in 2000 out of a remake of The Fugitive (which was expected to work but didn't), Threshold is unfortunately not CSI, and too many other science fiction dramas does not make the show unique.

Chance of Survival for Threshold (Based on a scale of 1-1 to 10-1): 8-1

Did You Know?:
Carla Cugino's first regularly scheduled primetime series role was on CBS serial Falcon Crest from 1989-90.

CRIMINAL MINDS
Wednesday 9 p.m.

The Premise:
An elite squad of FBI profilers analyze the country's most twisted minds, anticipating their next move before they strike again. Leading the team is Mandy Patinkin as Special Agent John Gideon.

Lead-in: Yes, Dear

Competition: Lost (ABC), E-Ring (NBC), Head Cases (Fox), Veronica Mars (UPN), Related (WB)

The Scoop:
In the event you are wondering what will separate Criminal Minds from the countless other crime solving dramas, according to Jeff Davis:

"What interests me about this show is the fact that we are going to base it on real psychology. I haven't seen a show about criminal profilers yet that shows the most interesting things about it -- stuff like the homicidal triad, which is a pattern of behavior that these profilers have found in repeat offenders. There is so much interesting information that I have never seen specifically with this unit."

The Reality:
Considering CBS is already the home of CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Without A Trace, NCIS and Cold Case, did the network really need another crime solving drama? With four new scripted hours competing opposite ABC's relocated (and sure to dominate) Lost, the question to ponder is which, if any, will generate any interest. If the endless appetite for procedural dramas remains healthy, and it has shown no signs of slippage, the potentially riveting Criminal Minds has a solid shot. Only let's hope Mandy Patinkin does not bolt after one season like he did on Chicago Hope.

Chance of Survival for Criminal Minds (Based on a scale of 1-1 to 10-1): : 3-1

Did You Know?:
For the first time in the history of television, all six shows in the Wednesday 9 p.m. hour are scripted dramas.

MARTHA STEWART: BEHIND BARS
Time Period: Sunday, Sept. 25, 9 p.m. ET

The Premise:
Cybill Shepherd reprises her role as Martha Stewart in this new made-for movie that chronicles the downfall and subsequent reemergence of the tainted domestic diva.

The Scoop:
Never one to mince words, here's what Cybill Shepherd had to say about Martha Stewart when asked what Martha thought of the first movie:

"I have no idea, but I know if she came into this room right now, I might make a fast exit. She hasn't sent me any cookies or cakes and congratulations, so I have no clue what she thinks."

Added Shepherd when asked if Martha would be an intimidating figure for her to meet at this point:

"Actually, I think she would probably walk in here with a bouquet of flowers, come up to me, kneel beside my chair and say, 'Cybill Shepherd, I couldn't have ever had anyone play me better than you. Thank you for such an amazing portrayal.' That's what my fantasy is."

The Reality:
With interest in Martha at a probable all-time high, CBS is wise to kick-off its Sunday Movie with Martha Stewart: Behind Bars. Curiosity will likely begin to decrease once the dust settles on Martha's new syndicated talk show and The Apprentice: Martha Stewart in primetime. Although the competition will likely be the season premiere of ABC's Desperate Housewives, there is still room in the time period for a new made-for movie about Martha Stewart.

Did You Know?: Although there is talk about a Moonlighting theatrical with Cybill and Bruce Willis reprising their roles, according to Shepherd:

"After I said to Glenn Gordon Caron (creator of Moonlighting) that everyone wants us to do this movie he got a very pained expression on his face, and said, 'Cyb, I just -- I just don't know how to do it." I've heard that Bruce Willis would do it if Glenn could figure out a way, but that is probably not going to happen."

Chance of Cybill Shepherd Portraying Martha for a Third Time (Based on a scale of 1-1 to 10-1): 1-1


Press Tour Tidbits: Notes of Interest

King of Queens Fans, Take Note:
At an informal session with Kevin James and creative consultant Michael J. Wiethorn, the only expected change as the sitcom heads into season eight is the absence of Nicole Sullivan, who is headlining new ABC sitcom Hot Properties. According to Michael J. Weithorn:

"In terms of creativity, we are kind of just doing the same things. For better or for worse, this show has always been what it is. It's these three people in the house, and viewers seem to watch it and like it on that basis."

Upcoming on AMC:
AMC will debut three new series this September -- Movies That Shook the World, Movies 101 With Richard Brown, and Precinct Hollywood. Movies That Shook the World, which debuts on Sept. 9, will examine how movies like The Birth of a Nation, Fatal Attraction and The Graduate impacted society and culture. Movies 101 With Richard Brown, hosted by the world-renowned film scholar, will feature guests like Daniel Day Lewis, Kevin Kline, Whoopi Goldberg and Martin Scorsese. And Precinct Hollywood, which does not have a confirmed start date, will investigate movie cop stereotypes with guests in the caliber of Ray Liotta, Roy Scheider and William Friedkin.

Coming Up Tomorrow: UPN

Top 10 HD Non-Sports Shows
Viewpoint: Jacob Luft sportsillustrated.com

Some television programs just aren't made with HDTV in mind. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with Conan O'Brien come to mind. So does George Lopez. But that doesn't stop their respective networks from airing those shows in High Definition. Fortunately, there are at least 10 HD shows that are worth watching for those times when there is no ballgame on to satisfy our collective sports jones.

1. CSI (CBS): This show's writers have an annoying habit of subjecting us to splattered brains and guts at seemingly every turn. If you are the type of person who watches those surgery channels, then you have to check out CSI in HD.

2. Lost (ABC): It's an immersive show to begin with, but after a few minutes of watching it in HD you'll swear there's an invisible polar bear romping around your living room.

3. Desperate Housewives (ABC): OK, we admit the women of Wisteria Lane are a guilty pleasure for us, but the show is really well produced and getting to see Eva Longoria and Teri Hatcher in high def is hard to beat. Plus, your wife won't fight with you over the remote control if you want to watch it.

4. Deadwood (HBO): Fans of Westerns don't have to settle for grainy old John Wayne flicks. This show takes full advantage of its pay cable status, spewing more curse words than a typical Lou Piniella rant and enough violence and nudity to make Fred Durst blush.

5. 24 (FOX): By now we've seen Jack Bauer survive car crashes, plane crashes, nuclear explosions and torture sessions. No wonder the guy is so angry. At least in HD you can see the veins bulging out of his neck when he loses it.

6. Alias (ABC): From Baltimore to Beijing, you can see Jennifer Garner kick all kinds of ass in all kinds of costumes. Thankfully, her husband hasn't tried to ruin the show with his "acting."

7. Fat Actress (Showtime): Don't think you have to like Kirstie Alley to watch this show. In fact, it helps if you don't like her since most of the plots revolve around making fun the former Cheers starlet.

8. Las Vegas (NBC): Every episode ends the same way: James Caan beating up some poor schmuck the same way he clowned Connie's abusive husband in The Godfather. So why do we watch? The eye candy, of course. The cast features SI swimsuit model Molly Sims and Beverly Hills 90210 alum Vanessa Marcil -- and the dynamic duo of Josh Duhamel and James Lesure to keep the ladies happy.

9. Law & Order (NBC): NBC has more variations of this show than Willy Wonka has Oompa Loompas. First, you have your garden variety Law & Order. Then there's Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Law & Order: Trial By Jury. Surely a show can't bo popular we need to see executive in four different ways, can it? What's next, Law & Order: Kenny Rogers?

10. Battlestar Galactica (reruns): The Sci-Fi channel doesn't show the first-run episodes in HD, but an obscure channel named "UHD" does with the reruns. And please, don't assume this show is just for Dungeons & Dragons addicts with nothing better to do on Friday night. At least take a look at the dishy Number Six before passing judgment.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/jacob_luft/07/20/nonsports.shows/index.html

2005-06: The Season We Make Contact
By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Thursday, July 21

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., July 20--Paranormal series are plotting to take over the prime-time airwaves this fall.

CBS has "Threshold," starring Carla Gugino as a scientist who assembles a team of experts to figure out whether the extraterrestrial craft the U.S. Navy has discovered in the mid-Atlantic is the start of an alien invasion or a marketing campaign for a new James Cameron flick.

ABC's "Invasion" is about a hurricane that cuts off a town in the Everglades, where the park ranger's little daughter sees small lights seemingly unaffected by the mayhem and his wife is found wandering around naked, which may be a smoke screen for something far more ominous leading to a fight for survival of the human race, or just another family vying for its 15 minutes of fame on "Dr. Phil."

And NBC's "Surface" (formerly "Fathom") stars Lake Bell as an oceanographer who discovers a new form of sea creature that starts popping up all over the world, the babies being so cute that people take them home for their aquariums, which does not bode well for the pet goldfish.

What are the odds, we wondered, of three aliens-in-the-water series -- two of them featuring a bunch of geeky guys revolving around buxom-babe scientists -- being hatched at exactly the same time and right after ABC's tropical island paranormal series "Lost" became a hit?

On Wednesday at Summer TV Press Tour 2005, "Threshold" executive producer David Goyer sniffed at the connection, conceding only that the success of that series "didn't hurt." Which is just another way of saying:

"Do you know who I am -- I'm David Goyer, you idiot, I don't need no stinkin' 'Lost' to open the door for me at a TV network."

At the age of 22, when most people working in the entertainment industry were presidents of comedy development, Goyer was selling his first script, for an action flick that became the 1990 Jean-Claude Van Damme thriller "Death Warrant." But his really big break came a little later, when he wrote the script for "Blade," based on the Marvel comic about a vampire hunter and starring Wesley Snipes. Goyer also wrote and executive-produced "Blade 2" and wrote and directed "Blade: Trinity," which maybe he'd just as soon forget about, since that one wasn't on his bio. His status as a god among sci-fi geeks was sealed when he co-wrote "Batman Begins." He's now developing a film based on the DC Comics series "The Flash" and is producing a remake of "Soylent Green."

"For my money" (and I'm just betting he's got a lot of it), "it's a reaction -- there's a lot of anxiety in the world right now," Goyer said by way of explaining the incredible coincidence.

"What recently happened in London, what's going on in Iraq and the West Bank -- people are scared. Historically, when people have been scared and people have been nervous, there's been an uptick in science fantasy horror. It happened in the '50s with the Red Scare and the space race. . . . You're telling allegorical tales and shining a light back on society. . . . It's a way to talk about what's going on, but from a sideways angle."

That said, he admitted that four sci-fi series probably could not survive on the broadcast networks and forecast that only a couple would. Given that "Lost" is an established success and that Goyer no doubt thinks highly of his own project, that leaves the others out in the cold.

"Threshold," Goyer explained, is about many events that may or may not be perpetrated by aliens and examines the question "Why now?"

"One of the reasons why this may be happening now is because we've reached a place technologically, in terms of our civilization, where it's actually making it possible for the other entities to do what they're doing. They're going to be exploiting our cellular phone networks, our TV signals. They're going to be using our own technology against us. It's going to sort of spotlight how we are really quite vulnerable in ways we hadn't anticipated."

Plus, "Threshold" has a really cute dog. At some point during the show's development, Goyer decided it had to be a French bulldog.

"We had a hard time finding a French bulldog and the dog was actually quite flatulent," Goyer explained to critics.

"Why did it have to be a French bulldog?" asked one critic, speaking for the entire room.

"Because there's a certain element of whimsy involved. I just decided French bulldog and that was it," he said.

One critic, apparently a fan, wondered whether the dog would have special powers and help the characters "see beyond."

"The dog has special powers," Goyer said. "Episode 4, the dog starts talking."

The Actor, Boldly Going With the Flow
As Scotty, James Doohan Transported 'Star Trek' Fans

By Hank Stuever Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 21, 2005; C01

The real tribute to James "Scotty" Doohan, 39 light-years after he first saved the USS Enterprise's heinie (and did it many times over), is that it's now almost impossible to have a boyfriend or husband who can't do a somewhat reasonable impression of Doohan's famously stressed-out burr: "We've got nuh powrrrr, Cap'n!" Or "She cannuh take much moor."

Men say these things when copy machines are jammed. They say it about an overstuffed Diaper Genie, or a '91 Honda with an expired inspection sticker. The world is full of chief engineers, and oh, the things they could do, if they only had a wee more dilithium and a little more time. Ask your man right now to do some chore: He'll do it, but maybe not without some Scottytalk. (If you want to tick him off, ask him why he's doing Sean Connery.)

Doohan: Imagine a life where no matter where you go, someone is ready with a bad "Beam me up, Scotty!" joke. (It's the dork version of a "Hang in There, It's Almost Friday!" poster of a cat. Most "Star Trek" fans know that "Beam me up, Scotty" was never actually uttered; it's the "Play it again, Sam" of perpetual incorrectness.) Doohan wasn't really Scottish (he was mostly Irish, and by nationality Canadian), and he didn't much care for William Shatner. For decades, no "Star Trek" convention was complete without him, and when he appeared at his final con, last August in Hollywood, they sent him off with a day of tributes and a Walk of Fame star.

The actor died yesterday at 85 from pneumonia-related causes. (And he had Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's, diabetes and lung fibrosis, and suffered a heart attack 20 years ago -- too much, Cap'n!) Doohan was among the first of "Star Trek's" accidental icons to realize that it was better to embrace that universe than resist it. In 1972, just as the original (and abysmally rated) late-'60s television series was finding its own strange, new life form in syndicated reruns, Doohan started accepting speaking gigs on college campuses.

He had been upset after "Star Trek" was canceled (it was before Paramount Pictures started making movie sequels in 1979, seven of which he would co-star in) because no one in Hollywood would cast him in anything but Scottish roles, of which there weren't many.

"Star Trek," it seemed, had ruined him and the other cast members -- a weird accident of pop culture in which they could somehow be washed up and unforgettable.

But a new age was coming, one of comic books for grown-ups and limitless cult status for favorite characters. In this world, the mission of "Star Trek" never ended -- and Gilligan would always irritate and the Brady Bunch would never move.

In that world, there was no limit to the goodwill between actor and fans, and fetishization would set in for shiny objects (toys, costumes), relics (autographs, ephemera) and most of all, the chance to see and speak to and touch and hug the B-list actors who'd chanced into it all. Once the stars of "Star Trek" recognized their roles in this particular hereafter, their lives got happier, and so did ours.

Doohan would learn that it would be possible to turn Scotty on and off, in as many paid appearances per year as he could manage. In real life, this man had stormed the Normandy beaches on D-Day in the Royal Canadian Artillery -- and lost the middle finger of his right hand. He later somehow wound up doing radio dramas, then moved to Hollywood to act in bit parts, landing the "Trek" pilot at age 45, only to see the rest of his life overshadowed by a fictional spaceship engineer born in the year 2221. (That was 60 years after the formation of the Federation of Planets, don't ya know.)

As Doohan and other cast members navigated that murky area between their own lives and the fictional lives that fans so desperately wanted to connect to, an even stranger thing happened: "Star Trek" improved, got deeper, taught philosophy and diversity. Even the movie versions got briefly better -- the screenplay for "The Wrath of Khan" (1982) has an almost Hemingway tautness.

Doohan showed up for "Khan" more visibly aged and heavier than the rest of the cast, but no less game. He broke our hearts three times in that adventure, on a voyage that really took it out of poor Scotty: He weeps when his cadets die in a torpedo attack from Khan; he begs Spock not to sacrifice himself to save the Enterprise from certain cataclysm; and he gets out the bagpipes for "Amazing Grace" at Spock's burial-at-space ceremony. (Ask your boyfriend what he wants at his funeral: "Amazing Grace" on bagpipes, please. Space-torpedo coffin optional.)

In spite of a generation of derision from those who never quite understood it (or its devoted fans), "Star Trek" took on an aura of class, and Doohan reveled in it. The cultural phenomenon would, in a way, bring him his third wife (who'd waited, groupie-like with a friend, to meet him backstage at a play he was doing in San Francisco), a marriage that lasted 30 years, until his death.

Doohan was Scotty; Scotty was Doohan, and an archetypal employee/colleague/friend was given a name: Scotty is the person in your office who swears that a project cannot possibly get done by deadline, then somehow pulls it out at the last minute. His favorite words: can't, won't, need more, impossible, losing power, can't, won't, overloaded, no way.

You have to let the Scottys blow off steam, and you have to remember what they always say in the end: Aye, aye, sir.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Melanie McFarland The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Television Critic
Social Progress in TV Land, Pt. II

I could tell other tales of cluelessness here, but this is a happy, sunshiny destination, this blog.

And honestly, we've spent 10 straight days hearing actors discuss the process and wax poetic about challenges and journeys. We've pressed the flesh with producers and handlers. It's been swell.

But all that many of us want to do is go home, ease into the butt grooves we've worked into our couches next to the spouses and partners we've abandoned, sip a perfectly mixed cocktail, and take in "The Daily Show."

Given the circumstances, I'm impressed that anyone can come up with questions to ask these folks. In a room filled with cranky peers, no less.

Besides, you want a limited view of the universe? Talk to a few Hollywood producers.

Here's a perfect example from the same "Threshold" panel, brought to us by executive producer David Goyer (see previous item).

Scanning the cast, we noticed the only dame on deck is Carla Gugino, who stars as Dr. Molly Anne Caffrey. Maybe that's not so unusual, since the show is about a secret government operation enacted to thwart what looks like an alien invasion. Sounds very science fiction and, therefore, manly.

But women make up more than half of the viewing audience. If a show is going to succeed Friday nights at 9, it has to court the ladies.

With this in mind, an observant colleague asked if there was a reason that none of the supergeeks aiding Dr. Caffrey is a woman.

"There aren't any supergeeks that are women," responded Goyer. "We thought it was kind of cool, that dynamic...We kind of liked Molly walking into a room of men. And it's typically kind of more of a man's world."

Way to sell that Friday night timeslot.

Social Progress in TV Land, Pt. I
Some people imagine that spending all day with scores of television critics would be intellectually stimulating.

Yeah. I laughed out loud at that notion, too.

Remember, while other people are working in labs, creating great works of art, even enriching themselves by reading a "Doonesbury" collection, we are watching television. Some people can quote Nietzsche; we quote Peter Griffin. Most of our debates surround whether or not Neal Carlson, the latest guy to be eliminated from "Rock Star: INXS," was robbed. You get what I'm saying?

What we lack in worldliness, though, we make up for with an insatiable curiosity. Sometimes that's not exactly a plus. Like, say, when Peter Dinklage, co-star of "Threshold," took the stage today. Dinklage is a stupendous actor who made a name for himself in "The Station Agent." His "Threshold" character is a linguistics and mathematical genius.

Dinklage also happens to be a dwarf, which isn't integral to his character's profile. But damn it all, somebody had bring it up. "You're in this wonderful position now where...you're getting lots of roles that have nothing to do with your height, and you're getting some roles that do, and you're getting all kinds of things...When did you get the first breakthrough, where you started to get roles unrelated to your size?"

"What do you mean, my size?" Dinklage replied, wearing a deadly serious face. "The size of...oh, oh."

To the actor's credit, he didn't smile or allow himself to be condescended to, even in a benign setting. He kept his cool, and proceeded to politely and subtlely jab at the questioner with his words.

"If you surround yourself with intelligent people" -- emphasis is mine -- "you're not constantly reminded about your size," he said, obviously knowing the room to which he was playing. "People of my persuasion are doctors and lawyers, and --" he adopted a theatrically creepy tone -- "we're all over the world! Now there's an alien invasion show of a different nature."

"So," Dinklage concluded, "here's just a character who happens to be a dwarf like myself, and...you're not constantly being reminded, nor should you be, because there I am. I am that size, and it's addressed just being there."

Good for him.

By Hank Stuever Washington Post Staff Writer

Doohan...broke our hearts three times in that adventure, on a voyage that really took it out of poor Scotty: He weeps when his cadets die in a torpedo attack from Khan;Just for the record (and to expose my Trekkie-ness), the cadet was also Scotty's nephew.

Xesdeeni

Sedgwick energizes 'Closer'
By Dusty Saunders Rocky Mountain News July 21, 2005

HOLLYWOOD - Kyra Sedgwick clapped her hands with the enthusiasm of a teenager.

"Hey listen! I was asked to be on the cover of Playboy.

"Can you imagine? I mean, at 39, with two almost–grown kids. It's like, wow! That was awesome.

"My agent said I shouldn't do it. I'm 39. And I'm ready to enjoy the fruits of labor. But right now we're just in the labor."

And it's a labor of love.

The Closer, Sedgwick's TNT series (and it is her series) could become the most popular drama ever produced on a cable network.

The June 13 premier of The Closer was viewed by more than 7 million viewers, making it basic cable's most-watched original scripted drama hour ever.

After the second episode was aired June 20, TNT renewed the series for a second season.

On the surface, The Closer might look like a typical cop show.

But TV's typical cop shows seldom have had a character like Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson, a CIA-trained Atlanta detective who has a reputation for extracting confessions from criminals with her offbeat interrogation style.

She closes them out.

Brenda has brought her Southern drawl and wardrobe to Los Angeles where she heads a unit that investigates high-profile murder cases.

Such a description doesn't fully describe the impact Sedgwick's character makes on the screen.

Brenda is funny, sexy, vulnerable, disorganized in her private life and socially awkward at times.

A closet snacker of sweets, she owns one of the most unstylish wardrobes ever worn by a television heroine.

Will her wardrobe ever improve?

"I hope not," Sedgwick says. "It's important to me that we stay true to who Brenda is.

"I don't want her to go Hollywood. I want people to be able to relate to her.

"But above all, Brenda is a woman who is hugely talented in her job."

While Brenda was created by executive producer-writer James Duff, Sedgwick injected the flesh and blood into a character that could have been a traditional cardboard cop.

"I love that Brenda uses her Southernness and her femininity to disarm people," Sedgwick says.

"I was able to get in touch with my character.

"While I'm from New York, I've played a lot of Southern women and have done research about the South.

"I've stayed in Georgia quite a bit while filming Something to Talk About and other projects. And I've worked with a dialect coach."

At 39, Sedgwick is not a late-blooming actress, having been featured in several TV projects.

She's also won critical acclaim for feature-film work, including The Woodsman and Personal Velocity, both Sundance Festival favorites.

Her stage credits included New York productions of Twelfth Night and Ah! Wilderness. And she won a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for her performance in David Mamet's Oleanna.

But The Closer, after only six weeks on the air, has given her a profile she has never found in film or on stage.

Like most TV cop dramas, The Closer features a huge ensemble cast, including veteran actors like G.W. Bailey (M*A*S*H), who portrays a grumpy, lazy detective who resents Brenda's presence in the squad room.

Bailey recalls his meeting with Sedgwick after it was announced The Closer was being renewed for a second season.

"I was leaving the location set and Kyra was in her dressing trailer, getting packed up to go.

"I went in and told her 'Thank you.'

"I did the last 3 1/2 years of M*A*S*H and that show ended in 1982.

"I have waited 23 years to be in something this good and this much fun."

Four new CBS shows look good for fall, including cool comedy

By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle Thursday, July 21, 2005
Beverly Hills -- For the past few years CBS has dominated pretty much every TV category except for the 18-34 demo -- you know, the one that brings in all the cash. But never mind that. It had fully resurrected itself, almost single- handedly crushed rival NBC (stealing Thursday nights in the process) and generally went about business as broadcast television's biggest deal.

Then last season ABC went out and got itself two huge hits in "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost," gaining a tidy uptick in viewers, drowning itself in ink and, even more damning, stealing the water cooler. See, you get that mythical water cooler to yourself, it doesn't matter where you finish. But ABC did not, despite those impressive gains, topple CBS.

Still, people will talk. And despite a curiously pointless foray into 500 questions about why "Joan of Arcadia" failed (doesn't matter why -- it's dead, over, move on), it fell to Nina Tassler, CBS' relatively new entertainment president, to answer a bevy of questions about how "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" changed the landscape of television, etc., etc., etc. And when that abated, Tassler was asked whether "Everybody Hates Chris," the buzz-generating comedy that is on CBS' sister network, UPN, might be something CBS could poach if it's a hit.

At least at this press tour -- where she was facing critics solo, without puppet master Les Moonves at her side -- Tassler was circumspect. Maybe next year, when CBS is again dominant, she can lash out: "Listen, you moron, we don't take anybody's sloppy seconds, and our shows are not so shabby either. Now let's focus it right here or we take the doughnuts away."

Probably won't. But should.

Here's your CBS state-of-the-network update:

Overview: This is a network that is (broken-record sentence coming up), playing from a position of strength. CBS' schedule is solid. A good development season -- and this was a good one -- should keep it on top.

Network leadership and tendencies: Moonves, president and chief executive of CBS, is one of the most powerful people in all of television. He lives to crush his competitors. Tassler is relatively new as the entertainment president, but is highly regarded. CBS relies on dramas. It loves police procedurals. In the fall, it doesn't dabble in much cheesy reality, preferring franchise hits like "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race." Its comedies, while mostly formulaic, are generally well done if not enthrallingly funny.

What works for the fall: TiVo alert! CBS has a new sitcom that's funny enough for cool people to record. It's called "How I Met Your Mother" and airs Mondays in the safe slot at 8:30 p.m. between "King of Queens" and "Two and a Half Men." Even better, the network is rolling out four new dramas, three of which are very good. "Closer to Home" (Tuesdays, 10 p.m.) is about a prosecutor who gets at the heart of the suburban underbelly (watch it, Orinda! ); "Criminal Minds" (Wednesdays, 9 p.m.) is another special-unit profiler thing, but it's really good; and "Threshold" (Fridays, 9 p.m.), is one of 268 new paranormal-sci-fi-please-be-"Lost" series, but this one actually has grand potential.

What doesn't work for the fall: "Out of Practice," a sitcom about a family of doctors, will probably appeal to people who like traditional, inoffensive, laugh-track-heavy comedies. This may even be a hit. Not bad, but not funny. Much, much funnier is the new drama "Ghost Whisperer," with Jennifer Love Hewitt, who talks to dead people. It's painful to watch, burdened with cliches, and they've given Hewitt some horrendously bad hair and emphasized -- to the point of absurdity -- her breasts in nearly every scene. That distracts you from the dialogue for only a moment. And this is an hour long.

What it all means for you: Decisions. There are four worthy shows from CBS this fall. At the very least you need to watch "How I Met Your Mother" and "Threshold." The first is probably better than Fox's "Kitchen Confidential," but depending on taste, it could split viewers. "Threshold" has no real competition, but lead-in "Ghost Whisperer" will be doing it no favors.

Extras: Look for new characters on most CBS dramas. The network is changing the look -- think brighter light, "ripped from the headlines" story lines and, of all things, humor -- on "CSI: NY."

There will be a first-ever family-team edition of "The Amazing Race."

CBS is planning a miniseries on the late Pope John Paul II. Tassler called it "a papal page-turner." Hmmmm.

It also has a movie called "Martha Stewart Behind Bars." As a reminder, Martha Stewart's new "Apprentice" show is not on CBS -- it's on NBC.

The Wednesday ratings are delayed.

I'll post 'em when I get 'em.

While we're waiting for the ratings ...

FCC Website: Two Stations Approved For Early Analog Shutdown
New York station seeks to follow

Written and posted by dline


It looks like a couple of small, noncommercial stations will be able to shut off their analog signals early -- and a commercial station on Long Island in New York state is seeking to follow suit.

The FCC gave KWDK in Tacoma, WA, and WACX in Leesburg, FL, the go-ahead to give up analog channels 56 and 55, respectively, and broadcast in digital only, according to the commission's website. The Channel 55 spectrum is licensed nationwide to Qualcomm, which wants to use it to start up a "mediacast" service for mobile phones.

Both stations argued that ending its analog service would have an "imperceptible" impact on viewers because of locally high cable penetration rate, relatively low ratings, and the existence of another noncommercial station in the market.

In documents released Wednesday, the FCC said it expects both stations to supply cable systems with digital-to-analog conversion equipment, so that analog cable viewers can continue to watch the stations. And it expects WACX-DT, which is currently operating at reduced power under a Special Temporary Authority, to go full power before WACX analog is shut off.

Also Wednesday, the FCC Media Bureau announced that it received a request from WLNY, licensed to Riverhead on New York's Long Island, to shut off its analog channel 55.

LINKS:
- KWDK notice: .pdf (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-05-2041A1.pdf) text (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-05-2041A1.txt)
- WACX notice: .pdf (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-05-2042A1.pdf) text (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-05-2042A1.txt)
- Notice of WLNY request: .pdf (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-05-2040A1.pdf) text (http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-05-2040A1.txt)

Wednesday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Good post dline.

Isn't Qualcomm "helping" stations through the transition when they voluntarily give up their frequencies earlier than required?

SBC’s EchoStar Sales Crumble

By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable

After bragging mightily about its partnership to bundle EchoStar’s DBS service with its telephone products, SBC has dramatically scaled back efforts to sell the satellite service. SBC had cut an intricate partnership with EchoStar’s Dish Network, carefully integrating the sales and customer service functions into its own operation. The goal aimed to counter cable operators’ bundling of new phone services with their existing video products.

But for the second quarter ended June, SBC added just 10,000 new Dish customers. That’s far less than the 65,000 analysts had expected, and the 70,000-100,000 SBC had been adding in recent quarters. The plunge prompted UBS media analyst Aryeh Bourkoff to issue a note on EchoStar to clients titled: “Is The Partnership Over?”

Rick Linder, CFO of the telco, said the company has scaled back in advance of its planned Lightspeed video service. Lightspeed aims to offer cable-like video services over SBC’s existing phone lines.

SBC had said earlier that it was refocusing marketing efforts on cities where cable phone service was particularly strong. But executives gave no hint that they were scaling back to the point where their sales would drop 85% in three months.

“We pulled back in marketing areas that have Lightspeed products coming and we are trying to
target Dish in some areas really more from a defensive standpoint,” Linder said during Thursday’s earnings call.

SBC had accounted for as much as 12% of EchoStar’s growth, so the slowdown will hurt the satellite company.

Snappy 'Think You Can Dance' debut

Fox show has summer's second-best bow in 18-49s

medialifemagazine.com--Dancing is certainly the hot thing this summer, no matter what network it's on.

First ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" was a big summer hit. And then last night Fox's new series "So You Think You Can Dance" became the summer's second-highest-rated premiere among adults 18-49.

According to Nielsen overnights, "Dance" averaged a 4.4 rating for its two-hour debut.

“Dance,” which comes from the producers of "American Idol," actually outperformed the 4.2 overnight rating “Dancing with the Stars” earned for its premiere last month. “Dance” grew in each half hour, starting with a 3.4 rating from 8-8:30 p.m. and ending with a 5.3 from 9:30-10 p.m., an increase of 56 percent.

If the ratings hold when final numbers are released later today, “Dance” would be the summer’s second-best series premiere behind a 4.7 by NBC’s “Hit Me Baby One More Time.”

According to Fox, “Dance” was its highest-rated new show premiere in more than 2 years, since “American Juniors” in June 2003, giving the network its highest-rated summer Wednesday among 18-49s since September 2002.

Cable Operators Rush Services To Keep Edge

By PETER GRANT Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL July 21, 2005; Page B1

Cable company executives scoff these days when phone companies and other new competitors boast that the television services they are launching will be better than cable, thanks to cutting-edge Internet technology.

But cable operators also aren't taking any chances. They are accelerating the development of technology that they say will enable them to stay ahead of any new content or features the new entrants can offer.

For example, Comcast Corp., Time Warner Inc.'s cable division and Cox Communications Inc. are all moving quickly to develop a new "switched" way of transmitting signals to customers' sets that greatly increases the selection of channels and other features they can offer. This new method, which transmits only the program viewers are watching to the home, would allow a cable operator to offer more high-definition TV, video-on-demand or new channels, for example.

"We're playing offense, not defense when competing against the Bells," says Brian Roberts, chief executive of Comcast, the country's largest cable operator with over 21 million subscribers.

The technological arms race is further evidence that television is entering a new content- and feature-rich era. Early signs of this transition were the introduction of TiVo and other digital video recorders and video-on-demand services that enable viewers to watch shows whenever they want.

But many more new products and services are in the works by businesses using Internet technology to combine the functions of TVs, computers, the Internet and telephones. Cable has to make sure it doesn't get leapfrogged. "This is about totally changing this industry," says Lea Ann Champion, senior vice president of phone giant SBC Communications Inc.

Internet technology poses a challenge to cable primarily because it raises the possibility of virtually unlimited television content. The TV service that telephone companies like SBC Communications plan to offer will transmit channels the way Web pages are transmitted off the Internet; only those requested will be beamed to the set. Advocates of this approach talk of a day of massive amounts of content appealing to niche markets, like programs in numerous foreign languages and archived episodes of "My Mother, the Car."

Cable systems, by contrast, typically transmit every channel they offer at once to every subscriber. The cable box, often built into the TV, acts as a filter to select which of the channels from this stream is seen on the set. If a certain channel isn't part of the cable company's feed, the customer can't get it. Current technology limits this stream to about 400 channels, depending on how many are high-definition.

Internet technology, meantime, also promises to make it easier to combine features of the Internet and television, giving viewers the ability to, say, record shows on their home digital video recorders by clicking on a Web browser in their office.

The other threat to cable from the Internet comes from companies ranging from giants like Microsoft Corp. to start-ups like Akimbo Systems Inc. that are enabling consumers with high-speed Internet connections to download content off the Web onto computers or set-top boxes connected to their TVs. Here too, the amount of possible content is nearly unlimited. Computers with Microsoft's Media Center software, for example, can show thousands of online movies on a TV screen from such online sources as Movielink and CinemaNow. Late last year, Akimbo began selling a set-top box with an Internet hookup that offers TV content from 125 providers in 50 categories, including video Web logs, or blogs.

So far, consumer response to these download services has been lukewarm, partly because viewers haven't been bowled over by the quality of the content. But demand might pick up as more players start moving additional content from the Web to the TV, notably TiVo Inc.; a venture of SBC and satellite-TV company EchoStar Communications Corp.; and start-ups DaveTV and Brightcove Networks Inc.

Until recently, the cable industry has had the reputation of being a technological laggard. Satellite rivals were the first to introduce a wide range of products, including digital channels, high-definition programming and digital-video recorders.

But lately, as competition has intensified, the cable industry has become more innovative. Cable operators have sunk tens of billions into upgrades and were much faster than phone companies, for example, in launching high-speed Internet connections, which has turned into a huge business. Most major cable companies now are launching phone service, using Internet technology similar to what many phone companies are using to get into TV.

To compete against satellite and prepare for the onslaught of Internet-based video content, cable operators have been rolling out their own form of "mass niche" content by using video-on-demand technology. Major companies like Comcast and Time Warner are making available thousands of hours of programs and movies that are stored in cable facilities and can be watched at any time.

"If consumers show an appetite for tens of thousands of hours more, we can match that," says Kevin Leddy, a Time Warner Cable senior vice president for strategy and development. "If people want to see 'My Mother, the Car' we'll put it on our video-on-demand servers and they'll watch it."

Phone company executives point out that cable is technologically challenged because about 65% of cable subscribers still take analog service. To have access to video on demand and other advanced services, they have to pay about $10 to $15 more each month to get digital cable. "It's an albatross around their neck," says Michael Coe, an SBC spokesman.

Part of cable's strategy is to making digital services more appealing. For example, Comcast is introducing a low-cost set-top box that enables it to sell a cheaper tier of digital service for only a few dollars extra. Most companies also are taking steps to phase out analog, although that process will take years.

Meantime, cable operators have also started to test Internet technology for delivering video. Time Warner Cable's San Diego division is using it to send its TV lineup to the computers of customers who also get Time Warner's high-speed Internet service. Depending on the outcome of the trial, Time Warner may expand its use of the technology to other cities and for other applications. "We're learning about [Internet technology's] capabilities and limitations ahead of anyone else," says Peter Stern, executive vice president of Time Warner Cable. "If there's anything new it can do, we'll know and we'll do it ourselves."

While most cable systems today have limited capacity to add more channels, operators say that with switched transmission and other new technology they can supplement their content quickly if new competitors start luring away subscribers. "What can they offer with [Internet technology] that we can't?" asks Steve Necessary, a vice president of product development at Cox. "The answer is fundamentally nothing."

'WIVES' RETURN FOR A BURIAL
By DON KAPLAN New York Post

THE women of "Desperate Housewives" returned to work this week — just in time for a funeral.

It is believed that the service was for Rex Van De Camp (Steven Culp), who appears to have only lasted through the show's whirlwind first season before dying of a heart attack under mysterious circumstances in the finale last spring.

"There was so much laughter at that funeral it was hardly a funeral," executive producer/writer Tom Spezialy says, promising "plenty of wickedness" in the season ahead — but declining to confirm that it was Rex being buried.

Sporting a trophy case full of Golden Globes and Emmy nominations, the drama/comedy that parodies life in the 'burbs returns to ABC with new episodes this fall.

"For the cast and crew it was like coming back from camp — they all gathered and compared tan lines, storylines and nominations," he says.

This week was the first of many for the show's newest characters, Betty Applewhite (Alfre Woodard) and her son Matthew (Mehcad Brooks).

"She's fantastic and really approachable, but I think people [on the set] are so in awe of her that they don't necessarily approach her," says Spezialy of Woodard. "We all have this same reaction; we're all so star-struck and she's so gracious and humble and going, 'Why are you all so afraid of me?' "

Woodard, who appeared briefly on the show at the end of last season, says she is suddenly being noticed everywhere she goes.

College roommates now rivals on fall TV schedule

By Gail Shister Philadelphia Inquirer TV Columnist

LOS ANGELES - Twenty-seven years ago, they were college roomies. Now they're both presidents.

Geena Davis, who plays the first female president in ABC's new fall drama Commander in Chief, and CBS Entertainment boss Nina Tassler were roommates their senior year at Boston University and are still best buds.

"We kid each other that had we known we'd both be presidents, we would have bought a nice piece of property somewhere," Tassler says in an interview at the TV critics' summer meetings here.

Visually, the two are mismatched: Davis, a 6-footer, towers more than 12 inches above Tassler. They met as freshmen and called themselves "Neener and Geener." (Take that, Thelma and Louise.)

Davis "had a modeling portfolio done before she graduated" in '79, says Tassler, named CBS's entertainment president in September. "None of us had put 2 and 2 together yet. She was one step ahead of everybody else."

Tassler was a bridesmaid at Davis' last two weddings, to her present husband, surgeon Reza Jarrany in '01, and to director Renny Harlin in '93. (Davis has been married four times; Tassler, once, to her BU sweetheart.)

Now Neener and Geener are suddenly competitors, with Davis' Commander to go head-to-head with CBS's hit The Amazing Race at 9 p.m. Tuesdays.

"I love Geena. I wish her tremendous success," Tassler says. "She's an immensely talented, beautiful, gifted woman."

Commander was already in development at ABC when Oscar-nominee Davis was offered the role. Had the show been pitched to Tassler at CBS, would it have presented a conflict of interest? "Maybe of the heart, but I can handle that," she says.

It wouldn't be the first time. Tassler canceled the sitcom Listen Up last season, even though its star, Jason Alexander, is a BU drama buddy. (Lucky for Tassler that yet another member of that group, Oscar-nominee Julianne Moore, doesn't do TV.)

Tassler says she could envision Davis in the Oval Office in real life.

"She's a multitasker and an unbelievable diplomat. She's able to see things from different angles. She's not afraid to make a decision, and she's passionate about her convictions."

Tassler is equally passionate about hers. One example: She'll celebrate her bat mitzvah in April - 35 years after most girls and boys experience the Jewish coming-of-age ritual.

Tassler says she had an epiphany about 18 months ago after enrolling her 6-year-old daughter in Hebrew school at her synagogue.

"I walked out to the parking lot, sat there quietly for a moment, and had this emptiness inside of myself. I walked right into the rabbi's office and signed up for classes." She will be bat mitzvahed with a group of other adults.

"It's been one of the greatest experiences of my life," Tassler says. "For me, part of being a Jew is learning to read Hebrew and feeling that connection with the millions of Jews before me who read the same language and say the same prayers and share the same rituals."

DVRs On the Rise (But HD Lagging?)

By Joel Meyer Broadcasting & Cable

A report released Thursday says nearly half of U.S. homes will have a digital video recorder in five years, with cable DVRs expected to overtake their satellite counterparts.

At the end of last year, 7 million households had a DVR. By 2010, that number should climb to 55 million, or 47% of all households, according to market research firm JupiterResearch’s report on digital television. (At the moment, DVR penetration stands at about 12%.)

While TV networks and advertisers are nervous about the impact of DVRs, satellite and cable operators stand to benefit from increased deployment in the next two of three years, says JupiterResearch’s Todd Chanko, the lead analyst on the report.

"Cable multiple system operators appreciate the DVR as a key customer-acquisition tool and revenue driver while the two satellite operators see ever-more-robust DVRs as their answer to video-on-demand,” Chanko said in a release.

The report also predicted that cable DVR homes would surpass satellite DVR homes in 2007, despite satellite’s current lead in deployment.

The number of homes receiving and watching HDTV will increase from 10 million in 2005 to 69 million by 2010, the report states—hinting that current HD production will not meet future demand.

"Television networks and pay-TV operators alike are unsure of consumer demand for HDTV," Chanko said. "Behind closed doors, the executives are still measuring the real costs to produce and distribute HDTV against the benefits. That's why there are only 26 hours of HDTV programming a day across seven broadcast networks - and almost half of those hours are supplied by PBS."

Remember that NY Times story a few days ago (“The Whisperer?)
Well, it certainly hinted at what was about to happen....

Lassally Gets Late, Late Helm
By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable

Venerable late-night producer Peter Lassally, who fought for Craig Ferguson to be hired as host of The Late Late Show and has, in essence, been running the show since Ferguson took over, is formally taking over the role of executive producer in a shakeup by Worldwide Pants.

As part of the move, the contract of Executive Producer Todd Yasui was not renewed by David Letterman’s production company, which has hired former Tonight Show executive producer Gary Considine as co-executive producer.

A former NBC executive who has also produced other late night fare as well as Access Hollywood, Considine was executive producer of The Tonight Show from 1992-2002.

In addition, Mike Armstrong has replaced Hugh Fink as head writer. Armstrong has been on the show as head writer for “a few weeks now,” according to a source close to the show.

Fink departed to launch the Showbiz Show with David Spade on Comedy Central, exercising an existing clause in his contract stating that he could leave if the Spade show ever got a green light.

Lassally, who has been overseeing the show on a daily basis in his role as senior VP/West Coast for Worldwide Pants, will keep the title with the company.

Considered the dean of late-night producers after having produced both Johnny Carson and David Letterman, Lassally led the search for a replacement for Craig Kilborn, who left the show in 2004.

Since Ferguson began, Lassally has been working behind the scenes to bring the former actor along in his first hosting role.

Among tweaks Lassally has made in the show’s first six months were replacing Ferguson’s joke-peppered monologue of jokes with a more story-telling style in which he waxes on experiences and people in his day-to-day life.

What were the circumstances of Craig Kilborn's departure? Some of the stand-in hosts made allusions to personal (substance) problems? Anything truthfully gossipable?

I think it was more simple: a contract dispute.

But I could be wrong.

Shamless plug (I try to limit myself to one a week or so) :)

There is an entire thread devoted to UPN's HD schedule starting in September. It was posted a little earlier today.

But as most of you know -- I hope you do, anyway! -- the UPN HD schedule (and those of the other networks) has been posted for some time now in the ever-updated first post of this thread. I work hard to keep that first thread up-to-date, so if you have a scheduling question, check it out. All the 2005-2006 network schedules, updated continuously, are in that top post.)

(To return to UPN momentarily, of course for those of us in LA, NYC and many other major markets, the UPN stations don't broadcast in HD. But I guess it will help down the road when the Veronica Mars HD DVDs are released.)

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Melanie McFarland The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Television Critic

UPN and the satellites around "Mars"
The greatest proof of UPN's upward trend is that critics showed up to the executive session.

Seriously. A few people admitted to me that UPN's presentation day used to be when they'd hit the golf links. I don't blame them. Think about it -- a day on the green versus a panel for "Homeboys in Outer Space." Hmm, that's a toughie.

Good thing they stuck around, because network president Dawn Ostroff was in fine form, giving up the dirt about what is expected to be two of fall TV's must-watch shows. That would be Chris Rock's sitcom "Everybody Hates Chris," and the second season of critical love lump "Veronica Mars," which moves to the post-"America's Next Top Model" slot at 9 p.m. Wednesdays. "Top Model" and "Veronica" premiere on September 21.

Since the "Chris" session was the must-see event of the day, we'll let that speak for itself when we can get to it. Besides, the only major news Ostroff had to share about "Chris" was that she refuses to let CBS's Les Moonves and Nina Tassler swipe it for UPN's sister network if it takes off.

"We are not a farm system for CBS," she stated.

That may be. But when CBS gives UPN an opportunity for additional exposure, you can bet Ostroff's going to jump at it. Exhibit A: Four episodes from "Veronica's" first season are going to air on CBS (KIRO/7). The first two will run next Friday, July 29, between 8 and 10 p.m., followed by single episodes on Aug. 5 at 8, and at the same time on Aug. 12.

Lots of gossip has been circulating about "Veronica" this summer, leading fans to fear for its direction. Ostroff did her best to downplay the rumors that the network has been meddling with creator Rob Thomas and the rest of his team, pressuring them to make cast changes in order to appeal to a larger audience.

The only thing she admitted to doing was ensuring that Thomas dreams up a new mystery for this season. "The tone will absolutely stay the same," she said, aside from the addition of new characters.

UPN already has announced that Charisma Carpenter is joining the cast for at least six episodes next season, making her the second "Buffy" alumnus to show up on the series. (Alyson Hannigan had a guest-starring role last year.) Carpenter plays a trophy wife, a nice ode to Cordelia Chase. Steve Guttenberg also hits Neptune for seven episodes.

Then Ostroff dropped a few more breadcrumbs for fans ...

-- Recent "Top Model" winner Naima Mora appears in the season premiere.

-- Having lived through last year's traumas, Veronica (the outstanding Kristen Bell) is going to come to the conclusion that she's better off leaving detective work to her dad, and tries to be a regular teen girl. Sure. That'll last. On a side note, Bell is in the midst of filming the remake of "Pulse" for The Weinstein Co.

-- The writers are giving Wallace (Percy Daggs III) a girlfriend.

-- Veronica's father, Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni), will be asked to run for sheriff again.

As for the fears about a key player getting offed soon after the second season premiere, Ostroff wouldn't comment. And forget about finding out who was at the door in the last scene of May's finale.

Regarding that other UPN show people care about, Ostroff said Janice Dickinson will, indeed, rear her evil, plastic head next season. The only thing Ostroff would say is that she is going to appear in the show "in a different way."

What is she going to do, hunt down Twiggy and eat her? Nah. Too many calories.

UPN has two more series premiering this fall. But "Love, Inc." fired co-star Shannen Doherty -- oh, I'm sorry, not fired, but "went in another direction" without her. However you want to put it, producers haven't recast her role.

During the relatively dull "Love, Inc." session this morning, Holly Robinson Peete assured us that the actress in question would be "of the Caucasian persuasion." Hopefully she will love, love, love her in the same way she professed to love, love, love Doherty, who has a reputation for being tough to work with.

The second is a drama called "Sex, Love & Secrets," which used to be called "Sex, Lies & Secrets." I can think of many other things to call it, but none would be suitable for a newspaper. Wait, here's one. What about "Axed"? Short, sweet, and to the point.

But we'll suffer through its afternoon panel anyway.

"That's why there are only 26 hours of HDTV programming a day across seven broadcast networks..."

This is a bit misleading.

Network programming doesn't air all day, and some days not at all on WB and UPN. Most primetime SD shows are news, reality, and animation. ABC news will move towards more HD, starting with Good Morning America this fall. NBC late night will be all HD (except Carson Daly?) Also FOX HD programming went from zero to almost everything in.

UPN will have more HD than ever - everything except Smackdown and America's Top Model.

And this article doesn't even mention HD cable channels (with more on the way) and VOOM channels on E*.

Witchy woman fun as ever

BY DOUG ELFMAN Chicago Sun-Times TV Critic July 21, 2005

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- On "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Alyson Hannigan played a Jewish lesbian witch, and she used her soft-spoken delivery to eke out lines such as, "I'm so evil. And skanky. And I think I'm kinda gay." But "Buffy" wasn't a No. 1 show, so it took 1999's "American Pie" to introduce Hannigan to a nation of moviegoers.

In "Pie," she was the redhead who told a boy about a sexual escapade with a flute by saying, "This one time, at band camp. ..." Later she straddled that same boy and screamed, "Say my name, bitch!" In the third "Pie" movie, she announced, "I just shoved a trumpet in [an uncomfortable place]. Aren't instruments fun?"

On screen, what makes Hannigan's sexual playfulness amusing and more everyday cuddly than the dominants we see in roles filled by, say, Linda Fiorentino is that Hannigan looks as if she's barely aware of sex, even at age 30. It must be her steady meter of a happy voice that pulls this off. Or maybe it's the childlike swirl of joy and discovery that twirls in her eyes.

Either way, she has a new fall show headed for CBS that makes use of this skill. It's a sitcom called "How I Met Your Mother," and in the pilot, her character has sex with her man on a kitchen floor. A mishap leaves her with a bruised eye, they jump in a cab to see a doctor, and the cabbie asks her if the dude hit her. She laughs. Her tone is as light as a condom:

"This guy could barely even spank me in bed for fun. He's all, like, 'Oh honey, did it hurt?' And I'm like, 'Come on. Let me have it, ya pansy!' "

Hannigan showed up at a TV critics meeting on Tuesday to promote her new sitcom. I asked her what she thinks about this sub-theme of sexual dominance that has arisen in her acting-role arc.

"I know!" she said. Her smile looked as curvy and fun-time as ever. "I don't know why this keeps following me. ... I don't want people to be, like, 'Well, that's just the "American Pie" movie.' But you know, it was fun, and I love that cab scene. ... I guess people just think of me that way."

Reporters wanted to know if there'd be a "Buffy" movie.

"I hear there might be a Spike movie, which I think might be the logical character to start with," she said. Spike was the British vampire with a soul who fell in love with Buffy, gave her some smooth lovin', then saved the world. Show creator Joss Whedon "has talked about different things, and I think the last thing I heard him say was a straight-to-DVD type movie."

One of her former "Buffy" co-stars, Nicholas "Xander" Brendon, is also working on a new sitcom, called "Kitchen Confidential."

"Nick and I are competing for the same time slot, which is really sad, but we're on the same lot," she said. "Nick came to the set, and he was saying that [the two shows don't aim for] the same demographic. He's like, 'Yours is sort of the younger crowd.' And he's, like, 'Ours is probably, like, older gay men.' "

For those of us who think "Buffy" is the best show ever, it's reassuring to see Hannigan in any role. Co-executive producer Carter Bays joked that she won her new part because another co-executive producer, Craig Thomas, has a wife who's a "Buffy" fan of such an embarrassing degree that it became uncomfortable to hang around Hannigan after all the fawning.

One TV critic rightly asked Hannigan why she's doing an ensemble sitcom when it looked as if her career was headed to lead roles. She said she took a break after "Buffy" wrapped in 2003. She hung out with her husband ("Buffy" alum Alexis "Wesley" Denisof), did some yoga, walked her three dogs and went looking for an ensemble comedy so she could be surrounded by funny people all day.

Doing a sitcom is an easier job than shooting hourlong dramas with one camera, she said. And unlike plays, if someone screws up, they reshoot.

"It's like doing a play, but with training wheels."

See what I mean? What kind of dominant woman uses the phrase "training wheels" in relation to anything? Linda Fiorentino could never get away with that.

Marcus Carr:

Just a few short years ago, HD was basically limited to a PBS loop (I saw every episode of "Smart Travels" at least five times) many CBS prime time shows, and occasional sports events (MNF for a year, then SD for the next several.)

Now there are usually several good choices during any hour of prime time, and that doesn't include HBO, Showtime, HDNet, Discovery HD, Universal HD, InHD, ESPN HD or the increasing presence of RSN in the HD arena.

And it doesn't includes the majority of NFL games.

Clearly HD is coming along quickly. But I understand why broadcasters (and cable nets) are wondering who is going to pay for the increased costs they are incurring. Hopefully the next year or so will about double the number of US Households receiving HD -- getting us up to about 20 million or more.

Obviously MSOs are hurrying to add HD. I suspect the impending arrival of DirecTV's HD LIL in more than 50% of the nation has something to do with that, but whatever the reason, the push is coming.

And that doesn't mention the fiber optic nets courtesy of the telcos.

I'd be very surprised if the reality shows -- the only major HD holdouts -- don't join the revolution fairly soon. After all in reruns their programs do poorly. In HD, they would probably do better.

That's why there are only 26 hours of HDTV programming a day across seven broadcast networks - and almost half of those hours are supplied by PBS."
The part about PBS struck me as out of whack, at least in SF, there is only about 5, maybe 6 hrs of HD daily on KQED, so you guys that get 10-13 a day are lucky...

We may get 20 or more hours a day of PBS HD (I can get two PBS stations) but how many times can I watch the Bismarck sink the Hood?

(Or did the Hood sink the Bismarck?) I guess I'll have to tune in again tonight! :)

What were the circumstances of Craig Kilborn's departure? Some of the stand-in hosts made allusions to personal (substance) problems? Anything truthfully gossipable?

He wanted too much money.

That's the way I remembered it, f44.
(And welcome back -- I've missed your input!)

We may get 20 or more hours a day of PBS HD (I can get two PBS stations) but how many times can I watch the Bismarck sink the Hood?

(Or did the Hood sink the Bismarck?) I guess I'll have to tune in again tonight! :)
I know you know this one. The Bismarck pulverized the Battleship Hood, the pride of the British Fleet, when her second salvo, I believe, hit the Hood's magazine. Of the nearly 1500 men on board, 3 survived. Likewise when the British cornered the Bismarck, there were less than 250 survivors from her crew of 2500. Man, they racked up the causalities in that war.

Rock will stand by new show

The comedian works to quell concerns that he won't have time for "Everybody Hates Chris" on UPN
By Maria Elena Fernandez Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 22, 2005

Ever since UPN showed clips of "Everybody Hates Chris" to advertisers and the media in May, the television industry has been abuzz with one question: How involved will Chris Rock really be?

The comedy, inspired by Rock's experiences growing up in the '80s in Brooklyn, is the critical favorite of the entire fall lineup, but the tide could turn quickly if Rock, who narrates each episode with his own special touch, flies the coop to, say, star in a movie. The pilot first belonged to Fox Broadcasting Corp., but executives there eventually passed on it, fearing Rock wouldn't stick around past the first episode.

At a gathering of television critics in Beverly Hills on Thursday, UPN president of entertainment Dawn Ostroff addressed the issue this way: "To the extent that his voice is going to be on the show and he has to read the script to do the voice-over — that's an excellent guarantee. This is inspired by his own life. Chris is involved in the stories, he was certainly involved in the first story, and is involved in the co-creative process now. Three years down the road, I don't know if he'd still be as involved he is right now, but he will still be narrating the show and doing the voice-over."

A few minutes later, Rock made the Beverly Hilton ballroom roar with laughter: "I've been working a while. I don't think I've ever done anything and walked out. I don't think there's any evidence of that. My name is Rock, not Chappelle."

"Everybody Hates Chris" stars Tichina Arnold and Terry Crews as Rock's parents and 12-year-old Tyler James Williams as Rock, who grew up in a Brooklyn ghetto and was bused to a predominantly white school. Rock, who said he was raised in a loving home with his parents and six siblings, made his fictional family smaller because of the challenges of writing stories for seven children. In the show, there are three children.

"People talk about racism all the time, but after you get a certain number of dollars, a lot of that goes away," said co-creator Ali LeRoi. "We're dealing with class issues much more so than race issues. It's not black folks don't get along with white folks. It's which black folks don't get along with which white folks and why. It's broke people trying to do the best they can and we're not going to make a speech about it. We're just going to show them doing it."

In the pilot, scheduled to air Sept. 22, the young Chris responds to bullies by trash-talking and intimidating them into leaving him alone. Asked where the producers found Tyler, Rock responded:

"How it'd go? I was at Michael Jackson's house, right.... I'm leaving and I'm in the driveway and this kid runs out, 'Wait, wait, save me!' " "I know!" she said. Her smile looked as curvy and fun-time as ever. "I don't know why this keeps following me. ... I don't want people to be, like, 'Well, that's just the "American Pie" movie.' But you know, it was fun, and I love that cab scene. ... I guess people just think of me that way."

Reporters wanted to know if there'd be a "Buffy" movie.

"I hear there might be a Spike movie, which I think might be the logical character to start with," she said. Spike was the British vampire with a soul who fell in love with Buffy, gave her some smooth lovin', then saved the world. Show creator Joss Whedon "has talked about different things, and I think the last thing I heard him say was a straight-to-DVD type movie."

One of her former "Buffy" co-stars, Nicholas "Xander" Brendon, is also working on a new sitcom, called "Kitchen Confidential."

"Nick and I are competing for the same time slot, which is really sad, but we're on the same lot," she said. "Nick came to the set, and he was saying that [the two shows don't aim for] the same demographic. He's like, 'Yours is sort of the younger crowd.' And he's, like, 'Ours is probably, like, older gay men.' "

For those of us who think "Buffy" is the best show ever, it's reassuring to see Hannigan in any role. Co-executive producer Carter Bays joked that she won her new part because another co-executive producer, Craig Thomas, has a wife who's a "Buffy" fan of such an embarrassing degree that it became uncomfortable to hang around Hannigan after all the fawning.

One TV critic rightly asked Hannigan why she's doing an ensemble sitcom when it looked as if her career was headed to lead roles. She said she took a break after "Buffy" wrapped in 2003. She hung out with her husband ("Buffy" alum Alexis "Wesley" Denisof), did some yoga, walked her three dogs and went looking for an ensemble comedy so she could be surrounded by funny people all day.

Doing a sitcom is an easier job than shooting hourlong dramas with one camera, she said. And unlike plays, if someone screws up, they reshoot.

"It's like doing a play, but with training wheels."

See what I mean? What kind of dominant woman uses the phrase "training wheels" in relation to anything? Linda Fiorentino could never get away with that.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Paul Brownfield The Los Angeles Times

''T-Boz, if I could ask a follow-up ... ''

Place thins out a bit for "RU The Girl with T-Boz and Chili." T-Boz Watkins and Chili Thomas are of the former girl group TLC, whose third member, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez, was killed in a car accident. Now they're coming back, and their show's about finding a new member to perform on a single with them and in a concert.

Many of the reporters in the room, I can't help myself from thinking, are white people, probably 40 and up, going, "T-Boz, if I could ask a follow-up..."

T-Boz and Chili, for their part, seem like nice people. There's a brief scare when a reporter asks one of the show's producers, Jay Blumenfield, how he felt about ABC killing the reality series "Welcome to the Neighborhood." Apparently Blumenfield was an executive producer. He ducks the question, saying it's better dealt with later, I guess when there's not a microphone in his shirt.

I notice in my UPN notebook that the show is called a "one-hour dramality." Is this a new term? And if so, does that mean we've been cleared to also use "sitcomality?"

It's a show about Silver Lake

House of Merv, 2 p.m. Ah, to be lying by the pool in this blessed heat. On the other hand, how many of these vacationers lying in the sun on a Thursday afternoon know that just one floor up, in a dark, very air-conditioned ballroom, a television reporter is asking an actor: "Am I forgetting or were you one of the first people killed on 'Buffy'?"

That would be Eric Balfour, star of the UPN drama "Sex, Lies & Secrets." Sorry, "Sex, Love & Secrets," they changed the title. The reason I know UPN is a network is because it has this show on weeknights at 7:30 and 10, called "Seinfeld." It stars Jerry Seinfeld, who plays himself, this anal stand-up comedian who hangs out with his friends in a coffee shop. One is named George, another Elaine, another Kramer, his neighbor. How to sum up the show: It's kind of about New York, and the little lies we tell to cover up our insecurities, and odd consumer goods like puffy shirts-oh, forget it, it's too hard to explain.

UPN is also about new shows, of course. To wit: "Sex, Love & Secrets." They're the panel at 2 p.m. According to my UPN notebook (soon to be available on Ebay), it's "set in the small, hip neighborhood of Silver Lake, on the outskirts of Hollywood ... a fresh, edgy, new drama" that "explores the intimate and often complex relationships of a tight-knit group of friends finding out who they are and what they want in life ... "

I have mixed feelings about this show, which by the way I haven't seen. The mixed feelings have to do with the fact one of the executive producers is Daniel Cerone, with whom I used to play in a Tuesday night basketball game, and it's hard not to feel like a bit of a loser, sitting here taking down his comments about "Sex, Love & Secrets," while he gets to be up there, onstage, not having to take down his own comments about "Sex, Love & Secrets," and meanwhile he's getting paid more and is only four chairs down from Denise Richards.

She's the star of "Sex, Love & Secrets." I'm told by my colleague Maria Elena Fernandez that she's not in the pilot much, but then again she was seven months pregnant when they shot it. Richards plays a sneaky and sexy publicist. I'll leave that there. The other people in the show play twentysomethings sexing, loving and secreting in the hotbed of L.A. hip, Silverlake.

This immediately yields cynicism from a reporter who wonders how these twentysomethings (hairdresser, OBGYN, sneaky and sexy publicist, sexy lead singer of a punk band) can afford to live in houses in Silverlake.

When co-creator Michael Gans talks about the young obgyn, the reporter says: "So she's probably $100,000 in debt."

Well, somebody woke up on the wrong side of the real estate listings this morning. Gans, who lives in Silver Lake, goes on to sing its praises as the new home of hip-the East Village vibe, west. So does his co-creator Richard Register. It's Silver Lake this, Silver Lake that with the two of them. OK, OK, I get it, there's music and great places to have breakfast, I should have bought there seven year ago, congratulations, you got in before the bubble.

Gans acknowledges that a show about Silver Lake without any gay characters is a show missing gay characters. Other things he says make me think he doesn't realize where he is: In a ballroom, talking about a UPN show called "Sex, Love & Secrets."

Gans says the show is a "study in human nature. Like a safari in Los Angeles. "We are looking deeper, what is beneath the surface of these characters," he says.

On a show called "Sex, Love & Secrets?" Featuring a hairdresser, a sexy publicist, a sexy punk rocker, that OBGYN who might very possibly be $100,000 in debt?

NBC Gets 'Windfall' for Midseason 2005-06

By Christopher Lisotta TVWeek.com

One week after picking up the Sony TV/NBC Universal drama "Book of Daniel" for midseason, NBC announced Thursday it is picking up Regency Television's one-hour "Windfall."

The pilot revolves around a group of 20 young-adult friends who pool their cash to buy a lottery ticket, which wins a record $386 million jackpot. The friends discover instant wealth brings about unexpected social and romantic complications.

The cast includes Luke Perry ("Beverly Hills, 90210"), Jason Gedrick ("Boomtown"), Lana Parrilla ("Boomtown") and Sarah Wynter ("24").

During its May advertiser upfront announcement, NBC announced the midseason pickups of two comedies-"Four Kings" and "Thick and Thin"-but no midseason drama pickups.

Did you notice that in the middle of the 8th paragraph the Chris Rock story changes to a Buffy story??

Sometimes Brownfield's blogs are a bit difficult to read :)

'Will' graces live episode

NBC sitcom faces live audience broadcast for fall

By JOSEF ADALIAN, MICHAEL SCHNEIDER variety.com

NBC censors may want to start stocking up on the Tums: The final season of "Will & Grace" will kick off with a live episode.

Harkening back to the early days of the medium, skein's producers have opted to stage live broadcasts in the eighth season, with separate productions for the Eastern and Pacific time zones. Given the laffer's penchant for topical -- and often off-color -- humor, the Peacock standards and practices department will no doubt monitor closely to ensure no verbal "accidents" occur.

Given the current climate on Capitol Hill, it seems likely NBC will broadcast the live episode with a built-in delay of a few seconds.

NBC wouldn't confirm the date of the season premiere, but the show's expected to air at 8:30 p.m. Sept. 29 --a week into the new season, rather than the usual premiere week bow. Alec Baldwin and Eric Stoltz are among the guest stars currently slated to appear in the episode, while Emmy magnet James Burrows will direct.

News of the live seg comes just days after "Will & Grace" snagged a series-best 15 noms. Series co-creator Max Mutchnick said the live element will allow the show's scribes to make changes right up until air time.

"We're going to have some very topical material," he said.

Mutchnick, who created and exec produces the show with David Kohan, also said there will be "a surprise element within the live telecast," but he declined to say what that may be.

NBC Entertainment prexy Kevin Reilly said the "challenging live platform launch for 'Will & Grace' " would be a good way to "inaugurate their final season."

Broadcast also reps a challenge for Burrows.

"This will be like the classic golden era of television that I was weaned on where the audience sees everything," he said. "Directing a live broadcast will be a first for me, and as long as I have been in the business, there are very few firsts."

Mutchnick did say some figures in the news will apparently be off-limits.

"I'm a little afraid of Tom Cruise," he said. "He bores me, and he's also morphing into his mother."

The "Will & Grace" stunt reps the first time a regular series has gone live in several years.

"The Drew Carey Show" did it three times, in 1999, 2000 and 2001. The "Drew" team actually performed each of those episodes three times: for the Eastern/Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones. Because much of those segs were improvised (featuring several of Carey's "Whose Line Is It Anyway" buddies), the live performances varied greatly by time zone.

Fox's "Roc" was the last sitcom to go live on a regular basis, performing straight to air during the 1992-93 season. The last series to kick off with a live season premiere was "ER" in 1997.

Other recent live scripted fare include a week of ABC sudser "One Life to Live" in 2002. And the CBS telepics "Fail Safe" (2000) and "On Golden Pond" (2001) also went live.

Press Tour: UPN darling
Rock loves the buzz for 'Everybody Hates Chris'

By ED BARK The Dallas Morning News

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – The toast of the 2005-06 season promises to show up for work and keep working. Of course Chris Rock said this in a novel and funny way Thursday while riffing on Everybody Hates Chris, fall's undisputed fave rave with TV critics.

Chris Rock will narrate Everybody Hates Chris, a sitcom about his struggles growing up in Brooklyn. He's also one of the show's producers and creators.

"My name's Rock, not Chappelle," he said. "Are you confusing me with another skinny black man? What have I walked out on?"

Afterward, Mr. Rock stressed that he's good friends with Dave Chappelle, whose third season of Comedy Central's Chappelle's Show fell through when the comedian belatedly pulled out. Mr. Rock said this while circled by 50 or so tape-recorder-wielding inquisitors who swarmed a hotel-ballroom stage after UPN's formal presentation.

"I feel like I just pitched a two-hitter," Mr. Rock said.

The comedian's semi-autobiographical look at his early teen years in Brooklyn, N.Y., has given UPN a big lift in the li'l-dude- network universe, which it shares with The WB. Everybody Hates Chris, narrated by Mr. Rock and originally developed for Fox, is getting a little too much hoopla for the star's comfort.

"We're getting so much attention it's hard to sneak up on people," Mr. Rock said. "So, you know, we're trying to lower expectations."

CBS chairman Leslie Moonves, who also oversees UPN, toasted Everybody Hates Chris the previous night at an executive dinner.

"It's just a pilot so far, but it could be a turning point for UPN," he told a smaller group of TV critics. "It's a show that appeals to 80-year-olds and 8-year-olds. There is something universal about that family. It's the best original family comedy in a long, long time."

Everybody Hates Chris – being written and co-produced by Mr. Rock's longtime friend, Ali LeRoi – will kick off Thursday nights for UPN, which finally has sent WWE Smackdown! to Fridays. The competition for younger viewers will be fierce, with CBS' Survivor: Guatemala, NBC's Joey, Fox's The O.C., ABC's Alias and WB's Smallville also scheduled at 7 p.m. Thursdays.

"Of what?" Mr. Rock rejoined when asked what he thinks of former Friends star Matt Le Blanc's Joey. "Never seen it. I'm sorry. Is that offensive?"

Mr. Rock and Mr. Moonves both credit UPN entertainment president Dawn Ostroff with doggedly pursuing and pestering the star until he knuckled under.

"First she hired me a hot nanny," Mr. Rock joked.

Ms. Ostroff said Everybody Hates Chris won't be ripe for plucking by big daddy CBS if the show is a hit. Both networks are owned by Viacom, with No. 1 CBS reaching roughly four times as many viewers as UPN in a typical week.

"UPN is not a farm system for CBS," Ms. Ostroff said. "We're our own vibrant network with a distinct target audience [18- to 34-year-olds]. We're thrilled that all of you like the show and think it's good enough to put on the No. 1 network. But we've got it, we produced it, and we are broadcasting it."

The young 13-year-old Chris is played by 12-year-old Tyler James Williams, who began acting at age 4 on Sesame Street.

"How was he selected to be the little you?" Mr. Rock was asked.

"I was at Michael Jackson's house, leaving," he said. "I'm in the driveway and this kid runs out. 'Wait! Save me!' "

Not really.

Tyler is "really professional," Mr. Rock said. "The camera likes him. And he's a cute kid. My teeth were all messed up."

For the record, Tyler has never been to Mr. Jackson's house.

"And I don't plan to go," he said.

PRESS CLIPPINGS

New 'Mars' landing

UPN hopes to find new viewers for its critically acclaimed Veronica Mars series by airing four repeats on CBS this summer. Two are scheduled for next Friday, with single episodes then running on Aug. 5 and 12. The show will return for a second season this fall in a higher-visibility Wednesday slot following the fifth edition of America's Top Model.

The Emmys: A guilty pleasure?

Mr. Moonves isn't a big fan of the Emmys, even though CBS will telecast the awards ceremony in September. He said it's nice that CBS topped all broadcast networks with 59 nominations, behind front-running HBO's 93.

Other than that, "whether we get them or not, half of the nominations are ridiculous," Mr. Moonves said. "It's fun to look at them. It's also fun to throw them in the garbage."

Earlier during Press Tour, HBO head Chris Albrecht said he made a bid for Emmy telecasts several years ago "so we could kill them off."

Chris Rock, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood

By Lisa de Moraes The Washington Post Friday, July 22, 2005; C01

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., July 21--Like a handsome prince, Chris Rock rescued TV critics from the state of profound deathlike sleep at Summer TV Press Tour 2005 in the Land of Television.

Somnambulant critics, fallen under the curse of evasive cable executives and evil Viacom spin fairies, wondered sleepily Thursday how involved Rock would be going forward on UPN's new comedy series "Everybody Hates Chris."

Rock does the voiceover on and is executive producer of the show, which is loosely based on his childhood in the tough Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Before falling into their swoon, critics had heard that the show was developed for Fox but that Fox suits had let expire the network's option on the project because they worried Rock would have little to do with the series, week in and week out.

(You perhaps thought networks greenlit a series based on whether it was really good. That's so sweet -- don't ever change.)

"I've been working for a while -- I don't think I've ever done anything and walked out," Rock proclaimed.

"There is no evidence of that. My name's Rock, not Chappelle."

Critics, though sleepwalking, got the reference to Dave Chappelle. He's the other skinny black comic, who, after being handed a purse of $50 million to do a third season of his sketch comedy show for Comedy Central (which, like UPN, is a hamlet in the Kingdom of Viacom), was mysteriously turned into a Weirdsmobile and fled the show, leaving the handsome prince of Comedy Central, Doug Herzog, scratching his head and minus his brightest star.

Enchanted by Rock's zinger, critics laughed and yawned and stretched for the first time in the 10 days thus far of this year's summer get-together, otherwise known as the While We Were Sleeping Tour.

(Our sources say Fox passed on "Everybody Hates Chris" because it worried not about Rock's long-term commitment to the series but about the "backend" -- syndication and overseas sales -- viability of a single-camera, laugh-track-free, black-cast comedy.)

Perking up, the critics wondered what the heck the best new comedy of the upcoming TV season was doing on a little network like UPN instead of, say, CBS -- which also is ruled by the king of Viacom's Slower Growth Networks, His Royal Highness Leslie Moonves.

Viacom's evil spin fairies have not allowed Moonves to appear on stage at this press tour because of his tendency to say something worth reporting, which would break the curse.

On Thursday, Moonves sat at the back of the ballroom looking relaxed, while the charming UPN Princess Dawn Ostroff did her best to not make news, so as to please the Viacom spin fairies.

Ostroff did insist that UPN "is not a farm system for CBS" and that although she is "thrilled" the critics like Rock's new show and think it's good enough to put on CBS -- which, she noted, was the top-rated network last season -- "we got it, we produced it and we are broadcasting it." But even at their groggiest, critics were skeptical because they know that HRH Moonves, sitting in the back of the room, is the guy who ultimately calls the shots. And the fact that he wasn't taking the stage to answer any questions about CBS or UPN was, for critics who tend to love a good conspiracy theory, like throwing the raw flesh of unicorns to the royal piranha.

Critics were more impressed, however, when Rock told them that although, yes, Ostroff had traipsed after him like he was the Holy Grail, what got him really excited was that she had been keen on the pilot script and not just the idea of working with a star like Chris Rock. "I responded to that," he said.

UPN has scheduled Rock's series at 8 p.m. Thursdays, where, some have speculated, it could do serious damage to NBC's ratings-starved "Joey," a spin-off of "Friends," which owned the time slot for years. This would be a blow to the network, whose Thursday lineup for decades defined "Must See TV."

Asked what he thought of "Joey," Rock said, "I've never seen it. Sorry, is that offensive?" Which didn't play well with the crowd, but you can't bat 1,000.

While Rock is on board to do all the voiceover work on the series (a la "Wonder Years"), he probably will not make an appearance on the show, said show co-creator and executive producer Ali LeRoi. Although LeRoi was on stage for the Q&A session along with executive producer Howard Gewirtz and the show's ensemble cast, almost all the questions were directed to Rock.

"Chris is actually a distraction on the camera," LeRoi said. ". . . In order for people to get to know this cast, he can't be standing there because it's really no different than this press conference -- the majority of attention will go to the famous guy."

Which made the critics ashamed. And they all lived happily ever after.

Another line crossed
A new UPN sitcom will become the latest to air a previously taboo racial epithet

By CHASE SQUIRES, St. Petersburg Times[/B] TV columnist July 22, 2005

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - The "n-word" appears to be the word coming to television this fall. Not just to cable, but to broadcast TV.

In one of the most talked about sitcoms of the summer, the UPN network will air the word in Everybody Hates Chris, based loosely on comedian Chris Rock's childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. UPN, which along with CBS is owned by Viacom, becomes the third network - and first broadcast network - to feature a program that includes the once-taboo epithet in presentations this month to the Television Critics Association.

First was the Cartoon Network, which is using the n-word in its new late-night cartoon Boondocks, based on the controversial comic strip. Then another basic cable channel, FX, used the word in new sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, in a bit about how the word can be used by black people, but is mishandled by whites.

Cable networks have traditionally had more content latitude than broadcast networks, but the gap appears to be closing.

In Everybody, Rock, the show's executive producer, narrates and does voice-overs while scenes are played out starring 12-year-old Tyler James Williams as a 13-year-old Rock. (Vincent Martella, 12, of DeLand, east of Orlando, plays Greg, the young Chris' best friend.)

It's a funny, poignant show about growing up the eldest of three kids in Brooklyn in 1982. Chris's hard-working parents move the family out of a housing project into the Bedford-Stuyvestant neighborhood and bus him two hours to a predominantly white middle school.

Broadcasting & Cable, an industry newspaper, polled the nation's TV critics this summer, who voted it as the best new comedy, and CBS chairman Les Moonves spent Wednesday night denying that the big network would steal the show from its little sister, finally guaranteeing he wouldn't snatch it up.

It's slated to air Thursdays at 8 p.m., "n-word" and all.

UPN president Dawn Ostroff said the network reviewed the context - a white schoolyard bully uses the word to the young Chris' face - and felt it fit the script, and met the standards of UPN and CBS.

So a word that was once banished from TV except for premium cable movies and specials, is now allowed on a broadcast network, on a primetime sitcom.

Rock told TV critics Thursday he didn't give it much thought. He uses the n-word regularly in standup comedy.

But the word is so charged, even asking a question about its use in a roomful of critics proved uncomfortable and difficult. It's so charged that the Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights leader and former presidential candidate, last week skirted a question about its use on TV.

Asked for his thoughts on the matter, Rock said:

"I don't think, I just do. The network says I can. If they say I can use the f-word . . . "

The room filled with laughter.

Series writer Ali LeRoi said not using the word would have been stranger than using it. If the situation calls for it, he'll use it again.

"We're not creating a show where people live in a little, sanitized cocoon," said LeRoi, a friend of Rock's for the past 20 years. "Kids are some of the meanest people on the planet. We're not going to pretty it up."

The show tackles head-on the kind of racism Rock himself faced. In one episode, for instance, the basketball coach of the mostly white middle school that young Rock attends can't believe Rock can't play the game.

A critic asked LeRoi if there might be a question of how often the word could be used.

"Is there sort of a n----- limit?" the critic asked.

"Question is," LeRoi answered, "does Viacom have one."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everybody Hates Chris premieres Sept. 22 on UPN.

No joke: Sitcom revival leads fall TV lineups
By Kay McFadden Seattle Times TV critic

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — "UPN is not a farm system for CBS," declared UPN president Dawn Ostroff to TV critics yesterday, and she's right: It's UPN with the big buzz this fall.

Ostroff was quashing rumors that if "Everybody Hates Chris" is the breakout hit it promises to be, sister network CBS would be able to snatch away the story of comedian Chris Rock's Brooklyn childhood. Rock, meanwhile, was quashing questions about whether he'd stay involved in the show. "Yeah," he said. "My name is Rock, not Chappelle."

I've seen "Everybody Hates Chris," and aside from the pilot being fall-down funny, I can't wait for the pleasure of watching at 8 p.m. Thursdays, where it can pound rival "Joey" further into the ground and perhaps serve as a wake-up call to NBC.

But the questions about "Chris" are understandable. Although CBS presented the usual high-quality lineup of new fall shows earlier this week, none leaped out.

That's not the same as saying I didn't like them. The sci-fi drama "Threshold," starring Carla Gugino, looks pretty cool. And a refreshing, twisty sitcom called "How I Met Your Mother" will finally break CBS out of that fat-guy-with-skinny-wife habit.

In fact, "How I Met Your Mother" is "Friends"-like in many ways. It's the kind of likable twentysomething ensemble comedy that NBC should have developed a few years ago (and, yes, that's two knocks on NBC if you're counting).

The cast includes Josh Radnor ("The Graduate" with Kathleen Turner), Jason Segel ("Freaks and Geeks"), Neil Patrick Harris ("Doogie Howser, M.D.") and Alyson Hannigan ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer").

CBS' "How I Met Your Mother" and UPN's "Everybody Hates Chris" highlight a sitcom revival following several seasons of speculation that the form was dead. The other most promising comedy is "My Name Is Earl," airing on — hold your breath — NBC.

But overall, CBS is too consistent for my tastes. Already filled with law-and-order procedurals, the network is adding "Close to Home," which stars Jennifer Finnigan ("Committed") as a working mom/criminal prosecutor in the suburbs; and "Criminal Minds," starring Mandy Patinkin as an FBI criminal profiler with a troubled past.

A knee-jerk hostility sets in when TV critics are confronted with still more of these series that open with battered females and vividly rendered forensics. There does seem to be a mounting reliance on graphic shockers featuring women.

But the audience apparently laps it up, or so CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler kept telling us.

My hunch is that she's right and that the entertainment world is merely following in the footsteps of the news business, which boosts its ratings with saturation coverage whenever a white female goes missing or turns up dead.

"Threshold" has a white female, albeit one who's very much alive. Gugino is a U.S. Navy officer who leads a group of oddball geniuses kidnapped by the federal government to investigate apparent signs of extraterrestrial invasion on Earth. The deliciously malcontent team includes actors Peter Dinklage ("The Station Agent") and Brent Spiner ("Star Trek: The Next Generation").

Behind the cameras, executive producers Brannon Braga ("Star Trek: Enterprise," "Star Trek: Voyager"), David S. Goyer ("Batman Begins," "Dark City") and David Heyman (the Harry Potter films) provide expert collaboration. The pilot is scary, surreal and smart.

Yet I'm a little worried, because CBS' absolutely worst new show will be right before "Threshold" on Friday nights.

"Ghost Whisperer" offers Jennifer Love Hewitt as a medium that helps the undead cross over to peace. Besides the dubious imitation of "Medium" on NBC, it's not clear Hewitt is up to the dramatic demands of a lead role. But nice bod, as the male critics say.

CBS' final new series is the comedy "Out of Practice," which fits another CBS template: the odd throw-together of high-profile TV stars.

Instead of John Goodman or Jason Alexander, Henry Winkler returns to the small screen as head of a dysfunctional family of doctors. He is joined by Stockard Channing, Christopher Gorham, Ty Burrell and Paula Marshall.

It's easy to see why UPN's "Everybody Hates Chris" has taken up so much limelight and tempted writers to ask about CBS' airings. And CBS is not averse to the occasional UPN show — the marvelous "Veronica Mars" will be broadcast on CBS for several Friday nights beginning next Friday.

But the rest of UPN's new shows are not on a par with "Chris." There's a forced comedy called "Love, Inc." and a highly contrived soap called "Sex, Love and Secrets" costarring, among others, Denise Richards in the Heather Locklear role.

The soon-to-be-former Mrs. Charlie Sheen does provide a nice way of circling back to "Two and a Half Men," the returning series that will carry CBS' comedy banner this fall.

The way I look at it, we should enjoy "Two and a Half Men" for this simple reason: Charlie Sheen is the television expiator of our sins.

He's the bad boy who raises hackles or unreasoned lust, depending on your world view. And his character hasn't been diluted by anything so predictable as a moral compass.

"Two and a Half Men" will move into the high-pressure spot formerly occupied by "Everybody Loves Raymond" at 9 Monday nights.

In real life — OK, a press conference with critics — Sheen lies back. Costar Jon Cryer grabs all the punch lines, with an assist from executive producer Chuck Lorre.

This is as it should be. Having been media fodder for so long, Sheen has attained the state of implacability known to Supreme Court nominees. When he is funny, he's twice as funny, because no one expects him to be funny. That's funny.

TV Notes: Here is what the critics press tour is like: The morning that James "Scotty" Doohan died, CBS' "Threshold" was having its presentation.

A herd besieged Braga and Spiner afterward. Who could comment about Scotty? Who remembered this or that episode of "Star Trek"? When was Scotty's last appearance?

Pretty soon, I was thinking, "Scotty-Scotty-Scotty-Scotty."

Then I remembered all the other stories I've promised to write and realized the engines can't take it.

This was my writing about Scotty.

Everybody (even the White House) likes Bob Schieffer
By Gail Shister Philadelphia Inquirer TV Columnist

CBS Evening News interim anchor Bob Schieffer gives the network a bonus - the White House likes him, says CBS chairman Les Moonves.

"That's not the end-all, be-all, but obviously the White House doesn't hate CBS anymore with Schieffer in the chair," Moonves said in an interview Wednesday at the TV critics' summer meetings here.

Did the White House hate CBS with Dan Rather in the chair? "Post-Memogate, I'm sure they did," Moonves says, quickly adding, "I'm very fond of Dan. Dan's terrific. He had a long, illustrious career at CBS, and let's not forget that."

Moonves says Schieffer is looked upon kindly at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue because his brother, John Thomas Schieffer, was ambassador to Australia (he was posted to Japan in February), and was partners with the future President Bush in the Texas Rangers.

The selection of CBS's Schieffer to moderate the third and final presidential debate between Bush and Sen. John Kerry in October "had to be approved by both sides," Moonves says. "My guess is if there were other CBS anchors suggested for that job, they may not have been approved."

Schieffer, 68, has brought credibility and stability to the Evening News since taking over for Rather in March, but CBS is looking to the future, Moonves adds. As for details, he continues to be evasive.

"Are we any closer? Yes. Are we close? Probably not... . We're trying things... . We've done some news pilots. I've seen segments I like, but I haven't put them together.

"Is an anchor important? Is it important to have an anchor in Washington? Is it important to have anchors all over the country? Those are all the questions we're asking."

While careful not to commit himself, Moonves says it's "probable" that the Evening News will have a multianchor format. "It won't be one guy like it is with Brian Williams or was with Peter Jennings] or Dan. My guess is it won't look like that or feel like that."

On the other hand, "it's not going to be The Big Breakfast, and there won't be cameramen laughing at the news stories. And despite what I said , Jon Stewart will not be the host."

How about Katie Couric, coanchor of NBC's Today, with whom Moonves met in New York several months ago? "No comment. Let's give Zucker Jeff Zucker] something to worry about."

Still no target date for the revamped newscast, but fall "is possible," Moonves says. Meanwhile, the Moon-man remains amused by the media's interest in his third-ranked broadcast.

"Everybody says network news is dead, but I've probably gotten more attention on this thing than anything since the Hitler mini-series" in May '03.

Crime shows prepare for clone war this fall
By MARK McGUIRE, Albany NY Times-Union Staff writer Friday, July 22, 2005

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- "Law & Order" creator Dick Wolf, never at a loss for a pithy quote, always had a ready line when faced with a question about the latest show that tried to mimic his cop franchise: "Send in the clones."

He began using it a few years ago, when NBC's rivals began to ape the plot-driven cop procedural that spawned "L&0" spinoffs like so many McDonald's franchises.

Then CBS debuted "CSI" in 2000. It wasn't even the network's marquee new show that year -- that attention went to the now-forgotten remake of "The Fugitive." But "Crime Scene Investigation" gave birth to a new kind of just-the-facts-ma'am genre: the forensic procedural, in which the crime is dramatized with help from computer-generated images of bullets slicing through bodies, poison coursing through veins and other icky stuff.

Five years ago, I wrote that "CSI" star William Petersen "has personality, but watching cops in Windbreakers essentially dust for fingerprints could get old fast."

Well, I got it half right -- Petersen does have personality.

"CSI" quickly grew into one of the top-rated shows on television, knocking "Law & Order" off its perch as the pre-eminent crime drama. In turn, CBS has risen to the top of the ratings heap behind "CSI" and a slew of its thematic cousins: This fall, the Crime Broadcasting System rolls out no less than nine truth-and-justice dramas, not counting a two-hour block of repeats dubbed "Crimetime Saturday."

The other networks have been paying attention. This fall, the attack of the clones becomes a true clone war.

On Fox, "Bones" features a forensic pathologist who studies victims' remains for the FBI, while "The Gate" (a working title that might change) also relies on forensics. ABC weighs in with the midseason drama "In Evidence," which also concentrates on forensic evidence. Not to be outdone, CBS has "Criminal Minds."

That's not to mention the two "CSI" spinoffs set in Miami and New York City. Viacom co-president Leslie Moonves once said we'd know the network had gone to far if it green-lit "CSI: Toledo."

But has the network gone too far with the cop shows already?

"Our viewers haven't told us that," CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler told reporters earlier this week at the Television Critics Association Press Tour. "And especially with the way our numbers are performing, our core schedule rerunning as well as it does during the summer, clearly we've struck a chord with our audience. So no, I don't think (so). I think we'll just rely on our viewers to tell us when they've had enough."

Tassler was equally unperturbed by idea that the competition could dilute the appeal of CBS' shows. "These shows have different looks, different sensibilities," Tassler continued. "People are sort of picking and choosing what they like, what appeals to them."

But George Eads, who plays Detective Nick Stokes on "CSI," admits the logjam of copycats could diminish "what seemed so original and unique and precious about what we were doing. ... That's a little rough, when you see the guy (in a new show) cast exactly as your character."

Eads cited Petersen's belief that it's not just the forensics that has people tuning in:

"As Billy said, if it were just about the science, 30 million people would be tuning in to the Discovery Channel."

TCA Notebook

By John Consoli Mediaweek.com

NBC Vet Littlefield Happy To Be an Exec Producer

Warren Littlefield, executive producer of the new fall sitcom Love Inc. on UPN, and former entertainment president at NBC, told a Television Critics Association summer press tour audience that he is proud of his accomplishments since he left the network several years ago.

While acknowledging that getting shows on the air "is difficult," he said. "While I was at Paramount under a deal for four years, I made seven pilots and five went to series. I've got a show on E! right now, and we're doing Love Inc. But it is a challenge. What's exciting for me is that instead of juggling 75 things at once, it's much fewer. So the quality of the creative experience, I think, is really satisfying."

And Littlefield said he doesn't miss the pressure that today's network entertainment presidents are under to develop hit shows. "I thought I was under a lot of pressure back in the day, but I think those were the good old days compared to what they deal with today," he said. "So my hat goes off to them, and I think when they do find breakthrough, original, and great programming that makes you rush to the set, they deserve to be saluted for that."


Remini Reup Was Crucial to Continuing CBS' “King of Queens”

King of Queens creative consultant Michael Weithorn and show star Kevin James told a Television Critics Association summer press tour audience that if CBS had not negotiated a new contract with show co-star Leah Remini, which was just done this week, that it would have been hard to have the show continue next season without her.

"The contigency plan was to basically clean out our offices and go home, Weithorn said. "We had broken all the stories this year based on her being therer. Frankly, I think there is no show without Leah. So there was no contingency plan. From the writing side, we were assuming and being optimistic that it would all work out."
James quipped, "I was ready to do a remake of Chico and the Man." James added, "I don't think it could have been done with Leah. She is just so much a part of the show. I don't think it could have worked."

Weithorn said, "It would have put Kevin's ad-libbing skills to the test, because we had nothing scripted."

”King of Queens” May Get Romano to Guest Star

Ray Romano could be making a few guest appearances on CBS' King of Queens this coming season, now that his long-running show on CBS is no longer on the air. Romano and King of Queens star Kevin James are long-time friends.

"It would be great," said Michael Weithorn, creative consultant to King of Queens. "We did two or three episodes in the early going [of King of Queens] when Ray appeared as his character from Raymond, and they were actually very good episodes. We took some flak from the critics for shamelessly using him to bolster our show. But I actually thought they were just good episodes in their own right and made sense and didn't seem stunty or breaking the reality of the show. So if Ray's got the time, it would be great."
James said, "I think he's got the time, and we'd love to do it." He added, "Not because he is begging me to do some work. He's going to continue to try to do film. And we're looking at film projects to do together, and something big and funny and hopefully that will happen."

(From Marc Berman’s Programming Insider column of Friday July 22, 2005 at Mediaweek.com)
LIVE FROM THE TCA SUMMER PRESS TOUR

UPN: Opening Executive Comments

Although ratings for highly touted freshman dramas Veronica Mars and Kevin Hill certainly did not equal the buzz they generated at the TCA Press Tour last summer, UPN has another shot of momentum courtesy of the sitcom everyone is talking about, Everybody Hates Chris. And no one has given up hope on Veronica Mars, particularly UPN, which is banking on new viewers discovering the critically acclaimed drama after corporate cousin CBS airs it Friday at 8 p.m. for three weeks beginning on July 29. Of any UPN series, Veronica Mars netted the most attention at the opening executive session with UPN Entertainment President, Dawn Ostroff.

According to Ms. Ostroff:

"We are encouraged that two-thirds of the audience tuning into Veronica Mars this summer are not regular viewers from last season. I think the most exciting thing about the show is that every year it's a new mystery because the Lilly Kane murder was solved. And what's exciting about next season, and beyond, is a new mystery opening up a whole new direction for the show creatively. We'll see different characters and different parts of the show that we have never seen before. Since we didn't want to see the old characters leave, we figured out a way to keep them intact while bringing in fresh faces."

Since there is more to UPN than just Veronica Mars (which, in my opinion, will breakout next season), here are some items worth noting:

1. There is no word yet on who is replacing Shannen Doherty on upcoming sitcom, Love. Inc. (which is sure to be a short-term assignment given it faces CBS' CSI and NBC's The Apprentice).

2. The network would not confirm if 2005-06 is the final year of the WWE Smackdown! contract.

3. There are no current plans for UPN to expand to a sixth night of programming.

4. Outspoken Janice Dickinson will appear on America's Next Top Model in a different capacity next season given former model Twiggy is being brought in as a new judge.

5. There are no plans to do a sequel to last summer's hit reality series, Amish in the City.

What I personally found refreshing about UPNís opening session was an open admission that one of its recent series did not work. Regarding Kevin Hill:

"Kevin Hill was a real heartbreak for us," said Ostroff. "What happened was the show floundered as the season went on, and creatively it lost its way. The ratings were not as strong as we really hoped they would be."

When you deal with the press, sometimes honest is the best policy.

On the UPN Panel Front:

LOVE, INC. Thursday 9:30 p.m.

The Premise: A female dating consultant helps lovelorn single men and women find their soul mates.

Lead-in: Cuts

Competition: The Night Stalker (ABC), CSI (CBS), The Apprentice (NBC), Reunion (Fox), Everwood (WB)

The Scoop: If you were wondering how long it took for a member of the press to ask what happened to Shannen Doherty, who was in the pilot of Love, Inc., it was the first question. According to Warren Littlefield:

"We actually had a great working relationship with Shannen. She was there on the set early every single morning. But the network really felt that Shannen wasn't the right fit for the role, and they said, 'You know, we would like to make that change.' And networks never make mistakes. So, we agreed, and we're in the process of replacing her. An announcement will be made very shortly."

Added Holly Robinson Peete: "We had an immediate chemistry and a really good time. And maybe some of us came in going, 'Ooh, Shannen Doherty. Oh, okay, bad-girl reputation.' But we had so much fun and such a great vibe, and we even went to the upfronts together. I was very upset to hear the news."

The Reality: Although Chris Rock sitcom Everybody Loves Chris at 8 p.m. is likely to give UPN a major boost on Thursday, by the time 9:30 p.m. hits and the competition is the second half-hours of CSI and The Apprentice, even had former bad-girl Shannen Doherty remained on Love, Inc. there would probably be no interest. As for all this love for Shannen, sorry, but I don't believe it for one minute!

Chance of Survival for Love, Inc. (Based on a scale of 1-1 to 10-1): 10- 1

Did You Know?: Although Holly Robinson Peete is known for co-starring roles in sitcoms Hangin' With Mr. Cooper, For Your Love and Like Family, her first regularly scheduled series role was on the Fox's 21 Jump Street from 1987 to 1991.

EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS Thursday 8 p.m.

The Premise: The experiences of comedian Chris Rock, who also narrates, growing up in Brooklyn in the early 1980s is the focus of this single camera sitcom.

Competition: Alias (ABC), Survivor: Guatemala (CBS), Joey (NBC), The O.C. (Fox), Smallville (WB)

The Scoop: Like Will Smith two years earlier, who was at the TCA Summer Tour touting All of Us, it was standing room only as a G-rated Chris Rock explained why he would not leave the show after the pilot: ”I don't think I have ever done anything and walked out -- there is no evidence of that. My name is Rock, not Chappelle.”

As to whether or not there will be celebrity guests on Everybody Hates Chris, according to Rock: "I have never seen stunt casting that was actually funny. 'Oh, it's Shaq,' and then there is some horrible excuse for him to dunk. It's always bad. 'Oh, Ludacris is going to be on this week.' He says a rhyme that has nothing to do with the show. It just sucks."

The Reality: Although facing competition like Survivor, Alias, The O.C. (and, yes, Joey too!) could be referred to as a suicide mission, the boldest programming move of the season is likely to pay off because a) Everybody Loves Chris looks like too good a show to pass up, b) NBCís Joey will likely continue to sink, and c) there is no Tribal Council on CBSí Survivor in the 8 p.m. half-hour. While you have to also commend ABC for moving Alias into the time period, UPN will not go unnoticed thanks to Chris Rock. Too bad the momentum is likely to stall once the marginal Eve kicks in at 8:30 p.m.

Chance of Survival for Everybody Loves Chris (Based on a scale of 1-1 to 10-1): 2-1

Did You Know?: Chris Rock got an early start on the small screen as a bit player on Fox sketch comedy In Living Color in the 1993-94 season.

SEX, LOVE AND SECRETS Tuesday 9 p.m.

The Premise: The intimate and often complex relationships of a tight-knit group of friends in the trendy community of Silver Lake, Los Angeles is the focus.

Lead-in: Americaís Next Top Model repeat

Competition: Commander-in-Chief (ABC), The Amazing Race 7 (CBS), My Name is Earl and The Office (NBC), House (Fox) and Supernatural (WB)

The Scoop: In the event you were wondering why the original title of Sex, Lies and Secrets was changed to Sex, Love and Secrets, according to Michael Gans:

"The show is the study of human nature. It's like a safari in Los Angeles. And so we're studying these things that drive humans and make them sort of different than the rest of the animals on the planet. And those things are sex, love and secrets. Although animals have sex, they don't take it to places we do. But humans, we know, do. And secrets are what keep us from knowing each other. So that's the reason for the title."

The Reality: While you certainly can't blame UPN for scheduling a drama targeted to young female viewers, hefty competition (particularly among the young viewers watching CBS' addictive The Amazing Race) coupled with lack of an original lead-in, means that Sex, Love and Secrets is a definite long-shot. Waiting in the midseason wings: J.Lo drama South Beach.

Chance of Survival for Sex, Love and Secrets (Based on a scale of 1-1 to 10-1): 9-1

Thursday’s network prime-time ratings have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Hasn't been said in awhile, so I want thank fredfa for the work it takes to keep all this info flowing. I love catching up on everything in this thread.

Keep in mind that each article has to be copied, posted, trimmed of any internet ads that got caught when copying - then all the {color = red} {size= 4} {color = blue} {color = green} { /b, { /i} etc etc etc have to be added in to make it clear and easy to read.

MUCH APPRECIATED !

ESPN (and ESPN2)- 70 College Football Games in HD

By Ken Kerschbaumer Broadcasting & Cable

ESPN will broadcast 61 games in high-definition on ESPN and ESPN2 this month, a record for the network. Unlike Roger Maris’ famous record of 61 homers in a single season, this particular milestone will be asterisk free.

“We’re clearly trying to drive interest in ESPN2 HD,” says Bryan Burns, ESPN VP, strategic planning and business development.

ESPN2 HD has yet to find widespread cable distribution, but the network hopes HD telecasts of the Little League World Series and the Pilot Pen professional tennis tournament will get some attention.

This fall, viewers can expect about 70 college football games to be shown in high-def. Burns says the network has done "a lot of schedule juggling," ensuring it has enough trucks to accomodate the sale of HD football.

the sad part is- they purposly put the games on espn2hd just to drum up interest.. and then show nothing on regular espn hd..

wow nice thread here!!!

Thanks, Daemoncraft, and welcome!

jim: I think the more games they put on ESPN2 the better chance we have (no matter our provider) of getting ESPN2 HD sooner.

Groups Ask FCC to Block Adelphia Sale
DirecTV, programmers and consumer advocates seek to halt or modify the deal with Comcast and Time Warner
By Sallie Hofmeister Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 22, 2005

Public interest groups, rival satellite companies and cable programmers Thursday filed papers asking federal regulators to block or impose conditions on the acquisition of Adelphia Communications Corp. by the nation's two largest cable TV providers.

Some critics said the deal would give the two buyers, Time Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp., monopolistic powers that could deprive competitors of programming. Others objected to how the sale would make Time Warner the dominant pay-television provider in Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest market.

Among the dissenters that filed papers, due Thursday as part of the regulatory approval process, were DirecTV Group Inc., the National Hispanic Media Coalition and a group that includes consumer advocates such as the Center for Digital Democracy, Media Alliance and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Despite their complaints, however, analysts say the Federal Communications Commission is unlikely to block the $17.6- billion deal, which was struck in April pending approval of regulators and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Adelphia filed for bankruptcy protection three years ago amid an accounting scandal.

The deal would make Time Warner the largest cable provider in Southern California while giving Comcast more customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Florida.

"We're optimistic that all regulatory approvals will be obtained," said Susan Duffy, a spokeswoman for Time Warner.

Federal rules preventing a single cable operator from serving more than 30% of the nation's TV households were thrown out by the courts several years ago. Neither Time Warner nor Comcast would exceed those limits as a result of the acquisition.

Still, analysts say the FCC could impose conditions on the sale that would prevent Time Warner or Comcast from using their growing clout to secure exclusive rights to popular programming such as sports or from charging rivals unfair rates for channels either of them owns.

"This will be the biggest battlefield," said Blair Levin, an analyst at Legg Mason in Washington.

In its filing, DirecTV urged the FCC to impose such conditions, which are similar to restrictions that were placed on its parent company, News Corp., as part of its 2003 takeover of the nation's satellite TV leader.

The conditions prevent News Corp. from withholding its popular Fox regional sports channels from cable rivals as a way to lure subscribers to DirecTV. Time Warner and Comcast will address specific objections to the transaction in a response to the FCC that is due Aug. 5. The companies, however, have maintained that the deal would create operating efficiencies that would enable them to accelerate the deployment of digital cable, video on demand and telephone service to consumers who now subscribe to Adelphia.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition said in its filing that oversight was needed to ensure that these services were parceled out to poor neighborhoods as well as affluent ones and that channels aimed at minorities were carried.

Hasn't been said in awhile, so I want thank fredfa for the work it takes to keep all this info flowing. I love catching up on everything in this thread.

Keep in mind that each article has to be copied, posted, trimmed of any internet ads that got caught when copying - then all the {color = red} {size= 4} {color = blue} {color = green} { /b, { /i} etc etc etc have to be added in to make it clear and easy to read.

MUCH APPRECIATED !An excellent presentation of excellent content. This is my favorite thread in avsforums. Thanks so much fred.

“Princes” out

Fox today got rid of “The Princes of Malibu” after two very low-rated weeks on the air. Repeats of ”The Simpsons” will fill the Sunday night slot.

But the network did say that the remaining episodes will air.

Sometime.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Paul Brownfield The Los Angeles Times

Keep the name handy: 'Just Legal'

Good morning from the House of Merv. It's WB day. First panel up is "Just Legal," starring Don Johnson as a washed-up, alcoholic lawyer and Jay Baruchel as an 18-year-old, sort of hipster-doofus/legal wunderkind. They move in together (oh, no wait, that's if it were a sitcom). They defend people in court. Yeah, that's it.

Question for Mr. Don Johnson: How does it feel being on the same network as Melanie Griffith?

Johnson: "Melanie's working?"

Yes, she's in "Twins," a sitcom about twins. Griffith's the mother, Mark Linn-Baker's the father, Sara Gilbert's the twin daughter, Molly Stanton's the other twin. The girls are taking over their parents' lingerie business, but can they get along? Because one's a little plain-Jane and smart (Gilbert), the other (Stanton) is sexy and kind of dense. It's a comedy of opposites!

As opposed to "Just Legal," which is a dramedy of opposites, a lot of it shot, apparently, in Venice. Overseen by the Jerry Bruckheimer Institute for Higher Television and created by Jonathan Shapiro.

Question for Mr. Shapiro. What's it like working for Bruckheimer's Institute for Higher Television?

"They pay you. I've never been paid before ... they have a sense of the totality of the production in terms of the look -- it was very important to me, because I did grow up here, that we honor this area. I just never felt that L.A. had been shown on TV the way I see it. Which is sort of a wish fulfillment, diverse kind of heaven."

Shapiro on lawyers on TV: " ... What I've come away with is that there's a kind of cheap cynicism about lawyers and about the law. And I hate it ... at the end of the day I want people to come away with the same sense of hope for law as I have."

I'm betting on Shapiro, I have hope for this show. He gives Don Johnson the line: "The law is still the best thing people have come up with to do good."

But back to Don on Melanie: "That was just a joke. Of course I know that she's on the network and I'm delighted for her and she'll be terrific, she's a wonderful talent."

The "Twins" panel followed. "I'm really happy for him," she said of Don. "I'm even happier for our daughter because her trust fund is going to be really healthy."

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Melanie McFarland The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Television Critic

"Sex, Love & Secrets"... and health hazardous stupidity

Some series reek of idiocy to the point that the viewer goes limp. When they're that foul, even talking about them can immobilize anyone within earshot.

Yesterday afternoon, for instance, I attempted to power through the session for UPN's "Sex, Lies & Secrets," debuting at 9 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27. It's a prime-time soap set in Silver Lake, a hip L.A. neighborhood. And it will soon have you pining away for the first season of "Melrose Place." It is that bad.

But I soon discovered an evil more sinister than unimaginative primetime programming: Being forced to listen to the babbling dullards responsible for it. Including Denise Richards.

"The show is a study of human nature. It's like a safari in Los Angeles," explained series co-executive producer Michael Gans. "And so we're studying those things that drive humans and make them sort of different than the rest of the animals on the planet. And those things are sex, love and secrets."

I began to feel a slight twitching in my face.

"Although animals have sex, they don't take it to the places we do," Gans continued. "And they fall in love perchance, but we don't know. But humans, we know, do."

Suddenly my head lolled backward and my jaw went slack. My god, this panel was so stupid that my brain was shutting down all unnecessary functions -- muscle control, conscious thought -- as a defensive mechanism.

Then Eric Balfour piped in. "You know, music is such a part of our lives. And you know, there's a soundtrack going on in our heads kind of all the time." I felt a ribbon of drool crawl out of the side of my mouth.

Lord, I was hating it.

Around the time Richards uttered the phrase, "It's really real and fun," a repressed memory from CBS's Wednesday afternoon panel on "Criminal Minds" came flooding back in a blur. My goodness, had Mandy Patinkin brought on a similar fit? I guess so.

I have no idea why "Criminal Minds," a creepy procedural about profilers and exceptionally messed up criminals, took center stage in my thoughts. My mind replayed Patinkin defending the "Criminal Minds" pilot, which featured a woman caged by a serial killer.

Maybe I wished the guy would cage the "Sex, Love & Secrets" cast. That must be it.

Anyway, I recalled that when someone asked what entertainment purpose was served by displaying such gratuitous exploitation at 9 p.m. on Wednesday nights, Patinkin responded cheerily.

"I hope that a show like this heightens your awareness," Patinkin said, "maybe as insignificant as it may seem, because first and foremost, it's entertainment and an escapist element. But I also hope it has an element that the next time you go online to buy something, you might be a little more aware.

"The next time you talk to somebody, the next time you're washing your dishes at a kitchen window, and your 4-year-old is in the yard, before you go to answer the phone, you'll consider who might be able to get into the yard to take your child," Patinkin finished. "Et cetera, et cetera ... that's what I hope."

Fully horrified, I jerked back into a conscious state, returning my attention to "Sex, Love & Secrets" just in time to hear Richards weigh in again.

"It's never been done before. I'm from the Midwest. I had never even heard of Silver Lake. So I think it's a little, it's different. Everyone has seen shows that take place in Malibu and in Beverly Hills and all that," she offered. "And Silver Lake is different."

I thought I could center myself and finish the panel, but soon after that, her co-star Omar Benson Miller said, "I just prepared a rap for everyone today." Although he was joking, it was enough to make me dash from the room.

Sanity first, friends, sanity first.

Any mysteries left from Titanic for Cameron to find?

By Dick Kreck Denver Post Columnist

Is there anything we don't know about the Titanic? Dives, feature films, documentaries and touring artifacts would seem to have covered the topic.

Nope. James Cameron, who directed the award-winning movie about the ill-fated liner, goes back to the scene on "Last Mysteries of the Titanic" (9 PM ET, Sunday, Discovery Channel).

Cameron's cameras wander deep into the hulk to explore the boiler room and ponder what caused the great ship to go down.

"Mysteries" follows yet another Titanic special, "Titanic Voyage: Untold Stories," which profiles some of the doomed passengers (8 PM ET, Discovery Channel).

Quotable: "The press knows the size of Titanic, now I want them to marvel at her speed, too. The maiden voyage of Titanic must make headlines!" - Bruce Ismay, chairman, White Star Line.

fredfa-When do you sleep?

Red-hot 'Deadwood'

By Alan Sepinwall Newark NJ Star-Ledger Friday, July 22, 2005

LOS ANGELES -- "Deadwood" killed my car. Or, as one critic suggested, I've been through the desert on a car with no tires.

Earlier this week, attendees at the Television Critics Association summer press tour were scheduled to travel by bus to the "Deadwood" set in the mountains north of L.A. The weather in that area is so legendarily scorching in July that we were warned to dress light, and I took my rental car for the ability to leave early if the temperature rose too high.

The mercury was, in fact, well over 100 by the time we were given a tour of the set, one of the largest ever built for a TV drama. There are real streets, real buildings, a real antique printing press in the newspaper offices of the Deadwood Pioneer. (Not everything's that authentic: The "back issues" collection of the Pioneer is actually a bound volume of Boston Globe articles from 1929.)

An up-close look at the sets gives a sense of the habits of the camp. At the Grand Central hotel, a room is $1.50 a night, but a half day is only 60 cents. Pork (likely made from Mr. Wu's man-eating pigs) is a quarter, the same price as a Bowie knife at Bullock & Star Hardware. And in The Gem saloon, a sign says "10 cents a touch."

The set has expanded over the years, not just to reflect the historical growth of Deadwood but, as producer Gregg Feinberg put it, to accommodate the vision of creator David Milch , who was his usual gregarious self at a later news conference.

Only 40 pages into the first episode script a few weeks away from the start of filming, Milch wouldn't promise too much about season 3 (due early next year) -- "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans," he said. But he hinted that elections would be an issue, and that legendary lawman Wyatt Earp would drop by for a confrontation with volatile hero Seth Bullock.

(Spoiler alert, so skip past this paragraph if you want to stay pure: Spotted floating around the set was actor Powers Boothe , whose character Cy Tolliver was gut-stabbed last year. Boothe -- 25 years after his Emmy-winning turn as cult leader Jim Jones -- was sipping a colored beverage that looked suspiciously like Kool-Aid.)

Anna Gunn, who plays Martha Bullock, and Paula Malcomson , who plays Trixie the hooker, were asked how they deal with the heat when wearing corsets and heavy period dresses all day.

"You don't want to know," Malcolmson laughed in her native Irish lilt.

"Ice packs on the inner thighs," said Gunn.

"I wasn't thinking 'inner thighs,' but ..." said Malcolmson.

As the press conference ended, most of the critics piled onto buses, and I got back into my car with the A/C on full blast. Moments later, I heard a loud pop and noticed the rear of my car was fishtailing. For reasons that still escape understanding, I had been attacked by severe tire damage spikes at the exit to the complex and I was stuck out in the heat for four hours waiting for the rental car company to get a replacement to me.

I spent a few extra minutes back at "Deadwood" while making calls to the car agency. On my way back to the crippled car, I looked around for the blacksmith set, if only to consider how much more quickly this ordeal would have been over with horses. I spotted a stuffed Elmo doll hanging from a noose on a tree just off the street set.

"Time to get the (bleep) out of Deadwood," I thought.

Some possibilitgies you might have overlooked…..
9 shows to watch this weekend

Sid Smith, Maureen Ryan Chicago Tribune July 22, 2005
(Note: all times are Central)
"Footballers Wives," 7 p.m. Friday, BBC America: The most enjoyable escapist fare of the summer may just be this British import, the soapy chronicle of the high-rolling spouses of Earls Park football (a.k.a. soccer) club. There's deception, infidelity, drug use, designer clothes, glam parties and attempted murder -- and that's just in the two-hour series premiere. Though the working-class accents can be tough to follow at times, there's also just enough character development to make you care about the deliciously named Chardonnay Lane, not to mention her gal pals Donna and Tonya and their hard-partying husbands. The next installment airs at 8 p.m. Sunday, so get caught up, luv.

"Into the West," 7 p.m. Friday on TNT: The Steven Spielberg-produced summer series concludes with an episode recounting the Wounded Knee massacre. The acting has been better than the writing throughout, and that includes Craig Sheffer, on hand in the finale as a member of the latest generation of Wheelers, the fictional family of craftsmen and adventurers at the heart of the saga.

"Firefly," 6 p.m. Friday, Sci Fi: Joss Whedon's short-lived outer-space series arrives on Sci Fi, which is showing episodes of the cult Fox show on Fridays in anticipation of the Sept. 30 release of Whedon's big-screen "Firefly" film, "Serenity." The series follows the adventures of hardened space captain Mal Reynolds and the assortment of offbeat shipmates and passengers on his ship, Serenity.

"Biography," 7 p.m. Friday, A&E: If there hasn't been enough Potter-mania in your life, check out the "Biography" series' take on author J.K. Rowling. Rowling herself apparently didn't do an interview for the hourlong bio, but everyone from the young stars of the Potter films to "Simpsons" creator (and Potter fan) Matt Groening to "Miss Shepherd," Rowling's English teacher, talked about Rowling's rise to authorial superstardom.

"Hemingway's Cuba," 8 p.m. Saturday on the Food Network: Actress Mariel Hemingway plays tour guide on this look at one of her novelist grandfather's adopted playgrounds, exploring his favorite watering holes and the island's culture, history and cuisine.

"Pizza My Heart," 6 p.m. Sunday on ABC Family:A warm, amusing tale of battling families who run competing New Jersey pizza parlors and the star-crossed romance of a pair of their youngsters.

"The N Beat," 6 p.m. Saturday, WLS-Ch. 7: ABC 7 reporters Theresa Gutierrez, John Garcia and Stacey Baca take a look at Chicago's gang problem from the perspective of those trying to rescue young people from the streets. One of the frontline anti-gang activists profiled is Kenny Ruiz, director of the YMCA's Street Intervention Program and one of Chicago Magazine's 2004 Chicagoans of the Year.

"Find!," 5:30 p.m. Sunday, WTTW-Ch. 11: Leigh Keno, half of the antique-expert Keno twins, heads to Chicago, where he finds treasures at a garage sale and visits Donald Friedman, an expert on memorabilia from Chicago's World's Fair. Keno and his co-host, designer Alexa Hampton, also visit a lovingly restored mansion built by famous Windy City architect David Adler.

"Inside the Actors Studio: Tom Cruise," 6 p.m. Sunday, Bravo: Yes, it's a two-hour edition of the James Lipton lovefest, but we're willing to sit through it just to see if he asks Mr. Katie Holmes about Scientology.

Piratess: I can’t find the ratings you wanted anywhere. But maybe this story will serve as a consolation prize:

Now isn't the time to ignore HBO

There are skeptics, but the network will remain a force during the new season

By Hal Boedeker Orlando Sentinel Television Critic July 22, 2005

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- The best television programs speak louder than the executives ever can.

Twice a year, programmers roll out their wares when the nation's television critics gather in Southern California. The bigwigs frequently turn defensive. This year, HBO is feeling prickly because some critics have written it off.

New series don't have the punch of Sex and the City or The Sopranos. Ratings are down. Could the HB in HBO stand for Has-Been?

The bad press prompts HBO Chairman Chris Albrecht to defend his lineup and lecture critics about misunderstanding the channel's business. "HBO is and will continue to be the most profitable network in the whole world," he says.

Talking down to acerbic critics is never a smart move. Still, the preview suggests HBO will be the main network to watch in the coming season.

First, HBO will offer the program bound to generate the most headlines. The Sopranos starts its sixth season in March, when it will decorate hundreds of magazines and overtake Desperate Housewives in the buzz biz. Speculation about whether this mob drama will have a seventh season will keep the show in the news.

If the Hollywood-themed Entourage and The Comeback fall short in the comedy department, HBO can count on Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm. That series starts its fifth season Sept. 25.

HBO has a diverting new comedy in Extras. Ricky Gervais, of the original British version of The Office, plays Andy, an unhappy bit movie actor. HBO bills the show as "the story of a man with small parts." Stephen Merchant, who writes and directs the show with Gervais, portrays Andy's incompetent agent.

"Whenever you get an idiot in charge of your life, it's just a recipe for kind of fun," Merchant says. Andy has "the worst people for the job. So you just know that he's never really going to get anywhere."

Nevertheless, Andy turns up in the company of famous actors in this six-episode series. Putting in cameos are Kate Winslet, Ben Stiller, Samuel L. Jackson and Patrick Stewart.

Rome, which premieres Aug. 28, dwarfs every other new drama series this fall. This HBO-BBC co-production opens in 52 B.C. and concentrates on two soldiers in Julius Caesar's 13th Legion. Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson portray battle-hardened men who slowly become friends.

The sex, violence and intrigue make Rome the ancient equivalent of The Sopranos. The 12-episode series filmed in Rome over 14 months, an incredibly long shoot in television.

"We wanted to do this in a same way that you would do a show, say, about America today," executive producer Bruno Heller says. "We have to be very specific about what was going on. . . . It was very important to get the fine detail right so that you felt that you were in a real world and not in a costume drama."

The specific approach has paid off for HBO in drama series such as Deadwood, The Wire and Six Feet Under. The network will try to add to that list of successes with Big Love, about a Salt Lake City polygamist (Bill Paxton) and his three wives.

The care that HBO lavishes on its movies makes it the undisputed leader in that format. The Emmys last week nominated three HBO works for top film: Warm Springs, Lackawanna Blues and The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. HBO also was the network leader with 93 Emmy nominations.

The channel is working furiously to maintain its edge. While CBS offers escapist fare such as Vampire Bats and Category 7: The End of the World, HBO will stick to classier fare. HBO developed and produced Yesterday, a story of AIDS in South Africa, which will debut in November.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation supported the production, which became South Africa's Oscar nominee for best foreign film this year. But Yesterday will not have a theatrical release in the United States. HBO is the place to see it.

In a short film shown to critics, Mandela endorsed the film, saying, "We are confident that this will assist in spreading the message of prevention."

HBO has lined up major talent for other films. Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons will star in a miniseries about Queen Elizabeth I. In Mrs. Harris, Annette Bening plays Jean Harris, who killed her lover, Scarsdale Diet doctor Herman Tarnower (Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley). Edward James Olmos is directing Walkout, the true story of Chicano students protesting against the Los Angeles public-school system in the 1960s.

Production starts this fall on John Adams, a 10-hour miniseries based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of the second U.S. president. Tom Hanks serves as an executive producer on it. After that, he will team with Steven Spielberg on an epic World War II drama about the Pacific Theater.

"Those two projects alone will cost probably $300 million, so I don't think anybody is playing on the same planet that we are," HBO honcho Albrecht says.

He can be forgiven the boasting. If history is any indication, the programs will probably prove him right.

Knots Landing reunion brings its stars together

By MIKE MCDANIEL Houston Chronicle

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. - They did it for Dallas last season. Now, for this fall, Michael Levitt and Henry Winkler have made Knots Landing Reunion: Together Again. And for the TV press, a minireunion: Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie (Michele Lee), Abby Fairgate Cunningham Ewing Sumner (Donna Mills) and Valene Clements Ewing Ewing Gibson Waleska (Joan Van Ark).

Tied with Dallas as television's longest-running prime-time soap, Knots Landing (1979-1993) could be seen as the original Desperate Housewives.

"Oh, we were better than that," said Mills, who was plotting and bedding before Eva Longoria was in grade school.

"I think Desperate Housewives is more of a dark comedy," Lee said. "But I'll take the compliment. I think it's brilliantly done."

Housewives is set on a street called Wisteria Lane. Knots followed the domestic adventures of five families living on a cul-de-sac. ABC's mystery/dramedy and CBS' sweeping drama have one other thing in common: Nicolette Sheridan.

Lee jokingly makes a disparaging comment about Sheridan's promiscuous character.

"And I taught her everything she knows," added Mills.

Sheridan was filming Housewives when the Knots reunion was being shot, but she agreed to be taped separately and will be inserted into the show.

Also appearing for the reunion are Kevin Dobson, Ted Shackelford, William Devane, Alec Baldwin, Michelle Phillips and Lisa Hartman Black. And, tipped Lee, there'll be a surprise visit (well, it was a surprise to the cast) by revered actress Julie Harris, 79.

The special was shot on the original cul-de-sac — a real place in the Pacific Palisades (unlike Housewives, which is shot on a Universal Pictures lot). An air date has not been set.

"I'd like to request that we are not scheduled opposite Desperate Housewives," said Lee, 62.

Unlike Housewives, which last week received 15 Emmy nominations, Knots never captured the hearts and minds of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Though popular with audiences, the show got only three Emmy nods during its run (for Lee, Harris and music), winning one (music).

"The show never had the critical acclaim it deserved," said Mills, 63. But it lasted longer than the Emmy winners it competed against. "L.A. Law would get all the awards, and we'd stay on the air; they'd go off. Hill Street Blues got all the awards; they went off the air."

(Both L.A. Law and Hill Street aired opposite Knots.)

"We were a soap opera, and you don't give awards to soap operas," said Michael Filerman, one of Knots' creators. "You do feel like a second-class citizen. I know we did at the time."

For the reunion show, expect the cast to reflect on favorite story lines, hairstyles, fashion and Mills' penchant for fabulous eye makeup.

Asked to speculate on what the women of Knots might be doing today, Van Ark supposed that Valene would be running a movie studio, while Lee's character would ...

"Be a grandmother," Lee said. "I didn't say this in the reunion, but I'll tell you now: I had it written in my contract that I would not be a grandmother on Knots Landing. Forget the money, forget the dressing room ... "

Roman virgins, tuna tartare and Wolf Blitzer

By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle Friday, July 22, 2005

Beverly Hills -- Here's the worst-kept secret in the world: Being held hostage at the Beverly Hilton with a 42-inch flat-screen in your room and Frette sheets on the bed is not -- repeat not -- worthy of whining about. There's not a blue collar in this whole city, much less in the air-conditioned confines where we hear beautiful people talk about their motivation for playing FBI- trained criminal profilers.

You want to know what's criminal? Getting a call from your spouse and hearing crying kids in the background when you're holding a top-shelf cocktail in your hand and the answer to the question, "So what did you do today?" is this: "Oh, we listened while Paula Marshall and Carla Gugino talked about who had the bigger breasts."

You don't say that. You don't ever say that. You say this: "Nothing much. " Or a variation on the theme: "I cut off my ear in the middle of the session for 'Martha Stewart Behind Bars.' "

There are certain rules to remember on the Death March With Cocktails, and the primary one is this: You are not living in the real world. Do not whine. No whining! Do not say you're tired. Do not, under any circumstances, say the following: "I'm underwhelmed by the desserts." The only way to keep a tether on reality is to go back to your room, pull the champagne out of the bucket and put your head in the ice.

No, really, there's no champagne.

Actually, there is. It's just not very good.

The problem with the Television Critics Association press tour, other than the appallingly junior varsity selection of champagne, is that unless something big or silly or scandalous happens every 30 or so minutes, we get bored. The fact is, there's really no breakout, game-changing hit this season, like "Desperate Housewives" or "Lost." There might be later on. The audience always decides that -- not critics. There are plenty of shows generating buzz. In fact, all told, there are a surprising number of compelling series, the sitcom has pulled a Lazarus, and across the landscape there are more good choices on broadcast and cable television than viewers have had in years. But there's no Big Idea or Horrifying Scandal.

And so we're bored a bit.

Thankfully, there's always stupid humor. For instance, on the very first day of the Death March -- that's July 12 if you're keeping track at home, with your 200-thread count sheets and laughably small TV screens -- there was a PBS panel called "Pioneers of Primetime," during which the stars who essentially built this industry opened the tap on their oxygen tanks and doled out some memories. Right in the middle of some soliloquy about Lucille Ball, when eyelids were growing heavy, Red Buttons (who, by the way, still brings the high heat on the inside fastball), blurted out: "Never liked her!"

So some of us have been applying that to random celebrities in the room just to amuse ourselves. That and Wolf Blitzer was here from CNN and someone saw him talking into his cell phone like a Secret Service agent. And when he was going into the elevator, instead of saying, "Hold on," or "Like everyone else in Los Angeles, I'm going to walk into this elevator with my cell phone and keep talking," he instead said this: "Stand by!"

You know, as if he were at the shuttle launch or something. So whenever a cell phone comes out, it's always -- "Stand by!"

But it's never, ever this: "Hi, honey. I'm at the HBO party getting my picture taken with really hot actresses dressed up as Roman virgins."

Ah, "Rome." HBO put a lot of money into that forthcoming series. But the tuna tartare was, frankly, over-seared.

Breeders: Never liked 'em!: The Sci-Fi Channel, which in comparison to a lot of others is actually doing some solid programming, is launching its new night of programming on Wednesday, and in the mix is the second season of the animated series "Tripping the Rift." Here's the description, verbatim: "On the premiere episode, the crew commandeers some valuable booty (G-Y Jelly) on a disabled space truck and sets a course for the all-gay planet Fabulous 7 to unload their spoils. On Fabulous 7, much to the crew's surprise, heterosexual relations are punishable by death. When Root's character, Chode, and Electra's buxom character, Six, are caught in a, uh, compromising position, the planet's closeted heterosexual statesman, Gov. McJersey, has the duo sentenced to a public execution (death by gayotine -- a guillotine, only gussied up with ribbons and swag). Stars Carmen Electra, Stephen Root and John Melendez."

They probably got the swag from the Death March With Cocktails.

We blame the unnatural freakishness of Al Roker: In a column note about the blur of reality shows, we mistakenly said "Weekends at the D.L.," "Too Late With Adam Carolla" and "The Showbiz Show With David Spade" were on VH1. Sorry. They're on corporate sister channel Comedy Central. Not to worry, however, because it appears that Viacom is pouring reality shows into the ether like a fire hydrant kicked over in Queens on a hot summer day.

And yes, you're soaking in it.

As for Al Roker, well, like a lot of things you see down here, it didn't make a lot of sense, but there he was, standing in the lobby.

Never liked him!

Stand by!: A lot of writers down here have been tortured by their papers into writing blogs. That seems like, well, nonsensical added labor. Though it has spawned a great phrase when some celebrity or executive does or says something asinine: "Blog gold!"

Just don't expect it here.

Never mind that most blogs read like a painful combination of emotional shut-ins practicing snarkiness by reading their diaries into a CB radio. But when professional critics get into the act, don't they lose the one thing of value they add -- thoughtful, reasoned analysis? Hell, if you want pointless rambling, you can just read this over again. Goodman -- never liked him!

The Sands of War

Gripping drama puts us on the front lines

By Matt Roush TV Guide

That fearless upstart FX has done it again. This brash network built its reputation on taking familiar types of TV heroes — cops (The Shield), doctors (Nip/Tuck), firefighters (Rescue Me) — and exposing bold new facets of character through outrageous plotting and daring adult situations.

Over There (Wednesdays at 10 pm/ET), a soldier's-eye-view chronicle of the current Iraq conflict, could be FX's riskiest series yet. It isn't subversive or perversely ironic, and it rarely strains for shock value in its graphic drama. But it also never succumbs to rah-rah boosterism, which may lead some to find it unpatriotic.

On the contrary, this show supports the troops by humanizing them, with flaws and fears, in stories on the battlefield and the home front. The viewer is quickly embedded in a gritty, chaotic world where grinding boredom alternates with grisly carnage.

Being neither feel-good nor cynical in tone, it is unlikely to appease those with extreme opinions about the war. But just as executive producer Steven Bochco's NYPD Blue reinvigorated the procedural, Over There brings intensely realistic integrity and unprecedented immediacy to war drama.

We plunge into action — a firefight in a sandstorm, a roadblock — before we can even tell the soldiers apart. (Like HBO's Band of Brothers, it uses a largely unknown ensemble.) Danger and despair coexist with camaraderie and valor in impressionistic slices of life and death.

Even after a mission is completed, there is little sense of victory or exuberance. Because, after all, they're still over there.

The new TV season: The Frog croaks
(Plus "Smallville'' and "Gilmore Girls'' return and other WB news)

Charlie McCollum [B]San Jose Mercury News

Michigan J. Frog, the icon of the WB since the network was launched, has croaked. The immediate cause of death was given as complications from a shift in corporate strategy.

The WB suits probably didn't mean to announce the passing on The Tour but they stumbled into it when someone asked about new art work for promotion of the fall TV season that did not include The Frog. Garth Ancier, chairman of the WB, then admitted Michigan had died at the age of 50. (The signing and dancing Michigan first appeared in a Warner Bros. cartoon short in 1955.)

Ancier then went on to explain that The Frog no longer fit the new image of the WB, although -- throughout his talk with reporters -- he couldn't quite explain what that image was. Private services for The Frog will be held at some future date.

But seriously, folks ... the WB also announced its fall premiere dates which, this year, stretch from Sept. 13 to early October. And, of course, it's going ahead with some big moves, most notably the shift of both "Smallville'' and "Everwood'' to the feeding frenzy that is Thursday night.

The rollout schedule as it now exists:

Tuesday, Sept. 13:
"Gilmore Girls'' (8 p.m.)
"Supernatural'' (9 p.m.)

Friday, Sept. 16:

"What I Like About You" (8 p.m.)
"Twins'' (8:30 p.m.)
"Reba" (9 p.m.)
"Living With Fran" (9:30 p.m.)

Monday, Sept. 19

"7th Heaven" (8 p.m.)
"Just Legal'' (9 p.m.)

Sunday, Sept. 25

"Charmed" (8 p.m.)
"Blue Collar TV" (9 p.m.)

Thursday, Sept. 29

"Smallville" (8 p.m.)
"Everwood" (9 p.m.)

Wednesday, Oct. 5

"One Tree Hill" (8 p.m.)
"Related'' (9 p.m.)

The starting dates for the WB programs have been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Frodo To Battle Emmys

By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable

The WB is counter-programming the Emmys this year with the second movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Network chairman Garth Ancier says the move is strategic -- and not intended to send a message to Emmy voters.

“There was that sense many, many years ago, when there were so few channels that the networks didn’t counter-program [the Emmys],” he says. “There used to be much more laying down. Today, if the networks lay down, big deal. Then people would only have 142 other channels to look at, and they’re not laying down.”

Ancier maintains the move has nothing to do with Emmy voters generally ignoring The WB.

“This is just good counter-programming,” he says. “We think that young boys aren’t going to be watching the Law & Order cast up there. At least we’re hoping.”

The network will air The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on Sunday, Sept. 18 in a four-hour block beginning at 7 PM ET.

WB Prepares for Growing Pains

By Ben Grossman Broadcasting & Cable

WB executives on Friday continued to push the network’s new strategy to strengthen its audience among 25-34 year olds. One sign the network is trying to grow up: the tap-dancing frog mascot is being left behind.

While pushing a slate of new shows that includes lead roles for older stars Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, WB Entertainment President David Janollari told the audience at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., that the network wants to get beyond its image as just a teen haven.

“The strategy is to make sure that the perception with the audience is that we are a destination for that segment that’s 25-34,” he said. “I believe there have been so many shows that were set in high school that were successful, [and] I think that contributes to the perception that we were really a teenage service. It’s important for us to continue to reinforce that the audience who is 18-34 can come to our network and see shows that are relevant to them.”

Network Chairman Garth Ancier acknowledged the challenge.

“One of the things we kept getting back in research is that people in their late 20s and early 30s do not perceive the network as ‘for me,’” he said. “We have always done well in the 12-24 range and we have not done as well in the 25-34 range. It’s sort of a guilty pleasure, or people just don’t acknowledge they watch it. We’re trying to crack it.”

As part of the discussion, Ancier and Janollari also confirmed that the dancing frog, the mascot of the network up until now, “is dead.” Janollari added that the move was part of the overall network strategy to attract an older audience. “That was a symbol that perpetuated the young, teen feel of the network, and that is not the image we want to put out to our audience,” he said.

However, network spokespeople were quick to point out after the presentation that the frog mascot continues to be a part of the network’s presence, just not on air in prime time. The frog will continue to be associated with the network, including as part of WB’s online and kids’ offerings.

London 7/21: Cable Coverage Ratings
mediabistro.com

Here are the hourlies. Notice how dramatically CNN's and MSNBC's ratings drop between 11am and 4pm, and how FNC keeps more than a million viewers all day:

8am: FNC: 1,039,000 / CNN: 602,000 / MSNBC: 287,000
9am: FNC: 1,373,000 / CNN: 725,000 / MSNBC: 227,000
10am: FNC: 1,519,000 / CNN: 874,000 / MSNBC: 349,000
11am: FNC: 1,346,000 / CNN: 905,000 / MSNBC: 305,000
12pm: FNC: 1,254,000 / CNN: 608,000 / MSNBC: 257,000
1pm: FNC: 1,088,000 / CNN: 663,000 / MSNBC: 199,000
2pm: FNC: 1,106,000 / CNN: 487,000 / MSNBC: 206,000
3pm: FNC: 1,127,000 / CNN: 387,000 / MSNBC: 195,000
4pm: FNC: 1,116,000 / CNN: 272,000 / MSNBC: 255,000

Total viewers:
Total day: FNC: 1,114,000 / CNN: 528,000 / HLN: 244,000 / MSNBC: 244,000 / CNBC: 146,000
Primetime: FNC: 2,238,000 / CNN: 828,000 / HLN: 582,000 / MSNBC: 349,000 / CNBC: 111,000

25-54 demographic:
Total day: FNC: 338,000 / CNN: 179,000 / HLN: 109,000 / MSNBC: 81,000 / CNBC: 44,000
Primetime: FNC: 557,000 / CNN: 243,000 / HLN: 197,000 / MSNBC: 122,000 / CNBC: 58,000

The hourlies:
5pm: Gibson: 1,362,000 / Blitzer: 469,000 / HLN: 124,000 / Connected: 132,000 / CNBC: 281,000
6pm: Brit Hume: 1,404,000 / Lou Dobbs: 471,000 / HLN: 68,000 / Abrams: 217,000 / Mad Money: 284,000
7pm: Shepard Smith: 1,498,000 / Cooper: 457,000 / Showbiz: 112,000 / Hardball: 348,000 / Conan: 143,000
8pm: Bill O'Reilly: 2,599,000 / Paula Zahn: 556,000 /Nancy Grace: 720,000 / Countdown: 414,000 / The Restaurant: 101,000
9pm: Hannity & Colmes: 2,024,000 / Larry King: 1,202,000 / Prime News: 535,000 / Situation: 230,000 / Mad Money repeat: 126,000
10pm: Greta Van Susteren: 2,092,000 / NewsNight: 726,000 / Nancy Grace repeat: 492,000 / Joe Scarborough: 402,000 / Deutsch: 105,000


Update: CNN never broke a million viewers during the breaking news coverage; the network peaked at 905,000. FNC peaked at 1,519,000.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Paul Brownfield The Los Angeles Times

Brothers and Sisters

Post-lunch at the WB. Richard Rubin, Richard the Geek from "Beauty and the Geek," is playing the piano as the TV press files back into the ballroom.

He's like the network's mascot for the day. Hey, I guess it's a living.

This afternoon we hear about "Related," a comedy-drama about the four Sorelli sisters, and "Supernatural," a scary movie of a show about two brothers chasing and hunting down "demons, creatures and spirits from urban legend and American folklore," says executive producer Eric Kripke.

Here's the thing: These sessions all kind of go the same. Clip from series shown, cast paraded out and parked in a row of seats (this being the WB, it tends to be variation on a theme, lithe actresses in dresses and skirts, tousle-haired guys in jeans and groovy untucked shirts).

"Related" executive producer Marta Kauffman, co-creator of "Friends," is live via satellite from Milan, on vacation. She begins telling us the story of the Sorellis.

They had to re-cast and are in the process of redoing the pilot, so I guess this is why she feels a need to fill the TV press with generous bits from the show bible. She says the sisters have no trouble telling each other anything.

Kauffman continues telling us these four urban gals and their respective lives, consulting notes, until you almost feel as if you're being told a bedtime story, except Mom's not bedside she's via satellite, from Milan, on the big screen opposite the bed.

``It's a crazy place for a talented but innocent virgin," you think you hear Mom saying, and: "One of the sisters is a therapist specializing in transvestite mental health."

Mom's story is now really scaring you.

"You know how in every family there's one kid who's born, and when she's born she basically has a sign on her back that says, 'I'm the one you should worry about?' That's Marjee," it continues.

"Supernatural" is what people around here are saying is the "buzz" show. Executive producer McG calls it a "downright scary show," the kind of show that makes it hard to go to sleep that night. Judging by the questions, the TV press seems turned on by its formula, a road movie meets a looking-for-your-father movie meets a very scary movie. Starring two hot guys.

Kelly’s “Desperate” Dancing?

By MICHAEL STARR New York Post

Kelly Monaco, the surprise winner of "Dancing with the Stars," could be waltzing over to a role on ABC stablemate "Desperate Housewives."

"I thought she did an amazing job dancing on that big ['Dancing'] finale," "Housewives" creator Marc Cherry told "Access Hollywood."

"I think she's great," Cherry said. "I haven't started to think of how to fit her into Wisteria Lane, but she's awfully talented."

"AH" co-host Billy Bush then asked Cherry if he would be "out of his mind" to assume Monaco would appear on "Housewives."

"You would not be out of your mind," Cherry replied.

The casting of Monaco would be easy, considering she stars on "General Hospital" — which, like "Housewives," airs on ABC.

When Monaco was asked by "AH" about appearing on "Housewives," she didn't exactly deny the rumor.

"We'll see," she said. "I can't say anything. I'm sworn to secrecy."

Monaco beat out former "Seinfeld" co-star John O'Hurley for the "Dancing with the Stars" crown.

The hit summer series paired celebrities with dancing pros, who taught the stars two dances a week before they performed live, with one "couple" voted off the show each week.

The show's been renewed for a second season, which will air early next year.

"Housewives" was last season's breakout hit, telling the (often sordid) tales of the women of Wisteria Lane: Gabrielle (Eva Longoria), Susan (Teri Hatcher), Bree (Marcia Cross), Lynette (Felicity Huffman) and Edie (Nicollette Sheridan).

I am sorry I missed this Shales review Thursday – but when he skewers a show it is always good reading!

Fox's 'Dance' Does the Jerk

By Tom Shales Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 21

When rock bottom no longer seems low enough, one must resort to drastic measures -- none more drastic than taking a peek at the Fox network's summertime programming. It's a relatively quick if not easy way to remind yourself how demoralizing and tedious the truly execrable can be.

"So You Think You Can Dance," the latest Fox suppository, borrows its basic format from the network's justifiably popular "American Idol," though with dancing substituted for singing it will remind many viewers of "Dancing With the Stars," the recent ABC hit in which celebrities practiced their ballroom dancing on the air. "So You Think You Can Dance" is a talent competition staged by people who appear to be spectacularly untalented themselves.

The series premiered last night with a two-hour episode, and it quickly became clear that Nigel Lythgoe, the chief producer and a former choreographer, thinks he has latched onto at least one fascinating star: Nigel Lythgoe. One of three "Idol"-like judges rating the contestants, Lythgoe cast himself in the nasty Simon Cowell role, dishing out insults even to people he chose as winners. (The other two judges spoke little, were barely identified and disappeared altogether in the second half of the program.)

Two young men who had covered themselves in white powder, making themselves look as though they were carved out of stone, performed a little act they'd perfected on the street corners of Chicago. Lythgoe told them, "If you were statues and I were a pigeon, I'd let you know what I thought." But then he told them they could both advance to the next stage of the competition.

"You looked bored stiff," Lythgoe said earlier -- addressing not the home viewer but a pudgy young dancer named Christine. He told another girl her movements resembled those of a "tumble dryer," ha ha. "Dance" belongs not so much to the genre of reality TV as it does to that of humiliation television. Viewers are implicitly promised they will see people belittled and insulted, perhaps -- if the producers are lucky -- to the point of tears.

Lythgoe reached his own personal worst with a prolonged tirade that sounded like poorly disguised homophobia. Imagine staging a dancing competition and having a few gay boys show up! That this might have surprised him is absurd enough, but Lythgoe took off after one young man in particular -- an obviously talented kid named Anthony -- for not looking "masculine" enough when he danced. Whatever that meant.

"I need boy dancers to be strong, masculine!" Lythgoe bellowed. "You did not look like a masculine dancer with your partner." As part of the contest, the rules to which are a hopeless mass of confusion, the dancers must pair up for one number. Little if any of Anthony's team portion was shown to viewers, so who knew if Lythgoe had a leg to stand on, but the point is that his criticism morphed into a vendetta.

Assuming any conflict to be good TV, the producers kept teasing viewers with little excerpts from this encounter throughout the show. Those who watched the full two hours (or rather, the empty two hours) heard the poor lad defending his masculinity four times. This goes beyond bad taste and simple sadism to outright insanity.

The playing field for the competition was anything but level. Anthony, for instance, said he was studying dance at the Juilliard School in New York, which would seem to give him an unfair advantage over contestants who'd had no training. A few others indicated they had danced professionally. The competition also included folk dancers who were keeping various ethnic traditions alive; tossing them into a dance-off with Las Vegasy booty-shakers was pointless.

Once the solos were out of the way and the dancers had expressed their individuality, they were sent off to be "choreographed" by a professional, with the ultimate goal to become part of a team of dancers and thereby have their individuality crushed. According to the opening announcements last night, the hundreds of dancers who auditioned will be winnowed down eventually to eight men and eight women and then someone will get to go to New York, "the dance capital of the world," and win a cash prize of $100,000.

Anyone who survived the first night, however, was grandly invited by Lythgoe, in his best "American Idol" tones, to "come to Hollywood" for another go-round. Next week's show was taped in Los Angeles, which will make the invitation to "come to Hollywood" sound particularly ridiculous. To further muddle the pot, Lythgoe made occasional allusions to some other production he's putting together in which dancers will appear.

"We're casting a show here where we want unique people to take back to Hollywood," Lythgoe lectured one contestant. Who knows what the devil he is talking about? What show?

Ineptitude haunted "Dance" from the very beginning, when the host made it sound as though various rounds of competition had already been completed and that what we were watching was a documentary about "So You Think You Can Dance," not the show itself. Camerawork was so poor that dancers occasionally vanished out of the frame, and Lythgoe was featured in so many reaction shots that it was sometimes hard to remember who was onstage.

Inevitably, because human beings are fascinating mammals, there were sweet or funny or affecting moments. One young woman wept so ferociously that a paramedic had to be called -- and this after she'd been told she'd survived the first round! Eventually she decided the pressure was too much and limped home, dropping out. Another young woman had her happiness under control, emerging from the judges' chambers to declare the whole experience "exuberating."

There were also the predictable appearances by egomaniacs and the hopelessly self-deluded. Some of the most telegenic performers were eliminated after barely being glimpsed by the audience at home -- which so far has no voice in who stays and who goes. The show doesn't invite viewers in, as "American Idol" does, but instead shuts them out.

Perhaps the young man who'd taken predictable umbrage at Lythgoe's barbs and at being rejected on network TV put it best. He left the building simply shouting the word "crap" over and over. Vulgar, maybe, but succinct -- and painfully accurate.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Melanie McFarland The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Television Critic

Bringing out the "Twins"

Perverse as this sounds, I was looking forward to the "Twins" panel. Not because it's spectacular television -- ooh, not the case.

I'll save my rancor for the review, but I have to say this: The title is a double entendre, referring to fraternal twin girls (Sara Gilbert and Molly Stanton) who work for their parents' lingerie business, and the assets of the beautiful but stupid twin, who also is the company spokesmodel. Lame.

Yet I was fairly sure its executive producers, "Will & Grace's" Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, would be a hoot. And Stanton used to play Zombie Charity, Slutty Charity, Evil Charity, Table Dancing Charity, and Original Flavor Charity on the daytime soap "Passions." She had stories.

"I was possessed for a really long time," Stanton said. "That was while I was frozen in an ice block. Then there was the time when I was in hell, which was in the closet, which was cool."

"I've been there too," Mutchnick interjected, playing the Will to Stanton's Grace. "I've been in that same hell."

Truly the wittier members of the panel made it worth attending all on their own. But every sundae needs a cherry, and in this session, it came in the form of Griffith's verbal wonderstuff.

A little set up, if you will. Before "Twins" started, I introduced myself to a new critic by saying, "I'm the Melanie in the room that has more than half a brain."

I felt awful and catty the moment I uttered that, so I followed it up with an apology. "I'll give Ms. Griffith the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure she's a very intelligent woman."

Mere moments later, I found out that either Griffith is a genius worthy of an Oscar, or my first remark was dead on the money.

In "Twins," Griffith plays the character she has always played. That is, she's a vacant bimbo with terrific...twins. Oh, but Mrs. Antonio Banderas stressed that she didn't want to be typecast.

"Hopefully I'll be able to show other sides besides just being blonde and dumb," Griffith said.

"There are a lot of blonde people in America," she added, apropos of nothing.

Oh dear.

Later, someone tried to bring her back to her strengths, referencing Griffith's portrayal of Roxy Hart in "Chicago." Would she do other musicals?

"Yeah, I would love to. I don't know if I'd do another singing one, but I wouldn't mind dancing some more."

To take us home, Griffith was asked whether or not her husband would be appearing in the series.

"What am I supposed to say?" she whispered to Mutchnick, who hissed something in her ear. "...I'm sorry. I'm new at this. Yes, but it's a secret. Yes, really, honestly, he is. But don't tell anybody.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Melanie McFarland The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Television Critic

Beyond "Supernatural," I couldn't relate

The WB has one show worth looking forward to on its fall schedule -- "Supernatural," a series about a pair of brothers compelled to hunt evil, searching for their father in a muscle car, kicking butt to a classic metal soundtrack.

It stars WB alums Jared Padalecki ("Gilmore Girls") and Jensen Ackles ("Smallville"), and will air in "Buffy's" former timeslot, 9 p.m. Tuesdays, starting Sept. 13.

In "Supernatural," the producers explained, evil takes the form of American mythological figures such as the Lady in White, Bloody Mary, and the hook-handed psycho who haunts Lover's Lane. Every Big Bad will be based on actual urban legends. And the pilot, it was delicious.

Series executive producer Eric Kripke, who runs the show with Robert Singer and McG, called it his opportunity to do "Star Wars" in truckstop America.

"I have a mandate to the writers to make the show Google-worthy," Kripke said.

See, that is what a TCA panel is supposed to do -- stimulate interest. One would think Marta Kauffman, the woman partially responsible for giving us "Friends," would know that.

Kauffman made a fatal error this afternoon when she introduced her new show "Related," about four hot sisters who...relate...to...each...other...sorry, the pilot wasn't ready.

But Kauffman beamed in a speech via satellite, of which I only caught this snippet.

"Ann Sorelli is being played by the equally beautiful and stunningly talented Kiele Sanchez," she read, pausing for canned applause before going on. "Unlike Ginnie, Ann left home to go to college, fearing that if she stayed home for school and she mothered her two younger sisters, it would just be too toxic for her.

"She has an incredibly strong sense of self-preservation, and don't think her sisters don't resent her for it," Kauffman continued, making me think that Ann was a stand-in for her.

But then came, "She is currently a therapist who specializes in transvestite mental health. It's a niche."

That made me consider my own strong sense of self-preservation and make a hasty exit.

Tom Sizemore ordered to remain in rehab


LOS ANGELES (Associated Press) — Actor Tom Sizemore was ordered Friday to remain in a live-in drug rehabilitation program until he is sentenced in September for violating his probation on drug charges, his prosecutor said.

Sizemore admitted to a series of violations, including falsifying his urine tests by using a prosthetic device and failing to submit to drug testing on eight occasions, said Deputy District Attorney Sean Carney.

The actor was nearly a no-show in court, arriving several hours late for Friday's hearing. His attorney, Michael Rovell, said Sizemore had been in the rehabilitation facility since July 11 and requested Thursday that the actor be excused from appearing. Superior Court Judge Paula Adele Mabrey denied the request and delayed the hearing so Sizemore could attend.

A different judge issued a warrant for Sizemore's arrest last week after the actor failed to appear in court but agreed to hold the warrant until Friday.

During the hearing, Mabrey told Rovell to keep his client quiet as Sizemore stood and attempted to address the court.

"I think her exact words were 'I don't need to hear from your client right now,'" Carney said after the hearing.

Mabrey ordered the actor not to leave the Pasadena treatment facility until his Sept. 15 sentencing. Sizemore could face up to three years in prison.

The judge also ordered him to submit to weekly drug testing.

"It seems harsh, but it's not," Sizemore said after the hearing.

The actor, who played baseball player Pete Rose in last year's ESPN movie "Hustle" and had roles in films including "Natural Born Killers" and "Saving Private Ryan," previously denied violating the terms of his probation.

He was originally ordered into drug treatment after pleading guilty in October to possession of methamphetamine.

Sizemore separately was convicted in 2003 of domestic violence involving his ex-girlfriend, former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. He has been allowed to remain free while appealing.

He was sentenced in March to 17 months in jail and more than four months in drug treatment for repeatedly failing drug tests while on probation in that case.

Jon Stewart: not one to couch his words
The sofa is missing. And by the way, have you noticed that Jon Stewart has pumped up his style of news analysis as comedy?
By Paul Brownfield Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 22, 2005

Two seemingly unrelated things have happened lately on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart": There's a new set, and the show has gotten great play out of the Karl Rove CIA leak scandal/not a scandal.

The first thing may appear next-to-inconsequential, something for the "Daily Show"-obsessed (see bringbackthecouch.blogspot.com), but you could look at it as Stewart's way of saying goodbye to an old way of playing the late-night game.

Time will tell, but no couch might very well mean Stewart is acknowledging what even his die-hard fans have often felt — that the interview segment of "The Daily Show" is a dead zone. It's when Stewart himself, through his idle sarcasm, signals to the audience that the comedy is pretty much over, cue the chat portion of the show, the politicians and authors, mixed with actors arriving to push their product by shuttle, it seems, after Letterman and Carson Daly, with a layover at Conan.

The new set — three giant screens behind Stewart, the aforementioned talk show couch gone, so that Stewart's guest sits with him at the desk — gives the appearance, anyway, that "The Daily Show" will be a hotter visit, something that might perhaps even evolve (devolve?) into something resembling that show Stewart made hay detesting, CNN's "Crossfire."

The alteration to the "Daily Show" brand happened to arrive at the same time the series was in the midst of doing what it does best — spinning the foibles of cable news and Washington politics into nightly jabs at elitist centers of power. After a flurry of coverage last week, cable news appears to be done for the moment with "Plame/Rove/Uranium/Niger/Whitewater ... gate," as Stewart mockingly termed it the other night. Do we have a scandal on our hands, cable news seemed to ask? Answer: I don't know, but let's keep staring at it, at least until the next Category 4 hurricane.

But "The Daily Show," which one night called the story "Rove Actually," was in the meantime feasting off of it, mixing the story's convoluted and coded elements with easy pop culture references. Stewart and his writers simplified things (it's what comedy so often does), but in more lucid fashion than so-called serious news. "Stephen, let me ask you this. What is double-super-secret-background," Stewart asked "Daily Show" correspondent Stephen Colbert (he was playing "Daily Show senior journalistologist" Stephen Colbert) last week.

It was a reference to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper's e-mail to editors explaining that he'd spoken to Rove not just off the record but on "double super secret background."

"Jon, it's an industry term, a bit of lingo," Colbert responded. "In essence it's just like regular background but with no tag-backs, fronties or backsies, taken to infinity plus 1 on opposite day — circle-circle-dot-dot, now you've got a cootie shot.

"Stephen," Stewart continued, "but if, as the White House says, Karl Rove was just setting the record straight on this, why all the extra secrecy?"

"Because they need it, Jon," Colbert said. "Whistle-blowers that expose corruption are protected by law, but guys like Rove who are out there just talking [expletive] about another guy's wife as political payback, they leave themselves wide open."

Already, Stewart had shown a clip of Rove on TV last summer, telling CNN of the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative: "I didn't know her name, and I didn't leak her name."

"See," Stewart cut in, "he didn't leak her name. He said, 'Wilson's wife.' He didn't even say it was [former ambassador] Joe Wilson's wife. It might have been kindly Mrs. Wilson, who lived next door from Dennis the Menace."

On TV, anyway, the Rove story first got visual on C-Span, which last week carried the at-times absurd spectacle of White House spokesman Scott McClellan refusing to comment on a matter that he had already said didn't involve the White House to a White House press corps that kept asking with increasing vehemence.

Later that night, Stewart played the clips of the press conference stalemate and said, sotto voce, "We've secretly replaced the White House press corps with actual reporters."

It was an easy joke that blew past the complexities of the White House beat, but it got at the free pass that many people feel the Bush administration has received from the press.

Granted, this is a game that can get old and even a little soul-killing, Stewart's in-studio fans roaring with approval at his every broadside against the evasions, prevaricating and double-speak of the political establishment.

But if Stewart has publicly shied away from the notion that he's a serious filter of the news for those who don't follow it, with the Rove affair he has shown a willingness to capitalize on his clout, coming out from behind jokes to say: "So — incontrovertible proof that the administration was dishonest about their role in this affair. Crime, not a crime — who cares! They were dishonest."

One night last week, Stewart's guest was Bernard Goldberg, author of a book called "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is #37)." Stewart let Goldberg get out a bit of his coarsening-of-the-culture argument before interjecting that cultural elites weren't the problem.

"I've been to L.A. and I've been to Washington — they're the same city," Stewart said. "The only difference between L.A. and Washington is, they think they have power in L.A. — they don't. But in Washington they do have power."

In the old days, Goldberg would have been on the couch, and maybe Stewart wouldn't have begun to pick apart his argument with such focus. But in October Colbert will launch his own post-"Daily Show" half-hour news parody, executive produced by Stewart, and it is just possible that Stewart is aware that a core part of his viewership hasn't hung around much past 11:20.

And so he's going a little "Nightline," maybe, although three or four minutes with Billy Bob Thornton plugging "Bad News Bears" is still three or four minutes with Billy Bob Thornton plugging "Bad News Bears."

Monday night, though, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were on the show, and it mattered that they could both face Stewart, as they talked about Watergate versus this Rove thing. You could almost sense how much the journalist-hero role has been transformed — from Woodward and Bernstein, rock stars of three decades ago for uncovering White House wrongdoing, to Stewart, the news source for a culture in which all too often information must be distilled as entertainment before it can be safely assumed we're all paying attention.

"This is about lying," Bernstein said of the CIA leak affair. "It's about the president and it's about the White House and, like it was about Haldeman and Erlichman, this is about Karl Rove. But it's ultimately about the president of the United States, his policies and whether he tells the truth."

Hey, you thought, that's what Jon said.

Eva Longoria shrugs off Emmy snub
Seattle Times

NEW YORK — "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria has shrugged off being snubbed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in this year's Emmy nominations.

"I'm new. I just arrived. I didn't expect at all to be in the minds of the Academy," she told syndicated TV show "Extra" in an interview which aired Friday night.

Three of the ABC show's stars, Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman, were nominated for best comedy series actress. (Also overlooked was Nicollette Sheridan, who had gotten a Golden Globe supporting-actress nomination for the show.)

"I was disconnected from newspapers," says Longoria, who was in China when the nominations were announced last week. "I didn't experience the hoopla."

"Desperate Housewives," a dark satire about life in suburbia, cleaned up with 15 nominations. The show asked to be considered in the comedy series category, usually home to half-hour sitcoms.

"I'm so happy that we're in the comedy category," says Longoria. "I love going against the traditional comedy."

On her budding romance with Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs, Longoria says: "They (the press) got it right ... it's so hard to keep things private because then you compromise your own lifestyle. It's like I don't want to hide, I don't want to eat in every day ... we have a good time and we don't care what is written."

Longoria says she's decided to learn French, since Parker is a native of France.

"It's a beautiful language. I mean his whole family speaks French and all his friends. I mean I want to be in the conversation," she says. "I am going to have to get with it."

I read somewhere that a big percent of young viewers get all their news from Jon Stewart.

If can get more of them to vote,he would have achieved something.

I am not sure it is a big percentage of all young viewers -- despite all the fanfare Stewart's audience is pretty small.

But I have read that a big percentage of Stewart's viewers get much of their "news" from him.

TV Critics Awards

The 220 members of the TV Critics Association take time off from their annual junket today to announce the winners of their annual awards. The awards will be handed out at a dinner at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

The show will be opened by Craig Ferguson.

The critics get back to sniping at TV tomorrow, with the beginning of two days with NBC executives and stars.

Singin' the News Blues
COMMENTARY from J. Max Robins Broadcasting & Cable 7/25/2005

I don't believe I've ever heard more folks in the industry bemoaning the state of television news. Virtually everywhere, either the people running the joints appear on the way out, or they have just recently arrived. The result: Almost everyone in the game operates in a state of uncertainty.

Believe it. A day doesn't pass by when I don't hear about one of a long list of news executives with big bull's-eye targets on their backs. At NBC News, division President Neal Shapiro is all but out the door. With MSNBC not even third in the cable news race anymore (it's fourth, behind CNN's Headline News), there's also an ominous drumbeat about President Rick Kaplan. The recent slow start of The Situation With Tucker Carlson only exacerbated the situation with Kaplan. At least, nobody's making that kind of noise about CNBC President Mark Hoffman—but then, he's been on the job only since February, and when a new guy takes over, the rumors start about the people below him.

CBS News may be the most depressed and destabilized operation of all. CBS News President Andrew Heyward announced a couple of weeks ago his network's foray into 24-hour broadband news, but he faces massive challenges in taking on ABC, CNN and other players with more resources and deeper pockets that are already in that space. It has been four months since Dan Rather stepped down from third-place CBS Evening News, and no strategy for the post-Rather era has emerged, other than to keep Bob Schieffer in his temp job as the replacement anchor. And CBS' The Early Show remains a laggard in the morning-news race, despite the network's prime time strength. Somehow it wasn't a big surprise when nobody from the news division showed up at the critics' press tour in Los Angeles last week: There would have been uncomfortable questions and not much new at CBS News to use as a distraction.

“Everywhere you go in the news business, it just plain sucks,” says one agent who handles news talent. “When clients ask me what's the most stable place to work, I say ABC News—and it's not like that place is exactly a steady ship.”

True. Good Morning America is a credible challenger to Today, and long-running newsmagazines 20/20 and Primetime chug along. But with Peter Jennings battling cancer, there's uncertainty at ABC World News Tonight. Ted Koppel will remain at Nightline until December, and even now the show's producers are actively tinkering with the format, trying to rejuvenate the venerable newscast on the fly to ensure it has a future after Koppel's gone.

CNN is in the midst of its own transition period. Since last November, when Jon Klein took over the reins, there has been a revolving door of executive producers for various shows—in addition to all the other unrest stirred by the arrival of a new boss. Up-and-comer Bill Hemmer was pushed out of his American Morning anchor slot; he turned down a gig as CNN's White House correspondent and quit the network. Last week, Hemmer signed a three-year deal reportedly worth more than $1 million a year at Fox News Channel. Meanwhile, at CNN, the prime time lineup Klein inherited still lags way behind Fox's, despite the executive-producer changes. The network's sister channel, Headline News, has shown dynamic growth, almost entirely due to legal eagle Nancy Grace. But that, of course, prompts whispering about how long it will be before Grace bumps one of the also-rans out of a job at the mothership.

And then there's Fox News. From the outside looking in, Fox appears to be an island of stability in a crazy-competitive market. But how much growth is there in a mature business, even if you're the cable news leader? No wonder FNC Chairman Roger Ailes appears to be in no hurry to launch a Fox News financial channel. As the rest of the TV-news industry could tell him, change isn't always good.

A Broadcasting & Cable Special Report:
Is Comcast Too Big?
Cable, competitors—and Congress—want to know
By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable

America Channel President Doron Gorshein says there's one major reason his network might face extinction: Comcast.

He claims that the largest cable operator in the U.S. has denied room for his new lifestyle network—all the while favoring networks in which it has a financial interest.

And without access to the 26.1 million subscribers that Comcast controls—more than a third of all cable homes in the U.S.—Gorshein contends that it's impossible for his network or others like it to survive. Comcast, he says, has “become big enough to unilaterally destroy any independent product.”

A Growing Chorus

Gorshein's claims against Comcast and its CEO Brian Roberts are part of a growing chorus among programmers and competitors decrying the cable giant's market power. Many in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission are exploring a thorny question: Is Comcast too big?

What they decide could have an adverse impact on Comcast that could affect the larger cable industry at a time when Washington is seriously considering rewriting broad swaths of telecommunications policy.

Comcast is already expected to be one target in a new round of Senate hearings on media consolidation that antitrust staffers are quietly planning. Programmers and competitors will likely testify soon on the company's market power—and questions of abuse.

Meanwhile, the FCC is looking into market-power accusations from the Baltimore Orioles. The baseball team's Mid Atlantic Sports Network is armed with rights to the new and hot Washington Nationals but can't get carriage on Comcast, which dominates the Washington/Baltimore markets. The Orioles' network competes with Comcast's own sports network, which will lose rights to the team's games in 2007. The two sides are in the middle of a legal dispute over the games.

“Comcast is a monopoly that does not like competition,” says Orioles lawyer David Frederick, who has filed a complaint with the FCC.

Some Forceful Arguments

DBS rivals DirecTV and EchoStar are making forceful new arguments to the FCC about Comcast's national scale and its strategy of clustering cable systems. Comcast's local strength could thwart their access to important regional sports networks—or at least could increase their cost.

Comcast has long exploited a legal loophole and refused to sell its Philadelphia sports channel to satellite companies. One result: Just 8% of metro-Philly homes subscribe to DBS, the fourth-lowest penetration rate of the 212 Nielsen TV markets and half the average rate of the 10 largest.

Although the government is hardly likely to force Comcast to sell systems, the FCC or FTC could impose new rules on how the company deals with programmers.

The new scrutiny stems in large part from the planned $17.6 billion sale of Adelphia Communications. Comcast and Time Warner have teamed to buy the 5.2 million-subscriber operator out of Chapter 11. They plan to divide the systems, swap ones they already own, and extinguish Comcast's 21% stake in Time Warner Entertainment. Comcast will walk away with 2.2 million new subscribers; Time Warner, with 3 million.

Time Warner will face scrutiny as well, in part because it, too, is tough on programmers. One company advisor, seeking to distance the two operators, notes that Time Warner Cable will be half Comcast's size.

Even Comcast acknowledges that its size has made it an inevitable target. “Once we acquired AT&T Broadband and we were the No. 1 cable operator,” says Comcast Executive VP David Cohen, “you knew that, in anything else we did, we were going to have a large spotlight on us.”

Is Comcast too big? Says Cohen, “The answer to that, as a matter of law and as a matter of policy, is no.”

The inquiries in Washington will focus an unsympathetic public spotlight on the cable industry. Meanwhile, traditional big-media critics—such as the Media Access Project and Consumers Union, which have galvanized opposition that thwarted FCC attempts to loosen media-ownership rules—are expected to weigh in on the power of cable giants Comcast and Time Warner. Critics contend that Comcast's drive to buy Walt Disney Co. reflects Roberts' ambitions to grow even bigger.

Comcast wields more power than even the mighty Tele-Communications Inc. did at the height of its power. Throughout the 1990s, then-CEO John Malone, known as the all-powerful “Darth Vader” of cable, was the constant target of Congressional inquiries, as well as of competitors' and consumers' carping about the power of his cable empire.

Comcast Takeovers

At his peak—before selling out to AT&T in 1998—Malone controlled systems serving 18 million subscribers, about 27% of the cable industry, or 23% of all cable and DBS homes. Through its own takeovers, Comcast now owns Malone's old systems and more: 21.5 million subscribers and equity in partnerships serving another 4.6 million. If the Adelphia deal goes through, Comcast will have an interest in systems serving 28.3 million subscribers. That's 42.5% of all U.S. cable subscribers and 29% of combined cable and DBS homes.

“We were big enough that we could help something that was a good idea to get going, but we could never kill anybody,” Malone told B&C last April. “But there's no way on earth that you can be successful in the U.S. distributing a channel that Brian Roberts doesn't carry, particularly if he has one that competes with it.”

Starting a programming network is treacherous. Cable and DBS are already stuffed with 389 existing programming services, many of those relegated to digital tiers. The National Cable Television Association counts another 79 startups looking to get on. Most are unaffiliated with media giants and generally comprise a programming strategy and too little money, like The Africa Channel or the Puppy Channel.

With a startup costing at least $60 million, the most important sign of life to potential investors is distribution: signed carriage agreements with cable and DBS operators. Skating network The Ice Channel has melted; Reality 24/7 met harsh realities and has ceased trying to launch a cable network.

Feel-Good Fervor

The America Channel is trying to avoid that fate. The network had hoped to tap the feel-good fervor swelling up in the country. Gorshein, a lawyer who has worked at EchoStar and CNN, sees the network as celebrating “real people” who get little acclaim but make certain accomplishments in their communities. Think of it as A&E's Biography without the celebs: profiles of interesting entrepreneurs and everyday people with interesting lives.

The concept is not as easily grasped as, say, College Sports Television. But Gorshein attracted investment of what industry executives pegged at $3 million, plus support from former CNN news anchor Mary Alice Williams and the wife of former colleague Larry King.

He held extensive meetings with cable and DBS executives but struck out, he contends, because of his inability to secure carriage from Comcast or Time Warner. Gorshein maintains that other cable operators wait to follow the two biggest companies' lead. “If you don't get Comcast,” he says, “you're not going to get the rest.”

Gorshein says Comcast offered what it offers many new networks: video-on-demand carriage. The network will get not a conventional “linear” channel but space to offer an array of programming for the operator's digital on-demand subscribers. But neither subscribers nor Comcast pay the network. It's all free exposure, with the possibility that a network creating a VOD following might graduate to a real channel slot later. So far, that hasn't happened.

The Anime Network, a Japanese animation channel, was one of the first startups willing to settle for space on Comcast's free-VOD service, hoping for a real channel later. But talks stalled last fall after Comcast jumped into a programming venture with Sony Pictures, backing the Japanese studio's bid for MGM. If Comcast help brings Sony's own Asian anime service, Animax, to the U.S., will it also make room for Anime Network? Kevin McFeely, Anime Network's affiliate sales director, says the company is still working on a deal with Comcast, but would not say if it would go beyond VOD. Comcast's Cohen says the company hasn't finalized what networks it might launch with Sony.

Meanwhile, programmers have grown agitated watching Comcast systems clear the way for networks the company partly owns. TV One and G4, for example, are getting wide carriage on Comcast's best tiers. PBS Sprout is starting off as a VOD channel, but Comcast plans to launch it on more-lucrative digital basic next year.

While Comcast executives “sing the praises” of VOD for programmers, Gorshein says, “Comcast's adoption rate of its own networks is 100% linear carriage.”

Without commenting specifically on America Channel, Cohen says Comcast makes programming decisions based on the quality of the content: “You still have to generate compelling content that people want.” Protests to the FCC, he maintains, “are a tactic for programming negotiation rather than a substantive programming complaint.”

To be sure, new channels from major media companies generally offer stronger programming and marketing than inexperienced, thinly financed startups. Giants like Viacom or NBC Universal can leverage their relationships as suppliers of important existing networks.

More directly, Cohen says Comcast is far from the source of America Channel's problems. Gorshein has no deals with any major carrier, Cohen points out, including his former employer EchoStar.

“The notion that Comcast is the gatekeeper to the content world is not true,” Cohen says. “There are 70 million multichannel-video subscribers who are not Comcast subscribers; The America Channel has had no success in getting carriage on them either.”

20 million subscribers needed

America Channel's FCC filing, however, contends that, while Cohen's arithmetic is correct, that's not how it plays out. A basic network needs at least 20 million subscribers to draw much advertising.

Of 92 basic networks that have rolled out and secured more than 20 million subscribers, “not a single one had achieved the 20 million-household milestone without carriage by either Comcast or Time Warner or both,” the filing states. “Getting past 25 million has always required Comcast systems.”

Executives at other new cable networks would not discuss Comcast on the record for fear of retribution. When staffers at the Senate Antitrust subcommittee asked one such executive if she would testify about her experiences with Comcast in a hearing on competition in cable, she recalls, “I said, 'No way!' I have to deal with these people again.”

But Gorshein says he has little to lose by attacking Comcast: “The market needs to take a stand against these practices.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Big and Bigger

Comcast wields more power than Tele-Communications Inc. in its heyday and owns TCI's old systems. Here's how the two operators' reach compares:
--------------------------------TCI (1998)---Comcast (2005)
Basic subscribers---------------18 million----28.3 million*
Portion of all U.S. cable homes--27%------------42.5%
Portion of all U.S. video homes--23%------------29%

*Includes systems from Comcast's Adelphia deal. Subscriber counts are based on FCC-defined “attributable ownership,” which includes partnerships the companies only partly own. TCI directly owned 14 million subscribers; Comcast would own 23.7 million.
Source: FCC

A MultiChannel News Special Report
Taking On No. 1
Dish and DirecTV target Comcast subscribers
BY STEVE DONOHUE Multichannel.com (Mike Farrell contributed to this report)

Satellite-TV giants DirecTV Inc. and EchoStar Communications Corp. are turning the screws on top U.S. MSO Comcast Corp., with EchoStar offering huge discounts in six Comcast markets and DirecTV running a promotion in Washington, D.C. DirecTV is capitalizing on the MSO's legal battle with new regional outlet, Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. Comcast has sued MASN and doesn't carry the network.

EchoStar kicked off a promotion last week to woo Comcast customers with an offer of $19.99 per month for a 60-channel digital video package for 12 months, plus three free months of several Home Box Office and Showtime channels.

In the nation's capital, DirecTV launched a newspaper and radio ad campaign touting its distribution of MASN, which carries games from Major League Baseball's new Washington Nationals team. DirecTV is offering Comcast customers a discount rate of $29.99 monthly for its 140-channel Total Choice Plus programming package.

With football season quickly approaching, DirecTV is also preparing to ramp up a national marketing effort for its exclusive “NFL Sunday Ticket” National Football League subscription package.

DirecTV spokesman Bob Marsocci said the company will unveil its new Sunday Ticket promotions and pricing in early August. As it has in previous years, DirecTV will offer several months of its Total Choice programming packages for free to subscribers that order Sunday Ticket, Marsocci added.

Last year, DirecTV ran a promotion that offered subscribers four months free of the Total Choice package if they bought the NFL Sunday Ticket package, which was priced last year at $249.

While the steep discounts may help EchoStar and DirecTV boost their subscriber counts, some positive news broke last week for Comcast and other MSOs, as SBC Communications Corp., which has been reselling Dish Network, said it was reworking the deal with EchoStar as the telco prepares to deploy its new fiber-delivered cable programming service.

SBC told analysts that it added just 10,000 video subscribers in the second quarter as a result of the EchoStar relationship, far below the subscriber gains of 65,000 that some analysts had expected, and significantly less than the gain of 73,000 subscribers it posted in the fourth quarter of 2004.

DISH TARGETS SIX CITIES

For its $19.99 monthly promotion, Dish is targeting six cities where Comcast is the incumbent cable operator: Atlanta; Dallas; Kansas City, Mo.; Indianapolis, Pittsburgh; and Sacramento, Calif.

Spokesman Mark Cicero wouldn't comment on why EchoStar selected those markets, but noted that the campaign may eventually expand to other cities.

Some industry observers said they believe EchoStar is experimenting with big price cuts in order to compete more effectively against cable operators.

“I've been waiting for a while to see how EchoStar is going to respond to the new competition that's coming from the cable bundle, and whether or not it was going to be a blanket nationwide approach, or whether it would be more of an experimental, region-by-region approach,” said Jimmy Schaeffler, an analyst at The Carmel Group.

“This seems to have set the trend toward the latter — they [EchoStar] are going to try some things out and see what resonates with the consumer,” he added.

'DISGRUNTLED' SUBS

EchoStar noted that the offer, which expires on Aug. 15, shows “disgruntled cable customers there is a better alternative.”

The DBS firm said new customers in the six cities that sign up for its Digital Home Advantage package, which includes 60 digital channels and local broadcast networks, will be charged $19.99 per month for the first 12 months of service. Customers that make a one-year commitment will also get a free digital video recorder equipment upgrade.

Digital Home Advantage includes EchoStar's America's Top 60 package, which normally costs $31.99 monthly. The subscription cost for the programming package will go from $19.99 to $31.99 monthly after the first year of service, Cicero said.

Cicero said it's possible that EchoStar may expand the promotion to other cities. “We're always looking for ways to offer the best offer to new subscribers, and offer them the best value in the pay TV industry. At this time, I can't divulge any of those plans,” Cicero added.

Asked if Comcast would respond to the EchoStar offer, spokeswoman Jenni Moyer said that the MSO would “evaluate it on a case by case basis.”

“We don't compete on price alone,” Moyer added, noting Comcast's strategy of marketing other services in addition to video, such as video-on-demand and high-speed Internet service.

Schaeffler said Comcast and other cable operators should respond to EchoStar's steep discounts on digital video not by matching the price cuts on video, but by marketing and dropping the price of bundles of video, high-speed Internet and phone service.

“Market the bundle, but also lower the price. Make it a no-brainer,” Schaeffler said, pointing to Cablevision Systems Corp.'s tactic of charging just $90 for the triple-play bundle for customers that agree to take all three products.

Consumers shopping for a good deal on digital video channels in the targetted Comcast markets may be easily drawn to the Dish Network offer. Comcast's entry-level digital cable package in Dallas and Pittsburgh, for example, costs about $54, which is more than double the price EchoStar is charging for similar channels.

In addition to the six cities that EchoStar is blanketing with its promotion, Comcast faces stiffer competition in Washington, D.C., where DirecTV is running radio spots this month and print ads in The Washington Post and The Washington Times. The ads blare, “See the Nationals make history with DirecTV … the only major service provider to bring you all the Nats' games.”

One of the print ads features a picture of former president Calvin Coolidge throwing the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game, with the headline, “Last time D.C. had this much baseball excitement, we were cool with Coolidge.”

New DirecTV subscribers that respond to the offer also get a free Nationals baseball cap.

A little more than a year after its much-touted and somewhat feared co-branding agreement with EchoStar took effect, SBC told analysts last Thursday the two were discussing making some modifications to the arrangement.

EchoStar and SBC first announced the co-branding deal in July 2003, whereby SBC would aggressively market Dish Network services to its customers. The deal was different than past telco-DBS resale agreements in that SBC would take direct control of the marketing of the service, in conjunction with its local and long distance phone service and high-speed data product, and would brand the offering SBC Dish Network.

SBC also made an investment in EchoStar, purchasing $500 million of the DBS giant's convertible debt.

The agreement didn't officially take effect until March 2004 and had some initially strong results, causing some analysts to predict similar deals with other telcos.

FEW SBC DISH ADDS

But despite an initial lift — SBC said it added 111,000 video subscribers as part of the agreement in the second quarter of 2004 — the growth of SBC Dish Network customers has been slowing down. That is mainly since SBC announced its Project Lightspeed initiative last year, a move to build out its fiber network and offer its own voice, video and data services.

SBC told analysts last week it added just 10,000 video subscribers in the second quarter as a result of the EchoStar relationship.

That was well below the 65,000 additions some analysts expected and down from 73,000 additions in the first quarter, 97,000 in the fourth quarter of 2004 and 105,000 in the third quarter of 2004.

Analysts had expected that SBC would de-emphasize its Dish Network relationship. In a May conference call, EchoStar chairman Charlie Ergen called the relationship a “temporary strategy” for the telco as it built out its own video network. But the magnitude and speed of the decline surprised some analysts and sent some EchoStar shareholders for the exits.

EchoStar's share price fell $1.06 (3.5%) on July 21, to a $28.94 close.

Reality check
Rocky Mountain News columnist Bill Johnson and photographer Todd Heisler were embedded during April with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq. The pair previously spent time there in 2003. We asked Johnson to watch the first three episodes of Over There and see how it compared with his experience in Iraq.
TV scenes don't reflect war realities
By Bill Johnson Rocky Mountain News July 23, 2005

Well, it's TV.

If I have an overriding concern about Over There, it's that it will give people the wrong idea of what is happening in Iraq.

The first episode, for example, was ridiculous in its portrayal of how U.S. soldiers get to Iraq, what they face, how they move and how they fight.

The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, for example, flew commercial charter from Colorado Springs to Kuwait City. Cargo plane? No way. Most of the soldiers I've been with over there would love to have a standoff battle with insurgents, as depicted in one episode. There is little stand-and-fight stuff in Iraq now.

Soldiers arriving in Iraq do not travel to their forward bases in such small numbers. And even with no air cover, the Americans would have blasted that Iraqi outpost to bits; certainly it wouldn't have taken more than a day. No tanks? No Bradley Fighting Vehicles?

The funniest thing I saw was soldiers with grenade launchers who never fired them. One or at least two rounds of high-explosive, which even the lowliest private always carries if he has a launcher, would have pretty much leveled the place.

I am certain any soldier who has been in the war zone would otherwise laugh at much of the three episodes I saw. It is rare that any group of soldiers would be traveling in such small numbers, let alone left at a remote outpost with little more than M-16s and a single squad gun.

I did like the episode about the roadblock. Distinguishing friend from suicide bomber is a real issue, the soldiers' reactions right on the money. No way, though, would they have ever left the car that eventually exploded so close to their position.

Soldiers in Over There travel light. No real soldier who wanted to stay alive would be caught with a web belt, the ammo carrier they wear over their body armor, so lightly stocked. Soldiers look like the Michelin Man when they are outside their bases. These guys looked like they were headed to chow.

The biggest joke was how they depicted what soldiers ride in. I didn't see a single Army unit in open-bed trucks or in non-armored Humvees. Commanders riding in a Humvee, the window open? Puh-leeeze!

Insurgents do not put little flags on their improvised explosive devices (IEDs, in Army lingo). However, the scene in which the IED goes off was realistic, other than putting them in the truck that got hit.

The Landstuhl hospital scenes of the amputees and other wounded were effective. That's a part of the war nobody is reporting and brings home the cost and horror of what is happening. In the past week, Thunder Squadron, with whom photographer Todd Heisler and I were embedded, sent seven soldiers there with various body parts missing.

But there is NO WAY a soldier's wife - who lives on the army post - would ever be notified of her husband being wounded four or five days later, and certainly never on the phone. That was just ridiculous.

It wasn't a bad three hours of TV. But did I recognize the Iraq I saw and know in any of it? Not much. It'd be pretty boring TV if they got even remotely close to what really happens. A soldier pulling a knife on his partner at a desolate roadblock? Pure Hollywood. When they got back to base, maybe. But it's TV.

Chris Rock show strangely sweet -- actor not so much
By Glenn Garvin Miami Herald

LOS ANGELES - It was an innocent question: How did Chris Rock choose an actor to play a 13-year-old version of himself in Everybody Hates Chris, the autobiographical sitcom that debuts this fall. The answer: not so innocent. 'I was at Michael Jackson's house, leaving, I'm in the driveway and this kid runs out -- `Wait! Save me!' ''

Welcome to Chris Rock World, where even the blandest, most mundane subject can erupt into incendiary racial or sexual humor at a moment's notice -- and often less. When the UPN network announced in May it would air Everybody Hates Chris, Hollywood shuddered in fear and anticipation of the raucous, race-baiting act he brought to Saturday Night Live and his late-night HBO show being unleashed in broadcast prime-time.

It hasn't worked out that way, at least not yet. The pilot episode of Everybody Hates Chris is the strangely sweet story of a family trying to hold itself together amid the crack-laced crime and poverty of a Brooklyn ghetto -- a sort of Wonder Years with teeth.

But when Rock appeared here Thursday at a gathering of North American TV critics to promote the show, he reminded everyone that he's anything but cuddly. He spent the hour taunting critics, excoriating (other) black TV shows and comedians, mocking his family and generally launching scathingly funny if politically delicate tirades against everything and everybody.

It started moments into his appearance, when one critic wondered how Rock would juggle his lucrative careers as a movie star and a stand-up comedian to make time for Everybody Hates Chris. ''My name's Rock, not Chappelle,'' he barked, referring to comedian Dave Chappelle, who's gone missing from his Comedy Central show. ``Are you confusing me with another skinny black man?''

Rock was even more merciless with a critic who asked how he felt about Everybody Hates Chris going into the 8 p.m. time slot once filled by The Cosby Show.

''What are you trying to say?'' he demanded incredulously. 'It's 8 o'clock. It's not like I'm at the guy's house or something. . . . You buy a house in L.A. -- `Oh, yeah, Sophia Loren used to live here,' but they do that with time slots, do they? 'Bill Cosby went to bed one night, too, around 1:11, just like you're doing tonight.' What are you talking about?''

From there, nothing was safe:

• On the paradox of Chris Rock doing family entertainment: ``People that curse have families, too.''

• On how UPN President Dawn Ostroff signed him: ``First, she hired me a hot nanny . . .''

• On using famous guest stars on Everybody Loves Chris : 'It kind of always sucks. I've never seen stunt casting that was actually funny. `Oh, it's Shaq,' and then some horrible excuse for him to dunk. . . . They don't really do that on the white shows. They only do it on the black shows. When they did it on Mad About You, Carl Reiner, he had a real part. When they do it on the black shows, it's like, 'We got a famous guy and he's going to be famous tonight,' and it sucks.''

• On how watching TV as a kid influenced his comedy: 'I kind of hated a lot of sitcoms. I was like a little kid, and I would watch something like Three's Company and go, `This sucks. Yeah, [John] Ritter's got some physical things going, but, boy, I see these plots a mile away.' And I was like 7.''

• On how accurately the show portrays his real childhood: ``I changed it just enough so I couldn't get sued by my family, because they'll sue you. They love you, but they're going to get their money.''

• On use of the N-word, which turns up once in the pilot of Everybody Loves Chris: ''I do whatever the network lets me do. If they say I can use the F word, there's a bunch of them coming.'' Rock seemed dumbfounded by a critic who asked if the actor playing the white child who shouts the N-word at the 13-year-old Chris in the opening episode needed special coaching: 'It wasn't like he was going, `Ni -- ni-- I can't say it!' 'No, you can do it!' 'Ni -- ni . . .' ''

Cast, creators of new show on CBS seem to be in sync

By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News July 23, 2005

BEVERLY HILLS - Sometimes you can tell just how good a new series might be from how the creators and cast interact when they meet reporters at the Television Critics Association's semiannual press tour.

Sometimes, the writers and actors are totally out of sync with each other, as if they have different ideas about where the show is going or even what it's about. Sometimes, cast members lack any real chemistry, looking as if they were just on the series to pick up a paycheck.

When press conferences go south like that, the TV reporters start taking bets on how long the series will last.

Then there are sessions such as the one held by the producers and cast of CBS's new ``How I Met Your Mother,'' which gets the juicy Monday night slot between ``King of Queens'' and ``Two and a Half Men'' come the fall.

The show, which has a nice twist to it that I don't want to spoil, revolves around a group of friends trying to help a buddy find the right girl. Writers have already pegged it as one of the better new offerings for the fall season, and the session just amplified that good will.

The actors -- who include such veterans of the TV wars as Neil Patrick Harris (``Doogie Howser'') and Alyson Hannigan (``Buffy'') -- were clearly on the same page when it came to the ensemble comedy. The creators -- relative newcomers Carter Bays and Craig Thomas -- were funny and charming and seemed to have a fresh take on the traditional sitcom.

``I didn't want to do a sitcom,'' said Harris, who admitted he didn't have a lot of fun on NBC's ill-fated ``Stark Raving Mad'' a few years back.

``Neil actually sat in my living room'' after ``Mad'' went off the air ``and kept going, `I don't ever want to do a half-hour sitcom again,' '' injected Hannigan with a laugh.

``But then this script came along and the character was really fun,'' continued Harris, who added that CBS ``did very little meddling from the very beginning. They let us do our thing.''

Which was a sentiment echoed by Bays and Thomas, who didn't seem to be reciting the usual pat lines about how great the network had been.

``We decided, `Let's go write about our lives, the real things we deal with,' '' said Bays. ``Let's just see what happens. And every step along the way -- where you think that's not going to work, this is CBS -- it's just been green light all the way.''

Station breaks

• It looks as if CBS is really throwing its weight behind its new sci-fi drama, ``Threshold.'' The network has thrown in the bucks to overhaul the pilot of the alien invasion show, expanding the first episode to two hours and reshooting some scenes.

• Look for changes in the world of ``CSI'' this season. On the original, Louise Lombard, who played a recurring role as Sofia Curtis last season, will join the field investigators, and it appears the unit -- which was split up last season -- will reunite. Also, the show is close to signing another top-shelf film director to do an episode, à la Quentin Tarantino (``Kill Bill'') last year.

• Meanwhile on ``CSI: N.Y.,'' which faltered in the ratings last season after a strong start, producers are promising a lighter look, a less grim feel and more consistent storytelling. Anthony Zuiker, who created the original ``CSI'' and produced the spinoff in its first year, took some of the blame for the inconsistency of last year's writing. Noting that he was ``running'' a series by himself, Zuiker admitted at a CBS party that ``there is no Show Runner 101. I had a learning curve that was sharper than I thought.''

• Sometimes you have to have a sense of humor about yourself when you live in TV World. Take the case of actress Paula Marshall, a co-star on CBS's new ``Out of Practice.'' Marshall has gotten a reputation as one of TV's top show killers, with a string of series (``Cupid,'' ``Snoops'') that have gone down in flames. Addressing the issue head-on with reporters, Marshall said she doesn't feel like a show killer, ``although Entertainment Weekly will argue that.''

She added that ``Practice'' co-star Christopher Gorham ``actually e-mailed me a bunch of fake questions you guys were going to have for me. Like, `So, Paula, you've killed every show you've been on, what makes you think anything different is going to happen with this one?' And `what happened to your talent?' ''

• On a non-CBS topic, ABC has officially picked up ``Dancing With the Stars'' -- its big summertime hit -- for a second cycle. But the details are a bit fuzzy. At this point, ABC can't say when the show is coming back, whether the hosts will return (let's hope not), who the new contestants will be or even how many episodes will be done (speculation is that the show will be expanded to more than the six episodes that aired this summer). And while the network could get the show back much more quickly, it looks as if ``Dancing'' may not return until March, after NBC finishes its coverage of the Winter Olympics.

Frog is first to go in WB shakeup

By CHASE SQUIRES St. :Petersburg Times TV columnist July 23, 2005

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - The WB network has officially killed longtime cartoon logo, Michigan J. Frog.

The hop wasn't hip.

WB chairman Garth Ancier said Friday the network is growing up a bit, hoping to be seen less as a teen-oriented guilty pleasure and more as a comfortable destination for viewers 34 and under.

To get there, the network's look and programming are getting a bit more, ahem, mature. Don Johnson, 55, will star in the new WB show, Just Legal, while his ex, Melanie Griffith, 47, co-stars in the new WB sitcom Twins.

And Michigan J. Frog, star of a 1955 Warner Bros. cartoon, had to go as the face of the WB.

"The frog is dead," Ancier said. "I don't think you would look at the frog and say it was one of the most iconic corporate symbols."

Replacing it at the Television Critics Association press tour was an insanely eye-jangling scribbled logo in aqua, black and green. But on TV, the network is going with an understated WB crest.

As the network previewed its fall offerings to critics, Johnson appeared in a panel discussion about his show, immediately followed by Griffith's panel. The two were married and divorced twice and have a 15-year-old daughter, Dakota.

Reporters asked each a question about the other.

"Melanie's working?" Johnson asked, in mock surprise. "That was a joke. I'm delighted for her. We all wish her well. She's a wonderful talent."

"I'm really happy for him," said Griffith, who married actor Antonio Banderas after her second divorce from Johnson in 1996. "I think it's great. I'm even happier for our daughter because it means her trust fund is going to be even bigger."

Across the board, the network is skewing its shows a bit older. Ghost drama Supernatural is at times violent and pretty scary, definitely not a kiddie show. Just Legal, a Jerry Bruckheimer production, deals with some adult themes, yet nods to the younger crowd with Johnson's co-star, Jay Baruchel, 25, who played the mentally retarded boxer in the film Million Dollar Baby. Johnson plays a once-brilliant, now-burned-out attorney, partnered with Baruchel as a brilliant, 19-year-old attorney.

Griffith's show Twins is a standard sitcom about a family, this one in the fancy underwear business. She plays a former underwear model and mother of vastly different fraternal twins played by Molly Stanton, 25, and Sara Gilbert, 30, (Roseanne). Stanton's the pretty-yet-ditzy one (just like mom!) while Gilbert's the brains of the operation. Hilarity ensues.

Someone on Friday asked Gilbert if she knew what it's like to have a sister. Probably so, given that her big sis is Melissa Gilbert, from Little House on the Prairie and a bunch of Lifetime movies.

Other WB bits:

- Surprise summer hit reality show Beauty and the Geek will return. The network is on a nationwide casting tour for new beauties and geeks. Closest the tour comes to the Tampa Bay area is Miami, Aug. 12-18.

- Griffith went sleeveless for the panel discussion, showing off the heart tattoo on her right shoulder, a tribute to Banderas. She also has a small tattoo on the inside of her left ankle. Stanton sports a tattoo that says "Truly, Deeply, Madly."

"It means different things to different people," she said.

* How to tackle ABC ratings powerhouse Desperate Housewives on Sunday nights? WB is countering with back to back episodes of the Blue Collar TV comedy show. Git 'er done.

The Remaining TCA Schedule

July 23.......TCA Awards
July 24-25....NBC
July 26-27....ABC
July 28-29....Fox

This is posted simply as a matter of record. I am not looking for any great political rants from one side or the other. Just trying to keep you informed on what is (or may be) going on in Washington:

Conservatives Seek a la Carte Revival
BY TED HEARN Multichannel.com

Washington — Nearly two-dozen conservative organizations are hoping to revive the cable a la carte issue in Congress.

The per-channel sale of pay-TV channels is popular with family and morality groups, who view a la carte as the most effective means of keeping racy content out of homes with children.

The campaign begun last week was designed to put pressure on Congress to pass a law that would require cable and satellite companies to sell channels on an individual basis and at reasonable prices.

CABLE'S OBJECTIONS

The cable industry is strongly opposed to a la carte mandates, claiming they would raise rates and bump off niche and specialty channels that can't survive outside the traditional tiering structure.

Despite a pair of federal studies that largely reinforced cable's arguments, the industry has been unable to shake groups on the right that don't want to see family friendly programming bundled with cable channels specializing in edgy fare.

“We feel very, very strongly about reigniting this topic on Capitol Hill this week and this Congress,” said Lanier Swann, director of government affairs for Concerned Women for America. “Above all else, families want choice put back into their hands. It is not up to cable companies to control exactly what is being pumped into the homes. It is up to the families.”

CWA kicked off the new a la carte push last Wednesday in a media conference call with representatives from Citizens for Community Values, the Parents Television Council and Morality in Media.

A day later, 23 groups endorsed a full-page cable a la carte advertisement that ran in Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper read by members of Congress and their aides. The ad accused cable companies of “forcing American families to pay for indecent and immoral programming while raising the cost of our subscriptions to subsidize it.”

Cable subscribers generally need to buy a package that includes dozens of channel catering to a range of interests. Parents have to call the cable company or use blocking technology to prevent children from viewing indecent and inappropriate content found in large packages.

“We believe we should have the right to … choose the cable channels that come into our home, rather than being forced to take them and then call the cable company and have them block it out,” said Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values, an adviser to Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family.

In May, top National Cable & Telecommunications Association members agreed to fund a $250-million TV advertising campaign intended to raise parental awareness of blocking technology available from cable operators.

NCTA spokesman Brian Dietz said a la carte requirements “will offer no benefit to the vast majority of consumers and will, in fact, result in higher prices, less choices and less diversity in programming.”

The Parents Television Council and Morality in Media support a la carte because they consider it the easiest way for parents to police what their kids are watching.

“It's a top priority for us that cable choice should be at the top of the national dialogue in terms of what is allowed in the home,” said Dan Isett, PTC's director of corporate and government affairs.

MARTIN, MCCAIN VIEWS

Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin has called on cable to provide more a la carte options or a family friendly tier. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has urged cable to conduct a la carte trials but none have been announced.

Earlier this year, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced a bill that would require creation of a “child-friendly” programming tier in lieu of a la carte.

The a la carte issue flared last year when Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.) wanted to attach an amendment to pending satellite television legislation. Under Deal's amendment, programmers were required to wholesale their channels a la carte but pay-TV distributors were not required to retail them outside the tiering structure.

In a political compromise, Deal withdrew his amendment after senior members of House Energy and Commerce Committee agreed to ask the FCC to study all economic angles to the a la carte issue.

In November, the FCC's lengthy report concluded that imposing a la carte mandates on cable would be highly disruptive, with consumers paying much more each month just to maintain the same level of service.

For example, the FCC found that the average cable customer had 17 favorite channels, including local TV stations. The agency determined that in a la carte market structure, the price of nine channels bought individually would equal the price of expanded basic, a package that includes dozens of channels and purchased by 95% of cable homes.

As a result, the cable home that wanted to continue having access to its favorite 17 channels would pay 14% to 30% more in an a la carte world, the FCC said. The agency said that buying a tier and blocking offensive content was less costly than a la carte.

In October 2003, the Government Accountability Office produced an a la carte report requested by McCain when he was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.

The GAO concluded that a la carte was hardly a panacea. While a la carte might expand consumer choice, the GAO said it would hurt channels that thrive because of tiering and would require consumers to buy or lease set-top equipment to view a la carte options on multiple TV sets.

Since late 1992, the federal government has been allowed to supervise local price regulation of the basic programming tier. The cable industry has questioned whether Congress can force the a la carte sale of channels in a manner consistent with the First Amendment.

EQUALITY AND LEGALITY

Bob Peters, president of Morality in Media, indicated that mandated a la carte would be legal if applied to all channels without regard to content and if pay-TV providers weren't precluded from offering tiers.

“An a la carte law would presumably cover all channels, which means that it would not be based on content,” Peters said. “I can't imagine an a la carte law that would prevent cable operators from offering packages of channels. That wouldn't have to come to an end.”

Pay-TV providers could undermine an a la carte law by pricing a la carte channels so high that consumers automatically purchased tiers instead.

Peters acknowledged that Congress would have to respond by authorizing the FCC to regulate rates so that a la carte prices represented a realistic offering.

“[Congress] could empower the FCC to determine whether a la carte channels were being offered on a reasonable basis,” Peters said. “If the cable companies act in good faith, I don't think there is going to be a need for government regulation.”

A MultiChannel News Special Report
Taking On No. 1
Dish and DirecTV target Comcast subscribers

Interesting read. Thanks. The focus of it being competition among program providers and the carriers that deliver them. There is a whole other side of how Comcast et al wields it's power to run roughshod over negotiations with local franchise agreements. Former AT&T systems in particular are at a disadvantage. Just one example is that Comcast is not upgrading purchased 550MHz systems, yet beyond the basic cable rate, customers in these systems are paying the same for the expanded digital tiers as customers in Comcast-upgraded(750-860MHz) systems. In many cases all Comcast has done is slap a Comcast label on a purchased system and raised the rates, and with previous franchise agreements already in place the franchisee has no recourse as to any requirements to upgrade the existing system.

There is no law that says a company has to be nice, but Comcast can be a particularly nasty company to deal with on many levels, competitor, programmer, customer and community wise.

The per-channel sale of pay-TV channels is popular with family and morality groups, who view a la carte as the most effective means of keeping racy content out of homes with children.

While I'd love to see a la carte programming this has to be the weakest argument for it. Most modern boxes can block content/channels as necessary. They'll need to come up with a much stronger argument than this.

Not to mention just using good parental skills should take care of the problem.

Naw, it's the fact that, that nasty stuff has actually entered their homes and is carrying on inside their STB, corrupting who knows what else!

Not to mention just using good parental skills should take care of the problem.

Amen to that.

I agree with you guys about parents needing to mind what their kids are doing. There is also, however, an objection to a portion of their cable bill funding content they find disagreeable.

Good point. I wonder how much of my bill funds Fox "News" Channel?

Obviously the Friday ratings are delayed today.
I'll post them when they become available.

(A look at the guy who is leading the YES network fully into HD)
Hopkins Hits for the Yankee Team
He grew up rooting for the Yanks, and now he’s COO of their network
By Ken Kerschbaumer Broadcasting & Cable

Talk about a guy landing his dream job.

As a kid growing up in New Jersey during the 1970s, Ray Hopkins, now COO of the Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network (YES), rooted passionately for the New York team. Born in the Bronx, not far from Yankee Stadium, he idolized second baseman Willie Randolph as the Bronx Bombers won back-to-back World Series, and dreamed of someday playing for the team.

So when YES CEO Tracy Dolgin, Hopkins’ former boss at Fox/Liberty Networks, gave him a call last fall and asked him to come on board, Hopkins—then working and living in Los Angeles—jumped at the chance. He, his wife and their 2-year-old son packed up and returned to New Jersey, with Hopkins joining the channel last December.

“The next best thing to actually playing for them is to be associated with them in the fashion I am today,” he says. “It’s a dream job that I consider myself fortunate to have.”

Hopkins has, in fact, been able to combine vocation and avocation throughout much of his career. He was at his first job, in affiliate sales for CNBC in Ft. Lee, N.J., when he heard of an opening at Los Angeles-based Prime Ticket, a regional sports network.

“The chance to get paid to work for a regional sports network was too much,” he says, adding that Prime Ticket’s swank digs on Santa Monica Blvd. enticed him as well.

Valuable lessons

Prime Ticket eventually was sold to Liberty and became Fox/Liberty Networks. Working for Dolgin, Hopkins learned valuable business lessons in landing cable distribution for both networks throughout Southern California, Arizona and Hawaii.

“I’ve been on the side of the table that had a lot of leverage and the side of the table that didn’t,” he says. “If you can build relationships and treat the other party fairly, you’ll have a successful career.”

One of the more challenging jobs Hopkins held was Fox Cable Network senior VP, affiliate sales and marketing, which he was named in June 1999. Overseeing a portfolio of networks ranging from FX to National Geographic Channel to Speed Channel, he learned how to sell every type of content, and quickly helped FX and National Geographic attain a national presence with operators.

Like an astute bench coach in baseball, Hopkins also scooped up some managerial lessons while at Fox. “Much of the success News Corp. has had is due to them hiring young, aggressive, smart people and just letting them run,” he says. “It was an environment where it was basically up to you to succeed.”

Several from that gang of young, aggressive, smart people have gone on to bigger things. Among them: Jeff Shell, current president of Comcast programming, and Tony Ball, president of BSkyB.

Hopkins kept growing as well. In late 2002, he decided to take on a new challenge: joining struggling TV Guide/Gemstar, where he was responsible for distribution of TV Guide’s programming services. Hopkins helped the TV Guide Channel land distribution in 80 million homes within two years.

“We were in deal-making mode as we tried to resurrect a sinking ship,” he says. “And again, we had the creative freedom and latitude to do the job.”

Joining the Dream Team

Then Dolgin came calling, and Hopkins got a shot at joining the dream team. Besides showing Yankee games, YES also features the New Jersey Nets of the NBA, another Hopkins childhood favorite. The team plays just minutes from his hometown of Glen Rock.

While the Yankees have been up and down this season, YES has proved much more consistent. The network averaged 79,000 TV households daily during the first half of 2005, 61% more than its nearest competitor; fittingly enough, that’s New England Sports Network (NESN), home of the rival Boston Red Sox.

Now Hopkins, whose wife is expecting their second child, is embarking upon the next phase of the young network, which he and Dolgin call YES Network 2.0 (Version 1.0, headed up by cable legend Leo Hindery, made headlines for carriage battles with Cablevision and Comcast.) Among other things, the next phase will include Nets games in HDTV.

“Sports is the killer app for HD,” he says.

YES Network experimented with HD Yankee telecasts last season, and one of Hopkins’ first tasks as COO was to negotiate HD carriage deals for the current season.

The next phase

“The prior management team did an excellent job of getting the network off the ground,” Hopkins says. “And so far, we’ve gotten tangible results in viewership as we take it to another level.”

Dolgin, for his part, is happy to have Hopkins on the squad. “Ray was integral in the phenomenal growth of Fox’s cable networks, and we expect him to have a similar impact here,” says the YES Network CEO. “We’ve already benefited from his experience and expertise in the brief time he has been with us.”

Friday’s network prime-time ratings have finally! been posted at the top of Latest News the first item in this thread.

Bochco Drama Brings Iraq Home

By John Maynard Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 24, 2005; Y07

What's Steven Bochco getting himself into?

The veteran television producer -- who's earned himself a library of Emmys (and a whole lot of money) for his cop and lawyer shows such as "Hill Street Blues," "L.A. Law" and "NYPD Blue" -- now is tackling a far more grim and politically volatile subject: war.

"Over There," debuting this week on the FX cable network, chronicles the day-to-day lives of a fictitious Army unit serving an initial tour of duty in Iraq. It's Bochco's first try at a military show and TV's first scripted series set in a current war involving the United States.

Bochco, no stranger to controversy on television, knows the risks of depicting a war that is viewed skeptically overseas and is becoming increasingly unpopular at home.

"To do a drama series about an ongoing war is to jump hip-deep into an environment which is so politically charged," he said. "I don't know that it's possible to do a show like that without having a political point of view that sort of permeates the thing.

"I don't want to do that. I never, at least consciously, informed my projects with a political point of view."

So why do it?

Bochco said he was approached last year by John Landgraf, who has wanted to produce a series for FX about the war since joining the network in January 2004 as its head of entertainment.

"It struck me like a freight train," said Landgraf, who is now FX's president and general manager. "Scripted television has completely ignored what is happening with the U.S. in terms of our military."

But Landgraf knew his challenge in landing Bochco. "I think that Bochco was leery to begin with," Landgraf said. "He has a distinguished 25-year career. He didn't want to get pulled into a partisan mud-throwing contest."

Not that Bochco shies away from a fight. Twelve years ago, numerous ABC affiliates refused to air the debut episode of his "NYPD Blue" series, objecting to the program's coarse language and partial nudity. The show obviously survived the firestorm and lasted 12 seasons, making it one of the longest running dramas in the history of television.

But a war drama brings its own set of political concerns.

Landgraf convinced Bochco that this series would not be about the politics of the war -- no scenes from the Pentagon or the White House or Capitol Hill debating its merits -- but would rather present a story about the soldiers who are facing varying degrees of ethical, moral and physical dilemmas every day.

As Bochco thought about it more, he decided to take on the project. "I mean, after all, it's a drama," he said. "And a drama is about compelling storytelling and strong themes and rich characterizations.

"That's not politics, that's storytelling."

Bochco said he also had reservations about "Over There" because he's never served in the military. Landgraf's retort: "You never were a cop, either."

The first episode introduces an array of characters, including an aspiring football star who appears to be the unit's natural leader and a brainy Cornell graduate nicknamed "Dim" because, he says, he was too stupid to get out of serving in the Army.

Viewers see the soliders struggle on the front lines, while also getting a glimpse of the lives the military people left behind.

The series is character-driven but does not shy away from the realities of war. In the pilot episode, the soldiers are caught in a violent standoff with an enemy holed up in a well-guarded bunker. When it appears a truce might be reached, an ill-advised bathroom break by one U.S. soldier turns the event into a brutal shootout. The scene also includes an incredibly graphic image of an Iraqi soldier literally being blown into bits.

"Over There" is Bochco's first show to air on cable television, known to give programs and their producers more creative freedom.

"There's more risk-taking in terms of language and sexuality," Bochcho said, "and with those issues you have significantly greater leeway."

"You can be a lot more honest about [the war in Iraq] in terms of having your participants sound like real soldiers in the heat of the battle," Bochco said. "You can show things that are the unfortunate and inevitable results of combat."

Bochco declined to discuss his own views of the war, but he said the war scenes do not make the show an anti-war drama.

"I imagine if you were making a pro-war film, you'd still be seeing bloody stuff," he said. "I don't know how you do a show about war without seeing the inevitable consequences of war.

"War, by definition, is an awful, violent, bloody business in which the scoreboard has to do with death."
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OVER THERE; Wednesdays at 10 PM ET/PT on FX

WB's frog no longer has a leg to stand on

By Scott Collins Los Angeles Times July 23, 2005

HOLLYWOOD - The frog is dead - killed by the bosses at the WB Network.

Michigan J. Frog, the dancing, singing cartoon amphibian brought to life half a century ago by legendary animator Chuck Jones, has been booted as the corporate mascot at WB, which is struggling to shed its teeny-bopper image.

"The frog is dead and buried," WB Chairman Garth Ancier told reporters yesterday morning at the semiannual Television Critics Association media tour in Beverly Hills.

Ancier broke the news of the frog's demise incidentally, in response to a question about a new network logo featuring a green-and-blue splash-paint design.

He seemed surprised when reporters began peppering him and WB Entertainment President David Janollari with questions about the top hat-wearing frog.

Ancier then joked that the network had received permission from a federal court to remove the frog's feeding tube. Michigan J. Frog made his first appearance in Jones' 1955 cartoon One Froggy Evening. (He's an amphibian whose song-and-dance routines have his owner seeing dollar signs. His refusal to perform in public, however, soon leaves the man broke.)

The death of the mascot might seem trivial, but the reasons behind it are not.

WB suffered a bruising season this year, as highly praised series such as Jack & Bobby sank in the ratings.

Janollari called Jack & Bobby's collapse "the most heartbreaking experience this network went through in the last year," but added that cancellation became inevitable when ratings showed no sign of improvement.

The situation is worrisome because one top competitor, UPN, has generated enormous buzz for Chris Rock's fall sitcom, Everybody Hates Chris.

WB's new series - including the drama Just Legal with Don Johnson and Related, a comedy-drama about four sisters - have not received nearly as much attention.

(WB is partly owned by the Tribune Co., publisher of the Los Angeles Times and The Sun.)

Executives partly blame the poor performance on a lingering perception that, as the former home of youth dramas such as Felicity and Dawson's Creek, the network is intended solely for teenagers.

The network now wants to convince viewers in their 20s and 30s that it's "reflecting the lives they're living as well," Janollari said.

The frog, network officials believe, might have underscored the teens-only reputation.

"That's not the image we wanted to perpetuate," Janollari explained.

“West Wing’ limps toward perhaps its final season

Bill Goodykoontz The Arizona Republic July 23, 2005

Remember when The West Wing was good?

Granted, it'll tax your memory trying to reach back that far. Back in the day, Aaron Sorkin's version of political wish-fulfillment was a TV lovers' dream, full of dialogue - almost of it written by Sorkin in a herculean feat - that flowed through the excellent cast and managed a neat trick, not just to entertain but at times to inspire.

Plus, other than Apocalypse Now, it's the only role I've ever liked Martin Sheen in.

Those glory days are gone. So is Sorkin, from the show at least, exiting in a reported wake of personal demons, missed deadlines and blown budgets (and, truthfully, lesser scripts at the end). Gone also are the walking-and-talking scenes that served as the show's glue.

But The West Wing marches on. It'll be back in the fall, the new and presumably last season centering on the presidential election, which pits Democrat Matthew Santos (Jimmy Smits) and Republican Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda). NBC is showing back-to-back episodes tonight that will help you get the lay of the land of the current version of the show, and help you decide which candidate you're pulling for.

Producers swear it's not a given that Santos will win, even though Smits would obviously play right into the younger demographic that advertisers covet. And although Smits is OK in the role, I'm a Vinick man, myself. It's great to see Alda back on television in a meaty role, and this one affords him plenty of opportunity to make big, thoughtful speeches. From what we've seen, he's far from a reactionary; instead (and this is getting back into wish-fulfillment territory), he's a thoughtful conservative who listens to all sides of an issue and usually takes the most sensible position.

It won't make you forget Hawkeye Pierce. And it won't make you forget those first three or four great seasons of The West Wing. But at least it's something, and the way this show has declined, that's about all we can hope for.

TV Critics Tour Blog
By Mark McGuire The Albany NY Times-Union Television Critic
Keith riffs, Don stiffs
Former Times Union TV/radio writer Keith Marder is now director of network communications for The WB. Every press tour he gives a state-of-TV address that is basically a 10-minute stand-up comedy act.

Some of the funnier lines from Friday's performance at The Beverly Hilton

``I always knew Tom Cruise would end up with someone from `Dawson's Creek.' I just thought it would be James Van Der Beek.''

``Katie Holmes, though, she looks in love to me. If she was this good an actress on `Dawson's Creek,' she would have won an Emmy.''

(Notorious diva Shannen Doherty was fired off the new UPN show ``Love, Inc.,'' although the network said it wasn't for any tantrums)

``It's gotten to the point that Shannen's no longer good enough to keep a job on UPN. ... On top of that, I heard she was a victim of identity theft, and they returned it. ... Now I know what's on the bottom of the hatch in `Lost': Shannen Doherty's career.''

``After watching `I Want To Be a Hilton,'' this hotel wants to be a Marriott.''
• **

Someone please tell Don Johnson that he's only ... Don Johnson.

Elliot Mintz, the personal publicist for the star of the upcoming lawyer drama ``Just Legal,'' was shielding him from reporters Friday night at a WB party like he was a star prosecution witness in a mob trial.

Personal publicists are becoming the most hated entity on this press tour. While publicists who work for the network tend to understand reporters' needs, the personal flacks seem to have two jobs:

Keep you from the people you want to talk to, and foist sixth-rate ``stars'' in your face for interviews you don't want.

In Johnson's case, he was kept secluded for most of the night, before we pond scum were granted an appearance for about, oh, three minutes. The former ``Miami Vice'' star proceeded to basically regurgitate actor blather not worth repeating here.

And then he was gone. All that remained was the flack standing guard.

To be fair, you don't want to make an actor available to the press at a party where the actor is there ... to be available ... to the press.

• ** ``What the hell is Mickey Dolenz doing here?'' was a question several of us had. It turns out the former drummer in ``The Monkees'' now produces and directs, and was attending the party with a friend to apparently network.

• ** The WB held its party at some Hollywood hotspot. (We get on a shuttle bus, drive an hour through rush hour to go five miles, and get off the bus. Wash, rinse, repeat.) The bash was replete with young stars no one over 19 can recognize. And the ghost of Don Johnson.

Some critics played a game at the fete for the minority-challenged network, where you had to finish this sentence: ``The WB party is whiter than ...''

The winner (that I would repeat here, anyway): ``The Vermont state legislature.''