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bgooch

09-25-06, 03:04 PM

NFL Network Blindsided by Comcast
By R. Thomas Umstead & Mike Farrell 9/25/2006

Comcast Corp. has thrown NFL Network for a distribution loss two months before its first live league game telecasts.

Comcast COO Steve Burke said the operator plans to place NFL Network on a digital tier of sports and information channels, which would limit its ability to be viewed by all 23 million of the operator’s subscribers. Such a sports tier would carry an extra monthly charge. Typically, no more than 10% of an operator’s subscribers sign up for one.

Burke said Comcast planned to put the NFL Network on a sports tier in systems it acquired this year from Time Warner and hasn’t ruled out tiering the service on all of its systems.

The NFL Network insists Comcast doesn’t have the right to offer the service on low-penetrated sports tiers.

The move could be devastating for the network, which launched in 2003 and hopes to gain basic analog carriage. That would make its package of Thursday- and Saturday-night pro games available to all Comcast subscribers.

The network secured the games purchase, valued at more than $300 million last January, thereby beating out Comcast, which planned to add the games to its OLN service, now called Versus.

To date, the network has signed up 33 million subscribers, in deals with direct-broadcast satellite providers EchoStar Communications Corp. and DirecTV Inc.; Comcast and a host of small cable operators.

Comcast’s move could embolden other large operators to hold out signing an NFL Network carriage deal to see if Comcast is successful in tiering the channel, Kagan Associates sports analyst John Mansell said. That could include Time Warner Cable, which dropped the NFL Network from several former Adelphia Communications Corp. and Comcast systems it acquired this year.

Burke, speaking last week at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York, said Comcast planned to place the NFL Network on a sports tier in former Time Warner systems acquired when the two companies split up Adelphia assets this summer. This would include former Adelphia systems in Minneapolis, Memphis, Jackson, Miss.; Louisiana (principally Shreveport and Monroe); and Florida (principally Cape Coral and St. Augustine). Comcast also gained control of Time Warner’s Houston system with the dissolution of Texas Cable Partners.

“We’re announcing we’re putting them on a sports tier in the Time Warner markets we just inherited,” Burke said. He had no comment about what Comcast would do in its own markets with the channel.

NFL Network executives could not be reached for comment, but spokesman Seth Palansky has said in the past that no operator has the right to place it on a sports tier.

Burke disputed that claim, though: “We obviously wouldn’t be doing that if we didn’t have the right to do that.” He added that the network hasn’t said Comcast doesn’t have the right to place it on a tier, only that they “will not give anybody the right in the future,” Burke said.

If Comcast is allowed to tier the service, Mansell said other large operators will most likely demand the same. “I don’t see operators making a big move [toward launching the NFL Network] this year,” Mansell said.

But sports consultant Neal Pilson believes eventually the network and operators will reach some accord, although it may come after NFL Network’s first telecast on Thanksgiving.

“Generally, these types of disputes — whether for the NFL Network or OLN looking to expand when they acquired the National Hockey League, or YES and its dispute with Cablevision — they tend to get settled,” he said. “Sometimes it’s last minute, sometimes it’s even after the fact, but most of them get settled.”

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6374622

fredfa

09-25-06, 03:12 PM

The New Season
“Heroes”
By Ed Bark, former long-time Dallas Morning News TV Writer

Enthralling and super-imaginative, NBC's Heroes is the surprise treat of the season.

Find it the way you did Lost, and then get ready for a Grade-A thrill ride with big, bonafide jolts at the end of its first three chapters. Monday night's opener, subtitled "Genesis," includes a printed prelude that seems prototypically overblown until the show starts delivering the goods. Here it is, submitted for your consideration in suitably bold type:

In recent days, a seemingly random group of individuals has emerged with what can only be described as 'special' abilities. Although unaware of it now, these individuals will not only save the world, but change it forever. This transformation from ordinary to extraordinary will not occur overnight. Every story has a beginning. Volume One of their epic tale begins here ...

But where to begin? Heroes is global in scope, taking viewers to TV renditions of Madras, India; Tokyo Japan; Las Vegas, New York City and Odessa, Texas in its curtain-raiser.

The Lone Star connection is high school cheerleader Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere), who can't fly but otherwise seems like Supergirl. Look, up in the sky, it's Claire jumping from on high to the hard ground below while her geeky, platonic boy pal video-cams it. Unhurt, Claire is soon running into a blazing inferno, where she rescues a man trapped in a train wreck. Sticking her hand in a garbage disposal seals the deal. The kid's got something special all right, but she'll remain in Odessa on her own for at least the initial three hours.

There's a helluva lot more going on, all of it digestible and coherent without being simple-dimple.

Heroes' breakout character could be Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka), an excitable Japanese plugger with a Star Trek fixation. Can he really make time stop and then teleport himself to wherever he chooses? Hiro's relationship with best pal Ando (Omid Abtahi) gives Heroes its comic relief. But the pair's quest to save New York from a mega-disaster looks as though it's going to be the backbone of the series. In future episodes, their guidebook will be a comic book, 9th Wonders!, drawn by drug-battling artist Isaac Mendez (Santiago Cabrera). His ability to see the future threatens to drive him mad.

Other key characters include mild-mannered Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia), who thinks he can fly. But big brother Nathan (Adrian Pasdar), who's waging a cutthroat campaign for Congress, is determined to keep Peter under his finger.

On another front, dedicated Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) has journeyed from India to New York to investigate the mysterious disappearance of his mystical father. And in Vegas, single mother Niki Sanders (Ali Larter) is deeply in debt to thugs. Making ends meet by making erotic Internet videos, Niki's stunned to learn she's a savage beast when threatened.

The series' second episode introduces Los Angeles policeman Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg), who thinks he can hear people think. Pretty soon he knows he can. That might help in apprehending a so-far unseen serial killer named Sylar.

Heroes creator Tim Kring (Crossing Jordan) has fashioned a whale of a tale so far. Lost had better look out, because this could be the season's new Internet chat sensation. The show should have a huge following among 18-to-34-year-olds, who likely will respond to both the attractive cast and the evolving mythology.

Old goats with a half-century or more under their belts (hi, happy to meet ya) should hitch a ride, too. In a season full of new serials, this is the one to invest in. The first three episodes are thoroughly captivating, with cliffhangers that might well leave you with mouth agape. So let's get the word-of-mouth going. Talk this one up, and then by all means tell me if I'm wrong.

Prospects: Very solid in a relatively soft Monday night slot whose principal tenants are the CBS' comedy combo of Two and a Half Men and The New Adventures of Old Christine. Big promotional pushes on NBC's Sunday night football games won't hurt either.

Grade: A

http://www.unclebarky.com/fall.html

fredfa

09-25-06, 04:08 PM

(Hmmm, that didn’t take long at all. My bet is that Gibson beats Couric this week.)
TV Notebook
NBC's Williams Back on Top
By Allison Romano Broadcasting & Cable 9/25/2006

NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams reclaimed its position as the most-watched evening news show last week, outperforming CBS and ABC in total viewers.

For the week of Sept. 18 to 22, Nightly averaged 8.18 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric was second with 7.69 million viewers and ABC's World News with Charles Gibson was a close third with 7.58 million viewers.

The three newscasts tied in the key news demographic, adults 25 to 54, averaging 2.1 ratings.

Evening news ratings have been closely-watched since Couric's Sept. 5 debut, when she attracted more than 13 million viewers. CBS' marks have settled down since then, but the three network newscasts are now locked in a heated three-way race.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6375049

fredfa

09-25-06, 04:44 PM

TV Q&A
Ask Matt
(from the Ask (TV Critic) Matt (Roush) column at TVGuide.com
By Matt Roush TVGuide.com TV Critic

Question: After reading your positive reviews of Ugly Betty, I've been waiting with anticipation to view this show described as "charming" and "heartwarming." Then my husband and I watched ABC's Sneak Preview program and saw some clips setting up the premise of Ugly Betty. We were really disappointed at the tone of the show. It came off as mean-spirited, and really left a bad taste in our mouths. If there is charm and heart-warmth in the show, why wouldn't ABC promote it that way? All we saw was people making fun of Betty, laughing at her, putting her in humiliating situations, even her little brother telling her how bad she looked. I'm having second thoughts about watching it now, which I'm sure is not the effect ABC was hoping for by previewing the show. Does the charm really come through in the full episodes? Or does it continue in the vein of mean-spirited mockery? As a fan of America Ferrera, I'm willing to watch an episode to see for myself — I'm just wondering if I should bother. What are your thoughts? Do you still hold to the same opinion?— Toni M.

Matt Roush: Look at the title: It's not "Everybody Loves Betty." The charm of the show is all in America Ferrera's performance as Betty. You'll love her, and you'll root for her. But she doesn't have it easy, nor should she for the show to work. There is an aspect of cruelty in the show's title and certainly in the over-the-top characters she encounters as she goes out into the cutthroat world of the high-fashion magazine business. Not knowing how thick your skin is, I'd still recommend the show, but I won't pretend there isn't a stylized edge to it and that while Betty herself might warm your heart, the show may also make it bleed a bit for her travails in this ugly-duckling urban fairy tale. (Face it: Nobody was very nice to Cinderella until the Fairy Godmother intervened, right?)

Question: Despite your (and other critics') praise for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, I was ready for disappointment, thanks to NBC's inept promos. Fortunately, you were right. I enjoyed it thoroughly, except for what seemed to me to be a completely inept performance by Amanda Peet. What was with all those vacant smiles? Does she get extra money for showing her teeth and standing there looking stupid? Everyone else was terrific, however. If the show manages to hold on to most of the premiere's audience (13 million or so), do you think NBC will consider it a success and keep it where it is?— David G.

Matt Roush: Absolutely. If it can stay a strong No. 2 in the time period, with attractive demos (like The West Wing, the expectation is that the audience profile will be very upscale and advertiser-friendly), it will do just fine. It is helped immeasurably by ABC rolling over and playing dead on the night. (Many of us are still surprised that ABC didn't try to jump-start Mondays with Grey's Anatomy, instead of moving it into the Thursday battlefield.) As for Amanda Peet: that is a curious characterization. It's interesting that Aaron Sorkin is trying to create a network exec who isn't a villain, but her glacial calm in the face of mounting crisis is not only puzzling, it's deeply unreal. At least in my experience with people who hold jobs like that.

Question: I was wondering what your take is on shows whose plotlines don't seem to lend themselves to multiple seasons. Prison Break immediately comes to mind, since the new season feels like they are finding new ways to stretch it out. The Nine also comes to mind (I love the concept, just not sure how long you can stretch out a 52-hour event). Day Break, Vanished, Kidnapped, Reunion (from last season), etc. Granted 24 has done this for a while now (and for the most part has done a good job), but I wonder if all of these other shows will be able to do the same.— Anthony V.

Matt Roush: Wouldn't we all like to know. The genius of 24 is that it can reinvent itself every season, building on past adventures while essentially starting from scratch with a new crisis. As I watch Prison Break, especially in the credit sequence, I find myself pining for the first season when everyone was still behind bars, plotting. This race to the treasure, with ridiculous detours like Sucre trying to break up his true love's Vegas wedding, isn't really cutting it for me, and makes me wonder about the long-term potential of many of these now ubiquitous serialized thrillers. And just look at the impatience of so many Lost fans, who somehow wish the show was a different sort of show, one that would burn through more story and focus less on character and backstory (the very elements that make Lost a one-of-a-kind masterpiece). The real issue here is that these shows with their high concepts are all very inviting, at least at the start, and many of them look like they'd make a terrific movie or, even better, a miniseries. So much more exciting than just another procedural. (And, by the way, to digress for a moment, could last week's season-opener of CSI: Miami have been any more cartoonish?) The challenge for the producers and writers of these serials is to spin the story in a way that continues to keep us engaged without exasperating us (sorry, Vanished is already failing that test), while also figuring out how to sustain the premise for the long haul of a long, multiyear run. I'm not sure if many or any of these new shows can pull that off. But I'm willing to watch them try.

Question: A year ago, I was intrigued by the premise of Reunion, only to be greatly disappointed when it was canceled before the identity of the killer was unveiled. With all of the serial dramas (in the vein of 24 and Lost) that are being introduced this fall, which ones would you predict will end up disappointing viewers like me because they aren't allowed to provide closure, thanks to trigger-happy network programming execs?— Paul L.

Matt Roush: Here's the other burning question about this suddenly popular genre. Fans aren't likely to be satisfied unless these shows get at least a full season's run, and even then (taking Invasion as a for-instance), if the ending is ambiguous and the show isn’t renewed, there’s still a feeling of betrayal. Serialized thrillers and mysteries are especially vulnerable, because unlike typical soap-opera cliffhangers, there are often specific climactic answers (as in the revelation of the killer in Reunion) that go unaddressed if the show is yanked too soon. This was a hot topic at the summer's TCA press tour, and each of the network heads promised they would try to provide some sort of content for fans (perhaps online, in a blog or podcast or something) if these individual shows ended up not succeeding. As the season progresses, we’ll have to see how well they uphold their end of this often one-sided bargain. Or if we're lucky, some of these shows might actually click, and it won’t be such a problem. But to answer your question more directly, I imagine many of the new serials will have a hard time getting to the end of their first-season stories: most notably Vanished, Kidnapped, Six Degrees, Jericho (which opened better than I expected) and possibly Heroes (which may be hard to follow but, in the first three episodes anyway, has some of the season's niftiest cliffhangers). We'll know more once we see how these shows sustain over the next few weeks.

Question: I was just reading that Criminal Minds was losing Lola Glaudini after six episodes and replacing her with an older female who acts as a foil of sorts for Mandy Patinkin's character. This got me thinking: Has a show ever brought back a character from a previous show and added them to their cast as a regular? I was thinking along the lines of Ally Walker's Profiler, Dr. Samantha Waters. It seems like an interesting proposal to integrate her into the show, and her character is so similar to what the team does now. I have always liked Criminal Minds (although I know it's not your favorite), but I agree it seems a bit lacking. Anyway, just wondered if anything similar has been tried.— Matt Z.

Matt Roush: The most famous example I can think of is Richard Belzer as Det. John Munch, a character introduced on the classic Homicide: Life on the Street who later joined Law & Order: Special Victims Unit after appearing in crossover episodes of the original Law & Order. (The character has also made stunt cameo appearances on cult shows such as The X-Files and Arrested Development, among others.) A colleague also reminds me that Alan Rosenberg and Debi Mazar's characters from L.A. Law migrated over to Steven Bochco's short-lived Civil Wars series. I'm sure there are others, but this is not a good time of year to be throwing trivia questions at me when my mind is about to explode with new TV. As for your suggestion about Ally Walker: why not? She certainly couldn't hurt the show.

Question: I read your most recent column item about Lost and its scheduling, specifically about not showing new episodes from November to February, and I had to ask a question. Why is it that networks now show only 22 or so episodes of a popular series? If I remember correctly, they used to show 24 to 26 shows a year. Although I have read about the quality being diluted with more episodes, I would think it would be preferable for a network to show more of its more popular shows, even if an episode or two was not as strong, rather than have three months of reruns. Did they ditch having 24 or more episodes for a reason, or is it just network inertia that keeps them from putting more episodes of their best shows on the air? You would think that other networks would run new episodes of their best shows, like CBS with CSI and NBC with My Name Is Earl, as often as they could. Beats no one watching when a rerun is on, right?— Rich

Matt Roush: This question comes up nearly every season, and the answer is pretty much the same each time: The networks would love to have an unlimited number of episodes of their most popular shows, but TV isn't getting any cheaper to make, even when you can factor in DVD sales these days, in addition to syndication and international sales. There are budget considerations and also time considerations for some of the more elaborate productions, of which Lost probably ranks at the top of the list. Many of these shows do average 24 or so hours or episodes a season, which is pretty remarkable and more than you get in overseas markets. But ABC's fondness for two-hour season finales still limits the number of weeks of original programming. Something's gotta give, and that usually means either bursts of reruns or, in the case of Lost and ER this season, a midterm hiatus during which the show will be replaced by a mid-season tryout. We'll see how that works this year. (I'm betting rhat eventually ABC will copy Fox's model and put a show like Lost on straight through January to May or September to February.)

Question: I am trying to understand why so many great sitcoms seem to bite the dust before they have a chance to gain an audience. I really loved the CBS show Out of Practice, but it only lasted a few months, and also ABC's Rodney and Freddie, which, though given a little more time, have now been canceled. It seems we are bombarded with so many reality shows, contest shows and police dramas that there is no time for a few laughs. I want television to bring back the comic relief that is needed in our lives. I also wonder about the shows that are missing from the fall lineup but were never mentioned as being canceled: Medium, According to Jim and George Lopez. Did I miss something? Were they also dropped, and I just never heard about it?— Lori P.

Matt Roush: Medium, Jim and George will all be back at mid-season. But I can't really give you much reason to hope about the current state of TV comedy, especially the more conventional ones you bring up in your question. The pendulum has swung away from old-fashioned farce and traditional family comedy for now. The chances of success for many of this season's new single-camera comedies (some more ambitious than others) seems slim, which could prompt a return to the classic form. Which, when it's good, is nothing to sneer at, believe me. We could use a few more solid comedies on the schedule — not that I'd include Jim in that mix; I'm thinking more along the lines of true classics like Home Improvement. To me, lazy shows like According to Jim helped kill the traditional comedy. At least for now.

Question: Not so much a question as a comment after reading Monday's bits on Prison Break. For me, it's not that the show has become more ludicrous, but that it's lost its heart. Season 1 built up a relationship between Michael and his cellmate Fernando (aka Sucre), and then suddenly he says that everybody's on their own? I could buy it with the other inmates, but not with Fernando. Michael's selfless acts to free his brother begin to lose meaning when Michael begins to act selfish. Meanwhile, Lincoln simply needs more of a personality. His brooding made sense last season while on death row, but I expected him to show more range now that he's out. I'll probably keep watching (there's not much competition besides CBS' comedies, which I can tape), but my eyes are wandering.— Josh

Matt Roush: Interesting point. It does seem like prison has toughened up Michael quite a bit, and the brothers' ruthlessness to get to the buried treasure and keep it to themselves isn't exactly a noble calling. It's not that I mind that even the hero of the piece isn't that likable anymore. I just wish someone or something interested me. As the show has scattered geographically, it has definitely lost something for me. As in: a rooting interest. I'm pretty much watching now out of habit (and the only reason I'm still watching Vanished at all is to make fun of its rank clichés, which get moldier by the week). I've got to say: Until 24 returns in January, Monday is one of the weakest nights of the week (with the exception of Studio 60 and the occasional chuckle from a CBS comedy).

Question: Why do you think NBC is completely refusing to promote Crossing Jordan? The show is in its sixth season and doing well in its time slot. It has now been moved to Friday nights at 8 pm/ET! Family hour for a show like Crossing Jordan? I wonder why they did that? Moreover, they delayed the premiere till Oct. 20. Please tell me why they insist on killing this show?— Nalex

Matt Roush: Oh, please. If NBC wanted to kill Jordan (which it doesn't), it would be dead already. The show had to move because NBC is now showing football on Sundays, and it had to go somewhere. While I'd agree it might make more sense to flip Las Vegas and Jordan, if Jordan aired later, it would face either of CBS' already established (and to me, superior) crime dramas, Close to Home and Numbers. And no way was it going to get Law & Order's 10 pm/ET time slot. The reason it's not being promoted much right now is because NBC is kind of busy getting a bunch of new shows established. Returning shows always take a backseat this time of year. The real head-scratcher is why NBC is waiting so long to put its new Friday lineup into play. The only reason I can think for Jordan's and Las Vegas' late start is to reduce the need for repeats down the road.

Question: According to my TiVo, some new series are being rebroadcast on cable this fall: Heroes is getting a second run on Sci Fi, and Ugly Betty is popping up on ABC Family. And I wouldn't be surprised if Kidnapped also airs on Bravo or The Class floats over to VH1. If these series have middling returns on broadcast but good-for-their-respective-cable-network ratings, how do you think it would influence the network wanting to pick up the back nine or renew their series for a second season?— Chris L.

Matt Roush: These cross-platform double-runs are all about exposure, and I'd be surprised if the actual numbers these shows generate on the various cable networks will matter in the long run. The point here is to get these shows sampled in such a cluttered universe so that more people will be inclined to watch them on the actual network. (How lucky for NBC Universal to have a network like Sci Fi in the corporate family to give Heroes a boost.) But if the cross-promotion doesn't help boost the network numbers, it won't matter if these shows are doing better than average for the cable channels. It's the performance on the network that will determine their future.

http://tvguide.com/News-Views/Columnists/Ask-Matt/default.aspx

fredfa

09-25-06, 05:42 PM

The New Season
“Heroes”, “Runaway”
NBC wonders what it would be like to wake up with superpowers
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle Monday, September 25, 2006

Two more serialized dramas for the new fall season premiere tonight, and both break a couple of key rules of the genres, though one is infinitely more fun than the other, which should help since they're on at the same time.

"Heroes" is a kind of "X-Men" meets "X-Files" leap of enormous faith for both NBC and viewers. The idea is that nine -- maybe less, maybe more -- ordinary individuals wake up one morning to find they've got special powers. One office worker in Japan can stop time and eventually teleport himself. A cheerleader in Texas is immune to injury -- she jumps off buildings, runs into fire, etc. -- a budding (slimy?) politician can fly, etc. Tonight's episode begins to weave the web by introducing each character and hinting at how they might all be related (cooler than "Six Degrees" because these people aren't self-obsessive, they're freaked out). Anyway, viewers need a significant amount of "buy in" to fall for "Heroes" because it demands that you have an open mind even if you're not into science fiction.

If you're thinking, "Wow, that's kind of like 'Lost' over on ABC," well, yeah, congratulations. A whole bunch of this season's new serialized dramas owe a debt to "Lost" for proving that audiences will stay riveted to a series all season long if you make the mystery fun enough.

Unfortunately, that may be the Achilles' heel of "Heroes." It's not that it doesn't have enough mystery or even fun, it's that it has perhaps too much. Because one of the codes that supernatural-themed shows must play by (to be fair to the audience) is the use of set rules. For example, if you give a character paranormal powers, such as Hiro (Masi Oka), then the audience needs to know exactly what he's capable of. Not in the first episode or two, mind you, but not far after. Let's see -- he can stop time? And then he can teleport himself from one place to another if he thinks about it hard enough? Fine, but that's it, right? We're not going to find out in Episode 6 that he can hold his breath underwater for hours, too. Right?

The point is, if producers and writers are true to their characters they create a bond with viewers who buy in. That bond is broken when characters -- no matter how supernaturally geeked out -- do things the audience doesn't expect in the last four episodes. That's cheating. Producers and writers who make up the rules as they go along are hedging their bets because they don't know where they're going. And in a crowded field of serialized dramas, the most essential element is a sure hand on the wheel of the show. People don't want their time wasted.

That said, it's too early to tell if "Heroes" is too much show for its own good. The end of the first episode is particularly intriguing and the second episode goes even further (and gets a whole lot more bloody and "X-Files" gross). Both episodes are entertaining and show enormous promise -- "Heroes" may be the dark horse among this year's serialized dramas. It also might be a dud down the road. Because after two episodes, it's not even remotely clear what these "special" ordinary people are capable of. No boundaries have been established.

And if keeping up with an artist who paints the future, a beat cop who hears things before they're said and a single mom who might be a brutal, avenging killer isn't enough, the writers and producers have come up with two more tricks:

-- There could be a worldwide government conspiracy at work.

-- There may be a serial killer involved (no pun intended).

Whoa, big boy. Let's crawl before we fly.

What "Heroes" has going for it -- other than ambition that's hard to resist -- is that the other 9 p.m. freshman series it faces off against, "Runaway," on the CW, is one of those series that looks great on paper but ends up less-than-thrilling on the screen. A man (Donnie Wahlberg) is framed for a crime he didn't commit. In order to prove his innocence, he needs time to see who framed him. But of course he has no time. He's going to jail.

So instead he takes his whole family -- wife (Leslie Hope from "24"), sullen teen boy, pretty teen girl and young, inquisitive grade school boy -- on the run. They flee from town to town, with made up names and background stories. Everything they knew before of their life is lost -- girlfriends abandoned, schools left, jobs dropped, while dad goes on the lam. It's "The Fugitive" with a family.

Now, that can either be an opportunity to tell more than one story or it will work like a man on the lam dragging four anchors. Who knows how it will play out on "Runaway" in future episodes? The sad truth is, in the pilot it plays out like one very long, not-very-exciting family vacation. While there's a sense of urgency -- the law is hot on his heels! -- it never really comes through on the screen.

Part of the problem is that Wahlberg, who was so good in "Boomtown" and "Band of Brothers," is too laconic here. Granted, he's got to play it cool so he doesn't seem like he's nervously hiding a secret, but you'd think his pulse might race a bit more.

Ultimately, it's the story and the directing that fail "Runaway" in the pilot. The show fails to hook and in this competitive environment of serialized dramas, how are you going to convince people to watch your mystery unfold over 22 episodes when they're bored by the 22nd minute?

"Heroes" may end up being the default winner in this timeslot for dramas ("Vanished" is vanishing and "Runaway" walks too much), but viewers sucked into the myriad tale of ordinary people turned supers ought to hope the writers come up with a workable and believable set of rules and then stick with them. There is such a thing as being too fantastic for your own good.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/25/DDGKBLB6201.DTL&type=printable

fredfa

09-25-06, 06:22 PM

(In case you missed this when it was posted earlier)

Monday’s Prime-Time Premieres
8 PM ET/PT 7th Heaven - CW
9 PM ET/PT Runaway - CW HD
9 PM ET/PT Heroes - NBC HD

fredfa

09-25-06, 06:23 PM

The Business of TV
NBCU's Wright Addresses Digital Future
By Elizabeth Jensen Special to TVWeek September 25, 2006

NBC Universal Chairman and CEO Bob Wright hopes that within 12 months his company is booking $400 million to $500 million in digital advertising, has a number of integrated broadcast and digital program ventures, and is offering movies in many countries via digital delivery.

Separately, he doused recent news reports that he may be planning to leave the company in the near future, quipping that he could be around for another 15 years. Mr. Wright is celebrating his 20-year anniversary at NBC Universal.

Mr. Wright, interviewed by TVWeek Publisher and Editorial Director Chuck Ross as part of Advertising Week events in New York, said NBC Universal is trying to "sort out the real consumer application" of all the digital opportunities bearing down on the television industry.

NBC Universal's multiple television operations reflect the variety of businesses Mr. Wright has to guide into a digital future.

NBC Universal's recent acquisition of iVillage, an Internet site targeting women, was in part based on the overlap between the site's users and viewers of the "Today" morning show on NBC, Mr. Wright said. He said the company has high expectations for a "full-tilt experiment" it is launching to integrate iVillage content into a TV show for NBC owned and operated stations.

Audience enthusiasm to participate in shows such as NBC's "Deal or No Deal" has generated some 50 million unique callers since spring from fans eager to express their opinions, Mr. Wright said.

"It's crazy for us to deny that interest because it is very, very strong," he said.

NBCU's USA Network hasn't generated as much audience involvement and the network hasn't yet figured out why, he said.

As viewers continue to embrace time-shifting technology that allows them to skip traditional ads, Mr. Wright predicted that eventually broadcasters will carry "smaller pods, and fewer commercials, spaced differently."

As for TiVo, in which NBC Universal is still an investor, Mr. Wright said the company needs to decide whether it wants to be "an operating company or a licensing company."

Mr. Wright also predicted that both TV and film production and marketing costs will come down in the next 18 months, now that DVD penetration has leveled off, piracy issues have raised costs and syndication revenues for TV shows are not as big a factor as they were.

On the programming front, Mr. Wright said the company was pleased with how both "NBC Nightly News" and "Today" have held up in the wake of Katie Couric's defection to the "CBS Evening News." He called the primetime drama "Studio 60," which opened last week to moderate ratings, "a big-time show and we want it to do well. We'd be very disappointed if it doesn't do well."

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10805

fredfa

09-25-06, 06:25 PM

(To get you ready for the preview pieces to come later on)

Tuesday’s Prime-Time Premieres
8 PM ET/PT Gilmore Girls - CW HD
9:30 PM ET/PT Help Me Help You - ABC (Series Premiere) HD

fredfa

09-25-06, 08:47 PM

Commentary
Maybe It's Because TV Sets Don't Talk Back

By Ray Richmond The Hollywood Reporter in his blog “Past Deadline”

I love the Nielsen Media Research survey released last week that revealed the average American home now has more television sets in it than people. The breakdown: 2.73 TV sets per home, only 2.55 people. (I'm wondering who is watching a mere .73 of a TV set and what it's missing. It's no doubt being viewed by that .55 of a person, whose body mass index I don't even want to hear about.)

The typical home also has at least one television running for 8 hours and 14 minutes daily, or an hour longer than the average a mere decade ago. So much for the Internet and DVDs and video games and cell phones and iPods taking eyeballs away from watching programming on the tube. Why, you people are so addicted to TV that I doubt you're even reading this blog right now. And if you are, it's with at least .55 of yourself paying attention to the TV set. C'mon, you know I'm right.

Added note: I have also concurrently learned that there are more television sets in the U.S. than toilets. I'm loathe even to speculate about what this means.

http://www.pastdeadline.com/

fredfa

09-25-06, 09:03 PM

The New Season
“Help Me, Help You”
Will Ted Danson help me or help you?
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher” September 25, 2006

“Help Me Help You” (9:30 PM ET/PTTuesday, ABC) is billed as a comedy, but it’s more a curiosity. After all, the show opens with a guy who jumps out a window in a suicide attempt. But “Help Me” isn’t exactly black comedy, and it isn’t exactly a traditional sitcom, either. It straddles the tricky area between those genres, with decidedly mixed results.

That isn’t to say that the show, which stars Ted Danson as a vain, clueless psychologist helping a bunch of misfits via group therapy, doesn’t have the occasional amusing moment. And amazingly enough, it’s not flat-out awful, which is all I really ask of new half-hour comedies these days.

Still, the only description I can provide regarding my reaction to the show is in the form of an analogy: One of Danson’s patients, an emotionally stunted, socially awkward young woman named Inger, attempts to “share” some of herself with a date. She recites a long list of unconnected facts about herself, then asks her date if he wants to have sex.

He sits there, sort of stunned but slightly amused, and a tentative, confused grin breaks out on his face.

That’s the effect “Help Me” has — it’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but once in a while it’s vaguely amusing, though certainly not in a must-see sort of way.

Though “Help Me” isn’t shot on a soundstage, it has all the trappings and somewhat tiresome thinking of a typical network sitcom. One character is a messed-up nymphomaniac who’s in love with her shrink; there’s the suicidal guy, who’s really just hung up on a cute woman at the office; Danson’s character is obsessed with the fact that his estranged wife has found someone new; another character won’t admit he’s gay;, and so on.

Danson’s comic chops are good for a few laughs (as is his license plate, which reads “4EVRJUNG”), but his relationship with Jane Kaczmarek, who plays his wife, is the sort of thing we’ve seen on sitcoms forever — the jealous husband, the exasperated wife, the high jinks at the family barbecue, etc.

At least they spared us the wisecracking kids. The couple do have one daughter, but she’s in college, — and dating a man who’s as old as her dad. Ah, there’s that sophisticated Freudian comedy we all love so much.

To it’s credit, “Help Me” is not one of those entirely predictable setup-punchline sitcoms, but then again, a few more punchlines would help me. And, presumably, you.

http://tempo.typepad.com/entertainment_tv/

dad1153

09-25-06, 09:24 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Smash debut for 'Brothers and Sisters'
Season's best performance for a new show
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Sep 25, 2006, 11:45

At 7 p.m., Fox’s NFL runover and “The OT” were first with a 4.5 average, followed by ABC at 3.4 for the first half of the “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” premiere, NBC’s 2.5 for “Football Night in America,” CBS’s 2.4 for “60 Minutes,” CW’s 1.1 for “Everybody Hates Chris” repeats, and Univision at 0.9 for “Hora Pico.”

At 8 p.m., ABC moved into first with a 6.3 for “Home Edition.” NBC took over second with a 5.0 for the last 15 minutes of “America” and the start of “SNF’s” Denver-New England game. As a reminder, fast nationals measure timeslot data and not actual program data, and so they may change significantly when final ratings are issued tomorrow.

Fox took third at 8 with a 4.5 for “The Simpsons” (4.8) and “American Dad” (4.3), followed by CBS with a 3.5 for “Amazing Race,” CW with a 1.1 for an “America’s Next Top Model” repeat and Univision at 0.8 for the first hour of “Cantando por un Sueno.”

I'm shocked! I was absolutely sure that 'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition' on ABC-TV would be trounced by the one-two punch of NFL football (on three networks!) and 'Amazing Race.' I know those are only the 18-49 demo ratings but these tend to mirror the overall ratings. Guess this is why Nielsen says there are more TV's in households than people. The men are watching the game, the women 'EM:HE' and the young one's the animated comedies on Fox. I know it's a gross generalization (I'm a guy and I watch the game but I also tape 'TAR' and 'EM:HE'). I love that 'EM:HE' gets almost no promotion and buzz (even from its own network, which seems to be almost ashamed to be associated with such feel-good schlock) but the show continues to dominate the 8PM Sunday time slot even with boffo competition. People forget that, before 'Lost' and 'Desperate Housewives' saved ABC's bacon, 'EM:HE' was the network's only show that ranked in the Nielsen Top 20 for an entire season (2003-04). This truly is the Rodney Dangerfield of network TV shows (and the only reality show that repeats well, unlike 'Amazing Race,' 'Survivor' and all the others). :D

fredfa

09-25-06, 09:52 PM

I agree.

I am a bit surprised NBC didn't stick with "Three Wishes" last year. I thought it was a less frenetic but still feel-good show with great potential.

I think the reason EM:HE repeats as well as it does is that it is much more contained than most reality shows. Each episode has a beginning, middle and payoff which aren't at all related to necessarily watching the previous -- or next -- episode.

(By the way, I'm a guy, too. And except for rare occasions, I don't watch the game. By Sunday night I am footballed out. But here on the West Coast we can see most of prime time without NFL interruption, so our network choices are easier.)

Xesdeeni

09-25-06, 10:19 PM

Maybe someone can explain to me how it helps to actually remove a show from the air that is already in the can. Happy Hour for example. Instead of showing whatever they have finished (presumably at least three or four shows, since most networks operate a month or more ahead), they are showing repeats of 'Til Death. Does this actually save them any money? And do they really believe that a repeat of another show would gain even one more viewer than a new episode of a (according to them) worse show?

I'm just not understanding. Didn't they already pay for the shows already in the can?

Xesdeeni

fredfa

09-25-06, 11:58 PM

Yes but if the ratings are terrible, it can help ruin a network's week.

So, the thinking goes, stop the bleeding and play off the shows (if ever) some time when it won't hurt the network.

And in this case, I guess Fox thinks "Til Death" has some potential. But clearly "Hapy Hour", which was savaged by the critics, and saw its numbers go down week after week, did not seem to have much ratings potential at all.

(And, Xesdeeni, welcome back - you have been gone too long!)

fredfa

09-26-06, 12:34 AM

The New Season
“Help Me, Help You”
'Help Me' could use some laugh therapy
By Robert Bianco USA Today

Some shows just can't seem to help moving in the wrong direction.

Help Me started out near the TV top when it came to casting, putting Ted Danson in the star spot and luring Malcolm's Jane Kaczmarek back to sitcoms to play his wife. Throw in a few funny scenes and some good comic actors in support, and you get what was one of the season's more promising pilots.

Then, apparently, someone decided the show needed more help, and everything has gone south. The Help Me opener you'll see tonight has been tweaked in small ways that make Danson's therapist character a bit more prominent and a lot more annoying. What's worse, the second episode carries the character over from annoying to unbearably obnoxious.

It makes you afraid to watch the third episode for fear it might actually be harmful.

Help Me casts Danson as Dr. Bill Hoffman, a famous therapist whose current group consists of Dave, a young would-be suicide (Charlie Finn); Inger, a woman with no social skills (Suzy Nakamura); Jonathan, a married man in deep gay denial (Jim Rash); Michael, who has anger-management issues (Jere Burns); and Darlene, who has too many issues to list (Darlene Hunt).

You can use Jonathan as a symbol of what's gone wrong with the show. In the original version, his introduction ended with a very funny, scene-capping joke that questioned the sexuality of a TV celebrity. Few who saw the pilot thought the joke would make it to air, and it hasn't. But nothing has been put in its place, and so the scene just peters out, and a show that has no laughs to spare does without one of its best.

To be sure, even without that joke, Jonathan provides tonight's episode with some of its better moments. But this unambiguously fey act is almost destined to wear out its welcome quickly, a shift you can feel coming by Episode 2.

As for Bill, he's yet another of those TV guys who is a whiz at work and a flop at home. His wife, Anne (Kaczmarek), has thrown him out, and his daughter is dating her psychology professor — who worships Bill like he's a rock star.

Considering his talents, Danson should be the show's biggest asset, and yet his character has become its biggest problem. He's an incredibly skilled and personable comic actor, and while he pushes too much tonight, he still manages to make the character amusing. In large part, however, that's because the script only asks him to embarrass himself in front of Anne, and Kaczmarek can handle him.

By next week, unfortunately, he takes his act on the road, making a complete and hateful fool of himself in front of his friends and neighbors at his daughter's birthday party. At that point, a show that was already more pleasant than funny jettisons being pleasant.

My advice, Dr. Bill? Change course but fast, before viewers resort to some remote control self-help of their own.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/reviews/2006-09-25-review-help-me_x.htm

fredfa

09-26-06, 12:36 AM

TV Notebook
Fox Shuffles New Season Shows

By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable 9/25/2006

Tweaking the fall lineup as baseball playoffs take control of the network’s air, Fox is shuffling the schedules of freshman shows Happy Hour and Justice, while two others, Til Death and Standoff, are taking a week-long break from production.

Happy Hour is being preempted this Thursday by a repeat episode of it's lead-in, ‘Til Death. A repeat of ‘Til Death will also bump a planned repeat of Happy Hour’s pilot this Sunday.

In an attempt to get Justice out of the way of the third-season premiere of ABC’s Lost, will not air next week, the new courtroom drama will be replaced replaced by a repeat episode of House.

The schedules of ‘Til Death and Standoff have not changed, but both shows are taking a break from production. Fox starts its fall season several weeks earlier than other networks, meaning that production teams are often racing to keep the pipeline filled. In the case of ‘Til Death and Standoff, the production pause is described as a “writers’ break". Studio 20th Century Fox Television says Standoff will be suspended for a week and half as it brings in writer Tim Minear as a "consulting producer" , to help energize the show, though Craig Silverman remains the show runner.

Fox’s new shows have been far from electrifying. They debuted in August, while rival broadcasters have been in reruns. Credit Suisee media analyst William Drewry says that since NBC, ABC, CBS and The CW have put on fresh shows, the ratings for Fox shows have fallen 20-35%.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6375098

Rakesh.S

09-26-06, 01:24 AM

I don't watch Standoff.

I love Tim Minear and his work on Firefly, but he is the absolute kiss of death for any new show on Fox.

I have no idea why he keeps reupping with Fox -- surely his talent could be put to use on another network that will actually give his shows a chance.

Looks like none of Fox's new shows will survive this season..oh well, back to the drawing board. What new serial dramas will they come up with that they can cancel without a conclusion? Stay tuned.

fredfa

09-26-06, 01:29 AM

Well, as long as they have "American Idol" to save them, the Fox execs are all pretty safe, I guess.

fredfa

09-26-06, 01:33 AM

The New Season
No breakthrough TV series in season so far

By Andrew Wallenstein The Hollywood Reporter Sep. 26, 2006
(Paul J. Gough in New York and Nellie Andreeva and Kimberly Nordyke contributed to this report.)

With such titles as "Vanished" and "Kidnapped," no wonder new hit shows have gone missing so far this season, particularly at Fox Broadcasting Co.

If Fox could be seen as a bellwether of viewer appetites for first-year series, the early indications are not good: The network is again flagging in the fourth quarter, with all five of the new series it rolled out in August fading fast. With postseason baseball beginning Monday, Fox already is making schedule changes this week, including the pre-emption of "Happy Hour," a possible sign that the faltering comedy will not be back after the World Series.

Beyond Fox, none of the eight rookie series that rolled out during premiere week burst out of the gate the way NBC's "My Name Is Earl" and ABC's "Desperate Housewives" did in recent years. Hopes are still high for 10 more to come, including high-profile launches this week for NBC's "Heroes" and ABC's "Ugly Betty."

"I don't see anybody's shows really breaking out (of) the new shows," NBC Universal chairman Bob Wright said Monday during an Advertising Week event at New York's Museum of Television & Radio in Manhattan.

Fox seems to be sticking to the script it has followed in recent years in which season premieres -- scheduled weeks ahead of other broadcasters to accommodate baseball on its air for all of October -- struggle despite the head start. Last year, at least one series, "Prison Break," avoided the downturn, while the previous season an unscripted-laden schedule, including "The Billionaire: Branson's Quest for the Best," experienced a similar meltdown.

But Preston Beckman, executive vp strategic program planning at Fox, notes that his network actually held up in the first week of the season compared with the same period last year, up 11% in the 18-49 demographic.

"To come out of this week with growth versus where we were a year ago, that means we're moving in the right direction heading into January, when we bring out heavy artillery," Beckman said, alluding to the 2007 launches of "American Idol" and "24."

"Happy Hour" is taking a seat Thursday, when Fox will double-pump " 'Til Death" from 8-9 p.m. In addition, the finale of "Celebrity Duets," scheduled for Friday, has been shortened to an hour, making room for a repeat of the pilot of the legal drama "Justice," which will be replaced by a repeat of "House" the following Wednesday at 9 p.m.

The pre-baseball changes underscore how difficult Fox is finding it to seed new series. Monday 9 p.m. entry "Vanished" is running 31% lower in 18-49 from what its lead-in, "Prison Break," was doing there last year. "Standoff" has plummeted from a promising 4.7/12 three weeks ago to a 3.2/8, while "Justice" has dropped a full ratings point as well.

Sources indicate that Fox isn't ready to give up on "Justice," which is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and likely will find it a new time slot in November.

"Standoff" is on the schedule for now, though Fox confirmed that production on the series was suspended this week in order to let the writers "catch up," according to a network spokesman.

The production hiatus also will allow Tim Minear, who has come aboard "Standoff" as a consulting producer, to get up to speed. Minear has been tapped to help with day-to-day operations on the show that will continue to be run by Craig Silverstein.

One week into the season, Fox's rivals haven't achieved a breakthrough yet, either. CBS rolled out all four of its new shows and got decidedly mixed results. While the dramas "Jericho" and "Smith" were competitive second-place finishers in tough time slots, the heavily marketed comedy "The Class" did no better than "The King of Queens" in its Monday time slot, while "Shark" tanked in its high-profile Thursday 10 p.m. slot, dropping 44% of its "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" lead-in in 18-49.

"Shark" may have been hurt by the surprisingly decisive ratings victory "Grey's Anatomy" scored over "CSI" at 9 p.m., a gap Kelly Kahl, executive vp program planning and scheduling at CBS, expects to narrow. "That race will tighten up as the weeks go on," he said. "ABC went all in on the first hand, but there's a lot of poker left to be played."

The disappointment of "Shark" was somewhat mitigated by a collapse in the same time slot of ABC's "Six Degrees," which dropped 47% of its potent "Grey's" lead-in and a sharp drop-off in audience heading into the latter half-hour of the show. ABC got better first-week results from "Brothers & Sisters," which beat "Without a Trace" in the demo but still dropped 16% from the first half hour to the second.

"With all these 10 o'clock shows, it's going to be our job to hold that audience and build on it," ABC Entertainment executive vp Jeff Bader said, noting that new ABC drama "Men in Trees" managed to build slightly in its second week after a modest debut.

NBC may have suffered the biggest disappointment of the week with the flameout of the drama "Kidnapped," which managed half the audience of Wednesday 10 p.m. competitor "CSI: NY" and made it a strong possibility for NBC's first cancellation. "It's a good show that deserved a bigger audience," said Mitch Metcalf, executive vp program planning and scheduling. "That one surprised a lot of people."

Critically touted "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" also will be put to the test after a respectable bow that scored well in upscale demos but experienced audience erosion through the hour. The series' Hollywood focus has been criticized for being too insular to appeal to broad audiences.

Still, the next big thing could come as early as this week -- when new offerings include the ABC comedy "Help Me Help You" -- through next month, with more fall premieres, including NBC's "30 Rock."

In contrast to struggling new shows, plenty of returning fare came back strong. ABC won the week in the 18-49 demographic, propelled by robust returns for "Grey's" and "Housewives," while Fox's "House," CBS' "CSI: Miami" and even NBC's aging "ER" showed pep.

Still to be tested is the CW, which launched its first new series, "Runaway," on Monday. MyNetwork TV began stripping a pair of dramas, "Desire" and "Fashion House," that saw reductions of 13% and 11%, respectively, from their first to second week on the air among households.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003156987

fredfa

09-26-06, 01:59 AM

The New Season
“Help Me, Help You”
Sometimes it's funny how life falls apart
ABC's "Help Me Help You," starring Ted Danson, finds dry yet apt humor in a therapist's sorrows.
By Robert Lloyd Los Angeles Times Staff Writer September 26, 2006

Ted Danson, who has spent 19 of the last 24 years starring in situation comedy — six of them, astonishingly, in "Becker," which makes me feel as if I'd been living out of the country — is going 20 for 25 in "Help Me Help You," a low-boil sitcom in which he plays Dr. Bill Hoffman, a respected psychiatrist whose life is falling apart. Premiering tonight on ABC, it's a slightly schizophrenic show, for want of a less appropriate word, split three ways between group therapy sessions; the adventures of the group members as they attempt to put Hoffman's activity of the week into action (make connections, practice nurturing, take risks); and Hoffman's messy personal business.(Doctor, shrink thyself!)

It's a little hard to get a handle on, critically. Each element of the show has its own vibe — the group sessions feel theatrical, like little playlets. The bits focusing on the group members tend toward blackout rhythms; the parts dealing with Hoffman are more dramatically developed. It's an actor's comedy rather than a comic's comedy, and, notwithstanding some bursts of physicality and some extreme behavior on the part of Hoffman and his patients, it's all rather dry in a way more familiar on cable television than network. Created by Jennifer Konner and Alexandra Rushfield (who wrote for "Undeclared"), with "Malcolm in the Middle" producer Alex Reid as a co-executive producer, it's funny in its own way, smarter than most TV comedies and has a terrific cast — all of which makes me wonder why I'm not more moved by it. (At the same time, I'm not unamused, nor uninterested.) Although I wouldn't necessarily recommend "Help Me Help You" in a grab-you-by-the-sleeve Ancient Mariner sort of way, I would certainly recommend checking it out.

Hoffman's therapy group includes Dave (Charlie Finn, a winning dumbbell on the short-lived "Life on a Stick"), who jumped out a window in a botched suicide attempt after e-mailing an "interoffice suicide note" with a cc to his cat-sitter (he landed on his boss); Jonathan (Jim Rash), the new season's second married-gay-man-in-denial after Sam Harris on "The Class," who tries to mask his swishness in guy talk but can't keep from using words like "adorable"; Darlene (Darlene Hunt), who, we are told, has a list of issues as long as your arms, but is represented here primarily as a nymphomaniac with a psychiatrist fixation; Inger (Suzy Nakamura, "Curb Your Enthusiasm"), a 25-year-old retired software designer who "can't read people" and so says funny things to them; and Michael, who can't manage his anger, played by Jere Burns, best known from another support-group sitcom, the Judd Hirsch vehicle "Dear John."

They are a talented troupe of players, but may soon suffer from having to play the single note of their stated neurosis — you can tell the same joke only for so long.

As to Hoffman, he's more preoccupied with his own troubles than those of his patients — the first two words of the title are, significantly, "Help Me." His marriage has come to an end — Jane Kaczmarek, from "Malcolm in the Middle," plays not-yet-ex wife Anne — and his daughter (Lindsay Sloane, whom it is always nice to see) is dating her psychology professor (Bruce Altman), who is more or less as old as Hoffman and has a massive professional crush on him.

This part of the show reminded me, of all things, of the stories of John Cheever — the displaced upper-class suburbanite trying to get his life back. In the first episode, a drunken Hoffman crawls mindlessly into bed in his old house with Anne and her new boyfriend, the man who sold him his car; later he takes a golf club to it but cannot dent it. In another, he crashes a birthday party for his daughter, tries to buy her love by giving her his new and expensive midlife crisis car, gets into an aggressive game of basketball with Anne's boyfriend, winds up sprawled over "his" old barbecue grill, and is then carried off to the hospital by his new rival. It has something of Cheever's sorrowful comedy, not to say its Westchester County milieu — and I must say, that is an impressive, and surprising, quality in a situation comedy.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-help26sep26,0,5608349,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

Xesdeeni

09-26-06, 09:13 AM

Yes but if the ratings are terrible, it can help ruin a network's week.

So, the thinking goes, stop the bleeding and play off the shows (if ever) some time when it won't hurt the network.

And in this case, I guess Fox thinks "Til Death" has some potential. But clearly "Hapy Hour", which was savaged by the critics, and saw its numbers go down week after week, did not seem to have much ratings potential at all.I understand pulling it if you can replace it with something that would improve ratings. But does a repeat of a show really do this? I'd think the time slot ratings would fall even more.

Xesdeeni

fredfa

09-26-06, 10:33 AM

The New Season
“Help Me, Help You”
A Cure for Couch Potatoes
By Tom Shales Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 26, 2006; C01

What killed the sitcom? Could it perhaps have been . . . The Sitcom?

That's the glibly simplistic explanation, but it's hardly groundless. Situation comedies became so overwhelming in number and so formulaic in execution over the decades that the typical sitcom seemed like a revival upon arrival.

Comes now Exhibit M, N, O or P: Ted Danson starring as Dr. Bill Hoffman in "Help Me Help You," a supposedly fresh sitcom arriving on ABC tonight in a big cloud of deja vu.

One reason for that sense, albeit a fairly minor one, is that the supporting cast includes Jere Burns playing a member of a group-therapy ensemble that Hoffman runs. Burns made his first big splash in sitcomedy back in 1988 when he played, of all things, a member of a similar group-therapy ensemble, this one run by Judd Hirsch. What goes around comes around, and around, and around.

Crispy and crackling, Danson handles the role of a troubled shrink a lot better than Hirsch did. And while we're making meaningless comparisons, "Help Me" and Dr. Hoffman are several steps up from "Becker," the last Danson sitcom, wherein he played a doctor whose most bitter pill was himself, dispensed liberally.

All those similarities bring us back to "why the sitcom seems kaput." And by "the sitcom," we especially mean the sort of gang's-all-here, three-camera, "taped before a live audience" kind of sitcom that dominated prime time for most of the '70s, '80s and '90s. There are hardly any such shows among the new network series rolling out this week and next.

It's always too early to say that any TV format is dead. Even westerns might come back (on HBO, with "Deadwood," they sort of did). "Help Me," however, is not the show to do the trick for the sitcom.

The show tries to be both a comedy about Hoffman's mess of a personal life and an ensemble show about all the members of the group -- Charlie Finn as Dave, who is clumsily suicidal; Jim Rash as Jonathan, in denial about being gay; and Suzy Nakamara as Inger, who has a laundry list of Relationship Issues ("I haven't had sex since my 19th birthday"), and so on.

As for Doc Hoffman, he's going through a midlife crisis as big as his awesome black Porsche (vanity plates: "4EVRJUNG"). Having told everyone in the group, repeatedly, that they should "connect" with someone else and "make a connection" before the next session, he makes one of the klutziest connections possible, accidentally climbing into bed with his ex-wife (the imposingly hilarious Jane Kaczmarek, formerly of "Malcolm in the Middle") and the used-car salesman she is dating.

"You sold me a crappy car, and now you're diddling my wife?" That's Danson's version of "J'accuse" the next morning around the breakfast table. Yes, he's somehow still there the next morning, and so is his teenage daughter, determined to immortalize excruciating moments on her camcorder. A little later, "Help Me" becomes the season's second new sitcom to attempt variations on "Seinfeld's" famous "make-up sex" joke, with Hoffman entreating his wife to indulge in not only "make-up sex" but also "break-up sex" and "wake-up sex."

Accumulating evidence indicates that "Seinfeld" will prove to be the last great sitcom of the age of the sitcom. Or -- the last great sitcom of the second trimester of television. Maybe phrasing it as simply as possible is the best way: "the last really funny TV show." "Seinfeld's" lofty and towering status is in no way challenged by "Help Me Help You," which is also no threat to "Cheers" as Ted Danson's shining and defining career achievement.

As luck would have it, "Help Me Help You" does not face extremely stiff competition in its Tuesday night time slot, so Danson and Kaczmarek might live to spat another day, and another week, and perhaps for the entire season. Then someone can use their show as proof that sitcoms are actually alive and well after all -- even though "Help Me Help You" begins its existence half-dead and quite deadly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092501402_pf.html

fredfa

09-26-06, 10:38 AM

The New Season
“Help Me, Help You”
A Therapist Who Needs a Little Help of His Own

By Alessandra Stanley The New York Times September 26, 2006

Like aerobics or group sex, group therapy seems sort of vintage: maybe a lot of people are still doing it, but nobody is talking about it as much. Eventually, however, everything comes back, including platform shoes and shock treatment, so perhaps it was only a question of time before someone remade “The Bob Newhart Show.”

In ABC’s new comedy “Help Me Help You,” Ted Danson plays Dr. Bill Hoffman, a New York City therapist who guides a group of full-fledged neurotics and weirdos but has a harder time dealing with his own problems, which include a failed marriage and a daughter who is in love with a psychologist old enough to be her father.

The series, which has no laugh track and is filmed with a single camera, takes a beloved sitcom from the 1970’s and refashions it in the style of “Arrested Development” and “Malcolm in the Middle.” In fact, a star of that show, Jane Kaczmarek, appears on tonight’s premiere episode of “Help Me Help You.”

Mr. Danson has some funny moments, but he is not as comfortable in a comic genre where deadpan takes the place of punch line. The sitcom’s strength lies in the weaknesses of Bill’s patients, a group that includes Inger (Suzy Nakamura, “Dodgeball”), a socially inept 25-year-old software millionaire who hasn’t had a real date in six years, and Jonathan (Jim Rash), a man who loves Broadway shows and low-fat chai and doesn’t realize he is homosexual. Riffs about gays are television’s new mother-in-law joke, but Mr. Rash’s character finds humor by pushing the joke a little further than most.

Shopping for a salmon-colored jacket, Jonathan is confronted by his wife, who accuses him of being gay after finding pictures of naked men on his computer. “Look, I think I got this random e-mail about Hurricane Katrina relief, all right, but I guess it actually said release,” Jonathan stutters. Turning the tables with sarcastic bluster, he adds, “If supporting New Orleans makes me gay, then yes, you caught me. I’m gay, I’m super gay, and I guess that makes Anderson Cooper gay, too.”

Inger goes to the Jewish matchmaking Web site JDate to meet men, then promptly repels them. Asked if she is even at all Jewish by one man on their first date, she admits she is not and explains, “I guess I find Jewish guys a lot less threatening because I’m not attracted to them.”

Mr. Danson has plenty of sitcom experience: he was amusingly vain as a bartending Casanova on “Cheers” and entertainingly rude as a misanthropic doctor on “Becker.” In this loose, absurdist conceit, however, he seems too stiff, and even a little scary, almost as chilling as he was in the 1984 television movie about pedophilia, “Something About Amelia.”

Bill is supposed to be endearing as a brilliant, egotistical therapist who cannot listen properly when his family members speak up, and who suddenly finds himself alone and newly vulnerable at midlife.

In other words, he’s not so much like Mr. Newhart’s Dr. Bob Hartley as he is a slapstick version of Dr. Craig Huffstodt, the troubled therapist played by Hank Azaria on the Showtime drama “Huff.” As it happens, both series begin with a young man’s suicide attempt: tragically, it succeeded on “Huff.” It fails laughably on “Help Me Help You.” The depiction of the psychiatrist in movies and television has evolved, and devolved, over time. The golden age of psychiatry in movies was in the 1940’s and 50’s, when the men next to the couch were portrayed as godlike in movies like “Now, Voyager,” where Claude Rains helped Bette Davis overcome all kinds of phobias and fixations, including bushy eyebrows.

By the 70’s and 80’s, the profession was treated less reverently on screen. For every menschy therapist like Judd Hirsch in “Ordinary People,” there were less flattering portraits, including Michael Caine as a cross-dressing homicidal maniac in “Dressed to Kill.” By then, writers like Janet Malcolm, who published her book “Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession” in 1981, were putting a spotlight on fissures in Freudian analysis. Prozac and other mood-altering drugs have further demystified and defanged the field. That may be why shrinks nowadays are mostly shown as neither gods nor monsters, but as gifted, well-meaning healers who are sometimes hobbled by their own doubts and insecurities

“Huff” took it seriously. “Help Me Help You” doesn’t. It has amusing characters and a few funny turns, but Mr. Danson may need some help helping the show find a broad audience.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/arts/television/26stan.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1159281400-vq4psk7xZvFrg5yHWwEyjg&pagewanted=print

fredfa

09-26-06, 10:42 AM

TV News Notebook
CBS, PBS Top News & Doc Emmys

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 9/26/2006

CBS and PBS topped the news and documentary Emmy winners with five awards apiece. The statues were handed out at a ceremony in New York Monday night.

CBS' 60 Minutes was the most-honored show with four awards (48 Hours was CBS' other win).

Cable's History Channel beat out ABC and NBC for third place with four awards. ABC followed with three, tied with the National Geographic Channel. NBC and CNN tied with two apiece.

The late Peter Jennings' name was much in evidence, with all three of ABC's awards going to stories from World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

Regional TV station winners were Hearst-Argyle's WBAL TV Baltimore and CBS-owned WBBM-TV Chicago.

Bill Moyers was given the Lifetime Achievement Award, while three groups, the Committee to Protect Journalists, The International Press Institute, and Reporters Without Borders, were saluted for their defense of press freedom around the globe.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6375104

fredfa

09-26-06, 11:09 AM

The New Season
”Gilmore Girls”, “Help Me Help You”
“Gilmore” season premiere is a bad omen
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic Tuesday, September 26, 2006

The season premiere of "Gilmore Girls" opens tonight with Rory waking up after Logan's going-away party, cool Britannia decorations still on the walls, streamers sadly drooping, near-empty pitchers of beer scattered throughout the apartment. She gets up, stumbling around the place, looking the part of a hung-over party girl.

Watch the 40 minutes that follow, and it may occur to you that the scene could end up being a metaphor for the seventh season.

Without creator and executive producer Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband, Daniel Palladino, the heart and soul of this series, it looks as if the party is over. Better to say, it sounds as if it's over. Gone is the slicing wit. Gone are the keen cultural references and the smarty-pants social jabs the Palladinos easily wove into each episode. Stars Hollow residents didn't just chat, they danced through each exchange.

Now, under the new show runner, David S. Rosenthal, every conversation has two left feet and seems interminable. You can tell Rosenthal tried to incorporate the Palladino pep into this new episode, but all he could manage is a shabby trace job.

We know what you might be thinking. On the rare occasion that a TV series keeps going without its creator, attacking the new guy might seem like the fashionable thing to do. It can look like an unjustified, knee-jerk reaction, a failure to cut the new person some slack. But the insufferable premiere transforms Rory (Alexis Bledel) and Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) into babbling idiots.

The Palladinos didn't exactly leave Rosenthal high and dry. The May finale gave him a terrific jumping-off point: Rory had to tearfully let Logan (Matt Czuchry) go to London, although the more substantial surprise was seeing Lorelai impetuously jump into bed with former flame Christopher (David Sutcliffe) after a blowout with fiance Luke (Scott Patterson). Lorelai wakes up to face the consequences tonight, which lends about four or five minutes of profundity to this hour of television.

The rest of the time is filled with pointless nattering in what may be the worst hour of network prime time you'll experience this fall, if you don't count Fox's Thursday night comedy block. It's painful. Not in a gut-wrenching, emotionally touching way, but in an "Oh, God, I can feel my will to live being sucked out of my nostrils" way.

Not a good start to what could be the series' final season.

When Graham spoke to critics in July about whether she thought this was the last hurrah, she seemed to be open to the possibility of continuing beyond this year. But she added a caveat:

"The thing I've always talked about is I don't want to be in a situation where I feel sorry for me, you know," she said. "Because I've seen that happen to actors and to shows where the thing is done. It's done. Let it be over, you know. But I don't know that we're in that situation yet."

After this premiere, she may want to rethink her position.

At least "Gilmore" had six strong seasons. The new ABC sitcom "Help Me Help You" can't even manage 22 decent minutes.

But Ted Danson's new ABC comedy does make you ask questions. Such as, if no part of a half-hour episode of a show makes you laugh, does it count as a comedy? And, if Danson is the best part of a pointless show, is that a compliment?

Maybe we're getting too much into the spirit of this debacle, what with all these pseudo-existential examinations. This time Danson plays a therapist named Dr. Bill Hoffman, who runs a group for various social misfits, including a suicidal office drone (Charlie Finn) and a guy with rage-management issues (Jere Burns).

However, Hoffman has issues himself stemming from the death of his 25-year marriage. Jane Kaczmarek plays his soon-to-be ex, and she may regret taking this part instead of enjoying a nice break after "Malcolm in the Middle."

"Help Me Help You" is one of those TV oddities that don't qualify as anything. It's not terribly written, but it isn't funny. Neither is it tragic, nor deep, so you can't call it a drama, or a dramedy. What in the heck is it, other than a peek into the lives of several people we'd rather not watch?

To put a finer point on it, "Help Me Help You" doesn't come close to being as entertaining as "Becker" was. And "Becker" really wasn't all that entertaining. Happily, we doubt "Help" will be around as long. Lacking anything in the way of humor, cancellation may be the best medicine here.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/286409_tv26.html

fredfa

09-26-06, 12:20 PM

Monday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted just under the HD Football listings near the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

Posty-McPost

09-26-06, 12:44 PM

#40 Houston (4-0) at Miami (1-2) 6 PM ESPN2-HD

Who is ranking teams to #40? Casey Kacem? So number 40 Houston is playing unranked Miami (FL). Maybe I should start to repent.

henry296

09-26-06, 12:46 PM

Tuesday, Sept. 26
# 38 Southern Mississippi (2-1) at Central Florida (1-2) 7:30 PM ESPN2-HD

Who is ranking teams to #40?

I think he just counts down after 25 for the teams receiving votes. From the point of view you could say a team is #38.

Posty-McPost

09-26-06, 12:47 PM

I think he just counts down after 25 for the teams receiving votes. From the point of view you could say a team is #38.

Oops got caught in an edit. Ya I guess there are always teams recieveing votes. But really those are unranked teams.

fredfa

09-26-06, 01:16 PM

Last week’s complete network average prime-time results (with demographic averages) are now at the bottom of RATINGS NEWS the first post in this thread.

fredfa

09-26-06, 01:19 PM

#40 Houston (4-0) at Miami (1-2) 6 PM ESPN2-HD

Who is ranking teams to #40? Casey Kacem? So number 40 Houston is playing unranked Miami (FL). Maybe I should start to repent.

Actually the tams themselves often use the below-25 numbers in their press material. It is a simple method of next fewest votes is next lowest. Often the bottom handfull of teams contain a raft of ties for those teams receiving five votes or fewer.

Starting next week I'll start using BCS projections (as computed by Jerry Palm and collegebcs.com since those are the only numbers which truly count.

CPanther95

09-26-06, 01:26 PM

Personally, I don't think any of the numbers mean a thing. They need a playoff system.

Posty-McPost

09-26-06, 01:28 PM

Personally, I don't think any of the numbers mean a thing.

You obviously don't live in Columbus. :D The number is good, the number is life.

AAF

09-26-06, 01:53 PM

(I enjoyed Jason Whitlock's appearances on PTI. I also think ESPN needs more external criticism and input, not less.)

Playing Fred
ESPN dumps Jason Whitlock - Or - Whiltlock free to be Whitlock

Freedom to speak has price

JASON WHITLOCK
The Kansas City Star

Good news for those of you complaining that I spend too much time taping ESPN television shows.

The World Wide Leader dumped me Monday afternoon because of critical comments I made about Mike Lupica and Scoop Jackson in a blog interview that ran on Friday. You can read the interview at www.thebiglead.com.

Lupica, of course, is a sports columnist for the New York Daily News and a longtime panelist on ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters.” Jackson is the infamous ESPN.com sports columnist who bragged in a recent column about telling black kids they had a better chance of being NBA players than sportswriters.

James Cohen, an executive at the network, called me Monday and asked me whether the comments attributed to me in the interview were true. When I said “yes,” he informed me that I could no longer appear on ESPN television shows and that my November appearances on “Pardon the Interruption” would be canceled.

I wasn’t surprised. ESPN, a terrific network, has always been hypersensitive to criticism, especially when it comes from its independent-contract employees. Over the six years I’ve worked for ESPN, I’ve received complaining phone calls from its executives almost every time I’ve written a critical word about the network.

I take being a journalist/columnist very seriously. To me, being a contract employee for ESPN did not mean I’d surrendered my right to blast the World Wide Leader in Sports for making the awful TV show “Playmakers,” employing as expert analysts clownish buffoons with drug problems such as Rush Limbaugh and Michael Irvin, and publishing the gangsta-posturing rantings of a poor writer.

ESPN is a powerful newsmaker in the sports world. As a sports journalist/columnist, I thought it would be wrong to ignore obvious topics just because I drew an occasional check from ESPN.

I’m not stepping on any high horse. It wouldn’t hold me.

The fact is I can’t be happy unless I’m true to myself. I like to criticize and analyze. Every coach, teacher or boss I’ve ever had would tell you that. My parents would tell you that. Every woman who has ever tolerated my company for more than six months would tell you that.

I guess ESPN thought I would get the message and pipe down. I can’t pipe down about things I’m passionate about.

So, in the blog interview, I answered the questions that were asked about my departure from ESPN.com Page 2 to AOL Sports (two weeks ago I told my editor at Page 2 that I was moving my once-a-week Internet column to AOL Sports) and a run-in I had with Mike Lupica on “The Sports Reporters” in August.

I told the blog that part of the reason I was leaving Page 2 was because I was uncomfortable with Page 2’s relationship with Scoop Jackson. Much of his writing is childish, anti-white and a caricature of a negative black stereotype. I didn’t say it in the blog interview, but it’s my belief that it is irresponsible for the World Wide Leader to publish much of what Scoop writes. Over the last year, I’ve shared these opinions with ESPN executives countless times. I said nothing in the blog interview that I hadn’t said privately.

I told the blog that Lupica and Joe Valerio, the producer of “The Sports Reporters,” had become disenchanted with me because I would not join in the crusade to portray Barry Bonds as the baseball anti-Christ. I’m not a Bonds fan and don’t think all that much of his recent accomplishments. But a life spent competing in sports and writing about sports has made me uninterested in pretending that Bonds is the real villain in the steroids mess. And I have zero tolerance for when people try to censor my ability to state fair opinions.

You might read this and think that I think I’ve been treated unfairly by ESPN. I don’t.

This was inevitable. ESPN does not tolerate criticism. Sportswriters far more distinguished than yours truly — Tony Kornheiser, John Feinstein and T.J. Simers — have been banned/suspended for comments perceived to be detrimental to the World Wide Leader.

I’m sure my move from ESPN .com to AOL Sports was viewed as an act of disloyalty by some within the network.

It wasn’t. It was just the act of a guy who values his ability to think, act and speak independently more than he does seeing his face on ESPN.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/15608294.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Marcus Carr

09-26-06, 01:54 PM

NBC Owes Thanks To Heroes

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/26/2006 12:40:00 PM

NBC won Monday night with a 4.7 rating/12 share average in the 18-49 demo thanks primarily to a big opening for drama, Heroes.

The dark--so far--drama about a motley crew of newly super-empowered twentysomethings averaged a 5.9/14 at 9-10, the night's top-rated show.

NBC got a second-place performance out of Studio 60 at 10 p.m. (4.4/12) behind CSI: Miami's 5.4/15, but Studio, NBC's latest from Aaron Sorkin, inherited that big Heroes lead-in, then dropped a half a rating point--from a 4.7 to a 4.2 from its first half-hour to its second.

That followed last week's pattern, when Studio 60 debuted at a 5/31 vs. CSI: Miami's 5.7/14, but dropped from a 5.4/13 in its first half hour to a 4.6/12 in its second.

The premiere of The CW's new series, Runaway, didn't attract much of a crowd, averaging a .7/2 in the 18-49 demo, not even half the audience of the season premiere of Seventh Heaven on the network.

In a competitive second behind NBC on the night was CBs with a 4.4/11, powered by CSI: Miami, but also getting help from a strong showing from Two and a Half Men at a 5/12 at 9 p.m.

ABC and fox tied for distant third at a 2.7/7. ABC's Wife Swap was its top show with a 3.6/9 at 9 p.m. Fox was led by Prison Break with a 3.4/9.

The CW averaged a 1.2/3, thanks to 7th Heaven.

http://broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6375225.html?display=Breaking+News

jim tressler

09-26-06, 02:17 PM

Posty-McPost

09-26-06, 04:26 PM

i agree cp - playoff of some sort.. maybe take the top 6 teams with 1 and 2 getting byes.. and have the different bowls be a round of the playoffs and start it early in december.. something like that - what I hate is the fact that some team who is a hell of a team does not have the votes at the start of the season.. its awfull hard for them to get to the top even if they may be deserving!

This year there is the 1 v 2 game a week after the BCS Bowls. That's almost a mini playoffs for the top 4 anyway. I'd like to see the whole thing move away from Bowl games but that will never happen.

fredfa

09-26-06, 04:38 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Super 'Heroes': Monday night to NBC
Wins second Monday in a row of the new season
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Sep 26, 2006

“Heroes” lived up to the hype and then some.

The new NBC sci fi show premiered last night at 9 p.m. with a 5.9 adults 18-49 rating, according to Nielsen overnights, becoming not just the evening’s highest-rated show but also NBC’s best new drama premiere since “Crossing Jordan” in 2001.

Perhaps most significantly for NBC, after an opening week in which nearly all the high-profile drama premieres saw big losses during their second half hours, “Heroes” grew from 9 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., jumping 13 percent from a 5.6 to a 6.3.

That helped NBC to its second straight Monday night victory over CBS, averaging a 4.7/12 for the evening to CBS’s 4.4/11.

“Heroes” averaged 14.29 million total viewers, first in its timeslot.

“Heroes” is now the second-highest-rated new show of the season in 18-49s, behind “Brothers & Sisters” at a 6.0, and it could well become the season’s breakout new hit. Unlike ABC’s “Sisters,” which had the benefit of a huge “Desperate Housewives” lead-in, “Heroes” built from a relatively modest 3.8 from “Deal or No Deal” at 8 p.m.

There was some question whether the show, which received a tremendous amount of internet buzz over the summer, would deliver. Though it received numerous glowing reviews, other critics questioned whether the storyline could ever gel with the focus on so many different characters.

“‘Heroes,’ NBC’s new series about regular people discovering they have spectacular abilities, wobbles perilously close to falling on its side,” wrote Media Life critic Andrew Lyons. “It has a credible mythology, and the pilot introduces several engaging characters. But others are weak, borderline comic book figures.”

“Heroes” did not help “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” Aaron Sorkin’s new drama, sustain last week’s audience, however. “Studio” pulled a solid 4.4 at 10 p.m. against CBS’s 5.6 for fading “CSI: Miami,” but that was down 12 percent from last week’s 5.0.

Still, the drama has done well with the upscale viewers that NBC favors and looks like a compatible lead-out to “Heroes” despite declining 11 percent in its second half hour.

Meanwhile, in other series premieres last night, the CW’s “Runaway” didn’t get off to a great start. The new drama averaged a 0.9 among the network’s target audience of 18-34s, losing half of lead-in “Seventh Heaven’s” audience.

And the second episode of new CBS comedy “The Class” plummeted from a 3.6 in 18-49s last week to a 2.8 last night, a dip of 22 percent.

For the night, ABC and Fox tied for third among 18-49s, each averaging a 2.7/7, followed by Univision at 1.5/4 and the CW at 1.2/3.

At 8 p.m., “Deal” led with a 3.2, followed by a 3.4 for Fox’s “Prison Break,” a 3.2 for CBS’s “Class” (2.6) and “How I Met Your Mother” (3.5), a 3.0 for ABC’s “Wife Swap,” a 2.1 for Univision’s “La Fea Mas Bella” and a 1.6 for the CW’s “Seventh Heaven.”

At 9 p.m., “Heroes” kept NBC No. 1 with a 5.9, followed by a 4.5 for CBS’s “Two and a Half Men” (5.0) and “The New Adventures of Old Christine” (4.0), ABC’s “Supernanny” at 3.6, a 2.2 for Univision’s “Barrera de Amor,” a 2.1 for Fox’s fading “Vanished,” and a 0.7 for the CW’s “Runaway.”

At 10 p.m., CBS took over the lead with a 5.6 for “Miami,” followed by “Studio’s” 4.4 and ABC’s “Men in Trees” repeat and Univision’s “Cristina” tied for third at 1.6.

Among households, CBS led with an 8.9/14, followed by NBC’s 8.1/13, Fox’s 4.8/7, ABC’s 4.3/7, Univision’s 2.4/4 and CW’s 2.2/3.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_7534.asp

fredfa

09-26-06, 04:54 PM

The Business of TV
Fox News wants more $$ from cable operators
Atlanta Journal Constitution 09/26/06

Fox News Channel defies the skeptics again and again.

Now the nearly 10-year-old operation is trying once more, by seeking an unheard-of increase in fees paid by the cable operators that carry the popular news network.

As Fox tours the nation to celebrate its birthday, including a stop Thursday in Atlanta, the channel has its sights on lucrative new deals with cable companies.

Fox, which overtook CNN in the ratings race in early 2002, currently gets an average of 27 cents per subscriber each month. The network has proposed bumping that amount to a stunning $1, while also talking with cable companies about carrying a proposed Fox business news channel.

Some believe Fox is playing an aggressive bit of gamesmanship with its $1 request and will settle for a smaller increase. "Going from 25 cents to a dollar is completely unrealistic," said Derek Baine, an analyst with Kagan Research.

Yet honchos at Fox's parent, News Corp., have postured about putting up a fight if they don't get what they want, including the possibility of yanking the channel and unleashing the wrath of the channel's base of vociferous viewers.

Determining who wins— or, more likely, who compromises — promises to be a lively business drama. Fox may be powerful, but so are the nation's cable companies. "The sides are evenly matched," said cable and media veteran Dennis Miller, of Spark Capital in Boston.

The brewing battle highlights a little-seen side of the cable business. Networks typically earn money in two ways: by selling ads and by gathering monthly license fees from cable companies. Networks and cable operators rely on each other yet, at times, have a love/hate relationship.

Tim Carry, senior vice president of affiliate relations for Fox News, said the network believes that getting $1 per subscriber is reasonable, based on the performance of the channel. In the beginning, skeptics scoffed at Fox's prospects for success.

"When you look at what level of audience we deliver on a daily basis, we're in the top echelon of cable networks," Carry said. Fox has helped cable operators, he said, by attracting a big, new audience. "Overall, I think cable operators are grateful for what we've done."

Negotiations common

But even when a network is highly desirable, it's still fairly common for difficult negotiations to happen.

In 2004, for example, ESPN had a high-profile fight with Atlanta-based Cox Communications. Eventually, the warring parties reached a deal that led both to declare victory. ESPN got a 7 percent increase, much less than what it had been getting in other deals. Cox Communications is, like The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a unit of Cox Enterprises.

Fox, meanwhile, is starting out with what Baine calls a "contentious tone."

Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of News Corp., said during a recent Merrill Lynch conference that he expects "tough, tough, tough negotiations" in the next few weeks as talks continue over a pair of deals that are set to expire with DirecTV and Cablevision Systems.

"You may also see us pull the channel from people if we can't make a deal," Chernin said at the conference, according to a transcript.

Already, a fracas is brewing in Connecticut, where Fox has faced off with Cablevision. Fox bought legal-notice ads in local newspapers, cautioning that the network could be pulled. Then Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., addressed the issue at a Goldman Sachs conference, saying he hopes to avoid a "big breach" with Cablevision but will be willing to fight.

Neither side backs down

Like News Corp., Cablevision has a reputation for not backing down. The company did not return a call seeking comment.

Cablevision's discussions with Fox promise to get plenty of attention, given that some other cable companies — including Comcast and Cox — don't face imminent negotiations with Fox but will want to monitor what happens. Fox also has been talking with DirecTV, but that service is approximately one-third owned by News Corp., making it a lesser bellwether than what happens with Cablevision.

Baine, among others, expects Fox to get a good increase, but probably in the range of 40 cents to 50 cents per subscriber. That would amount to much less than $1, though still a stout increase.

With 90 million subscribers, a boost to 50 cents would bring in about $248 million in extra annual revenue for Fox News.

Fox also has been working on a possible business news channel. One key challenge in getting it launched is persuading cable systems to offer it.

New channel may help

While Carry said the possible business channel has no role in current negotiations, Baine said Fox could use the business channel as a way to win deals. Fox could accept lesser fees from a cable operator for Fox News in exchange for getting agreements to carry the business channel.

Of course, programming costs need to be borne by someone, and that probably means viewers will face higher cable bills.

The possibility of a backlash is a key reason cable companies don't want to give in to big demands. "Cable operators are under a tremendous amount of pressure," Baine said. "Every time you raise rates, you have these consumer advocacy groups popping out of the woodwork, saying how cable operators are trying to screw the consumer."

Then there's the ripple effect. CNN, a unit of Time Warner's Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting System, trails Fox in the ratings, though Fox's lead has softened lately. Currently, CNN gets about 44 cents per subscriber.

If cable operators have to pay more to keep Fox, it could have an impact on how much they're willing to give CNN in future talks.

"What all negotiations come down to is value — the value that one partner sees in another," said Turner spokeswoman Misty Skedgell. "We believe that CNN's cable and satellite partners, and their customers, place a value on CNN that is unrelated to any other business'."

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2006/09/25/0926bizfox.html

FOX TRIES TO CASH IN
Cable networks typically make money in two ways: from ads and fees paid by cable operators.
Fox News Channel is trying to roughly quadruple its fees per subscriber. Here's a glimpse at fees* for a few popular networks:
ESPN: $2.91
TNT: 89 cents**
Disney Channel: 79 cents
USA: 47 cents
CNN: 44 cents**
Nickelodeon: 41 cents
TBS: 39 cents**
Fox News Channel: 27 cents
Discovery: 27 cents
Lifetime: 23 cents
* Average monthly license fee per subscriber; figures are for 2006.
** Operated by Turner Broadcasting System
Source: Kagan Research

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2006/09/25/0926bizfox.html

fredfa

09-26-06, 05:27 PM

The New Season
“Help Me Help You”
By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

I didn't get around to ''Help Me Help You'' for this morning's Beacon Journal for a couple of reasons. One, I felt a greater need to file a column about the season premiere of ''Gilmore Girls'' (which was a variation on what I had already posted in this blog). Two, I forgot about it.

And that's pretty much my review of ''Help Me Help You.'' It wasn't memorable enough or provocative enough or funny enough. Not that it isn't funny in spots. And it does provide a reason to consider the TV career of Ted Danson, an actor who often gives off the air of likability while playing characters whose flaws are deep. So I'll do that now.

Sam Malone, after all, was a recovering alcoholic who at times fell off the emotional wagon, too. He seemed relatively stable because he was surrounded by far more twisted characters -- Cliff, Carla, Diane and so on. He added to his abrasiveness in the briefly seen ''Ink'' (opposite his wife, Mary Steenburgen) and then let all the edges show as the star of ''Becker.'' In that context, ''Curb Your Enthusiasm,'' where he plays himself, is a breath-catcher, a chance to let someone else carry the neurosis bag. (Hello, Larry David!)

But Danson is back in his discomfort zone in ''Help Me Help You,'' playing a therapist who could use some help himself -- especially when it comes to his former marriage, which he refuses to admit is former.

If this was just a show about Danson trying to reclaim a wife (Jane Kaczmarek) that he has all but certainly lost, that might have been a decent comedy. But ''Help Me'' isn't content to do that alone, so it veers off from the Danson story into tales of his patients. You've seen some of this before, on the old ''Bob Newhart Show'' and in Judd Hirsch's ''Dear John.'' The latter involved a support group for singles but had its band of wackos, and Jere Burns is part of the group in both ''Dear John'' and ''Help Me Help You.''

I won't argue that some of the wackiness on ''Help Me'' isn't funny. I especially like Suzy Nakamura's character, a woman hilariously lacking in social skills. But I'm not going to tune into this show every week just to wait for a good Nakamura scene. That would be like watching ''Two and a Half Men'' just for the scenes with Conchata Ferrell. Who is, by the way, very good. But if the show wasn't funny in other places, she would have to be very good without my weekly attention.

Still, getting back to ''Help Me,'' the occasional giggle doesn't compensate for the long stretches where the laughs are nonexistent. (A patient in denial about being gay is especially unamusing.) I have seen two episodes, and that's more than enough.

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/

fredfa

09-26-06, 05:31 PM

Cable TV Nielsen Notebook
USA Net Tops in Ratings; Unseats TNT
By Anthony Crupi MediaWeek.com Sept 26, 2006

USA Network was ad-supported cable’s most-watched network in prime time in the third quarter, delivering an average 2.75 million total viewers and a 2.2 household rating in the period ending Sept. 24.

Boosted by the television premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, which ranked eighth among all cable programming in the quarter with an average audience of 7.37 million on July 15, USA unseated TNT at the top of the ratings heap. The Turner net had won the second quarter race but finished behind USA this time around with an average total audience of 2.58 million and a 2.2 household rating.

As was the case throughout much of the summer, USA also got quite a lift from its original series (Psych, Monk) and its Monday night juggernaut, WWE Raw. The most-viewed episode of Psych delivered 6.25 million viewers on the night of July 7, while the highest-rated installments of Monk and Raw both drew 6 million viewers on August 25 and June 26, respectively.

USA was also tops among the core demos, averaging 1.22 million viewers 18-49 (an increase of 25 percent year-over-year), while delivering 520,000 18-34s (+ 28 percent) and 1.26 million 25-54s (+ 26 percent).

For its part, TNT reaped huge dividends from The Closer, which closed out its second season on Sept. 4 with 8.03 million total viewers, making it the seventh most-watched program on cable in the quarter. That episode also stood as ad-supported cable’s top-rated series telecast among the 25-54 demo (3.67 million). Across the board, TNT finished second in the two of the top three demos, delivering 1.09 million 18-49s and 1.22 million 25-54s.

Football season helped push ESPN into third place for the quarter, as the sports net averaged 2.04 million total viewers and a 1.7 HH rating. ESPN significantly raised its core demos, growing 18-49s 20 percent (957,000), while upping 18-34s 19 percent (457,000) and 25-54s 21 percent (966,000), thanks to a slate of NFL and NCAA games that saw it deliver four of the five largest audiences in the period. Tops among all programs was ESPN’s second installment of Monday Night Football, the Sept. 18 dogfight between the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers and hated rivals the Jacksonville Jaguars, which set a network record with 13.33 million total viewers, of which 7.11 million were in the 18-49 category.

Fourth place went to Lifetime, which delivered 1.66 million total viewers and a 1.5 HH rating on the strength of its original movie The Fantasia Barrino Story, which lured 6.77 million total viewers on Aug. 19, making it the sixteenth-most-watched program on ad-supported cable in the quarter. TBS took fifth with 1.59 million viewers and a 1.3 HH rating.

Rounding out the top 10 were: Hallmark Channel (1.26 million), Cartoon Network (1.5 million), Fox News Channel (1.47 million), Nick-at-Nite (1.37 million) and Sci Fi Channel, which just edged out FX by a score of 1.241 million to 1.239 million. Non-ad-supported Disney Channel was the nominal second-place finisher in the quarter, averaging 268 million total viewers in prime.

The fully distributed networks that enjoyed the greatest turn-arounds in total prime-time viewership year-over-year include: HGTV, which was up 31 percent to 1.12 million; USA, up 29 percent; Hallmark, up 28 percent; ESPN, up 21 percent; Discovery Channel, up 19 percent to 1.22 million; Travel Channel, up 19 percent to 465,000 and E!, up 14 percent to 1.16 million. VH1 and Animal Planet both rose 12 percent (696,000), while TLC, Comedy Central and A&E all increased their prime time viewership by 11 percent versus the third quarter of 2005. Smaller nets that also showed growth include: ESPN Classic, up 88 percent; Biography Channel, up 82 percent; Soap Net, up 34 percent; Oxygen, up 23 percent and WE tv, up 21 percent.

Among the top 20 nets, big gainers among the 18-49 demo in prime were: USA and ESPN (as noted above), as well as HGTV, up 25 percent to 423,000; A&E, up 24 percent to 628,000; Discovery, up 11 percent to 658,000 and VH1, up 11 percent to 448,000.

Top 20 networks that saw significant drops in prime were: Fox News Channel, down 35 percent in total viewers and off 38 percent in the 25-54 demo (409,000); Nick-at-Nite, down 28 percent and Spike TV, down 27 percent to 1.2 million viewers. CNN, ranked 23rd overall in the quarter, dropped 24 percent to 858,000 in total viewers and fell 31 percent among the 25-54 demo (280,000).

Huge ratings tied to coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath may have skewed the third-quarter numbers for last year, as cable news slumped in general. CNN Headline News was down 28 percent in total viewers and fell another 29 percent in the news demo, while MSNBC dropped 22 percent in overall ratings and 25 percent among 25-54s. Only last-place CNBC showed growth in the quarter, gaining 9 percent in total viewers (137,000), which was offset by a 9 percent fall-off in the 25-54 demo (61,000).

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003157477

fredfa

09-26-06, 08:06 PM

How the New Shows Did in Week One

Rank Program Network Viewers (in millions)
12 NBC Sunday Night Football 15.54
13 Brothers & Sisters ABC 15.39
18 Shark CBS 14.58
22 Studio 60 NBC 13.14
24 Six Degrees ABC 12.28
31 Jericho CBS 11.48
36 Smith CBS 10.80
42 The Class CBS 10.19
54t Men In Trees ABC 8.19
58 Standoff Fox 7.63
59 Kidnapped NBC (Wed) 7.52
61 Vanished Fox 7.30
67 Kidnapped NBC (Sat) 6.56
76 Til Death Fox 5.57
77 Justice Fox 5.52
88 HAPPY HOUR Fox 4.31

Source: ABC and Nielsen Media Research

fredfa

09-26-06, 08:11 PM

Top 10 Prime Time TV Shows Week Of September 18-24, 2006

Here are the rankings for national prime-time network television last week, the first week of the 2006-2007 prime-time television season as compiled by Nielsen Media Research. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish. Viewership is listed in millions.

Rank Program Network Viewers

1 Grey’s Anatomy-Thu 9PM ABC 25.41
2 Desperate Housewives ABC 24.09
3 CSI CBS 22.57
4 Dancing With The Stars ABC 18.17
5 CSI: Miami CBS 17.62
6 Without A Trace CBS 17.56
7 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition ABC 17.49
8 Survivor: Cook Islands CBS 17.43
9 Cold Case CBS 16.27
10 CSI: NY CBS 16.11
• Source: ABC-TV and Nielsen Media Research data

bphisig

09-26-06, 09:02 PM

Lots of CBS and ABC on that list. I'm surprised House wasn't in the top 10.

fredfa

09-26-06, 09:16 PM

"House" was 23rd, with 13.11 million viewers.

keenan

09-26-06, 09:40 PM

Rakesh.S

09-26-06, 09:49 PM

fredfa

09-26-06, 10:00 PM

Not that anyone cares, but I thought I post my initial "yes, maybe, no" list after seeing that ranking list posted by Fred. Obviously some of these are based on only one viewing so far...

Yes
Brothers and Sisters
Studio 60
Men In Trees
Kidnapped

Maybe
Shark
Six Degrees
Smith

No
Jericho
The Class
Standoff
Vanished
Til Death
Justice

I give Six Degrees the best chance out of the "maybes", and under the "yes" Kidnapped may seem odd but I really like the look and feel of the show, plus the cast simply can't be ignored, hopefully they can do something good with it. Biggest disappointment is Shark, I was hoping for something good from James Woods but the pilot was mediocre at best.

We are pretty close, Jim. I haven't seen Kidnapped yet.

Our "No" lists are identical.

I would probably add "Shark" tentaively to my yes list. But I agree with some previous comment that the young assistants are a pretty mediocre bunch. I may give it a week or two more before investing time in "Kidnapped" because I have a feeling it just might disappear quickly

fredfa

09-26-06, 10:48 PM

Weekly Nielsen Notebook
A good week for tried, true

By Gary Levin,USA Today

• Monday NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip started with 13.4 million, but trailed CSI: Miami (17.6 million). CBS' The Class opened with a decent 10.5 million viewers. But Deal or No Deal (15.8 million) was the big star, handing NBC a nightly win. ABC's Wife Swap/Supernanny duo did fine with young women, but the network sunk to fourth without football.

• Tuesday Dancing With the Stars (18.2 million) delivered a win for ABC. CBS' The Unit (11.8 million) hit a series low, while Smith (11 million) finished third in its time slot. Law & Order: Criminal Intent improved on its new night. But Fox's House (13.7 million) tapered off, and Standoff couldn't stand up to new competition.

• Wednesday NBC's Kidnapped (7.6 million) was the biggest loser, opening a distant third, but Jericho did OK with 11.7 million. Biggest Loser had its flabbiest start yet, and Justice (5.6 million) was weak. CW's Top Model (5.3 million) won the night among ages 18 to 34 and had its second-biggest season opener. CSI: NY jumped from last fall.

• Thursday In the season's biggest matchup, the relocated Grey's Anatomy (25.4 million) dispatched CSI (22.6 million — lowest since May 2004), with a larger gap among young adults. Survivor held steady, but Shark (14.7 million) paled next to Sunday-bound Without a Trace's past ratings, and skewed especially old. Six Degrees (12.6 million) lost half its Grey's lead-in; ER (15.6 million) gained.

• Friday Close to Home (11.9 million) beat Men in Trees (up to 8.3 million) and Numb3rs (11.4 million) topped the season opener of Law & Order (11.1 million) on its new night.

• Sunday Desperate Housewives (24.1 million) dipped 4 million below last fall's big launch but climbed from May and ranked No. 2 for the week. Brothers & Sisters (15.7 million) is the season's top series premiere, and among younger viewers beat the transplanted Trace (17.6 million), down from Thursdays. Cold Case climbed in a new slot; Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (17.5 million) had its biggest audience since January. NBC's NFL game finished third.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-09-26-nielsen-analysis_x.htm

Ou8thisSN

09-27-06, 01:07 AM

13.11 mill viewers is great for Fox, but 13th place for House..ouch.

This is a top 5 show. I fully expect it to return to the top 5 as the season goes on and most of the new shows get canned. American Idol's lead-in won't hurt the cause either.

House may not get American Idol's lead in next year, House showed this year that it found an audience without AI, so I'd think AI would be used to prop up some other mid-season show FOX has yet to show...

fredfa

09-27-06, 01:33 AM

TV Notebook
An ABC Series Begins With a Surprise
By Edward Wyatt The New York Times

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 25 — “Brothers and Sisters,” the anticipated family drama that took over the “Grey’s Anatomy” spot in ABC’s Sunday-night lineup, opened to strong ratings on Sunday but also featured a surprise opening sequence that was changed days before the episode was broadcast and was not included in screening copies given to television critics.

Such a last-minute change in a new television show is unusual, particularly for a pilot episode, which is often completed months before the air date and is usually the basis for a network’s decision to put a new show on its schedule.

“Brothers and Sisters” has had anything but the usual path to air, however. Its pilot episode was reshot over the summer after two major roles were recast, including that of the family matriarch. Betty Buckley played the role in the first pilot but was replaced by Sally Field in the version broadcast on Sunday.

Changes were still being made to the show after ABC began sending out copies of the new pilot to television critics and reporters in late August. Instead of a two-minute soliloquy by Calista Flockhart, in her first prime-time starring role since “Ally McBeal,” viewers saw a flurry of phone calls among the five Walker siblings, the brothers and sisters referred to in the title.

Jon Robin Baitz, the creator of the series and author of the pilot episode, said Monday that the intent was to introduce viewers to the large cast and to speed progress to the scene where Ms. Flockhart’s character first encounters her mother, played by Ms. Field.

But the effect was also to divert attention from Ms. Flockhart, who drew tepid to hostile reviews from some critics for her performance as Kitty Walker, a conservative radio talk-show host.

Mr. Baitz and Ken Olin, executive producers of the show, both said the changes, which were made in the last week, were not a response to criticism of Ms. Flockhart’s performance.

“I can promise you that never entered anyone’s consciousness on any level at all,” Mr. Baitz said. “We all love her. But we wanted to cast a wider net and introduce this whole family quickly and in some context.”

The opening moments of any new television show are fraught with risk: Will viewers be engaged quickly enough to watch the entire episode? Will holdovers from the preceding show stick around? Can the audience figure out what is going on with these people they have never met before? And, perhaps more important, will it like them?

For “Brothers and Sisters” those questions took on an extra degree of importance, given that the show took over the coveted time slot formerly filled by “Grey’s Anatomy,” immediately following “Desperate Housewives,” and given its high-profile cast, which also includes Rachel Griffiths.

According to overnight ratings from Nielsen Media Research, “Brothers and Sisters” performed respectably, finishing second in its 10 p.m. time period to the season premiere of “Without a Trace” on CBS and outdrawing that show among viewers in the 18-to-49-year-old group so highly desired by advertisers.

“Brothers and Sisters” drew about 16 million viewers, or 17 percent of the viewing audience, according to Nielsen, behind the 17 million, or 19 percent of viewers, that tuned in to “Without a Trace.” Among viewers ages 18 to 49, “Brothers and Sisters” grabbed 15 percent of the audience, compared with 12 percent for “Without a Trace.”

The new show did lose about one-third of the “Desperate Housewives” audience, however, and dropped 15 percent of its audience from the first half-hour to the second.

Jeffrey S. Lindsey, an ABC spokesman, said the network was “extremely pleased.” He noted that “Brothers and Sisters” was the highest-rated new show among 18-to-49-year-olds so far this season, and that its ratings were comparable to those of “Grey’s Anatomy” in its debut in March 2005.

Those numbers, from Nielsen’s so-called fast national ratings, are subject to revision as more detailed ratings numbers become available later in the week.

Mr. Olin said he believed the show’s debut would give “Brothers and Sisters” good momentum for the season. “The next few episodes are really on track,” he said. “The show knows what it is now, and the voice is really consistent.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/arts/television/26brot.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=television&pagewanted=print

fredfa

09-27-06, 01:42 AM

Technology Notebook
Intel Inside DirecTV Set-Top
MultiChannel News 9/26/2006

A new digital set-top from DirecTV will allow the direct-broadcast satellite service’s subscribers to enjoy pictures and music on their TVs using PCs based on Intel’s Viiv technology, the two companies announced Tuesday.

Speaking at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said the new DirecTV Plus HD DVR digital-video-recorder set-top was in the final stages of Viiv technology testing and verification and could be deployed to customers virtually overnight via a software download starting in December.

The DirecTV Plus HD DVR will give the DBS provider’s subscribers the ability to record and view 200 hours of standard-definition content or 50 hours of MPEG-4 HD fare.

“With a simple software download, DirecTV Plus HD DVR customers nationwide can enjoy on their TV favorite photos and music albums that have been tucked away on their PCs," said Kevin Corbett, vice president of Intel's Digital Home Group and general manager of the company's Content Services Group, in a prepared statement.

"Having the nation's leading satellite-television-service provider with a 15 million and growing customer base introduce the world's first Intel Viiv technology-verified set-top box is a significant milestone, accelerating the number of connected digital homes,” he added.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6375319

fredfa

09-27-06, 01:44 AM

Wednesday’s Prime-Time Premiere
9 PM ET/PT One Tree Hill - CW HD

keenan

09-27-06, 03:27 AM

We are pretty close, Jim. I haven't seen Kidnapped yet.

Our "No" lists are identical.

I would probably add "Shark" tentaively to my yes list. But I agree with some previous comment that the young assistants are a pretty mediocre bunch. I may give it a week or two more before investing time in "Kidnapped" because I have a feeling it just might disappear quickly
"Kidnapped" is definitely a longshot in my mind, I just really like the stark cinematic look and I just have to believe that with all that talent in the acting department we should see some good stuff, but it looks like the ratings may kill it.

"Heroes" should be in the "maybe" list, although at the bottom, I see a potential for it to just get too silly.

Missed the first two eps of "Men in Trees" but caught last Friday's...are the first two eps available anywhere, legally?

bphisig

09-27-06, 10:07 AM

"Kidnapped" is definitely a longshot in my mind, I just really like the stark cinematic look and I just have to believe that with all that talent in the acting department we should see some good stuff, but it looks like the ratings may kill it.

"Heroes" should be in the "maybe" list, although at the bottom, I see a potential for it to just get too silly.

Missed the first two eps of "Men in Trees" but caught last Friday's...are the first two eps available anywhere, legally?
When they reran Kidnapped, it seemed to fare pretty well. Hopefully a big audience turns out for the showing tonight. The biggest question for me is how NBC would expect it to survive with such a terrible lead in. Demographic-wise, The Biggest Loser seems like an awful match for a show like Kidnapped. Maybe it's just me.

By the way, Fred, I really appreciate all the work you put into this thread. It's a daily must-visit for me.

fredfa

09-27-06, 10:21 AM

...Missed the first two eps of "Men in Trees" but caught last Friday's...are the first two eps available anywhere, legally?

Not that I know of.

jim tressler

09-27-06, 10:44 AM

hey fred - any news on Eurkea?? next week is the season finale.. but now word yet on a season 2 or 1.5 or whatever you want to call it :)

fredfa

09-27-06, 10:51 AM

TV Sports
ESPN's NFL Superdome Game Grabs 2nd Largest Cable Audience Ever
By John Consoli MediaWeek Sept. 27, 2006

ESPN's Sept. 25 Monday Night Football game, Altanta Falcons vs. New Orleans Saints, which marked the return of NFL football to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina a year ago, attracted the largest TV audience in ESPN history--10.8 million homes, 14.9 million viewers, and an 11.8 rating, according to Nielsen Media Research data.

It was the first time that ESPN has ever delivered more than 10 million homes for a telecast, and was the second largest audience in the history of cable television.

For the third week in a row, ESPN set a record for viewership.

ESPN.com NFL and Monday Night Surround content, viewered on coputers and wireless devices, generated more than 27 million page views on Monday, up 39 percent over the comparable week last year, according to Internet measurement tool HitBox.

Meanwhile, NBC Sunday Night Football on Sept. 24 averaged 15.6 million viewers, up 15 percent from last year's comparable third week Monday Night Football game on ABC. The game recorded a 10.0 household rating 16 share, up 14 percent, according to NMR data.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003187162

keenan

09-27-06, 11:00 AM

hey fred - any news on Eurkea?? next week is the season finale.. but now word yet on a season 2 or 1.5 or whatever you want to call it :)
Indeed, I really like Eureka and hope it returns.

fredfa

09-27-06, 11:02 AM

TV Notebook
] TV Tonight
That must-see Amanda Peet, on 'Dave'
By Diego Vasquez MediaLifeMagazine.com Sep 27, 2006

Two years ago it was Eva Longoria on “Desperate Housewives.” Last year it was Jamie Pressly on “My Name is Earl.”

This year the actress previously known mostly for her looks who is now proving she's also a surprisingly sharp talent is “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip’s” Amanda Peet.

Tonight at 11:35 p.m. Peet drops by CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman” for what would usually be a fairly standard hype-my-show chat. But it’s a must-see because Peet recently revealed that she’s pregnant, and “Studio 60” creator Aaron Sorkin hasn’t said what he’ll do with the pregnancy on the show. Letterman will certainly question her about it tonight.

The baby could have a big impact on future plotlines, as Peet plays a single woman who has not yet hinted at a boyfriend on “Studio.” Of course it’s also distressing to think of the show going without Peet while she’s on maternity leave, as she’s quickly become the most talked-about talent on a “Studio” stacked with the likes of Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, D.L. Hughley and Timothy Busfield.

Her Jordan McDeere, the female president of the fictional NBS network, is modeled on former ABC Entertainment president Jamie Tarses, and as played by Peet she’s equal parts charm, wit and shark.

Jordan is unpredictable, and Peet seems to enjoy playing up her smarts rather than her looks after years of playing pretty in forgettable movies like “Saving Silverman.”

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_7535.asp

Jediphish

09-27-06, 11:11 AM

Hey Fred -
Now that Happy Hour has been given fair warning, is it time to start your list of canceled shows (or those on the verge of being canceled)?

Which post is the list usually in? Number 1 or Number 2?

fredfa

09-27-06, 11:36 AM

I hadn't even thought of starting that yet. (And since "Happy Hour" hasn't been officially axed yet I have some time yet.)

But thanks for reminding me. I'll start compiling the list later in the week or over the weekend.

fredfa

09-27-06, 11:52 AM

Gaiwan

09-27-06, 11:55 AM

Wow, nice to see a good review of Peet's performance on Studio 60. I never really thought it was as horrible as alot of people made it out to be. Thanks for the heads up though, i'll be sure to record Letterman tonight to check it out.

Also, really glad to see ESPN get such good numbers for MNF. They really do put on an incredible show. I just wonder if even these numbers will be enough to recuperate their billion-dollar plus investment (per year). They are doing an excellent job of tying in their MNF broadcast with other ESPN content so its good to know they will take in other revenue apart from ads on the show.

fredfa

09-27-06, 12:00 PM

Weekly Nielsen Notebook
This new season, it's ABC by a length in the 18-49 demo
By Toni Fitzgerald medialifemagazine.com Sep 27, 2006

For the last two years, Fox has stumbled badly in the fall, only to recover in January with "American Idol" and go on to win the season.

This year ABC could put a stop to that.

By the looks of the first week of the new season, the network could build such a powerful lead going into January that Fox will not be able to bounce back, no matter how well "Idol" does.

ABC, with a strong slate of returning and new shows, finished out the new season's first week a comfortable No. 1. NBC, this season's surprise, finished No. 2.

By contrast, CBS's play-it-safe approach backfired, leaving it at No. 3, and Fox, defying the expectations of many media buyers, fell way back.

ABC averaged a 4.4 rating and 12 share last week among adults 18-49, finishing well ahead of NBC at 4.0/11, CBS at 3.9/11 and Fox at 3.1/8.

ABC had four of the week’s top eight shows, including No. 1 “Grey’s Anatomy” and No. 2 “Desperate Housewives,” and six of the top 12.

It had the week’s two highest-rated new shows, “Brothers & Sisters” and “Six Degrees,” and won four out of seven nights in 18-49s.

While ratings for “Brothers” and “Degrees” could fall--both saw substantial dropoffs in their second half hours--the best news for ABC is that two of its most highly anticipated shows haven’t even premiered yet, meaning it could put yet more distance between itself and the other three networks going forward.

“Lost,” the third-year hit that ranked eighth among 18-49s last season, and “The Nine,” the “Lost” lead-out that many have tabbed as ABC’s most promising new drama, premiere next Wednesday starting at 9 p.m.

Assuming “Lost” at least equals last season’s 6.4 average rating and “Nine” pulls a 5.0 or better, ABC will likely pull ahead on Wednesdays as well, one of the three nights it did not win last week.

And if new Tuesday comedies “Help Me Help You,” which debuted last night, and “The Knights of Prosperity,” coming next month, do even marginally better than the two shows they replace, “According to Jim” and “Rodney,” ABC will remain strong well into winter.

The real question is what happens next spring. “Idol” will presumably propel Fox back into contention for No. 1, and ABC will not have the midseason boost it had last season from the Super Bowl.

The most likely scenario is that ABC rolls out a new season of “Dancing with the Stars,” the reality hit responsible for some of the network’s revived fortunes, to face down and sap viewers from 'Idol.'

ABC has not said when the fourth season will premiere, during the spring or summer, but it seems a natural to premiere it in late March or April and let it build to a big finish in May sweeps, perhaps even stealing a bit of “Idol’s” momentum. That was just the sort of thing ABC lacked last season, when it finished 0.2 points behind Fox.

Meanwhile, in broadcast ratings for the week ended Sept. 24

Among adults 18-49, ABC was first with an average rating of 4.4 and share of 12, followed by NBC at 4.0/11, CBS at 3.9/11, Fox at 3.1/8, Univision at 1.6/4, new network CW at 1.2/3 (measured only Wednesday to Sunday), Telemundo at 0.4/1, Telefutura at 0.3/1 and Azteca last with 0.1/0.

Among adults 18-34, ABC led with 3.7, then came NBC with 3.2, Fox with 3.0, CBS with 2.6, Univision with 1.6, the CW with 1.4, Telemundo with 0.4, Telefutura with 0.3 and Azteca with 0.1.

Among adults 25-54, CBS had an average rating of 5.1. ABC followed with 5.0, NBC had 4.6, Fox 3.2, Univision 1.4, CW 1.2, Telemundo 0.3, Telefutura 0.3 and Azteca 0.1.

Top five (18-49s): 1. ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” 11.0; 2. ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” 9.6; 3. CBS’s “CSI” 7.7; 4. NBC’s “ER” 6.8; 5. CBS’s “Survivor: Cook Islands” 6.5

Bottom five (18-49s): Tie-75. CBS’s “Crimetime-Sat., 9pm,” Fox’s “Happy Hour” 1.7; Tie-77. Fox’s “Celebrity Duets-Fri,” Fox’s “Nanny 911” 1.4; 79. Fox’s “Celebrity Duets-Thurs” 1.2

Bottom five (total viewers): 75. NBC’s “Football Nt. America Pt. 2” 4.74 million; 76. Fox’s “Happy Hour” 4.40 million; 77. Fox’s “Celebrity Duets-Fri” 3.61 million; 78. Fox’s “Nanny 911” 3.60 million; 79. Fox’s “Celebrity Duets-Thurs” 3.35 million

Show on the rise: “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” NBC, Tuesday 9 p.m. The move from Sunday has proved savvy with the series’ 18-49 audience up 29 percent from last year’s premiere.

Show on the decline: “CSI,” CBS, Thursday 9 p.m. The procedural’s premiere dipped from 29.2 million total viewers last year to 22.57 million, and was way down in 18-49s from 10.2 last year to 7.7 this week.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/printer_7536.asp

Marcus Carr

09-27-06, 12:17 PM

Verizon Details TV Progress

By Glen Dickson and John M. Higgins -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/27/2006 10:45:00 AM

Verizon told investors Wednesday that its fiber-based FiOS TV service is experiencing strong early growth and is poised to meet its 2006 goals for both homes passed and penetration.

In a presentation to analysts and investors, Verizon Telecom president Virginia Ruesterholz announced that FiOS TV, currently available in small parts of Texas, California, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York, has already signed up over 100,000 subscribers. Ruesterholz added that Verizon is “well on our way” to reaching 175,000 FiOS TV subscribers by the end of the year.

The FiOS TV service currently passes over 1 million homes, with a goal of 1.8 million homes passed by the end of 2006. By 2010, the company expects three million to four million video subscribers and six million to seven million data subscribers. Video penetration would total 20% of “qualified” homes, while data penetration would be 36%.

Overall, video represents $20 billion of the $50 billion potential market for voice, video and data services across the 33 million homes and 3.6 million businesses that Verizon reaches, says Ruesterholz.

Verizon added that its FiOS Internet service is gaining traction faster than expected, signing up over 500,000 customers, 70% of which are new Verizon broadband subscribers. Verizon projects 725,000 data subscribers by year-end.

The high-speed data service is also helping to make FiOS TV “sticky” with customers, says Ruesterholz, as some 56% of FiOS TV customers are also taking the Internet service and 79% have signed up for the full “triple-play” bundle of voice, video and data. The churn rate for FiOS TV is less than 1.5%, she adds.

Verizon provided some other metrics on FiOS TV customers: 99% have signed up for premium services; 60% have HD and/or DVR-equipped set-tops; and 12% have adopted Verizon’s “Home Media DVR,” which uses a central DVR and existing coaxial cable to stream programming to multiple TVs in a subscriber’s home.

Verizon’s ability to gain local franchises to offer TV service was a question mark as it launched the service, but Ruesterholz says the company has been able to match the pace of franchise agreements to the buildout of FiOS TV’s fiber-based network, and currently has 161 franchises covering over three million households.

“This isn’t holding us back in our deployment of video,” she says.

Verizon also released some fresh figures Wednesday on the capital expenditure associated with the FiOS TV rollout. The company projects that the gross capital cost per home passed, which includes fiber and distribution hubs, will drop from $1,021 in 2005 to $700 in 2010, and said that in August the average number was $873, lower than the previous year-end 2006 goal of $890. The gross capital cost per home connected, which includes running fiber to the home and installing terminal equipment and set-tops, will drop from $1,163 in 2005 to $650 in 2010, Verizon estimates. In August, the average number to connect a home was $933, higher than the previously announced year-end goal of $715.

Because the new plant is much cheaper to operate, saving $1 billion on costs per year, the company estimates that the FIOS operation will break even on an operating basis in 2008 – not counting capital investment in extending the system to new towns. That’s years earlier than UBS telecom analyst John Houdlik had expected.

Verizon estimates that completing the FIOS network will cost $23 billion, or around $850 per home passed.

http://broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6375527.html

fredfa

09-27-06, 12:21 PM

The New Season
For CBS, caution comes at a high price
It's rolled out only four new series this fall
By Josh Bell inmedialifemagazine.com Sep 27, 2006

The longtime No. 1 network in households and total viewers, CBS took a conservative approach with its new shows this fall, ordering just four, the fewest of any network, with three of them low- to no-risk takeoffs on existing or past series.

CBS is now paying the price. Three shows are disappointments, either declining from last year’s timeslot averages or finishing about the same.

The one new CBS show with a remotely original premise, Wednesday’s “Jericho," is the one new show with a glimmer of hope. It alone gained viewers in its second half hour.

CBS's unwillingness to take chances has turned it into the new season's surprise sinker, averaging a 3.9 rating in adults 18-49 in week one, down 5 percent from last year’s 4.1 opening week and even more shockingly, behind NBC.

It could get worse. CBS was also the only network to premiere the bulk of its fall schedule last week. Every other network still has a few shows on the shelf that will premiere over the next few weeks. CBS could fall even further behind.

NBC has already wrested away its Monday lead, with CBS's one new comedy, “The Class,” performing so poorly in its second outing that it dragged down the network’s entire schedule that night.

And with ABC looking powerful on Sunday and Thursday, CBS faces the prospect of tumbling into fourth place just two years after it challenged Fox for No. 1 for the season.

With that in mind, here’s a critical look at CBS’s four new shows, three dramas and one comedy.

“The Class”

Like most CBS’s sitcoms, “The Class,” which debuted on Monday, Sept. 18, at 8 p.m., is genial and inoffensive. It also vies for being the least original of the four new CBS shows. Produced by “Friends” co-creator David Crane, “The Class” is more in the young-skewing vein of “How I Met Your Mother” than the more family-focused “The King of Queens” or “Two and a Half Men.”

Its central group of twentysomethings who went to elementary school together are all fairly familiar sitcom types, and Crane and his writers don’t do much to persuade audiences that the series is more than a tweak or two beyond a copycat of “Friends.”

Its ratings reflect that. In week two, it tumbled from a 3.6 rating to a 2.9, a dip of 19 percent and fourth in its timeslot.

“Smith”

“Smith,” which debuted on Tuesday, Sept. 19, at 10 p.m., follows a crew of criminals as they orchestrate their jobs, dodge the cops, and attempt to live normal lives. It's a derivative crooks and cops saga, reminiscent of two failed midseason dramas from earlier this year, NBC’s “Heist” and FX’s “Thief.” But unlike “Heist,” which was flashy and jokey and endeavored to emulate “Ocean’s 11,” “Smith” is dark and deadly serious, portraying its characters as the often ruthless, amoral people they are.

What separates "Smith" from the other new CBS shows is that it's extremely well done. With feature-film production values courtesy of producer John Wells and a deep well of strong character actors in Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Simon Baker and Amy Smart, “Smith” has perhaps the best pedigree of any new show this year.

But that pedigree had no impact on its premiere. "Smith" was third in its timeslot in total viewers, with 11 million, just behind ABC's "Boston Legal." Though it placed slightly ahead of the latter in 18-49s, it dipped in its second half hour.

“Jericho”

“Jericho,” which debuted last Wednesday, Sept. 20., at 8 p.m., takes the most risks of the new CBS shows, attempting to capture life in small-town America after a nuclear attack. It's a decent to somewhat promising drama but it ends up not looking quite as good as it would have if it premiered a few years ago. It comes off as something that might work well over the summer on Sci Fi.

Gerald McRaney gives a strong performance as the town’s mayor, but Skeet Ulrich has trouble carrying the show as his mysterious son. The first episode was a mix of intriguing ideas dragged down by heavy-handed contrivances. It also suffers from two often conflicting storylines, as part family drama and part sci-fi thriller. Going forward it's going to have to decide on one or the other if it is to improve its ratings.

The debut did much better than media people expected, finishing second in its timeslot in total viewers and 18-49s and, most promisingly, gaining viewers from start to finish.

“Shark”

What sets apart “Shark,” which debuted last Thursday, Sept. 21, at 10 p.m., is the presence of James Woods. In all other ways it's a standard legal procedural, with Woods as a former high-powered and high-priced L.A. defense attorney who switches sides to the District Attorney’s office when he starts to feel remorse about helping so many rich criminals go free. Woods rants and chews scenery, as one would expect.

For fans of the actor, this may be enough, and indeed it’s sometimes entertaining. But the rest of the show is just more humdrum legal cases, and the manufactured family drama between Woods and his teenage daughter feels false. Woods himself is the entire show, and eventually the strain of carrying everything starts to become apparent.

It's already apparent in the ratings. In the desirable post-"CSI" spot, "Shark" lost 47 percent of its lead-in in 18-49s and finished third in the timeslot, well behind former timeslot occupant "Without a Trace's" premiere last year.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_7539.asp

fredfa

09-27-06, 01:50 PM

Tuesday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted just under the HD Football listings near the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

fredfa

09-27-06, 01:52 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Hopeful debut for ABC's new 'Help Me'
Sitcom premiere earns a 3.6 rating in 18-49s
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Sep 27, 2006

This has not been a strong year for new sitcoms. Only four have debuted so far, with two earning a 3.0 or lower in their first outing. Last night ABC’s new Ted Danson comedy “Help Me Help You,” which received strong reviews, tied for the best debut for a new sitcom this season, despite losing a good portion of its lead-in.

“Help” averaged a 3.6 in adults 18-49, according to Nielsen overnights, tying with CBS’s “The Class” for the best comedy premiere yet. Three more sitcoms – ABC’s “Knights of Prosperity,” NBC’s “30 Rock” and NBC’s “Twenty Good Years” – are debuting next month.

By comparison, last year’s top sitcom debut was “My Name is Earl” at a 6.6.

“Help” placed third in its 9:30 p.m. timeslot, just 0.1 behind the second halves of CBS’s “The Unit” and NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” “Help” was second behind “Unit” for the hour in total viewers with 11.9 million to the latter’s 12.2 million.

And it was better than the season averages for all of ABC’s sitcoms last year. The network has struggled to program successful new comedies the past few years.

But “Help” lost a big 42 percent of “Stars’” 6.2 average at 9 p.m. while matching the debut rating for “Men in Trees,” another new ABC show that premiered after “Stars’” season bow two weeks ago.

Another new series, CBS’s “Smith,” showed some erosion from week one, dipping 11 percent from a 3.5 to a 3.1 in adults 18-49. It did place second in its timeslot but once again lost viewers from its first to its second half hour.

Led by the powerful “House,” Fox won the night with a 4.7 average rating and 13 share, followed by ABC at 4.2/11, NBC and CBS tied for third at 3.4/9, Univision fifth at 1.9/4, and the CW sixth at 1.4/4.

At 8 p.m., Fox dominated with “House” at 5.9, followed by ABC’s “Stars” at 4.6, CBS’s “NCIS” at 3.4, NBC’s “Heroes” rerun at 1.8, and the season premiere of the CW’s “Gilmore Girls” and Univision’s “La Fea Mas Bella” tied at 2.0.

At 9 p.m., ABC moved into the lead with a 4.9 for the last half hour of “Stars” (6.2) and the series premiere of “Help” (3.6). NBC’s “CI” and CBS’s “Unit” tied for third at 3.4, followed by a 2.1 for Univision’s “Barrera de Amor” and a 0.8 for a rerun of the series premiere of the CW’s “Runaway.”

At 10 p.m., NBC surged ahead with “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” at 5.0, followed by “Smith’s” 3.1, ABC’s “Boston Legal” at 2.9 and Univison’s “Ver para Creer” at 1.5.

Among households, ABC led with a 9.5/15, followed by CBS at 7.6/12, Fox at 6.9/11, NBC at 6.7/11, Univision at 2.3/4 and the CW at 2.2/3.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_7563.asp

fredfa

09-27-06, 02:19 PM

The TV Column
The Week’s Winners and Losers
For Every Network, Can't-Miss TV

By Lisa de Moraes Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, September 27, 2006; C07

Everyone's a winner in Premiere Week. No, seriously. Though critics already are working on "No New Hits" stories bemoaning the lack of a "Desperate Housewives" or "Lost," every network had something to smile about the first week of the TV season, and the four returning networks -- ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC -- each bagged a bigger crowd than the same week last fall.

Here's a look at the week's winners and losers:

WINNERS

CBS. Premiere Week's most-watched network -- now for five years in a row.

ABC's Thursday. Programming chief Steve McPherson's risky "Grey's Anatomy" move catapulted the network from dead last to first on the week's most competitive night among young viewers. Last time ABC did that, "Mork & Mindy" was in the lineup. Against CBS ratings powerhouse "CSI" (22.6 million viewers), "Grey's" (25.4 million) still landed in the week's No. 1 spot -- up 6.4 million compared with last fall's debut on Sunday night. It was the doc drama's third-largest audience ever -- behind only both halves of the two-parter that kicked off right after the Super Bowl in February.

"America's Next Top Model." On its first official night of business, the new CW network finished first among 18-to-34-year-olds (the Holy Grail of Madison Avenue) as "Top Model," the reality series CW inherited from the defunct UPN network, equaled its biggest opening audience ever -- more than 5 million viewers.

NBC . Back in the game after finishing the season's first week as the most improved network, up 1.2 million viewers and 18 percent among younger ones -- thanks largely to five hours of "Deal or No Deal" and the addition of "Sunday Night Football." On the other hand, like ABC, NBC rolled out only two of its nine new shows in Premiere Week.

"ER." Sure, it's not doing the numbers it once did, but in its 13th-season debut, "ER" whomped much-ballyhooed newcomers "Shark" and "Six Degrees." "ER" also debuted stronger than last fall -- impressive given that the two new 10 p.m. Thursday series were served up lead-in audiences in the mid-20-millions, while "ER" made do with a "Deal or No Deal" lead-in audience half that size.

ABC Sunday. Despite the loss of "Grey's Anatomy" on the night, ABC won Sunday with a hefty 2.7 million viewers ahead of closest competitor CBS. And while no new series cracked the week's Top 10, "Grey's" replacement "Brothers and Sisters" is the No. 1 new series so far, with an average audience of about 16 million viewers.

"Dog: The Family Speaks." A&E capitalized on Dog the Bounty Hunter's arrest with this one-hour special, which drew 4.4 million viewers. That was up nearly 300 percent compared with the net's Tuesday 10 p.m. prior four-week average with the half-hour "Dog" series and companion half-hour "King of Cars."

"Steve Irwin Changed the World Memorial Service." Animal Planet's dubiously named telecast of its dead star's memorial service clocked nearly 3 million viewers -- the net's biggest audience since "Dragons: Fantasy Made Real" in March '05.

LOSERS

"Happy Hour." Fox's Thursday sitcom about a martini-loving guy and his new roomie was last week's lowest-ranked new series -- No. 76 out of 79 programs -- and is the first new series pulled off the schedule. Fox says it'll be back.

"Justice." Fox's Wednesday drama about a brilliant but unpleasant lawyer and his team of hot young lawyers was last week's second-lowest-ranked new series -- No. 74 out of 79 programs -- and is being taken off the lineup after this week. Fox says it'll be back. One more and we have a trend story.

New 10 p.m. dramas. NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," CBS's "Smith" and "Shark," and ABC's "Six Degrees" and "Brothers & Sisters" all got off to good starts last week, averaging between 11 million and 16 million viewers. But each drama started with a much bigger crowd; large swaths of viewers -- between 840,000 and 3.3 million -- bailed out halfway through each program. In the TV industry, that's called "rejection." The remaining new 10 p.m. drama, NBC's "Kidnapped," tanked, attracting fewer than 8 million viewers -- no surprise given the lousy night and the chump-change "Biggest Loser" lead-in audience of 7.1 million.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/26/AR2006092601544_pf.html

fredfa

09-27-06, 03:42 PM

Critic’s Notebook
Why the Future of Television is Lost
How a weird cult show that should have been canceled helped TV into the new-media era
By James Poniewozik Time Magazine television critic

There are no simple answers when it comes to Lost. When we left the addictively weird serial about the survivors of a plane crash on a desert island, we had just made a startling discovery: the island is linked to the world outside. That revelation, while it seems small, was momentous for fans. It destroyed a whole bunch of theories--for instance, that the characters were dead and in purgatory. So as Season 3 opens, the question on most viewers' minds is, Will there be more present-day glimpses of the outside world?

Yes, says executive producer Carlton Cuse. But executive producer Damon Lindelof interjects that he might not use the term present.

Adds Cuse: "The context of time is something you can't take for granted."

Uh-huh. TV has seen plenty of shows with Lost's geek appeal, but their stories usually end with "... and it was soon canceled, to the dismay of its hard-core fans." The Prisoner, the first Star Trek series--even Twin Peaks went from phenom to flame-out faster than you can say, Who killed Laura Palmer? Lost is different. An unapologetically knotty, mass-market commercial hit, it demands commitment--and gets it. How did Lost escape the cult-show graveyard? Partly because it's just TV genius. But also because TV has changed--and because Lost changed TV. Many of the changes that threatened old-fashioned TV--the rise of the Internet, new technologies, a fragmented audience with new entertainment options--have made Lost successful. It won over Internet-centric viewers who are supposed to be bored with TV, and it benefited from technologies like iTunes, DVRs and DVDs that some were worried would be the end of TV. It took the attributes that would once have made it a cult failure--eccentricity and complexity--and used them to harness the power of obsessive, evangelical fans. Like the story told in Lost, the story of the series' success is one of careful design, science and a little faith.

First, the faith. In 2004, ABC was fourth in the ratings. One series in its pipeline was based on an idea by then chairman Lloyd Braun: a fictionalized Survivor. ABC turned over the project to producer J.J. Abrams and his partner Lindelof, who elaborated the concept into a wild, character-driven mystery. The wisdom in TV then was that viewers were too busy to follow continuing story lines. Simple procedurals like CSI reigned. "We would have loved to have had a CSI," says Stephen McPherson, then head of Touchstone Television and now ABC Entertainment president. "But given our choices, it made a lot of sense to try to break out of the clutter." Abrams had a track record, as producer of Alias, of making a thriller with emotional impact--although, Abrams says, "it was an ongoing battle" getting the network to support that show's complex serial story line.

With Lost, he and Lindelof wrote a geeky mythology show with enough heart, humor and richness of character to appeal far beyond the Doctor Who convention set. There is Jack (Matthew Fox), a heartthrob doctor with unresolved father issues, and Locke (Terry O'Quinn), a paraplegic miraculously healed on the island. There is Hurley (Jorge Garcia), a likable sad sack who won the lottery playing a set of numbers--4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42--that we learn have mystic significance. There is a fugitive (Evangeline Lilly), a wisecracking con man (Josh Holloway), a heroin-addicted has-been rock star (Dominic Monaghan), a former Iraqi torturer (Naveen Andrews).

I left out the psychic kid, the Korean gangster and many others, but you get the point. The island may not be purgatory, but metaphorically it is: almost all the castaways have a past to atone for, and their backstories, told in flashbacks, give the mystery and monsters emotional grounding. The result is a moving, literate popcorn thriller that weaves dozens of characters' lives into a story of interconnection, redemption and grace.

Lost was a hit out of the gate, but serials typically bleed viewers as casual fans tune out. This is where the science comes in. What Lost geeks have that earlier TV cultists didn't is a mature, broadband Internet. The fans set up blogs, reference sites and podcasts. They watched, then debated and posted tidbits and theories (the smoke monster is a nanorobot cloud controlled by a psychic!). "Part of watching this show is talking about it," says Nicholas Gatto, 14, who runs abclost.blogspot.com "It doesn't just end at the credits."

The mystery of Lost--and the opportunities for cyberanalysis--turned it into TV for the post-TV generation. Besides stoking interest, technology has affected the kind of storytelling Lost can do. On a practical level, DVRs, DVDs and iTunes downloads mean it's less likely fans will miss episodes, fall behind and give up, which allows the writers to keep the show complex and challenging. "A show that is as serialized as Lost would have had a much harder time pre-iPod, pre-DVD, pre-streaming video," says Abrams.

And those technologies allow the producers to add levels of detail. In a Season 2 episode, Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a former Nigerian drug lord, has a religious epiphany when he encounters the smoke monster in the jungle. Viewers who TiVoed the scene and played it in slow motion saw a series of images in the cloud: Eko's dead brother, a man Eko killed, a crucifix. The images flash by in fractions of a second. A casual viewer would not have noticed them at all. Either way, it works. You can sit back and enjoy the story, or you can play it, as if it were an adventure-puzzle game like Dungeons & Dragons or Myst.

The classic image of the TV superfan is the minutiae-obsessed, Vulcan-eared Star Trek fan, played by Jon Lovitz opposite William Shatner in a classic Saturday Night Live skit. Today the Lovitzization of entertainment is widespread. When Lost used stock footage from Norway to depict the founder of the Hanso Foundation--the apparent prime mover behind its conspiracy--Norwegian fans went nuts speculating over their homeland's connection to the mystery.

And the producers are listening. Last season they killed a second character in a pivotal episode because the one they intended to kill was so unpopular that they realized she would not be missed. Other times, they rebut the fans. To knock down a popular theory--that the entire series is a dream--they made an episode in which a hallucination tells Hurley that everything that happened on the island was in his head, and then they disproved it. "There's a kind of reciprocal exchange," says David Lavery, chair in film and television at London's Brunel University and a co-author of Unlocking the Meaning of Lost. "The fans know more about the show--except what's going to happen next week--than the people creating the show. Fandoms feel power that they never felt before."

Of course, the Lovitzes are a minority of Lost viewers. But they're a vocal one. Pop-culture critic Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good for You, says the show's makers "are relying on the amplifying power of the serious hard-core fans, who are 1% of the audience, to broadcast some of these cool little discoveries to perhaps 10% of their audience. Those are the great evangelists for the show, the 10% who are out there saying, Oh, God, I am so addicted to this show." And they help reel in the other 90%, which is where gratifying the superfans pays off. "Let's say I go to a Bruce Springsteen show, and he plays for four hours instead of two hours," says Lindelof. "Why? What is he getting out of it? Your ticket price is exactly the same. But what happens is, you go to work the next morning, and you say, I just saw the greatest f______ show in my life."

It was for the 1% that the producers and ABC this summer created The Lost Experience, an online game that delved into the Dharma Initiative, the secretive international project alluded to on the show. For more than four months, players hunted for clues in phony corporate websites, voice-mail messages and video clips online. The trick was to give away information that would tantalize hard-core fans but casual viewers wouldn't need. (Among the tidbits: Dharma stands for department of heuristics and research on material applications. See what you can do with that.)

For most of TV history, going to those lengths to get people who already like a show to like it more would have been a waste. Network TV is paid for by ads, and to advertisers, an eyeball is an eyeball, however passionate. But now you can turn passion into money. Fans buy episodes they missed, from iTunes at $1.99 a pop. They're the market for the upcoming video-game and cell-phone mini-episodes. They buy DVDs to catch new details of episodes they have already seen. This month Lost's Season 2 debuted at No. 1 on the DVD charts--listing at about $60 a set. Season 1 sold 1.2 million copies. The networks take notice when it comes time to schedule new series. "I'm not in the room when the corporate decisions are made," says Abrams. "But the possibility of making $50 [million], $100 million more on DVD sales--it's not a drop in the bucket."

Perhaps the greatest test of how Lost has changed TV will be its end. The producers say they want the story to finish at its natural conclusion, even if it's still on top. Surprisingly, they would have some fans on their side. "I'd be happy if it went four years, five years, then quit," says Craig Hundley, a moderator of two Lost fan sites. Then again, the call is ABC's. Will it be the makers and fans or the network execs who decide when the show's time has come? TV is still a business. And as Cuse said, with Lost, the context of time is something you can't take for granted.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1538635,00.html

archiguy

09-27-06, 04:08 PM

Regarding this LOST story and the last paragraph where they talk about ending the series "at it's natural conclusion" even if it's still on top...

I think that's such a great idea and I'm surprised somebody hasn't tried it yet. Imagine one of the networks premiering a new show with all the usual marketing power, but with one caveat: it has a limited life span. Say it's one or two years, and that's it, no matter how well it's doing in the ratings. (Don't the Brits do this all the time? And don't our networks basically steal everything that does well in England and try to adapt it to an American audience?)

I'd be very interested in watching a show like that, knowing that one of the things that drives good shows into the ground would be removed, i.e. stretching them out past the point where they should naturally end, burning out the writers, producers, cast and audience just to rack up ratings points. You'd know the quality would remain high throughout the run and not be diluted (think of the last few years of 'The X-Files' - ugh); thus you'd be more likely to commit to the show. What do you guys think?

If they do start trying this, ya'll just remember where you first heard of the idea. :)

taz291819

09-27-06, 04:12 PM

fredfa,
On the front page, the Cowboys/Titans game isn't listed as HD, but in the Map Coverage thread, it is. Do you know if it is or isn't?

Thanks.

bphisig

09-27-06, 04:34 PM

Reading that article really has me jacked for the season premier next week. I absolutely cannot wait. I didn't start watching the show until the beginning of season 2, but it is bar-none the best show on TV. I look forward to 24 more, but Lost is better, if that makes any sense.

AFH

09-27-06, 05:19 PM

fredfa

09-27-06, 05:25 PM

fredfa,
On the front page, the Cowboys/Titans game isn't listed as HD, but in the Map Coverage thread, it is. Do you know if it is or isn't?

Thanks.

Simple operator error on my part, taz. It has been fixed. Thanks for pointing it out.

fredfa

09-27-06, 05:27 PM

Ok, I'm confused. Hero's was the highest rated show on Monday night? How is that? CSI Miami had 17.4 million, by far the most watched show in shear numbers of people that night. Heroes had 14.2 million. What am I missing? Are they referring to highest rated among adults 18-49? Must be.

Toni's reports always refer (almost exclusively) to the 18-49 demos the advertisers covet. So if your mind wanders a moment, her reports can be a bit confusing -- at least they often are to me.

fredfa

09-27-06, 05:32 PM

Cable News Notebook
Fox News' birthday bash comes with CNN view
By Jill Vejnoska [b]Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tuesday, September 26, 2006

ATLANTA — "Fair and balanced" — and not content to mark their big day at Chuck E. Cheese's.

Fox News Channel is throwing itself a 10th birthday party in Atlanta this week, right in cable news rival CNN's front yard.

Fox, which actually turns 10 next week, plans to broadcast three shows Thursday at the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce building on the edge of Centennial Olympic Park. The public can watch Fox stars Shepard Smith and Greta Van Susteren broadcast live at 3 p.m., 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. EDT as part of Fox's 10-city "Thank You America" tour.

Presumably, so can the folks working just across the park in the CNN Center on Marietta Street.

"We'll have this lovely view of the CNN building, and I'm sure they'll have a lovely view of us," said Thom Bird, Fox's executive producer of news specials.

Bird chose the park location, he said, because it afforded great views of Atlanta's "beautiful cityscape."

But being so close to the powerhouse rival that Ted Turner built is clearly the icing on Fox's birthday cake.

"I'm sure we'll be waving at them and they'll be waving at us and watching to see how news is done," Bird said.

CNN didn't take the bait. "We wish them well," said spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg.

New York-based Fox News' ratings have softened a bit in the past year, but it remains the No. 1-rated cable news network, a ranking it wrested from CNN in 2002.

Atlanta is Stop 3 on a 10th anniversary tour that began last week in Boston and ends in November in Detroit. Next month, San Diego gets Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes broadcasting from the USS Midway. And Smith and Van Susteren will broadcast from Pure Nightclub in Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

Fox won't find any slot machines here Thursday. Just that giant billboard of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper at the opposite end of the park. That's the same corner where Fox has in the past erected its own splashy billboards directly in CNN's eyeline.

Bird said the self-described "fair and balanced" channel has never lost its underdog mentality or its sense of what made it successful.

"It's our viewers who've made us what we are," Bird said. "We want them to have a chance to meet and greet us and feel comfortable with us."

And if those viewers get lost on the way to the party, they can just look for the giant red CNN logo nearby.

http://www.ajc.com/search/content/shared/money/stories/FOX_SIDE_0926_COX.html

fredfa

09-27-06, 06:13 PM

As homcom points out, three of this Saturday's 3:30 PM ET ABC regional games will not be in HD, so the listings have been updated in the first post.

homcom

09-27-06, 06:16 PM

As homcom points out, none of this Saturday's 3:30 PM ET ABC regional games will be in HD, so the listing have been updated in the first post.
You have it right in the other thread but just so there is no confusion,

#31 Georgia Tech (3-1) at #10 Virginia Tech (4-0) (Regional) 3:30 PM ABC-HD

will be in HD at 3:30, however, the other 3 regional games will not be.

fredfa

09-27-06, 06:19 PM

Thanks again. I need all the help I can get!

homcom

09-27-06, 06:23 PM

Thanks again. I need all the help I can get!
No problem. I am gald I can help and be a small part of this great resource that you have put together. Many thanks for your great work here.

Posty-McPost

09-27-06, 06:27 PM

You have it right in the other thread but just so there is no confusion,

#31 Georgia Tech (3-1) at #10 Virginia Tech (4-0) (Regional) 3:30 PM ABC-HD

will be in HD at 3:30, however, the other 3 regional games will not be.

http://media.espn.com/MediaZone/ABC_regional.jpg

fredfa

09-27-06, 06:28 PM

The New Season
NBC Sets Oct. 13 Premiere for '1 vs 100'

By Christopher Lisotta Television Week September 27, 2006

NBC's new game show "1 vs 100" will begin its five-week run Friday, Oct. 13, at 9 p.m. (ET), following an original episode of the network's current game show performer, "Deal or No Deal."

After its series premiere, "1 vs 100" will air in its regular time slot on Friday at 8 p.m. beginning Oct. 20, leading into the return of drama "Las Vegas" at 9 p.m. As a result, the drama "Crossing Jordan," which was scheduled to run at 8 p.m. on Friday, will rejoin the NBC schedule later.

NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly made the announcement Wednesday. "The introduction of this new show also allows us the luxury of saving such a proven and versatile series as 'Crossing Jordan' for use later in the season," Mr. Reilly said in a statement.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10824

fredfa

09-27-06, 07:05 PM

Thanks Posty.

Maybe some day I'll actually figure out how to post graphics and tables and pictures and lists and.....

fredfa

09-27-06, 07:06 PM

Repeating:

Wednesday’s Prime-Time Premiere
9 PM ET/PT One Tree Hill - CW HD

fredfa

09-27-06, 07:08 PM

Thursday Night’s Premieres
8 PM ET/PT Ugly Betty - ABC (Series Premiere) HD
8 PM ET/PT Smallville - CW HD
9 PM ET/PT Supernatural - CW HD

fredfa

09-27-06, 07:09 PM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
ABC's new `Ugly Betty' is becoming a hot number
By Charlie McCollum San Jose Mercury News

PASADENA - For many young actresses in Hollywood, the role of Betty Suarez would have been problematic. It is the central part in a highly touted new television series, ABC's ``Ugly Betty,'' but the character wears glasses and braces, is socially clumsy, has no fashion sense and isn't exactly a size zero.

But to America Ferrera, a 22-year-old with leads in the ``The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants'' and the award-winning ``Real Women Have Curves'' to her credit, Betty Suarez was a character to be embraced.

``I'm not a model,'' Ferrera says. ``I never wanted to be a model. I never wanted to do ads for Neutrogena. That's not what I set out in life to do. I set out to tell stories that represent real people.

``To me, Betty is the most beautiful opportunity that's ever come across my path to represent a whole generation of young women who maybe don't recognize themselves in anything they're watching. Whether it be in magazines or on TV or in the movies, they're invisible. To me, it's an honor to take this role, and I love being her.''

Having grabbed onto Betty, Ferrera now finds herself in the maelstrom of the buzz surrounding her new show.

Based on a very popular Colombian telenovela, the comedy-drama about a young Latina trying to make it in the world of high-fashion magazines has gone from network reject to the hottest thing on the ABC schedule. Response to ``Betty'' has been so intense that the network shuttled it from a low-profile slot on Fridays to the rarefied and enviable atmosphere of Thursdays at 8 p.m., where it will lead into the ratings blockbuster ``Grey's Anatomy.''

That the film ``The Devil Wore Prada'' -- which explores similar themes, albeit in a glossier and more brittle way -- was the surprise hit of the summer, taking in more than $122 million, only has given ``Betty'' more of a boost.

Actress Salma Hayek, one of the show's executive producers, insists, though, that ``Betty'' would have succeeded even without that push from ``Devil.''

``I knew this would be incredibly successful in this country because everyone loves fish-out-of-water stories,'' Hayek says. ``It became an incredible success in all of the Latin countries and then in many places around the world.''

Producer Ben Silverman, who is largely responsible for getting the show on American TV, says, ``It is an eternal story. It is `Cinderella.' It is `My Fair Lady.' It has worked a thousand times in a thousand places in a thousand ways.''

The original ``Ugly Betty'' -- ``Yo Soy Betty la Fea'' -- was created by writer Fernando Gaitan as something more than the standard, overly melodramatic telenovela. What he had in mind with his heroine Beatriz Pinzon Solano was a statement about how people perceive beauty.

The show ran for two years and 340 half-hour episodes, pulling in an audience of 3 million nightly. (Unlike the American version, the Colombian original aired every weeknight.) The basic ugly duckling concept was snapped up quickly by TV producers in other countries: Betty became Jassi in India and Lotte in the Netherlands.

``Betty La Fea'' was even a hit in America six years ago when the original was shown on Telemundo, the Spanish-language network. ``She was our highest-rated program,'' says then-Telemundo president James M. McNamara. ``At the time our network was getting killed every day, and `Betty' helped put us on the map.''

But even with the show's success overseas, an Americanized version was a hard sell.

Silverman -- who has built his reputation on repackaging shows from other countries for the networks (``The Office,'' ``Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'') -- says his insistence that the lead character should be Latina, and that the show ought to reflect the life of a young first-generation American, didn't fly with network executives who saw it as a half-hour sitcom.

``But it was the story we really wanted to tell,'' Silverman says. ``Layering in the first-generation immigrant experience and saddling Betty with other issues that exist within American culture was very important to us.''

Finally -- with Hayek coming onboard as producer and Silvio Horta (``Jake 2.0'') added as the lead producer-writer -- ABC went for an hourlong serialized comedy-drama version.

The result is a magical blend of humor, social commentary and glitzy soap that manages to be sweet without devolving into the saccharine.

College graduate Betty Suarez, still living at home in Queens, stumbles into a job at Mode magazine where she's an assistant to editor in chief Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius of ``The L Word''), the owner's oversexed and journalistically clueless son. Like Anne Hathaway's Andy Sachs in ``Devil,'' she immediately finds herself scorned and dismissed by the magazine's pretty people.

And she makes an enemy of the magazine's Botox-addicted, manipulative fashionista in chief Wilhelmina Slater (Broadway star Vanessa Williams), who thinks she should be editor (she's the show's equivalent of Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly in ``Devil'').

What support Betty gets she gets at home from her father, Ignacio (Tony Plana, ``Resurrection Boulevard''), older sister Hilda (Ana Ortiz from ``Over There'') and fashion-obsessed young nephew Justin (newcomer Mark Indelicato).

Betty ``forgives people for not understanding who she is,'' Ferrera says. ``She doesn't resent them. She's not angry toward them. She's a lot more forgiving than she should be.''

Horta suggests that ``there's an optimism and a naivete to Betty, and that optimism will always be there, but she's going to be challenged as a person. We rely on and trust her to do the right thing, even as she's constantly challenged by the people around her.''

He adds that even though the world of Mode has more flash and trash, Betty's home life is just as crucial to the show. ``The family life is as important as the work life, and seeing the collision of these two worlds is a cornerstone of this project.''

Indeed, the moments back in Queens give ``Betty'' a richness and depth that might otherwise be lacking. But the driving force behind the show's appeal is Ferrera, who gives a pitch-perfect, killer performance in the opening episodes. She is believably lovable, a strong heroine most viewers will have an easy time cheering on each week.

And Betty's outsider status is something Ferrera can relate to. The youngest of six children, she grew up in Woodland Hills with her Honduran-born mother. In her neighborhood, she says, she got to go to a lot of bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs but never to a quinceañera.

``I didn't even know I was `fat' until I started acting,'' Ferrera says. ``I didn't know how `fat and ugly' I was until I started going to auditions. I don't feel that way inside.''

Now, she adds, ``when I'm in character and I'm wearing Betty's costume, I never feel more confident, more beautiful. I never feel more pretty on the inside than when I'm being her.

``I wish that I, one day, as myself, can feel the way I feel when I'm Betty, because when I'm Betty, there's a light that shines from the inside, and it's so wonderful to be her.''

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/15597985.htm

fredfa

09-27-06, 07:09 PM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
Fall TV's most interesting character
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher”

Months before its premiere, controversy began swirling around "Ugly Betty" (7 p.m. Thursday, WLS-Ch. 7), ABC’s adaptation of a popular Colombian telenovela about an unhip striver in the catty fashion world.

Some observers found the very title an offense to womanhood. Besides, who’d want to watch a show about a determined but unfashionable girl in a haute-y magazine environment?

The success of “The Devil Wears Prada” shows there’s an appetite for the subject, however, and anyone who allows the "Betty" controversy to put them off this winning comedy-drama is missing out.

Despite its soapy, even campy elements, “Betty” is not the next crowd-pleasing “Grey’s Anatomy” or “Desperate Housewives.” Though ABC showed massive faith in its new drama by putting it next to “Grey’s” on Thursdays, the network is bound to be disappointed if it expects huge numbers from “Betty.”

But the viewers who fall under the spell of this unique concoction won’t be. Those who can identify with Betty’s plight -- anyone who has ever felt like the ugly duckling among swans, any veteran of battles fought not with fists but with cutting remarks and exclusion -- should find a lot to like.

Aspiring journalist Betty Suarez, she of the thick eyebrows, thicker braces and unflattering ponchos, snags a job interview at Meade Publishing, which puts out many of her favorite magazines. She’s no fashionista, but Betty lands a plum job as assistant to the editor of Mode, Meade’s flagship couture publication, because Bradford Meade, the head of the company, wants to keep his wayward son Daniel, the Mode editor, and a “notorious man-whore,” from bedding yet another of his staffers.

The rest of the staff is not amused. Glancing at Betty’s look, which is a calvacade of “don’t’s,” one onlooker sniffs, “This is Mode, not Dog Fancy.”

“Betty” walks a fine line between satire and drama and, astonishingly, it doesn’t fall off that razor’s edge very often. It’s also impressive that it manages to retain the essential sweetness of its title character. "Betty" mixes comedy, social commentary and drama in a way that few other programs, aside from Showtime’s darker “Weeds,” manage to pull off. (“Desperate Housewives” is a cautionary tale of how that mixture can go sour.)

With her determined chin jutting out, her eyes bright with intelligence and her heart full of hope and ambition, Betty Suarez is by far the most interesting new character of the TV season (and how refreshing that she’s not a cop, a doctor or a lawyer). As played by the terrific America Ferrera, Betty’s no victim; she understands that most of the Mode staff is out to get her.

But Betty makes a few friends, and even manages to occasionally outsmart her many office rivals, whose tortures range from the petty to the deeply mean. She even wins over her feckless but more or less decent boss, who eventually comes crawling to Betty’s house, not just to apologize for his cold behavior but because he realizes he needs her help.

In his expensive suit, Daniel comments politely on the Suarez house’s décor. “We’re between interior designers,” Betty tartly responds, before expertly putting Daniel in his place.

Daniel’s battle for control of Mode with the diva editor Wilhemina Slater -- a role that Vanessa Williams sinks her considerable claws into with glee -- and Betty’s attempt to make her perilous way at Meade give the show plenty of soapy potential (and Gina Gershon’s cameo as a Donatella Versace-esque designer is not to be missed). But the acting talent on display gives “Betty” the potential to be much more than just a catty soap opera, and I fondly hope the writers have enough skill to make this show as endearing in 20 episodes as it is now.

Still, one wishes the show’s producers had not put Mode’s offices in an ’80s time warp of white, orange and curves (was that even hip in the ’80s?). There are a few others jarring elements as well: Wilhemina’s campy assistant wears the clothes not of a dandy but of a clown, and the breathless commentators on the fashion channel that Mode staffers watch are distractingly over the top. And there’s one dark story line involving Wilhemina that is completely extraneous and should go.

But this risky show gets the main things right. For me, it was impossible to watch the first two episodes of “Ugly Betty” and not want to see where this plucky, unplucked heroine ends up.

http://tempo.typepad.com/entertainment_tv/

fredfa

09-27-06, 07:15 PM

The Digital Revolution
Pretty Soon, You'll Be Able To Just Toss the TV Set and DVD Player Altogether
By Ray Richmond The Hollywood Reporter in his blog “Past Deadline”

Earlier this week, my very talented blog colleague Steve Bryant and many others discovered a Website offering viewing online of pretty much every episode of "The Simpsons" ever to air, which means nearly 400 of them.

Now, there's a place in cyberspace that's done the all-"Simpsons" site one better -- or actually, for. It features not only all of the "Simpsons" installments but also what appears to be every episode of "South Park," "Futurama," "Family Guy" and "American Dad" as well, all in one convenient freeloading slice of cartoon heaven. And it's even reasonably fast, without much in the way of pauses and interruptions. Not terrible quality, either. Enjoy it while you can. The lawyers can't help but file that cease-and-desist order any minute now. The only reason it hasn't been taken down already is those same barristers are no doubt looking to pile up the billable hours first.

Note: You can check it all out…for the moment…at these sites:

http://www.allsimps.com/

Or

tp://dailyepisodes.com/

http://www.pastdeadline.com/

fredfa

09-27-06, 07:34 PM

This is pretty inside TV stuff…but then it is about “Studio 60”, which is pretty inside, too. Nikki always brings up some good points, but feel to skip to the next item if your hair starts to hurt as you start to read this.
The New Season
Problem With 'Studio 60' Is Scheduling:
Would Beckman Have Let This Happen?
By Nikki Finke LA Weekly in her deadlinehollywooddaily blog

Don't get me wrong: I like this show. But the primary problem with NBC's expensive but struggling Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip isn't the Aaron Sorkin inside-the-bubble flourishes, or the smarty-pants staccato scripts, or the high-priced/high-profile cast. It's the truly awful scheduling. Granted, ABC last spring threw that monkey wrench into NBC's plans to air Studio 60 on Thursday nights when Grey's Anatomy was moved there (instead of Monday nights). But Monday nights are a lousy time slot for Studio 60 when Sunday night at 10 pm would have been so right. After all, Grey's Anatomy premiered on March 27, 2005, in the same Sunday slot, and that was a winning strategy.

So I don't understand why NBC didn't wait to debut Studio 60 in mid-season after football ended. As it stands now, ESPN's Monday Night Football is eating into its audience. And it can't move to Sunday until it can replace NBC Sunday Night Football. Of course, others might argue that Studio 60's woes go deeper than scheduling, since during premiere week too many Deal Or No Deal viewers turned off the new series within 30 minutes. But it's obvious that Deal and Studio 60 attract very different demos and a game show was the wrong lead-in. Its first week out, Studio 60 wasn't even in the Nielsen Top 20, and its second episode following lead-in Heroes attracted even fewer eyeballs. Now NBC is in a quandary:

If Studio 60 gets moved to Sunday nights or even stays Monday nights and continues airing shows in order, then newcomers will feel lost. And if the network repeats those earlier shows, then existing fans will get bored. It's a dilemma I can't help but think 'King O' The Grids' scheduling guru Preston Beckman would never have let NBC confront.

I've written before in LA Weekly about Beckman. There's no more controversial executive occupying a corporate network job than this guy who brought his "kill and win" style of guerrilla scheduling from NBC to Fox Broadcasting in June 2000 as executive vice president for strategic program planning and research. His so-called genius (only in the lunacy of network television does doing so little often mean so much) was to construct a midseason schedule that spread American Idol and Joe Millionaire over Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to put some heat behind the network's scripted shows. Idol jump-started That '70s Show and Bernie Mac and 24 while Joe helped ignite Boston Public.

The result was that, including the Sunday-night success The Simpsons, Fox solidly won four nights. And that's when NBC's nightmares began, falling eventually to 4th place. Conan O'Brien fans may recognize Beckman's name from his Late Night comedy bits. The Parents Television Council says Beckman singlehandedly dismantled the 8 p.m. "Family Hour" by scheduling adult series like Friends and Mad About You in the sacrosanct time slot. And Just Shoot Me! viewers should recall a former mental patient named Preston Beckman in the 1997 "My Dinner With Woody" episode -- which was executive producer Steven Levitan's way of getting back at the NBC scheduling guru for not just hating the show's pilot but also giving it the Wednesday, 9:30 p.m. time slot, which was then NBC's equivalent of dead air.

But was Bob Wright outFoxed? Beckman was former NBC entertainment president Warren Littlefield's Mini-Me (although some saw it as the other way around, saying Beckman talked Littlefield into that one-time disastrous schedule of 18 sitcoms over four nights). Both red-headed, both bearded, both "not one of those TV guys" (that is, Les Moonves, Ted Harbert and Jon Feltheimer who played golf together at the Riviera), they were an inseparable team. Until the day they talked themselves into thinking they could actually replace then NBC West Coast head Don Ohlmeyer. Littlefield was pushed out not long after the attempted palace coup. Ohlmeyer, too, left.

Replacement Scott Sassa, asked by a friend how long before Beckman would be fired, said, 'Even I have to have my *******s.'" Beckman left NBC when his contract ran out in June 2000. Some say he was pushed before he jumped. But it's sure looking like a mistake to lose him now that, year after year, NBC's primetime fortunes have sunk lower and lower.

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/problem-with-studio-60-is-scheduling-2/

fredfa

09-27-06, 07:51 PM

Critic’s Blog
''Studio 60'': Now That You've Seen the Second Episode...
By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog (with help from his readers)

... here's the question: Did the cold open live up to the hype? I mentioned before that I didn't think it was all that good, and I still don't think so. I mean, an edgy and contemporary show -- and it supposedly wows the crowd with a riff from Gilbert & Sullivan? That cuts into the credibility of the piece; if the sketch wasn't really great, we probably shouldn't have seen it at all. Then again, I have heard conflicting opinions at work -- pro-sketch and anti-sketch. Any thoughts out there?

Comments

First I gave it two seasons, max. Now, maybe just one. It ain't good, folks.
--Soonerthought | Sep 26, 2006 12:30:33 PM

I loved it! I immediately thought of Sports Night as I watched --- the writing was clever and sarcastic and kept me entertained. And then I watched Heroes on tape and gave Studiio 60 more extra credit. Heroes was stupid. It reminded me of that show that started last year with a 2 hour pilot --- supposedly about creatures/aliens out there --- and it did not last long. So I give Studio 2 thumbs up.
--BabsLRS | Sep 26, 2006 1:16:31 PM

Not a great sketch. Not a great episode. Still excellent potential. I'm still too busy referring to the leads as Josh, Chandler, Miss Isringhausen and such.

It did make me think about the final SNL of the 1980-81 season. The terrible (TERRIBLE!) first season with a new cast replacing the originals which resulted in something akin to a public outcry for a merciful death. That show was mostly recast, had a new producer, and was promoted as an attempt to save the show. I remember it as not incredibly funny, but as being inspired and energized enough to hope they'd get another shot. They did.
--Robb Hyde | Sep 26, 2006 6:09:42 PM

I really have to disagree, I LOVED it. Gilbert & Sullivan was used in The West Wing as well, and frankly I think that NBC needs to simply be targeting that demographic instead of trying to consistently point out how "hip" this show is. I actually had to listen to the song again to catch a few of the lines, but I absolutely loved it. This show will be on my watch list as long as it is on.
--Roger | Sep 26, 2006 7:05:17 PM

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/2006/09/studio_60_now_t.html

fredfa

09-27-06, 10:56 PM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
'Ugly Betty' tackles the cruel fashion world with grace
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic Thursday, September 28, 2006

On the face of it, "Ugly Betty" looks like a one-note exercise in meanness, from the title on down to the various cruelties visited upon the heroine by her co-workers at Mode magazine.

Even without the harpy chorus, she doesn't get a break. Betty Suarez is plump, with frizzy hair, thick glasses, braces and a sense of style taken from Librarian's Monthly. In our image-obsessed world, Betty fails on all counts.

But there's a reason so many aphorisms exist about the folly of judging by appearances.

America Ferrera, the charismatic actress under that metal mouth and Coke-bottle specs, makes Betty a beacon of intelligence, depth and kindness in a sea of fashion mavens whose merits are barely skin deep.

Betty also stands for real people. If her self-esteem is attacked in each episode, she's only reflecting the internal struggle so many of us experience every time we turn on the television or pass a magazine stand.

That only begins to explain why "Ugly Betty" may be the fall's best new series and, at the same time, the riskiest network television entry of the season.

Let's not sugarcoat it -- it's an underdog. It was long before ABC, pumped up by positive critical buzz, decided to move it off Fridays to the more cutthroat 8 p.m. Thursday time slot.

"Ugly Betty" is an Americanized version of the telenovela "Betty la fea," which originated in Colombia, a country famous for churning out beauty queens.

ABC and executive producer Salma Hayek at first toyed with the idea of stripping it in multiple runs per week, but the once-a-week format won out. Some elements of the classic telenovela flavor stayed, primarily the cartoonish villains, over-the-top vamps and comic moments teetering between tongue-in-cheek and flat-out camp. In essence, this is a new kind of dramedy, one that could require an acclimatization period the typical viewer might not be willing to give.

(Hayek, by the way, appears in a horrendously acted telenovela within the show, which is constantly on in Betty's home. Perhaps we're to take its regular presence as a reminder of the origins of "Ugly Betty," and as evidence that ABC's version could have been executed with a remarkably lower level of sophistication.)

"Ugly Betty" was always meant to be much more than the title, and far more than a television version of "The Devil Wears Prada." The TV series is similar to the movie in the sense that they're both fairy tales placing modern professional women as Cinderellas, with a New York office replacing the grand ballroom in the king's castle.

"Ugly Betty" goes a step further by tackling class issues. Betty Suarez comes from a tightly knit working-class family headed by her father, Ignacio (Tony Plana), a widower. Her tough, loyal sister, Hilda (Ana Ortiz), sells diet aids, and her young nephew, Justin (scene-stealer Mark Indelicato), unlike Betty, is obsessed with high fashion.

Family love steels her against what she has to face on her job at Mode magazine, which lost its Anna Wintour-like leader Fey Sommers in a car accident.

Instead of handing the publication over to Sommers' heir apparent, Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams), publishing mogul Bradford Meade (Alan Dale) shocks the fashion world by naming his playboy son, Daniel (Eric Mabius), editor in chief.

Nobody has much faith in Daniel, and it's easy to see why. Shortly after his hire, Bradford walks in on his son "giving dictation" to his lovely assistant. Who is beneath his desk.

She is sent packing, and dumpy Betty gets hired as Daniel's new assistant, scandalizing the well-dressed witches who would kill to be in her Aerosoles by showing up in a tacky poncho.

So Betty endures a hazing period that would put most people into an institution, including one of the most uncomfortable, nauseating scenes of humiliation you'll ever see on TV. All this, after her boyfriend dumps her for the neighborhood skank.

In spite of the series' Colombian origins, and the fact that its format has been successfully imitated in Germany, Greece, Russia, Spain and Mexico, "Ugly Betty" encompasses much of the can-do, up-by-the-bootstraps spirit many would claim as uniquely American. That could prove to be its main source of attraction.

Yes, there is cruelty, and Betty usually turns the other cheek, that is, when she's aware that it's happening. Betty's naivete can make you wince, but she's also unbreakable, handling every indignity with grace. She also happens to be smarter and more thoughtful than the small minds trying to defeat her and, more to the point, dethrone Daniel.

Wilhelmina isn't happy about Bradford's snub. She had planned to use the promotion to stage a coup, opening the door to a sinister subplot boiling beneath the small battles Betty has to wage each day.

Wilhelmina answers to another boss, you see. And Bradford Meade has some shadowy machinations of his own in the works.

Though the corporate mysteries underneath all this hint at a dark twist, the primary appeal of "Ugly Betty" is in the budding chemistry between Ferrera and Mabius. Betty isn't merely Daniel's secret weapon, she's there to force him to grow a sympathetic soul behind that pretty face. Mabius wisely starts down that path in subtle increments.

They're also surrounded by a terrific cast. Williams plays the corporate back-stabber with chilly, restrained ease, and Betty's friend and fairy godmother, Christina (Ashley Jensen, "Extras") the in-house seamstress who arms Betty with the dirt on the company's main movers, grants a necessary warm contrast to all the hideous behavior.

Getting past the title may still prove to be a hurdle, but beyond that, the success of "Ugly Betty" hinges on convincing wider audiences that it's a drama about universal struggles -- namely, to be true to one's sense of individuality and still succeed against all odds -- instead of merely a soap about fashion magazines.

By the end of the premiere, handsome Daniel and ugly Betty have something in common: Everyone dismisses them as people trying to be something that, to the rest of the world, they're clearly not. Ideally, audiences don't behave similarly toward this series. Like the lovely Betty, its brilliance is not to be underestimated.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/286670_tv28.html

fredfa

09-27-06, 11:27 PM

TV Notebook
‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Creator Finds Success in Surgery
By Lola Ogunnaike The New York Times September 28, 2006
LOS ANGELES — It was probably inevitable that Shonda Rhimes would create “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC’s runaway hit about the romantic entanglements and complicated lives of surgeons and their overworked interns at a Seattle hospital. For two years during high school, she worked as a candy striper.

“I loved that job,” she recalled the other day. “I’m perfectly comfortable in hospitals.” She also admits to having a passion for shows about medical procedures: the pressure, the blood, the scalpels, she finds it all intriguing. “I love to watch all those surgeries on the Discovery Channel and the Learning Channel,” she said. “I’m a surgical junkie.”

Apparently Ms. Rhimes is not the only one. Her show’s mixture of medicine, drama and sex has proved such a winning formula that more than 25 million viewers tuned in last week to watch its season premiere.

Since the show’s debut in 2005 it has been one of television’s top-rated series, and for this the network rewarded Ms. Rhimes with a two-year, $10 million deal. But the biggest sign of the show’s success is ABC’s decision to move it from Sunday nights following “Desperate Housewives” to Thursday nights, where it is now going head to head with CBS’s popular crime series “CSI,” whose season premiere last week drew three million fewer viewers than “Grey’s Anatomy.”

“It’s an amazing vote of confidence, and I was thrilled that the guys at ABC think that we can anchor a night,” Ms. Rhimes said.

Her accomplishment is particularly noteworthy in a field that is still dominated by white males, said Ron Simon, a curator at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York. “She’s the only black woman show runner on a dramatic show at this point on the major networks,” he said. “It’s a tremendous achievement for a woman, African-American or otherwise.”

At her office in the residential Los Feliz neighborhood, where lawns are perfectly manicured and homes are tastefully understated, Ms. Rhimes, 36, sat in front of a computer tweaking a script for a future episode. Posters of some of the films Ms. Rhimes had written before coming to television hung on the walls: “Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement”; “Crossroads,” a coming-of-age movie starring Britney Spears; and the television biopic “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge,” which won Halle Berry both an Emmy and a Golden Globe.

Ms. Rhimes admitted that she was a bit surprised by the popularity of “Grey’s Anatomy,” which revolves around a surgical intern, Meredith Grey (played by Ellen Pompeo), and her on-again off-again love affair with Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), a neurosurgeon nicknamed Dr. McDreamy.

“I knew that I really liked it, my friends liked it, my family liked it, but it never occurred to me that stuff I came up with at home in my pajamas people would respond to,” she said, adding that fans often approach her in the grocery quoting lines from the show. “It’s all still surreal to me.”

She says that writing for television is more demanding that writing for the movies. “Before, I would write one or two movies a year, which means I’d work two months out of the year,” she said. “Television is 24 hours, seven days a week, and I never thought I’d like something like this, but I love it. It’s such an adrenaline rush.”

She said that learning to collaborate with a team of writers was an adjustment. On the show’s official blog, greyswriters.com, Krista Vernoff, a writer, recalled Ms. Rhimes’s first day on the set. “There was, of course, Shonda who had never been in a writer’s room before and who lurked outside the door, brooding and disturbed like maybe we were all vampires who would eat her soul if she stepped foot inside.”

Ms. Rhimes acknowledged her initial trepidation. “The concept of sitting in a room with a bunch of people and spilling out the ideas in my head seemed a little exhausting, and it seemed antithetical to the process by which I work, but now it doesn’t feel that way at all,” she said. “I became incredibly grateful for my staff of writers really quickly.”

People who work with Ms. Rhimes have noticed her changed demeanor. “She’s always been very sure of what she believes and very clear about what she wants to say, but her confidence has grown, and I’m really watching her evolve into an incredible show runner and executive producer,” said Betsy Beers, an executive producer on the show. “It’s been kind of astonishing.”

What hasn’t changed is Ms. Rhimes’s commitment to having an ethnically diverse cast, which includes a black chief of surgery, a black chief resident and Asian and Hispanic interns as well as various white characters. “We had everyone of every color read for every single part, and it was about casting the best actor in the room,” she said. “I don’t think a lot of shows do that, but it just makes sense to me.”

That diversity, she said, makes writing a bit easier for her. “If you have a show in which there’s only one character of color — which is what most shows do — then you have a weird obligation to make that person slightly saintly because they are representing all the people of color,” she explained. “But if you have all different races, people get to be good or bad, flawed, selfish, competitive.”

Growing up the youngest of six children in Chicago, Ms. Rhimes said, she preferred reading books to watching television. Her mother, a professor of education administration at DePaul University, and her father, an administrator at Ohio State University, encouraged her to read anything on the family’s bookshelf. “I read everything from Nancy Drew and ‘Secret Garden’ to ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ when I was 10,” Ms. Rhimes said.

She graduated from Dartmouth with a degree in English literature and creative writing and landed a job in advertising. After a year she decided she hated it and enrolled in film school at the University of Southern California.

“I loved it immediately,” she said. “I discovered that this is what I wanted to do.” In the mid-to-late 90’s, she sold her first screenplay, “Human Seeking Same,” about a couple who fall in love through the personal ads. The movie was never made, but the mid-six-figure check she received made it possible for her to write full time.

It wasn’t until Ms. Rhimes adopted a child, now 4, that she began spending time at home and really watching television. “I realized a lot of the really good character development is happening on TV,” said Ms. Rhimes, who was huge fan of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” “The language was great, the world was great, and you completely invested in those characters. I’m still not over its cancellation.”

In 2002 she wrote a script for a television series that followed the lives of a group of war correspondents; it was not picked up. “They drank a lot and had a lot of sex, and the war was always sort of secondary,” she said, “so when we suddenly went to war, it seemed in poor taste to have a show about people having fun covering war.” Ms. Rhimes said she was in the process of reviving the project.

Ms. Rhimes, who once watched three films a day in the theaters, hasn’t been to the movies in three years, she said. When she does have a spare moment from “Grey’s Anatomy” (which is rare) she prefers watching television shows like “Lost,” “Weeds” and “Project Runway.”

“I’m freakishly obsessed with the American version of ‘The Office,’ ” she said.

She is fiercely protective of her show’s plot points, refusing to divulge any details about the new season. Will Meredith end up with McDreamy for good?

“I’ve always been a person who hated spoilers,” she said, shrugging. “If you already know what’s happening on a show, why are you watching it?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/arts/television/28anat.html?adxnnl=1&ref=television&adxnnlx=1159413831-gcFFARKh1fTRV/OTrq2e6g&pagewanted=print

fredfa

09-27-06, 11:30 PM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
'Ugly's' many attractions
You can't exactly call it original, but it's not like anything else on the U.S. network schedule.
By Robert Lloyd Los Angeles Times Staff Writer September 28, 2006

"Ugly Betty" tells the story of Betty Suarez (America Ferrera), a bright, eager young Mexican American from Queens who is hired by Bradford Meade (Alan Dale), the head of a great publishing empire, to be the assistant to his callow playboy son Daniel (Eric Mabius), the new editor in chief of the fashion magazine Mode — because, the father reasons, she is too unattractive for the son to want to sleep with. To the son's dismay, of course. And so begins one of the season's best new shows.

You can't exactly call it original, given that it's based on a Colombian telenovela, "Yo Soy Betty, la Fea," that has already spawned versions in India, Israel, Germany, Russia, the Netherlands, Spain and Mexico ("La Fea Más Bella," running here currently on Univision). But it's not like anything else on the U.S. network schedule.

Premiering tonight at 9 PM ET/PT on ABC — which moved the series from the scheduling Siberia of Friday night to the warm sandy beaches of Thursday, as fitting penance for having created "Extreme Makeover," I like to think — this is one of those happy occasions when all the many people it takes to make a television show seem to understand it in the same way: Each element of the production supports every other element, so that the characters seem immediately real in a real world. Not the real world that we live in, to be sure, but as an old Astaire and Rogers film might offer a vision of London or Manhattan or Venice, true only to our dreams and desires. And this is no easy trick: It's easier to cook a hamburger — and there is a lot of hamburger on television — than it is to make a soufflé.

Set in the enchanted and dangerous forest of New York publishing and fashion, peopled with characters who are obviously good or evidently evil, it has the power and sweetness of a fairy tale; but it isn't exactly the Cinderella story it first seems. It is more emancipated than that. Betty is also Dorothy gone over the rainbow — though all the color is back home in Queens, where she lives with her loving father (Tony Plana), sassy sister (Ana Ortiz) and budding fashionista nephew (Mark Indelicato), while the offices of Mode are largely white and icy blue, designed with the clean, curving and slightly antiseptic lines of a 1960s vision of the future.

As the magazine's creative director Wilhelmina, frostily furious at having been denied the editor's job, Vanessa Williams is every inch the evil queen and comes with her own Magic Mirror/Flying Monkey, the obsequious and ironic Marc (Michael Urie), who does her dark errands and administers her Botox injections. Ashley Jensen plays a fairy godmother figure, a Mode wardrobe mistress who looks out for Betty. And Daniel is the charming prince, but only sort of.

This is not "Working Girl," though it repeats that film's Manhattan versus the Boroughs dialectic, nor "The Devil Wears Prada," though it also concerns an unfashionable person coming to work at a fashion magazine. Betty, though she is not what walks down the runways of Milan and Paris (and is sometimes shot in a way that emphasizes her wideness), is neither a frump nor a mouse for technicians or magicians to make over — she's a ray of sunshine, a whole sunrise, bursting with color, face lighted up by a wide smile doubly gleaming for the braces splayed across her perfectly white teeth. When she tells herself "You are an attractive, intelligent, confident businesswoman," she is only reminding herself of what she already believes.

It's something of a relief, really, that Daniel and Betty are so clearly destined to be friends and collaborators rather than to fall in love, as usually happens in these things. Both are new at what they do, are expected to fail, and are eager to prove themselves, and both are mightily conspired against: Betty by the co-workers who shun her in the cafeteria and play cruel tricks on the stuffed bunny on her desk, and most cruelly by receptionist Amanda (a deliciously catlike Becki Newton), who craves her job; and Daniel by Wilhelmina and powers as yet unrevealed.

Romance would betray these characters and the beauty-is-skin-deep message of the show — "fantasy" doesn't mean that anything can happen, there are still rules. Indeed, Daniel is in no important respect Betty's equal; if anything, she's transforming him, making him into a better person. And Betty already has a boyfriend (Kevin Sussman).

Although there is something undoubtedly potent in the DNA of this show — we all want to be seen for who we are, behind our heavy brows, bad hair, thick glasses, or whatever else we imagine obscures our true, good qualities — Ferrera, who starred in "Real Women Have Curves" and, out of costume, takes a glamour shot as well as any young Hollywood actress, is certainly what makes this version go. It's a sparkling performance of a many-faceted character — a girlfriend, daughter, sister, aunt, helper and heroine, on a journey not to the prince's castle but someplace she can call her own.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-wk-ugly28sep28,0,2898405,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

fredfa

09-27-06, 11:53 PM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
A Plucky Guppy Among the Barracudas
By Virginia Heffernan The New York Times September 28, 2006

“Ugly Betty” is indeed cute. But she’s the new girl. Let’s not all pounce on her at once. It’s too much to ask of this mostly guileless, slightly ungainly series that it be another “Lost” or “Desperate Housewives” for ABC this year, so maybe we should watch aloofly, starting tonight. Let’s let Betty find her locker and her lunch table, and observe her without asking that she be more than she is.

Of course we can still gossip. This ABC melodramedy, which has attracted big attention both for being an American telenovela and for being funny and good, has a slight premise: an ungorgeous Latina goes to work at a fashion magazine. She’s hired by the father of the party-boy editor in chief because she’s too homely to tempt him into dissipation. Can this sitcom setup work in an hourlong format?

Seems dubious, but “Ugly Betty” is onto the doubts about it and stands ready to turn them into plot. As Betty Suarez, the sexy actress America Ferrera, here defaced by braces and bangs, sets her mouth, squares her shoulders and takes on the part like a linebacker. She’s bravely playing a character who’s coded as ugly, which means she’s still eating food, which is apparently about the bravest thing a television actress can do.

Nourished, braced, standing firm, Betty asks that the world come at her, and come it does: fink boyfriend, vain sister, ineffectual father, trampy neighbor. And that’s just in Queens, where she lives. In Manhattan, at the Vogue-like Mode magazine, Betty finds conniving executives, ruthless monomaniacs, strivers without principles, chubby clock watchers, Uriah Heeps and Iagos and the usual New York office crowd.

So who is Betty in the midst of these grotesques? She’s meant to be nothing but smart and good, though in life the two traits rarely fit perfectly together. And because she’s also “ugly” she’s assumed to have made the ultimate personal sacrifice in our vain world, and her intelligence and wholesomeness are meant to be not only absolute but perfectly compatible. This improbability causes some problems in characterization. The big joke of tonight’s episode is that Betty interprets the comeback of the poncho as permission for her to turn up at work in a red eyesore emblazoned with the word “Guadalajara.”

Naïve and touching, yes, but just to play devil’s advocate what kind of college graduate, as Betty is supposed to be, wears a gift shop poncho on her first day at work, thinking it’s what she’s seeing in magazines? This error is less evidence of a mind on higher things than it is a cognitive disability.

For a serious-minded girl not to understand couture or street-trash ensembles like the designs of Jeffrey Sebelia on “Project Runway” might be admirable. But for a literate, sentient, self-aware young woman to prefer bulky belted layers in clashing patterns and cacophonous shades of red and orange to (at least) the affordable A-line skirts and cotton button-downs at Old Navy or Target, that makes no sense. Commedia characterization on pseudorealist television can be exhausting: just as not every rich person has to wear an ascot, not every provincial girl has to dress like a mental patient.

Betty’s clothes, in other words, the most flamboyant side of her, have not been integrated into her character. They’re a free-standing gag, and that gag cannot last long. Whether there’s a show without that gag, though: that is the question.

Salma Hayek, an executive producer who will also appear sporadically on the show, adapted “Ugly Betty” from a Colombian telenovela called “Yo Soy Betty La Fea.” Ms. Hayek has an uncanny aptitude for blending comedy and melodrama, and she’s managed to infuse the show upstairs and downstairs with soapy fun. There’s a dark corporate plot at Mode, and outrageous catfights in Queens. The ambience of telenovela is everywhere, and conspicuously on the television set in the Queens house, where everyone is addicted to the makeuppy theatrics.

Betty also likes the show — she’s smart but not skeptical — and that’s a nice touch. That wonderful moony side of her comes through even more in her scenes with Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius), her boss; Mr. Mabius, who is handsome, and Ms. Ferrera have a sparkling rapport that is the making of this show. He can hold his own with her, and Betty’s crush on him is so hopeless as to seem genuinely and tragically muted.

Daniel, for his part, is sexually drawn to Betty too, but out of perversity — She’s his servant? She’s ugly and thus would be grateful even for abuse? — that this show should probably never make explicit. In any case the two have a valet-hero back-and-forth that, if the writers really explore it, might make them a prime-time Wooster and Jeeves.

But I’m getting ahead of things. Way ahead. “Ugly Betty” is a sweet, funny show. It’s worth watching. And we’ll see.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/arts/television/28heff.html?ref=television&pagewanted=prin

fredfa

09-28-06, 12:58 AM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
Likable 'Betty' aided by a lovable lead
By Robert Bianco USA Today

In the long run, charm can be far more appealing than beauty.

And it there's one thing Ugly Betty has in near-excess, it's charm — led by an enormously endearing, unobtrusively skillful, star-making turn from America Ferrera as Betty.

A lovely woman in real life, Ferrera hides her looks behind bushy eyebrows, bad hair and glistening braces, and yet she emerges more lovely than ever. She glows, and she lights the show up from within.

Not that Betty lacks for bright lights. Produced by Salma Hayek, this American adaptation of a popular telenovela revels in cartoon colors and emotions, from the Day-Glo orange office furniture to the out-of-scale misbehavior of the supporting characters.

This Latin-tinged take on Cinderella is the story of a kind, smart, lumpy girl from Queens who yearns for a job at a "serious" magazine — and ends up as the assistant to the editor of a high-gloss fashion mag, Mode.

Magazine mogul Bradford Meade (Alan Dale) has just turned Mode over to his playboy son, Daniel (Eric Mabius), and he figures the only way to keep Daniel's mind on work is to give him an ugly assistant.

As you might guess, the message of this fashion fairy tale is that Betty is not ugly, at least not in any meaningful sense. That insult better applies to the physically perfect people plotting against her, like Wilhelmina (Vanessa Williams), a diva who hates Daniel because she wants his job.

Betty finds support at home from her father (Tony Plana) and fiery sister (Ana Ortiz). Yet the relative who may prove most helpful is her young nephew Justin (Mark Indelicato), who's addicted to fashion TV and The Devil Wears Prada.

From work to home, Betty is a collection of stereotypes, but this is a show (and a genre) that works in very broad strokes. Every joke at Betty's expense is countered by a scene that emphasizes her worth and spunk. And even Daniel (engagingly played by Mabius) eventually is allowed to show a little humanity underneath the self-absorption.

Still, like its characters, Betty would benefit from a steadier hand at the wheel. The second episode, while still enjoyable, is a bit slight and repetitive.

And aside from Mabius, the performances on the Mode side of the story are no more than adequate. (And a few fall below that mark.) There is no new show more likable, but that affection may waver if Betty can't give Ferrera the scripts and support she deserves.

Even intense charm can curdle if you lean on it exclusively.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/reviews/2006-09-27-review-ugly-betty_x.htm

fredfa

09-28-06, 01:14 AM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
Spanish-soap-style 'Betty' could be Cinderella story
By Kevin D. Thompson Palm Beach Post Television Writer Thursday, September 28, 2006

Salma Hayek knows Spanish soap operas.

The stunningly beautiful actress, after all, starred on two Mexican telenovelas before becoming a Hollywood movie star (Once Upon a Time in Mexico), a widely respected film producer (Frida) and a celebrated Avon spokeswoman.

Hayek even won two TV Novela awards — the equivalent of an Emmy — for Best Actress and Best Newcomer.

So, when the rights to Yo Soy Betty, la Fea, the insanely popular Colombian telenovela, were up for grabs in the United States, Hayek didn't waste any time snapping them up.

The result: Ugly Betty, one of the season's most buzzed-about new shows. ABC is so high on the series, it moved the show from its original Friday-night dead zone time slot to the more plum 8 p.m. Thursday spot right before the white-hot Grey's Anatomy.

After watching the series, you understand why.

Betty stars the wonderfully charming America Ferrera (Real Women Have Curves) as Betty Suarez, a full-figured, braces-sporting, fashion-challenged (she wears blindingly colorful ponchos from Guadalajara!) editorial assistant at Mode, a glossy Manhattan fashion mag teeming with sniping editors, stick-thin models and catty receptionists.

Think The Devil Wears Prada meets Cinderella.

"The American audience is very thirsty for something like this," says Hayek, one of the show's executive producers, who also has a hilarious cameo in the pilot as a catfighting telenovela star. "They're just going to love it."

That remains to be seen, of course. Not everyone, however, will love the show's attention-grabbing title.

"The title has a lot to do with the tone of the show," Hayek explains. "I think it's sarcastic. I don't think Betty is really ugly, but what do we call ugly now? Anybody who is not super skinny and really tall. I, personally have seen a lot of really skinny, tall models who I think are ugly. We're just making fun of the people who would think that (Betty's) ugly."

Ferrera, the season's most unlikely It Girl, says she loves playing Betty and can relate to her insecurities. "I didn't even know I was fat until I started acting," she says. "I didn't know how fat and ugly I was until I started going on auditions. But I don't feel that way inside."

Ironically, Ferrera is neither fat nor ugly. When she's out of Betty's "costume," Ferrera is runway-model glam and sports a beaming smile that could light Dolphin Stadium on a dark night. Still, Ferrera admits she rarely feels model-glam.

"I'm not a model. I never wanted to be a model. I never wanted to do ads for Neutrogena," Ferrera says matter-of-factly. "That's not what I set out in my life to do. I set out to tell stories. I set out to represent real people. And, to me, Betty is the most beautiful opportunity that's ever come across my path to represent a whole generation of young women who don't recognize themselves in anything they're watching."

Hayek doesn't believe much will be lost in the translation. (Yo Soy Betty, la Fea has been remade everywhere from Mexico to India.) "It's about a fish-out-of-water, probably the person who is not conventional (looking), but they are incredibly smart and hard-working, and they get ahead in life using that," she says. "Everybody wants to see these kind of stories. She's not a victim."

Ferrera notes there's a built-in benefit to playing Betty.

"It's fun as an actress to not have to worry about hair and makeup and go, 'Do I look good in this?' " she says. "My sense of what looks good has totally changed."

Ferrera adds there's a lot of good in Betty she would like to emulate... sort of. "She forgives the people who don't understand her," Ferrera says. "She doesn't resent them. She's not angry at them, and she's a lot more forgiving than she should be. She gives them a chance and sees them as a human being, even though they won't give her that same benefit."

In addition to the first-rate Ferrera, Betty also boasts the likes of Eric Maibus (The L Word) as Betty's weasly, skirt-chasing boss; Ana Ortiz (Boston Legal) as her Herbalux-selling sister; and Vanessa Williams (Broadway's Kiss of the Spider Woman) as Mode's scheming creative director who isn't too happy about being passed over for the mag's top spot.

Williams says she knows why she got the role.

"They needed somebody who could pack a punch, who would be a formidable foe for setting up the drama," says Williams, who appears to be channeling Dynasty's Alexis Carrington in Betty. "It's an honor to play somebody who is so strong. Of course she is evil and demonic and looking for the worst, but those are really fun roles to play."

Clearly, Ferrera is having a ball, too.

"It's an honor to take on this role," she says. "I love, love, love being her."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/tv/content/accent/epaper/2006/09/28/a1e_featv_SALMA_HAYEK_0928.html

fredfa

09-28-06, 01:22 AM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
Ferrera Makes `Ugly Betty' Delightful story
By Roger Catlin Hartford Courant TV Critic September 28, 2006

With a plot so similar to "The Devil Wears Prada," to the now-defunct ABC comedy "Less Than Perfect" and to the telenovela that is its direct antecedent, "Ugly Betty" (ABC, 8 p.m.) rises above such comparisons as a delightful and welcome new series.

It's mostly due to America Ferrera ("Real Women Have Curves," "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants"), who injects heart and soul into a character that others might have played only for self-deprecating laughs.

As Betty Suarez, hired by a hot New York fashion magazine because of her plain looks (to keep her boss from being tempted), she wears the wrong clothes and has too cheery an attitude for the smug place.

And while she runs into glass walls (literally), she also has real spirit animating her drive to make it.

It's one of the best new shows of the season.

http://www.ctnow.com/tv/hce-tveye0928.artsep28,0,3562935.column?coll=hce-utility-tv

Xesdeeni

09-28-06, 09:32 AM

Regarding this LOST story and the last paragraph where they talk about ending the series "at it's natural conclusion" even if it's still on top...

I think that's such a great idea and I'm surprised somebody hasn't tried it yet....thus you'd be more likely to commit to the show. What do you guys think?I think they would worry about:

a) fans who figure the show isn't worth their investment, since it will "only" go two seasons (I'm not saying I agree with their sentement, or that I think many fans would have this attitude, but that the suits would think that they would think this...if you follow)

b) fans who'd just wait for the DVD box set

Xesdeeni

Xesdeeni

09-28-06, 09:33 AM

Thursday Night’s Premieres
9 PM ET/PT Supernatural - CW HD Woo hoo!

Xesdeeni

archiguy

09-28-06, 10:32 AM

I think they would worry about:

a) fans who figure the show isn't worth their investment, since it will "only" go two seasons (I'm not saying I agree with their sentement, or that I think many fans would have this attitude, but that the suits would think that they would think this...if you follow)

b) fans who'd just wait for the DVD box set

Xesdeeni

My feeling actually would be something of a relief, that I wouldn't have to commit to a show year after year, sticking with it even after it starts the inevitable decline into mediocrity, simply because I'd already invested so much time into the show and characters. Again, I bring up 'The X-Files' as "Exhibit 1".

One of the nice things about reading a novel is that you can be assured you'll eventually get to the end, get closure, and can then devote your free-time to something new. With every successful TV show continuing to run until it just runs out of steam or get's cancelled from audience defection, you never have that certainty (and yes, I know there are exceptions, such as Seinfeld, Friends, MASH, and a few others, but they're the exception, not the rule).

And if one network tries it and gets enough buzz to generate a stable audience, every other network will soon climb on board. And that's a trend I'd like to see.

fredfa

09-28-06, 10:55 AM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
Look Homely, Angel
ABC's 'Ugly Betty' Is Plainly Lovable
By Tom Shales Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, September 28, 2006; C01

"Ugly Betty" isn't just entertainment, it's therapy. Nirvana therapy. It's happiness in a tube, or rather The Tube. It's a pint of Ben & Jerry's with no fat or calories. It's tuning in to "The View" to discover they all have laryngitis. It's Florida without those disgusting bugs.

Mostly, it's getting even with anyone who ever rejected your proposal of lunch, dinner, a movie or marriage because they thought you weren't good enough.

The heroine of "Ugly Betty," as the title does considerably more than imply, is not by traditional or contemporary standards a raving beauty. But she's a beautiful person just the same, and you might be raving once you meet her via the ABC series premiering tonight and raising the bar on new-season comedies way, way up.

It's more of a dramedy, since Betty's persona lends herself to the occasional poignancy. But the creators of the series, which was adapted from a successful Colombian telenovela, have wisely been sparing with the pathos; there are no self-congratulatory fanfares to herald or warn of a Tender Moment Ahead. Betty sneaks up on you and steals your heart -- rather than turning on the pixilated cutes and screaming "Love me!" in your ear.

America Ferrera, as Betty, is a day full of sunshine -- and, conversely, sometimes a night full of moonlight. Fate in its capricious cruelty has plopped the painfully plain, gawky girl smack-dab in the middle of a world where beauty is the norm, chic is not unique and stylishness is next to godliness but even closer to wealthiness. Betty gets the job of assistant to the editor of the world's most prestigious and fashionable fashion magazine because the editor's father doesn't want his son being distracted by a pretty and sexy assistant as he goes about avoiding work each day.

Naturally, Betty is bound to find out the reason for her seeming good fortune, and her feelings are hurt -- but her feelings are self-repairing. They're accustomed to injury and almost inured to it. She doesn't kid herself or imagine she's gorgeous, but neither does she go into sulks of self-pity.

The editor, played by Eric Mabius, is conventionally good-looking and not just another harebrained hunk. After initially conspiring to banish Betty from the premises, he begins to see her value, and because he can see hers, we can see his. For the editor, having Betty around amid the million-dollar models is a little like keeping one cozily lumpy, friendly old easy chair in an office full of coldly trendy backbreakers.

Betty is all heart. She's just a little on the homely side, with braces on her teeth, and braces on her braces. When a big, wide smile breaks out, she looks like the bumper on a '53 Buick Roadmaster.

But she's "oh, so easy to love" in Cole Porter's phrase. Many a songwriter or storyteller, of course, has composed ballads or fables extolling inner beauty over the outer, superficial kind -- Hans Christian Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling" easily comes to mind. "Meeskite," a song from the Broadway musical "Cabaret" and performed by the great Jack Gilford, was about a homely couple who give birth to a magnificently gorgeous child -- thus proving, Gilford sings, that even though "you're not beautiful, it's true, there may be beautiful things in you."

Is it a trite or corny lesson to be learning after all these years? No. It's the kind of moral-to-the-tale that never really grows old-fashioned. Some will find the idea of a TV show containing any lesson to be awfully corny, unless it's something from Children's Television Workshop, and the lesson is along the lines of love thy neighbor or remember thy alphabet.

And "Betty" is on a sufficiently sophisticated level so that it seems not gratingly platitudinous but blithely attitudinous. Although Ferrera is the only absolutely indispensable cast member, the supporting players are more than decorative. They include ravishing Vanessa Williams, who -- with the help of a toadying sycophant played by Michael Urie -- conspires to uproot the magazine's editor and put Williams's character on the throne.

"Betty" pays homage to its telenovela origins mainly by having the heroine say she likes to watch telenovelas and by making the show a serialized saga, which is a pity because if there's anything television doesn't need, it's more serialization. The second episode is all about a mockup for the next issue of the magazine being stolen and then recovered, although at the very end, there's a crash of thunder and an ominous "to be continued." (On a more serious note, Betty's stuffed bunny also disappears, and foul play is suspected.) Cliffhangers seem inappropriate and unnecessary on such a lighthearted show.

As for Betty's ethnic origins, she's a very Americanized Latin American, one partial to such fashion statements as a huge red poncho with the word "Guadalajara" embroidered across the front.

The scripts wisely find time for topical satire, especially of the frivolous fashion world -- references to Botox injections and the like. We also hear about a model who accidentally backed her car over a gaggle of innocent bystanders, just as publicist Lizzie Grubman did during an unfortunate occurrence in the Hamptons back in 2002 (when we were young and innocent).

The new TV season is not breaking any records when it comes to either the bad or the beautiful. Many shows, including a few that rank as excellent, arrive enveloped in their own heavy cloud of melancholia and

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092702094_pf.html

fredfa

09-28-06, 11:04 AM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
'Ugly Betty' is pretty good
By Ellen Gray Philadelphia Daily News
Who can light the world up with her smile?

How about a girl with a mouthful of metal, some very un-Mary Tyler Moore-like hips - which is to say, hips - and more spunk than MTM's Mary Richards ever dreamed of?

In a season crowded with quality dramas that all seem to come from very dark places, ABC's plucky "Ugly Betty" shines as bright as the honking big braces young Betty Suarez (America Ferrera) wears, a beacon to viewers weary of "Ally McBeal" wannabes and Smart Women Behaving Badly.

(Though if ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" can somehow extend its ratings magic backward to its lead-in, I will refrain, just this once, from making fun of Meredith Grey.)

Produced by Salma Hayek - who'll have recurring cameos - and adapted from a popular Colombian telenovela about a smart-but-plain young woman who works her way up the corporate ladder in the image-conscious fashion industry, "Ugly Betty" is set, a la "The Devil Wears Prada," in a fashion magazine called Mode.

We first meet a badly dressed Betty when she's being turned down for a job at the magazine even before she interviews, based entirely on her appearance - Mode apparently being the only magazine in the Meade publishing empire Betty hasn't bothered to study.

Back home, where she lives with her widowed father (Tony Plana), single-mom sister Hilda (University of the Arts grad Ana Ortiz) and fashion-conscious nephew Justin (Bucks County's Mark Indelicato), Betty discovers that her day can get worse, as her TV-repairman boyfriend dumps her for one of the neighbors.

Fortunately, the universe has bigger plans for Betty. When publisher Bradford Meade (Alan Dale) decides that his son, Daniel (Eric Mabius), newly named editor-in-chief of Mode, needs an assistant he won't be tempted to fool around with, it's Betty who possesses the face - and body - he has in mind.

Naturally, Betty's in for further humiliations, with the fashion business depicted as a sort of high school where almost everyone's a cheerleader and the few who aren't are used to fuel bonfires. But there's more going on at Mode than meets the eye - though not so much, I promise, that you're going to have to think very hard - and Betty's work ethic proves more than a match for the cool kids.

Now we'll just have to see if she can hold her own against CBS' "Survivor" and NBC's "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office."

What the readers say

The fashion world may not be ready for "Betty," but most of our Daily News Reader Reviewers were, awarding the ABC telenovela an average 8.2 on a scale of 1 to 10.

And some of the highest praise, oddly enough, came from the guys.

"All I can say about this show is, 'I am ugly Betty,' " wrote Charles L. Herndon III, of West Oak Lane, who gave it a 10. "As a 35-year-old black male, I relate to Betty."

John Christian Hernandez, of Lawncrest, the only one on the panel to have seen "Yo Soy Betty, la Fea," found ABC's version faithful to the original, "even though the story was twisted [to be] 'The Devil Wears Prada'-like." He gave it a 9.

" 'Ugly Betty' will bring a smile to your face - she has a radiating smile and a character you want to root for," wrote Bill Hanson, of Northern Liberties, who also gave the show a 9.

"I thought it was cute," wrote Lena Hines, of Andorra, who gave it an 8. "I couldn't help comparing it to 'The Devil Wears Prada,' and it didn't measure up, but once I got over that, I enjoyed it."

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//15626523.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

fredfa

09-28-06, 11:18 AM

The New Season
Look to NBC to surprise
Media Life roundtable: Network is far stronger
By Diego Vasquez Media Life staff writer Sep 28, 2006
Two years ago, ABC climbed out of the ratings basement with two high-buzz shows. This year the network has a commanding early lead and is suddenly many media buyers’ pick to win the season.

Might NBC be on the cusp of a similar rebound? That’s the feeling of media people more than a week after the new season began. Last week, the week ended Sept. 24, NBC finished second among adults 18-49 and was up 18 percent over last year’s premiere week, from a 3.4 average rating to a 4.0. The network has won the first two Mondays of the season thanks to strong debuts for new dramas “Heroes” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” while “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” is way up over last season after moving to Tuesdays.

That combined with the immediate and expected success of “Sunday Night Football” has media people thinking that NBC could climb to third for the season and perhaps even second during fourth quarter, depending on how several of its remaining new series, such as “30 Rock” and “Friday Night Lights,” debut over the next few weeks.

As for ABC, its “Grey’s Anatomy” gamble, moving the successful show from Sunday to Thursday, looks like the smartest move of the young season.

To discuss the new year, Media Life spoke with several buyers and researchers from across the country: Julie Friedlander, senior vice president and account manager at Zenith Media; John Padgett, media director at the Hauser Group in Atlanta; Steve Sternberg, executive vice president of audience analysis for Magna Global; and Tracie Chinetti, senior buyer/planner at Blitz Media in Boston.

NBC was up significantly over its first week last year. Can the network pull out of fourth place this season?
Friedlander: Yes it can. Will it? Ask me in another few months. But they can. Last year I would have said they can’t, but this year they can.
Padgett: It can pull out of fourth place, and for the 18-49 demo stands a very good chance of doing so this year.

Sternberg: During the fourth quarter, yes. After the football season, it will be tough but not impossible.
Chinetti: Yes it can -- it fell fast, so should be able to rebound.

What has been the biggest surprise of the season thus far?
Friedlander: I guess there are two surprises so far. I think that ABC has rejuvenated Sunday. People are nervous about “Desperate Housewives” losing some steam, and right now they seem to be doing okay. And I think NBC’s performance on Monday. It looks like they’re getting very good sampling, maybe “Sunday Night Football” is contributing. It’s paying off by giving them the promotions they need.

Padgett: “Grey’s Anatomy’s” runaway win in the 18-49 demo on Thursday night, as well as the overall size of the total Thursday night viewing audience.
Sternberg: Biggest surprise so far is that there really haven’t been any major surprises. Most programs are performing at the level we thought they would before the season began.
Chinetti: ABC is so strong out of the box.

What has been the biggest disappointment?
Friedlander: I’m not sure I have a huge disappointment so far. Some of the things I didn’t think were going to do well aren’t.
Sternberg: We’ll need to wait another couple of weeks. The biggest disappointment will be how much one or two of the new shows declines from its debut.
Chinetti: That Fox isn't making a bigger impact.

"Grey's Anatomy" beat "CSI" handily last week among adults 18-49, leading ABC to the nightly win. Was that win at all shocking? And do you think ABC will keep it up, considering that "Grey's" lead-out "Six Degrees" did lose a fair bit of audience?
Friedlander: I think it’s great that “Grey’s Anatomy” has come out of the box so strong. It’s just good for the business. “CSI” is far from dead. Among men 25-54 it’s winning, and you’ve got two really good shows there. “CSI” is holding on to a lot of its core male viewers, so I think you’ve got a good situation there. I think it’s a great one-two punch there.
And I think “Grey’s” is just what the doctor ordered for “ER.” It may be a little too early to talk about “Six Degrees” [the drama that follows “Grey’s”], that’s been a very challenging time period.

Padgett: The win wasn’t a shocker, but the size of the win was. Not surprising at all is that CBS won in total audience. Perhaps as surprising was “ER’s” success at 10 p.m. on Thursday, perhaps from some channel-switching from the leading hospital drama.

Chinetti: Not shocking – I thought it would win by a close margin. “Grey's” is destination programming. “Six Degrees” shouldn't have much of an impact.

Which new show do you think has the most long-term potential?
Padgett: “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” if Aaron Sorkin can keep pace with the first couple of episodes and not fall behind on scripts. One of the best television debuts I’ve seen.
Chinetti: “Studio 60.”

Many buyers said that Fox's schedule looked stronger this fall, but the network saw several new shows decline sharply last week. What do you think the problem is? Was it with development or simply the competition?
Friedlander: I don’t think there’s a problem. Fox will come back like gangbusters in first quarter again. “Prison Break” was the show that really helped it last year, they just have to keep searching for the drama that will keep the momentum going. But I don’t think they’re having a problem with development, I think they’re having a problem with the competition.
Sternberg: Fox is not really struggling. The network’s average household rating is up versus a year ago, and its adult 18-34 and 18-49 ratings are stable. Its Sunday lineup remains strong, “House” is still a hit, and “Prison Break” is doing fine.
It’s primarily Thursday night that is doing poorly opposite monster competition. New series “Vanished” and “Justice” are also up against strong competition. Fox faces this situation every year since it’s had the exclusive baseball postseason. Once “American Idol” and “24” return, Fox will be fine. What’s really interesting is that Fox’s median age for the first week of the season was over 40.
Chinetti: A number of factors -- they do well premiering programming early, but viewers may not have been ready to commit to continuing storylines. Too many serialized dramas. And Thursday has tough competition.

What has been the smartest scheduling move thus far?
Padgett: No brainer … the risky move of taking “Grey’s” off Sunday night and moving it into a highly competitive Thursday night slot. Also, NBC moving "Studio 60" away from Thursday was just as smart.

Sternberg: ABC moving “Grey’s Anatomy” to Thursday, placing college football on Saturday, and leading off Tuesday and Wednesday with “Dancing With the Stars.”

Who will finish first this season in 18-49s?
Padgett: ABC will nip Fox come May.
Chinetti: ABC.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_7569.asp

fredfa

09-28-06, 11:27 AM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
By Ed Bark former Dallas Morning News TV critic at his website unclebarky.com Sept 28, 2006

Tell a friend about this Americanized version of the hit telenovela Yo Soy Betty La Fea.

Unlike the new MyNetworkTV's Fashion House and Desire, ABC's Ugly Betty isn't lost in translation. Amusingly over the top, it filets the oft-haughty fashion world while making one cheer for the character caught in it all. She's Betty Suarez (America Ferrera), whose passion is fashion but who's hardly a fashionista. Bespectacled, pudgy and smiling through heavy-duty braces, she's initially a guppie in a tank of piranhas. Viewers in turn get a watchable feast, an hour-long comedy with a melt-in-your-mouth center. Sometimes the social messages are a bit too overt, particularly in a second episode sent for preview. All in all, though, Ugly Betty is pretty irresistible.

The title character is hired as personal assistant to new Mode magazine editor Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius). His mogul father, Bradford (Alan Dale), figures that Daniel's playboy ways will be curbed at least slightly by the close proximity of an eyesore. Betty also is seen as such by the magazine's assortment of scheming staffers and vacuous models. In the second episode, they even steal and torment the little stuffed bunny she's brought to decorate her desk. It seems that Mode's only down-to-earthers are the seamstresses, led by kindly Britisher Christina (Ashley Jensen).

Betty shows up for her first day of work in a loud, snicker-provoking "Guadalajara" poncho. Politically correct it's not. But lead executive producers Salma Hayek and Silvio Horta are willing to poke a little fun at the Hispanic culture, too. Hayek herself has a cameo as a saucy, sex-crazed maid in a telenovela that's a favorite of Betty's widower dad, Ignacio (Tony Plano). But she's replaced by another actress in Betty's second episode.

The series' principal dragon lady is Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams), who's incensed at being passed over for Mode's top job. Her toadying assistant, Marc (Dallas native Michael Urie, pictured above), is both pretty in pink and fun to watch. They need to give him more to do.

Thursday's premiere puts Betty through various humiliations in hopes of making her quit. She finally does just that after being ordered to participate in a fashion shoot for which she's woefully ill-suited. But this also is the break-point for callow Daniel, whose dormant conscience finally kicks in. They'll now be allies, although hardly equal partners, with Wilhelmina hatching one devious plot after another. She appears destined to be the Wile E. Coyote of the series, but at least an anvil hasn't fallen on her head yet.

Ferrera is terrifically appealing as Betty. Her brassy big sister, Hilda (Anna Ortiz), and supportive nephew Justin (Mark Indelicato) add extra spice to her utilitarian home life, where getting dad's meds at a reasonable cost is of prime real world importance.

For the first episode's big finish, look for guest star Gina Gershon camping it up as a cosmetics empress named Fabia. She has a delicious way of saying, "Just make sure it's not too sappy."

That's Ugly Betty's task as well. Will the show show settle into a nice groove without getting too preachy? And can the plots, counterplots and unsolved mysteries steer clear of complete absurdity?

If so, that'll be the lasting beauty of Ugly Betty.

Prospects: They're pretty good, with a likely big tune-in for the first episode. Over the course of the season, a solid second-place finish to Survivor is all ABC is counting on.

Grade: B-plus
http://www.unclebarky.com/fall.html

fredfa

09-28-06, 11:39 AM

The Digital Revolution
Game Over: ESPN Mobile Shut Down

By Anne Becker Broadcasting & Cable 9/28/2006

ESPN is shuttering its money losing cellular service Mobile ESPN just a year after first introducing it, choosing to be a content provider to other services instead of operating one its own. Despite having slashed prices and offering its handset in more stores, ESPN was not amassing near the amount of subscribers it expected for the sports fan-targeting service.

Mobile ESPN handsets and plans will no longer be sold and current customers will stop receiving voice and data services after December 31, 2006. Customers who bought Mobile ESPN handsets will get a full refund of the purchase price when they settle their final bills, and ESPN will help them transfer numbers to other carriers. About two-thirds of Mobile ESPN's some 100 employees will lose their jobs over the next year, according to the company.

The complete story is here:

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6375942.html

fredfa

09-28-06, 11:45 AM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
The main character may not be pretty, but her show is
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle

The story about "Ugly Betty" (8 PM ET/PT Thursday) so far is pretty clear. A lot of people know it's an American show based on a popular Colombian telenovela. Some people know Salma Hayek is the executive producer. And a whole lot of people have heard, somehow, that "Ugly Betty" -- about a not very attractive woman working in the image- and style-conscious fashion world -- was one of the best offerings in the new crop of freshman fall shows.

All true. But it would be a lot better if that last part weren't.

A lot of the appeal in "Ugly Betty" was that there was absolutely no hope for it. Making a Spanish-language show translate without losing something -- most likely the good part -- didn't seem possible. It first was scheduled for Fridays -- female friendly -- then shifted to Thursdays (where nothing is friendly and everybody plays for keeps). Other than Vanessa Williams there really weren't any top-flight names. Also, ABC was unveiling an ambitious, aggressive slate of fall shows, and there was little or no talk about what was then titled "Betty the Ugly."

That all changed partly because the pilot was so unexpectedly good, and the Betty in question -- America Ferrera -- was so great in the lead role. And there was a nice mix of satire about the world of fashion, inside jokes about overly dramatic telenovelas (Hayek appears in some of them, as seen at Betty's family home) and a feel-good sweetness that leavened the prissy hellcat one-liners of Betty's vindictive officemates.

All of that still shines through and continues to make "Ugly Betty" one of the real out-of-nowhere surprises of the fall. The second episode is a tad more gimmicky -- "Fashion TV" updates that take the humor to a less naturalistic level, and the ratcheting up of a weaker plotline about extra-sensitive (possibly deadly) family secrets (this is based on a telenovela, so that's hardly a surprise). Tone issues, then, are at hand. And those are always dicey until an audience knows what kind of show it's getting.

Even with that mild caveat, "Ugly Betty" is worth checking out. It retains a charm that far outstrips expectations. And Ferrera's performances are small wonders to behold.

The premise is relatively simple. Bradford Meade (Alan Dale) is the head of a large publishing company. The famous editor of his high-fashion magazine Mode is killed in a fiery car accident (that's the secret). But the main story is that he's tabbed his son and heir, Daniel (Eric Mabius, "The L Word"), to take over the magazine, even though Daniel knows little else besides the art of seducing women.

Once it's clear that Daniel will try to sleep with every hot secretary he encounters, thus failing at his mission to run the magazine, Dad hires Betty. That way Daniel can focus on his work because the conceit is that the dumpy and frumpy Latina -- complete with braces, bad glasses, unstyled hair and no fashion sense -- will not be an attraction to Daniel, who has feasted on the bevy of slender fashionistas that people the business.

Everyone is cruel to Betty. The pilot goes out of its way to embarrass her, yet Betty always shines through (Ferrera really carries the load here). And soon Daniel realizes that she's exceptionally loyal, doesn't lie to him, cuts through his nonsense and has a thing for the magazine business, if not for style. And Daniel will soon need Betty because conniving Wilhelmina Slater (Williams) is angling for the editor's job she believes she deserved before Daddy's boy was anointed.

Standard fare with some soapy bubbles, right? Yes, but there's Betty the foil -- and whatever the writers have her do brings instant audience sympathy. The scenes with Betty's family at home (doting father, slutty sister, young gay brother who knows more about Mode than she does) gain more traction and get funnier in the second episode, a good sign. The office politics with Mabius and Williams are predictable but interesting. It's the lingering mystery that doesn't hold up just yet.

Perhaps more concerning is what tone the series will adopt. Sweetness? A mixture of that and bitter snaps? If it veers too far into "Desperate Housewives" territory, that hyperreality would be hard to sustain. Better to keep Betty sweet, a force of nature who redefines beauty and busts the myth of fashion in the process.

Who knows, but Ferrera alone is worth four or five episodes to see more clearly what the direction will become. In the meantime, keep your expectations tamped down and you just might be stunned at how good this show really is.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/27/DDG0CLCGAL1.DTL

fredfa

09-28-06, 11:53 AM

Critic’s Notebook
Fridays are suddenly very watchable
By Rick Kushman Sacramento Bee TV Columnist

Let's give it up for Friday night TV. Really.

Fridays once were dead to the networks. Now they include ABC's charming rookie, "Men in Trees" (at 9 on ABC), CBS' "Close to Home" (at 8 on CBS) and "Numb3rs" (at 9 on CBS), and NBC's "Las Vegas" (at 9).

But the new Friday star is the relocated -- and re-energized -- "Law & Order."

Last week, season 17 of that august series started (at 10 on NBC), though it's been chic lately to call it tired or worn out. That comes from the part of the entertainment world where people read numbers but don't actually, you know, watch TV.

Sorry, no. "Law & Order," with repeats running seemingly 24/7 on cable, may produce more satisfied viewers through the week than any show on TV. If the formula feels repetitive, that's what constant viewing can do to a series.

Yeah, I'm ranting. I love this show. "Law & Order" is ritual in my house. Don't be trashing my rituals, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, anyone who's part of the same cult will be happy to hear the new season is slightly tweaked but suddenly feels fresh and lively. The cast changes add two younger women to the mix, but it's more than just appearances.

The dry wit always layered throughout the show runs a bit more ironic and, seriously, a bit more cool. The always-brisk pacing feels more dynamic. And the show moves a step -- but just a step -- deeper into personal stories.

This season, detective Fontana (Dennis Farina) has retired. He's replaced by freshly minted detective Nina Cassady (Milena Govich), who's a good cop and is smart enough to know she's still green. She's not the standard TV hot shot, just a young cop trying to learn.

There's also a new assistant DA (Alana de la Garza), and together, they add fresh blood and some vitality to the cast. But there's also just a little more snap through the show -- not to mention a pretty satisfying ripped-from-the-headlines story in last week's season premiere.

So now, for anyone who can't find something to do on a Friday night, it'll sound plausible when you say you're staying home to watch TV.

http://www.sacbee.com/127/story/26727.html

fredfa

09-28-06, 12:00 PM

The Next Week’s Premieres

Thursday, Sept. 28
8 PM ET/PT Ugly Betty - ABC (Series Premiere) HD
8 PM ET/PT Smallville - CW HD
9 PM ET/PT Supernatural - CW HD

Saturday, Sept. 30
11:35 PM ET/PT Saturday Night Live - NBC HD

Sunday, Oct. 1
7 PM ET/PT Everybody Hates Chris - CW HD
7:30 PM ET/PT All of Us - CW HD
8 PM ET/PT Girlfriends - CW HD
8:30 PM ET/PT The Game - CW HD

Monday, Oct. 2
9 PM ET/PT The Bachelor: Rome - ABC

Tuesday, Oct. 3
8 PM ET/PT Friday Night Lights - NBC (Series Premiere) HD
9 PM ET/PT Veronica Mars - CW HD

Wednesday, Oct. 4
8 PM ET/PT 20 Good Years - NBC (Series Premiere) HD
9 PM ET/PT Lost - ABC HD
10 PM ET/PT The Nine - ABC (Series Premiere) HD

fredfa

09-28-06, 12:07 PM

TV Notebook
Sheen poised to become top sitcom earner
By Nellie Andreeva The Hollywood Reporter Sept. 28, 2006

After two months of negotiations, "Two and a Half Men" star Charlie Sheen is close to finalizing a new salary pact with producer Warner Bros. Television that would make him the highest-paid comedy star in television today.

Sources said Sheen will earn in the neighborhood of $350,000-$400,000 per episode this season under the new deal, which is about double his previous salary. Sources said CBS is kicking in some money for the pay raise for Sheen, as has become common practice for networks in high-level actor renegotiation deals.

Sheen also is known to have a significant profit-participation stake in the series, now in its fourth season. The top of the sitcom actor pay scale remains the nearly $2 million per episode Ray Romano pulled in for the final season of CBS' "Everybody Loves Raymond" in 2004-05.

He began renegotiating his deal with WBTV for "Two and a Half Men" in July, shortly after the studio sold the comedy to Tribune Broadcasting stations for big bucks in broadcast syndication and to FX for cable syndication for about $750,000 per episode beginning in 2010.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003187988

RockyF

09-28-06, 12:12 PM

fredfa, one correction needs to be made to the latest premiere list. 20 Good Years has been pushed back a week (and 30 minutes). NBC has swapped it's timeslot with 30 Rock, and now both are scheduled to debut on Oct. 10.

fredfa

09-28-06, 12:22 PM

Wednesday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted just under the HD Football listings near the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.

fredfa

09-28-06, 12:27 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
'Kidnapped' crumbles, 'Jericho' jumps
NBC rescue drama off 25 percent in 18-49s
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Sept. 28, 2006

Going into the new season, many critics and media people tabbed NBC’s “Kidnapped” as one of the more promising new dramas, with a great cast and an exciting concept. But just as many dismissed “Jericho,” CBS’s disjointed apocalypse drama, as a fast sinker.

Turns out, they got it backward. In both shows’ second weeks, “Kidnapped” suffered an alarming dip at 10 p.m. while “Jericho” became CBS’s first new show to grow week-to-week.

“Kidnapped” averaged a 2.1 adults 18-49 rating, according to Nielsen overnights, down 25 percent from its 2.8 in week one. No doubt the show was hurt by the migration of viewers over to ABC, where Barbara Walters interviewed Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin’s widow on “20/20.”

The chat drew a strong 5.1 rating, up 28 percent over last week, when ABC aired a “Grey’s Anatomy” rerun in the timeslot.

Earlier in the evening, “Jericho” averaged a 3.6 at 8 p.m., placing second in its timeslot and up 13 percent over last week’s 3.2 for its premiere. For the second straight week, “Jericho” grew from its first half hour to its second, and it's well ahead of CBS's average in the timeslot last year.

Why the unexpected results? Perhaps “Kidnapped,” for all its slickness, felt too familiar, coming just a month after Fox introduced the similarly themed new kidnapping drama “Vanished.” But “Jericho,” though certainly not a perfectly crafted drama, is at least very different from anything else on TV. That may keep viewers sticking around in hopes that the execution catches up to the concept.

“Jericho” helped CBS take the night over ABC, with a 4.5 average rating and 13 share to the latter’s 4.2/11. Both were up several tenths over last week. Fox, which also showed substantial improvement over last week, was third at 2.7/7, followed by NBC at 2.6/7, the CW at 2.1/6, and Univision at 1.7/4.

At 8 p.m., ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” averaged a 4.0, up 10 percent from last week, to place first, followed by “Jericho” at 3.6, Fox’s “Bones” at 2.7, CW’s “America’s Next Top Model” and NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” at 2.4, and Univision’s “La Fea Mas Bella” at 1.9. “Model” did finish first among 18-34s that hour with a 2.9.

At 9 p.m., CBS’s “Criminal Minds” won for the second straight week with a 4.8, followed by ABC’s “Lost” recap show and NBC’s “Loser” at 3.4. Fox’s “Justice” jumped 37 percent from last week to a 2.6. Univision was fifth at 2.0 for “Barrera de Amor” and CW sixth with a 1.7 for the season premiere of “One Tree Hill.”

At 10 p.m., ABC’s “20/20” and CBS’s “CSI: NY” tied for first at 5.1, followed by NBC’s “Kidnapped” at 2.1 and Univision’s “Don Francisco Presenta” at 1.3.

Among households, CBS took first with a 9.5/15, followed by ABC at 8.5/14, Fox at 4.8/8, NBC at 4.5/7, CW at 3.0/5 and Univision at 2.2/4.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_7595.asp

fredfa

09-28-06, 12:48 PM

The Business of TV
TV Revenue At Risk From New Platforms
by Erik Sass Media Daily News

The more thing change, the more they stay the same--at least in terms of ad revenue. A new study from JupiterResearch predicts only modest benefits for cable and broadcast TV from the rollout of new ad platforms. In the report, titled "Evolving Business Models for Television & Filmed Entertainment," David Card, a vice president and senior analyst at Jupiter, forecasts $5 billion of additional revenue from new ad platforms by 2011. But he also warns of a potential $12 billion loss from DVR ad-skipping, as well as competition from other disruptive technologies.

Jupiter's forecast is erring on the side of caution, according to Card; it doesn't cut TV much slack. "We advise media planners not to cave in to TV and Nielsen's talk about new live-plus ratings. If stuff is time-shifted, a lot of the ads will definitely be skipped." He was careful to note that the $12 billion loss figure is a worst-case scenario. It was calculated by combining recent data on DVR subscription rates with surveys of American households when asked how often they skipped commercials.

Card also said the estimate assumed widespread disillusionment with TV advertising over the next five years due to ad-skipping--an outcome, he notes, that is far from certain.

The Jupiter forecast is "somewhat conservative," in Card's words, but no one denies that DVR date impacts TV. Last fall, network executives disseminated research showing that DVR homes watch 12 percent more television--but a more recent study from Mediamark Research (MRI) showed that adults in DVR homes watch less television than those without the devices. Specifically, they are 23 percent less likely to be heavy television viewers than the general population.

In July, TiVo added more fuel to the fire, announcing a program to provide advertisers with second-by-second tracking of DVR viewership--providing a gauge to determine whether ads are skipped, in part or in full. In a sign of TV executives' concern about DVR use, Mike Shaw, ABC's president of advertising sales, suggested disabling the fast-forward button on DVRs to prevent people from skipping ads.

Of course, $5 billion of revenue from new platforms is "nothing to sneeze at," Card conceded--but "when you look at the overall TV industry, you realize that $5 billion is a small piece of that." Overall, Card said, new digital platforms won't generate big revenue streams for established players. They are likely to be more effective as simple promotional channels: "You should definitely experiment with the new platforms, but also realize that a lot of it is experimental."

As for shoring up TV revenue, Card was optimistic about new strategies to counter ad-skipping, including targeted ads delivered via digital cable, sponsored shows and product placement.

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=48709&Nid=23745&p=222600

fredfa

09-28-06, 01:54 PM

The New Season
Critic’s Picks for Thursday
By Gail Pennington The St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Tops of the night

'Grey's Anatomy' 9 PM ET/PT on ABC
'ER' 9 PM ET/PT on NBC

TV networks think a lot about "flow," or how one show might lead compatibly
into another show. But viewers make their own decisions about flow, and last
week they voted decisively with their remotes: Thursday night newcomer "Grey's
Anatomy," on ABC, flows perfectly into old-timer "ER," on NBC.

"Grey's Anatomy" beat "CSI" in their first head-to-head clash by more than 3
million viewers last Thursday. But at 9 p.m., rather than sampling either "Six
Degrees" on ABC or "Shark" on CBS, a lot of people switched over to "ER," which
began its 13th season by resolving an over-the-top cliffhanger in which Sam
(Linda Cardellini) was kidnapped by her ex-husband after he and his convict
pals shot up the emergency room.

Tonight, as Abby and Luka (Moira Tierney and Goran Visnjic) watch their
premature son struggle to live, Abby's mother (Sally Field) arrives to add
chaos. John Stamos, who appeared last season as paramedic Tony Gates, becomes a regular with this episode.

Over on "Grey's Anatomy," which didn't accomplish much in its season premiére,
the interns plot to get Izzie (Katherine Heigl) back in the program. Diahann
Carroll and Richard Roundtree guest as Burke's parents, who have an
uncomfortable first meeting with Cristina (Sandra Oh).

Still missing the dearly departed Denny? Look for Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the
guys' father in the second-season premiére of "Supernatural" (9 PM ET/PT on the CW).

And don't forget

'Ugly Betty' 8 PM ET/PT on ABC

America Ferrera is a down-to-earth young woman who becomes a fish out of water at an upscale fashion magazine in a delightful hourlong comedy adapted from a Spanish-language soap opera.

Also of note

'Til Death' 8 PM ET/PT on Fox

With "Happy Hour" on hiatus until at least November, Fox fills in with
back-to-back episodes of the Brad Garrett-Joely Fisher sitcom. The second is a
repeat of the pilot.

'Smallville' 8 PM ET/PT on the CW

Clark (Tom Welling) is trapped in the "phantom zone" in the sixth-season opener.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/emaf.nsf/Popup?ReadForm&db=stltoday%5Centertainment%5Cstories.nsf&docid=DF22D45B0501482E862571F6005CE2C5

fredfa

09-28-06, 02:24 PM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
America the beautiful
As 'Ugly Betty,' actress Ferrera puts on a winning performance
By Alan Sepinwall Newark Star-Ledger Thursday, September 28, 2006

"Ugly Betty" (Tonight at 8 PM ET/PT, ABC) An unglamorous young woman tries to succeed in the image-conscious world of fashion in a comic soap opera starring America Ferrera, Eric Mabius and Vanessa Williams.

Some TV shows need months, even years, to find their voice.

"Ugly Betty" needs five seconds.

The opening shot of this enormously appealing new series is a tight close-up of star America Ferrera, her hair badly styled, her eyes framed by thick red glasses, a hint of a tacky plaid suit jacket. Her lip quivers nervously, and we cut to the words "UGLY BETTY" in big, Day-Glo block letters, then back to Betty as she smiles broadly and we see that some malicious orthodontist has welded the grillwork of an Escalade to her teeth.

In that quick juxtaposition of how awful Betty looks and how happy she feels, the show establishes both its key theme of substance over style and its arch, self-aware sense of humor. "Ugly Betty" may have some Important Stuff to say about the emptiness of beauty, but not at the expense of a good laugh.

Ferrera, the fearless star of "Real Women Have Curves" and "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," is Betty Suarez, a young Queens woman who dreams of working at a magazine. After suffering through one rejection after another -- most of them from interviewers put off by her appearance -- she's stunned and thrilled to be offered a job as the assistant to Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius), heir to a publishing empire and new editor-in-chief of Mode, a Vogue-ish fashion bible.

What Betty doesn't know is that Daniel's father Bradford (Alan Dale) picked her for the job not based on her abilities, but the belief that his himbo son wouldn't try to get her in the sack.

Fashion unconsciousness aside, Betty is smart and creative, but nobody at Mode wants anything to do with her. The receptionist assumes she's "the before" for a before/after shoot. A photographer warns Daniel that he can't be seen having such an assistant who's "fugly!" While everyone else in the cafeteria is starving herself on microscopic salads, Betty draws angry glares for carrying a plate of steaming empanadas.

"Ugly Betty" is based on "Yo Soy Betty La Fea," a Colombian soap opera so popular that it's been either translated or adapted by dozens of other countries. Now it's our turn, and writer Silvio Horta captures what works in the original while tweaking things for our sensibilities. (In that way, it's like timeslot competitor "The Office" on NBC, which also took what worked from the original British version and yet made it feel distinctly American.)

The new version is less over the top than your average Spanish-language telenovela, and the show makes the contrast plain by having Betty's father Ignacio (Tony Plana) constantly watch a fake telenovela starring executive producer Salma Hayek. But even though guns aren't being drawn in every other scene, Betty's life isn't lacking in drama. Like the early days of "Desperate Housewives," here's a soap opera smart enough to be ridiculous.

Betty is easily the most stable person working at Mode. Mode's resident diva Wilhemina Slater (Vanessa Williams) is outraged that nepotism gave Daniel the promotion that should have been hers, and she's determined to avenge herself -- just as soon as she gets another Botox injection. Bradford, meanwhile, is having shady meetings with a private eye about Daniel's recently-deceased (or is she?) predecessor, Fey Sommers. And the magazine has to please the whims of its celebrity clients, from a Donatella Versace by way of Paris Hilton designer (Gina Gershon, in a lip-popping cameo) to a movie star whose realistic figure poses a problem that can only be solved with Photoshop.

Back in Queens, Betty lives with her dad, pragmatic sister Hilda (Ana Ortiz) and Hilda's gay-in-training teenage son Justin (Mark Indelicato), who's much more obsessed with his appearance than Betty. (Offered dessert in an early scene, he complains, "I don't want flan. I'll get fat!") Though Betty isn't a wallflower, her boyfriend Walter (Kevin Sussman) is a chinless loser who always acts like he's waiting for someone better to come along.

What ties together these two worlds, the sparse whites and oranges of the Mode office and the unruly earthiness of Betty's neighborhood, is Ferrera's winning performance. In real life, she's 180 degrees from ugly, but she throws herself into the part, not just the tacky hair and wardrobe choices, but the clumsy enthusiasm that seems to have no place in the tragically hip fashion world. The show laughs at Betty as much as it laughs with her, yet Ferrera gives her this sunny dignity that makes it okay. Betty knows people mock her, but if she based her life on what other people thought of her, she'd never leave the house.

I have no interest in fashion, little inherent fondness for soap operas, and I'm absolutely not the gender this show is targeting. And based on the two episodes I've seen, I'm going to be watching "Ugly Betty" every week. It's that much fun.

http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/sepinwall/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1159421384259490.xml&coll=1

keenan

09-28-06, 02:26 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
'Kidnapped' crumbles, 'Jericho' jumps

I agree, I would have guessed the opposite, and in fact, think it should be the opposite, but what do I know, a high percentage of the shows I like don't seem to last long anyways.

It would be interesting to see the regional breakdown for the numbers, I could see where "Jericho" may play bigger in flyover country whereas "Kidnapped" may hold it's own more in the coastal metropolitan areas.

fredfa

09-28-06, 02:27 PM

Cable TV Notebook
HDNet to launch Rather, Rodman shows
By Alex Woodson The Hollywood Reporter Sep. 29, 2006

NEW YORK - HDNet co-founder, chairman and president Mark Cuban is targeting Oct. 24 for the debut of his network's "Dan Rather Reports" and January for the launch of a Dennis Rodman makeover show, he said here Thursday morning.

During an appearance at Advertising Week, a week-long series of events for Madison Avenue people, Cuban described the newscaster's first gig since he left CBS News last year as a "60 Minutes" style high-definition news magazine.

Cuban said the Oct. 24 debut is "contingent on everything getting done."

Cuban said he was excited about the technological possibilities of the show, which will be supplemented by 64 stringers around the world with high-def cameras.

"Dan's working with a completely different palette," said Cuban. "It's so diametrically opposed to anything on TV today."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003188142

steverobertson

09-28-06, 02:45 PM

fredfa

09-28-06, 03:20 PM

The Business of TV
Marc Cuban Wants You to Stop Being Cheap and Make Hi-Def Ads Already
By Abbey Klaassen Advertising Age September 28, 2006

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Marc Cuban was his usual opinionated and effusive self when he addressed an early-morning crowd at the TV Week Spotlight event during Advertising Week. Take his view on YouTube, which is that the video-sharing site made it big "because they had no problem with copyright laws. ... The minute YouTube gets sold there's going to be a deep pocket that gets sued."

The oft-opinionated Marc Cuban was grilled by the audience -- and he returned the favor.

Click fraud: Teens' fault

YouTube, however, wasn't the only target on his hit list. What's his take on click fraud? It's the fault of teens who can "set up a blog, get Google AdWords on it and get all your friends to click on it. So what if you make $50 or $100 -- that's better than what dad gives you for allowance. Now imagine that's going on around the world ... it's just too easy."

On viewing a standard-definition ad on a high-definition TV: "It screams 'Hey, I'm a cheap advertiser! Change the channel!'"

TV Week Publisher Chuck Ross, who conducted the Q&A, said the excuse he hears for creating standard-definition ads is that HDTVs have not yet reached critical mass. "But YouTube [has]?" interrupted Mr. Cuban. "A million people watching three-minute clips of Lonelygirl is critical mass?"

The HD ad scenario

He compared the move from analog to hi-def to radio's move from AM to FM frequencies and said not every channel will be able to make the jump to hi-def by 2009, when every TV sold will be HD. He questioned whether advertisers thought about the ramifications of such a scenario.

"Almost every TV sold in 2007 is hi-def and more [will be high def] in 2008 and they all will be in 2009 -- and, by the way, standard def looks worse in an HDTV," he said. "Are you doing long-term ad deals without knowing whether you're going to be in the AM ghetto?"

The morning session was nothing if not interactive. Several times Mr. Cuban or Mr. Ross addressed questions to the audience, asking them who owned HDTVs, how many had seen a standard-definition ad on an HD set and who had watched the first three seconds of a YouTube video before turning it off.

Battle with cinema owners

One member of the audience asked about resistance Mr. Cuban has gotten from cinema owners on his plan to release movies at the box office, on cable and on DVD within the same window. Mr. Cuban's idea is that theater owners could sell the DVD at the theater and get a cut of DVD revenues. Mr. Cuban defended the plan and said if movie theaters can't compete with the couch, "what business are you in?" He said Landmark, a chain of theaters he owns, is in the "date business ... we're the answer to cabin fever."

He conceded that moving to such a condensed release window could cause a reduction in the number of cinemas, but "it'd be a stronger business because of multiple revenue streams."

http://adage.com/advertisingweek2006/article?article_id=112138

fredfa

09-28-06, 03:57 PM

(To subscribe to the TV Week HDTV newsletter go to TVweek.com and simply sign up.)
The Business of TV
Experts Debate 'HD Lite' Lawsuit
No Consensus on What Constitutes Hi-Def
By Television Week Senior Reporter James Hibberd in his HDTV Newsletter September 28, 2006

Last week the online HD community was abuzz about a class-action lawsuit filed against DirecTV by California attorney Philip Cohen, alleging poor picture quality. The 2-year-old suit claims DirecTV's HD channel bandwidth has become so crunched, it no longer meets the commonly accepted definition of the term "HD" and the company is therefore defrauding subscribers.

The case was brought to the light two weeks ago when TVpredictions.com broke the story that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled against DirecTV's motion to force arbitration. The suit has raised questions among the HD community: What really is HD? And when paying a premium for a picture quality, should operators have to meet a certain resolution standard?

Bert Deixler, a litigation attorney in Los Angeles who read the lawsuit's original complaint, gave a mixed assessment of the case.

"If you assume the facts are true, the statute under which he has brought his claim could conceivably give rise to a lawsuit because the standards applied to those claims are very loose," he said. "In the theoretical sense, if you're promised one thing and something else is delivered, and you're within the broad definition of a 'consumer,' you can bring these kinds of lawsuits."

Mr. Deixler thinks it's not clear what Mr. Cohen was promised.

"It appears to be a bit of a linguistic battle," Mr. Deixler said. "And there's the question of whether these are the type of lawsuits that lawyers should be pursing, or plaintiffs should be bringing."

The plaintiff is represented by Tom Ferlauto, partner at King & Ferlauto, who contends that no matter which standards are used, DirecTV is failing to provide what it promises.

"DirecTV is still advertising HD as providing 10-times resolution and clarity, and what they're doing to the resolution makes that figure impossible," he said. "It all comes down to customers' expectations and whether they're being fulfilled. They see '1080i' [advertised] and they understand it's 1920 x 1080i."

(This article is part of TVWeek.com's High Definition newsletter, a weekly source of breaking HD news, articles and interviews written by Senior Reporter James Hibberd.)

To read the entire article go here:

http://www.tvweek.com/page.cms?pageId=312

fredfa

09-28-06, 04:05 PM

TV Q & A
`Law' fans notice cast has changed this season
Actor Farina leaves; two women take roles
R.D. Heldenfels Akron Beacon Journal Thu, Sep. 28, 2006

If it's Thursday, this must be the mailbag....

Q: When ``Law & Order'' started the new season, where was Dennis Farina? He was an asset to the show. Also, where did those two new women come from?

A: Several readers asked about Farina, who played detective Joe Fontana on the show for two seasons. In June, he announced he was leaving the show. He reportedly wanted to consider other offers, including things for his own production company.

The new detective is Nina Cassady, played by Milena Govich, who recently co-starred on Conviction, a short-lived NBC drama from Dick Wolf, the maestro of all the Law & Orders. Other actors playing detectives on the show have included Chris Noth, George Dzundza, Paul Sorvino, Jerry Orbach, Benjamin Bratt and Jesse L. Martin, still on the job as Ed Green. But, while Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit have had women detectives as regular characters, Govich plays the first female detective in the core cast of the original Law & Order.

Meanwhile, Columbus native Alana De La Garza joined the show as Prosecutor Connie Rubirosa; De La Garza's previous credits include a recurring role on CSI: Miami as Caine's now-dead wife. She followed Annie Parisse, who asked to leave Law & Order because she wanted to work more in movies, and whose character was killed off last season.

Q: Please tell me what happened to the other judge on ``Divorce Court'' before Judge Toler.

A: Mablean Ephriam left the series after seven seasons when she and the show could not agree on a new contract. Issues reportedly included money (with Ephriam saying she was getting paid less than other TV judges), workload and Ephriam's hairstyle. She was replaced by Cleveland's Lynn Toler, who has also been a judge in real life.

Q: What is going on with ``Stargate SG-1''? Is it going to another channel or ending the series?

A: Days after airing the 200th episode of the series, Sci Fi Channel announced that it was not being renewed. (It has picked up Stargate Atlantis for another season.) But I'm not calling it dead -- just, as Billy Crystal said in The Princess Bride, ``mostly dead.'' After all, fantasy projects have often come back from extinction.

Q: There was a Disney show I used to love. It had a single mother with curly hair and lots of kids. Maybe from the mid-'90s. Name?

A:[/B] Sounds like The Torkelsons, a sitcom that aired on NBC in 1991-92. It starred Connie Ray as Millicent Torkelson, mom to five children; the main one was Dorothy Jane, played by Olivia Burnette. The series was revamped and renamed Almost Home for a brief run in 1993.

Q: In the movie ``Five Graves to Cairo,'' Fortunio Bonanova does a song in Italian that sounds a lot like Vic Damone's ``You're Breaking My Heart.'' I also remember hearing it on Lawrence Welk's show, but never got the name. Do you know it?

A: According to the notes in the CD Vic Damone: Best of the Mercury Years, You're Breaking My Heart was inspired by the song Mattinata. That song, by composer Ruggero Leoncavallo, is the one Bonanova sings in Five Graves to Cairo.

Do you have a question or comment for the TV mailbag? Write to me at rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/entertainment/15627349.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

Posty-McPost

09-28-06, 04:09 PM

On viewing a standard-definition ad on a high-definition TV: "It screams 'Hey, I'm a cheap advertiser! Change the channel!'"

For me its the inverse. When I see an HD ad I usually watch it. But when one ad is HD and the next is SD it makes the second advertiser look bad. This is more true for big business and I don't hold it against smaller companies or local companies.

fredfa

09-28-06, 05:29 PM

HDTV Notebook
"Discovery Atlas" dazzles, fizzles
By Aaron Barnhart Kansas City Star in his blog “TV Barn” September 28, 2006

You certainly can't say that the Discovery Channel's spendy, visually striking, made-for-high-definition travelogue “Discovery Atlas” looks like basic cable. Five years in the making, this country-by-country tour of the globe uses just about every camera shot imaginable -- from the ever-trendy satellite views to intensely gorgeous close-ups -- in order to convey the grandeur and significance of just living on planet Earth, whether one is a humble farmer, a world-class athlete, a monk or a nutty billionaire.

The first four installments begin with “Discovery Atlas: China Revealed” at 8 p.m. CT Sunday night, simulcasting on Discovery HD for those of you with hi-def TVs. In all, 30 two-hour movies will be produced for “Atlas,” making it “the most ambitious entirely-HD project ever made,” in the immodest words of Discovery chief and former BBC executive, Jane Root.

But after watching this week's film and previewing next week's on Italy, I found myself asking the Peggy Lee question, “Is that all there is?”

Discovery faces a tall task. As one of the most experienced high-definition producers out there, it is trying to advance the quality of HD beyond the level of IMAX, where instilling vertigo in its audiences seems a higher priority than telling them a story. We see the fruits of this effort in Sunday's episode, "China Revealed."

In between the dazzling electronic murals, the overhead shots of Shanghai and Beijing, the Wall, rice patties, a Buddhist monastery and other visual delights (all superbly filmed, as one might expect), there is the human element. Out of 1.3 billion people the filmmakers have zoomed in on a handful who will help, to use the marketing phrase, tell China's story.

We meet a window-washer who is toiling in this dangerous job in order to provide for his family out in China's impoverished rural heartland. We meet a 12-year-old gymnast working in that country's burgeoning Olympic mill. We meet Vincent Lo, a builder of buildings and, we are told, “China's answer to Donald Trump.”

All fascinating, no doubt, to the viewer who has absolutely no exposure to China. But does that describe even the casual Discovery viewer? I found most of the stories overly familiar, and as my attention flagged, even the segues to pretty pictures began to lose their impact. I found myself wanting narrator James Spader to stop telling us about the long-dead Cultural Revolution and more about the current regime's suppression of political dissent. When Spader said that China's government pursued “extraordinary” population-control measures in the 1980s and 1990s (“bizarre” and “eugenic” were the words I had in mind), I expected to hear about gender selection in the provinces, not just all of those only kids running around Beijing.

Here and at other points in the film, I was disappointed. Other moments offered genuine revelations. One segment followed a female drug enforcement officer who is compelled by tradition to go home after each exhausting day and do “what a daughter is supposed to do” -- care for her aging parents. (They don't seem to approve of her career choice.)

But such profiles don't occur frequently enough. And so, one must ask, could Discovery have done better?

Well, as it happens, at the same press event where TV critics first laid their eyes on “Discovery Atlas” this summer, there was another announcement: Ted Koppel was joining the Discovery Channel to produce news documentaries. I think Discovery needs to pay a visit to Koppel and ask him to lend “Atlas” the cultural and political heft that this ambitious travelogue clearly needs and deserves.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2006/09/discovery_atlas.html#more

fredfa

09-28-06, 05:51 PM

(To subscribe to the TV Week HDTV newsletter go to TVweek.com and simply sign up.)
HDTV Notebook
Q&A With Greg Moyer, GM of Voom HD Networks
By Television Week Senior Reporter James Hibberd in his HDTV Newsletter September 28, 2006

Since EchoStar acquired a 20 percent ownership stake in Voom last year, the former Cablevision satellite service has lived as an HD content provider for EchoStar's Dish Network.

Voom's 15 niche channels—with names such as Kung Fu HD, Film Fest HD and Monsters HD—feature licensed movies, series and specials from various libraries. The service launched in 2003 as a stand-alone HD satellite service provider and struggled to gain subscribers. The nonexclusive EchoStar agreement moved Voom subscribers under the Dish umbrella and switched Voom's business model to that of a content provider.

This year the service has started to roll out original programming on channels such as the new Gameplay HD, which seeks to cover the video game market now that most console games are released in hi-def versions.

The challenge for Voom is to increase its distribution at a time when most bandwidth-strapped operators are straining to give homes to the HD offspring of established channels such as A&E and Food Network.

Greg Moyer, general manager of Voom HD Networks, spoke with TelevisionWeek about the carriage struggle and whether to expand the suite, and also weighed in on DirecTV's "HD Lite" controversy.
TelevisionWeek: Has Voom's initial unilateral attempt to go it alone as a satellite service provider made it more difficult to gain carriage now, as a programming service?
Greg Moyer: No. I think there was initially some confusion when we switched our stripes and were no longer a fully integrated satellite provider. But we're over the hump now and have a more conventional relationship where we sell our signals to wholesalers … We obviously have no major outlet at this time aside from Dish, but the biggest reason for that is bandwidth.
TVWeek: It seems like most operators struggle to add one national HD channel. Is there anybody out there aside from EchoStar capable of adding the entire Voom package?
Mr. Moyer: We are in some interesting conversations with people that do have some capacity, but it's not commonplace. We're setting a standard for carriage that's very future-oriented. It's going to take time and technology for them to catch up … some are employing newer technology and are in a better position to take advantage of Voom than those who are locked into the cable architecture, and by that I'm talking about IPTV [Internet Protocol Television, which phone companies are embracing] and satellite.

TVWeek: When DirecTV gets its new satellites launched next year, will they carry Voom as well? Or is that against your EchoStar agreement?
Mr. Moyer: We're not exclusive with EchoStar. We are certainly in a position to deal with DirecTV and we've had some

To read the complete interview, go here:
http://www.tvweek.com/page.cms?pageId=314

fredfa

09-28-06, 06:46 PM

The New Season
“Ugly Betty”
'Ugly Betty' is bold and beautifuliful
By Chuck Barney Contra Costa Times TV critic

In a perfect world, you probably wouldn't have a bunch of typically cranky TV critics rushing to plant big wet smooches all over a series like ABC's "Ugly Betty."

That's because, in a perfect world, shows with humor and heart and multicultural casts would be the prime-time norm. And in a perfect world, television would be populated by a lot more "regular" women who actually possess some hips, as well as personality.

Alas, this isn't a perfect world, so it's easy to see why plenty of buzz has been showered upon "Ugly Betty," a lovingly crafted TV anomaly that makes a bold and beautiful statement about such personal values as nonconformity and self-worth.

Based on a wildly popular Colombian telenovela that has been replicated all over the globe, "Ugly Betty" features the immediately likable America Ferrera ("The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants") as Betty Suarez, a frumpy and lumpy young woman struggling to navigate the image-is-everything world of an upscale fashion magazine.

"Misfit" doesn't begin to describe our Betty. What her snickering co-workers instantly see when they gaze upon her is an ugly duckling with bad hair, a mouthful of metal and goofy glasses that don't do nearly enough to camouflage her bushy eyebrows.

As for Betty's sartorial taste? Let's just say that, while the Devil reportedly wears Prada, he (or she) wouldn't be caught dead in a garish red poncho with "Guadalajara" emblazoned across it.

But what the snooty, self-absorbed fashionistas fail to see are all the qualities that will endear Betty to TV viewers: She's a genuine, down-to-earth underdog who gets by on a substantial supply of smarts and spunk. And you just can't help but root for her because, well, she's one of us.

That Betty is employed as an assistant to newly appointed editor Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius) is the result of a poignant irony: She was hired solely on her looks. Meade, it seems, is a notorious playboy and his father, the publisher (Alan Dale), specifically assigned Betty to him figuring that the homely gal won't distract Daniel from his work.

Daniel initially tries to force Betty to quit by saddling her with a series of humiliating duties, including a photo shoot in which she dons a way-too-tight red leather outfit. Eventually, he comes to realize that there are corporate forces working against him -- including a scheming rival cattily played by Vanessa Williams -- and that he'll need Betty to stay afloat in these shark-infested waters.

We can be thankful the show doesn't dwell solely in the superficial fashion scene. It follows Betty to her Queens neighborhood, where she shares a humble but loving home with her widowed father (Tony Plana) and protective older sister (Ana Ortiz). She also has a shaky relationship with a beau (Kevin Sussman), who recently broke up with Betty (for a hotter girl, of course) but is striving to get back in her good graces.

Actress Salma Hayek is among the producers of "Ugly Betty" -- look for her having campy fun in the telenovela Betty's family watches -- and she has every reason to be proud. The show manages to be lighthearted while also exuding compassion and delivering a much-needed message: Young women don't have to be surgically enhanced stick figures to be stimulating, sexy and viable.

The message is delivered with admirable pizzazz by Ferrera, who clearly identifies with Betty and thus is able to find the everywoman charm, courage and dignity in the character.

There's certainly nothing ugly about that.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/entertainment/columnists/chuck_barney/15619040.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

GeorgeLV

09-28-06, 08:19 PM

I agree, I would have guessed the opposite, and in fact, think it should be the opposite, but what do I know, a high percentage of the shows I like don't seem to last long anyways.

It would be interesting to see the regional breakdown for the numbers, I could see where "Jericho" may play bigger in flyover country whereas "Kidnapped" may hold it's own more in the coastal metropolitan areas.

Sorry for the out-of-contextness, but I general, I would be neat if there was a public release of Nielsen per-DMA or regional numbers every once and a while. For instance, it's interesting how America's Next Top Model on the CW was the number one show by a suprising wide margin in the metered markets, but on the final nationals the numbers were much more down to earth.

fredfa

09-28-06, 08:28 PM

They do have them, of course. But I have no access to them.
All I can access is the top 10 programs each week in Los Angeles.
And that wouldn't be too helpful. Let me find last week's ratings for LA.

keenan

09-28-06, 08:29 PM

Sorry for the out-of-contextness, but I general, I would be neat if there was a public release of Nielsen per-DMA or regional numbers every once and a while. For instance, it's interesting how America's Next Top Model on the CW was the number one show by a suprising wide margin in the metered markets, but on the final nationals the numbers were much more down to earth.
I think those numbers are out there, but I have no idea where, or how to find them. There's probably a cost associated with getting them as well.

fredfa

09-28-06, 08:33 PM

Los Angeles TV rankings
Sept 18-24 First Week of 2006-2007 Season
Here are the 10 most-watched prime-time programs in the L.A. market last week, based on the average number of viewers.
Program Nat’l Rank Station Viewers
1 Grey’s Anatomy 1 KABC 1,340,000
2 Desperate Housewives 2 KABC 1,254,000
3 Dancing With the Stars 4 KABC 1,140,000
4 Dancing/Stars Results 17 KABC 1,044,000
5 CSI:Crime Scene Inv. 3 KCBS 973,000
6 La Fea Más Bella (Tue.) 82 KMEX 933,000
7 ExtMakeover: HE 7 KABC 904,000
8 Barrer de Amor (Mon.) 85 KMEX 890,000
9 La Fea Más Bella (Mon.) 81 KMEX 846,000
10 Brothers & Sisters 13 KABC 840,000

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

fredfa

09-28-06, 08:47 PM

The New Season
'Vanished' campaign hasn't a clue
By Deborah Netburn Los Angeles Times Staff Writer September 29, 2006

With the vast array of message boards and websites available online, obsessive fans have plenty of avenues to exchange theories, spoilers and speculation about their favorite TV shows. Savvy marketers, such as those for the ABC show "Lost," have been adept at using promotional materials that spill out beyond the edges of the show, creating mysteries embedded online or in the real world for fans to chase.

Sometimes, however, a publicity machine can be too clever for its own good, as was the case this fall when the PR department at Fox hoped to court this community with press materials for the new hourlong thriller "Vanished." So carefully embedded in the documents were the clues, that few even realized they were there, and a great viral mystery was not only left unsolved, but a slumbering world remained unaware that the trail even existed.

"Vanished," which premiered in late August, is a show built around symbols. The drama begins when Sara Collins (Joanne Kelly), the wife of a senator from Georgia, is discovered missing. FBI agents are called in to investigate the situation and in doing so they uncover, according to the show's website, "enigmatic clues about a larger sinister conspiracy." The letter V shows up repeatedly along the trail, as does the number nine (recently revealed to be an upside-down G), leading the investigators to speculate that somehow Masons are involved.

"The show has many levels to it, one of which is a far-reaching conspiracy," said Joe Earley, executive vice president of publicity, corporate communications and creative services at the studio. "The fan base for that type of show is very detail-oriented and very investigative, so what I said to everyone on the publicity side is, 'I want to make it worth their while.' "

Earley had the photo department embed symbols in the publicity photos — a 9 in the wrinkle of a sleeve, a V in the cut of a woman's dress. The publicity kit also included a card that if dipped in water would reveal the number nine (which is actually the upside-down G), and on that card is the phone number (310) 369-7272, where callers hear the recorded voice of the senator's wife leaving a panicked message for her parents. And 7272 spells "Sara" on the telephone keypad. ("That's not even necessary since in theory this is a voicemail, but it shows we were going the extra step," said Earley.)

The only problem is that very few members of the media actually picked up on all those secret clues. A letter attached to the press kit noted, "As with the series nothing is as it seems and all the materials in this kit should be closely examined and kept for analysis throughout the season."

Apparently, no one noticed. The show has not been a huge hit out of the gate, but is performing respectably. The network's most recent ratings information has "Vanished" averaging 7.4 million viewers and ranking third among adults 18 to 49 in its 9 p.m. Monday time slot.

And so Wednesday afternoon Josh Governale, the publicist working on "Vanished," called to explain the clues to the Los Angeles Times.

Earley said the materials were always meant for the fans rather than the press. "Honestly, our goal with this was for fans to discover it more than the press," he said.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-vanished29sep29,0,1690197,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

GeorgeLV

09-28-06, 08:51 PM

GeorgeLV

09-28-06, 09:01 PM

How low can it go? The My Network TV saga continues....

The New Season
MyNetworkTV Dramas See Declines in Week 2
By Christopher Lisotta TV Week September 27, 2006

Both of MyNetworkTV's new limited dramatic series "Desire" and "Fashion House" saw declines in adults 18 to 49 and total viewers in their second weeks on the air.

At 8 p.m. (ET) from Monday, Sept. 11 through Sept. 15, "Desire" scored an average 927,000 viewers, down from 1.2 million in its first week, numbers that include live viewing plus same-day viewing via digital video recorders, according to Nielsen Media Research. In adults 18 to 49, "Desire" dropped from a 0.4 rating in its first week to a 0.3 in its second.

At 9 p.m., "Fashion House" averaged 1.1 million viewers its second week, down from an average 1.3 million its first week. In adults 18 to 49, "Fashion House" declined from a 0.5 to a 0.4 week to week.

http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=10821

fredfa

09-28-06, 09:35 PM

The New Season
How Much Do Prime-Time Commercials Cost?

TV Week has a fascinating chart detailing how much commercial spots cost on this season’s TV shows.

To see it, go here:
http://www.tvweek.com/docs/docs/adagechart.pdf

fredfa

09-28-06, 09:39 PM

^^ Actually that says alot. It really demostrates how in the markets with a substantial Spanish speaking population, Univision is more than on par with the big four networks. If the list on Wikipedia is correct, Univision is managing to pull in national ratings above a 2 even though they only have 52 affialited in the US.

The New Season
Network averages

Here is the number of viewers (in millions) that each network averaged per hour of prime time for last week.
Network Last week
CBS 12.79
ABC 12.06
NBC 10.91
FOX 7.35
UNI 3.52
CW 2.79
TEL 0.94

• Source: Nielsen Media Research data

randosel

09-28-06, 10:06 PM

Re:The newest characters on TV shows: Product plugs

Quite a number of weeks ago on USA networks MONK there was a real estate character who mentions getting a new Buick every year, and mentions this car is a Lucerne. Up comes a buick Lucerne ad at the next break. I thougt it was done very well!:D

As for Men in Trees, I still dont like the main character. But I do like the supporting cast a lot more. Amos rocks! As for mentioning NX (Northern eXposure) previously in my comments about new shows, the pilot has lots of similar type scenes and situation to the NX pilot/early episodes. Though there are a lot of things I dont like about the show, I'm sticking with it... It's a Friday show makes it easy to record! I've lived in many different places in Alaska before and their Alaska looks a bit fake for a small/mid size town, way too many people on the street for one thing! Why freeze walking around!:DIt just looks a bit too "nice" for a small town that is harder to get to. Most of those places have more limited resources.

fredfa

09-28-06, 10:40 PM

I am really enjoying "MIT", ran, but my major worry is how it will manage to have enough stories to tell in such a small town.

And I agree, it looks far more like a decent-sized community than a tiny Alaskan outpost. But then I guess we suspend disbelief for all kinds of shows.

As Rick Kushman wrote in a column I posted yesterday, Friday nights have gotten pretty interesting all of a sudden -- mainly the addition of Law and Order and Men in Trees.

fredfa

09-28-06, 10:43 PM

The New Season
'Lost' soul mates
By Bill Keveney USA Today

BURBANK, Calif. — Lost's second-season finale — "Live Together, Die Alone" — might be a good motto for the men who wrote it.

Longtime friends and executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof are at the center of the success of the third-season ABC drama (which returns Wednesday at 9 ET/PT). Their spinning of the tale of plane-crash survivors in an isolated world, and their miserly parceling out of clues to the island's mysteries, enthrall millions.

The creative partnership — forged by a call to Cuse when Lost's co-creator J.J. Abrams had to ease away to direct Mission: Impossible III— works because of, rather than despite, their contrasts on many levels.

Cuse, 47, who gave Lindelof his first TV writing job on Nash Bridges, is the mentor — tall, wearing a crisp oxford shirt and jeans, with an authoritative voice made for voice-overs. Lindelof, in Cuse's office as they review a script, is younger (33) and shorter — the protégé in jeans, purple T-shirt and Yankees cap. He has what he calls a "hyperbolic" nature, tempered by Cuse's calm.

Cuse, father of three, is the early bird, ticking off his tasks as the sun rises. Night owl Lindelof, sleep-deprived as a new first-time father, works in the wee hours. Both write, frequently together.

Lindelof enjoys spending three hours breaking down scenes in the editing room. Cuse is the problem solver, working out details with producers in Hawaii, where Lost is shot.

"We have complementary talents," Cuse says. But "we see the show very similarly. There's very little we don't fundamentally agree on, whether it's the direction of the show, the aesthetics or the stories we want to tell people."

The prospect of bringing an island world to life once terrified Lindelof. Now, they both say, the show has become its own entity. Cuse says it guides them like The Force in Star Wars. Lost "is bigger than us," says Lindelof. "It's like, when one of us has an idea, we feel that's what the show wanted us to do."

The Force obviously is with them:

•Lost has achieved cult-worship status, marked by numerous books and fan websites, with broad enough appeal to draw an average 15.4 million viewers (down 4% vs. Season 1) while facing No. 1 American Idol part of last year. It won an Emmy and Golden Globe for best drama; Abrams won a directing Emmy.

•It's the most popular ABC show on iTunes, with more than 8.5 million downloads. Sales of Season 1's DVD have topped 1.6 million copies, trailing only 24's first season among drama series, and the Season 2 set was No. 1 in sales for the first full week of September. This summer, Lost experimented with a multimedia Web hunt called The Lost Experience.

•The series spawned a wave of serialized mysteries that feature large casts, unite strangers or touch on otherworldly elements: Invasion, Surface and Threshold last year; Jericho, Heroes, Vanished and The Nine this fall.

To remain a success, Lindelof and Cuse say they need to make sure the characters come first. So far they've succeeded, says author Stephen King, whose apocalyptic The Stand influenced Lost.

"They're great storytellers," says King, a fan. "Very few TV show creators seem as able to convey the sense of awe the unknown causes in us, and the hold it has on our imaginations."

From conception to sensation

The concept for Lost— an island drama with elements of Castaway and Survivor — was devised late in the 2004-05 development season. Alias' Abrams, skilled in action and suspense, was set to make it. With the time constraints, Lindelof, an up-and-coming writer with an interest in sci-fi and comic books, came on.

He was "completely in sync" with Abrams, says Bryan Burk, a longtime Abrams associate who heads Lost's extensive post-production from the Disney lot. At their first meeting, "he walked in wearing a Star Wars fan club T-shirt. We're like, 'Hey, how are we not best friends already?' "

"Damon has an incredible sense of story," Abrams says. "We immediately clicked in terms of the importance of character and emotion." Presuming Lost was the longest of long shots, the pair decided to make the pilot they wanted, breaking traditional casting and plot rules.

The critical and audience reception confirmed others wanted it, too. But Abrams was taking on his first feature film directing assignment, and overseeing Alias and more pilots. And Lindelof was spooked by the looming challenge. "I quit the show three times," he says.

Cuse talked him out of leaving and eventually joined the show.

Lindelof "was suddenly, in my absence, besieged by all this stuff. Carlton provided the bolstering he desperately needed," says Abrams, who wrote Wednesday's premiere with Lindelof, and hopes to direct an episode this season. "They've taken the show we created and continued it in a way that I really admire."

"Initially, I thought it would be Damon the pure writer-artist-auteur, and Carlton would bring skills from having run so many shows successfully," ABC entertainment chief Steve McPherson says. "But it's like they morphed into one person. They seem to do everything together."

Hammering out the plot kinks

In the writers' room, decorated with pictures of Hawaii and the show's cast — with one board featuring photos of departed characters, under the heading R.I.P. — Lindelof is chatty, giving his fellow writers an update about caring for his month-old son, Van, and the toll it takes on sleep: "I'm reacting like five minutes after things happen."

After a few minutes of chatter, Cuse tries to get the staff focused on the season's eighth episode.

"Yeah, kids are great, all right," says writer Adam Horowitz, drawing laughs by gently mocking Cuse's businesslike transition.

As writer Edward Kitsis lays out the episode, broken down into five acts on a dry-erase board, Lindelof and Cuse do much of the talking. Lindelof free-associates more, as Cuse crystallizes points of the discussion. The episode is part of a season the producers say will offer more romance and adventure, examine the dynamic of Us vs. Them and — in one of their many cryptic references — play with our conceptions of time.

During the hour-long meeting, pop culture and literary references are tossed about. The discussion caroms from Peggy Sue Got Married to An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Star Trek: The Next Generation, A Christmas Carol, Eyes Wide Shut and Wonka bars.

Lindelof is a fount of pop culture details; Cuse knows science facts. "Carlton is the guy you'd want to be on the island with," Lindelof says. "I would be entertaining at the campfire."

In one scene, a knotty problem is suddenly solved by a character switch that both stokes a new romance and stirs jealousy. Cuse says later, revisiting The Force metaphor: "As we were working toward a solution, the show told us what needed to happen."

As Lost's plentiful religious references might suggest, both men seek spiritual meaning. Lindelof approaches from a Jewish upbringing, with Cuse having been raised Catholic.

On this day, Lindelof and Cuse are dealing with elements of seven episodes, including revisions to a script they are writing together. As they head to an editing room to assess a scene from the second episode, a visual-effects coordinator walks up with a laptop to show a riveting season-opening sequence. Abrams comes out of a room where he's reviewing scenes from his new series, Six Degrees, and the three watch intently. "That's cool. That's crazy," Abrams says.

Later in Cuse's office — which features two old Dodger Stadium seats, numbered 15 and 16 (from the infamous sequence 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42) — they review their script, then discuss another one with fellow producer Jeff Pinkner.

On most days they're together only about half the time, splitting up duties. "He trusts me to do the things I do, and I trust him," says Lindelof, whose nearby office is a Lost mini-museum, with Mr. Eko's "Jesus stick," a concert poster for Charlie's band Driveshaft, and a model of Oceanic Flight 815 — angled downward.

The trust extends to their experienced colleagues. "In the same way that Damon and Carlton and Bryan trust me to be in the jungle supervising and executing the show, I trust them to do the final cut of the show," says Jack Bender, who oversees operations in Hawaii.

But organization only goes so far when plotting a series with no specific end date. Cuse and Lindelof, signed through the end of this season, say they can see the show concluding after five seasons, but they know it could go longer considering TV's economics.

Regardless, they have "a superstructure" set up that they think will keep the story on track, and a definite endgame. But that doesn't mean this TV entity will stop evolving. "We're putting this puzzle together, but there's no picture on the front of the box. And people keep adding new pieces, but they still have to fit together," Lindelof says.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-09-28-lost-boys_x.htm

fredfa

09-28-06, 11:54 PM

The New Season
Will 'Kidnapped' Be Fall's First Victim?
NBC's new show is beginning to look like fall TV's first major flop.
By Scott Collins Los Angeles Times Staff Writer in the Channel Island TV Industry blog

Dana Delaney and Timothy Hutton as parents of a missing teenage boy, finished a distant third in its 10 p.m. timeslot (6.3 million total viewers), behind CBS' "CSI: NY" (16.1 million) and a special "20/20" on ABC devoted to the death of "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin (13.3 million), according to early data from Nielsen Media Research.

Also, "Kidnapped" held on to just 60% of the lead-in among adults aged 18-49 from NBC's weight-loss contest "The Biggest Loser."

The early tepid audience reaction presents a significant hurdle for NBC and the studio, Sony Pictures Television. "Kidnapped" is among this fall's most expensive new shows, partly because it's shot in New York, where production costs are particularly high. One agent estimates that each episode costs more than $3 million to produce, or about 50% more than the typical one-hour drama. Although the show has reportedly sold well in the overseas market, the poor ratings on NBC make it hard to justify spending a king's ransom.

"Kidnapped" is also helping drag down NBC's competitive position at a time when it desperately needs new hits. On Wednesday, NBC ended up tying third (with Fox) in the crucial 18-49 demographic.

NBC moved "Law & Order" — now in its 17th season — to Fridays to make way for "Kidnapped." The network could possibly reverse that move in the coming days, although no such plan appears imminent.

Spokespersons for NBC and Sony did not immediately return calls and emails seeking comment.

http://hollywoodhotline.typepad.com/watcher/2006/09/will_nbcs_kidna.html

VisionOn

09-29-06, 12:44 AM

fredfa

09-29-06, 01:04 AM

For me Monk has never recovered from the loss of Bitty Schram. It just hasn't been the same since she left after episode #38.

SVonhof

09-29-06, 01:17 AM

Man I can't beleive how much press "Ugly Betty" or whatever it's called is getting. It's not in my list of "have to see shows" and won't be, heck I didn't even watch "Everybody Loves Raymond" until it was a season or two from the end. Maybe I am in the minority, but Freda, do we have to have 200 posts talking about the same show? I know it's all news and everything, but every time I see the title, it irks me that it's in the news again, since I don't ever think I will watch the show.

Is it just me? Maybe limit news about shows to 10 articles or something? :)

fredfa

09-29-06, 02:19 AM

You might have a point.

I just try to present a wide range of critical views of as many new shows as possible, Steve. If the show doesn't interest you, please just skip over the article.

I try to caption each so it is easy to do.

But hopefully you -- or others -- might find some show interesting based on some of the critics. It is the ones I hadn't really expected to like which I tried because of someone's article that I often find the most rewarding.

I try not to impose my own tastes in the posts, whcih is why I detail what I personally watch at the top of post #4 -- so you get a chance to figure out my biases.

VisionOn

09-29-06, 03:49 AM

For me Monk has never recovered from the loss of Bitty Schram. It just hasn't been the same since she left after episode #38.

I agree with that. Bitty Schram was an essential part of the show and kept Monk from falling into the slapstick it has done. In the first season it was established that Monk was a fairly normal person until his wife died and you could sympathise. Now every season we journey more into Monk's past and reveal that even as a kid he was actually OCD as well just for some cheap flashback laughs and to drop him into ridiculous situations. Although saying that, Monk has developed phobias and OCD about everything now so it doesn't need much prompting.

How did he function on the police force and rise to detective prior to his wife's murder, if his newly reinvented past gives him all the same problems which led to him leaving the police in the first place?

jim tressler

09-29-06, 09:21 AM

Scott - I have to agree with fred - even if I dont care about the show or topic, I appreciate that fred posts it - why? becasue there may be someting I am interested in and would hope to get the same coverage.. hats off to fred, somehow he finds all this crap!!

By the way - I did catch 10 minutes of ugly betty (was it last night ??) and thought it was awful!!

You might have a point.

I just try to present a wide range of critical views of as many new shows as possible, Steve. If the show doesn't interest you, please just skip over the article.

I try to caption each so it is easy to do.

But hopefully you -- or others -- might find some show interesting based on some of the critics. It is the ones I hadn't really expected to like which I tried because of someone's article that I often find the most rewarding.

I try not to impose my own tastes in the posts, whcih is why I detail what I personally watch at the top of post #4 -- so you get a chance to figure out my biases.

fredfa

09-29-06, 10:19 AM

The New Season
A chill settles on steamy MyNetworkTV
Ratings are heading down for the new network
By Kevin Downey MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Sep 29, 2006

When MyNetworkTV launched earlier this month, it did so with the boldest of strategies, betting it all on two English-language novelas airing five nights a week.

In television, novelas, borrowed from the Spanish-language networks, are hot.

MyNetworkTV is not.

Less than a month after its Sept. 5 launch, the Fox-Twentieth Television venture, created from stations left out of the WB-UPN merger, is seeing its ratings heading in a downward spiral, That comes after a launch that was itself disappointing, despite a two-week jump on the regular broadcast season.

That’s also despite two name stars, Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild, in one of those novelas, “Fashion House.”

MNT last week averaged just under a 0.7 household rating and 884,000 viewers for its two shows, not including Saturday recaps, according to ratings released yesterday by Nielsen Media Research. That was down from a 0.9 household rating its first week and just under a 0.8 in week two. Its first two weeks averaged 1.3 million and 1 million viewers, respectively.

Media buyers had thought MNT’s unique programming, coupled with familiar stars like Fairchild and Derek, would initially generate a 1 household rating and then level off to about 0.9 once the other networks began their new seasons.

Last week, “Fashion House” averaged a 0.4 in 18-49s, down from a 0.5 its first week and even with its second. The other series, “Desire,” pulled a 0.3 rating, down from 0.4 its first week and also even with its second.

MNT expects those numbers to improve. “I had no idea what to expect,” says Jack Abernethy, CEO of Fox Television Stations. “But, historically, novelas tend to do well then dip a little and then pick up toward the conclusion.”

Abernethy says he expects the network, which skews female, to see an upswing next month when Fox begins airing baseball in place of its regular lineup, driving women viewers to other networks. He also expects another ratings bump later in the year when other networks heavy-up on reruns.

But it will surely be a struggle for the new network to spring back. “This is a time when there’s a ton of promotional clutter for new shows, so it’s difficult for them to stand out,” says Sam Armando, senior vice president and director of broadcast research at Starcom. “I think they have to create awareness of the network, and what the network is, if there is any hope of growing its audience.”

The problem MNT faces--and this speaks to the risk it undertook at launch--is that it's airing only two shows, which limits choice, and that each demands that the viewer watch a full five nights a week for the full 13 weeks the novela runs. A five-nights-a week series is all but unprecedented in primetime.

Media people say it's asking a lot of viewers, and maybe too much, when they can choose between hundreds of programs on dozens of networks.

“I’m not surprised that they are not doing well,” says Susan McClellan, national media manager at Empower MediaMarketing. “I honestly don’t think people have the time to commit an hour or two every single night to stay up with storylines. I think the network was a grand idea but, frankly, I can’t imagine how they will grow.”

The question now for MNT is just how long it can stick to its current strategy.

The network was cobbled together earlier this year when UPN and the WB merged into the CW. Some Fox-owned UPN affiliates were left without a network. These stations formed the foundation of MyNetworkTV, which has since grown to a network of affiliates reaching 96 percent of households.

Most buyers think MNT will have to go to Plan B, whatever that might be, sooner rather than later. But for now at least the network says it will stick to its schedule of a full year of novelas with a new series beginning every 13 weeks.

“We are already halfway through shooting novelas three and four, and we’re beginning to cast five and six, and we have scripts ready for seven and eight,” says Abernethy. “We like what we see and we’re committed to it.”

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_7599.asp

fredfa

09-29-06, 10:43 AM

TV Sports
Saturday Night Is ABC’s New Monday Night
Ratings are heading down for the new network
By Richard Sandomir The New York Times September 29, 2006

ESPN has carried college football games on Saturday nights since 1984, so it made sense that its evolutionary takeover of ABC Sports would lead that wing of the empire to do exactly the same. Four weeks into a successful prime-time run on ABC, one wonders why the move took so long.

ABC had carried regular-season college football games on Saturday nights in the past, including four games last year, but this is the first full-season series, sort of a collegiate replacement for the departed “Monday Night Football.”

“I’m glad nobody thought about it before,” John Skipper, ESPN’s executive vice president for content, said yesterday by telephone. “I can take credit for it being on my watch.”

The credit, though, goes largely to a higher source: Steve McPherson, the president of ABC Entertainment.

“Football used to be a loss leader,” McPherson said, referring to ABC’s former “Monday Night Football” franchise, which is now at ESPN. “You took a big loss to get a big audience. But this is very good financially and brings in the male audience we want. There’s nothing like having eyeballs coming to the set who wouldn’t normally be there.”

ABC pays nothing extra for games already included in conference deals and doesn’t have the expense of producing new programming for the course of the football season.

The series is built on games starring highly ranked or well-known schools, and the games have drawn from 5.4 million viewers for Nebraska-Southern California on Sept. 16 to 13.3 million for Ohio State-Texas on Sept. 9.

Last week’s astonishing comeback by Notre Dame against Michigan State (ABC’s second Saturday night game featuring Notre Dame) attracted 8.4 million viewers.

The four games have led ABC to prime-time victories in three of the four college football Saturdays. ABC narrowly lost on Sept. 16 to CBS’s broadcast of the Florida-Tennessee matchup, which generated 5.7 million viewers.

At this point last year, ABC had carried games in the first two weeks of September, followed by two films to finish out the month, with average viewership that was 41 percent below this year’s four night games.

Kirk Herbstreit, a co-analyst on the Saturday night games with Bob Davie, acknowledged that ABC received the biggest matchups “for obvious reasons.” But he said he did not view those games as bigger than the ones he calls Thursday nights for ESPN.

“I might have felt that way earlier in my career,” Herbstreit said yesterday from Columbia, S.C., before calling last night’s game between Auburn and South Carolina. “I see matchups, and I’m locked into this one.”

Tomorrow night, he will be in his usual perch, with Chris Fowler and Lee Corso on ESPN’s “College Gameday” set in Iowa City before shifting to the ABC booth for Ohio State-Iowa.

Skipper said that carrying major games in prime time on ABC did not cannibalize those on ESPN and ESPN2. By shifting ABC’s old noon game slot to prime time, the early afternoon games on ESPN and ESPN2 have gotten more viewers. And there are plenty of college football viewers on Saturday nights. ESPN averages 2.4 million, ESPN2 garners 1.1 million and TBS snares 1.2 million more, with a high of 1.5 million for its season opener Sept. 2.

ESPN has aggressively pioneered the scheduling of games on all days and nights of the week; ESPN would schedule night games in Iceland if it were feasible and enough people crowded around the “Gameday” set.

Many universities clamor for ESPN’s attention and the national exposure it offers. Being televised on nontraditional nights is far better than not being carried at all, especially if you need the face time to help your recruiting.

But not every university wants to play when ESPN/ABC beckons. Michigan won’t play at home on Saturday nights; it frets about more than 100,000 fans emptying the Big House around midnight.

“Because of our parking situation,” said Bruce Madej, an athletic department spokesman, “we think there’s a safety factor the later you get in the evening. It’s dark.”

But another reason is tradition, Madej said. “We believe in Ann Arbor, football ought to be played at noon or around there,” he said.

And Michigan wields the power of its masses; it doesn’t need prime time. “We have the crowds, so we’re able to make sure there’s not a night game,” Madej said.

Oklahoma and Texas refused to move their Red River Rivalry game at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on Oct. 7 into prime time. But that’s not home for either team. Host Texas lost to Ohio State in the night game in Austin on Sept. 9, and Oklahoma has indicated a desire to play at night for ABC.

About half of ABC’s Saturday night college football schedule was completed before the season, with the rest to be selected 12 days before the games. Few teams playing crucial games in the conferences that ESPN and ABC control will say no to playing at night.

Dave Brown, a vice president for ESPN, said, “One can see by looking at our schedule that we aren’t turned down by many people.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/sports/ncaafootball/29sandomir.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

fredfa

09-29-06, 12:07 PM

Nielsen Notebook
“CIS” beats “Grey’s”

Thursday nights overnight Nielsen ratings show “CSI” rebounding to barely nip “Grey’s Anatomy” in total viewers and “Ugly Betty” started strongly.

More details shortly.

fredfa

09-29-06, 12:20 PM

fredfa

09-29-06, 12:44 PM

(So how about shooting AR#11 in HD, CBS? That would make it truly amazing.)

TV Notebook
The Amazing Race Goes On
By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 9/29/2006

CBS said Friday it has picked up an 11th edition of The Amazing Race.

The show debuted Sept. 17 with its best ratings in the 18-49 demo since the Feb. 28 episode, says CBS.

The reality show, which airs Sunday nights at 8 p.m., is executive produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Bertram van Munster, Jonathan Littman and Hayma Screech.

The show was the number two pick among reality shows according to B&C's latest TV critics poll .
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6346942.html?display=Search+Results&text=Amazing+Race

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6376489

fredfa

09-29-06, 12:47 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Strong premiere for ABC's 'Ugly Betty'
Much praised novela pulls a 4.9 in 18-49s 9s
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Sep 29, 2006

ABC’s critically adored new show “Ugly Betty” is looking pretty good after a strong premiere last night.

The charming adaptation of a Colombian telenovela averaged a 4.9 in adults 18-49, according to Nielsen overnight ratings, finishing second in the 8 p.m. hour to CBS’s “Survivor.”

That helped ABC to its second straight Thursday night victory, this one a lot more narrow than its first, averaging a 6.2 rating and 16 share to CBS’s 6.0/16. Last week ABC averaged a 7.2/19 to CBS’s 6.0/16.

“Betty,” which recorded the fifth-best premiere for a new show this season, built 25 percent from its first half hour to its second, going from a 4.2 to a 5.6. It became just the third debut this season to grow in its second half, joining NBC’s “Heroes” and CBS’s “Jericho.”

And it even finished ahead of CBS’s “Survivor” among households in the timeslot, averaging a 10.7 rating to the latter’s 9.6. “Survivor” did narrowly edge “Betty” in total viewers with 16.6 million to the latter’s 16.1 million, but the reality show dipped 9 percent week to week in 18-49s.

“Betty” surely got a boost from people clicking in early in anticipation of 9 p.m. smash “Grey’s Anatomy,” which once again took first in its timeslot among 18-49s with a 9.4 rating, 1.5 ahead of CBS’s “CSI.” But “CSI” did bounce ahead in total viewers this week, drawing 23.5 million to “Grey’s” 23.3 million.

“Betty” did extremely well among women 18-49 and women 18-34, where it won the timeslot. ABC certainly looks smart for moving the show from little-watched Friday to Thursday late this summer, as it could be a steady builder.

Most likely CBS and ABC will trade wins on the night over the coming weeks, as both their schedules settle in. Though ABC’s new “Six Degrees” finished ahead of CBS’s new “Shark” at 10 p.m. for the second week, “Degrees” was down 24 percent from its premiere, from a 5.4 to a 4.4. “Shark” stayed steady at a 4.2, but both shows lost a lot of their lead-in. “Shark” drew nearly 4 million more total viewers than “Degrees’” 10.8 million.

Both ABC and CBS had hoped for more out of the timeslot, where NBC once again won easily in 18-49s with “ER’s” 6.1.

Meanwhile, for the night, ABC and CBS were followed by NBC’s 4.3/11 average. Univision was fourth at 2.0/5, and Fox and the CW tied at 1.9/5.

CBS’s “Survivor” was first at 8 p.m. with a 5.8, followed by “Betty” at 4.9. NBC’s “My Name is Earl” dipped to a 3.4, down from last week, and lead-out “The Office” bettered “Earl” for the second time ever, and the second straight week, with a 3.7. Two episodes of Fox’s “’Til Death” were fourth at 2.4, followed by a 2.2 for CW’s “Smallville” premiere and a 2.1 for Univision’s “La Fea Mas Bella.”

At 9 p.m., “Grey’s” led with a 9.4, followed by “CSI” at 7.9, NBC’s “Deal or No Deal” at 3.2, Univision’s “Barrera de Amor” at 2.3, its best rating in weeks, CW’s “Supernatural” at 1.6 and Fox’s “Celebrity Duets” at 1.5.

At 10 p.m., NBC’s “ER” led at 6.1, followed by “Degrees” at 4.4, “Shark” at 4.2 and Univision’s “Aqui y Ahora” at 1.8.

Among households, CBS barely slipped past ABC, at 11.1/17 to 11.0/17, followed by NBC’s 6.8/11, Fox’s 3.2/5, CW’s 2.6/4, and Univision’s 2.4/4.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_7626.asp

bphisig

09-29-06, 02:01 PM

Thursday’s prime-time ratings – and Media Week Analyst Marc Berman’s view of what they mean -- have been posted just under the HD Football listings near the top of Ratings News the first post in this thread.
Fred

I'm kind of confused as to how Grey's Anatomy, with a 16.1 rating, can have fewer total viewers than CSI, with a 15.3 rating. Same thing for Survivor (9.6 rating, 16.6 million) vs. Ugly Betty (12.2, 16.09 million).

Can you explain?

fredfa

09-29-06, 02:07 PM

The rating is for households.

Nielsen estimates how many people are in each household (and presumably watching).

Survivor generally is a show the family watches as a group, for example, so it will routinely have more viewers than many others.

keenan

09-29-06, 02:17 PM

(So how about shooting AR#11 in HD, CBS? That would make it truly amazing.)

Yes, if they did they'd pick up at least one more viewer here.

fredfa

09-29-06, 02:22 PM

Critics are starting to post their reviews of a number of upcoming shows. So here are the premiere dates for the next 10 days:
The New Season
Upcoming Premiere Dates

Saturday, Sept. 30
11:35 PM ET/PT Saturday Night Live - NBC HD

Sunday, Oct. 1
7 PM ET/PT Everybody Hates Chris - CW HD
7:30 PM ET/PT All of Us - CW HD
8 PM ET/PT Girlfriends - CW HD
8:30 PM ET/PT The Game - CW HD
10 PM ET Dexter - Showtime (Series Premiere) HD

Monday, Oct. 2
9 PM ET/PT The Bachelor: Rome - ABC

Tuesday, Oct. 3
8 PM ET/PT Friday Night Lights - NBC (Series Premiere) HD
9 PM ET/PT Veronica Mars - CW HD

Wednesday, Oct. 4
8 PM ET/PT 20 Good Years - NBC (Series Premiere) HD
9 PM ET/PT Lost - ABC HD
10 PM ET/PT The Nine - ABC (Series Premiere) HD

fredfa

09-29-06, 03:27 PM

Thanks, dc_pilgrim.

While I occasionally post information about shows like Dr. Who, in most cases I post information about premieres on just the broadcast networks and others which offer HD programming.

The powers that be who control this forum have very generously allowed me great latitude over the years in posting about non-HD matters, but I welcome submissions (like yours!) which add to what I post.

(Just trying to clear up why I did not include Dr. Who in my premiere list.)

fredfa

09-29-06, 03:33 PM

Critic's Notebook
Thursday Night Madness:
''Survivor,'' ''The Office'' ''Grey's Anatomy''
By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

I think ''Survivor: Cook Islands'' is in trouble. Tonight's episode ended the deliberate provocation of the racially divided tribes, turning the show into just plain ''Survivor,'' and not great stuff at that. The eventual double cross that sent Cecelia packing was mildly entertaining but most of the episode dragged. And that's not very enticing when the competition includes ''Earl/The Office,'' ''Ugly Betty,'' ''Smallville'' -- in other words, shows people can get passionate about.

We watched ''Survivor'' and then ''Grey's Anatomy.'' I had already seen ''Ugly Betty'' and ''Earl,'' and the DVR caught ''CSI,'' ''The Office,'' ''Smallville,'' ''Supernatural'' and ''Six Degrees.'' Maybe even more. It was an easy night to lose track. Anyway, ''Grey's'' made me feel as if its strengths are making its weaknesses more glaring.

The worst for me was Bailey's forgiving Izzie. First of all, no one should be forgiving Izzie. SHE KILLED A GUY. And I've had issues with the whole no-real-consequences for her going back to last season. Tonight's episode made that even worse. Nor should Bailey have to apologize for anything.

On a larger point, the medical characters have become so strong, and their stories sufficiently engrossing, that the patients just aren't that interesting. Last night's patients would not have been that exciting under most circumstances; we've seen the life-to-its-fullest bit before, and the bride noted that cases involving impaling have been around.

Good work, though, from Sara Ramirez, Chandra Wilson, Kate Walsh. The McSteamy surprise was pretty good, although I don't like the way it was played to let McDreamy off the moral hook. Better effort than usual from Ellen Pompeo, who is managing to look livelier than she did last season.

And deep bows of respect to the great Diahann Carroll as Burke's mom. Wonderful stuff with Cristina and with Burke. Nice use of Richard Roundtree, too; he's there, he's formidable and he needs few words to make an impact.

Last week, ''The Office'' did an episode that should rank among the greatest sitcom episodes of all time. This week, it was merely terrific: Michael and the wedding-dress comment, Angela's jealousy, the double date, the looks on Jim and Pam's faces after the phone call and then, to pay it all off, the scene with Jim in Michael's room, loaded with pain, bitterly funny. Talk to Roy, indeed.

And, as if that wasn't enough, the stains ...

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/

fredfa

09-29-06, 03:35 PM

Critic’s Notebook
More Thursday:
''CSI'' and, oh, yeah, ''Shark'' (With Brief Update)

By Rich Heldenfels in his Akron Beacon Journal TV blog

Update: For those of you tracking the ratings war on Thursday, ''CSI'' edged ''Grey's Anatomy'' in total viewers last night, while ''Grey's'' again had a sizable lead among viewers 18 to 49 years old. Both ''CSI'' and ''Grey's'' are still sizable hits, with close to 23.5 million viewers for the CBS show and about 23.3 million for ''Grey's.''

Going back to at least ''China Beach,'' Marg Helgenberger has had a great face -- beautiful but with a care-worn quality that doesn't hide the fact that she can also be tough as nails. ''CSI'' has been putting that look to good use in the two episodes this season, especially in Thursday's wrenching hour.

Over the years, ''CSI'' has been for me the kind of show ''Law & Order'' is for a lot of other people: something you don't necessarily seek out, but that you stop in for, have a good hour, then move on. But I've been watching ''CSI'' to see how it's doing as it battles ''Grey's Anatomy,'' and getting drawn deeper into it, even when it does things I don't like.

For one thing, did they really have to gun down Sam? ( A digression: If you're a fan of Scott Wilson, who has played Sam, check out ''Junebug.'' It's pretty much Amy Adams's movie -- and drags when she's not part of the action -- but Wilson is wonderfully understated in a supporting role.) On the other hand, there's the elaborate, serialized mystery, the acting and the bursts of humor -- I loved the singing of the cause of death. I don't need another hour of television, especially not in the overstuffed lineup on Thursday nights. But I'm not ready to give this one up yet.

When I mentioned in last night's post all the things I was watching or recording, I knew I had left something off the list. And it was ''Shark,'' the James Woods drama that had its second airing last night. Woods is still great fun to watch, and the show emphasizes his nervous energy by having him and the camera in seemingly constant motion. It was also amusing to put Shark in the context of real-life Hollywood big shots, with Robert Shapiro and Wolfgang Puck in his poker game, and to see how the character is being molded more closely to Woods. The actor, for example, is a very serious poker player in real life.

But when you get past Woods, it's still not much of a show -- way too glib in the way it wrapped up the case last night. If I was casting about for a show at 10 p.m. Thursday, I might check in with it again. But all the stuff I've recorded earlier in the evening is still sitting in the DVR as 10 o'clock arrives, so I don't really need another show in that hour.

http://blogs.ohio.com/beacon_tv/

fredfa

09-29-06, 03:39 PM

Nielsen Notebook
Pretty "Ugly"
''CSI'' and, oh, yeah, ''Shark'' (With Brief Update)

By David Kronke Los Angeles Daily News Television Critic in his “The Mayor Of Television” blog

"Ugly Betty" debuted last night, nearly knocking "Survivor" off its throne. "Survivor" had 16.6 million viewers; "Betty," 16.1 - the most for any new series so far this season. Just as it was shocking when CBS usurped NBC's Thursday-night dominance a few years back, ABC's threat to take out CBS is more imminent that one might've guessed.

And now that "Survivor" has already merged tribes, it doesn't even have that lame race-baiting gimmick to keep viewers interested. Could "Betty" actually beat "Survivor" in the future?

"Grey's Anatomy" v. "CSI" became a horse race. "CSI" had 23.49 million viewers; "Grey," 23.31. But when you start noodling with demographic numbers, "Grey" won Adults 18-49.

In its second week out, "Shark" beat "ER," 14.72 million to 14.27 million, while "Six Degrees," to no one's surprise, commenced its tank job, losing more than half the generous lead-in "Grey's Anatomy" provided and another 3.6 million from 10 to 10 p.m. "Six Degrees?" It'll be lucky to see six episodes.

And The CW actually beat Fox on Thursday.

http://www.insidesocal.com/tv/

dad1153

09-29-06, 03:39 PM

I try not to impose my own tastes in the posts, whcih is why I detail what I personally watch at the top of post #4 -- so you get a chance to figure out my biases.

Oh, I didn't know that. Glad to see I'm not the only one that tries to catch all the new 'Law & Order' shows on DVR. Funny, 'Studio 60' is also on my must-tape list. If 'Deal Or No Deal' were to be included we could be buddies! :rolleyes:

You must be thrilled that, at least until 'American Idol' returns in January '07, 'Criminal Intent' is doing well again after two consecutive years of taking it in the chin against 'Desperate Housewives.' I haven't seen the new 'Law & Order' shows of this season yet (including the new one tonight) but over the weekend I'm going to get through all of them in a mini-marathon of sorts. Not tonight though, because 'Dateline NBC: To Catch A Predator Part XVLLLIV' is on at 9PM ET/PT. For my money this is the most fun and reliably amusing show on network TV, a totally predictable and full-of-itself hour of tabloid sleaze masquarading as network news. Too bad the sexual predators aren't as unaware of the sting as in the first few specials, which leads to more predictable 'escape before the interview' scenes of the cops busting an overweight ugly f*** to the ground. If Chris Hanson doesn't get to host a network reality show out of this gig (I look forward to his 'I'm Chris Hanson with Dateline NBC' line as much as 'Amazing Race' fans look forward to seeing Phil K. raise the eyebrow ;) ) then there's no justice in this world.

fredfa

09-29-06, 03:59 PM

I don't know about thrilled -- but a bit relieved. I think Chris Noth is a nice counterpoint to Vincent D'Onofrio, and am continually pleasantly surprised by Kathryn Erbe's wonderfully understated perfomances.

Personally I am going to kiss the performances of Jamey Sheridan and Courtney B. Vance, but am interested in the addition of Julianne Nicholson.

This is a show that generally flies under the radar and I am glad -- though a bit surprised -- that it is doing so well.

Actually one of the not-yet-noticed stories of the season seems to be the resurgence of all the Law and Order shows.

And to me, at least, there is something comforting in that. I just hope they continue to do well.

fredfa

09-29-06, 04:01 PM

dad1153

09-29-06, 04:13 PM

"Dateline: Sexual Predators!!!!"

One can only imagine the reactions of David Brinkley, Chet Huntley and John Chancellor to such second-rate, mindless, ratings-grabbing, sensationalist drivel week after week after week.

They're probably kicking themselves in the afterlife saying to each other why didn't I think of that one? Kind-of hard to do when the internet and hidden portable cameras weren't as common but still, ratings first. Right? ;)

Actually one of the not-yet-noticed stories of the season seems to be the resurgence of all the Law and Order shows.

As far the mothership and 'CI' yes, but 'SVU' has yet to go on a downward spiral. It's been going up and up every season since it started, and during NBC's miserable 2005-06 season it became NBC's top-rated hour-long drama (on par with 'ER') only bettered by the then-hot 'Deal Or No Deal.' Now that Mariska Hargitay has her Emmy and a new child (plus Meloni's work got recognized with an Emmy nomination) the watch commences as to when one of these two will flee the 'SVU' nest to pursue higher salaries/star vehicles/etc. Unlike the mothership and 'CI' the 'SVU' show has yet to experience the radical shake-up of the core group of detectives (Munch, Stabler, Benson and Capt. Cragen) that has been pretty much the norm of all the other 'L&O' franchises.

OK, enough 'L&O' or the natives here that are interested in every other HD show but the Dick Wolf one's will grow restless and cry favoritism. Thanks for the soapbox fredfa! :cool:

fredfa

09-29-06, 04:17 PM

They're probably kicking themselves in the afterlife saying to each other why didn't I think of that one?

Somehow I doubt it!

fredfa

09-29-06, 04:25 PM

TV Q&A
Ask Matt
(from the Ask (TV Critic) Matt (Roush) column at TVGuide.com
By Matt Roush TVGuide.com TV Critic

Question: Are you shocked by the results of the Thursday-night battle between Grey's Anatomy and CSI last week? I expected Anatomy to win based on their momentum from last year, and I knew CSI would still get their fair share, but I was floored by how wide the margin was. Is it too early to make a big deal out of this? Fans of character-driven ensembles have bashed procedural dramas for years, but the ratings have always sided with crime dramas, until last Thursday. Do you foresee the networks shying away from procedurals? I think that for television to thrive, both types of dramas must coexist. And for TV to excel, we must get rid of these bad reality shows, but that's just wishful thinking.— Benny

Matt Roush: Actually, I'm at peace with reality shows coexisting with procedurals, character-based serials, comedies, newsmags: All are part of a healthy weekly schedule nowadays, all within moderation of course. And that's the dilemma. It seemed for a while that procedural crime dramas were taking over TV, or at least taking over CBS. The Grey's Anatomy win surprised nearly everyone by the margin of victory, and we'll see today how Week 2 held up, but given the sensational nature of Grey's second episode — some pretty terrific twists, right? — I'm expecting a repeat victory. Still, I wouldn't say that Grey's win has changed the face of television. The face of Thursday, maybe. But CSI is still a potent show, and in repeats, it's going to clobber Grey's, which is why shows like this are so important to CBS (and which is why ABC would kill to launch a procedural franchise of its own, regardless of how well its serials are doing). So while I don't think that Grey's victory rings a death knell for procedurals, it is a positive sign that our TV appetite has a bit more range and won't be a constant diet of whodunits and how'd-they-solve-its.

Question: Who would've thought? According to preliminary ratings, Grey's Anatomy sacked CSI. Although the network still had fewer total viewers for the night according to the ratings, I bet the folks over at ABC are throwing a party right now. But how long will it last? Do you think those ratings are just a reflection of the anticipation from last season? Given the type of show GA is compared to CSI, there would've been more anticipation, right? So now that the show has premiered, is the hype gone? At least now I know GA is here for the long haul. Besides, I find the original CSI to be expendable (although CBS would never do that). By the way, did you like Shark? I did.— TeJe R.

Matt Roush: I have no idea how long Grey's ratings high will last, but I'd be surprised if there's much of a falloff anytime soon, given the way the stories are spinning on that show. I'm not sure Grey's hype was any more intense than CSI's, but the allure of Grey's is similar to that of Desperate Housewives. These shows pretty much define watercooler TV, so I'm not sure "hype" is the word you're looking for here: Think "buzz." By that measure, Grey's is king of the hill. As for CSI being expendable? Not in this TV universe.

And after seeing only the pilot of Shark, my first impression was that I enjoyed James Woods. Thought the writing was lacking, and the supporting cast a pale shadow of what Hugh Laurie gets to work with on House (which follows much of the same setup, although in a hospital instead of a courtroom). The other big story of Thursday was how commandingly ER beat Shark and ABC's pitiful Six Degrees, despite both having much stronger lead-ins. Guess it's not time to take that one for granted yet (although I found sitting through ER's grim premiere torturous).

Question: As a longtime Gilmore Girls fan, I just wanted to reassure you that you won't be angering too many of us by saying you prefer Friday Night Lights to GG in the time period. On the contrary, your honesty is appreciated. Many of us Luke-Lorelai fans are so disenchanted with the complete destruction of these beloved characters, as well as with TPTB's apparent indifference to our disgust, that we can't drum up a whole lot of loyalty for them. Any enthusiasm on our part would likely be met with the proverbial kick in the teeth once again. It is our hope that your comments, and those of your like-minded colleagues, will send a message to the Gilmore team that the story simply does not work. We have been saying this for months, but we're only the fans — what do we know? Keep the honest appraisals coming.— Cathy S.

Matt Roush: I admit I was shocked that virtually all the mail I've seen in the aftermath of my Gilmore criticism was supportive of my view, not of the show. I think it may be because it's pretty clear that I take no pleasure in bashing this show. I don't think the fans do, either. What's happening here is an honest outpouring of dismay over where the show has taken two of its lead characters. This "journey" (as the producers like to call it) is not exactly a joy ride. And while Sookie may have had a point when she comforted Lorelai by saying, "It's not pretty. It's not Disney. But it's the real world," I'm betting fans saw the writer's defensiveness in that speech. Because honestly, what does the "real world" have to do with Stars Hollow? Or with the stubbornly unsympathetic actions of Lorelai, who didn't even go to Luke's side when his diner was demolished. That may have been the last straw, even beyond the whole Christopher thing.

On a positive CW note, looking forward: As disappointing as Gilmore Girls' premiere was for me, I am even more jazzed over how much I enjoyed the first two Veronica Mars episodes. College life agrees with her, and the initial mystery is as strong as the writing is clever.

Question: What exactly is your problem with the character of Dwight on The Office? Rainn Wilson does a great job of portraying the character written for him, and it'd be hard for me to accept that you've never known this kind of person in any office you've worked in. He's the guy who believes that "top sales" translate to respect. I'm sorry that you don't relate to the humor that they portray in him, but I personally find what you call his over-the-top actions hilarious.— Jeremy H.

Matt Roush: You're referring to my recent rave over the brilliant Office season-opener, where I dared once again to find Dwight the weak link. (My least favorite Office episode ever, no big surprise, was last season's "Dwight's Speech.") While reserving my right to have a negative opinion once in a while, I would justify this one by saying that my dislike for Dwight is in part a reaction to my admiration for the rest of the supporting cast, who each feel absolutely real to me, from no-longer-temp Ryan to bitter Angela to secret lush Meredith. The Office has gotten better as it has expanded the focus to the entire office, where character is often revealed in furtive glances and subtle but devastating reaction to the madness of the week. In this company, Dwight stands out (to me) as an overly obvious boob, like someone out of a more ordinary comedy. He almost always takes me out of the uncomfortable reality of the show into a universe that screams "sitcom." I have no doubt he has legions of fans. I'm just not among them.

Question: I was wondering how you liked the season premiere of Desperate Housewives. I thought the episode was an improvement over most of Season 2. It was nice seeing the four ladies interacting with each other after being separated for much of last season. As always, Bree's story line was excellent, especially now that creepy Orson is in the mix. The scene where Bree realized she had her first orgasm was pure comedy! I also got a kick seeing spoiled Gabrielle being bossed around by her pregnant, demanding maid, Xiao-Mei. On another positive note, for the first time in ages, Susan was likable in her story line with a comatose Mike, especially in the poignant scene where she asks for Mike's permission to date Ian. I'm glad the writers finally gave the able Teri Hatcher a good plot to work with. The only story I didn't care for was Lynette's. In the process of dealing with her husband's acerbic mistress, she came across as whiny and self-absorbed. Altogether, though, I thought the season-opener was a clear indication that Desperate Housewives is coming out of its sophomore-season funk. I just hope it continues. What did you think?— Ryan

Matt Roush: We're pretty much on the same page, and I made many of the same points in a Dispatch earlier this week. My only problem with the Bree-Orson subplot is that it's so close in nature to her former fixation with a psycho (pharmacist George). Still, I thought the episode prologue was wonderfully sinister, and Laurie Metcalf as Orson's accuser/neighbor was distinctive enough not to bring up too many memories of poor Mrs. Huber. And Bree's orgasm anxiety was classic Housewives. I'm a little weary of the Gabrielle/Xiao-Mei battle, but I figure that will be over soon. I fear we won't be so lucky with the Lynette-vs-Nora story line. (I just saw a plot synopsis for the Oct. 8 episode, and it threatens that "Nora continues to force her way into Lynette and Tom's life," which is almost incentive enough to send me over to Cold Case that night.) I don't think the problem with this subplot is Lynette, it's Nora, who is written and played terribly. Get rid of her. Otherwise, I agree. There's plenty of reason to be optimistic about Housewives' new season. Looking at the ratings, it's clear that the fan base is happy to have it back.

Question: I was pleasantly surprised to really enjoy the premiere of the original Law & Order. I liked the new additions to the cast and thought the story was also enjoyable. What are your thoughts on the new additions?— Lianne

Matt Roush: I was kind of "take it or leave it" after the premiere. The new women aren't likely to help or hurt the show measurably. Law & Order fans know who they are and what they'll get, and the plot of the season-opener was reasonably strong. What's missing by replacing Dennis Farina with the show's first-ever hot female detective is that tangible aura of experience and maturity you get with a seasoned lead investigator. (I've got nothing against Jesse L. Martin as Ed Green, but this new team now has a very generic feel to it.) It would be like replacing Sam Waterston with Shark's Jeri Ryan. Not that I want to give Dick Wolf any ideas.

Question: To answer Rose's question about the absence of kids from network TV: They went to cable. I have a preteen daughter who enjoys shows such as That's So Raven and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody on the Disney Channel. As I've watched a few episodes of these, I thought that these were very much like the family sitcoms that used to be on, say, ABC's old TGIF block.— Tom D.

Matt Roush: Good point. This is another excellent example of how cable has rushed in to fill gaps left by the broadcast networks after they drop the ball on servicing major portions of the viewing audience (in this case, kids and families).

Question: On the final episode of The Unit last season, the party got shot up and people were wounded, but on the first episode this season, it was business as usual and no mention of what happened at the party. What's up with that?— Jerry B.

Matt Roush: Seems to me The Unit took the high road by not treating last season's ridiculous shoot-'em-up stunt (there was an epidemic of that last May) as a cliff-hanger. Time has clearly passed between seasons. The bad guys were killed, Dennis Haysbert had suffered a flesh wound (I was actually impressed they didn't leave him cheesily fighting for his life), and in the opener, you did see Robert Patrick hand his lady love what looked like painkillers, so she's obviously still feeling the effects of being shot. I much preferred this to ER's season-opener bloodbath and abduction psychodrama. Let me use this discussion to make an early plea to producers not to turn next May's season finales into another tiresome shooting gallery.

Question: I love Men in Trees but find Six Degrees a real disappointment. Is there a chance that they will switch the time slots so Men in Trees will be seen by a larger audience on Thursdays after Grey's Anatomy? Thanks for all the great information!— Jen

Matt Roush: Still a little early to be playing junior programmer, but it's true that Men in Trees is doing surprisingly solid business on Fridays. While I still find it a pretty thin premise and a pale shadow of Northern Exposure, if it continues to show signs of life, I'd be surprised if ABC doesn't find a more hospitable home for it. The post-Grey's Anatomy slot is awfully prime real estate, but I agree that Six Degrees is unlikely to earn its spot there in the long run. There's also a potential opening on Mondays, should the revamped What About Brian fail to catch fire. (ABC flopped in that time period this week with a Men in Trees repeat, but honestly, this is not the sort of show that can withstand double-runs.)

Question: What don't you like about Jericho? I remember you expressing a less-than-enthusiastic opinion of it awhile back, but you didn't really elaborate on what you did and didn't like about it. I just finished watching the pilot episode, which I enjoyed (not that I don't trust your opinion, I'm just drawn to this genre). I'll be the first to admit it wasn't up there with the West Wing pilot or anything, but I thought it might be worth the 44 minutes every week. Was it something you just weren't particularly drawn to, or was it a decent pilot that goes downhill from there, making it a waste of my time to invest in? Thanks!— Tom C.

Matt Roush: I wasn't crazy about the pilot, which I found not only off-puttingly downbeat but dismayingly preachy and insufficiently credible. If Skeet Ulrich's emergency tracheotomy on the schoolgirl wasn't enough, I really checked out when Gerald McRaney turned to the panicked townspeople and said, "Don't you break my heart again." But then I got an advance copy of the second episode and absolutely hated it. I simply don't buy Ulrich as an all-purpose hero who can do triage one week and then be a gunslinger, helping the generic heroine escape the clutches of bad guys in police uniforms just in time to take shelter from the irradiated rain. Frankly, I was surprised the show got such strong sampling (that poster image of the boy looking at the nuclear cloud seemed to spark a lot of curiosity), and I'm still puzzled about who the audience for this show might be. But it's fortunate to be in a time period with precious little strong competition, and I'm sure the cult audience for apocalyptic genre programming will find something to embrace here. Unlike NBC's Heroes, which I think is a fascinating, overambitious mess (with killer cliff-hangers), Jericho feels to me like an interesting but botched experiment to target the speculative Lost audience. Being stranded on an exotic desert island? I get it. In a dusty small town? Not so much.

And here's Everett N. with a less generous take on Jericho's pilot: "I realize when we watch television we often have to suspend our disbelief, but are we required to suspend our intelligence as well? I watched Jericho Wednesday night and have rarely been as impressed with the gaping holes in a story. A little girl gets a tracheotomy using juice-box straws on a school bus — OK, I suspend my disbelief, but she doesn't cry at all? No blood? Come on, people. A teacher on a school bus full of little kids has a broken leg and enough time passes for two kids to walk a half a mile (at least) and back with an injured man, but the teacher hadn't asked if anyone was hurt (despite apparently having all her faculties) or gotten ice to the girl who was injured? Jeez! Not to mention the complete lack of people raiding the grocery store after seeing a mushroom cloud. Heck, people heard Katrina was going to hit the coast 350 miles from here, and we had a run on water and canned goods. I realize shows have budgets, but these are easy fixes — a director telling a young girl to act hurt isn't a stretch of budget. It really can't be that hard, so why don't shows try more?"

Matt Roush: I'm assuming that last question was rhetorical, so I won't even try to answer.

http://www.tvguide.com/News-Views/Columnists/Ask-Matt/default.aspx

fredfa

09-29-06, 04:41 PM

Thanks again, dc_pilgrim.

Generally, if it is about television, I am happy to see it.

In the early days there were apparently some folks who complained bitterly that I didn't stick totally to HD, but I think they have quieted down. They are free not to read the thread.

And HD does not exist in a vacuum. So Ken H, CPanther95, Dr Don and David Bott and many others have been real lenient with me. And I am always most appreciative of their generous support.

The idea here is to talk about television, with as much focus on HD as possible. But I have always felt the more a viewer knows about the TV business, the more he or she can understand why a favorite show might be in trouble.

humdinger70

09-29-06, 05:10 PM

Speaking of "Dateline: To Catch a Predator" ...

What do they do when (and this may already have happened) a pizza delivery guy shows up with a legitimate order (not from Hanson or the Dateline staff) that comes from a predator about to show up? (What do they know? The pizza place gets an order, assigns a driver and he/she delivers it to the address on the order. What the heck does the driver know about what's going on at that particular place?)

He comes in and maybe Hanson comes out and the guy looks at him and says: "Hey I recognize you. You're that guy who sets up those phony meetups trying to catch all those online Internet pedophiles! Oh, this is one of them, eh?".

What do they do?

They probably have to hold on to to this person... "Hey let me go, I ain't no pervert! I just deliver pizzas and I got several orders in my van!".

Otherwise he might get on the internet and tell those waiting to come up: "Don't go to such-and-such-address! It's a setup...Hanson, his crew from Dateline and the cops are waiting for you!! Go find some other kid in some other city (or state)!"

Would they even televise this or leave it on the cutting room floor?

dad1153

09-29-06, 05:26 PM

Because this is 'Dateline' (home of the infamous 'exploding gas tank' from '93) I'm sure they have network legal council on the premises to watch for situations like this. If your scenario happened then they (the cops, not the NBC lawyers) would interrogate the pizza man and ask him who sent him to that address (which only the predators they're trying to catch would know since nobody from the sting house would call for a pizza) and the police would go talk to that person. No arrest would be made of the delivery man if phone records prove that he indeed received a call that matched the phone (and thus ISP and address) of the sexual predator the Perverted Justice bait people were enticing to come to the house. And of course, since 'Dateline' doesn't want to give the predators around the country any ideas for future sting operations, the delivery man footage (if such an occasion has taken or were to take place) would not be aired to protect the identity and reputation of the delivery man dragged into this situation by the sexual predator. The only way Dateline would air the footage of a delivery man coming to the house would be if they turn the delivery man into part of the sting operation and have him go back to the predator to tell him the coast is clear. It would make for, what else, great television!

On previous 'Predator' specials they've shown arrests of predators that drove by the house at times they weren't supposed to show up and left without ever setting foot on the property. By driving near the house of the sting operation these suspects are automatically proving they had intent of malice, and the police can arrest them even if they didn't actually enter the house. Different States have different guidelines/interpretations of intent though, so 'Dateline' is cherry-picking the States that are more lenient to the interpretation of sexual solicitation so their footage/confrontations are more dramatic.

I'm telling you folks, this is the greatest show in the history of the medium! If you haven't seen them you have to watch at least one 'To Catch A Predator' show on NBC (tonight at 9PM ET/PT). It's not supposed to but it's one of the funnest hours of TV and it makes my week every time they air one. And I'm not ashamed to admit I find myself rooting for one of the predators to one day wipe Chris Hanson's smirk with a well-placed fist on his kisser! :D

And, to make a few people in this thead happy, here's the most important question: when is 'Dateline' going to be showing these sexual predators specials in HD? :rolleyes:

AFH

09-29-06, 05:44 PM

fredfa

09-29-06, 06:56 PM

"CSI" did nip "Grey's" in total viewers, but lost badly again in the 18-49 demo, Antonio.

fredfa

09-29-06, 07:10 PM

The Business of TV
Telcos Celebrate California, Texas Franchise Wins

By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable 9/29/2006

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Friday signed the state's new video franchise reform legislation.

The law makes it easier for competitors like telephone companies to get into the multichannel video business in competition to cable.

Verizon was quick to praise the passage saying it would allow it to "commit hundreds of millions of dollars in additional investment to accelerate fiber deployment."

The signing ceremony came a day after a judge in Texas rejected a challenge to a similar law there.

Cable operators in the state filed suit, arguing that cable operators there "will suffer injury, including, but not limited to, actual and potential loss of revenues, damage to reputation and goodwill, and other harm."

It also said the state-issued franchises "will result in an uneven competitive playing field, thereby unfairly and unlawfully impairing incumbent cable operators ability to compete."

The Texas district court Judge dismissed the suit without a trial, saying it was too soon to tell what impact the law would have and whether there would be disparate treatment.

With prospects dimming for a national franchise reform law, kneecapped by the network neutrality issue, telcos continue to push for changes to state law that do essentially the same thing.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6376739

keenan

09-29-06, 07:43 PM

Oh yeah, Dad1153, as for "Dateline: Sexual Predators!!!!"

One can only imagine the reactions of David Brinkley, Chet Huntley and John Chancellor to such second-rate, mindless, ratings-grabbing, sensationalist drivel week after week after week.
I didn't watch this so I don't know how NBC presented it, but I do know they had to go to court to get it on the air. There was some articles about it in the local papers around here, and IIRC, I'm not sure the local law enforcement was particularly thrilled about the whole thing. You have to assume they'd rather just do their job and not have it splattered all over the television.

fredfa

09-29-06, 08:14 PM

The New Season
“Dexter”
A serial killer drama worth checking out
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher”

Recommending a drama about a serial killer is the last thing I thought I’d ever do; there are already too many shows -- and not just crime procedurals -- that lean too heavily on this reliable old chestnut.

But to deny yourself the engrossing “Dexter” (10 PM ET Sunday, Showtime) based on its subject matter would be to miss out on one of television’s most fiendishly intelligent new dramas.

But be aware: The word “fiend” is used advisedly. Dexter Morgan, the creation of crime novelist Jeff Lindsay, is among the more compelling characters on the small screen. But he’s not likable in any conventional sense, and he knows it, so he works hard to seem normal.

In fact, Dexter tries so hard to seem like a good guy that he works for the Miami police as a blood-spatter expert. And his quest to come off as a feeling, emotional person, not an empathy-free monster, is transfixing, thanks to Michael C. Hall’s intelligent, multi-layered performance.

Watch Dexter handing out doughnuts and making small talk with his colleagues; it’s a masterpiece of well-faked “human” behavior. Only one detective on the force gets the creeps from Dexter, which is a continual surprise to him -- aren’t the cops supposed to be able to sense who the bad guys are, Dexter wonders? And certainly, given his proclivities, Dexter qualifies as a very bad guy.

Dexter’s not your average “CSI” tech, you see. In his off hours, he has an unsettling hobby: After compiling incontrovertible evidence of their crimes, he kills people whom he knows have done -- and would continue to do -- terrible things. But does this make him a monster? That’s one complicated question.

Like most black comedies -- and “Dexter” is infused with the most pitch-dark irony on television -- the Showtime series is animated by a mixture of anger and amazement. By using a deadpan tone, Jonathan Swift famously communicated his fury at famine in Ireland the 1729 essay “A Modest Proposal,” in which he proposed that the adults of that starving nation eat their children.

Of course, Swift wasn’t really recommending dining on tots, but he knew that no one would read an essay called “Famine Is Wrong.” To get people’s attention, he had to channel his anger into satire, and that’s what Lindsay has done with Dexter.

What is a human being? Is it someone who feels a deep need to right wrongs? Dexter does that, often more effectively than the police officers around him or the overwhelmed court system, the failings of which he sees every day. There’s plenty of irony in the idea that a serial killer feels more visceral anger in the face of brutal crime than most of the cops around him, who range from competent to infuriatingly self-serving.

What makes Dexter so compelling is his self-awareness; he knows that it’s not normal to enjoy killing, even in the form of “taking out the trash,” as he calls it. His foster father, a former cop named Harry (whom we see in flashbacks), rescued Dexter from a childhood so bad that Dexter blocked it out entirely.

Harry recognized Dexter’s unstoppable murderous impulses and taught the boy to follow “the Harry code,” which involves killing only those who truly deserve to die. For all his faults, Dexter follows that code to the letter.

Dexter’s knows it’s wrong to enjoy killing, but it’s his lack of empathy that allows him to observe the people around him with devastating accuracy. This is one show that uses voice-overs well; Dexter’s dry, witty narration is so perfectly pitched that I immediately wanted to buy Lindsay’s novels to hear more of it.

“This guy may have exceeded my abilities,” Dexter notes approvingly of a new serial killer in town -- one who begins to play mind games with the blood expert, who recognizes a kindred spirit.

Dexter’s hunt for the other killer through the back alleys and bodegas of a down market Miami, his taut observations about human nature and his own quest to seem like a real person, not a “wooden boy” -- it’s all compelling stuff.

Though it must be said, this well-made show is as dark a study of human nature as television is likely to bring us for some time.

http://tempo.typepad.com/entertainment_tv/

dad1153

09-29-06, 08:48 PM

I didn't watch this [Dateline's 'To Catch A Predator'] so I don't know how NBC presented it, but I do know they had to go to court to get it on the air. There was some articles about it in the local papers around here, and IIRC, I'm not sure the local law enforcement was particularly thrilled about the whole thing. You have to assume they'd rather just do their job and not have it splattered all over the television.

NBC gets its titillating show on the air (to usually high ratings), audiences get titillated and the cops get to nab people who were, when all this silliness is put aside, showing up at a house with intent to commit an illegal sexual act with a minor. Everybody wins, nobody gets hurt (except those with intent to hurt others emotionally/physically) and the Republic survives to see another day. Where's the harm? :o

randosel

09-29-06, 11:38 PM

I disagree, I thought it was extremly crass and fit in with the general downslide of Monk season by season.

I ment it was well done from the advertiser perspective, and what they got away with but total rubbish on the viewer end.

fredfa

09-30-06, 03:29 AM

I agree with both randosel and VisonOn on this one. Monk has, in my mind, gone far down the slippery slope the past two seasons.

fredfa

09-30-06, 03:34 AM

The New Season
“Dexter”
He Kills People and Cuts Them Up. But They Deserve It. Besides, He’s Neat.
By Alessandra Stanley The New York Times September 29, 2006

The trouble with mainstream compulsions — smoking, drinking, gambling and promiscuity — is that they are self-destructive: cancer, cirrhosis, financial ruin and H.I.V. And that could explain why popular culture has a weak spot for serial killers, the clever ones who feel no remorse and don’t get caught.

Their obsessions may be repellent, but on the other hand, only their victims get hurt.

We envy their ability to get away with their desires and our own darkest and most sadistic impulses, which we ritually disavow by identifying with their prey. There is also a streak of vanity to this fascination, the fantasy of being the one person who can understand and tame the dangerous beast: a Clarice Starling in “Silence of the Lambs,” Timothy Treadwell as Grizzly Man, or even the scores of women who propose marriage to the likes of Ted Bundy or Richard Ramirez.

Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), the hero of Showtime’s new series “Dexter,” (Sunday, 10 PM ET) is a smart, wittily self-aware homicidal maniac in the tradition of Richard III and Hannibal Lecter. But Dexter is a made-for-television serial killer: he kills only people who deserve to die. In his spare time he works as a blood-spatter pattern analyst in the forensics lab of the Miami-Dade Police Department.

The show, which begins on Sunday, is based on a crime novel by Jeff Lindsay, “Darkly Dreaming Dexter,” but it serves as the next step in the relentless escalation of eroticized violence on television, a “CSI” for premium cable. The good guy is as perverted as the perp; in fact the forensics expert is a serial killer. But it’s O.K., the show still has some redeeming social value; he practices vigilante law enforcement, targeting murderous pedophiles and drunken drivers who would otherwise escape justice. (“Death Wish” for the Quentin Tarantino generation.)

But perhaps the true measure of crass exploitation is found in the inane rationalizations of television executives. In the “Dexter” production notes Robert Greenblatt, Showtime’s president for entertainment, actually says the following: “This is a complex and fascinating look at serial killers, which, up to this point, have been marginalized and made two-dimensional.”

Ours is a culture that rigorously censors nudity and sex, but not slasher prurience. And it’s everywhere: the Internet, video games, horror movies like “Hostel” and “Saw,” and prime-time police dramas like “CSI” or “Bones.” On a recent episode of “Bones,” a Fox series shown at the dinner hour, the F.B.I. is summoned to identify body parts left in a bathtub filled with bleach, sink declogger and other household corrosives. The building owner vomits, and the heroine uses tongs, daintily lifting a thick strip of flesh and a dripping, hairy scalp.

On television “forensic science” serves as the fig leaf of gross-out pornography. “Dexter,” with its stylish cinematography, jaunty Cuban music and fetish for dismemberment, takes it one step further out of bounds.

I for one cannot wait to see the next episode.

“There’s something strange and disarming about looking at a homicide scene in the daylight of Miami,” Dexter says in a dime-story detective’s first-person narration. “It makes the most grotesque killings look staged, like you’re in a new and daring section of Disney World: Dahmerland.”

The first corpse he is summoned to examine is so tidily dismembered that there is no blood, and studying the pattern of blood spatter for the police is Dexter’s day job. He hides his excitement beneath a veneer of professional callousness. “How does he do it?” he says aloud to the officers staring at the neatly butchered hunks of flesh. “How does the killer get rid of the blood?” In his own head, he is inspired. “Why haven’t I thought of that?” he says to himself. “No blood. What a beautiful idea.”

Mr. Hall, who played David Fisher on the HBO series “Six Feet Under,” is just as compelling in this part. Dexter is guarded but personable, and understatedly charming around his friends and colleagues. He explains that his pleasant public persona is just an impersonation. “People fake a lot of human interactions, but I feel like I fake them all, and I fake them very well,” Dexter says. “That’s my burden, I guess.”

Yet he has some vestiges of decency. He is protective of his foster sister, Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), a rookie in the vice squad who yearns to become a homicide detective. Dexter is gentle and chivalrous to his putative girlfriend, Rita (Julie Benz), a single mother and former abused wife, who is too emotionally damaged to want sex; chastity suits Dexter just fine.

In flashbacks and snippets of drive-time autobiography, Dexter reveals how he became a serial killer with a conscience. He says he has no memory of his early childhood, but he and Debra were raised by kindly foster parents. His foster father, Harry Morgan (James Remar), was a Miami detective who spotted Dexter’s tendencies when he was still a boy. “You’re different, aren’t you Dexter?” Harry asks him in a flashback after finding the remains of a neighbor’s dog.

Harry teaches Dexter to put his sick perversions to good use, carefully hunting down the guilty and administering his own brand of retribution. Dexter said that Harry gave him a policeman’s training. “He taught me how to think like one; he taught me how to cover my tracks,” he says. “I’m a very neat monster.”

Certainly he is a fastidious one. Dexter drapes his killing rooms in shrink wrap and dons plastic protective clothing and a welder’s visor to sever his victims’ limbs. Like so many serial killers, he keeps trophies, but his are almost clinically tidy. He puts a drop of the victim’s blood on a microscope slide and files it in a wooden box kept hidden behind the air conditioner in his clean, sunny waterfront apartment.

Dexter’s killings are something of a sideshow, however. The series’s main plot revolves around the police department’s effort to track down the serial killer responsible for the trail of bloodless corpses. Only Dexter views these crimes as a playful challenge from a like-minded maniac, and his collaboration with the police is fueled by his sense of complicity with the killer.

Violence, like deficit spending, is a very American vice. “Dexter” is yet another temptation that is almost impossible to resist.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/arts/television/29dext.html?_r=1&ref=television&oref=slogin

fredfa

09-30-06, 11:04 AM

The New Season
“Dexter”, “The Game”
A show to see and one to flee
Killers end up dead on 'Dexter's' slab; 'The Game' has no brain
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic Saturday, September 30, 2006

Two new series premiere Sunday night and, while remarkably different, they're destined to have one thing in common: low-rated debuts.

Sadder still, between Showtime's "Dexter" (10 PM ET) and The CW's new comedy "The Game,"(8:30 PM PT/ET) the one that's actually worth your time probably will attract fewer viewers, if Showtime's track record holds. Poor Showtime. The shows keep getting better and better, but the tiny numbers don't budge.

You could call that a crime, but one look at "Dexter" downgrades that verdict to simple shame. The crimes in this series are beyond nightmarish. And that's describing what the hero does.

Dexter works for the Miami Police Department, where the solve rate for murders hovers around 20 percent. Circumstances like that are ripe for creating renegade cops, but Dexter takes that concept to a whole new level.

By day, he's by the book.

After hours, he's a serial killer who preys on murderers.

What "Dexter" decidedly is not is another procedural -- although years of explicit "CSI" scenes may be perfect training to handle its gore. Based on Jeff Lindsay's novel "Darkly Dreaming Dexter," the series quickly establishes itself as an elegant study in horror.

Beneath the production's clean rendering of Miami's bright sunshine and rosy palette, "Dexter" is television going spelunking inside the blackest cave of morality. Fraught with complexity, watching it requires the viewer to question herself as much as she puzzles over how and why Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) can live as he does.

Can we really call him a hero? Is he even good? You'll be wrestling with those thoughtseven as the story hooks you.

Hall is the main reason "Dexter" works so well, and his unsettling performance is in most ways a 180-degree turn from his best-remembered role, as the tightly wound David Fisher in "Six Feet Under."

Scarily, though, David and Dexter are alike in crucial ways. Both men obsess over keeping up appearances. Whereas David clung to deep-seated uncertainty about his personal and sexual identity, Dexter is concerned about passing as a fully emotional member of the human race, not the unfeeling predator he really is.

And Dexter, like David, prizes order.

"Soon," he calmly tells a deserving victim, "you'll be packed into a few neatly wrapped Heftys, and my own small corner of the world will be a neater, happier place. A better place."

Then his bone saw buzzes to life.

Hall is frighteningly adept at imitating a man who has to mimic every emotion. In voiceovers reminiscent of Raymond Chandler noir --you'll either come to accept it or learn to ignore it -- he explains that he has no feelings, but frequently throws in details about things he likes, taking pains to seem more human even to the audience.

If he had feelings, he offhandedly remarks, he'd have them for his foster sister, Debra (Jennifer Carpenter). His voice doesn't sound hard-boiled when he says this; Hall's delivery is flat, with something approximating warmth but, without question, creepily off.

At the same time, Hall lends Dexter a necessary seductiveness. His boss, Lt. La Guerta (Lauren Velez) doesn't hide her desire for him, and his girlfriend, Rita (Julie Benz), misinterprets his complete lack of sexual urge as gentlemanly consideration. Dexter always flashes a bright smile that, amazingly, only creeps out one colleague. He works in a building full of cops, the very people who are supposed to instinctually sense people like him are around. If Dexter had a real sense of humor, the irony of his situation would tickle him.

But he doesn't give them any reason to question him. A specialist at examining blood splatters, Dexter is unsettlingly accurate at finding criminals. Spray patterns are works of art, and not only is he a top critic, he's the murderous equivalent of Jackson Pollock.

What differentiates Dexter and the lowlifes he hunts is that his late foster father, Harry (James Remar), a great cop, taught him to channel his hunger. To replace the sociopath's standard ritual, Dexter follows what he calls The Code of Harry, a set of rules drilled into him. Every element must be satisfied.

Doing so, Dexter explains, is intoxicating.

Even more thrilling is a case that has the police, including Dexter, stumped. Of course, Dexter looks at the disgusting crime scene with envy and admiration at macabre work that exceeds his skill level.

By this point, it doesn't matter if you don't feel anything for Dexter on a personal level. You probably won't want to stop watching him, either.

The same can't be said of "The Game," The CW comedy best dispatched in the way Dexter would get rid of a perp -- quickly and cleanly.

Executive producer Mara Brock Akil introduced this spinoff last season as an episode of "Girlfriends." Unfortunately, it doesn't come close to matching that series' appeal. Nor does is approximate the thrills and humor of BBC America's "Footballers Wive$," which most Americans haven't seen. You don't need to, though, to appreciate what a failure this is.

We really don't have to explain much beyond the story line of central character Melanie Barnett (Tia Mowry), the girlfriend of professional football player Derwin Davis (Pooch Hall). Melanie was supposed to go to medical school but put that on hold to keep an eye on her man when he gets picked up by the San Diego Sabers.

Read that again in case your jaw didn't drop. A woman on a professional track kicks it all aside to chase a football player.

Any of the Girlfriends or your own self-respecting girlfriends would respond to this situation with a disbelieving, "Oh, hell no." But there it is. There's how brainless "The Game" manages to be. The humor is dull, the characters -- including the maternal Tasha Mack (Wendy Raquel Robinson) and Kelly Pitts (Brittany Daniel), the resident white girl -- are going to grate on you, and their men might as well be cut from recycled cardboard.

Fortunately, none of The CW's Sunday night comedy block relies on it as a lead-in. That duty is in the hands of "Everybody Hates Chris," which has its season premiere (and a hilarious one at that) at 7 p.m. "Girlfriends," also worth the anticipation, starts its new season at 8.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/287027_tv30.html

RussTC3

09-30-06, 12:22 PM

"Dexter" is such a wickedly interesting concept. I think I'll tune in for that alone.

fredfa

09-30-06, 04:19 PM

Friday’s network prime-time ratings are now just under the HD football listings at the top of RATINGS NEWS (the first post in this thread).

fredfa

09-30-06, 04:30 PM

The New Season
“Dexter”
By Ed Bark former Dallas Morning News TV critic at his website unclebarky.com

And now for something completely different. Showtime cable's gruesomely good Dexter is a serial drama about a serial killer who kills serial killers. Surreal enough for you?

"I'm a very neat monster," says deeply scarred Dexter Morgan, who's played with an at times overly heavy narrative voice and heavier baggage by former Six Feet Under undertaker Michael C. Hall. This time he's deeply into the meticulous executions of even worse monsters. Dexter works for Miami's over-taxed police department, which is hard-pressed to solve more than a small percentage of heinous crimes. That's where Dexter comes in, even if his superiors aren't clued in. He'll bloody well take care of business without taking any prisoners. After all, the victims of Dexter's carefully executed slicings and dicings deserve to join his Dismembereds Only club. He's just cutting out the middlemen.

Hall seems born to this decidedly offbeat role. And Showtime has been reborn in the past few years with standout series such as The Brotherhood, Weeds and now Dexter. Dare it be said that Showtime is HBO's superior at the moment on the weekly drama front? Let it be said that's true, with one big asterisk. Very few people are watching, which is a shame. But what's the the Avis of premium networks to do except try harder and keep succeeding on the quality front?

Dexter begins with the title character on the prowl. He craves the Cuban food in Miami, but "I'm hungry for something different now."

Temporarily satiating him is a schoolboy choir teacher whom Dexter quickly abducts. The guy has been getting away with murdering kids, and now he's going to pay. Boy, is he ever. But the series does stop well short of the gore on parade in your basic big-screen slasher flik.

Killing has been in Dexter's blood since his boyhood. We see this via flashbacks with his foster dad, Harry (James Remar), a deceased former homicide detective who knows that something is very wrong with his adoptive son. Traumatized by a so far undisclosed childhood incident, young Dexter first admits to killing the problematic family dog. He just can't help himself. So dad tries to channel his urges, grooming him as a sort of Superboy from the dark side. If he's going to kill, then take it out on those that deserve it. Dexter has been refining his craft ever since.

The series' solid supporting cast is led by Dexter's foster sister, Debra, a cop yearning to be transfered out of vice and into homicide. The other major woman in his life is girlfriend Rita Bennett (Julie Benz), who herself has been psyched out by a brutal ex-husband. She's been uninterested in sex ever since, which "works for me," Dexter narrates. After all, "When it comes to the actual act of sex, it always seems so -- undignified."

He's instead turned on by serial killers whose expertise challenges him. And he's never been more mystified by a sadist who chops up his victims and somehow leaves them utterly bloodless for police to pick over.

"I've never seen such clean, dry and neat-looking dead flesh," Dexter thinks to himself audibly. "Wonderful."

His partners in crimesolving -- but if only they really knew -- are homicide detective Angel Batista (David Zayas), surly Sgt. Doakes (Erik King) and division boss Maria LaGuerta (Lauren Velez). The latter treats Dexter's sister like dirt, but seems infatuated with him. Better not push it, lady.

Tyrannosaurus Dex does have a sense of humor, though. He flashes it when Lt. Maria wonders why the killer at large would keep a severed head in the front seat of the refrigerated truck he's been using to freeze-dry victims.

"I don't know. So he could use the carpool lane?" Dexter deadpans.

The first season will keep him on the trail of this ultimate serial killer while others are apprehended and dead-ended, Dexter-style. Sharp writing and an overall off-kilter moral code in a way make the title character worth rooting for. At least he doesn't participate in the killing of an innocent museum guard, as the more off-putting protagonists in CBS' Smith did in that show's opening episode.

Dexter Morgan is an anti-hero to beat all anti-heroes, with Hall playing him to the hilt in the best lead acting of the new season. Don't try what he does at home or anywhere else, obviously. But do try Dexter at home, provided you're one of Showtime's still comparatively few paying customers. This series looks as though it will be worth the price of your submission. Showtime really is at the all-time peak of its powers, creatively at least. Would it kill a few more viewers to watch?

Grade: A-minus

http://www.unclebarky.com/fall.html

fredfa

09-30-06, 04:34 PM

The New Season
“Dexter”
Free "Dexter" preview in case you don't get Showtime
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle in his TV blog “The Bastard Machine”

Just a heads up: Apparently some systems are having a free preview week (or weekend?) from Showtime.

Check yours to be sure.

And if you want to watch the first episode of "Dexter," a series I reviewed favorably on Friday, you can do so before its Sunday premiere by going to www.sho.com/dexter/directv. If you're prompted, the password is: SneakPeak.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/indexn?blogid=24

dad1153

09-30-06, 07:11 PM

I don't know if this is the proper forum to talk about this, but what the heck (fredfa offers us latitude when it comes to TV so we might as well take advantage of his generosity :p ). Kudos to Showtime for a very quick DVD release of Season 1 of Brotherhood, which just came out last Tuesday on DVD on the heels of the announcement of the show's renewal for Season 2 despite very low ratings. I bought the Box Set for $20 brand-new and I'm already on Disc 2. :) Could Season 2 of Weeds follow soon, or do the good ratings for that series ensures another lengthy wait for the DVD's? For some of us that don't want to subscribe to pay cable or be tied to a network schedule it's good to have a quality series available on DVD soon after its season ends rather than waiting months for it to hit DVD (like the ridiculous months-long wait for Battlestar Galactica Season 2.5 or Lost S2). I'll watch the free preview of Showtime for Dexter and hopefully Showtime will release the Box Set as quickly as they did 'Brotherhood's.'

Isn't it ironic that, while 'Brotherhood' gets a DVD release almost as soon as its season winds-up on TV, Showtime is just now releasing their last unaired installment of Masters of Horror (the Takashi Miike episode too violent for Showtime to air) on DVD after individual releases timed several months apart? Talk about playing both sides of the fence to squeeze every last drop of potential profit out of their intellectual properties? :mad:

fredfa

09-30-06, 07:41 PM

The New Season
Commentary: A Show About Show Biz
By J. Max Robins Broadcasting & Cable 10/2/2006

NBC, I feel your pain. When I saw the overnight ratings last Tuesday for the network's new Aaron Sorkin drama, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, my heart sank. NBC has pinned its hopes for a turnaround in large part on this show, with aggressive marketing and a whopping $3 million-per-episode budget. But my disappointment isn't about the network's fortunes. I just love the show.

Studio 60 spins first-rate, textured stuff from the backstage drama behind a Saturday Night Live-style sketch comedy. Much as I liked the pilot, last week's episode was even better. But there's always a morning after. About 10.8 million watched, 19% fewer than those who tuned in for the premiere.

More troubling was that the audience fell in the show's second half-hour in both its outings.

The voice of conventional wisdom kicked in: Shows about the TV business, no matter how smart or funny, just don't play.

Sorkin, of course, knows something about this. His ABC dramedy Sports Night, a send-up of ESPN's Sport Center, was a critics' fave but never grew beyond cult status. The Fox comedy Action from a few years back, with Jay Mohr as a ruthless Hollywood agent, was wickedly funny and eerily real but didn't make it to the end of its first season. None of this bodes particularly well for NBC's other show about show business, Tina Fey's comedy 30 Rock, arriving Oct. 11.

Except for rare, bygone exceptions—The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Murphy Brown—shows about the industry are the province of narrowcast, not broadcast. Great satires like The Larry Sanders Show and Entourage draw enough eyeballs for HBO but would never make the ratings bar on a broadcast network.

And even on HBO's rarefied air, it's a tough sell—Lisa Kudrow's edgy faux-reality comedy The Comeback didn't make it past season one.

Why? Too inside for a mass audience, is how the thinking goes. People in the so-called flyover states just don't care about the inner workings of a bicoastal biz. Why then do these shows about show business keep getting made? Narcissism, for one—people who toil in TV often assume that everyone is as fascinated by the entertainment world as they are.

And certainly a major reason why I'm tuning into Studio 60 is to watch Steven Weber, Amanda Peet, Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry play the kind of network brass and creative talent I cover.

I have been at numerous press conferences like the one in last week's episode and got a chuckle when Peet's character addressed a reporter named Gail “from the Philadelphia Inquirer”—an obvious name-check to the Inky's irrepressible TV-beat writer Gail Shister.

But more than that, it's the strong writing and great cast that make the show worth watching, just as the same elements made Sorkin's West Wing succeed when everyone said that shows about Washington and politics never work.

With luck and patience, other shows have managed to overcome the mistaken belief that they were too inside to play between the coasts.

When he was head of NBC Entertainment, Brandon Tartikoff famously said that Seinfeld was “too Jewish” to make it in the heartland. We all know how prophetic that turned out to be—the show's humor proved universal enough to play in Brooklyn and Peoria, and continues to do so in syndication.

I hope that NBC shows faith and patience with Studio 60. I'd like to believe that viewers can appreciate good drama on TV shows that aren't set in courtrooms, police precincts or hospitals.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6376807

CPanther95

09-30-06, 08:20 PM

Showtime is just now releasing their last unaired installment of Masters of Horror (the Takashi Miike episode too violent for Showtime to air) on DVD after individual releases timed several months apart?

Thanks for the heads up - forgot all about that episode. Gotta add that to my Netflix queue.

fredfa

10-01-06, 03:08 AM

The New Season
“Dexter”
A creepy premise, appealing character
By Jonathan Storm Philadelphia Inquirer Television Critic Oct. 01, 2006

No matter how you slice it, Showtime's new Dexter, premiering tonight at 10 ET, has the most original premise of any new fall series.

The title character is a forensics examiner. And a serial killer.

This idea could turn out in a number of unfortunate ways, but under the magnificent guidance of Michael C. Hall, revered by fans of Showtime arch-rival HBO for his work on Six Feet Under, Dexter emerges as a thoroughly watchable mystery with a thoroughly sympathetic hero.

Who's also a sociopath.

Showtime, celebrating its 30th anniversary, is putting the full-court press on HBO, and the winners are all the cable subscribers who've got a few million extra bucks to donate to Comcast for both premium services.

HBO has The Wire, which may be the best show on TV right now. Following Storm's First Rule of Television - good shows must all be on at the same time - The Wire also goes Sundays at 10, along with CBS's Without a Trace and ABC's Brothers & Sisters.

But Showtime and HBO play their series umpteen times, and both also provide them on demand, so premium cable customers should have no trouble watching both Dexter and The Wire later in the week.

Showtime trumps The Wire this fall with five original series, aimed at varied audiences.

Men who refuse to grow up are belching with laughter at Daymon Wayans' raunchy sketch show, The Underground. The deliriously funny Weeds with Mary Louise Parker and Elizabeth Perkins continues its run. Later this month, shock-seekers will be drawn to Masters of Horror, an anthology of new one-hour films from legendary directors. The taut Sleeper Cell, about fictional terrorists on our shores, begins its second season in December.

Then there's Dexter.

"You don't understand," says the apparently upstanding community leader, strapped to a table in a frightening isolated room, next to the decomposed bodies of four of his little victims, bodies Dexter has painstakingly recovered.

"Trust me, I definitely understand," Dexter says, as he begins another ritual killing of a despicable criminal who has escaped the grindstone of mainstream justice.

Where Dexter's heart should be, there's just an empty space. The only concept he has of emotion comes from watching other people.

"People fake a lot of human interactions," he says in voiceover narration that makes the show accessible, but that sophisticates may find a little overused. "But I feel like I fake them all, and I fake them very well."

Dexter's foster father, Harry, a cop, recognized the boy's irreparable damage when he was very young. He worked assiduously to help his son channel his uncontrollable urge to kill, and now Dexter operates by "the code of Harry," as a vigilante.

As evildoers get their just deserts at the hands of one of their own, in scenes that are no more gruesome than standard CSI fare, larger forces operate in Dexter's home town of Miami, which is elegantly portrayed in its multicultural glory.

Relationships at the police force where Dexter works take the show in one direction. Standout performances include those by Lauren Velez as the unlikable lieutenant; Jennifer Carpenter as Dexter's naïve foster sister, a would-be up-and-comer on the homicide squad; and Eric King as Sgt. Doakes.

"Why, in a building full of cops," Dexter asks, "all supposedly with a keen insight into the human soul, is Doakes the only one who gets the creeps from me?"

And Dexter, a handsome rake who doesn't really get sex and would prefer just to take a pass, has a girlfriend, played by Julie Benz, mother of two, badly abused by her husband who's now in jail, and almost as damaged as Dexter himself.

There's an organized-crime plot thread, and the show's overarching mystery involves a serial killer of prostitutes who teases Dexter with personal clues and is apparently the only person in the world who is on to his grisly secret life.

Hall was scintillating in Six Feet Under as David Fisher, the gay brother in a family that ran a funeral home. It was the first major film work for the theater actor, and here he is again, two-for-two. It's almost impossible to imagine anybody else pulling off the role of Dexter.

He's a depraved killer, but you feel like reaching out and tousling his hair, and saying, "It's OK. You're doing your best."

It's a strange feeling, but one that helps make Dexter one of this season's best new series.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//15638774.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

fredfa

10-01-06, 03:13 AM

The New Season
“The Game”, “Everybody Loves Chris”
New season is another way to love 'Chris,' but give 'Game' the boot
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle

For fans of the British hit "Footballers Wives" (playing endlessly on BBC America and available on DVD), there are now two reasons to worry and groan.

ABC is importing the series and focusing it on American football, not soccer (which isn't the reason to groan), but has installed some producers who are more than likely to muck it up and ruin the mix (groan here). Worse, perhaps, is that the CW has already beat them to the punch, with "The Game," (8:30 PM ET/PT Sundays) which is not at all inspired by "Footballers Wives" and is, in fact, not inspired at all.

But that won't stop it from airing on Sunday. It should, however, stop you from watching it.

On the bright side, "Everybody Hates Chris" (7 PM ET/PT, CW) kicks off its second season on Sunday and is far enough removed from "The Game" to not get its stench. "Chris" remains one of the best shows nobody's watching and deserves a spot on your already crowded viewing schedule (and DVR or VCR). More on "Chris" later.

"The Game" commits all the sins you can imagine in a poorly conceived sitcom. It goes for laughs and sap, the world's most dangerous and noxious combination. It's also not funny, believable, interesting or, as previously mentioned, inspired.

Partly spun from the inherently better "Girlfriends," this series follows the women who are the wives or girlfriends of pro football players on the fictional San Diego Sabers. Devoid of any of the sexy wantonness, spirited catfights or lurid soap details of "Footballers Wives," the only route "The Game" is left to take is that of conventionality and predictability, a paint-by-numbers assemblage of words on a page and characters on a screen.

Melanie (Tia Mowry), opts to skip medical school to follow boyfriend Derwin (Pooch Hall), who is the third-string receiver on the Sabers. Not that sitcoms should send any message other than "be funny," but that's a bleak little life lesson right there. Smart woman stays with man because, in part, she's worried he'll be devoured by groupies. Oh, and he needs her in his moment.

Tasha (Wendy Raquel Robinson) is the mother and manager of her son, the quarterback. She's the wily veteran to Melanie's rookie. Kelly (Brittany Daniel) is supposed to be the trophy wife to a star player -- with the added twists that she's white, he's black and he's hilariously frugal. The only problem is, the writers have nothing remotely interesting to say (or joke about) involving race, and that thing about him being cheap produces no real laughs.

The men in "The Game" are reduced to cliches and leave no mark or memory after 22 minutes. And the women, the main players here, have apparently not seen how much hedonistic fun their soccer-wife peers are having in the United Kingdom. Here's hoping ABC's future take on "Footballers Wives" is infinitely better, but something says the chances of that happening are nil.

"Everybody Hates Chris," on the other hand, remains one of the best sleeper shows on TV. Mostly because it's on the CW (formerly on UPN), it never got traction despite wide critical acclaim last season. It may forever be the kind of series that would have done better on another channel, but we're way past that now, so you really need to make the effort to find it.

"Chris" traffics in warm, slightly biting nostalgia (it's based on comic Chris Rock's life growing up in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood where he was bused across town to a mostly white school, billed here as Corleone Junior High) without getting weepy or sensitive on purpose. It's a coming-of-age sitcom with mock re-creations of what's in the fertile mind of Young Chris (Tyler James Williams), and the cutting narration of Rock himself.

Though "Everybody Hates Chris" ultimately lost some viewers who thought it would be as raucous and grating as Rock's stand-up (instead of being a kind of 21st century "Cosby" -- without a laugh track), most of the ratings woes were directly linked to so many new viewers being unaware of UPN at all ("Chris" had strong critical praise, a rarity for most UPN shows at the time, so the audience wasn't built-in). No doubt this same problem will occur with the CW, but you've now got four days to find out where it is.

This season not much has changed for young Chris. His dad, Julius (Terry Crews), still worries about wasting money (the series' best ongoing joke). Mother Rochelle (Tichina Arnold) is trying to keep the family from realizing how poor it really is while providing love, guidance and threats to make it happen. And Chris is still the "emergency adult," forced to keep younger sister Tonya (Imani Hakim) in line while measuring himself against younger (but taller and better looking) brother Drew (Tequan Richmond).

The first episode starts with neighbor Keisha moving away. "We're going to this place in California," she says. "It's supposed to be really nice. Palm trees and lawns, no violence and no crime." Says Chris: "What's it called?" Keisha: "Compton."

"Everybody Hates Chris" is set in the 1980s and in this Season 2 premiere, Rock narrates about the rapid decline of his neighborhood, which is under the influence of the crack epidemic. "It used to take years to become a junkie," Rock says. "But crack cut that down to 37 minutes." It's one of those telling but funny lines he delivers with snapping precision. It perfectly offsets the otherwise softer, more subtle "Wonder Years" styled storytelling of the series.

"Everybody Hates Chris" suffered from a bad time slot last year -- Thursdays at 8 p.m. -- but now lands in the much friendlier Sunday at 7 p.m. slot. With a mostly average -- or below average, in the case of "The Game" -- crop of new sitcoms this fall, why not get reacquainted with one of last season's most acclaimed (if barely seen) comedies. In the serial drama buzz-kill that's about to envelop viewers, a tender but funny half hour early in the night, before the week starts, might be a welcome harbor.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/28/DDGIULD8EB1.DTL&type=printable

fredfa

10-01-06, 02:29 PM

The New Season
“Dexter”
Dark humor in shades of gray
By Rob Owen Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Editor

Even if you see the world in stark black and white, it might be difficult to dislike Dexter (Michael C. Hall), a murderous Robin Hood who steals life from the sinful to seek justice for victims who died at their hands.

"Dexter," an addictive new Showtime series (10 PM ET Sunday), is enjoyably challenging TV. Its lead character is an anti-hero to rival "The Shield's" Vic Mackey, but the show is not avert-your-eyes-bloody (much less so than FX's "Nip/Tuck"), and it has a sense of humor, often emanating from Dexter's ever-present voice-over narration that lets viewers get a glimpse inside his twisted mind.

Bright, personable and articulate, Dexter is that guy whom neighbors would be shocked -- SHOCKED! -- to discover has been arrested for murder. Actually, Dexter is more socially well-adjusted than most killers, and he's not even a loner. He's dating a beautiful single mom, Rita (Murrysville native Julie Benz), who's "in her own way, as damaged as me," Dexter says. Rita has an abusive relationship in her past that prevents her from having a sexual relationship. That's fine by Dexter, who proclaims, "I don't understand sex, the act of sex. It's always seemed so undignified."

At his job as a blood-spatter expert for the Miami police department, Dexter is an easy-going, diligent forensic specialist who's well-liked by his co-workers, including his cop sister (Jennifer Carpenter) and his boss, Lt. LaGuerta (Lauren Velez, "Oz"). But he manages to run afoul of Sgt. Doakes (Erik King), who finds Dexter creepy and contemptible (if only he knew just how creepy and contemptible).

In Sunday's premiere, Doakes is the show's most glaring false note -- too suspicious of Dexter and too vocal about his dislike of the guy. Subsequent episodes reveal Doakes to be more dimensional; he's not just a foil for Dexter.

Flashbacks show Dexter as a child, learning "the rules of Harry" from his understanding foster father, played by James Remar. Harry was a Miami detective who recognized his son's homicidal tendencies and tried to channel his proclivities toward the pursuit of justice.

Hall's performance is remarkable for its controlled nature. As Dexter, he erases memories of his last role -- "Six Feet Under's" uptight, gay mortician, David Fisher -- playing a character who believes he's so emotionally detached that he must fake all pleasant human interaction. It's a challenging, almost double role, requiring Hall to play to viewers who know Dexter's secret and those around him on screen who do not. Hall handles it with the necessarily subtle aplomb.

"Dexter" is based on the novel "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" by Jeff Lindsay, who heartily approves of Showtime's interpretation of his book, and Hall's performance, in particular. Lindsay said he was inspired to write the story after attending a Kiwanis meeting as a guest speaker.

"As I looked out across the room, the idea just popped into my head that serial murder isn't always a bad thing," Lindsay said at a July press conference, generating laughs at his morbid sense of humor, which is also evident in Showtime's series. "If that seems a little flippant, I apologize, but it really did happen that way."

By the end of "Dexter's" 12-episode first season, viewers will learn what made him a killer. But will Dexter ever get his due? Producers haven't plotted that far into the future.

"Every week Dexter explores a part of humanity or something that's a very human bit of behavior," said executive producer Sara Colleton. "We've always sort of laughingly said, 'Year five, if we are so lucky, he's finally going to become fully human, realize what he's done, and kill himself.' But other than that as a joke, we haven't really contemplated his comeuppance because he has a very strict moral code that he observes. Within the confines of that, he's a very moral person."

Hall understands how viewers might feel some internal conflict while watching "Dexter."

"It's not black, it's not white," he said. "Dexter is a cowboy who wears a 10-gallon gray hat. People should be torn. I think it fosters a sense of conflict, 'Oh my God, I'm rooting for someone who is doing something that I, along with pretty much everybody else would, on paper, suggest is reprehensible.' "

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06272/725860-237.stm

fredfa

10-01-06, 02:37 PM

The New Season
“Dexter”
By James Poniewozik Time Magazine television critic

The saying "It Takes A Thief to catch a thief" apparently goes double for serial killers.

Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) is a suave psychopath whose cop father taught him to channel his murderous impulses--by killing only other murderers.

Hall, an undertaker on Six Feet Under, makes a seamless transition to the supply side of the death business, helping cops sleuth out killers to pay the bills while coolly meting out justice on the side.

Or is it justice? The morals of this provocative show are as intriguing as its cases.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1535845,00.html

fredfa

10-01-06, 02:56 PM

The New Season
“Everybody Hates Chris”
Rock carries torch for African-American comedies
By Kevin D. Thompson Palm Beach Post Television Writer Sunday, October 01, 2006

Black Sunday starts today.

In case you hadn't noticed, television is slowly getting out of the black TV show business. It's been happening for years, so the trend is nothing new.

Have you watched ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox lately?

No black shows. As in zero. Sure, we're seeing more shows with integrated casts — ABC's Lost and Grey's Anatomy are perfect examples — but the networks have stopped making shows with predominantly black casts because, well, not enough white viewers watch them.

The only network making shows starring mostly people of color is The CW, the new network resulting from The WB and UPN merger that officially started last month.

Last season, all of UPN's African-American comedies aired on Mondays. This fall The CW shifted those shows to Sunday.

The funniest of the bunch remains Everybody Hates Chris (7 PM ET/PT). For those of you who didn't watch the first season (and shame on you!), the show is based on Chris Rock's tough-love upbringing in New York's Brooklyn.

Chris is also one of television's best comedies. And you don't have to be African-American or well versed in the culture to get the humor.

When Rock heard his show was moving to a new night and time, he says it didn't faze him. "I don't really get into nights, time slots or any of that stuff when I'm in there writing," he says. "Just make it funny and people will see it."

Well, Chris, that's not always true. Example: Arrested Development.

Clearly The CW wants Chris to get as much buzz as possible early on. Which is why Whoopi Goldberg is guest-starring in at least two episodes starting tonight as Chris' new neighbor.

Why Whoopi?

"Been a fan, had seen her in a couple of things," Rock deadpans. "I saw her in a movie that wasn't that good, but she was great in it. It was How Stella Got Her Groove Back. I saw her in that movie and I was kind of fixated on her since then."

Although Goldberg's appearance on the show can definitely be defined as "stunt casting," Rock doesn't call it that. "She's got, like, a real part," he says. "Stunt casting to me is like, 'Hey, Shaq just came over.' We got Whoopi Goldberg to act because she's very talented and she's very funny."

In other stunt casting, er, I mean, casting news, look for Seinfeld's Jason Alexander to show up as the principal of Chris' (Tyler James Williams) school. The show also will spend more time in the neighborhood. "We'll still be in the school," Rock says, "but you can't get called n——-r every week — even though it happens."

One thing you won't see on Chris is "a very special episode" on AIDS or teen sex.

"We're not a big issue-oriented show," says executive producer Ali LeRoi. "We really tend to deal with a lot of small things. This show is kind of evergreen. It doesn't make any difference whether you watch it this week or in a month or in five years after we've done 100 episodes and gone into syndication. The stories will still be good. It's about a family and living in that neighborhood and trying to raise these kids."

Since Rock wears an executive producer hat on Chris, he finds himself receiving all sorts of pitches. "They look at me like, 'Hey, Mr. Producer,' " he says. "They don't even look at me like a comic. It's like, 'How's it going, Mr. Producer? Here's a script. Happy Days meets The Love Boat with a little bit of Cedric (The Entertainer).'"

As for why there are fewer black shows on television, Rock cracks, "I'd say you gotta ask the white people that."

No, I'm asking you. You wait for a more serious answer. Unfortunately, there is none.

Not everything is funny, Chris. Especially the disappearance of black faces starring on their own TV shows.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/tv/content/entertainment/arts_entertainment/epaper/2006/10/01/tv_post_1_1001.html

fredfa

10-01-06, 03:00 PM

The New Season
“Dexter”
Stylishly graphic,'Dexter' pleases with a killer twist
By Matthew Gilbert Boston Globe

It's not a stretch to imagine the crime scenes in ``Dexter" as a Vanity Fair photo spread. This fiendishly excellent new Showtime series turns blood spatter into a pop art form, like Jackson Pollock meets Annie Leibovitz . Always framed by pristine white walls, the carefully displayed gore has the cool, sterile feel of an AIDS-era still life.

From its early shot of the moon in a pool of red, ``Dexter" makes one thing loud and clear: It employs the most audacious set designers on TV right now. They illustrate this pulpy story of a serial killer who kills serial killers with a fetishistic, almost pornographic glee. And don't think they ignore any of the stark, Art Deco potential of Miami, where ``Dexter," which premieres Sunday night at 10 ET , takes place. This show rivals ``Nip/Tuck" in sheer perverse visual wit.

But opening a review of ``Dexter" with its graphic thrills might mislead. The sum of this show, based on Jeff Lindsay's novel ``Darkly Dreaming Dexter" and starring Michael C. Hall from ``Six Feet Under," is so much more than its body parts.

On the surface, ``Dexter" is a neo-noir with a gruesome central mystery -- the ``ice-truck murders" -- that will stretch across the season's 12 episodes. Who's killing hookers and draining them of blood? Then it is also a fascinating character study of Dexter, a man raised by his cop foster father (James Remar ) to channel his violence into taking out society's trash. And deepest of all, it is an intelligent and sustained exercise in moral irony. Dexter may be an obsessive murderer, but he's also a hero of sorts.

He's Hannibal Lecter , but he's also Clarice Starling .

By day, Dexter helps the Miami police as a CSI expert. By night, he's stalking killers, gathering proof against them, and lecturing them about their sins before chopping them up. ``I have standards," he screams at a child killer before finishing him off. And he does have standards, which he calls ``The Code of Harry" after his father, who taught him to kill only those who'll kill again. In flashbacks that play like mythology scenes in a superhero comic, we see Harry mentoring young Dexter in murder as if he were teaching him to shave.

By episode two, I'm betting you will not hate Dexter, despite his vigilantism and his slippery personality. And that is one of the many miracles of ``Dexter," as well as of Hall's grand performance. TV anti-heroes have been popular since Tony Soprano showed us how a two-timing mobster could somehow be an everyman. The fact that Hall makes Dexter likable is even more impressive, since Dexter is so profoundly controlled, with none of Tony's passion. He can only mimic human warmth -- bringing doughnuts to co - workers, courting the mother of two kids -- because he is a shell of a man.

Hate him if you will, the show's makers seem to dare us, but he solves more crimes than the self-serving detectives around him, notably Lieutenant Maria La Guerta (Lauren Velez from ``Oz" ). On a network procedural such as ``CSI: Miami," the butch Sergeant Doakes (Erik King ) would be the famous closer. On ``Dexter," he's a cop whose human feeling taints his pursuit of a local gangster-killer. Dexter, meanwhile, doesn't do feeling.

We get to know Dexter inside out, because we can hear his thoughts in a beautifully stylized, hard-boiled voice-over out of a 1940s movie. ``Another beautiful day in Miami," he says with typically dry humor; ``mutilated corpses with a chance of afternoon showers." It sounds like Hall is talking inside a box, as he intimately shares both the mundanities of Dexter's days as well as his philosophy. ``I'm a neat monster," he confides. Of his girlfriend (Julie Benz ) he tells us, ``Rita's perfect because she is, in her own way, as damaged as me."

Dexter's self-awareness in these oral thought balloons is seductive -- but possibly misleading. He thinks of himself as a master of fakery, a sort of Mr. Ripley who takes on the attributes of those around him so they won't suspect he's twisted. But as we watch Dexter clown lovingly with Rita's kids, or loyally help his cop sister, Debra (Jennifer Carpenter ), get a new job, we have to wonder if he's an undependable narrator. Maybe he's not as cold-blooded as he thinks he is?

Hall was remarkable on ``Six Feet Under" as David , the stiff-faced brother who struggled throughout the series to express himself. On ``Dexter," he also hides behind a mask, but he is even more transfixing here. David was a masochist; Dexter is a sadist. David was in denial; Dexter is so eager to face reality that nothing scares him.

David tended to already dead bodies; Dexter, alas, is more of a supplier.

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2006/09/30/stylishly_graphicdexter_pleases_with_a_killer_twist/

fredfa

10-01-06, 03:33 PM

The New Season
“Saturday Night Live”
George Bush in the Cold Open
By Roger Catlin Hartford Courant TV Critic in his “TV Eye” blog

In the commercials this week for the the 32nd season opener of “Saturday Night Live,” host Dane Cook and musical guests The Killers joke about meeting Bradley Whitford or Alec Baldwin, stars of those other new primetime shows about “Saturday Night Live.” No, Cook says, this was the real “SNL.”

But just as the fake show within “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” began with a predictable skit about President Bush, so did “Saturday Night Live.” The difference is that the fake one on Aaron Sorkin’s new show actually looked funnier than the one they did on “SNL” tonight.

In the one Saturday, it takes place at a high school auditorium in South Carolina where there is a speech from the Republican candidate for state comptroller. Among the people on the dais who get some generous applause are the mayor, the head of the local Rotary Club, principal of the school, the guy who ran the Republican fund raising car wash. Reaction for the guest from Washington, who happens to be the president, is not so much.

Bush’s low rating doesn’t help candidates on any level was the point of the sketch and Will Forte, the actor playing him, spends the rest of the sketch trying to chat up those around him with dumb comments.

As Judd Hirsch said in the “Studio 60” tirade: “No one is about to confuse George Bush with George Plimpton. We get it.”

Indeed, in a season when two primetime shows that pay homage to its traditions, “SNL” rarely looked less tepid and irrelevant.

A sketch on a TSA training session is something that could have been written while in line for a metal detector; a Hugo Chavez talk show had impression of bad guy dictators but no punch line.

Increasingly, the show is about impersonations of people like Al Pacino, Farrah Fawcett, Whitney Houston and not any new characters.

Even musical guest the Killers seemed to be dressing like another band – Weezer.

The topicality of “Weekend Update” seems to have been sapped by now by the snappier patter of “The Daily Show” and couldn’t be saved by a bunch of impersonators -- Darrell Hammond and Maya Rudolph reprised their Bill Clinton and Condoleezza Rice impressions in wake of last weekend’s “Fox News Sunday” dust up; Andy Samberg did Dustin Diamond in light of the alleged “Screech” sex tape. It all stretched out the news a bit and took focus from Seth Meyers’ debut as co-anchor (short answer: he seemed a little frazzled and unsure of his delivery especially when he didn’t get the laughs).

In the one big surprise of the night, Brian Williams mistakenly sat down to co-anchor “Weekend Update,” thinking he had the gig. He was actually funnier in the bit than Cook was in many of his.

That the cast was downsized wasn’t immediately noticeable; together with the “featured players,” a dozen players is fine. Not that Horatio Sanz did much but goof up in the few skits he was used in; I thought Chris Parnell would be missed more but Jason Sudeikis seems to have inherited each of his old roles from politician to authority figure to nerdy guy with a problem.

There was just one “SNL Digital Short,” a dumb thing about a cubicle fight that looked like a bad outtake from “The Office” with none of the subtlety. Some of of the other skits too were about single ideas that weren’t developed: bouncers can be annoying at last call; and water delivery guys who drink all the water themselves depended on one long gag: empty water cooler bottles that just kept coming out of an open closet door.

There was so much time to fill in the season opener, the empty bottles could have kept clanging down even longer.

http://blogs.courant.com/roger_catlin_tv_eye/2006/09/george_bush_in_.html#more

fredfa

10-01-06, 04:20 PM

The New Season
“Dexter”: Murder, with an explanation
"Dexter," the grisly dark comedy series premiering Sunday on Showtime, reveals a serial killer for good, as opposed to evil.
By Paul Brownfield Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

"Dexter," the grisly dark comedy series premiering Sunday (10 PM ET) on Showtime, employs some of the same surgical instruments and hues as FX's "Nip/Tuck" but covers an entirely different métier.

Lipo, serial killing — I suppose I quibble. Dexter is Dexter Morgan ("Six Feet Under's" Michael C. Hall), a predisposed-from-childhood predator who, under the tutelage of his late father (James Remar), a Miami detective, has blossomed into a serial killer for good, as opposed to evil.

Meaning, he kills other killers before they can go on killing. This he does at night, and on his own time, since by day he works as a blood-splatter expert for the Miami Police Department and could totally put in for overtime.

Dexter's method of killing is ritualized and meticulous — a brief chat followed by an injection to the neck, which knocks out the victim until he wakes up on a rubber sheet and strapped to a table, covered in Saran Wrap and ready for carving and storage. But first: Dexter makes a neat little slash mark to the cheek to draw a blood sample, which he keeps filed at home in a collection hidden in his air conditioner.

The first time around it's all pretty pay-cable cringe-worthy (the camera from the victim's point of view, the drill descending), but from then on "Dexter" is more about making us identify, of course, with a psycho killer's completely ordered world and dedication to his craft.

Atmospherically, the show makes you sweat, the stains on the back of Dexter's shirt the kind of palpable detail this series obeys. It's a series about forensics, but balmy as opposed to airbrushed, featuring a sicko on the inside, a boyish guy who comes to work with doughnuts for everybody, like an eager-to-please intern.

The case that comes to consume Dexter involves the offing of Miami prostitutes, the killer — in a shout-out to our antihero—drains their bodies of blood. It's the beginning of a flirtation that extends to fingertips encased in ice and a doll's head left hanging in Dexter's freezer at home.

It's a cat-and-mouse game times two, Dexter both keeping clues a secret while also helping his sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), a cop, follow them.

What does all this add up to other than a seamier version of "Monk"? "Dexter," based on the novel "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" by Jeff Lindsay, wants us to grin at Dexter's ability to assimilate into Miami's atmosphere of excess in the same manner that Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley moved among patricians abroad and "American Psycho's" Patrick Bateman symbolized the blamelessness of 1980s Wall Street.

From the start, it's mostly on Hall to seduce us, and he's so artful with the material that he consistently elevates it. There are things about Dexter that might set off gay-dars — the kempt apartment, the toned physique, the ill-defined sexuality — or perhaps it's just that Hall was so ineffable as David Fisher, the archly funny gay funeral director he played for six seasons on HBO's "Six Feet Under."

Here the hair's grown out and he's wearing this slightly removed, too-wide-eyed Norman Bates gaze, sublimating his carnal desires in killing and food.

To that end, the weakest parts of "Dexter" are explanatory flashbacks in which, like a superhero's father, Dexter's pop recalibrates his son's violent destiny for societal good).

Ultimately, the show becomes tethered to the unlikely relationship between Dexter and his girlfriend, Rita (Julie Benz), a divorced mother of two still recovering from having been raped repeatedly by her deadbeat ex-husband. It's here that "Dexter" rewards your patience, going from somewhat gratuitous psycho-killer riff to fully fledged relationship drama — an asexual man, a traumatized woman.

"Oh. OK, thanks," Dexter says at the sight of Rita venturing to disrobe for him.

"You're welcome," Rita says shyly.

It's all he can think to say. Or feel to say. She's afraid he'll leave her over the sex, and he's afraid to have it. Why can't more TV shows be like this?

"We have an elephant in the room, and its name is sex," Dexter will say later of their mutual difficulty with physical intimacy. There's a bigger elephant in the room, of course, one that you assume will make its presence known in due time. In the meantime it can still play kind of cheeky, the idea that one show's McDreamy is another's Dexter.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-dexter29sep29,0,6600711,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

dad1153

10-01-06, 04:21 PM

The New Season
“Saturday Night Live”
George Bush in the Cold Open
By Roger Catlin Hartford Courant TV Critic in his “TV Eye” blog

Indeed, in a season when two primetime shows that pay homage to its traditions, “SNL” rarely looked less tepid and irrelevant. In the one big surprise of the night, Brian Williams mistakenly sat down to co-anchor “Weekend Update,” thinking he had the gig. He was actually funnier in the bit than Cook was in many of his.

If there was a night and a show for 'SNL' to prove it was still a relevant show it was this one, opening night of a season in which TWO primetime shows on its own network (one featuring former cast members that quit to be part of it) are using it as background/fodder for storylines/jokes. I was stunned by how inane, unfunny and totally amateurish the whole endeavor looked and felt for a show that's been around for 31+ years. We all know 'SNL' has been sucking hard for years now with only flashes of brilliance here and there (like the hilarious rap video with Natalie Portman) but last night's season premiere was ridiculous. You know you're in trouble when the anchorman of your network's nightly newscast gets bigger laughs than almost everyone else on "the comedy show." Stunning!

fredfa

10-01-06, 04:30 PM

I agree dad.

SNL is just a mere shadow of its former greatness. Sad.

And last night, I think, put the final nail in the creative coffin.

fredfa

10-01-06, 04:42 PM

The New Season
“Kidnapped”
My First Plea - Save Kidnapped
by Jon Hein in TV Guide

We're a couple of weeks into the new season, so naturally it's time to beg for a new series to be saved.

This year's hard luck case is...Kidnapped.

Kidnapped airs Wednesday nights at 10pm on NBC. The pilot was very good. The second episode was even better.

And no one is watching. Why?

Competition: CSI: NY and The Nine

This crime thriller is battling a show too dark to see and a new series too painful to watch. Shouldn't be a problem here.

Lead In: The Biggest Loser

A news magazine or sappy soap should follow Caroline Rhea's 2-hour weight loss reality show. It's a tough transition from scales of weight to the scales of street justice. The good news: Lost makes its return this week, so the perfect audience is ripe for the taking.

Hype: It's not Heroes or Deal or No Deal

The mighty PR machine at NBC needs to crank it up here. You've got a creepy Timothy Hutton, a messed up Dana Delany, an angry Delroy Lindo, a mysterious Jeremy Sisto, plus the streets of Manhattan. Who could ask for anything more?

There's a good show here. It can be saved. Tune in Wednesdays at 10 to make a difference.

http://community.tvguide.com/forum.jspa?forumID=800006183

( Jon Hein is the creator of the popular website jumptheshark.com)

keenan

10-01-06, 04:52 PM

The New Season
“Kidnapped”
My First Plea - Save Kidnapped
by Jon Hein in TV Guide

The mighty PR machine at NBC needs to crank it up here. You've got a creepy Timothy Hutton, a messed up Dana Delany, an angry Delroy Lindo, a mysterious Jeremy Sisto, plus the streets of Manhattan. Who could ask for anything more?

There's a good show here. It can be saved. Tune in Wednesdays at 10 to make a difference.

I agree, this is some really good TV, it's too bad hardly anybody else thinks so. You'd think people would be tired of LA backlots and "Boston, California" as Vancouver was likened to recently. I suspect this is a very expensive show to create and that will probably weigh heavy in the decision to cancel it instead of letting it run and see it if takes with audiences.

rustycruiser

10-01-06, 04:56 PM

fredfa

10-01-06, 05:00 PM

The New Season
“Everybody Hates Chris”
By Ed Bark former Dallas Morning News TV critic at his website unclebarky.com

Led by the second season premiere of “Everybody Hates Chris” (7 PM Sunday, the CW) , here's network TV's last homefront for "urban" comedies with predominantly black casts.

The new CW, risen from the defunct WB and UPN networks, has colored in Sundays rather than Mondays and Wednesdays, as UPN did. Chris bats leadoff for his new team, followed by fellow UPN carryovers All of Us and Girlfriends, plus newcomer The Game. Overall visibility? It's down several notches, with pro football runovers likely to hurt Chris most of all this fall.

Returning Oct. 1 at 6 central, 7 eastern, Chris is still narrated by Chris Rock, with a growth-spurting Tyler James Williams again playing him as an embattled kid in 1984 Brooklyn. The new season's first two episodes feature guest star Whoopi Goldberg as new next door neighbor Louise Clarkson. She's basically a busybody from Queens who insists on forming a crime watch committee.

Meanwhile, Chris falls for another newcomer, a girl named Yvette (Cherelle Noyd). Freshly scented with girl-luring cologne, he asks her to see Footloose with him. But you know how it is with Chris. His younger but more adult-looking brother, Drew (Tequan Richmond), keeps fighting off suitors while Chris gets short-shrifted. This time the poor kid is left cooling his heels in front of the Footloose marquee after getting all dressed up in a white suit and pink shirt.

"I'd go find that girl, take her by the hair and shake her like an Etch-a-Sketch," says an old-timer who owns the small grocery store where Chris works parttime. That line should have hit the cutting room floor.

This isn't one of the show's stronger episodes, with too much focus on Whoopi and not enough on Chris's parental units, terrifically played last season by Tichina Arnold and Terry Crews. Narrator Rock, who's also the show's co-executive producer, remains an enthusiastic participant. Best line: "I asked Yvette out after I got famous. She stood me up and went out with Chris Tucker."

Everybody Hates Chris remains one of prime-time's better comedies. But can it stand the test of time in a much tougher Sunday night slot? In this view, probably not. Hate it when that happens.

Grade: B

http://www.unclebarky.com/fall.html

dad1153

10-01-06, 05:23 PM

NBC didn't help the cause [of 'Kidnapped'] by replacing the scheduled repeats of the first two episodes of Kidnapped last night with another yet another Dateline NBC molester special.

Wow, I was thinking of DVR'ing those repeats as well but passed. The 'Dateline' shows were probably repeats of the same 'Catch a Predator' Georgia specials aired in previous weeks. Hey, whatever works for NBC to make a buck (which they're definitely NOT making with the expensive 'Kidnapped') on what is essentially a dead night of programming.

dline

10-01-06, 06:22 PM

On your initial post, you might want to add this to the football schedule for 10-7-06:

nebraska at IOWA STATE 8 pm ET ABC (regional) :D

Source: espn.com

(OK, you can print both teams equal size if you wish.)

fredfa

10-01-06, 07:08 PM

Good luck to the Cyclones, dline. And thanks for the heads up.

fredfa

10-01-06, 10:58 PM

TV Notebook
Fox news at 10:
Love it, hate it, but can't ignore it
By Joanna Weiss The Boston Globe TV Writer October 1, 2006

Few moments in Fox News Channel history seem to sum up the network's dilemma -- or its singular claim to entertainment value -- more than last weekend's Bill Clinton episode.

The site was `` Fox News Sunday, " the public-affairs show hosted by Chris Wallace, the ABC News veteran who decamped for Fox in 2003. The guest was Clinton, who had agreed to his first-ever Fox interview, provided half of the time would be spent discussing his charity work.

But a few minutes in, when Wallace asked the former president why he ``didn't do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business," Clinton leaned out of his upholstered chair and launched into a tirade, partly about his record in office, partly about the messenger.

``You did Fox's bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me," he growled, demanding to know whether Wallace had asked the same question of Bush officials.

``Do you ever watch `Fox News Sunday, ' sir?" Wallace asked, when he could get a word in.

Clinton didn't say, but it didn't seem to matter. He answered his own question: ``I don't believe you asked them that."

With Fox, for many viewers, what you believe is what you get. And many people, it's clear, believe in Fox completely. The network, which celebrates its 10th anniversary Saturday , has risen past the skeptics to dominate cable news ratings. Though its prime-time ratings have slipped of late, Fox still routinely trounces CNN. ``Fox & Friends," the morning show, has ratings so strong that it has set a new goal: to beat the ``Early Show" on CBS.

But as notable as the numbers -- and sometimes out of proportion to them -- has been Fox's effect on the TV landscape, not just the viewers it has drawn, but the devotion and antipathy. Only a network with clout would draw so many complaints and not-so-loving parodies. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has made a staple out of criticizing ``The O'Reilly Factor," and Al Franken originally called his liberal ``Air America" radio show ``The O'Franken Factor." On Comedy Central, ``The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" routinely pokes fun at Fox's swirling graphics, and ``The Colbert Report" stars an O'Reillyesque host, jingoistic and prone to self-aggrandizement.

Left-wing groups, meanwhile, keep feverish running tabs on the network's conservative guests and angles. ``It's a right-wing, conservative, and, particularly, Bush White House propaganda mill," says Steve Rendall, a senior analyst at FAIR, a progressive media watchdog group.

Fox likes to tweak all of them back, in part with its in-your-face catchphrases: ``America's Newsroom," ``Fair and Balanced."

``Sometimes," says Bill Shine, Fox's senior vice president of programming, ``we do that just to annoy the other anchors."

That's the sort of player Fox has become, and the persona Clinton latched onto last week. ``You've got that little smirk on your face and you think you're so clever," he told Wallace. In truth, it was just as easy to read the anchor's facial expression as bemusement. But Fox has created an image so clear, so defiant, that some find it hard to watch a single show without considering Fox as a whole -- or to watch Wallace or Brit Hume, another ABC News veteran, without thinking of O'Reilly. The network has a way, sometimes, of overshadowing itself.

A different perspective

Television has always been built on loyalty and trust, but the connections usually lie with individual shows and anchors. People might like Matt Lauer on ``Today" -- or Steve Carell on ``The Office" -- but it doesn't mean they'll declare undying fealty to NBC. With Fox, by contrast, it's often all or nothing. Many swear the network is the only news they watch, or declare Fox so tainted that every word it broadcasts must, by definition, be suspect.

So it was with the Clinton interview, which circulated widely online. Wallace says he got thousands of e-mails from viewers, few of them neutral. ``If they like Clinton, they hate me, and if they hate Clinton, then I'm a hero," he said by phone this week. ``And I think that's too bad. To me, that's everything that's wrong with American politics."

It is, however, a fact that has long worked to Fox's benefit. When tabloid mogul Rupert Murdoch created Fox in 1996 -- at a time when critics said the landscape couldn't sustain another all-news channel -- he marketed it as an antidote to left-wing news media. As its chief, he tapped Roger Ailes, who had been president of CNBC and, before that, a political strategist for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

It was Ailes who spearheaded Fox's opinion-filled evening lineup and hired O'Reilly, a onetime Boston broadcaster who tends to declare guests ``right" or ``wrong." Viewers seemed to enjoy it; ``The O'Reilly Factor" is the top-rated cable news program. When O'Reilly broadcast from Faneuil Hall last month, as part of Fox's 10th-anniversary victory tour, the assembled crowd cheered him like a conquering hero.

These days, the network's producers and anchors vigorously deny any charges of political bias -- at least in the shows that don't feature O'Reilly or Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes, who headline their own right-versus-left evening talk show. But many within Fox, Wallace included, say the network succeeds because it offers a different perspective, with ``different" defined variously as not centered in New York, or apart from conventional wisdom, or as a counterweight to a liberal bias that pervades other news operations.

``There's a pack mentality to journalism," Shine says, ``and people think that if it's on the front page of The New York Times, it must be important, and let me put that on my TV show and my radio show. And I don't believe that to be true."

Media watchers have compiled ample evidence that Fox covers news differently. The Center for Media and Public Affairs, based in Washington, D.C., compared ``Special Report With Brit Hume" to similar shows across the dial and found that during the 2004 election cycle, John Kerry's overall TV coverage was nearly 60 percent positive, while George Bush's was more than 60 percent negative.

Except on Fox, that is. There, Kerry's coverage was 4-to-1 negative, and Bush's coverage was balanced.

The anti-Kerry statements didn't come from Hume or other Fox reporters, says Robert Lichter, the center's president, who does occasional paid work for Fox as a commentator. ``The question is what kind of a mix comes out of the sources who are interviewed," Lichter said. ``There's no question that Bush got more favorable coverage on `Special Report' than did Kerry."

Fox's coverage of terrorism and the war in Iraq has also been markedly different, the center found. During the heart of the war, compared with the broadcast networks, Fox showed 50 percent fewer stories with images of civilian casualties. After 9/11, Fox featured far more discussions about terrorism than CNN did .

That approach to the subject was one reason David Clark, executive producer of ``Fox & Friends," says he left a job at CNN to work for Fox around that time.

``Personally, I'm not a Republican, I'm an independent," Clark says. ``This was right after 9/11, and the whole view [CNN] took on the war on terror seemed so out of whack with what this country was and what we were trying to do and the enemy we were trying to fight.

``And to be honest," he adds, ``Fox is a hell of a lot more fun."

Defending its journalism

The element of entertainment -- flashy graphics, populist language, and a palpable swagger -- has also helped Fox in the ratings hunt, Lichter says. ``There's this old style of the omniscient journalist carefully weighing facts, kind of a God's-eye view. Fox is very down to earth. That's part of the secret: They had a different approach to mainstream news that had nothing to do with ideology."

Yet it's the ideology question, as the Clinton episode showed, that often finds the network defending its straight news. Ailes told the Associated Press this week that Clinton's reaction was ``an assault on all journalists." Hume, speaking by phone from Washington, had high praise for Wallace's interview: ``The question Chris asked him was utterly and totally reasonable, and it's one that [Clinton] could have gotten, and should have gotten, from others."

Wallace points, as proof of his own fairness, to a Sept. 10 interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in which he asked such questions as ``Why didn't we finish the job in Afghanistan?" and ``Isn't it a failure to have allowed the Taliban to regroup?"

And Shepard Smith, the anchor of the evening news show ``Fox Report," points to his own reporting from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the way he sparred with the right-wing Hannity, who was anchoring the coverage, over the speed of the federal government's response.

``All right, Shep, I want to get some perspective here, because earlier today -- " Hannity had said during one live broadcast.

``That is perspective!" Smith had shouted back. ``That is all the perspective you need!"

By phone from New York, Smith said he hopes that moment was a turning point for viewers. ``It so happened that, on that day, there were millions and millions and millions of people who were watching us," he says. ``And they were stunned to find that all we were doing was being journalists."

Critics, he says, need to recognize that the network offers two different kinds of shows.

``The spin out there is Fox is up to no good, Fox is out to change the way people think," Smith says. ``Sean Hannity would like to, Bill O'Reilly would like to, Alan Colmes would like to, and that's fine. The day that there's something wrong with that, we need to close the doors on America. That's called freedom of speech. But the moment our journalists start to do something like that, please burn the building down. I'll carry the flag out."

But it's no surprise that viewers get confused, given the prominence of Fox's conservative hosts, says Bob Giles, curator of Harvard University's Nieman Foundation. ``I've seen some of their newscasts and I don't find them necessarily overly biased," Giles says. ``But when I view it, that's always in the back of my mind: the perception that the right-wing agenda sets the agenda."

And it's not clear that everyone at Fox draws a distinction between talk and news. Last month in Faneuil Hall, O'Reilly warned the audience not to cheer or boo his guests, so as to appear ``a classy program."

``We don't want to give that feel that we are an entertainment show," O'Reilly told the crowd. ``We're not. We are a news show."

Some of Fox's devoted viewers, too, don't seem to quibble about the difference. Some speak of an epiphany, centered on politics, that drove them into the cable network's arms. For Myrna Murphy, 52, of Eau Claire, Wis., it was the fact that Tim Russert invited Kerry to talk on ``Meet the Press," just after he lost the 2004 race. For her friend Mary Ann Minton, the conversion had come years earlier, ``after the Clinton administration and what he did to the office."

``I found that I loved `Fox & Friends' because they had the same values as I had," Minton said last month, standing in the crowd as the morning show broadcast live from Quincy Market. ``I try to get people to listen to them."

That isn't always easy. Minton had brought four friends to Boston, to celebrate her 50th birthday, when she learned that the show was in town. Two were eager to go to the broadcast with her. Two refused. Vehemently.

``We were in the hot tub last night and we had a political debate," Minton said. ``It almost ruined our friendship."

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/10/01/fox_news_at_10_love_it_hate_it_but_cant_ignore_it?mode=PF

fredfa

10-02-06, 12:15 AM

TV Notebook
Fox news at 10:
10 years later, Fox News turns up the cable volume
By Peter Johnson USA Today

NEW YORK — Roger Ailes, the man behind the curtain at Fox News Channel, says he was at a dinner party recently when one of the guests asked him, "Isn't Fox News too conservative?"

"I said, 'Are you comfortable with CNN?' He said, 'Yes.' How about CBS, ABC, NBC? 'Absolutely.' What about The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times? 'Fine.' National Public Radio and PBS? 'Very good.' So I said, 'But this little cable channel is making you crazy? If all the media tipped to the right, I'd probably be the biggest liberal. But you've got to have debate.' "

In just 10 years, Fox News — the channel liberals love to hate — has transformed the cable news landscape with its in-your-face brand of news with 'tude. In the process, it has reduced granddaddy CNN to a distant second and NBC's cable news venture, MSNBC, to an also-ran. Fox News' combative Bill O'Reilly has become a household name, drawing more than 2 million viewers a night. Sean Hannity, Shepard Smith and Greta Van Susteren are cable news stars. On-air barbs by them and Fox News correspondents have ignited debates in journalism circles about whether objective news can stay relevant, particularly in an Internet era that gives ordinary Americans the power to vent about anything in blogs.

The ultimate sign of respect: Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert riff on Fox News on any given night.

"Many Americans had built up a perception that mainstream American television journalism routinely displayed a liberal bias. Roger knew it and tapped into it," says former MSNBC president Erik Sorenson. "Fox News convinced millions of those viewers that Fox's reporting was indeed fair and balanced, when compared to CNN and broadcast news. That resonated, especially in the wake of 9/11, and was underscored daily with strong, opinionated program hosts in prime time, on their morning show, and even during the day."

Fox, which went on the air Oct. 6, 1996, "didn't want to be an international network," says Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a non-partisan media research organization. "They were going to be an American network, which is what their audience was looking for."

Hosts such as O'Reilly and Hannity "bring passion and sincerity to a much-needed discussion of critical issues," CNN's Lou Dobbs says. "And even though those are usually conservative voices, they are important voices."

'Growth era' no more?

As Fox News begins its next decade, the explosive growth that marked its first has ebbed.

Fox News Channel now draws an average of 840,000 viewers daily (6 a.m. to 11 p.m.) — compared with CNN's 448,000 and MSNBC's 270,000. But Fox's average prime-time viewership dipped 35% in the third quarter of this year compared with last year, when Katrina dominated the news. CNN was down 28%, and MSNBC dropped 22%.

As penetration of cable TV reaches a saturation point and with increased competition from the Web, Fox's "job is going to get harder now, just as it got harder for CNN 10 years ago," Rosenstiel says. "The big-growth era in cable seems to have come to an end."

That's why Ailes has been on something of a tear lately. He has been shaking up his daytime lineup some, calling surprise staff meetings, putting more emphasis on Fox News' website by partnering with YouTube in launching "The Blast," a dedicated page in which Fox News provides online video junkies with the craziest moments in news.

"This is hard work every day," Ailes says. "We have to maintain an intensity."

Anchor Shepard Smith says that although the ratings competition "for us is in cable, the Internet is clearly pulling eyes, and anybody who says otherwise is being disingenuous. Ten years ago you couldn't log on to find out what was going on. We need to integrate and use the Internet better. We have a long way to go."

Beyond new-media challenges, Fox News also has been unable to shake — not that Ailes or anyone at Fox seems to care much — the perception that its coverage leans right and, since 9/11, has become increasingly pro-Bush White House.

That perception was fueled last week when former president Bill Clinton accused Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace of "doing Fox News' bidding" by asking Clinton whether he had done enough to catch Osama bin Laden.

Never mind that Wallace's program airs on Fox broadcasting, not cable's Fox News, or whether Clinton's outburst was planned or spontaneous.

"Politicians used to be able to come on TV and read a rehearsed answer, and Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley and those guys had to swallow it," O'Reilly says. "They couldn't give them the O'Reilly arched eyebrow or tell them they were a pinhead.

"You now have a country that expects analysis on TV, where 10 years ago it only existed on the Sunday talk-show brainiac slot."

Of the Clinton flare-up, Ailes says, "The only thing Chris didn't do is lay down like some other networks did" when they focused on what Clinton wanted to talk about: humanitarian efforts through his global initiative.

All weekend, Fox News extensively covered the scandal involving Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who resigned Friday after news of inappropriate e-mails to a teenage boy became public. On his program Sunday, Wallace discussed it with guests Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., and former House speaker Newt Gingrich.

Success goes a long way

Fox supporters and detractors agree that credit for Fox's success rests with Ailes, 66, a former Republican Party operative who made his name starting in the '60s in entertainment by producing The Mike Douglas Show.

The success has pleased parent company News Corp. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said Ailes stands to make $15.8 million in salary, bonus and stock this year.

Sitting in his second-floor office here, Ailes says Fox News has changed the TV news game: "Does anybody think Katie Couric (in her new role as anchor of The CBS Evening News) would have a segment called 'Free Speech' if it wasn't for Fox News?"

And Ailes says Dobbs, CNN's formerly staid business anchor, turned to hot-button debates such as illegal immigration after he "took one look at Bill O'Reilly and said: 'This guy is shooting his mouth off about what people really care about. I can do that.' "

(Both CBS and Dobbs say Fox had no role in their decisions.)

Ailes also says Fox News is probably more conservative than other TV news outlets, but only because it has consistently given equal voice to people whom mainstream media traditionally ignored if not disdained: conservatives.

Liberals "hate us for coming on the scene and changing the game and making people look at both sides of issues," he says.

But Robert Greenwald, who produced a film that attacked Fox News, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, says objectivity is an unknown concept at Fox.

More times than not, he says, Fox pushes a conservative agenda, albeit with "a wink and a nod. They don't do down-the-middle stuff — in their news or on their opinion shows. By design, they mix the two."

In Greenwald's eyes, Fox News Channel's most significant contribution "has unfortunately been the way news is covered, with the spread of let's-have-a-shouting-match, wrestling news entertainment." But he credits Ailes with "a genius for picking people who can talk to you. He proved that news doesn't have to be homework or spinach."

The accusation that Fox News is on the right-wing bandwagon comes mostly from those who don't watch the channel, says Brit Hume, the former ABC White House correspondent who joined two months after Fox's launch and hosts a daily political news program, Special Report. Some people "look at Fox News and see O'Reilly and Hannity and think, 'That's all they do over there,' " Hume says. "They probably think Bill and Sean are co-anchors and are on 24/7. You'd rather do without the label, but here we're succeeding. We pinch ourselves every day."

Jane Skinner, a daytime anchor, says friends who work at local TV stations around the country are constantly asking her what it's "really like" to work at Fox News — the assumption being that there's a political agenda and that she and others are told what questions to ask or comments to make.

"I laugh," Skinner says. "You can make all the comments about 'fair and balanced,' but they (management) are very much hands-off."

Rosenstiel, who has studied programming of all the cable news channels, says his most recent study shows Fox News journalists "were more likely to offer their opinions about the news, but often those opinions were fairly innocuous, like 'If there's an American victory in Iraq, that's good news.' I don't know anyone who would argue with that, but it's unusual to hear someone say it on TV news."

Besides, Rosenstiel says, "one person's bias is another person's telling the truth on TV. And the way Fox anchors and correspondents talk is very informal, not the stiff, omniscient narrator of traditional broadcast news. They talk like regular people, use plainer language.

"If it's a military conflict, they refer to American troops as 'our' troops. It's hard to argue when an American network does that. It is different from traditional broadcasting, but it's stylistic — not conservative or liberal."

Smith notes that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Fox was as tough on the Bush administration as any other media outlet: "We were getting fed a pack of untruths and we showed the truth."

It's tough at the top

Anchoring two hours a day with his afternoon Studio B and then at night with The Fox Report, Smith says the toughest challenge for Fox News staffers is to stay ahead of the pack. "You're constantly trying to reinvent yourself, and when others see things that work, they copy them. You have to be the innovator all the time — and that's hard to do."

Says Van Susteren, who jumped from CNN five years ago: "If you think about it, we all do the same stories. We all did polygamy. We all did the war. Hezbollah. We all do missing people.

"But there's a reason people want to watch Fox — and the reason is we enjoy our jobs more and it pushes out to the screen. It gives us more energy and makes us push a little bit further. I think viewers pick up on it."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-10-01-fox-news_x.htm

fredfa

10-02-06, 01:38 AM

The New Season
ABC's Ugly Betty Sitting Pretty; NBC's Kidnapped Falters
John Consoli MediaWeek Oct. 2, 2006

Three new broadcast network shows that most media agencies and TV critics did not expect to last very long, produced solid ratings last week, proving that audience viewing patterns are unpredictable.

While one or two weeks’ worth of ratings success does not mean the audience will continue to watch the entire season, the advertisers who invested in NBC’s Heroes, ABC’s Ugly Betty and CBS’ Jericho have reason to smile, at least for now.

Heroes premiered Sept. 25 at 9 p.m., winning not only its time period but the entire night among adults 18-49 with a 5.9 rating, growing by 1.1 million viewers from its lead-in, NBC game show Deal or No Deal.

Ugly Betty kicked off Thursday Sept. 28, for ABC at 8 p.m. and drew a 5.0 18-49 rating and an average 16.3 million viewers. More impressively, it gained an impressive 3.3 million viewers in its second half hour, which is a trait of successful hour-long dramas. Betty improved the time slot in the 18-49 demo for ABC by 75 percent compared to last season.

Jericho, meanwhile, earned a 3.6/11 in adults 18-49, rising 6 percent over its premiere-week rating, and producing CBS’ best 18-49 rating in the Wednesday 8 p.m. time period since March 2003. Promisingly, Jericho also gained about 800,000 viewers in its second half hour.

Despite those successes, however, there were also some failures, most notably the continued decline of the heavily-hyped NBC freshman drama Kidnapped, which finished last in its 10 p.m. Wednesday time period, with a 2.2 18-49 rating, down 21 percent from its premiere week. The show also lost 1.2 million viewers from its first week.

Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC Universal, told Mediaweek last week that while network officials believe the production quality of Kidnapped is “terrific,” he acknowledged that they are “disappointed” with its performance so far. He said plans are to keep the show in its current time period for the near future.

As for Heroes’ big-time performance, Zucker said the results are “in line with what our internal research predicted.”

Moreover, Zucker noted the network is “very pleased” with Heroes lead-out show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, even though its 18-49 rating dipped 16 percent to a 4.2 and lost 2.6 million viewers from week one to week two. “It’s right where we thought it would be,” he said of Studio 60, adding that the Heroes/Studio 60 block offers a considerably upscale audience to advertisers.

ABC’s hit drama Grey’s Anatomy, leading out of Betty, earned an 9.5 18-49 rating, down 14 percent from its debut two weeks ago but significantly better in its time period than CBS’ CSI, which recorded a 8.0 (and is still up 3 percent). In the battle of two drama giants, Grey’s dipped 2 million viewers from last week to 23.4 million, while CSI gained 1.2 million to 23.7 million.

At the CW network, America’s Next Top Model, which moved over from the defunct UPN and premiered to its highest numbers ever two weeks ago, maintained its ratings in week two. However, all of the other former WB or UPN shows now on the new network premiered at lower ratings than last season. Some buyers expressed concern over the CW’s slow start. “You would expect that if they took the best of the best from each network and put those shows on CW, and with one less network [to compete against], those ratings would be up,” said Rino Scanzoni, chief investment officer at Mediaedge:cia. “While it’s still early, the CW needs to start showing some growth.”

CW put a positive spin on the Thursday, Sept. 28 season premieres of dramas Smallville and Supernatural, which aired on the WB last season, stating the shows improved in the adults 18-34 and 18-49 demos by 10 percent compared to when they were first paired together on the same night last March.

Despite all the dissecting, viewership of broadcast prime time through the first two weeks is flat to up, and that is good news for advertisers. “There’s been almost no audience erosion this season so far,” said Andy Donchin, executive vp, director of broadcast at Carat. “Broadcast television still works.”

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003189332

VisionOn

10-02-06, 03:57 AM

NBC didn't help the cause by replacing the scheduled repeats of the first two episodes of Kidnapped last night with another yet another Dateline NBC molester special.

I had planned to DVR the episodes last night, but was left high and dry. And with The Nine premiere, Kidnapped missed it's window for me.

Same here. It's a packed schedule on TV at the moment and my DVR and viewing can't cope with it. I erased the first episode (which I still hadn't seen), didn't record the second to save space and planned to watch it on Saturday. With Lost and The Nine starting this week it's too late now to go out of my way to try and watch from the beginning.

dad1153

10-02-06, 08:11 AM

Keep an eye out for other Universal-NBC cable channels VisionOn (like USA, Bravo, etc.), if NBC senses even the smallest potential for growth repeats of the early 'Kidnapped' will wind up there. Then again, if the show's ratings continue to decline... :(

fredfa

10-02-06, 10:37 AM

The New Season
Fox in Solid Shape Going Into MLB Postseason Hiatus
John Consoli Media Week Oct. 2, 2006

Fox, which will go on a one-month prime- time entertainment hiatus beginning this week with the start of its postseason Major League Baseball telecasts, is up low double-digit percentages in its ratings and viewers compared to last season. And while the network’s strategy of introducing all of its new shows beginning in August has not yielded any breakout hits, Fox has a few new shows performing well enough to make it through the entire season. That has Fox executives breathing easier.

“As long as American Idol doesn’t decline, they’ll be right in the middle of the network races,” said Steve Sternberg, executive vp of audience analysis at Magna Global.
Through the first 10 days of the new season, Fox ranked fourth among the broadcast nets in the 18-49 demo (same as last year), but was averaging a 3.2/9 rating/share, up 10 percent and 1 share point over last season. It is also averaging 1 million more viewers per night, up 14 percent over last year.

“We knew that when the other networks began premiering their shows, we would slip a bit. But our rhythm and purpose is different,” said Preston Beckman, executive vp of program planning and strategy for Fox.

New dramas Vanished and Standoff, leading out of Fox hits Prison Break on Monday and House on Tuesday, have produced adequate adults 18-49 ratings of 2.4 and 3.3, respectively, while Justice, leading out of returning drama Bones on Wednesday, has averaged a 2.3 in the demo in the season’s official first two weeks.

Fox’s two new Thursday sitcoms are not working as well. Happy Hour was put on “hiatus” after only one week of new-season competition after posting a 1.7 18-49 rating and 4.4 million viewers. The more heavily hyped ’Til Death, starring Brad Garrett, rose from a 2.2 to a 2.4 18-49 rating from week one to week two, and was up 20 percent in the 18-34 demo to a 2.4. It may get a little more leeway from the network to cement its audience.

John Rash, chief broadcast negotiator at Campbell Mithun, said Fox will have to reintroduce all of it shows in November, but will have an advantage through the remainder of the fourth quarter in having more first-run episodes to air. “Fox will also be able to sit back and look at its competitors’ schedules to see what shows are working or not working, and perhaps adjust its own schedule to take advantage in some places,” Rash said.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003189330

fredfa

10-02-06, 11:55 AM

TV Notebook
Looking at TV as America's new novel
ByHeidi Dawley Medialifemagazine.com Oct. 2, 2006-

Throughout its comparatively brief history, television has always been seen as second-rate, called the boob tube, the idiot box, and at one point, rather famously, chewing gum for the eyes. The quipster was Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect.

But the worst criticism of TV has always come from academia, usually English departments, where professors rip it up for a variety of offenses, including wounding, perhaps mortally, the novel. If one follows that line of reasoning, America was once a nation in which the novel was adored, when its fine citizenry plopped down on the couch each night for a good read, if necessary by the light of a candle or an oil lamp.

That of course is nonsense. Decades ago, only the small few were regular readers of books of fiction. America was a far poorer country, far less educated, and such leisure time was a privilege of the well-to-do only.

More to the point, though, television has not killed or crippled the novel. There's now more fiction than ever before, while television itself has become more like the novel in its ability to tell stories in an engaging way.

That's the argument being made by Kathleen Fitzpatrick, an associate professor of English and media studies at Pomona College. She is the author of a new book, “The Anxiety of Obsolescence: The American Novel in the Age of Television,” in which she argues that TV and the novel can actually coexist, and do, rather brilliantly.

Fitzpatrick argues that television is in fact increasingly an intellectually challenging, novel-like literary form.

“There will always be the pulp novels and porn magazines of television, too,” she writes to Media Life in an email, “but there are clearly some programs that are making a lasting impact on American culture in a way that must beg the question of what the literary is.”

What Fitzpatrick has seen in recent years is a sort of bifurcation of television, a split in two dramatically different directions. There's been the rise in reality TV, which she thinks of as a fall in effect, a dumbing down of TV into entertainment lacking both nuance and complexity.

But at the same time, there's been the rise of such series as “Lost” and “Deadwood,” which Fitzpatrick notes are distinguished by extremely sophisticated narratives. Their capacity to be intellectually engaging places them in the company of the novel.

Says Fitzpatrick: “We have been in the midst of a kind of ‘golden age’ of television for the last eight years or so, at the same time the lowest common denominator on the tube keeps getting lowered. It’s fascinating.”

Like novels, “Deadwood,” “The Gilmore Girls” or Aaron Sorkin series like “West Wing” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” require viewers to concentrate carefully on a very intricate, literary-style of dialogue. They need to pick up on whole streams of references to other cultural phenomenon, references reaching outside the storyline, she argues, and they must understand the nuances of the relationships that drive professional and public life.

Series like “The Sopranos,” “Six Feet Under,” “Deadwood” and “The Wire,” are of a different literary style, but they still require the viewer to do heavy interpretive work to really understand the meaning in the stories.

In that, Fitzpatrick believes that these narratives go beyond being simply novelistic. In their ambitions they aspire to be the Big Novel, a "Gravity’s Rainbow," the dense but richly complex novel by Thomas Pynchon, to name one Big Novel, or David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest," for another.

Just why this is happening now, so many years after the TV flashed onto the scene, may have something to do with the internet, she says. She believes the web fosters discussions and has led people away from passively watching. It also enables producers and writers of shows to see what people think about of their shows.

The impact, believes Fitzpatrick, of this more literary TV is to make people more creative and inspire them to write. More people are writing than ever, she says, although some of this writing takes place in forms we might not notice, such as fan fiction.

And even with all these new forms, Fitzpatrick does not believe this is sapping talent from the craft of novel writing.

Folks have always worried that good writers would rush to Hollywood to find fame and riches, first for movies and then for TV. It has not happened. What has happened is the competing media both end up better for it. Says Fitzpatrick: “I would argue that some of the best writing being done in the American culture in the last decade has been done for television.”

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_7631.asp

fredfa

10-02-06, 12:29 PM

Sunday’s network prime-time ratings are now just under the HD football listings at the top of RATINGS NEWS (the first post in this thread).

fredfa

10-02-06, 12:43 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
'Brothers & Sisters' sees strong return
Second week off 11 percent in 18-49s for new ABC drama
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Oct. 2, 2006

“Brothers & Sisters” certainly isn’t the disaster that some predicted after the show produced behind-the-scenes turmoil and a disappointing pilot. But it’s no “Grey’s Anatomy,” either.

In its second outing, “Sisters” managed to hold most of last week’s strong debut among adults 18-49, averaging a 5.5 rating, according to Nielsen overnights. That was down just 11 percent from the previous week’s 6.2, matching the week-to-week percentage decline from its lead-in, “Desperate Housewives.”

That’s encouraging news for ABC considering that the show with the network’s other most-coveted timeslot, “Grey’s” Thursday lead-out “Six Degrees,” fell 24 percent from its first week to its second.

“Sisters” also tied for first in its timeslot with NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” and won the slot in adults 25-54, finishing ahead of NBC and CBS’s “Cold Case”/“Without a Trace” with a 6.4 rating.

But the news isn’t all good for the ABC drama. It’s still losing a big chunk of “Housewives’” lead-in, some 35 percent, and lots of viewers are leaving in its second half hour. The show dipped 21 percent from its first half hour to its second, from a 6.1 to a 4.8.

Those are the sorts of declines that prompted ABC to replace “Housewives” leadout “Boston Legal” with “Grey’s” in spring 2005, and the latter blossomed into a huge hit. “Sisters” may be solid but it’s not showing big-hit potential yet.

ABC won the night fairly comfortably, and as long as it’s ahead, “Sisters” should get time to stabilize and perhaps grow. The general buzz has been that the show improved after its pilot.

Meanwhile, the Sunday night premiere of the CW’s new comedy block produced anemic results, with every returning show in the two-hour block well below last year’s season average for total viewers and none topping 3 million.

For the night, ABC averaged a 5.6 18-49 rating and 14 share, ahead of NBC’s 4.9/13, CBS’s 4.3/11, Fox’s 3.0/8, the CW’s 1.1/3, and Univision’s 1.0. Fast nationals measure timeslot and not actual program data; because of football on NBC and CBS, final ratings may adjust quite a bit when they’re released tomorrow.

At 8 p.m., CBS’s “60 Minutes” and NFL overrun averaged a 5.4, followed by a 2.9 for NBC’s “Football Night in America,” a 2.7 for the premiere of ABC’s “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” a 2.6 for Fox reruns of “Simpsons” and “’Til Death,” a 1.1 for Univision, and a 0.9 for CW’s “Everybody Hates Chris” (0.9) and “All of Us” (0.9).

At 8 p.m., ABC took the lead with “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s” 5.7, followed by NBC’s “Football Night” and “Sunday Night Football,” which began at 8:15 p.m., at 5.3. CBS was third at 3.8 for “60 Minutes” and “Amazing Race,” followed by Fox at 3.2 for reruns of “Simpsons” (3.6) and “Death” (2.8), CW at 1.2 for “Girlfriends” (1.3) and the premiere of “The Game” (1.1), and Univision’s “Cantando por un Sueno” at 1.0.

At 9 p.m., “Housewives” averaged an 8.5, down 11 percent from last week’s 9.5 debut. NBC’s “SNF” was second at 6.1, followed by a 3.9 for CBS’s “Race” and “Cold Case,” a 3.1 for reruns of Fox’s “Family Guy” (3.6) and “War at Home” (2.7), a 1.2 for CW’s “America’s Next Top Model” rerun, and a 1.0 for Univision’s “Cantando.”

At 10 p.m., “Sisters” and “SNF” tied for No. 1 at 5.5, followed by CBS’s “Case” and “Trace” at 4.3 and Univision’s “Cantando” at 1.0.

Among households, CBS averaged a 9.5/15, followed by ABC at 9.2/15, NBC at 8.2/13, Fox at 3.9/6, the CW at 1.6/3, and Univision at 1.4/2.

• Ratings courtesy Nielsen Media Research. Ratings information is taken from fast national data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are preliminary and subject to change, especially in the case of live telecasts.

fredfa

10-02-06, 12:46 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
Saturday, Sept. 30th

ABC finished first on Saturday night courtesy of Ohio State’s win over Iowa, averaging a 2.4 rating and 8 share, followed by Fox at 2.0/7, NBC at 1.9/6, CBS at 1.3/4 and Univision at 1.0/3.

ABC led with a 2.3 at 8 p.m., followed by Fox’s 2.0 for “Cops,” NBC at 1.7 for “Dateline,” CBS at 1.1 for reruns of “The Class” and Univision’s “Sabado Gigante” at 0.8.

At 9 p.m. ABC led again with a 2.6, followed by “America’s Most Wanted’s” 2.0 on Fox, “Dateline’s” 1.9 on NBC, “Jericho’s” 1.2 on CBS, and “Sabado’s” 1.0 on Univision.

At 10 p.m., ABC finished the nightly sweep with a 2.4, followed by CBS at 2.1 for “48 Hours Mystery,” NBC at 1.7 for “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and Univision at 1.3 for “Sabado.”

ABC and NBC tied for the nightly lead in households at 4.9/9, followed by Fox at 3.5/7, CBS at 3.4/6, and Univision at 1.4/3.

• Ratings courtesy Nielsen Media Research. Ratings information is taken from fast national data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are preliminary and subject to change, especially in the case of live telecasts.

fredfa

10-02-06, 12:51 PM

TV Notebook
BBC in HD?
BBC Explores New U.S. Outlets
By Kent Gibbons MultiChannel News 10/2/2006

As part of a worldwide expansion, the British Broadcasting Corp. is exploring the possibility of launching an HD service in the United States, as well as a Hispanic service, a key BBC executive said last week.

As BBC Worldwide’s managing director of global channels, Darren Childs’ empire includes wholly owned channels BBC America, BBC Prime and BBC Food, along with several joint ventures.

The BBC, as part of a broader arrangement, has Discovery Communications handling ad sales and distribution for BBC America and is helping BBC World News to roll out in the United States, although that news channel falls under BBC Global News.

Earlier this month, Childs announced BBC Worldwide’s plans for channel expansion, led off by CBeebies, a preschool service, and BBC Entertainment, which will replace BBC Prime in many markets, according to Worldscreen.com (www.worldscreen.com). Other channels in the works, Childs said at that time, were BBC Knowledge and BBC Lifestyle, as well as an HD service.

Last week, Childs was asked what plans BBC Worldwide had for U.S. channels besides BBC America, which is announcing program-expansion plans of its own.

“In terms of the channel initiatives, we’re also looking at HD,” Childs replied. “We’re working very hard now to try and get a BBC HD service launched -- whether that is a linear or nonlinear business is still to be decided. But the BBC is going to be one of the biggest producers of HD content in the world in three years. We make some of the best content in that HD format. And it just seems a natural for us to have a strong presence in one the biggest HD markets in the world, as well.”

Childs said a Hispanic service is also being looked into. “One of the things I did [when taking his current post in August 2005] was to hire somebody and open an office in Miami to look at the Latin American market and also look at the Hispanic North American market, as well. We’re aggressively pursuing initiatives there to see if we can launch a Hispanic service to the North American market.”

Childs also said BBC Worldwide is still seeking a channels president in the United States to replace Bill Hilary, the former BBC America president who left for a job at MAGNA Global Entertainment in June.

A final selection probably won’t be made for 8-10 weeks, he added.

http://www.multichannel.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleid=CA6376754

fredfa

10-02-06, 02:32 PM

TV Review
'SNL' at 32:
Cutting Edge Yields to Comfy Middle
By Tom Shales Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, October 2, 2006

Brian Williams, anchor of "NBC Nightly News," won the Good Sport of the Week award over the weekend by spoofing himself, and anchordom generally, on the 32nd season premiere of "Saturday Night Live."

Tina Fey, co-anchor with Amy Poehler of the show's popular "Weekend Update" segment, has left "SNL" for prime time (a new comedy called "30 Rock"), so fellow cast member Seth Meyers is replacing her. But in a brief pre-"Update" sketch, Williams sat next to Poehler at the desk and told her, "I'm so excited to be doing 'Update' with you. . . . I've written a ton of material."

Poehler had to give Williams the bad news that he wasn't wanted, and Williams amusingly feigned injury to his ego, saying with mock petulance that he was going home to tell his wife and two children "that Daddy's not going to be on TV tonight."

It was a lackluster enough show that this little moment was arguably its hilarity high point, but then expecting the 32nd season premiere of any weekly TV show to be a revolutionary riot is patently unfair. And Executive Producer Lorne Michaels, working under the handicap of a reduced budget (because NBC prime time is doing so miserably), had to pare the cast down to 11 regulars and zero featured players, saying goodbye to such lovable stalwarts as Horatio Sanz.

And of those regulars, alas, there is no one who stands out strikingly from the crowd, impish and spirited and versatile, the way, say, a Will Ferrell did in the past. Darrell Hammond, the great impressionist, continues to amaze with his on-target imitation of Bill Clinton, but he's done it seemingly dozens of times. (Mercifully, Hammond escaped the purge, perhaps because he constitutes a cast of about 20 people all by himself.)

Some of the returning players are still depressingly anonymous: Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte -- are these household names in any American households but their own? Meyers took over the "Update" co-anchoring with competence and affability but no particular sparkle.

All the surrounding blandness puts a heavy burden on Poehler, who has become the show's Great Blond Hope and its single most valuable performer, if partly by default. In addition to "Update," she appeared as Farrah Fawcett in another sketch.

Kristen Wiig, who at least seems new, is a model of self-assurance and very adept at handling the classy lady roles, but her range has so far not been demonstrated. Maya Rudolph was a star player, Poehler's sister in comic dominance, on Saturday's show, playing a prim and repressed Condoleezza Rice to Hammond's flawless Clinton and, later, doing a hilarious impression of Whitney Houston in a spoof of the Geico celebrity-and-real-person commercials.

Andy Samberg played the real person in the spot, seen in the show's last half hour, and though Samberg has yet to explode on the show, he seems one of the most potentially explosive performers. He has a great face for comedy, almost instantly iconic, but was able to maintain composure while Rudolph twirled up a storm next to him.

Samberg had a breakthrough last season when one of the sketches in which he appeared became a huge hit on the Internet after it aired on the show. Indeed, the blasted Internet seems to have affected "Saturday Night Live" as it has affected so many other institutions in American culture. During a commercial break, viewers were told they could see "the season premiere of 'Saturday Night Live' " -- even though that's what they were watching -- later on "NBC.com."

Perhaps the show's currency and comic credentials will be enhanced when each show is pared down to highlights and those moments are recirculated on the Web. America has bought into the myth that anything on the Internet is coming to them via some kind of alternative medium not controlled by America's corporate giants, which of course is a joke in itself -- as is the acceptance of often amateurish and dubiously authoritative "blogs" as the new undisputed truth.

We are turned upside down and inside out by this still-growing monster in our midst and obviously going through a period of adjustment -- during which television and the Internet move closer to becoming mutually symbiotic. Dane Cook, the lowbrow comic who hosted the "SNL" season premiere, has the Internet to thank for a huge spurt in his own popularity after years as an unknown. He has said that he used blogging and e-mailing to reach new fans, mostly young ones.

"SNL's" season premiere went very easy on George W. Bush, played in the "cold open" sketch by Will Forte. The joke in the weak sketch was that Bush is so unpopular in his own party that he was even unwelcome at a celebration held to commemorate the reelection of the state comptroller in South Carolina. Bush sat on the dais but couldn't manage to horn his way into the action.

Other sketches tended to turn up the volume as a compensation for lackluster comedy writing. But generally speaking, the first show of the season is never the best for "Saturday Night Live." As expected, it returned with new graphics (big, bold type) and a new opening montage of New York at night. There probably hasn't been a season when "SNL" didn't look terrific -- and exhibit incredibly smooth production for a live show.

Compared with its earliest years -- and sentimental baby boomers still have a habit of doing that -- "Saturday Night Live" may seem bland, but compared with most of the other satirical humor on television, and most other comedy on television generally, it remains a sensational maverick, even in middle age.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/01/AR2006100101121_pf.html

fredfa

10-02-06, 03:32 PM

The New Season
Comeback Trail: Broadcast TV Storms Into Fall
Stronger Lineups, Better Talent Fuel Ratings Growth and Ad-Rate Hikes
By Claire Atkinson Advertising Age October 02, 2006

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Cancel the funeral: Broadcast TV is alive and kicking harder than it has in years.

'Grey's Anatomy' is just one of a slew of blockbuster broadcast TV shows pulling in high ratings and pushing 30-second spot rates to new heights.

Price levels

Audiences have shown up in droves for the start of the fall season; 30-second-spot prices are reaching some of the highest levels of all time; marketers are throwing more money at the medium; and Wall Street is betting on CBS over cable stronghold Viacom. Doesn't sound much like a business in decline, does it?

Of course no one really thought broadcast was about to die, but the 800-pound gorilla in the media universe has had to weather numerous threats to its well-being and attendant inches of ink proclaiming its imminent demise. The first round of obits was written when its cable siblings started nipping at its audience with their "niche" network story. More recently there's been the endless waves of new-media attacks that were meant to absorb potential viewers' time and splinter broadcast audiences into little, difficult-to-monetize pieces.

Broadcast's reach unrivaled

Yet broadcast's reach is still unrivaled and is spiking this fall season. In total viewers, the networks have already outperformed last year for the first week of the season -- 42.3 million viewers showed up for premiere week, compared with 40.7 million last year.

ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" pulled in 25.4 million viewers Sept. 21. That rating would have put the show on the top-five list 10 years ago. While the first week's numbers don't reflect how the entire season will play out, keep in mind that last season's No. 1 show, Fox's "American Idol," drew 31 million viewers on average, more than the 30 million that NBC megahit "Seinfeld" drew during the 1994-1995 season.

Of course, the threats to broadcast's hegemony are real and are really taking a toll -- its overall audiences are declining year on year. But the fall season shows that the TV chiefs are fighting back. All the networks have hired high-priced talent, invested in costlier productions and are getting savvier about promoting their wares on every outlet from online to VOD. Those efforts appear to be working -- for the moment -- especially as emerging platforms for viewing TV programs remain, well, emerging.

Biggest audience around

With the networks and media agencies still dealing in live-only viewers, the audience advertisers pay for is getting scheduled ad messages, not user-controlled and time-delayed messages. And even if that audience ultimately is smaller than the one 10 years ago, it's still the biggest one around.

While it's tough to make on-air-to-online comparisons, it takes internet video weeks to get anywhere near the audience numbers the broadcast networks have delivered. Yahoo, the top online property in terms of unique video streamers, aggregated 37.9 million people for the month of July, according to ComScore data released Sept. 27. The typical video streamer viewed an average of two streams a day, but of course, it's unlikely each streamer viewed the same two streams each day.

At least one beleaguered ad buyer said the effort and cost involved in keeping on top of new media has his agency questioning whether it's just simpler and cheaper to target the mass audience and live with the waste. A number of indicators have suggested recently that the online ad market is slowing, including a warning from Yahoo and a forecast from eMarketer that suggested online spending would be down in 2006 from a projected $16.7 billion to $15.9 billion. (Broadcast-TV ad revenue in 2004 was $46.3 billion, according to Universal McCann, including network, spot, syndicated and Spanish-language, and that was up 10% from the year before.)

Commercial ratings impact

Even the specter of commercial ratings -- billed as one of the biggest threats to broadcast TV -- could turn out to be a boon. The initial data show broadcast commercial ratings to be much more stable than cable's, and that more broadcast viewers stick around through the ad breaks than cable viewers. The drop from programming ratings means that, with fewer ratings points to go around, broadcasters can most likely command greater costs per thousand.

Some might argue that the broadcast networks are adept at tooting their own well-worn horns, but advertisers, to some extent, agree. While the upfront was lackluster, the money that some suspected had been held back for digital plays showed up right before the season's kickoff, with marketers adding dollars to their original upfront commitments. Buoyed by reasonable pricing, increased interest not only in prime time but also evening news -- Katie helped! -- media buyers are adding to their initial upfront commitments.

Even struggling NBC took advantage of agencies' interest in shifting the deal-making paradigms, by making guarantees against specific engagement metrics for the first time. Ad Age's own pricing chart speaks to the continued financial strength of the 30-second spot on network TV. The unstoppable "American Idol," airing next year as often as three times a week, commands an average of $620,000 per spot. Only three years ago, NBC's "Friends" was the top earner at $473,000.

New shows doing well

Just two weeks into the 2006-2007 season, the expected stalwarts -- such as CBS's "CSI" and NBC's "ER" -- aren't the only ones performing well. The freshman class, including ABC's "Brothers and Sisters" and NBC's "Heroes," are among the top performers so far, as are CBS's "Shark," starring James Woods, and "Smith," starring Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen.

Broadcasters invested more in their new shows, and that's attracted more than just viewers. Bigger-name talent is now more willing to work for the networks. At the TV critics' annual press tour in Pasadena, Calif., this summer, many stars enthused about how happy they were working for the risk-taking broadcast networks rather than toiling on any of the narrow range of vanilla movie scripts offered by Hollywood. Veteran media buyers, used to carping about the quality of network offerings, also have high praise for the new season, describing the shows as the best crop in years.

"What we've seen, from ABC's perspective over the last couple of years, is a creative renaissance, tremendous risk-taking, with [Entertainment President] Steve McPherson leading the charge," said Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of Disney-ABC Television. "Added to this great creative is the growth of digital, and the attention is thrown on the companies that are the hit makers. In a large, complicated industry, one thing digital media -- iTunes and ABC.com -- did was to point to creative excellence to drive the new opportunities."

NBC digital properties

Those opportunities seem to already be paying off. NBC Universal Chairman Bob Wright predicted last week at an Advertising Week event that digital revenue for the year would be in the region of $400 million-$500 million. The NBC network is in charge of selling the iVillage property and the new open access video-sharing syndication business, NBBC.

Speaking at a Goldman Sachs conference Sept. 19, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves predicted that revenue and profits at the CBS Corp. would be better in 2007. "We can get paid for our content in a hundred new ways," Mr. Moonves said. "We can grow more than low single digits." The stock, generally regarded as a bellwether of broadcast-network health, is up 10% since the beginning of the year.

Even media buyers are willing to give broadcast its due. "Broadcast networks are looking as great as they ever did. When Bravo's 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' came out, everybody said cable's hot and the networks are dead. People are finally realizing they're not dead," said Jon Mandel, who is taking on a senior role within Group M, which controls $11 billion dollars in advertising spending. Mr. Mandel said the stream of dollars online is mainly incremental ad dollars drawn from other sources that neither the networks nor the media agencies ever had their hands on. "There's never been such a plethora of programming for consumers in the history of the media. It's all additive."

http://adage.com/print?article_id=112228

fredfa

10-02-06, 07:39 PM

The New Season
Tuesday’s Premieres

8 PM ET/PT Friday Night Lights - NBC (Series Premiere) HD
9 PM ET/PT Veronica Mars - CW HD

fredfa

10-02-06, 07:43 PM

The New Season
"Friday Night Lights”
A wonderful and welcome surprise
By Tim Goodman San Francisco Chronicle Oct. 2, 2006

As much as "Heroes" might be the dark horse among serial dramas and "Ugly Betty" might be the feel-good surprise of the new fall season, there's one series that has truly been unexpected in the level of its excellence, and that's "Friday Night Lights" (Tuesday, 8 PM ET/PT, NBC).

Based on the book and film of the same name -- about the sanctity of high school football in a small Texas town -- few people thought a third-generation retelling of the story for the small screen would be any good.

And the truth is, "Friday Night Lights" is not good. It's great.

Peter Berg (who was also involved with the film), executive producer of the series, wrote and directed the pilot, putting his stamp on the look of the series, which is shot like a documentary and features stark blacks and whites and a camera presence just removed from the immediate action, lending more authenticity and realness to the performances, as if the town of Dillon, its high school Panthers and web of personalities all living and dying by what happens on Friday night were absolutely real and a film crew just happened to show up one week to give the world a glimpse.

What Berg manages to do here is wholly impressive. If you don't care for football, or high school football in particular, or even the concerns of a bunch of high school kids and their fanatical grown-ups -- which plenty of viewers probably don't -- Berg makes you care. That's why "Friday Night Lights" is more than just a surprise in a crowded field of mostly good dramas. The series has to overcome so many preconceived notions, so many reasons not to watch, that it's the dramatic equivalent of a Hail Mary pass falling miraculously into the hands of an open receiver.

Part of the reason "Friday Night Lights" works its magic on viewers is that Berg's documentary-style stamp gives the show a more mature feel -- it has none of the trappings of a teen drama, none of the sheen of a network series set in a small town. Dillon isn't some romantically reconsidered burg, peopled with whimsical characters and warm exchanges between residents. Nope, it's desolate, small and full of its own harshness. What brings the town, and the people of the town, hope and happiness is a winning football team. Nobody's life seems too far removed from the local high school, no matter how old they are.

Another element that's more difficult to pull off than to imagine on paper is the dual storytelling of adults and teens. With Kyle Chandler as Eric Taylor, the new coach of the team, and Connie Britton as his wife, Tami, we can use their perspective as newcomers to the small town to better understand the crazed passion and expectation of its residents. Everybody talks football -- men, women, politicians, religious leaders, teachers, etc. They know the game so well because it's the only game in town.

On a different level, "Friday Night Lights" tells the story of the high school students -- players, cheerleaders, heroes and outcasts. Here's where the more traditional stories -- the soapier elements -- emerge, but again the execution is without gloss, portraying their struggles, dreams and conniving in realistic, mature tones, deftly managing to keep adult viewers interested. Not to put too fine a point on it, but "Friday Night Lights" manages to be everything you don't expect it to be -- a finely nuanced drama instead of "Beverly Hills 90210," a portrait of small town life instead of a cheesy back-lot fantasy, and even a sports story with real authenticity, from the preparation to the game action.

In addition to Chandler (whose interaction with both the adults and teens makes him the necessary ballast), there's a wealth of credible performances among the football team and the girls of the town. You have a star quarterback; a shy third-stringer who hangs with the uncool kids but is called to duty even though he's not ready; two warring running backs (one black and one white, highlighting the undercurrent of touchy race relations in Dillon), and some devious machinations among the female contingent.

So you could make the case that "Friday Night Lights" is one of those rare TV series adults could watch with their tweener-and-above children -- and an even rarer series eagerly anticipated by two, maybe even three different age demographics.

But that still undersells the real achievement of the series: It's simply not what you expect. The second episode, in fact, improves on the exceptional pilot because it erases your fears that it will be too predictable or corny. NBC may have found one of those family dramas that could catch fire and become a ratings powerhouse, though the competition at 8 p.m. is substantial (and the tune-in for "Gilmore Girls" last week was impressive, possibly cutting into the ability of "Lights" to pick up disgruntled fans from that series).

It shouldn't matter, though. If viewers get over their preconceived notions about what they think this series is about and actually give it a shot, they'll be as stunned as everyone else. "Friday Night Lights," at least in the early going, is a wonderful and welcome surprise.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/02/DDGPOLFJMH1.DTL&type=printable

fredfa

10-02-06, 07:52 PM

The Digital Revolution
Hearst-Argyle TV Pulls Six HD Signals Off Cox Systems
By Katy Bachman Media Week Oct. 2, 2006

Hearst-Argyle Television has pulled the HD digital signals for six of its stations from Cox Communications local cable systems as a result of unsuccessful retransmission negotiations. While negotiations continue, Hearst-Argyle is allowing Cox to continue to carry the primary analog signals for KOCO-TV, the ABC affiliate in Oklahoma City; WDSU, the NBC affiliate in New Orleans; KETV, the ABC affiliate in Omaha, Neb.; KMBC, the ABC affiliate in Kansas City, Mo.; KHBS/KHOB, the ABC affiliates in Fort Smith-Fayetteville, Ark.; WESH, the NBC affiliate in Orlando; and WKCF, the CW affiliate in Orlando.

Hearst-Argyle is the latest group to go to battle with cable systems to try and recoup retransmission fees and seek some return on their investment for spending upwards of $2 million per station to upgrade to high definition broadcast. Cable systems have also been upgrading, charging subscribers more for their digital tiers. Further setting the stage for a standoff between broadcasters and cable operators, both compete aggressively for local ad dollars.

In a statement on its station Web sites, Hearst-Argyle said it was seeking “fair and reasonable terms from Cox in return for allowing Cox to carry [the stations'] programming and charge its subscribers for access to that programming.”

According to Hearst-Argyle stations, Cox has been charging consumers for access to the station’s digital signal. “To allow any re-distributor of our station’s digital signal to benefit economically from our efforts without providing us a reasonable contract for that right would be unacceptable for us,” said Joel Vilmenay, president and general manager of KETV in Omaha.

A Cox Communications spokesperson called Hearst-Argyle’s fee demands for something that everyone can access free over-the-air were “exhorbitant.”

“We continue to try and negotiate for a fair agreement for the carriage in high definition, but we have to take a stand against the fee demands which would necessarily be passed along to customers and raise their monthly cable bills,” Cox said in a statement. “Hearst Argyle received broadcast spectrum free from the government; it’s unfair that cable customers should have to pay for the signal they deliver on that spectrum.”

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003190066

fredfa

10-02-06, 08:00 PM

Personally, I love the Cox statement: "A Cox Communications spokesperson called Hearst-Argyle’s fee demands for something that everyone can access free over-the-air were “exorbitant.”

Uhhh, exactly how many free OTA signals does Cox (or any cable, satellite or telco proivider) give us for free? I enjoy reading such transparent hypocrisy.

It seems to me if ESPN gets close to $3 per sub -- and fewer than a third ever watch ESPN -- it is not unreasonable to expect some payment for the networks -- which draw about half the total audience during prime time.

But that's just me.

Nonetheless, it is clear that soon payments will have to be made for HD carriage of local signals. CBS is demanding payment, as will Fox. Disney might not, fearing a backlash against the ESPN suite and its other cable channels, and NBC might be less than willing to join the fray since cable companies could pull MSNC (and CNBC) and --based on viewership levels -- would face little outrage.

But you can bet on it: soon stations -- and networks -- will start to share in the monthly cable/satellite/telco booty. And we will all pay more.

DoubleDAZ

10-02-06, 08:03 PM

And that may be the catalyst for ala carte. :)

fredfa

10-02-06, 09:06 PM

We can only hope, Dave.

Imagine -- just paying for the channels you watch. How un-American is that? :)

DoubleDAZ

10-02-06, 09:07 PM

Well, it certainly would depend on how much each one costs, capitalism being what it is. :)

fredfa

10-02-06, 09:25 PM

“Friday Night Lights”:
Aspiring to gridiron greatness
From Maureen Ryan’s Chicago Tribune blog “The Watcher”

If you’re not on the edge of your seat during the last 10 minutes of “Friday Night Lights” (8 PM ET/PT Tuesday, NBC), you simply don’t have a pulse.

The final sequence in the premiere depicts the first game of the season for the Dillon Panthers, a Texas team that’s a perennial contender for the state championship.

The coach is new, the Panthers fall behind, and anyone who has ever attended a closely contested football game will recognize the sense of enraptured attention -- shared by the crowd and the players -- that “Friday Night Lights” so masterfully conveys in the closing minutes of the game.

This drama has a deep bench; it’s not only “inspired by” H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger’s enthralling 1990 book of the same name, but it also was directed by Peter Berg, an actor/director (“The Last Seduction,” “Chicago Hope”) who helmed a 2004 feature film based on the book.

Berg’s feel for cinematic narrative is sure and subtle; he knows that the look on a tortured fan’s face says more than pages of dialogue and one long shot of a Hail Mary pass is more effective in silence than accompanied by a blaring soundtrack.

Few shows convey a sense of place more convincingly than “Friday Night Lights,” which is shot in Texas. Dillon is a town with one burger place for the high school kids, a strip mall with Applebee’s and the like, and not much else. Berg deftly portrays the wide-open spaces of this dusty, working-class town and the sense of claustrophobia that comes from not being able to escape your friends, neighbors or co-workers.

The cast of football players in “Lights” mostly look too old to be high schoolers, but that small flaw is not hard to overlook when the characters are etched so memorably right out of the gate. There’s the cocky runny back, “Smash,” who’s full of bravado and NFL dreams; the clean-cut, All American quarterback, who knows the entire town’s hopes rest on him but endures the pressure with gentlemanly grace; the outsider, a nervous second-string quarterback who lamely hits on a girl by telling her he’s gotten to hold the ball a few times during extra points.

The most compelling character is running back Tim Riggins, who is, on the surface, a wild man uninterested in anything but drinking beer and hurting other guys on the field. Without much in the way of dialogue, actor Taylor Kitsch conveys the anguish of a young man who has never been given the words to understand what he feels when things go badly.

The entire town of Dillon is populated by recognizable types that fall just short of stereotype; there’s the paunchy car dealer who unofficially runs the town, the local team boosters, for whom football is a religion and a sassy high schooler, Tyra, who is as risk-prone as her sometime boyfriend, Riggins.

Caught fooling around with another player, Tyra’s marched outside by the player’s no-nonsense mother: “I work at Planned Parenthood -- you haven’t seen the last of me yet,” the mother snaps.

There are two problems with the mostly promising “Friday Night Lights”: The first has to do with the by-now overused conceit of the jiggly camera. A sense of motion and tension in camera movement is fine, but the series goes overboard in the use of jagged, jumping camera movement, to the point that it distracts from the fine acting and overall top-notch production values on display.

The other rests in “Lights’” depiction of life in Dillon: It may be too accurate to be enjoyable in the long run. In several scenes, we see the new Dillon coach, Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler), bite his tongue as locals give him a never-ending stream of advice about the how to run the team, and the background noise of the show is the constant throb of talk-radio types ranting about this or that aspect of the Panthers.

Seeing Taylor constantly swallow that relentless pressure is realistic yet often uncomfortable to watch. A tightly wound man under a microscope is a fine subject for a film, but perhaps not for a TV show, unless there’s a chance for all that pressure to be released in some meaningful way.

Still, the show’s creators display many smart moves. They resist the temptation to make the show’s second episode conclude with yet another “big game” sequence, and they appear to know that the show rises or falls on what the players and coaches do off the field as well as on it.

It’d be giving too much away to reveal what happens to some key characters in the first two episodes, but the dramatic tension of the first two hours makes it clear the producers of “Friday Night Lights” have no need for a Hail Mary pass yet. This is one show that could, with the right kind of leadership, make it to the playoffs.

http://tempo.typepad.com/entertainment_tv/

fredfa

10-02-06, 10:22 PM

TV Q&A
Ask Matt
(from the Ask (TV Critic) Matt (Roush) column at TVGuide.com
By Matt Roush TVGuide.com TV Critic Oct 2, 2006

Question: Just watched Heroes, and I was absolutely blown away. From all of the negative criticisms I've been hearing (especially at TVGuide.com), I was ready to throw in the towel even before watching the pilot. Thank god I didn't. Then again, maybe all of the negative buzz lowered my expectations? If that's the case, then I guess I owe you a big thanks! But really, how would you rate Heroes when compared to other sci-fi pilots of the past (such as Lost, Invasion, Threshold, etc)? — Marcus D.

Matt Roush: My feelings are mixed about Heroes. I do have some serious reservations about the show. (In my "cult-TV" roundup, I gave it a 5 out of 10, which I'm now thinking is at least a point or two low; the new season is always a good time to second-guess one's first impressions.) And yet I was gratified to see the strong ratings for its premiere, and I'm rooting for it to succeed. But comparing this pilot to the pilots of Lost, Invasion and Threshold, all of which launched with truly amazing episodes (in my opinion), Heroes struck me initially as a bit pretentious, unfocused and dangerously diffuse. Thankfully, that preachy voice-over subsides a bit in the next few episodes, and the weekly cliff-hangers are astonishing payoffs. Still, I worry that Heroes has some of the same problems as last season's Surface, although this is by every measure a superior show.

Listening to the show's creator speak this summer at the critics' press tour didn't help matters. I had suspicions then and now that this is one of those shows they're making up as they go along, with no clearly defined core or conflict binding the ungainly and possibly overambitious premise. With so many characters and so much geography between them, Heroes is almost inevitably going to be uneven, and for every character and story line that grabs me, there's another that puts me off. I am very intrigued, and by the time I finished watching Episode 3 (which ends with an image I guarantee you've never seen before), I knew there was no way I wasn't going to tune in for Episode 4. True anecdote: In talking this show over with other critics (as I do from time to time), I discovered that some of my colleagues who don't much care for this sort of show were able to overlook the flaws that stopped me in my tracks. Maybe I hold this genre up to a different standard, which is why I'll be fascinated to see how it develops. I'll still back up my opinion that the pilot episode was problematic. We'll see if it holds up; I hope it does. The weekly cliff-hangers alone are worth the ride, and heroes like fanboy Hiro and Claire the regenerating cheerleader are the kind of breakout characters TV could really use right now.

Question: I'm going to weigh in with what's probably an unpopular opinion about Veronica Mars: I think they need to ditch the multi-episode mysteries. I really believe they are the show's weakest link. Last season's finale was as ludicrous as Nip/Tuck's Carver finale, and that's saying something. I felt like I was watching the resolution of a Scooby-Doo episode in both cases. All that was missing was the latex masks being removed from the villains. And lo and behold, the show's weakest episode from the first season was also that season's finale. While I love the show in general, all I felt at the end of VM's two seasons was a big letdown. So why not avoid the inevitable fallout from the letdown after a huge buildup, and instead adopt a House-style format where most episodes are self-contained mysteries, and the only continuing elements are the characters' evolution and how they relate to each other?— Mary A.

Matt Roush: That is a bit radical. Like you, I was underwhelmed by last year's everything-but-the-kitchen-sink denouement (although I thought the first season's finale was suspenseful and far more credible). But to set Veronica loose on minor, self-contained capers would diminish the show, I think. Maybe I'm a little biased after having seen the first two episodes of this season, which present a strong mystery, introduce promising new characters and serve as a smart way to integrate Veronica into her new college setting. Tracking down a serial rapist on campus puts Veronica in some very interesting social and interpersonal situations that, no surprise, don't always play out in her favor, once again rendering her a bit of an underdog and outcast. While serialized mystery arcs may inhibit VM's crossover appeal, they're an integral part of the show's draw. I do think, however, that it's smart for the show not to juggle more than one mystery at once. That didn't work well at all last season. Lessons learned.

Question: Even with all the hype, do you think Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip will survive? I ask because while Matthew Perry is pitch-perfect, proving my instincts right (he was the most talented and underutilized Friends cast member), and while the dialogue is a little bit of heaven, after the second episode, am I the only one seeing some serious cracks in the foundation? I'm having a very hard time believing any of these characters. D.L. Hughley is the only person who even remotely seems like he would be on a Saturday Night Live-style show. Everyone else lacks the spark of genius I would expect of comedians on a show on par with SNL. Amanda Peet as the president of the network, coming in with the résumé she supposedly has? Not buying it. Bradley Whitford, who was on fire in The West Wing, barely shows a spark in this show (maybe he needed a longer break before going back to series television). And would anyone really expect to see the second episode's supposed "cold open" on SNL or MADtv? They really lost me there. It seems the problem with creating a show about a show is that you either need to never see the actual show, or you'd better be able to deliver an SNL-style performance. I don't think even Sorkin's genius dialogue can overcome a premise that is looking very shaky. Are my expectations too high, as a devoted West Wing and Aaron Sorkin fan? I'll keep watching as long as Matthew Perry is as amazing as he is (OK, I'm crushing on him a little), but I am worried. Thanks for what I'm sure will be an astute observation.— TaMara

Matt Roush: First off, what Saturday Night Live have you been watching lately to hold to such a high standard? (I have seen numerous episodes begin with old-fashioned musical parodies. Some work, many are lame.) But you're not the only one, either by mail or in my own office, who brought to my attention the fact that the sketch wasn't as brilliant as Matt Albie's (the Matthew Perry character) reputation promised. Which is why I agree that it's a good idea that we see as little of the actual show-within-a-show as possible. (Case in point: Keeping the actual "Crazy Christians" sketch off camera. It already served its purpose.) I would respectfully disagree with your disdain for the overall ensemble work (sparing Matthew Perry, who indeed is terrific). I think they're doing fine, and Sarah Paulson in particular is playing someone I've never seen before: a Christian comedian with a spine and a sense of humor. My one caveat has always been Amanda Peet's characterization. They've got a ways to go to flesh her out. To answer your question directly: I am confident Studio 60 will survive. Its ratings aren't through the roof, but the demographics are great, and there's no reason to fret — as long as we give it some breathing room and sit back and enjoy it for a bit before worrying it to death.

Question: I normally really enjoy your column, but how could you label Standoff a loser? It's clearly one of the best new shows of the season so far. Ron Livingston proved himself worthy of leading-man status long ago with Office Space and Sex and the City, and he has great chemistry with Rosemarie DeWitt, who has already been labeled "the find of the season." The show is both funny and suspenseful with strong characters and an interesting premise. What's not to love?— Danielle

Matt Roush: Let's start with the premise, which pretty much exhausted itself in the pilot episode. Wouldn't it have been more interesting if their relationship hadn't been exposed in the very first scene? Then the situations, which get more ridiculous by the week. I won't argue that Livingston is a major star waiting to happen, but I can't imagine this will be the vehicle. Fox is getting off to a pretty rocky start again this fall, and I would imagine either Standoff or Justice will be gone before the new year. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but my money's on Standoff (and I'm not that confident about Justice these days, either).

Question: I would like to start off by saying I am a huge Grey's Anatomy fan but am very disappointed that the show keeps making digs at veterinarians. Last season Cristina made the comment, "He's not a real doctor — just a vet" or something to that effect. In the season-opener Callie was explaining to Chris O'Donnell (who plays a veterinarian) not to take it personally. "It's just a doctor thing. Four years of high school, four years of college, four years of med school... " Do they not realize that veterinarians go through the same amount of school (four years of high school, four years of college and four years of vet school)? Maybe someone should remind Grey's Anatomy that statistically it is harder to get into vet school than med school and that many doctors are doctors because they couldn't get into vet school. Thanks for listening. — Maureen

Matt Roush: Rant acknowledged. But really, don't you think Chris O'Donnell's portrayal of McVet is sympathetic enough to make your case already? Besides, it's very much in character for these self-impressed, hard-charging doctors to condescend to an animal doctor. It's part of what we love/hate about them. It doesn't mean the show has that attitude. Given how appealing Finn has been made to seem, I think the exact opposite is true.

Question: I love your column and respect your opinion greatly. I believe you said a while ago that we are in a golden age of TV drama. A few years ago I wouldn't have believed it was possible, as I lamented the loss of the great Boomtown. But so far, I'm very happy with this TV season. High on my list are Jericho, which I was happy to see seemed to be well-received, and Six Degrees, Kidnapped and Justice. Coming in close behind are Men in Trees, Studio 60 and Vanished. I'm slightly concerned about getting hooked on these shows only to have them canceled, but that would never stop me from enjoying them while I can. In your opinion, can these shows survive? I would hate to see any of them go too soon. Also, I was a bit perplexed and annoyed by the media coverage following the premiere of Studio 60. There was a lot of talk about how the show was not able to retain the audience of its lead-in, Deal or No Deal. Who would possibly think that those two shows are compatible? As a high-school English teacher, I spend a lot of time talking to my students about the concept of audience, and I think that even they could figure out that these two audiences are not the same.— Holly B.

Matt Roush: It is way too soon to tell which of the season's new dramas (many of them serialized) will be keepers. It depends on the network, the expectations for the time period, the competition, whether a show is growing week to week (or the reverse, which can be fatal), or if it holds on to enough of its lead-in (which is likely to be Six Degrees' downfall). The problem facing so many of these shows is that we're already enjoying a surplus of great drama choices, and there's only so much time even a dedicated watcher is going to be able to devote to new shows. (And wait until you see Friday Night Lights this week. Talk about a great, golden-age-worthy drama that you're going to want to root for.) The outlook will become clearer over the next month, and many of these shows' fates will be determined before or during the November sweeps. (If they go on extended hiatus then, that's never a good sign.) As for your Studio 60/Deal or No Deal question, I agree. The shows aren't compatible. The game show brags about how mindless it is, while the Sorkin drama is a dense, busy and intellectually stimulating piece of polished work. Of course, this is a moot point now that Heroes has settled in as Studio 60's lead-in. Again, not much audience flow from show to show on NBC's Monday lineup. The Heroes cult and the older, more upscale target for Studio 60 aren't a perfect match, but I'm thinking each of these shows can survive in its own, very different way.

Question: I'm just curious, if Kidnapped takes off, how many weeks can they keep this story running? Can they search for Leo for, say, five years?— J. King

Matt Roush: Given the disappointing early numbers, this is a problem the show would be lucky to have. If by some miracle Kidnapped does get a decent run, the idea is to resolve the Leopold kidnapping case in the first season. In future seasons (should there be any), the lead investigators (Jeremy Sisto, possibly Delroy Lindo) would take on a new kidnapping. This question more accurately applies to the conspiracy-dense Vanished, which spins a much more open-ended story around the disappearance of the senator's wife. (Again, a story I'm not convinced we'll get to see to its natural end.)

Question: Do you have any news on Justice? I absolutely love this show. It's fresh, fast-paced, well-acted, has great stories, and at the end, you find out what really happened. I know that it is not doing very well in the ratings, and I'm afraid that it will be canceled. I personally think this show would be a hit if it were picked up by CBS. It seems more that network's style, and I think more people would feel compelled to check it out. Also, any news on Las Vegas? Great show, great cast, but it doesn't seem to be anywhere, and I haven't seen any previews for a new season. Are the ratings really that bad? Is it coming back?— Hug Out

Matt Roush: The word (in the trades and elsewhere) is that Fox isn't quite ready yet to give up on Justice, and that when Fox's schedule resets itself in November after the baseball break, this show could find itself in a new time period. (I'd try it on Mondays in place of the increasingly woeful Vanished or Tuesdays in place of Standoff.) But I'd like to see the show break formula a little more than it has so far. Much as I like Victor Garber, it's playing awfully generic, and I can't gauge its chances for getting a full-season pickup just yet. As for Las Vegas: not to worry. It's just getting a late start, returning Oct. 20 for a full season in the same Friday time period (9 pm/ET) as last season. (It was going to be paired with Crossing Jordan, but as I noted in my Dispatch earlier this week, Jordan has been put on hold until mid-season and has been replaced on Fridays at 8 pm/ET by a new trivia-based game show, 1 vs. 100.

Question: I like James Woods as an actor and was immediately interested when I heard about Shark. On the other hand, although I also like Victor Garber, Justice was barely on my radar. The early premiere of Justice, particularly since it was right after Bones, got me to watch, and I was pleasantly surprised. In contrast, I was rather disappointed in Shark. Somehow, I just found the whole "redemption" angle of Shark really off-putting. It's like he's a jerk, but he's sorry he's a jerk. Victor Garber's character is unapologetic and does what it takes to win. How are the two shows doing, and what's your opinion of them?— Jenny

Matt Roush: As noted earlier, Justice is struggling, and even Shark got off to a disappointing start in its first week (considering the power of the CSI lead-in). I think both shows are flawed: Justice because it's too trapped by its procedural formula and Shark because it strands James Woods in a hackneyed setup, personally and professionally, and surrounds him with a colorless supporting cast. That's a first impression, and I'll have to see a few more episodes of Shark to see how it rebounds from the pilot. But I agree. Appointment TV it's not. It's fortunate to have such a great lead-in (although in first-run, ER is likely to remain serious competition). Just to show you the range of opinion I get in my mailbag, here's a flip-side view from Keith: "I keep seeing words like 'generic' and 'pointless' associated with the series Shark. I like James Woods — and ER has never been worth the videotape it's recorded on, with its melodramatic turns and drab replacement leads who have the presence of chopped celery — so I gave Shark a try. There were some stereotypical turns (e.g., the opening scenes), and I find it silly that the first-year ADAs who help him out are all MTV-sexy (even the in-and-out young'uns at Crane, Poole & Schmidt aren't this hot), but I have to say that the behind-the-scenes dissection of the case was far more real than the other law dramas out there. The interactions take odd turns (like real life), characters have real senses of humor and senses of self (rather than schmaltzy, sitcom-like humor), and conversations don't seem planned (the closing scene with Shark and his daughter notwithstanding). Overall, it made me feel that the overly slick slickness and trying-too-hard-to-be-"CSI: Law" tone of Justice would be better-suited for a Court TV docudrama. And that show got good marks?"

Question: I don't watch reality TV but have found Dancing with the Stars enjoyable, addictive and my one guilty pleasure each week. Frankly, I'm amazed by what these people are able to do each week. I have always loved good dancing, and DWTS makes me smile. But my question is, who in the world picks the atrocious musical accompaniment to the dances? This week's episode, with the tango and jive, really brought out the poor musical choices like a big red flag; the tangos especially were disserviced by the awful musical choices. Every week I shake my head and find myself wondering, "Who in the world thought that song would work?" What do you think?— Kathy L.

Matt Roush: I don't disagree, but it doesn't really bother me. The whole show is so cheesy, but in a good, fun, guilty-pleasure way, from Tom Bergeron's corny jokes to the very presence of Jerry Springer in the competition. The fact that the music is so jukebox generic is just so much more marzipan clogging the arteries. (By the way, even if there weren't other things to watch, there's no way I could sit through the results show live. The minute that preening diva Vittorio opened his mouth during one of the musical dance numbers, I was never more thankful for my DVR fast-forward.)

http://www.tvguide.com/News-Views/Columnists/Ask-Matt/default.aspx

fredfa

10-02-06, 11:47 PM

The New Season
“Friday Night Lights”, “Nine”
It doesn't get much better than 'Lights' and 'Nine'
By Melanie McFarland Seattle Post-Intelligencer TV Critic Tuesday, October 3, 2006

By Now you’ve seen most of what the fall television schedule has to offer. You've probably made your decisions as to what new series are worth sticking with and what to abandon. Your weeknight viewing schedule, therefore, is set.

Wrong.

We hope that's not the case, anyway, because this week brings the arrival of two new series, "Friday Night Lights" (8 PM ET/PT, Tuesday, NBC) and "The Nine," (10 PM ET/PT, Wednesday, ABC) both of which have virtually unimpeachable premieres. One even improves upon that near-perfection in the second episode.

"Friday Night Lights" represents the new school of family-friendly programming -- stylish, intelligent and blissfully free of teen caricatures.

Granted, the teenagers in "Friday Night Lights" are TV beautiful, but the characters are steeped in an authenticity that serves as an antidote to all the MTV reality images that have been pumped into our culture. (Except, maybe, for the similarly themed "Two-A-Days.")

To augment that idea, series creator Peter Berg, who co-wrote and directed the 2004 film version of "Friday Night Lights" (which, in turn, was based on H.G. Bissinger's non-fiction best-seller) uses shaky hand-held shots and zooming close-ups to add a gritty, documentary-style realism.

Attractive as the kids are, they don't make life in the dusty, hardscrabble town of Dillon, Texas, look any prettier than it should be. Dillon's working-class townsfolk worship God and the power of smash-mouth football, and its high school football team, the Panthers, are celebrities.

That puts incredible pressure on Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler, in a solid performance), the new head coach heavily relying on first-string quarterback Jason Street (Scott Porter) to make him look good. Street's girlfriend Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly) is his great love and partner, pushing him on through the toughest moments.

There's plenty of hardship to go around. Off the field, star running back and team loudmouth Brian "Smash" Williams (Gaius Charles) frequently clashes with fellow running back and burgeoning drunk Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch). Third-string Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford), meanwhile, cares for his ailing grandmother and barely registers on the town's radar -- until he's unexpectedly called from the sidelines.

Not only does Eric feel the town breathing down his neck, his wife, Tami (Connie Britton), has to carefully navigate the town's social scene, a difficulty entertainingly demonstrated in a gossip-filled book club she's encouraged to attend.

You don't have to be a football fan to fall in love with this series. To be perfectly honest, I didn't fully understand its appeal until a second viewing, with an additional episode, made me a convert.

More than simply being outstanding, "Friday Night Lights" is an important series because of the way it takes family-friendly television seriously. The issues covered here -- racism, the dream of success and that classic struggle for acceptance and popularity -- create the kind of family drama that can bring everybody to the table. Plus, there's something indescribable about it that makes it impossible not to feel for these kids and their families, owing not to any tragedy but, instead, to a sense of vitality and spirit. In short, this is a winner.

The same goes for "The Nine." In a fall season full of lofty recommendations and solid, well-made pilots, it's the only series truly worth getting excited about. And it's certainly the only one this critic intends to watch closely.

Rarely is it prudent to come to such a conclusion based on one hour of television, but that's how taut the pilot is. This drama looks like the new great television addiction.

Yes, that means it's a serial -- as if we need another one of those. Only this is a serial that deals with how trauma can reshape your life, a concept bound to resonate with millions. Most people have a tale of being blindsided on a sunny day, violently or otherwise. Of course, few will ever have to live through such a level of extreme terror.

Before their ordeal, these nine people were strangers waiting for a bank teller. Nick Cavanaugh (Tim Daly), a handsome cop, went in to flirt with bank employee Eva Rios (Lourdes Benedicto), whose sister Franny (Camille Guaty) got her the job.

Bank manager Malcolm Jones (Chi McBride) received a surprise visit from his daughter, Felicia (Dana Davis), after a strange conversation about a loan with a weirdo named Egan Foote (John Billingsley). Kathryn Hale (Kim Raver), an assistant district attorney; Jeremy Kates (Scott Wolf), a successful surgeon; his girlfriend, Lizzie Miller (Jessica Collins), were all having typical days.

That ended when Lucas Dalton (Owain Yeoman) walked in with his tweaky brother, hoping to hit the place and run. But what should have been over in five minutes stretched out to 52 torturous hours.

Cut to the SWAT team entering the place -- it looks as if it's torn apart by guerrilla warfare. Everyone's bloody, screaming and cowering, and Cavanaugh makes it clear that someone on the outside screwed up on a massive scale.

That's all we know, other than how drastically the event has changed these people. The once suicidal Egan emerges with a sense that life has granted him a second chance. Others take a turn for the worse -- and one blocks it out entirely. But they all bond, and as bits and pieces of what happened over those 52 hours are revealed, we'll find out what is keeping them together.

The combined charisma of Daly, McBride, Raver and Wolf is undeniable, but doesn't overshadow the rest of this excellent ensemble. Billingsley, though, looks like a viewer favorite.

If nothing else, "The Nine's" premiere should be considered a textbook example of how to effectively introduce a rich and potentially complex drama in short order, a feat few pilots manage to pull off. Watch it for that reason alone. See if you can't help coming back for more.

Also premiering Tuesday is the third season of "Veronica Mars" on The CW (9 PM ET/PT), which shows the teen detective entering her first year at Hearst College and quickly getting caught up in the hunt for a serial rapist -- among other less significant mysteries.

For more details, check the TV blog at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/287262_tv03.html

fredfa

10-03-06, 01:47 AM

The New Season
“Saturday Night Live”
Alive and kicking: SNL makes it No. 32
By Ed Bark former Dallas Morning News TV critic at his website unclebarky.com

Downsized but hardly euthanized, NBC's King of Comedy launched its 32nd season Saturday in far better fashion than expected.

The Saturday Night Live cupboard did seem a bit bare, though, without five star players from the previous fall. Tiny Fey is producing and starring in NBC's upcoming 30 Rock series, and she took Rachel Dratch with her. Horatio Sanz, Chris Parnell and Finesse Mitchell were simply let go, victims of mandated budget-cutting by NBC's corporate parent, General Electric.

Still, the lights came on and there was some electricity, too. Sharp writing and solid play-acting by host Dane Cook helped get SNL off to a promising restart. That's good news. SNL has suffered innumerable rips and tears over the years, but what would NBC put in its stead? The best course of action is to reinvigorate what we have and be happy we still have it. Even in its leanest years, SNL is preferable to Wrestling from Carnegie Hall, Captain Cappy's Crappy Hour or anything with Carson Daly's name on it.

SNL also had to plug in a new Weekend Update anchor to replace the departed Fey. This is where NBC Nightly News dude Brian Williams came in. Looking pleased as punch, he sidled in next to holdover Amy Poehler and said how excited he was to be joining her. Guess he didn't get the memo. The show belatedly had decided to go in a "new direction," Poehler told him as Seth Meyers joined them.

"Congratulations on being the No. 1 news anchor in America," Meyers chirped.

"Don't patronize me, Seth," Williams shot back, wondering how he'd break the news to his kids that "daddy" wouldn't be on TV that night.

This used to be considered conduct unbecoming of a serious, real-world news anchor. But we've long since high-jumped most remaining barriers between news and entertainment. So let Williams have a little fun. After all, Anderson Cooper segued directly from ABC's The Mole to CNN. Even so, he still finds time to occasionally co-host Live with Regis & Kelly when the man of that house is on vacation.

SNL earlier scored with a "cold open" in which Will Forte's President Bush found himself unwanted even at a fundraiser for South Carolina's comptroller race. The season opener also had a bright sketch on airport security's new three-ounce rule and a very funny "People's Television of Venezuela" bit paced by Poehler as roly-poly North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il.

Darrell Hammond, in his record-breaking 12th year as an SNL regular, found another reason to send up Bill Clinton. This time he played off the former president's combative interview with Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace while Maya Rudolph stood in for Condoleezza Rice after her comparatively tame one-on-one with CBS News' Katie Couric.

"There's a tiger in there, Condi," Hammond's fake Bill told her. "And you need to let it out."

Wow, even the usually lame, last-gasp lead-in to SNL's closing group hugs came up a winner. Rudolph again excelled, this time as Whitney Houston in one of those Geico ads featuring celebs dramatizing the tales of real-life claim collectors.

So thanks, SNL, for greatly exceeding expectations. You're again good to go.

http://www.unclebarky.com/reviews.html

fredfa

10-03-06, 01:50 AM

The New Season
“Friday Night Lights”
On the Field and Off, Losing Isn’t an Option
By Virginia Heffernan The New York Times Oct. 3, 2006

Lord, is “Friday Night Lights” good. In fact, if the season is anything like the pilot, this new drama about high school football could be great — and not just television great, but great in the way of a poem or painting, great in the way of art with a single obsessive creator who doesn’t have to consult with a committee and has months or years to go back and agonize over line breaks and the color red; it could belong in a league with art that doesn’t have to pause for commercials, or casually recap the post-commercial action, or sell viewers on the plot and characters in the first five minutes, or hew to a line-item budget, or answer to unions and studios, or avoid four-letter words and nudity.

And the fact that Peter Berg wrote and directed the premiere of “Friday Night Lights” (Tuesday, 8 PM ET/PT, Tuesday) within the confines of television production — network television production, at that — means that it’s certainly great.

Consider a single moment in the audio: a sharp, mean, purposeful whir that tells almost the whole story.

This sound surfaces in the mix toward the end of tonight’s episode, which chronicles a Texas town’s run-up to the first football game of the season. It’s the whir of a surgeon’s saw splitting open a football helmet. The sound is at once terrible to the ear — like a nose breaking or a girlfriend sobbing — and clean and competent: at this hospital in Dillon, Tex., the E.M.T.’s evidently know how to steady a bone saw to split open a helmet, carefully but unsentimentally, so as not to exacerbate a skull fracture or a spine injury. All of that you can tell from the sound: the circular-saw teeth cutting through the helmet’s polycarbonate alloy shell and the dual density stabilizer system, through the whole optimistically designed headgear, which is both an invitation to fight and a symbol of the wish to protect fighters.

But what the whir sound also tells us is that fighters cannot ever be protected. “We will all fall,” as the vaguely biblical voice-over puts it. So now, in the emergency room, the helmet is less than useless: it is opened easily and as a matter of course, because brain and spine injuries in this town of big football are obviously nothing new.

If this sounds grandiose, so is “Friday Night Lights.” But its capacity to turn a single sound into not just evidence of football’s mortal stakes, but exposition, scene-setting and anthropology (this is West Texas, where football players and E.R. workers work closely together), is proof that this is a fiercely controlled and inventive work of art.

While we’re on the subject of sound engineering, which as the signature virtue of N.F.L. films should get close attention in any credible drama of football, there is also the creak of black leather. This equally revealing sound cue comes up earlier in tonight’s episode, when Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), the hard-living running back, wakes up on a bachelor sofa where he’s passed out. The sticky sound of his skin on the leather, as well as the creak of the furniture under his weight, reminds you of the role of leather in Texas — those tanned hides that are native, of course, but also not especially comforting. In the hot Texas weather, sleeping on it, sheetless, seems for a young athlete in training yet another act of stoicism or sacrifice. Or, possibly in Tim’s case, just arrogant indifference. Whatever it takes to play high school football.

There are some intelligent performances here. Kyle Chandler as Eric Taylor, the team’s new coach, is less Bear Bryant than Robert Redford in “The Candidate”; he’s forced into this big role and undermined by the town elders who, with their bonhomie and their accents and their short salt-and-pepper hair, come off like United States congressmen. He is as much the object of expectations as the mouthpiece for them, and sometimes he seems like a vulnerable teenager himself. This is an interesting choice. I also like Tami Taylor (Connie Britton), Eric’s wife, who in spite of her genial triviality in other things, evinces a persuasive curiosity about football, actually peering at the television screen when Coach Taylor is studying plays. Scott Porter as Jason Street, the pious quarterback, has the tragic aura of the old-time American high school football star; he pulls it off.

But that old-time tragedy — its archetypes defined in movies like “Rebel Without a Cause” and “Splendor in the Grass” — is not what’s at play here, or at least not exclusively. Football and America and high school have changed a fair amount in 50 years; “Friday Night Lights,” which grew out of the movie of the same name, is not so nostalgic that it fails to recognize those changes.

Tyra Collette (Adrianne Palicki), an obscurely righteous but also vain and sexy popular girl, has a kind of Hillary Clinton ferocity that never would have appeared in the old films, where she would have had to be sadder, or more promiscuous, or angelic. As Smash Williams, Gaius Charles starts off the episode with a forced style; his dialogue — he’s black, and more religious even than Street — is not written with as much conviction as the rest of the characters’. But the actor improves, as do his lines.

“Friday Night Lights” is a wonder. It’s a big drama, and even seasoned pilot skeptics — and their bookies, who rank shows based on the odds they’ll be canceled — will have a hard time not getting choked up at tonight’s episode. At this rate, “Friday Night Lights” might just bring old NBC the state championship. It’s been a long time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/arts/television/03heff.html?ref=television&pagewanted=print

fredfa

10-03-06, 02:09 AM

The New Season
“Friday Night Lights”
NBC's 'Friday Night' is blinded by the lights
Someone decided that the show would only work if storytelling were pared down to quick-cutting iconography set to guitars.
By Paul Brownfield Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 3, 2006

NBC's "Friday Night Lights" is like a small-town student-body presidential race financed by Hollywood money. It's a music video, really, twice removed from the backdrop that gave H.G. Bissinger the terrain for his 1988 book — a dusty, racially troubled West Texas oil town united by its outsized passion for the hometown Permian High School football team.

Peter Berg, who directed the 2004 movie version, is co-executive producer of "Friday Night Lights" the series, and he seems to have decided that the show would only work if storytelling were pared down to quick-cutting iconography set to guitars.

We bounce from tableau to tableau — the coach watching game footage in his living room, the players with their girls and their beers by the barbecue, the pep rally at the car dealership where the dragon-lady mayor corners the star quarterback while another asks the running back: "Have you ever blitzed an older woman?"

They're tantalizing brush strokes. "Friday Night Lights" the movie had this stylized, documentary feel too, but it also had the half-mad Billy Bob Thornton; you thought he might be capable of hitting a kid, or at least saying something incredibly mean. Ditto Coach Rush Propst on MTV's involving "Two-a-Days," a reality series about the Hoover High football team in Alabama.

"The main thing you need to do, let me tell you what you need to do — you need to shut up," Coach Propst told his star defensive lineman Repete Smith on a recent episode, after Repete was caught flirting with the opposing team's cheerleaders during a game.

The coach on "Friday Night Lights" is played by the handsome Kyle Chandler, who wears his weary, soulful gaze like a headset sponsored by the makers of an antidepressant. Chandler's the new coach of the Dillon High Panthers (changed from the Permian Panthers of Odessa), on whose teenage shoulder pads rest a town's hopes and dreams.

The subtitle of Bissinger's book was "A Town, a Team, and a Dream," because it was partly about the socioeconomics out of which "Mojo" mania grew, but the TV show shortens things to just the team and the dream.

"I'm starting to look at this whole damn town like a big ol' out-tune guitar," the backup quarterback's best friend says of one-horse Dillon. It sounds like a line he might have stolen from a Willie Nelson tune. The NBC release calls it "the small, rural town of Dillon," which is TV exec-speak for any place in America you can't get to by direct flight.

If Berg doesn't make Dillon any more specific, he does make it dreamily universal; even the bigotry and heartlessness is shot through with a kind of movie-land warmth.

In Dillon High's season opener, star quarterback Jason Street (Scott Porter) is knocked out with a spinal injury and in comes terrified benchwarmer Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford), who throws a pass off his own lineman's helmet before tossing a majestic, Doug Flutie-like Hail Mary for the winning touchdown.

Can little Matt Saracen lead Dillon to state championship glory? Talk at the weekly Rotary luncheon at Applebee's suggests not. But the Saracen character's loaded with pathos — he likes to draw, and he cares for his grandmother while his father's in Iraq.

He's Flutie, but once more with feeling. The former Boston College quarterback's miracle happened in 1984, anyway, and mostly endures as a Top 10 something-or-other on a "SportsCenter" or "College Game Day" highlight package.

"Friday Night Lights" blitzes the fact that you can still play high school football as a parable of innocence lost. I like the characters on "Two-a-Days" better, though — the parents and adults, Repete's name, Alex's sly-seeming grin, Coach Propst's gut. As TV, "Friday Night Lights," with its cinematic sheen, is the gleaming dynasty across town.

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-lights3oct03,0,17194,print.story?coll=cl-tvent

fredfa

10-03-06, 04:26 AM

The New Season
“Friday Night Lights”
Football looks warm under 'Lights'
By Robert Bianco USA Today

Texas high schools have no monopoly on Friday night lights.

Like the book and movie on which it's based, the heartfelt and sometimes heart-piercing Lights engulfs us in the joys and travails of a small-town Texas football team and its fans. But while the show is all the better for its specificity, it isn't limited by it. Lights will ring true with anyone who grew up where the high school is the focal point of city pride and the main provider of entertainment — the NFL, the NBA, Broadway, Hollywood and Carnegie Hall all wrapped in one.

Written and directed by Peter Berg, who did the same for the movie, Lights takes us into Dillon, Texas, which is revved up for the first game of the Dillon Panthers. There are concerns about the new coach, Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler), but they're tempered by the town's faith in the star quarterback, Jason Street (Scott Porter).

In beautifully shot, faux-documentary fashion, Lights traces the activities, large and small, that lead up to the season opener. The climax is a well-choreographed game that generates a fair share of excitement — despite an outcome that will seem preordained to anyone who saw the Lights movie or almost any other sports movie.

The real joy of the show lies in its smaller moments. The show abounds with accurately observed, artfully rendered snippets of real life, from the obnoxious businessmen who cluster around the coach, to the nattering voices on radio, to the solidity of the churches and the faith they represent.

The picture those mosaic moments create is not as sharp or dark as that of the book. Still, it does include images of racism and class divides and the sometimes misplaced priorities of high school athletics.

Given a role that both plays off his good-guy image and digs beneath it, Chandler responds with his most mature performance yet. There's also standout work from film holdover Connie Britton as the coach's wife, Zach Gilford as the quiet backup quarterback, and Jesse Plemons as his humorously chatty friend.

Over time, Lights would be wise to desanctify Street and add some nuance to the town tramp. And while the portraits of the self-centered black star Smash and his sassy mama are not necessarily inaccurate or offensive, they are awfully familiar. It would be nice to see a few more characters, black and white, who surprise us.

Still, even as is, Lights has a rare ability to portray life in small-town America without being condescending or sentimental. Those are rich fields to explore, and Lights shows promise of doing so with both warmth and intelligence.

In towns small and large, that could be a game winner.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/reviews/2006-10-02-review-friday-night-lights_x.htm

fredfa

10-03-06, 04:29 AM

The New Season
“The Nine”
Bank-hostage drama plays out in 'The Nine'
By Gary Levin USA Today

A mysterious tragedy. Strangers who become inextricably linked. Flashbacks that slowly reveal missing puzzle pieces.

No, it's not Lost, but an equally ambitious drama that will follow it starting Wednesday on ABC (10 ET/PT). The Nine explores a 52-hour hostage ordeal in a botched bank robbery and, mostly, how it transforms those who live through it.

"The brilliant thing about this concept is that most human beings have some kind of vision of how they see their lives going, but inevitably something happens to throw them off course," says Tim Daly, who plays a troubled cop in the large ensemble.

"What happens when an event comes along you didn't see coming and completely redefines the life you've been living?" says Scott Wolf, who plays a hotshot surgeon. "The real fun of a show like this," he says, is to let viewers ask themselves, "Who would I be in there?"

Each episode shows glimpses of what happened in the bank but dwells on the aftermath for the survivors. "They're all different: racially, financially, spiritually," says Kim Raver, who plays a district attorney. "It's a great setup for drama because there is conflict in their views."

Writer K.J. Steinberg (Judging Amy) came up with the concept for a show about strangers bonded by a trauma and developed the series with older brother Hank (creator of CBS' Without a Trace). The hostage crisis, she says, allows the series to "explore a knee-jerk reaction to a brush with mortality: What would you do if you had a gun put to your head?"

She acknowledges a debt to Lost in its time-shifting detail but says The Nine is far less "fantastical" than its lead-in. "This could happen to you, and it could happen tomorrow." And as Lost creators learned, parceling out information is a tightrope walk: "Titillating an audience is key; frustrating an audience is the downfall."

The structural hook of the series is "the 'what happened in there?,' " Hank Steinberg says. "But ultimately, 90% of the show is about rebirth and second chances and relationships," including two key love triangles. Yet in reflecting on the robbery, "there's a tiny piece of culpability that everyone shares."

Wednesday's pilot episode includes the beginning and the end of the standoff, with clues about what happened in between. Future bank flashbacks range from five minutes to, in one case, nearly an entire episode. By the end of this season, producers expect those 52 hours will be revealed. But quickly, "the present becomes more complicated than the past," says executive producer Alex Graves (The West Wing), providing fodder for future seasons.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-10-02-the-nine-main_x.htm

fredfa

10-03-06, 10:36 AM

The New Season
“Friday Night Lights”
'Friday Night' Kicks Off With A Great Formation
By Tom Shales Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 3, 2006; C01

Extraordinary in just about every conceivable way -- but especially in the quality of its cast -- NBC's "Friday Night Lights" expands upon and extends the 2004 movie of the same name about high school football in a Texas town where the game is only nominally a game. It's also a community obsession, a religion, a way of life, a source of energy and an excessively cherished institution.

Onto the harshly lit field of dreams each Friday night come the young Panthers -- the No. 1 team in the state -- in whom the townsfolk place entirely too much importance. Even though "Friday Night Lights" exposes the banalities of the central ritual and its reverberations, it isn't judgmental or prone to ridicule. The production is so skillfully done that even skeptics, even people who hate football, could easily be caught up in the drama and the melodrama, the grand opera and the soap opera, that come with the game and with the territory.

The series could well mark a milestone in the television career of Peter Berg, who directed the motion picture and is the chief creative force behind the series. On the basis of the craftsmanship and showmanship evident in the first two episodes (tonight's premiere is basically a remake of the film), Berg could be the next TV "auteur" in the tradition of Steven Bochco, Aaron Sorkin, David E. Kelley and others in a select and prestigious group.

An actor himself, Berg lets the brilliant young talents in the cast shine as brightly as they can, especially Zach Gilford as Matt Saracen, who starts the season not knowing that greatness is going to be thrust upon him (whether he likes it or not), and Minka Kelly as Lyla Garrity, the girlfriend of the star quarterback in whose footsteps Saracen may have to follow.

There's an unusual number of strikingly beautiful young women in the cast, thus upholding what is either myth or tradition about Texas, but none of them is just a pretty face. Nor are the women consigned to the background while the scripts focus on the players themselves. "Friday Night Lights" is as much about the town, its people, culture and subcultures as it is about the rallying point that brings them together.

It doesn't necessarily bond them all in a common cause, either. A young man named Taylor Kitsch plays Tim Riggins, a white running back with a seemingly race-based animosity toward a teammate, Gaius Charles as Brian "Smash" Williams, who is African American. Their simmering feud is one of several plot strands that are woven together in a dynamic group portrait.

Kyle Chandler stars as the team's coach; he has graduated to head coach of this much-watched team in the year that is also scheduled to be the last for its celebrated quarterback, Jason Street (Scott Porter) -- who, it's assumed, will go on to even greater glory in college and perhaps professional sports. But the coach faces a crisis in the premiere that shakes his faith in himself and his own future; suddenly the possibilities seem anything but limitless, and a year that was already bound to be challenging turns into a potentially crippling ordeal.

The series is full of individual dramas, bites of life and bursts of local color. Clearly the game doesn't bring out the best in everybody. There's an aura of menace behind the bravado, especially in the way local businessmen subject the coach to constant pressure; nothing less than victory on the field is acceptable. The coach has to keep his balance as he is being poked and prodded, and stuffed with food, from every direction.

Chandler, who has a long list of past series to his credit, makes the character credible and empathetic. He doesn't seem to have completely bought into the ethos but knows what he must do to make the game work to his advantage -- how the team's performance will be used as a club to beat him over the head or a platform from which he can take bows and be blown kisses. Connie Britton also contributes a strong performance as the coach's understanding and dutifully supportive wife, Tami.

She's supportive now, as is the town, but it's obvious that things can change around these parts, and in a hurry.

Each of the first two episodes -- and presumably subsequent installments -- is structured around a week in the life of the city, with Friday night the looming climax. About a quarter of the pilot is given over to the actual game, but in the second episode -- well, you'll have to see it to find out. The crescendo in that episode is actually reached on Thursday night: an incredible scene between Chandler and Gilford, alone together on the field in the dark of night, with the coach telling the kid, "It's yours for the taking," but it all "depends on how much you want it."

It's hard to recall a more powerful confrontation in a piece of episodic television, at least so far this century. Chandler and Gilford are electrifying.

"Friday Night Lights" shows every sign of being the best new drama series of the season, though it's harder and harder to make these assessments as television grows somehow more fluid and fluctuating. In other words, it's the best new drama if the quality of the first two episodes can be maintained over the long haul.

About the only other reservation one might have regarding the show is the way it's photographed, a documentary style that apparently dictates that every scene be shot with a hand-held camera that never stops moving, or at least jiggling. The larger your TV screen, the more this may irritate you. It often looks as though scenes were shot on the sly by an undercover camera crew that didn't want to be discovered. Even when two people simply sit at a table and talk, there's as much gyration as if they were on an airplane during a patch of turbulence.

Perhaps it enhances the visual authenticity even as it drives some of us batty. But it's not an omnipresent problem nor, for that matter, a party pooper. "Friday Night Lights" is too good in too many other details to let that one hold it back; the performances alone are worth tuning in to see, but watching the bits and pieces come together, and being swept up in the show's powerful emotional pull, can be pure exhilaration. "Friday Night Lights" is great, heavy-duty, high-impact TV.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/02/AR2006100201439_pf.html

fredfa

10-03-06, 10:40 AM

The New Season
“Friday Night Lights”
'Friday Nights' travels well to small screen
By Ellen Gray Philadelphia Daily News

The journeyfrom nonfiction best seller to feature-film adaptation to fictionalized small-screen spin-off is a perilous one, and it wouldn't have been surprising if "Friday Night Lights" had torn a ligament or two along the way.

Somehow, though, the story of the role high school football occupies in the heart of Texas just keeps going and going, and what finds its way onto NBC tonight is both cinematically broad and heartbreakingly specific, a melding for once of the best that movies and television have to offer.

NBC would no doubt like me to mention that you don't have to know or care much about football or Texas to watch "Friday Night Lights," but it's not necessary: Like a total-immersion course in a foreign language, the show drop-kicks the viewer into a world so all-encompassing, it's possible to pick up a slight accent after only an hour or two.

Though I still know next to nothing about drop-kicks.

The pilot, written and directed by executive producer Peter Berg - writer/director of the movie and a cousin of Philadelphia's H.G. Bissinger, who wrote the book - introduces Kyle Chandler as Eric Taylor, the new head coach of the Dillon Panthers and a man under serious pressure to drive the team to a state championship.

Among the kids he's depending on are a first-string quarterback (Scott Porter) being wooed by Notre Dame, a mouthy running back (Gaius Charles) with the happy nickname "Smash" and another (Tim Riggins) with a drinking problem.

Waiting to see whether they'll be buying a house or leaving town at the end of the season is Taylor's wife, Tami, played by Connie Britton, who's a better fit with Chandler than she was with Billy Bob Thornton in the movie.

Filmed documentary-style, "Lights" doesn't hit you over the head with what any of its players is thinking, and the subtlety of the approach allows Chandler to give what may be his best performance ever, as a man who can't afford to offend but is doing his very best not to lie.

Network television's struggled in recent years to bridge a perceived blue state-red state gap, one more often addressed in shows like "Wife Swap" than in network dramas, but it can be particularly tone-deaf when it comes to religion, tending to forget the many millions for whom the word isn't usually thought of in terms of a debate.

Last week, NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" appeared to take a stab at addressing that constituency when it showed a prayer circle led by one of the show-within-a-show's stars, but it seemed out of place and less than believable, given what we'd been told until then about the characters.

Similar expressions of faith in "Friday Night Lights," however, only add to its authenticity.

"When I was writing the script, I spent a year in Texas," Berg told reporters in July. "I went to dozens of football games. And you cannot go to football games in Texas and not be impressed with the fact that religion is an indivisible component to that... . It's a very religious culture and that's just the way it is."

'Veronica's' back

"Veronica Mars" - easily the smartest hour on the new CW - returns tonight (9 ET/PT, the CW).

A screener was accompanied by a list of so many things I'm not supposed to tell you that it's easier just to say that for those of you who haven't yet encountered Veronica (Kristen Bell), now is the time to buy in, as Veronica starts college and the Rob Thomas series essentially reintroduces itself to what it hopes will be a wider world.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television//15665371.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

VisionOn

10-03-06, 10:43 AM

fredfa

10-03-06, 10:56 AM

Not only "FNL" but "The Nine" tomorrow night.

But I agree, this season has seen a lot of pretty good shows. The critics were pretty excited when they were out hre in July at the summer critic's tour.

The reviews for "FNL" have been extraordinary, to be sure. I am looking forward to seeing it tonight.

archiguy

10-03-06, 11:31 AM

Is it just me, or are there a lot more new (and potentially good) shows this season? I'm barely up to date with everythiing that premiered or returned in the last two weeks.

You know, it seems to me, that this penchant for new serial shows may end up "cannibalizing" next year's schedule. If the networks succeed in hooking viewers with a number of these new serialized shows that demand a season-long commitment, that's less time in a typical viewer's week for next year's new and replacement series.

There's only so many hours in a day, and there's more good stuff on than ever before. A lot of good shows are simply not going to survive this "glut of quality" that the TV business oddly finds itself in these days. I know I've had to eliminate several already that I'd like to follow, simply because there's not enough time to watch 'em all.

fredfa

10-03-06, 11:31 AM

TV Sports
World Series TV Ratings Since 1969

1968 NBC 22.8 57 Detroit over St. Louis 4-3
1969 NBC 22.4 58 New York Mets over Baltimore 4-1
1970 NBC 19.4 53 Baltimore over Cincinnati 4-1
1971 NBC 24.2 59 Pittsburgh over Baltimore 4-3
1972 NBC 27.5 58 Oakland over Cincinnati 4-3
1973 NBC 30.7 57 Oakland over New York Mets 4-3
1974 NBC 25.6 47 Oakland over Los Angeles Dodgers 4-1
1975 NBC 29.0 53 Cincinnati over Boston 4-3
1976 NBC 27.7 48 Cincinnati over New York Yankees 4-2
1977 ABC 29.9 52 New York Yankees over Los Angeles Dodgers 4-2
1978 NBC 32.7 56 New York Yankees over Los Angeles Dodgers 4-2
1979 ABC 28.0 51 Pittsburgh over Baltimore 4-3
1980 NBC 32.8 56 Philadelphia over Kansas City 4-2
1981 ABC 30.0 49 Los Angeles Dodgers over New York Yankees 4-2
1982 NBC 28.0 49 St. Louis over Milwaukee 4-3
1983 ABC 23.3 41 Baltimore over Philadelphia 4-1
1984 NBC 22.9 40 Detroit over San Diego 4-1
1985 ABC 25.3 39 Kansas City over St. Louis 4-3
1986 NBC 28.6 46 New York Mets over Boston 4-3
1987 ABC 24.0 41 Minnesota over St. Louis 4-3
1988 NBC 23.9 39 Los Angeles over Oakland 4-1
1989 ABC 16.4 30 Oakland over San Francisco 4-0
1990 CBS 20.8 36 Cincinnati over Oakland 4-0
1991 CBS 24.0 39 Minnesota over Atlanta 4-3
1992 CBS 20.2 34 Toronto over Atlanta 4-2
1993 CBS 17.3 30 Toronto over Philadelphia 4-2
1994 None Strike, No World Series
1995 ABC /NBC 19.5 33 Atlanta over Cleveland 4-2
1996 FOX 17.4 29 New York Yankees over Atlanta 4-2
1997 NBC 16.8 29 Florida over Cleveland 4-3
1998 FOX 14.1 24 New York Yankees over San Diego 4-0
1999 NBC 16.0 26 New York Yankees over Atlanta 4-0
2000 FOX 12.4 21 New York Yankees over New York Mets 4-1 18.1 million viewers
2001 FOX 15.7 25 Arizona over New York Yankees 4-3
2002 FOX 11.9 20 Anaheim over San Francisco 4-3
2003 FOX 13.9 25 Florida over New York Yankees 4-2
2004 FOX 15.8 25 Boston over St. Louis 4-0 25.4 million viewers
2005 FOX 11.1 19 Chicago White Sox over Houston 4-0 17.2 million viewers

(Source: Nielsen Media Services and baseballalmanac.com)

Note: The first number, the rating, is an average percentage of all households in the United States which watched the World Series.
The second number, the share, is the percentage of those watching TV who watched the World Series.

bphisig

10-03-06, 11:39 AM

You know, it seems to me, that this penchant for new serial shows may end up "cannibalizing" next year's schedule. If the networks succeed in hooking viewers with a number of these new serialized shows that demand a season-long commitment, that's less time in a typical viewer's week for next year's new and replacement series.

There's only so many hours in a day, and there's more good stuff on than ever before. A lot of good shows are simply not going to survive this "glut of quality" that the TV business oddly finds itself in these days. I know I've had to eliminate several already that I'd like to follow, simply because there's not enough time to watch 'em all.
I agree. There's just too much good stuff out there. I've eliminated Kidnapped, Vanished and Six Degrees is on the fence, especially if the ratings keep tanking. I hope the Nine is good. Jericho has earned a spot on my season pass list as well.

fredfa

10-03-06, 12:07 PM

Overnights in the 18-49 Demo
NBC's 'Studio 60' in a ratings stumble
Much-praised drama loses 20 percent of 18-49s
By Toni Fitzgerald MediaLifeMagazine.com staff writer Oct.3, 2006

“Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” has been universally praised for its smart writing, great acting and biting satire. But it’s possible that the show is a bit too inside Hollywood for most viewers.

After strong initial sampling, the show has dipped a good deal over the last two outings. Last night’s third episode averaged a 3.5 adults 18-49 rating, according to Nielsen overnights, down 20 percent from last week’s 4.4 and 30 percent from a 5.0 for the Sept. 18 debut.

Despite strong retention for “Heroes” after last week’s debut, NBC fell behind CBS on Monday night for the first time this season, averaging a 4.2 rating and 11 share to the latter’s 4.6/11.

At 10 p.m., “Studio 60” lost 34 percent of lead-in “Heroes’” 5.3 average. It finished third in the timeslot behind CBS’s “CSI: Miami” and ABC’s “The Bachelor” premiere.

That’s hardly encouraging for the Aaron Sorkin-penned drama, which some media people praised as the best pilot they’d ever seen over the summer. Indeed, the quality of the show doesn’t seem to be the problem; nearly everyone agrees that all the parts are there.

It may simply be the subject matter. People outside of Hollywood don’t care about the entertainment business nearly as much as those inside it do, and shows about the industry don’t have a great track record. HBO’s “The Comeback” lasted just one season, and even “Entourage,” its much-buzzed-about show about a young actor, isn’t a top viewer draw.

The good news for NBC is that the show may now have found its core audience and could stop dipping. It fell just 6 percent from its first half hour to its second after double-digit declines in its first weeks. “Studio 60” has also performed quite well among the affluent demos who helped make Sorkin’s “West Wing” a hit.

The better news was that “Heroes” continued to look strong. Though it dipped 10 percent from last week’s 5.9, it continued to build audience in its second half hour and again won its timeslot.

For the night, CBS was first among 18-49s, followed by NBC. ABC was third at 3.3/8, Fox fourth at 3.0/8, Univision fifth at 2.1/5, and the CW sixth at 1.2/3.

At 8 p.m., NBC’s “Deal or No Deal” and Fox’s “Prison Break” tied for first at 3.7. CBS was third at 3.2 for “The Class” (2.8, even to last week) and “How I Met Your Mother” (3.6), followed by ABC at 3.0 for “Wife Swap,” Univision at 2.1 for “La Fea Mas Bella” and the CW at 1.6 for “7th Heaven,” up 7 percent over last week.

At 9 p.m., “Heroes” led at 5.3, followed by a 4.8 for CBS’s “Two and a Half Men” (5.2) and “The New Adventures of Old Christine” (4.5), a 3.3 for the first hour of ABC’s “Bachelor,” a 2.5 for the finale of Univision’s “Barrera de Amor,” a 2.3 for Fox’s “Vanished,” and a 0.8 for the CW’s second airing of “Runway,” which was up slightly (0.1) over last week.

At 10 p.m., CBS’s “CSI: Miami” led with a 5.7, followed by ABC’s “Bachelor” at 3.7, NBC’s “Studio 60” at 3.5, and Univision’s “Cristina” at 1.8.

Among households, CBS was the easy winner at 8.9/15, followed by NBC at 7.2/11, ABC at 5.8/9, Fox at 5.0/8, Univision at 2.5/4, and the CW at 2.1/3.

• Ratings courtesy Nielsen Media Research. Ratings information is taken from fast national data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are preliminary and subject to change, especially in the case of live telecasts.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_7687.asp

HDTVChallenged

10-03-06, 12:10 PM

I don't want to have to watch another show, but the fact that people keeping raving about FNL means I'll probably have to check that one out as well. :rolleyes:

LOL ... I can eliminate FNL based on the buzz alone without even watching a frame video. It definately sounds like it's targeted at a demo other than mine.

In the interest of full disclosure, I've previously eliminated the following "buzzworthy" shows the same way:

1) NYPD Blue
2) West Wing
3) Soprano's (although I subsequently reversed that decision.)
4) The Shield
5) The Closer (reversed decision for season 2 ... and regretted it. :D )
6) Nip/Tuck

... I'm sure there are more that I can't remember at the moment.

fredfa

10-03-06, 12:20 PM

I couldn't disagree more.

The critics do tend to travel in packs, and some of them, it appears to me, write to impress each other rather than to inform the audience.

But buzz to me always heightens my interest...as does reverse buzz.

I don't know precisely when you eliminated "NYPD Blue" and "West Wing" from your lists. But for the fierst 5-6 seasons or so, "Blue" was a remarkable program. Similarly, in my mind, "WW" for the first four seasons, and it came back strongly this year. (No political overtones meant, by the way.)

Also "Hill Street Blues" among others got great buzz and deserved it, in my mind, throughout its incredible run.

Sorry you didn't enjoy this season of "The Closer". I thought the show just got better and better.

On the other hand, I don't disagree with your basic premise: too many shows get critical acclaim but don't really -- to me at least -- deliver. I guess we just disagree on what shows are worth watching.

(And in the inrerest of full disclosure I finally got around to watching "Justice" last night. It got almost no buzz -- and not many viewers either -- but I found it wonderful, if generally predictable, entertainment. Watched six episodes back-to-back. We are all allowed a few cheesy shows, I hope.)

fredfa

10-03-06, 12:34 PM

The Business of TV
Time Warner Cable Squeezes CW Stations
By John M. Higgins Broadcasting & Cable

Time Warner Cable is trying to turn the tables on broadcasters in the war over cable carriage of local TV signals, demanding cash from a number of affiliates of the new CW network, which it partly owns.

As of late last week, 20 CW stations were either dark on Time Warner systems or being carried on a narrow digital tier not seen by half the subscribers. The markets are generally smaller ones, including Palm Springs, Calif.; Lima, Ohio; and Waco, El Paso, Corpus Christi and Wichita Falls, Texas.

The call for payment by the second-largest U.S. cable operator is an attempt to reverse the debate over so-called retransmission consent, which is one of the most divisive issues in the media industry. For years, broadcasters have ranted that cable operators make billions of dollars in large part by carrying local stations and that they should write big checks for those retransmission rights. Time Warner Cable Chairman Glenn Britt and programming chief Fred Dressler are trying to redirect the spotlight onto the value that cable systems create by extending stations' reach.

Broadcast lawyer Kevin Latek, a partner in Washington firm Dow Lohnes, says he represents a number of small-market CW affiliates that “have distribution deals with virtually every cable operator, with the single exception of Time Warner Cable.”

One station is paying

Time Warner Cable is not simply posturing. The operator has actually secured payment from a station owned by one major broadcaster group, Clear Channel Television. A source familiar with the deal says Clear Channel's WKRC Cincinnati has agreed to pay about $350,000—the equivalent of $1 per subscriber—for carriage of a digital CW feed on the local system's basic tier. The payments were in part for ads promoting the station.

CW officials worried that the network would be dark in the homes of marketing executives in charge of buying advertising at Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble.

Clear Channel and CW executives would not discuss the size of the payment. A network executive acknowledges partly reimbursing Clear Channel as part of co-operative advertising efforts with affiliates.

A Time Warner Cable spokesman says the company is receiving no straight cash payments for carriage but would not say whether it is receiving “launch support” common among cable networks, which includes buying promotional spots on a cable system.

Sibling rivalry

A major twist in the fight is that Time Warner Cable is consciously undermining a corporate cousin. The CW is 50% owned by Time Warner Inc., the operator's parent.

That breakdown in corporate synergy is amusing, but any chuckles miss the point. Britt and Dressler are really sending a message to the other partner in The CW: CBS.

For months, CBS President/CEO Leslie Moonves has bragged forcefully that, when his stations' retransmission-consent agreements come up for renewal, he will squeeze operators for cash. “We will get paid for our content—one way or another,” Moonves told investors at Goldman Sachs' recent Communicopia conference.

If Time Warner Cable is successful, all cable operators could gain a valuable precedent in future negotiations with stations. The bad news is that broadcasters will be given an equally valuable tool in their fight for “digital must-carry.” They will absolutely use the dispute in lobbying Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to force cable systems to carry their stations, particularly “multicast” services programmed in the capacity created by digital broadcasting.

Digital slot

The immediate fight centers on CW stations in small markets. Cities outside the 100 largest U.S. markets typically have three or four stations, and no broadcaster is dumping an affiliation with a bigger network to make room for The CW.

To fill in those holes, The CW turns to digital broadcasting. Those CBS, NBC and ABC affiliates have space in their digital signals for a few additional channels, although many are dormant. Stations in 49 markets use a digital slot for The CW.

The network needs wide cable carriage for the scheme to work. Even owners of HDTV sets capable of receiving digital signals get their broadcast stations via cable.

Because of regulations and the tension between broadcast stations and cable, digital broadcast channels aren't automatically carried. When they are, the additional programming is generally put in a digital tier subscribed to by 30%-50% of a system's subscribers. Getting a much more valuable slot on a basic-cable tier available to all subscribers requires negotiation.

With most operators, that went smoothly for The CW. For the 25 stations in Time Warner Cable territories, though, programming negotiator Dressler decided to play hardball. “They want cash, or they want airtime, all sorts of things,” says the general manager of one affiliate.

Demands included giving commercial time on the stations to promote Time Warner Cable and rights to offer the station's local news via video-on-demand and to put all the station's programming on the cable operator's Start Over service.

A proposed agreement sent around Labor Day asked stations to buy advertising on local systems equaling 15¢ per subscriber in the market. Executives at The CW told affiliates it was Dressler's “wish list.”

CW executives wouldn't discuss the dispute in detail. “From CW's point of view, we're thrilled with the distribution we have,” says COO John Matta. “Broadcasters and cable operators alike were eager for the programming.”

As for the sibling rivalry, he adds, “Time Warner Cable has been extraordinarily cooperative with us. They work night and day to try to make the deals with the affiliates.”

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6376892