A completely arbitrary collection of my thoughts.
For those who know me, it’s a place to be assaulted by even more of my extensive rants, entrenched opinions, and rapier wit, when you just can’t get enough of them in person.
Or, for those who can’t stand me, it’s a place to remind yourself exactly why that is.
This is my fifth and final entry on the 2010 Upfronts. You can find my comments on NBC, Fox, ABC, and CBS as well.
Thursday marks the fourth and final day of the 2010 Upfront presentations in New York. Today’s presenter, CW, may have had the most exciting presentation, but it had the least material to actually present.
While the rest of the networks made their presentations in hotel ballrooms, the CW rented out Madison Square Garden and featured a Katy Perry concert, looking much more the the upfronts of old when networks would go all out, but that was before this latest recession. Regardless, it at least gave them something to do, since they only ordered two new shows. The shows sound like typical CW fare – beautiful, privileged people in beautiful locations. Hellcats is about a “cool, hip, and alt” girl in pre-law who is forced to join the cheerleading squad, while Nikita is yet another version of La Femme Nikita. The only other announcements were that Supernatural will be rejoining Smallville, but on Friday nights this time, and that Smallville will finally be ending, after two seasons of assuming it would be let go.
That’s pretty much all there is to talk about coming out of the presentation today. Again, if clips or trailers for either of the new shows pop up later today, I’ll link them here. If you haven’t read them yet, check out my (much more in depth) rundowns of the presentations given by the other networks over the last several days by clicking the links at the top. Otherwise, thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll stick around as I return to my regular blogging schedule.
Edit: And here is the last round of completely unispiring clips.
This is my fourth entry on the 2010 Upfronts. You can find my comments on NBC, Fox, and ABC as well.
Wednesday brings with it the fourth of the major Upfront presentations, CBS. This year it’s an interesting combination of both everything and nothing changing.
CBS actually began yesterday evening by announcing the cancellation of seven of it’s shows. None of these cancellations should be very surprising, though, except maybe to CBC, which inexplicably airs Ghost Whisperer several times daily. Cold Case, Ghost Whisperer, Numb3rs, Miami Medical, Accidentally on Purpose, New Adventures of Old Christine, and Gary Unmarried were all given the axe. Considering their ratings had all been tanking of late and many of their leads were working on other pilots, none of these come as a shock.
With the release of it’s new schedule, CBS is looking a lot like the ABC of recent years, in that they have made some very aggressive changes to the time periods of their returning shows. Survivor moves to Wednesdays, Big Bang Theory to Thursdays, CSI: NY to Fridays, and CSI: Miami to Mondays. The idea behind these moves is to take established series and use them as lead-ins for the new shows, hopefully building up the audiences faster than they otherwise would (pressing the channel change button on those remotes is hard!). This strategy has worked well in the past, but has become less effective in recent years as the use of DVRs and online viewing becomes more prevalent.
So that was the part where everything changed – the scheduling of old programs. The part where nothing changed? The new programs, of course. Of the six new series currently ordered by CBS, we have three cop shows (one of them a remake of Hawaii Five-0), a lawyer show, and two comedies.
There’s really not a lot worth saying about any of these new shows, but I’ll offer a few thoughts anyway, starting with Mike & Molly. This is a half hour comedy about an overweight couple who meet at “Overeaters Anonymous”. Clearly, it’s meant to target the increasingly overweight average viewer. However, just where the laughs will be coming from remains in doubt. If it tries to rely on jokes about its leads’ weight, it risks offending the equally overweight audience it is so clearly seeking. If it avoids the weight issues, it becomes just another cookie-cutter sitcom. Neither tactic screams “hit TV show”.
The less said about Hawaii Five-0, the better. It co-stars Daniel Dae Kim, but that’s probably just because he bought that house in Hawaii and doesn’t want to leave. He’s shown much better taste in choosing projects in the past, so I can’t imagine his involvement here is anything more than a convenient pay check and an excuse to keep his house.
Edit: Here's the pretty awful opening credits. They just feel amateur and forced to me.
The Defenders is the requisite lawyer show. But wait, this one’s different! It’s about “colorful Las Vegas attorneys”! That will make it sooo much better. Seriously, though, I think my favourite part of this series is that it will feature a lawyer, played by Jurnee Smollett, who is “looking to put her exotic dancing days behind her”. Yes, that’s a real character, even though it sounds like a made-up role an actor would list when describing the stupidest jobs they’ve ever worked.
Blue Bloods is yet another cop show, about a family of cops. The final cop show is the untitled Criminal Minds spinoff, which will air at midseason.
The final show CBS has added for next year is the much discussed $#*! My Dad Says. See how cleverly they cleaned up that title, making it palatable for the average, middle-American family? Apparently it will be referred to as “Bleep My Dad Says” when spoken of, but I personally like the suggestion that we read it literally as “Dollar Sign Pound Asterisk Exclamation Point My Dad Says”. The show is supposed to be based on the Twitter feed @ShitMyDadSays, where a son who lives with his elderly father posts all the “shit” that his “dad says”. Much of the appeal of this account is that his dad is regularly very profane and offensive. Obviously, as evidenced by the “cleansing” of the show title, this profanity and offensiveness cannot be transferred to network television. Instead all we we’re left with is a show about an curmudgeonly old man who lives with his younger family.
All in all, CBS’ new schedule looks to be the least inspiring of all the majors’ fall line-ups. I’ve been waiting all day to post this, the the hopes that some clips or trailers would be released that I could insert, to no avail. If some do pop up in the next day or two, I’ll come back and edit them in.
Edit: Those clips have finally turned up online here.
I’ll be back tomorrow for the final day of the Upfronts with a quick look at the CW.
This is my third entry on the 2010 Upfronts. You can find my comments on NBC and Fox as well.
ABC has spent most of this season locked in a battle for second place with CBS. While CBS often won in terms of total number of viewers, ABC often came out on top in the more valuable 18-49 demographic. In recent years, ABC has become known as one of the most aggressive schedulers, often moving series’ from established time-slots to find the perfect program pairings. This year, however, they’ve left all of their returning shows in their current timeslots, merely filling in the gaps left by cancelled series’ with new shows. Which shows were cancelled? Pretty much exactly what we already knew: Eastwick, Better Off Ted, The Deep End, FlashForward, Hank, Happy Town, Lost, Romantically Challenged, Scrubs, and Ugly Betty. The only we weren’t sure about (until last week) was FlashForward. It was widely believed that either V or FlashForward would return, to try to fill the Lost sci-fi void, but not both. Personally, I think they made the wrong choice here. Both series got poor ratings, but while V wasted an entire season doing absolutely nothing, FlashForward tried to do big, different things. It almost always failed to pull them off, but at least it tried. Also, on the extremely thin chance either of these series would make it out of their sophomore season, FlashForward has a richer concept which would allow the show to carry on over the long haul. V seems to have already exhausted its writers’ imaginations.
On the new program front, ABC has ordered nine new series. Again, most of them look like pretty standard fare – a couple cop shows, a couple Friends clones, a Shonda Rhimes doctor show, a lawyer show. Similar to what Fox did yesterday, ABC has only provided brief descriptions and a single clip from each show, making it difficult to really evaluate their potential. The word is that ABC is disappointed in its offerings, and from what they’ve shown, it’s not difficult to imagine why. No Ordinary Family sounds like it could have potential, basically a live action version of The Incredibles, but no footage has been released and this type of show is very easy to get wrong (see the last three seasons of Heroes).
Edit: A trailer for No Ordinary Family has now made it's way online. It looks decent but, unfortunately, it also looks like it will be treading dangerously close to many of the things that made the last three seasons of Heroes fail.
(The trailer can only be viewed from within the U.S. Unless you have some sort of I.P. sheild...)
My Generation sounded promising from its description, about a group of high school students from Austin who reunite ten years after graduation, but the footage released is pretty uninspiring.
The only other show that seems to be worth commenting on at this point is Mr. Sunshine. It’s description sounds pretty bland – Matthew Perry stars as a San Diego sports arena manager going through a mid-life crisis. The preview clip for this one, however, sold me on at least checking it out when it makes it to air at mid-season.
And that’s about it for ABC this year. They should do fairly well next year, since they have a solid stable of returning shows, and most of those that won’t be returning will be absent because they had abysmal ratings anyway. There’s nothing on this new schedule, however, that looks like it will be even remotely capable of filling the giant crater that will be left by Lost.
I’ll be back again tomorrow with a look at the new schedule for CBS.
You can find clips for all of ABC’s new shows here.
This is my second post on the 2010 Upfronts. You can find a brief explanation of the Upfronts, as well my first entry, here.
The second network to present at this year’s Upfronts was Fox. As the network which finished this year first in the ratings, few people would expect Fox to make many major changes, and they didn’t disappoint. Next year’s schedule looks a lot like this year’s.
There are a few interesting changes, though. Human Target and The Good Guys, neither of which was expected to return by many, were both renewed, but moved to Fox’s friday night. This time period has been labelled the “death slot”, since there hasn’t been a series that has been able to survive this time period since, I believe, the mid 90s. It’ll be interesting to see how long these two can last there. The only other change really worth pointing out is that Fox will be cutting back on the number of hours of American Idol it airs. The show will now run a “mere” 90 minutes on performance nights and 30 minutes on results nights.
Fox has currently scheduled only six new shows for next year. From the descriptions that have been provided they all seem to be pretty standard fare –a Dallas clone, a family comedy, and “jerk pursues sweet girl” comedy all premiere in the fall, while a Friends clone, an adult animated show, and a cop show from The Shield’s Shawn Ryan are being saved for midseason.
Unfortunately, Fox hasn’t made any of the trailers for their new shows available online yet, so we can only judge them based on their brief descriptions. That being said, none of them sound too promising. At this point the only one I might consider checking out is Ryan’s Ride-Along, based solely on the pedigree. He did a great job with The Shield, but I’m not convinced he’ll be able to create another great cop show within the restrictive confines of network TV. Edit: Some clips have now been made available, which you can see here. None of them did anything to change my opinion of the shows' potential (or lack thereof). The Fox project that was receiving the most buzz going into the last few week was Terra Nova, a series about a family who travels back to prehistoric times, from Steven Spielberg, David Fury, Peter Chernin, and Brannon Braga. With the talent involved it should be worth watching, but Fox says that, because of the extensive effects work required, they’re not sure it’ll be ready for midseason, so it will likely be held until next year (or later).
So not a lot has changed over at Fox. They’re still banking heavily on American Idol and Glee to keep them number one, and that should pay out. Idol is enough of a behemoth that even with the departure of Simon Cowell it should still remain the number one show for at least another season. Glee, meanwhile, will move ever closer to its inevitable implosion but, again, I believe it’s got another decent season in it before it destroys itself, so the ratings will likely remain strong, especially since it will get a healthy bump airing in the post-Superbowl timeslot.
I’ll be back tomorrow with a look at ABC’s line-up.
This week you can expect to see a flurry of posts here. Actually, it’ll be more like five, but that’s a flurry by the standards of this blog. All week I’ll be looking at the news from the Upfronts and offering my opinions on the decisions being unveiled.
A quick word of explanation for the uninitiated. The Upfronts occur every May. It’s the week where all of the American television networks unveil their schedules for the next year to advertisers. It’s the network’s opportunity to convince advertisers to purchase time on their network, during their shows. It’s important that the network be convincing, demonstrating that they have the best schedule and the “next big thing” since upwards of 80% of all commercial time for the next year will be sold during this week.
NBC got to present first this year. After finishing last in the ratings this year, thanks to a stable of unsuccessful shows, the Jay Leno Show debacle, and the gaping hole it left in the schedule. Word of cancellations began to leak out of NBC late last week and were later confirmed by the network. Two of the biggest cancellations were Heroes and Law & Order. The cancellation of Heroes wasn’t much of a surprise, as it had been experiencing rapidly plummeting ratings, was expensive to produce, and, after a fantastic first season, had seen nearly all of the critics and most of its fans turn on it as it rehashed the same storylines over and over. There are still rumours of a two or four hour miniseries event to wrap up the dangling storylines, but at this point that looks like wishful thinking by the series’ few remaining fans. That Law & Order was dropped is far more surprising. It was no longer receiving strong ratings, and it’s best days were far behind it, but being renewed this year, for its 21st season, would have made it the longest running drama in history. It seems odd that, given all the holes in its schedule, the network wouldn’t have kept it around for one more year.
Edit: It seems there may still be some hope for Law & Order. TNT is reportedly in talks to pick up the show for a 21st season. It seems unlikely, though, as Turner, TNT's parent company, likely won't be able to spend a lot on the deal, thanks to other expensive deals for Conan O'Brien's talkshow and Southland, but you can never count Dick Wolf out...
That’s not the only odd thing about NBC’s schedule. Thursday night was the only day the network had experienced any semblance of success, with its two hour comedy block. So, naturally, they decided to gut this night, moving some shows around (30 Rock an hour earlier) and holding others for midseason (Parks and Recreation).
So, what did NBC do with all their extra space? They’ve ordered twelve news series.
The Event looks interesting, but it seems like it would work best as a miniseries. I’m not sure they’re going to be able to drag this plot into an ongoing series without making it boring.
Undercovers is the new spy comedy from J.J. Abrams. This is a series that I want to like, just because of its pedigree. From the trailer, though, it looks like it will rely too much on bad comedy to make it watchable over the long haul. “Sexpianoge”? Really"?
I love Brittany Snow, but Harry’s Law just looks bad. (Also, can you say asshole on network TV? Don’t think I’ve heard it used before)
It looks like they’ve replaced one lackluster superhero show with another in The Cape. The presence of Keith David and Summer Glau in the cast means I’ll probably give this one a try, but I don’t think it’ll be good.
The rest of the new series are even less inspired. Given what they’ve presented today, it doesn’t look like NBC will be moving from its last place position any time soon.
To see the trailers for all of the new NBC series, click here.
I’ll be back later today with my comments on Fox’s schedule.
