12/3/2007

Our loss is your…well, actually, it’s your loss, too.: Things are looking pretty poor for the possibility of Bullz-Eye getting another shot at the bi-annual TCA Press Tour. Thanks to the still-unresolved WGA writer’s strike, the Television Critics Association is drawing a line in the sand: if the strike isn’t over by Dec. 13th, the January tour - currently slated to begin on Jan. 8th - will be canceled.

Ugh. I’m all for the writers continuing their strike until they can get what they want, but I’m not gonna tell you that I’ll enjoy sucking up the $100 change fee for my flight. Oh, well, them’s the breaks…

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11/7/2007

SteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeRIKE!: Whether you’re a casual TV viewer or a full-fledged couch potato, you probably know about the WGA writer’s strike that’s currently gripping the entertainment industry. Even at the risk of having both my livelihood and my viewing habits upset, as a writer myself (albeit not of scripts, although I do have a few projects I’ve been working on), I’m unequivocally on the side of the Writer’s Guild members in this battle; I’d prefer that it come to a conclusion sooner than later, of course, but when it comes right down to it, I want it to last until the writers get a decent share of the profits from the material they’ve worked so hard on. Besides, like I don’t have enough TV-DVD sets to hold me over ’til it reaches an agreeable conclusion…?

If you don’t really know what’s going on, there are plenty of places to get the scoop from a journalistic perspective, but I think you’ll get much more insight if you take info straight from the horse’s mouth, i.e. from some of the individuals who are actually doing the striking, and the best place to start is at at Mark Evanier’s blog. I don’t think I’ve seen a more succinct explanation anywhere as to why the striking writers are, well, in the right.

Other perspectives:

* Ken Levine
* Brian K. Vaughan
* Joss Whedon

Alas, however, “The Office” has gone dark.

For the latest and greatest (or most depressing) updates on how things are going, check out DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com, where Nikki Finke provides about the best coverage that the ‘net has to offer. For alternate blog coverage, there’s also “Scribe Vibe” (Variety) and The Huffington Post.

Oh, and I wasn’t going to offer up this info first-hand, but since someone at Variety has broken the news, I’ll go ahead and link to it: I might not have much of a TCA Press Tour to attend in January.

Damn. But if that’s the way it’s gotta be, then that’s the way it’s gotta be.

Go, WGA!

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10/1/2007

Q&A: Joe Lawson, producer of “Cavemen”: If there’s one thing Bullz-Eye and Premium Hollywood readers alike know about me by now, it’s that I’m way too polite for my own good…but even *I* couldn’t find anything more polite to say about “Cavemen” in my Fall TV preview than lines like this…

“Given how people reacted to the mere idea of transforming a series of Geico commercials into a 30-minute sitcom, you’d think that the producers would’ve set their sights on being the best damned comedy of the new season. Instead, they’ve got a heavy-handed and horribly-failed attempt at poking fun at the foolishness of racism, one which will almost certainly have the NCAAP foaming at the mouth.”

…and this:

“Any series which falls back on a parody of ‘Baby Got Back’ in 2007 deserves whatever horrific fate may befall it. If ‘Cavemen’ lasts more than a few episodes, it’ll either be because the writers have figured out what went so horribly, horribly wrong, or, more likely, because people are perversely fascinated by how incredibly bad it is.”

Do I feel bad about making these statements? No, because, hand on heart, the pilot really was that bad. But after having the opportunity to speak to Joe Lawson, who wrote and created the original GEICO commercials that inspired “Cavemen,” I was surprised to find that I was actually kind of looking forward to seeing more of the series…and, honestly, I didn’t necessarily expect that. I’ve got a pretty open mind, and I was planning to keep it open while watching the premiere episode (which, you may have heard, will not be the pilot episode that most of us critics ripped to shreds), but was I actually looking forward to watching it? Not so much. But as you’ll see from this conversation between Lawson and myself, he manages to explain away the pilot without actually defending it, which is a pretty impressive accomplishment in and of itself, while also coming across as a guy who really does think he’s got a good sitcom on his hands.

We’ve only got one thing left to mention in the preface, and that’s that a few quotes from this piece have already appeared in an article for The Virginian-Pilot, since the only reason Lawson and I came to chat in the first place was because of his connection to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia…but The Pilot only wanted 300 words, and since I had just much good stuff left over, it seemed like a shame to waste it!

Okay, read on…!

Bullz-Eye: Hello?

Joe Lawson: Hey, is this Will?

BE: Yes, it is.

JL:Hey, it’s Joe Lawson.

BE: Hey, how’s it going?

JL: Good. How are you?

BE: Not bad. I won’t keep you too long, but I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes about your Virginia connection.

JL: Oh, yeah, sure, absolutely.

BE: I know you’ve lived in Virginia, but I don’t really know your background as far as how long you’ve lived here.

JL: I lived in Richmond for, I guess, eight or nine years. My wife and I moved there to work for the Martin Agency. And my in-laws live in Newport News.

BE: So you get down there with some regularity, then?

JL: Yeah, we get down there all the time, so that’s great.

BE: Now, in the first version of the pilot…and I know that it has since been changed…but it looked like it was actually set in Hampton Roads.

JL: Yeah, in the pilot, we did. We shot it…well, in the original script, the pilot script, they were going to be living in Newport News. So we pulled some stills and some photography for the pilot. But, then, that changed to Atlanta, and it has now changed to San Diego.

BE: What was the impetus for the change?

JL: Newport News just ended up being too…basically, too quirky, I guess. You know what I mean? No-one would…I mean, it would just require a lot more explanation than we really had time to give. People would’ve been, like, “Why Newport News?” (Laughs) So then we moved it to Atlanta, because it was this big metropolitan place where there’s a lot of young people, and where, logistically, it made sense that the cavemen would move to there. And, basically, for production reasons, it was just going to be easier if we moved it to San Diego, mainly because we’re shooting in L.A., and it’s lot easier to make L.A. look like San Diego than Atlanta. So we wouldn’t have to worry about showing palm trees or the beach or something, we just decided to set it there. But the vibe is still the same. We basically wanted them to live on the water, in kind of an optimistic place, and that’s why Newport News was originally chosen. Or they could live Hampton, in the condominiums on the river. But, now, we really have that exact same vibe with them living in San Diego, so that’s good.

BE: When I first got the pilot and saw the reference to the TV weather report being for Norfolk, I turned to my wife and said, “Do you think these DVDs are watermarked, and that every writer’s DVD has their own city shown in the weather report?” (Laughs)

JL: I know, it felt self-indulgent that I was putting Norfolk right there in the newscast, but they were just following the script, so production just pulled stock images of Norfolk, and there it was. It was kind of neat. But once we got the order to series, the location’s changed a million times, and you basically just do what’s the most practical in the end that’s still in keeping with the characters. And the story was originally that these cavemen are from somewhere in upper or middle Pennsylvania, but that the lead character, Joel, wanted to get away from that and go someplace that wasn’t so boring or dark, someplace like a beach community. He wanted to experience a whole new kind of lifestyle, and that’s why the beach and the water seemed like such a good idea, especially for a caveman. I think they’re just trying to get out of the dark, dank hill country and move to a nice place on the water, so Newport News was definitely that, as was Norfolk…and, now, the same with San Diego. It’s a much better choice than Atlanta because of that.

BE: So, y’know, I was at the TCA panel for the show back in July…

JL: Oh, you were?

BE: Ohhhhhhh, yeah. (Laughs) Now, were you expecting quite the reaction that you got? I mean, obviously, I’m sure you knew people were skeptical of the idea of making a 30-minute sitcom out of a 30-second commercial, but were you expecting the sheer venom that you got hit with?

JL: No. No, we totally expected everyone to hate our guts. (Laughs sarcastically) Yeah, that’s why we’re doing it. No, I went there, and, like you said, I knew there’d be a lot of skepticism from people saying, “Hey, you can’t turn commercials into TV shows! That’s just not done! There’s no way that can work! We can turn a ride at Disney into a multi-million-dollar movie franchise, but no way are we going to let a commercial become a TV show!” Yeah, they’re kind of talking out of both sides of their mouth there, but, yeah, I expected skepticism on that. But I had no idea that people would jump on that racial allegory bandwagon and see it in such a negative light, so that was the big surprise of TCA and what made it sooooooo enjoyable. (Laughs) So, yeah, that was…I mean, I don’t think we were blind to it. I thought there would be a couple of questions, because the show, especially the pilot, was hitting hard on the racial allegory thing.

BE: Yeah, I mean, I went in with an open mind, but even I…I mean, the line that I’ve been referencing to people has been that line, “Dance for the man, monkey.” I mean, I was just, like, “Oh, man, that’s rough.” (Writer’s note: to put the line in context, it’s inspired when the cavemen are sitting around the TV, watching the morning news, and the weatherman – who’s the only caveman on the news team – comes on and performs a decidedly wacky weekend weather jig.)

JL: Um…yeah. But, still, I mean, that was a pilot, and pilots are made to sell a show to a network. So it’s a sales tool, and we wanted the premise to be very clear. And as you’ve seen, what works as a sales tool doesn’t necessarily…y’know, if you treat it as an actual episode…and there are plenty of people who run their pilots, but most don’t, and most pilots are re-shot. But the critics saw the pilot, and then they saw how heavy-handed we were with the premise…which we needed to be, because we wanted everybody to get what we were going for…and, so, yeah, it’s almost like…this is such a cop-out, but it’s true: the pilot, when taken out of context and viewed not as a sales tool to sell a series or premise but seen as a literal episode, I totally get why people went crazy. But at the same time, I think they went too crazy. And I think they ended up making themselves the news, which I thought was self-indulgent. But at the end of the day, we didn’t sweat it, because the pilot’s not the first episode. We’ve reworked the show, and we were going to, anyway. We were in that awkward position of having to defend things that we ourselves didn’t necessarily even believe in. And that happens, and that’s part of the package. But we feel good about the show now, and we believe that all of this will subside after people finally see the first three episodes.

BE: I guess we’re going to be getting copies of those pretty soon, too…?

JL: Yeah, I would think so. We’re finishing them up now, so I think they’re gonna…yeah, they’re getting the little package ready for the critics. But we’re on schedule, and everything’s clicking so far. So far, so good. It’s been busy.

BE: Which leads to my last question: how has the overall experience been of working on your first-ever TV show?

JL: It’s been, uh… (Starts to laugh)

BE: (Laughs) What a great start, huh?

JL: Uh, yeah. It’s been insane. I think I’ve experienced everything you can experience in doing a TV show, all in about six months. It all comes so fast, and it’s so hectic, and the being attacked by the press. Just…everything. If you were going to do a TV show about doing a TV show, my life could be it. But it’s been great. There’ve been really great things about working on a TV show with really talented people that have been really rewarding. But, obviously, it’s been a bit like a boot camp. I’ve had so much knowledge and frustration and glee crammed into my life in such a short amount of time that my head is spinning. But it’s been really rewarding, and I feel like I’m getting an opportunity that a lot of people never get to have…and that I probably shouldn’t have gotten in the first place! (Laughs) So I’m definitely not looking a gift horse in the mouth, as they say.

BE: Are they keeping your spot at the ad agency open just in case?

JL: (Laughs uncertainly) Yeah, hopefully, I didn’t burn that bridge, because I may need to go back. We’ll see. You never say never. But Martin’s doing great without me. And I saw some new GEICO commercials last week that I thought were really good, like the one with “The Flintstones.”

BE: And I guess they’re understandably moving away from the “Cavemen” commercials, if only for purposes of the show.

JL: Yeah, we don’t really get involved in that end of the deal, but from what I understand, GEICO is sort of going to mothball the cavemen commercials, at least for a short amount of time, at least while the show launches. But I think that, after that, they’re more than welcome to start doing more of them again.

BE: Well, it’s been a pleasure talking to you.

JL: Absolutely. And thanks so much for your interest!

My closing line: While I’m still interested in seeing the episode tomorrow night when it premieres, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that, to date, ABC still hasn’t provided critics with anything but that original pilot, and that rarely speaks well of a network’s confidence in a show.

Let us see what tomorrow brings…

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8/3/2007

ABC’s “Masters of Science Fiction”: I swear, it’s just coincidence that the last several postings have been sci-fi related, but even with that being the case, I’d still like to talk for a few moments about ABC’s new summer replacement series, an anthology called “Masters of Science Fiction.”

I’d heard a little bit about it from the show’s publicist before I headed out to the TCA Press Tour in July; it sounded interesting (although, obviously, tempting me with a science-fiction concept is akin to shooting fish in a barrel), and it had a phenomenal list of contributing actors (Malcolm McDowell, Anne Heche, Sam Waterston, Judy Davis, Terry O’Quinn, Elizabeth Rohm, Brian Dennehy, and John Hurt are just some of the folks involved), so, naturally, when the publicist offered up a review copy, I was ready to roll. Unfortunately, it didn’t arrive before my departure to L.A. for the tour, so I didn’t get to check it out until my return…and even more unfortunately, by the time I returned, I was already a bit iffy on checking it out, thanks to the words of no less than ABC’s president of entertainment, Stephen McPherson.

During ABC’s executive panel, someone asked McPherson about the origin of the series, he responded, “It was a low-cost initiative that we tried. We did this series of movies to see if there was a way to spark something different at a really low cost point. You know, I think there is some good work done there, but it’s very unseen. So it’s just been…it’s been a little bit problematic.”

Okay, now, to be fair, he’s acknowledging the “good work” inherent somewhere in the series, but his suggestion that it’s “very unseen” is a little disingenuous; after all, there were six episodes made for “Masters of Science Fiction,” and as the network’s president of entertainment, I have to think he might’ve had something to do with the fact that ABC is opting to only show four of them. Also, come on, he’s saying this stuff to critics before the series has even aired…? Way to get behind it, man!

From my perspective, however, I can now tell that you that I’ve seen the four episodes that will be airing on Saturday nights at 10 PM for the next few weeks…and, wow, if that timeslot of death doesn’t instill you with ABC’s definitive opinion of the show, I don’t know what does…and it’s nothing but a stone cold shame that they’re burying this thing. “Masters of Science Fiction” harks back to classic dramatic anthologies like “The Twilight Zone,” “The Outer Limits,” and the like. The budget might not be through the roof, but the performances are top-notch, and that goes beyond the acting; the show brings in directors like Mark Rydell (”On Golden Pond”), Michael Tolkin (”The Player”), and Jonathan Frakes (”Star Trek: First Contact”), and features adaptations of stories by Robert Heinlein (”I, Robot”), Howard Fast (”Spartacus”), and legendary sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison, who adapts his own story, collaborating with Josh Olson (”A History of Violence”).

Some folks have been dismissive of the fact that the show was done in connection with Starz, but don’t lump “Masters of Science Fiction” in with “Masters of Horror”; the latter is more about blood, guts, and cheap scares, while this is intelligent and thought-provoking drama, done with the occasional - but far from constant - wink at the viewer. Take, for instance, “The Awakening,” which stars O’Quinn (you know him as John Locke from “Lost”) as a former military man who’s called back into service when it’s suspected that aliens may be landing on Earth. The situation is sufficiently grim that the President of the United States is brought into the loop…and who plays the President? William B. Davis, a.k.a. the Cigarette Smoking Man from “The X-Files.” There’s something darkly funny about that, and you can bet that the producers were completely in on the joke. It’s also mildly amusing that the show is narrated by Professor Stephen Hawking…and, yes, I know, there’s really no way to know that it was actually Hawking doing the narration, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, shall we?

“Masters of Science Fiction” is quality stuff, and, honestly, I don’t see anything here that couldn’t, if given the opportunity, draw an audience, especially given the amount of familiar faces involved. Why bury it on Saturday nights at 10 PM…? I mean, I’m not telling you to blow off any existing plans you may have, but if you’re home, it’s well worth watching…and if you’re not home but you’ve got TiVo, I do recommend that you grab it and check it out later.

Oh, and if you like it as much as I did, don’t be afraid to send a nasty E-mail to Stephen McPherson and ask him why he couldn’t be bothered to set aside one of ABC’s reality show for a few weeks and give this series a halfway-decent chance at success…

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8/2/2007

Is “health reasons” the same as “sick of people comparing it to ‘Angel’”?: After making an appearance at the TCA Press Tour in late July to promote “Moonlight,” the new CBS drama about a vampire turned detective, the show’s executive producer, David Greenwalt, has bailed out of the series, citing “health concerns.”

Greenwalt was one of the few remaining people on “Moonlight” who’d been there since its pick-up by CBS; the series has recast several roles since then and, for its TCA panel, had little to offer by way of a preview except for a newly-filmed sequence with the show’s lead, Alex O’Loughlin, being interviewed as his character, Mick St. John. (An interview with a vampire…geddit?!?) Still, Greenwalt seemed excited about the series during the panel, and given his track record, it’s a shame that we won’t get to see the series under his leadership.

The only possible good news? The latest rumor has Rob Thomas, creator of “Veronica Mars,” taking over the reigns of command for “Moonlight.”

Yeah, I’ll believe it when I read the actual CBS press release…

UPDATE: Never mind. The bad news is that it’s not Rob Thomas. The good news - maybe - is that the show’s new executive producer / showrunner, according to The Hollywood Reporter, is Chip Johannessen, who did a lot of work on “Millennium” and “Dark Angel.”

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7/27/2007

TCA Press Tour: While I’m technically not caught up yet…: …this is my last night in L.A. for the TCA Press Tour, and I just wanted to say that, despite the fact that I can’t adequately describe quite how much I miss my wife and daughter, this has been a tremendous experience thus far. The phrase “death march with cocktails” has been bandied about throughout my time here - and it’s not far off; I mean, Hell, I’m drunk right now! - but it’s impossible to complain about the unparalleled access I’m getting to the various stars while I’m out here. I mean, tonight alone has resulted in my having one-on-one conversations with Christina Applegate, Kyle McLachlan, Swoozie Kurtz, Christopher Titus, and others. How can you argue with that…?

Stay tuned for my coverage of ABC’s new shows, as well as my other set visits, but since I’m departing bright and early tomorrow morning, let me just say that this has been a blast for me, and I sincerely hope that my readers - however many there may be out there - have enjoyed the opportunity I’ve had out here as much as I have…and, fingers crossed, Bullz-Eye will continue to send me out here in the future!

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7/27/2007

TCA Press Tour: SET VISIT - “The Closer” / “Heroes”: Maybe some of the other TCA members are just jaded old hands, but one of the most shocking things I heard during the course of the entire 2+ weeks of the press tour came on the day that we were invited to tour the sets of various TV shows. We’d just finished being given a tour of the “Heroes” set by the stars of the show - mine was mostly hosted by Greg Grunberg, but Ali Larter, James Kyson Lee (Ando), Noah Gray-Cabey (Micah), and series creator Tim Kring were all along for the ride - and were provided the opportunity to have access to the entire cast for several minutes worth of Q&A, and we were sitting on the bus, and, suddenly, I hear someone say, “Well, I don’t know why we had to waste time with that set tour; I’d much rather have had more opportunities for one-on-one interviews.”

Are you kidding me? I’m sorry, but, to be perfectly blunt about it, that shit was awesome! Even if I’d been given the opportunity to do so, I’d totally have passed on more one-on-one time in favor of the set tour! I mean, I stood in Isaac’s studio, right on top of the painting of the apocalypse that’s on the floor. I was in Mohinder’s pad and saw the actual string-laden map on the chalkboard. Are you telling me that’s worth trading away?

RIDICULOUS!

Ahem.

So, anyway, yeah, we went on a bunch of set visits. First up was TNT’s “The Closer,” and…well, look, I don’t know about any of ya’ll, but I’ve never been on the set of a TV show, and, personally, I was astounded at the level of detail. Yeah, I know, you see the stuff on the screen when you’re watching the show, but, somehow, I just didn’t think it would look so…I dunno…real.

I got a few minutes with J.K. Simmons and G.W. Bailey; the former talked about he’d been pitched the idea of playing J. Jonah Jameson by Sam Raimi while they were working on “The Gift” together, while the latter was in the midst of reminiscing about a guest shot he did on “Benson” when he kiddingly reprimanded another writer for tapping the bobblehead - one of himself, as it happens - on his desk. (That event, by the way, led him into a lengthy discussion about the evolution of his character’s ongoing quirk of despising anyone putting anything on his desk.) Kyra Sedwick was definitely in the house, but she was so swarmed by writers that I didn’t get to talk to her solo; I did, however, lean in and get a few quotes as she responded to other people’s questions. Accordingly, she was in her character’s office as she fielded their questions, and, as I walked out the office door, I walked right into Raymond Cruz, who plays Detective Sanchez. I introduced myself, and we chatted for a couple of minutes…and when I referred to Bullz-Eye as “the guys’ portal to the web,” he immediately decided that, with a title like that, he was going to have to check it out.

I continued to wander ’round the set, walking past Corey Reynolds (Sgt. Gabriel), Robert Gossett (Commander Taylor), Jon Tenney (Agent Fritz Howard), Anthony John Denison (Det. Andy Flynn), and Michael Paul Chan (Detective Mike Tao), all in conversations with various writers, but before I could really get into conversation with anyone else, we got the call-up to head out. On our way out the door, we were provided with…well, I’ll hold off on discussing the swag I scored, mostly because I’m planning to do a whole piece about the stuff I scored during the course of the tour. But, still, it was nice stuff.

From there, it was back on the bus, on our way to the “Heroes” set, and, as you could probably tell, I really, really dug that whole experience. As noted, the entire cast was indeed there, from Hadyen Pantierre to Masi Oka, Jack Coleman to Adrian Pasdar, and so on down the list. Basically, if they were major characters from Season 1, they were there. Not so much the supporting characters - my beloved Brother Voodoo was nowhere to be found, alas - but we did get introduced to one new cast member: Dania Ramirez, who will show up when the series winds its way into Central America. (There’ll be lots of new international locations this season; in fact, we were given a tour of a new set that’s an Irish pub.)

The cast seemed to legitimately enjoy doing the tours. Grunberg, for one, could fall back on stand-up comedy if he gets tired of the acting gig; he was constantly throwing out one-liners as he took us through the various sets. We also got a look at the Season 1 special effects reel, which showed how the various effects were done, but the most amusing thing for me was to discover just how many places the green screen is used. Like, for instance, the cube factory where Ando and Hiro work? Green screen except for their specific cubicle! Who would’ve thunk it? But the effects guys said that, as technology has increased, it’s become increasingly obvious that, for some sets, you just don’t need everything around you. (I believe the specific example they offered was that if two characters are having a cup of coffee, all you really need for the scene is the coffee and the table, and the rest can be green-screened in.) We also got a short tour through the hallways of the studio; one side featured family photos of the various cast members, while the other side was an In Memoriam display of photos of characters who’ve died on the show. (Alas, poor Linderman…) Lastly, we got a look at the prosthetics used for scenes like Claire’s autopsy, or when Peter got that huge shard of glass in the back of head…and, Jesus, that thing looked so real that it was legitimately disturbing…!

The visit closed with the Q&A panel, which provided a few…a very few…insights about the new season:

* Other countries to be visited in Season 2 are Japan, Egypt (”for a second”), Haiti, Lithuania, Mexico, and the Ukraine. Says Kring, “We are kind of all over the place.”

* “Heroes” will end at the end of April, and its 6-episode spin-off, “Origins,” will run through May.

* Nikica - as I have been so prone to call her - may or may not be a widow when the new season begins…but, damn, not getting the answer wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of the person who asked it. Ali Larter shrugged mischeviously when the question was posed, so it was re-posed to Kring, who said, “We have to wait and see what happens with Niki’s character this season. She’s going to be going through all kinds of changes as a character.” But, argued the reporter, it isn’t in any of the listings, so are we to make an assumption from that, or is this just a press-kit oversight? “I wouldn’t draw any conclusions from that,” Kring said.

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7/26/2007

TCA Press Tour: No, we don’t know why they didn’t call it “Canterbury’s Tales,” either…: I’ve always liked Julianna Margulies. She was great on “E.R.,” of course, but she’s also done brief guest-starring turns on shows from “Scrubs” to “The Sopranos” where she managed to make an impact in only a very few episodes. And, of course, let us not forget her role as spunky stewardess…sorry, flight attendant…Claire Miller in “Snakes on a Plane.” But, at least on the surface, I’m not getting a whole lot off “Canterbury’s Law” that makes me think, “This will be Margulies’ triumphant return to television!”

I mean, it’s a lawyer show. There are already a lot of lawyer shows. Will this really stand out? I mean, Marguilies’ character - Elizabeth Canterbury - is described as “a rebellious female defense attorney who puts her career on the line to take on risky and unpopular cases,” and it was also mentioned during the panel that Canterbury has a tortured past. So, what, it’s “House” as a female lawyer rather than a male doctor…? Because you know I won’t be the only critic who makes that comparison…

The one thing that’s particularly eye-catching…beyond Juliana herself, of course…is the fact that Denis Leary is one of the show’s producers. Given his success with the critically-acclaimed “Rescue Me,” it’s fair to say that he has a certain amount of experience with blending humor and drama, so maybe I’m being too hard on the show. Producer Jim Serpico says on Leary’s involvement that “he’s not involved day-to-day on set or looking at the sets and locations, but he’s involved in the stories and big-picture casting decisions.” So that’s uplifting news, at least.

Beyond that, I call it wait-and-see…as in, “I’ll have to wait and see the pilot.”

I will, however, close by throwing out a few revelations dropped by Marguilies during the panel:

* She never, ever had any intention of going back to “E.R.,” not in any capacity. “I’m not one to retrace my steps,” she says.

* She would, however, love to work with George Clooney again. “We’ve been talking about that from the day we left ‘ER,’ she admits. “We both said one day, we’ll do a movie together. We needed enough time away so there has to be at least 10 years in between Doug and Carole for anyone to see us other than that. So I trust him. He’s going to find something. Hopefully, he’ll direct it, and we’ll, you know, do something funny together.”

* She was a little surprised that the producers of “The Sopranos” didn’t bring her character back for the last season. “After the last episode from last season, the one with me and Michael Imperioli, they said, ‘We want her back,’” she revealed. “So they put me on hold for awhile. So we thought it would be a sort of a bigger storyline, but I totally understand. I was actually really impressed how they used me. It was so brief, but it was an important moment, I think, for James Gandolfini’s character just to, you know, have part of that whole storyline come to an end. I wish…please, I wish I had been on every episode. That was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.”

You know how you can tell how tired we’re getting? No-one asked her what she thought of the last episode of the show.

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7/26/2007

TCA Press Tour: Why Mike Farley isn’t a cast member on “Nashville,” I’ll never know…: Here’s how they introduced Fox’s new docu-soap, “Nashville”: “A high-stakes drama, it features an attractive cast of dreamers and dream makers in Nashville, Tennessee. The unique new series follows a vibrant group of young people as their hopes, lives, and loves unfold in a town that can make or break you.”

Wow.

I don’t care.

Okay, no, sorry, I guess I do. Or, at least, as a music fan, I guess I’m supposed to, anyway. The thing is…and I think the man referenced in the subject line of this posting would agree…that no matter how this series pans out, it’s not gonna be anywhere close to the reality of what it’s like to be a struggling musician. I mean, just about everyone on the panel for this show was pretty. And by that, I mean that you know someone at Fox determined at some point how unattractive was too unattractive, and that the music you’re gonna hear is gonna be about as mainstream as humanly possible. And because of these factors, I just don’t see what this show is going to offer me that I can’t experience vicariously by talking to, say, Mike Farley. Or, for that matter, about 3/4 of the bands who are my friends on MySpace.

Still, I’ll give credit to contestant (or whatever they’re calling them) Jamey Johnson, who, when the panel was asked if they’d seen the film “The Thing Called Love” and how accurate it was, replied, “That movie was pretty authentic. I think it had a great plot to it, but by and large, you just don’t move to Nashville and get everything handed to you. You’ve got to work for it, you know. I think that movie kind of depicted that, but it didn’t really show how long it takes. I know guys that have been in town for seven or eight years and they’re just now getting their first song cut.”

Yeah, but why do I suspect that this show won’t take nearly that long before every member of its cast ends up with a record deal?

Sorry, I don’t really have a lot to say about this show that’s particularly complimentary, I realize. I mean, I’ll check it out and see how the first episode plays, but I’m going in with the reasonable presumption that it will in no way live up to the actual reality of the life of struggling musicians in Nashville…and I’m betting I’ll be right.

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7/26/2007

TCA Press Tour: “The Return of Jezebel James”…and the return of Amy Sherman-Palladino and David Palladino!: Top 3 reasons that make “The Return of Jezebel James” sound like it’s worth watching before you’ve even seen a single moment of the show:

1. It stars indie film goddess Parkey Posey.
2. It co-stars former “Six Feet Under” star Lauren Ambrose.
3. It’s the brainchild of “Gilmore Girls” co-creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and David Palladino.

The premise of the series involves Parker’s character, an editor of childrens’ books at Harper-Collins, deciding that she wants to have a baby…but when she finds out that she can’t carry the child herself, she decides to kill two birds with one stone by renewing her relationship with her younger sister and asking her to carry the baby for her, offering her free room and board at her apartment while she’s pregnant. The writer sitting next to me said that the premise struck her as vaguely creepy, like the younger sister was basically trading the use of her womb for access to free cable, but, hey, my wife and I did in vitro, so I know what it’s like to desperately want a kid of your own…and I know full well that if it’d reached a point where we needed someone to step up and carry our child for us, my sister would’ve been ready to roll.

Okay, possibly too much information. But my point is that, ultimately, this is a show about family…which, of course, is an area in which the Palladinos have considerable experience.

“I like family dynamics,” says Amy, “because I can’t figure out mine. I really just enjoy it. ‘Gilmore,’ to me, was — yes, it was a mother and daughter, but I also looked at it like Emily was sort of the third Gilmore. It was a multi-generational, sort of three women and their trials together, but the relationship was very different. You know, that was a relationship about two people who were instantly vested — they were so bonded, they finished each other’s sentences. They absolutely knew who they were. This relationship to me is so interesting a departure because it’s two women who just don’t know each other at all. They’ve never formed any sort of bond. It’s weird because they’re adults, but they’re just now starting to figure out who they are, how they react, what they like, what they don’t like, how they’re going to make each other crazy, how they’re not going to make each other crazy. And it’s just a wonderful dynamic.

“I think that there’s not always the best parts on television for women,” she continued, “and I feel like maybe if you can throw a couple of great woman parts out there, why not? There’s a lot of “the bullet entered here” going on out there, but these are real, you know? It’s just really multi-dimensional characters, and that I like. I would like it in men. I would like it in chipmunks, two nice squirrels talking to each other, I’d be fine with that, too. Just as long as the dynamic is interesting and there’s places to go.”

And the dynamic is, indeed, interesting. You can bet on that. Otherwise, Posey wouldn’t be stooping - my term, not hers - to taking a TV gig.

“I read the script in Albuquerque, New Mexico, working on ‘The Eye,’” she revealed. “I read it at the laundromat, and I read it from start to finish. and I laughed, and I actually got really touched at the end. And I called my manager, and I said, ‘I’m shocked. I feel like I’ve read a play.’ I feel like the voice of this is so inhabited. Nothing was pushed, and it was all character-based, and I loved it. I look to play parts like this in film and in television and in theater. Like, I love it. It was fully dynamic. And I had never seen ‘Gilmore Girls.’ I didn’t know the genius behind Amy Sherman-Palladino…and then we met. It was, like. ‘This feels really right.’

Co-star Scott Cohen - a “Gilmore Girls” alum, you may recall - felt almost exactly the same way that Posey did about the script. “The first time I read the script,” he said, “I had an emotional experience at the end of it, basically crying at the end of it, which you never have when you read any script that comes to you. Pilots — you know, around March, you get so many pilots in February. You get so many pilots and you kind of read through everything and everything is pretty much the same, and you try to figure out, well, what character do I want to play? Or do I really kind of fit into this? And this just hit me like a ton of bricks, and you’re — immediately just wanted to do. There wasn’t even a question in my mind of wanting to do it.”

Best anecdote from Amy: “We had about 25 washer/dryers that were stuffed in our offices, that were all from ‘The Cosby Show’ wardrobe department. And at first, it was like, ‘Oh, isn’t that charming?’ And then it was like, ‘Can you get these fucking washer/dryers out of our offices so we can work?’ It took forever to get the ‘Cosby’ washer and dryers out of our offices. There’s your television legacy, ladies and gentlemen.”

Most appropriate question: “Daniel, eventually is there a time when you drive home and Amy gets very quiet, and you get to talk?”

* Daniel’s answer to the reporter: “Every once in awhile.”
* Daniel’s aside to Amy: “I will defend your honor afterwards.”
* Amy’s answer to the reporter: “Look, I am charming and delightful, and I’ll fucking come down there and show you how. All right. It’s a treat living with me. Trust me.”

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7/26/2007

TCA Press Tour: Sarah Connor returns!: It’s a little surprising that there hasn’t been a “Terminator” TV series before now, given how popular the franchise has been over the years, but here’s my theory as to why it finally happened: once Ahnuld took over as Governor of California, the producers decided, “Oh, well, if he’s not gonna be available to do more movies, we might as well hit the small screen.”

Hey, I’m psyched.

Yeah, I know, I say that a lot…but, seriously, the special effects in the pilot look sweet. Plus, what red-blooded American male can’t get into a cast which stars Lena Headey (”300″) as Sarah Connor and Summer Glau (”Serenity”) as the latest, sexiest model of Terminator? And in case you fall into a different male demographic - there, how’s that for a politically correct turn of phrase? - it’s worth noting that the shoes of John Connor are being filled by former “Heroes” star Thomas Dekker.

But if you’re a real sci-fi geek, you probably only have one question: where exactly does this series fall into the chronology of the three “Terminator” films?

Producer Josh Friedman attempts to sort out the confusion. “When we first started this,” he explains, “people said, “This takes place between ‘T2′ and ‘T3,'’ and I think that was incorrect. As far as I’m concerned, this is ‘T3.’ I mean, this is a continuation of what I would call the Sarah Connor trilogy. So I think anything that happens after ‘T2′ is fair game for us. And I think the ending of ‘T2,’ the exploding killing Cyberdine, killing Miles Dyson, sort of changes the timeline for anything in the future.” Friedman went on to clarify that the ultimate fate of Sarah Connor as referenced in “T3″ - she succumbed to leukemia, of all things - is no longer to be considered to be a given; fellow producer James Middleton added, “We’re taking a phrase that is very important in ‘T2′: ‘No fate, but what we make.’ And this is a new fate for Sarah Connor, so we are creating an entirely new timeline.”

Of course, it will probably not surprise you to learn that, of our number, at least one person was simply unwilling to accept this answer at face value. “At the end of ‘Terminator 2,’” began a reporter, “it looked as though they had saved the future. And in ‘Terminator 3,’ basically they were stuck with the future that ‘Terminator 1′ came from. Does your show believe that that loop is inevitable, or are they still trying to change the future to the point where it never gets to the rise of the machines?”

Rather than simply saying, “I’m sorry, but answering your question would wreak havoc on the space-time continuum,” Middleton actually responded thoughtfully: “Our characters operate and fight a battle every episode based on faith that they can prevent Judgment Day. Now they’re going to do everything that they can to do that. But the odds against them are formidable. They have a formidable enemy. So how they operate every day is to fight the fight the best they can in each episode.”

(Perhaps more amazingly, the reporter accepted this answer!)

With all these references to the films, you’re probably wondering the same thing we were: what are the odds of us actually managing to see that aforementioned Governor of California on the show?

Friedman admitted, “We’ve talked a lot of about it, but the reality is that, as governor, he’s incredibly busy. As a star, you know, he’s incredibly expensive. So we have great reverence for him, but we don’t know. We just don’t know if he’s ever going to be able to.” Also something the show isn’t able to do: even show images of Schwarzenegger in his Terminator guise.

Best show-related question that never got an answer: “Thomas, Lena already talked about the pressure about filling Linda Hamilton’s shoes. How are you training to be more like Edward Furlong?”

Best non-show-related question that didn’t require an answer: “Are you familiar with the ‘Highlander’ series?” (The panel had absolutely no idea why it was funny, but, man, did the writers who’d been in attendance at the ‘New Amsterdam’ panel laugh…!)

Best non-answer to a question: when the producers were asked if there was any chance of seeing Kyle Reese - Michael Biehn’s character in the original film - coming to Sarah in dream sequences, a la his appearance in the director’s cut of “Terminator 2,” Friedman responded, “Wow, good idea. I was just thinking of that. I’ve written it down in the back room on a piece of paper with a date and time previously, pre-dating that question.”

On a more serious note, you may have read about the controversy over a scene in the original pilot which involved a school shooting. Friedman acknowledged that they’re reshooting parts of it. “We’re really sensitive to people’s concerns,” he notes, “but I think we’ll wait and see what it looks like at the end.”

And as long as we’re being serious, let’s close with Dekker’s response to the controversy over his character on “Heroes” supposedly bouncing back and forth between being gay and straight.

“You know, controversy is such a nice, fancy, dramatic term that sounds good,” said Dekker, dismissively. “I think it was something that definitely got blown out of proportion as far as what actually happened with the character, and the character was something from day one that we had set out to make in every possible way ambiguous. He was something that was supposed to be — you know, we felt that every character in the series was so clear in who they were, and it was nice to have kind of side characters that were a little more open. You didn’t know where his relationship with Claire was going. And, you know, me not appearing on the show anymore has nothing to do with anything to do with the character. They’re completely separate events.”

So why did he leave the show, then?

“Because,” replied Friedman, “we hired him.”

Fair enough.

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7/26/2007

TCA Press Tour: “House” remains a very, very, very fine “House.” (Surely you saw that coming.): I’m not sure if Dr. House is actually an anti-hero, given that, even with his terribly irascible manner, he still manages to save the day far more often that not. Still, he’s a drug addict with a nasty temper who makes decisions based less on a will-the-patient-live-or-die mindset and more of a I-just-want-to-know-if-I’m-right mindset, and that’s not exactly the kind of guy who find yourself rooting for, per se. In fact, it’s a minor miracle that it took a full three seasons for his team of doctors to abandon him out of sheer frustration with his methods.

As the show enters its fourth season with a few Emmy nominations in hand, it sounds as though things are going to continue to go great guns. At the very least, it looks like everyone’s back in tow to some extent: although their characters had all tendered their resignations by the end of Season 3, Omar Epps, Jennifer Morrison, and Jesse Spencer were all on the panel.

Producer Katie Jacobs admitted, “We struggled with how to sort of do exactly this. The truth is, everybody is back eventually, and everybody is back having changed and in different capacities. And, you know, it’s also sort of organic, so we only know where it’s going to a point. For us, for me, it’s the most exciting season we’ve started off so far because it feels very organic. You know, the last two seasons we’ve done an arc — season 2, season 3 we started out with arcs that involved other characters as a way to explore more deeply House’s character. But I think that their three-year fellowship, and all in different ways, has sort of naturally come to an end.

“In the first episode,” she explains, “House is alone, and House is trying to solve cases by himself. Of course, Cuddy is pissed and Wilson thinks he’s losing his mind. And Cuddy will insist that he hire a new team…but he will do it in a very House-ian way. Over the first bunch of episodes. he’s going to call in all the candidates, all the resumes on his desk — 40, I think it is, a large number — and we’re going to see who survives. We’re going to play a ‘House’ version of “Survivor” and see what candidates really will make the best part of House’s team. And House is going to give all the candidates numbers; because he can’t remember their names, they’re actually going to wear running numbers!”

Meanwhile, the trio of actors formerly known as House’s team remained pleased to be on the show, even if they really have no idea where they stand at the moment.

Morrison says that they found out about their characters shuffling off the show when “they told us all that they wanted to talk to us over lunch one day, which does feel a little bit like being called into the principal’s office. But they were fantastic and let us know what they were planning on doing.

Spencer corrected her. “Well, they didn’t actually know, though, did they? Well, I mean, they told us that we were coming back, but they didn’t know at that time in what capacity we were actually going to come back. And we are still not entirely sure. (But) we know we are back.”

Jacobs hinted, however, that just because we see them doesn’t mean they’re actually there. “(House) thinks he sees them. And Wilson is saying, ‘You know, you’re just feeling guilty, and you’re out of your mind.’ And Chase is working in Arizona in a hospital and Cameron’s with him. And Foreman is at Mercy Hospital running his own diagnostic
department. And we have fun with that as well. I definitely don’t mean to be coy, but I don’t want to spoil it for you entirely.”

As far as the relationship between House and Cuddy, and whether it’ll develop into anything more than friendship, a frustrated Lisa Edelstein admitted that “they don’t tell me anything, and it’s very frustrating! They don’t want us to get attached. They don’t want to say, hey, you are going to have a beautiful make-out scene, and then it goes away. And I’m, like, where’s the make-out scene? I’ve been practicing!” (For her part, Jacobs conceded, “I may commit to a beautiful make-out scene for Cuddy.”)

Similarly, Hugh Laurie couldn’t offer any insight as to how his character’s ongoing Vicodin addiction will play out. “That, I’m afraid, I can’t answer,” he apologized, “only because I am in the dark. We are only halfway through our second show, and so I already read the first three scripts of this season. So how that plays out, I’m not absolutely sure. I will say, however, that the first three scripts that I read of this season are not only three of the best ‘House’ scripts I’ve ever read. They’re three of the best scripts I’ve ever read. It’s that simple. I have never come across anything quite like this. It may be that in the execution of it, we’ll make a dreadful hash of it and you’ll go, ‘Well, I don’t see what the fuss was about. That was a terrible piece of television.’ But purely as scripts, I find them absolutely phenomenal. I’ve never read anything that so ambitiously tries to mix broad comedy and gut-wrenching tragedy and philosophical musings and bizarre literary references all in the space of five seconds. The speed with which it jumps from tone to tone is quite phenomenally ambitious.”

After a beat, Laurie added with a laugh, “It may be too ambitious.”

In closing, I must make mention of the question I asked as much for my own amusement as anything, about Stephen Fry recently popping up elsewhere on the network’s schedule. I addressed Mr. Laurie and said, “When a former collaborator of yours turned up in a recurring role on ‘Bones,’ were you fearing an ad campaign saying, ‘Fry and Laurie: together again on FOX’”?

He grinned and admitted, “Well, it was an absolutely fantastic experience, actually, for both of us, after 20-odd years of working together, to wind up 8,000 miles away from where we started, in two trailers that were only 50 yards apart. It was a very peculiar thing and a very enjoyable thing. And, yes, we looked back at some happy days and did actually talk about it, as we always do, in a very vague kind of way, we talk about reconvening and carrying on where we left off. But I don’t know in what form. But I hope one day we will. Possibly on a stage, actually. That’s our next thought.”

Oh, I’m such a geek about British comedy. When he said that, I totally got chills.

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7/26/2007

TCA Press Tour: “Family Guy” - The 100th Episode: One of the cooler panels during the course of the TCA Press Tour was unquestionably the “dinner theater” provided by the cast of “Family Guy,” who did a table read of their upcoming 100th episode for the assembled critics as they ate lunch. We were warned ahead of time that, yes, it was the unedited version of the script, and that several bits had been removed from the upcoming air version, but I didn’t hear any complaints after the fact, so I guess those of us with delicate constitutions managed to survive. I won’t give away any of the jokes - I mean, the show isn’t even scheduled to air until October - but I will say that it’s called “Stewie Kills Lois,” that there are jokes involving The Beatles, Barbra Streisand, and “The Lake House,” that there are tentative plans for guest appearances by James Woods and Rob Lowe, and that it’s a two-parter, so even we don’t know what happens in the second half.

Oh, and I’m guessing that Peter’s bit where he reminisces about he and Lois going to an abortionist is almost certainly not going to be in the version that you see on Fox.

After the read, the cast remained on stage and took a few questions from the crowd…the first of which, unsurprisingly, was, “Seth, what exactly did you cut out of that script?”

“Oh, I think the abortion one was about eight times as long,” MacFarlane laughed. “Some of this stuff, actually, you will only see on the DVD. There’s some stuff that was, you know, judiciously edited with our approval. And some stuff — for example, the swearing you’ll only see on the DVD. Since that’s become such a big part of “Family Guy,” there are — occasionally if we bleep something for TV, we’ll let it slide on the DVD.”

Most surprising admission from MacFarlane: that they’re never out to shock for the sake of shocking. “The thing that I try to do with ‘Family Guy,’” he explained, “is to kind of have this balance between the classic and the edgy. You know, we do a lot of poop jokes, but at the same time, we use a 45-piece orchestra every week with a full string section. If something is just shocking and not funny, then we’ll cut it out. And we have these table reads every week, which we do for each episode, in which we have a very good cross section of artists and people from the outside and writers, and, you know, the studio network is there. And no one is shy about gasping in horror if we have crossed the line, and so it’s a very good barometer.”

Best bit of gossip from MacFarlane: “Certain members of the Brolin family were amused by the (Barbra Streisand) gag that we did. That’s all I’ll say.”

Most surprising anecdote: the FCC responded to the show’s FCC-themed episode…and thought it was funny! MacFarlane admitted that it “surprised the hell out of me…and gives me a little bit of hope!”

Least surprising question: let’s just say it involved a reference to manatees. (I’m as guilty as anyone; I did the same thing when I talked to him…but I like to think that my comedic timing was better.) Of course, MacFarlane offered up his now-stock response about how he’s actually a big fan of “South Park,” but what he also provided was a surprisingly solid explanation as to why they enjoy doing the cutaways that Parker and Stone busted their balls about.

“The cutaways they sort of see as a deviation from the story,” MacFarlane explained, “(but) we sort of see them as, in a weird way, kind of these animated versions of, like, one-frame ‘Far Side’ cartoons that are sort of, you know, something you can only do really, I think, effectively in the animation medium. And, you know, they’re just kind of laughs for laughs’ sake. You don’t have to know what’s going on with the plot. You don’t have to know what’s going on with character drive. They’re just pure comedy…we hope!”

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7/25/2007

TCA Press Tour: Insert “No ‘Bones’ About It, The Show’s Better Than Ever” joke here: I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again to give credit where credit is due: if it wasn’t for my wife, I wouldn’t watch nearly as much “Bones” as I do. As a diehard David Boreanaz fan, she was there from Episode 1 of the series to watch her boy in his new gig…and, not surprisingly, that meant that I was there a fair amount of time as well. It’s come quite a long ways over the past few years, with Emily Deschanel growing into her character…or maybe it’s her character doing the evolving; I can’t always tell…and the rapport between Deschanel and Boreanaz getting stronger all the time. Additionally, the ensemble cast has continued to gel, which only adds to the success of the show.

* The character of Zach Addy - played by Eric Millegan - went off to Iraq at the end of last season, but since Millegan was on the panel, it was reasonable for us to presume that he’d be back for Season 3. Before Millegan could answer, however, creator Hart Hanson interrupted, “Don’t verify it, Eric! Waffle! Just because you’re here on the panel doesn’t mean you’re back!” Millegan looked for a moment as though he thought Hanson might be serious, but when Hanson admitted that he was kidding, Millegan revealed, “Yeah, I’m back. And, gosh, I don’t want to give too much away, but he was sent home early. He was supposed to be in Iraq longer, and he was sent home early, and in the show we’re going to explore why he was sent home early and how he feels about that.”

* As far as Fox’s repeated threats to move the show to an invariably-deadly Friday night timeslot, Hanson stated with conviction, “We’re not going.” Would that he had the power to make that decision. “We’ll do what we can,” he finally said. “You know, FOX does what they can. They’re fair. They have a good plan. We’d just like to perform well enough that we don’t have to move to Fridays.”

* Speaking on the subject of the definite sexual tension between Booth and Bones, Deschanel offered a titillating revelation. “I think this season we’re growing deeper as friends and other things,” she says, “just deeper as a relationship, pretty soon. I mean, we investigate a certain kind of fetish that comes up in a crime that we’re investigating and that kind of brings up a lot of sexual tension and stuff between us.” (”Pony play,” cracked Boreanaz.)

Going on, Deschanel said, “And you can see how we have been affected by being left at the altar after Angela and Hodgins left their wedding and how that kind of affected us and how we’re forced in some way to face what we feel for each other. And you’ll see that at the beginning of the season, how we’re dealing with that.”

Boreanaz added, “You’ll see us very separate and apart and not kind of clicking, I think, in the beginning. Then you’ll see how that kind of gets back and working and how it sparks up again and the reasons why it works, the reasons why it doesn’t. Again, we can possibly throw in a therapist maybe to help us with our relationship in order to deal with the workplace, which I think is — I don’t think you’ve ever seen that on television, so I think that’s a really unique insight into how these two characters will grow with each other as the show grows.”

Hanson, however, got the last word on the subject…as is only appropriate for the show’s creator.

“We have a lot of really smart people chewing on that problem all the time,” said Hanson, “and, of course, I mean, everyone in this room is a pro. You know how it goes. We want to keep them apart as long as we can without annoying the audience. And there’s a number of ways to do that. We also — there are certain little valves you can use, little steam valves you can use to relieve pressure, and we’ll use every single one of them. I hope we’re deft enough to do it, to keep them as long as we can from them actually coming together as a couple.

“But, you know, it’s season three,” he acknowledged, with a laugh. “I think we’d better see something.”

* The episode from last season which featured a school shooting and was pulled in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy will be reworked and will appear later this season. Hanson noted, however, that at least one part of the episode will not make the revised version, due to it now falling outside of the show’s current chronology. “It was a great storyline and a very, very funny sequence between TJ and Michaela,” he says. “I hope we can put it on a DVD for people.”

* Stephen Fry will not, as it stands, be reprising his role as therapist Dr. Gordon Wyatt…but lord knows it’s not because the cast and producers don’t want him. “We love him; that guy is great,” gushed Hanson, “(but) he’s also a very busy man. I’m not sure there’s an American version of Stephen Fry. Maybe Gore Vidal crossed with Spalding Gray crossed with, you know — he’s a very, very busy man. And the dates that he’s available are — there’s not a lot of them. So he would love to come back, and we are going to try and have him come back as soon as we can and for as much as we can. He’s an amazing man. Amazing actor.” (When Deschanel added that Fry was “incredible” and that it “was a dream of mine to work with him, Hanson admitted that it was one of his, too.)

* Lastly, I wanted to satisfy my own curiosity and find out who was responsible for the concept of having Angela’s dad be Billy Gibbons from Z.Z. Top. (I mean, honestly, that sounds like one of those drunken jokes that turned into reality because someone decided to make a just-for-the-hell-of-it phone call to Mr. Gibbons.) When I posed the question, every single person on the panel immediately pointed to Hanson.

Hanson stroked an imaginary beard and looked skyward. “Billy Gibbons — wow, how was I going to meet him? Oh, I know,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I’ve got a TV show!”

When Hanson claimed that he felt very old when Boreanaz had to ask who Gibbons was, Boreanaz refused to believe that he’d ever made such a statement. “How can you not recognize him?” Boreanaz asked. “How can you not recognize this guy?”

Hanson followed up on that. “First, we had him just come in for the visual,” he explained. “You know, he’s instantly recognizable. But then, in the season-ender, he came and had a scene with TJ, playing Angela’s father, and it was a great scene, and he was great. So we have to have him back.”

T.J. Thyne, who plays Dr. Jack Hodgins added, “Billy had a really good time on the shoot. He really is a fan of show. He’s a fan of Hart’s. And he just — he was really kind of giddy. It was really great working with him. He was really excited, and I hope he gets to come back.”

This led to further waxing on the part of Boreanaz about guest stars in general. “I think it’s interesting,” he observed, “that the guests that have come on our show, like Stephen Fry, Billy Gibbons, Ryan O’Neal — great, respectful, huge work that they’ve done, but I don’t think we tend to cast this person to get a specific number, or we have to cast this specific person to get some more viewers to watch the show. I think the content of it is that these characters fit the roles that dictate these storylines, and I think that’s really interesting. And I think that is a testimony to the strength of Hart and the executives over here that make these decisions. You know what, these are great characters, let’s fill (the show) with people that make sense rather than go after the persons that could be larger but probably won’t fit.”

It’s true. And it’s probably one of the biggest reasons I enjoy “Bones.” Besides, of course, the fact that my wife makes me watch it.

I’m kidding, of course. But I should mention that, by happy coincidence, my wife was able to attend this particular panel with me and, at its end, got to meet Boreanaz personally.

You’re welcome, sweetheart.

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7/25/2007

TCA Press Tour: Jeff Foxworthy is my hero: I know, you think this is going to be a facetious posting, but, honestly, it’s not. Foxworthy hosted the “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?”-themed lunch during Fox’s TCA days…an event which found us critics receiving school kits, bags of Foxworthy’s beef jerky, school lunch trays bearing the show’s logo, and an inflatable globe…and I don’t think it would’ve been humanly possible for him to come off as a nicer, more genuine guy.

One of the writers asked Foxworthy what he thought about teachers utilizing the show as almost an instructional aid of sorts, and you could tell his answer was based not on what anyone else had suggested he should say if the question came up, but, rather, straight from the heart.

“You know what?” he began. “I think (teaching) is probably one of the most difficult jobs in the country and probably one of the most underpaid and appreciated. I expected, when I started doing this show, to get more mail from kids. I mean, there were kids who obviously didn’t know me as a comedian or know the ‘Blue Collar’ stuff. I have been amazed — and I see it in the mail every week that I get from teachers, over and over again - at teachers saying, ‘You have made it cool to be smart again.’ And they record the show and they take it into the classroom and they show the show and the kids are interested in it and they use it as a learning tool. So that was a byproduct of it that I didn’t even foresee when I started it. But to me, that’s one of the coolest elements, personally, away from the stage, that it has made it cool to be smart. You’re not made fun of for being a nerd. It shows kids going on TV and beating adults at something, and it’s with their brains. So, you know, hopefully, maybe this elevates education and how we deal with it as a priority in this country.”

Foxworthy is also very, very aware of the fact that the kids on his show are, indeed, kids first and foremost, and that something as inevitable as having them provide a wrong answer to a contestant on the show might well really upset them. “There’s always the risk of that,” he admits. “They’re not only kids, they’re humans, so they’re fallible. We were filming two days ago, and Cody was at the podium, and the guy decided to copy Cody’s paper, and Cody was wrong. And I looked over, and I thought Cody was going to cry. Well, if I had been standing where Cody was, I would have felt the same way that he did. But it’s like, I went back over to the classroom, I took Cody, and I said, ‘All right, come over here and look at the rest of the answers. Two of your classmates didn’t know the answer to that, too. So you shouldn’t feel bad about that.’

“It’s more important for me to be a good dad than it is to be a good comedian or a good actor or a good game show host,” continued Foxworthy, “and I have proven (it). I’ve turned down movies for the past three summers because I don’t want to give a summer away with my kids. I’ve always been very concerned about having kids on TV. It’s always made me feel very weird. When I did (’The Jeff Foxworthy Show’), Haley Joel Osment’s dad came and spent the day with me, and he said, ‘I really want to know what you’re about before I even allow my kid to come to work here.” So it’s always been a little bit of a weird thing for me with kids doing this. I love the fact that these kids this year, none of them have aspirations to be an actor. They’re just there because they like being smart and being funny. We have strict guidelines about how long they can work, when they have to take a break. If I have to err on one side of this, it’s always in their favor because, more than anything else, I want them to be kids. And the great thing about this, it’s not strung out over nine months like a sitcom or a drama is. We’ve shot two and a half weeks, we’ll shoot another week in August, and we’re done, so they get to have the rest of their year to go to their regular school and to grow up and be regular kids.”

Okay, sorry, those were big quotes, and it’s probably just because I’m really feeling my inner dad-ness today, but I just walked away from this panel thinking that Jeff Foxworthy is the kind of guy you wish every single celebrity could be, and I wanted to share that.

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7/25/2007

TCA Press Tour: Grammer, Heaton, and Willard go “Back” to TV: There’s so much that’s right about “Back to You” that it’s almost a little too easy to suggest that it could singlehandedly revive the traditional multi-camera before-a-live-studio-audience sitcom. And, yet, how can you not feel like that may well prove to be the case when its stars include a comedy trifecta in Kelsey Grammer (”Cheers,” “Frasier”), Patricia Heaton (”Everybody Loves Raymond”), and Fred Willard (just about every comedy ever) and its executive producers are Steven Levitan (”Greg the Bunny,” “The Larry Sanders Show”), Christopher Lloyd (”Frasier,” “The Golden Girls”), and James Burrows (just about every comedy ever)?

You see my point, I think.

Heaton said that it was her manager who originally pitched the idea that she and Grammer would make a good onscreen duo, but the idea appealed to her immediately. “It just seemed right,” she said. “I thought, ‘Oh God, me and Kelsey together would be a lot of fun.’ And what can we do? We’re thinking maybe college professors, maybe that should be it. He’ll be the old, dead, white male writers professor, and I’ll be the women’s lib professor, and we’ll do something like that. And it just kind of didn’t hear anything about it. And then I was doing this play in New York for 600 bucks a week, and they said there’s this sitcom, and I said, ‘Yes, whatever it is.’”

“That’s very flattering, Patty,” said Levitan.

“That college professors pilot sounds interesting, too,” nudged Willard. “Don’t forget that.”

Despite having played the character of Frasier Crane for decades, Grammer stands ready to dive headlong into another role. “I’m an actor. That’s what we do. I played (Frasier) as long as I did only because he remained interesting to play. This guy has a whole new set of difficulties that are equally interesting.”

Grammer also mused, “I like to think that based upon my knowledge of most television newscasting now, it has nothing do with the news, anyway. So I’m very happy to just be another performer pretending to be a performer.”

As far as the difficulties for Lloyd in seeing Grammer in a different light than the one he viewed him in as a producer of “Frasier” for so many years, Lloyd says there was a certain amount struggle in finding a new character for him. “We wanted someone that was obviously not Frasier again,” he explained, “but not so far away from Frasier that people would say, ‘Well, what, he’s a sheriff in Alaska?’ It had to be close enough to him that people could accept him, but also to utilize some of his great strengths. He plays big attitudes well, and pomposity. We wanted sort of a public forum for him, which is how we wound up on the news and using Steve’s background there.”

I’ll close with a great anecdote from Levitan, one which, by itself, is pretty much what has kept him considering a TV-news-based sitcom for all these years:

“There was an anchorman in Madison, Wisconsin, (and) when we were trying to come up with, ‘Well, what’s a good idea for Kelsey?,’ this guy sort of popped into my head. It was the night that John Lennon was shot, and it was very sad. They went to the footage around The Dakota and people crying. It was very sad. You know it was a very big moment for him. They came back to him, and he went, very dramatically, ‘Lennon is survived by his wife, Topo Gigio.’ That has always stayed with me. What’s so funny to me about local news is there’s this great narcissism pretending to be altruism. It’s just a wonderful place for a larger-than-life character to be a big fish in a small pond.”

Sold!

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7/25/2007

TCA Press Tour: The Gossip on “Gossip Girl”: That’s right, CW: rub it in.

Be sure we completely and totally remember that you cancelled “Veronica Mars” by starting a new show called “Gossip Girl” (based on the popular series of teen novels) and, for the voiceovers provided by the never-seen title character, hiring the former Ms. Mars herself, Kristen Bell.

(Frankly, I was surprised that there wasn’t more of an uproar about that during the course of the panel, but, no, the big question people wanted answered was whether or not Bell’s voiceover was a one-off for the pilot…and, if you’re wondering that, too, the answer is, no, she’s supposedly here for the long haul.)

So the good news about “Gossip Girl” is that one of its executive producers is Josh Schwartz, late of “The O.C.” and also currently an executive producer on NBC’s “Chuck.” Schwartz has always had a wit about him, as well as a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture, so that would appear to bode well. Unfortunately, from what I saw of the series, it really didn’t offer much in the way of that usual wit; it basically seemed to be yet another series about rich kids suffering through teen angst and shitty morals, despite (or possibly because of) having a buttload of money.

“Well, we’ll try to get funnier in the future,” replied Schwartz.

As to the despicable actions of some of these kids, from underage drinking to date rape, Schwartz says, “These are flawed characters, and they’re trying to do good, (but) in the environment that they grow up in, they don’t always have the best role models. They don’t always have an example set for them. But I think as long as we understand that they’re searching to do the right thing and that we see conquences for their actions, the world isn’t nearly as depraved as it appears to be. In fact, the Humphrey family (the main characters of the series) is an incredibly important component of that. I think they’re our audience surrogate. They’re our proxy, our way into that world, and they have a great perspective on that world.

“The sort of the money that those kids in Orange County grew up with was nice,” Schwartz continues, unabashedly referencing his former gig, “but compared to the these kids and these families, it’s chump change. This is really royalty, or the closest thing we have to it, these sort of young socialites-to-be. You have to be born into this level of wealth. So that’s a big difference. And these kids — you know, in Orange County, it was very suburban. It was very sort of protective. It was very safe. And those kids weren’t necessarily as well-traveled. And I think education is incredibly important to this crowd, and these kids are really worldly and very well-traveled as well.”

There is at least one moment within the plot that does seem to lend itsself toward amusing possibilities: Mr. Humphrey was apparently a member of a band that has been declared one of the Best Forgotten Bands of the 1990s. The name of the band? Lincoln Hawk, named after Sylvester Stallone’s character in “Over the Top.”

Okay, now that’s funny…

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7/25/2007

TCA Press Tour: Random Announcements from ABC: * Your obligatory non-answer about “Lost”: “(The creators) would need to address where the show will head,” said ABC President Stephen McPherson. “They have not released whether it will take place with flash-forwards or flashbacks. They pitched where they’re going this year and where the next two years will take us, and I honestly think that, now that we have this specific end date, it allows them to craft that story in the next 48 episodes they want they want, and I think that running the episodes straight through will be best way to (display) that.”

* “Dance Acts” is a spin-off in the works from “Dancing with the Stars,” based on a similar spin-off in the UK. The judges have teams of dancers, competing against each other.

* Dana Delaney is joining the cast of “Desperate Housewives,” along with the already-announced Nathan Fillion.

* Harold Perrineau will be returning to “Lost” as Michael…and, on that note, let me tell you about a moment during this panel which really, really grated on my nerves:

When McPherson acknowledged that the creators of “Lost” would be making an announcement tomorrow at Comic-Con, in San Diego, several writers just went apeshit about the utter ridiculousness that they would dare to bypass the Television Critics Association gathering in favor of a “fan convention.” Um…how about the fact that the shows are about their fans and not their critics? I mean, I didn’t even blink when they said that was going to be the case. Of course the fans should hear the info first, if it’s do-able…and if that’s what the creators want to do, then what’s the big honking deal? But, no, people kept pressing and pressing, throwing out statements about the state of the newspaper industry and how their editors would be upset if they found out that breaking news was available but wasn’t going to be given to them, and so on. Finally, it reached the point where someone actually called Damon Lindelof to get his permission for McPherson to give us the news, which was that nugget about Michael coming back.

As God as my witness, I hope Lindelof has more super secret info up his sleeve for the fans. If I was a fan, and it’d been built up to me that I was going to get exclusive info when I showed up for that panel, I would be pissed if I found out that, oh, sorry, the critics strong-armed us and made us give it to them first.

I’m just sayin’, is all.

UPDATE, 12:03 PM: I spoke to McPherson in the lobby a few minutes ago, revealed myself to be as much of a fanboy as a critic, and asked if indeed Lindelof had saved some exclusive information for the Comic-Con panel. He didn’t really confirm or deny - which I’d kind of expected, since he knows full well that my peers would probably pummel him if he they read such a thing - but he did acknowledge that the Comic-Con crowd would be getting far more access to Lindelof than the TCA is, since there’s no “Lost” panel at our press tour. Therefore, I think it’s reasonable to infer - if not an ironclad guarantee by any means - that, logically, the chances of the fans getting more information than the critics are pretty good.

Which makes me happy.

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7/25/2007

TCA Press Tour: More proof about that whole I’m-not-The-CW’s-demographic thing: I said it when VH-1 did a similar show, and I’ll say it about The CW’s new series, “Online Nation,” as well: with all the great writers in Hollywood who are putting their blood, sweat, and tears into new scripts, why in the hell must we waste time by putting together a half-hour show of what the new viral phenomenon is on the web? That’s why I go on the web; that’s not why I watch TV!

Nonetheless, that’s what “Online Nation” is about - hosted by Stevie Ryan, otherwise known as online sensation Little Loca - and it’s paired with another new series called “CW Now,” which focuses on the hottest new trends around the world and is hosted by Tanika Ray. But it’s what Lisa Gregorisch-Dempsey, who produces the latter show, said in the midst of her various comments about how “CW Now” will have advertisers but won’t have any traditional commercials during its 30-minute run time that made me feel really old.

“We don’t watch black-and-white TV anymore,” she informed the audience. “We don’t watch just scripted programming. Everything has evolved except for the commercials, and the commercials — we all know when they’re coming on because usually we TiVo through them. So we have to be really clever in the way that we do this. But the advertisers don’t have a say in content. I will never compromise the integrity of the content or a good story. It’s going to be very subtle the way we’ll do it. If Pantene, say, is an advertiser, I’m not doing a Pantene commercial in the body of the show. I may do something that flows out of it, like summer hair or holiday hair, which makes sense. When I was in news for so many years, if there was a plane crash, I would make sure I went through the entire show to make sure there was no American Airlines commercial. We have something called ‘the ick factor.’ We make sure that it just doesn’t feel icky. And there will be no overt, flagrant, blatant commercials because I wouldn’t be involved with something like that, and I wouldn’t watch something like that.”

Yeah, I dunno. Me, I don’t know if I’d watch something by someone who said that “we” don’t watch black and white TV anymore. But, then, I’m not actually in the same “we” that she is, so she probably doesn’t care whether I watch or not, anyway.

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7/25/2007

TCA Press Tour: “Life Is Wild” makes bid to become the “Daktari” for the 21st century…: …but how long will it take The CW to realize that it’s been forty years since “Daktari” and that there might not be a market for such a series in 2007?

Oh, wait: do you people even know what “Daktari” is? Sorry about that. Sometimes, I let my inner TV geek out to play and forget how to interact around normal human beings. Long story short, it was based on the movie, “Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion,” and it focused on the family of Dr. Marsh Tracy, a veterinarian at the Wameru Study Center for Animal Behavior, in East Africa, as they protected animals from poachers and whatnot. Basically, it was a pleasant family drama that gave producers an excuse to trot out lots of jungle beasts…and, honestly, that’s exactly what “Life Is Wild” is shaping up to be.

The panel for the show was a unique one in that the show is filmed in South Africa, so the cast appeared live via video, courtesy of a satellite link-up, but the conversation proved a little stilted at times, due to the few seconds of delay between us, and, ultimately, the most interesting part of the conversation wasn’t even audio; it was visual. A couple of the show’s animals, including a sleepy lion cub and a cheetah, appeared during the course of the event, and they were nice moments, but they left you wondering, “So is this what we can expect from the show itself? Will the opportunity to see these animals be the only real reason to tune in?”

You can actually see me in the lower left-hand corner of this shot. Note how hard I’m working.

Theoretically, the answer is “no.” At the very least, if the enthusiasm of South African actor Atandwa Kani is anything like his acting ability, he’ll be worth watching.

Of working on a big Hollywood production, Kani says, “It’s pretty amazing, because I think the only thing we see of Hollywood in South Africa is on TV and on the big screen. So when you have it, when you become part of it, and it becomes right in your face, it’s out of this world. It’s sort of surreal. I don’t think it’s hit me yet that I’m in this production. I don’t think it’s really hit me yet. And when it does, I think I’ll just faint, because it’s every actor’s dream to get to that standard, to the level in production that they produce. There’s a lot of South African actors that would love this opportunity. And to be in a production like this, it’s magnificent.”

I’m sure it is. And I’ll even give it a chance, because it really does look gorgeous. But I just don’t know if my interest will last…and I’m even more skeptical that the viewing audience’s will.

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7/25/2007

TCA Press Tour: Aliens Walk Among Us…And They’re Surprisingly Funny.: Okay, I admit it, I was totally not interested in checking out “Aliens in America” when I first heard about it. Neither The CW nor its originating networks - The WB and UPN - have ever been very good at their attempts to make me laugh; in fact, the only exception to that rule in recent memory has been “Everybody Hates Chris.” Even when I heard that the show was going through the dreaded re-casting process, replacing the show’s original dad with Scott Patterson, late of “Gilmore Girls,” I just thought, “Oh, God, if they’re retooling it, that can’t be good…”

But, then, I saw the talent working behind the scenes: co-executive producers Richard Day (”Arrested Development,” “The Larry Sanders Show”) and Michael Glouberman (”Malcolm in the Middle”).

Suddenly, I found myself reconsidering my initial brush-off.

I haven’t seen the entire pilot episode yet, and even doing so wouldn’t give me the full picture, since the original actor playing the dad - Patrick Breen - is in the pilot, but what I saw in the preview leads me to believe that “Aliens in America” might actually be worth watching. The premise involves Justin Tolchuck (Dan Byrd), a shy teenager, being thrust into a new friendship when his parents, desperate for their kid to develop social skills, decide to host a foreign exchange student; instead of getting the Nordic youngster they’re expecting, however, they end up with Raja (Adhir Kalyan), a Muslim from Pakistan. Justin’s parents - played by Patterson and Amy Pietz - are originally hesitant about this change, but, as these things work in sitcoms, the end of the episode finds Raja here to stay.

Will American / Muslim relations make for good comedy in this post-9/11 world of ours? Producer David Guarascio doesn’t see why not.

“I think that we’re sort of actually excited to push the envelope a little bit,” he says. “The best way to be funny is to not be afraid to be edgy and to take some chances and not be afraid to miss. But when you hit it, maybe you can sort of be funny and poignant at the same time. It’s not an indictment of the American psyche, but it might be helpful for some people to sort of potentially think about their own prejudices and whether they really know something or whether it’s just sort of ingrained. I think you’ll probably see, over the course of the series, that we’ll have people react to Raja in a variety of ways…and, certainly, we start with the Tolchuck family, where they’re all sitting around the dinner table together at the end of our 22 minutes. So I think we’re sort of making sure that all viewpoints are being expressed in that way.”

Guarascio also acknowledged a debt to one of the best high-school shows of all time, one which definitely places “Aliens in America” in good company. “‘Freaks and Geeks’ has definitely been a show that we thought was fantastic and admired and loved the honesty with which it sort of portrayed the high school experience, and that was definitely an influence in how we approached ‘Aliens’ and just wanting to be honest about the high school experience and still be funny. And that’s why — you know, it’s, looking back on it, some of the things that seemed quite terrible 20 years ago, you can sort of laugh at now, and that’s sort of the approach that we took.”

I’m withholding final judgment ’til I see how Patterson works within the context of the show - he’s absolutely nothing like the guy he’s replacing - but, at the moment, “Aliens in America” is looking to be amongst the best new sitcoms of the fall season.

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7/24/2007

TCA Press Tour: I am so not in The CW’s demographic…: …and, yet, somehow, they still managed to slip one of the best shows of the upcoming season into their lineup: “Reaper.” But more on that in a bit…along with details about a surprisingly promising comedy called “Aliens in America.” (I haven’t seen the whole episode yet, but the preview was hilarious.)

First up were the pair of announcements from The CW’s executive VP of communications, Paul McGuire, who looks a little bit like Darrell Hammond and, to the relief of the gathered critics, had pretty decent comedic delivery as well. (There’s really nothing more excruciating than watching a network exec get an attack of the flop sweats as they attempt to be funny when it goes against every fiber of their being. Well, maybe watching the pilot for “Cavemen.” But not much else.)

* Supergirl will be flying onto “Smallville” this season, played by Laura Vandervoort. She’s hot, she can fly…what more do you want?

* There’ll be two new cast members on “Supernatural” this season: Lauren Cohan and Katie Cassidy. Katie’s dad, it turns out, is David Cassidy. I was so, so tempted to find her at the party later that night and ask her what her dad’s deal was about only wanting to talk to press who give rave reviews to his albums - back story: I only kinda-sorta liked his recent Target-exclusive album of remixes, and my indifference led to the cancellation of an already-scheduled interview - but I restrained myself…mostly because my wife was with me.

After McGuire’s comedic monologue, he introduced Dawn Ostroff, President of Entertainment with The CW, who dropped the following tidbits:

* On September 18th, the new season of “Beauty and the Geek” premieres with a new twist: this time, there’ll be a male beauty and a female geek.

* The CW has extended their deal with Tyra Banks through the 2009-2010 season, which means that as long as it keeps performing, you’ll keep seeing her within the context of “America’s Top Model.”

* Waiting in the wings: an ensemble comedy called “Eight Days a Week,” starring Christina Milian, Mario Lopez and Justin Hartley and produced by “Will & Grace”’s Sean Hayes.

* “One Tree Hill” will be back with 22 new episodes…much to the annoyance of several of the critics, you could tell, since they - like me - would rather have seen the return of “Veronica Mars,” instead.

* This season’s new cringe-worthy reality show concept: “Farmer Wants a Wife.” Big city girls move to the country, and “Green Acres”-styled comedy hijinks almost certainly ensue.

* This season’s new cringe-worthy reality show in practice (or, at least, based on the clips I saw): “Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants.” Mother-daughter beauty pageants. It’ll probably be huge. But it made me want to run far, far away.

* Casting changes to new shows: Missy Peregrym, formerly the shape-shifting bad girl from “Heroes,” is now going to be on “Reaper,” while Scott Patterson - a.k.a. Luke from “Gilmore Girls” - will now be the dad on the sitcom “Aliens in America.”

* Chris Rock will finally appear in front of the camera on “Everybody Hates Chris” rather than simply serving as the show’s offscreen narrator. He’ll play a guidance counselor in the season premiere. (Further appearances aren’t currently scheduled, unfortunately.)

* No further movement on that long-rumored “Spike” movie. Says Ostroff, “We typically do not do movies of the week or miniseries. I never say never. You never know. Something could come up that just, you know, feels so right for us. But we have not had any conversations with Joss about the ‘Spike’ movie, although we would love to be in business with Joss in any way.”

* Asia, the winner of last year’s Pussycat Dolls series, has decided to go solo, thereby completely defeating the entire purpose of going through the season to become a member of the group.

* On the subject of “Gilmore Girls” wrapping up last season rather than lingering on for one for year: “We were looking at (the show) as the season was going on,” said Ostroff, “and I think that we all felt that the show had lost about 25 percent of its audience. Lauren Graham, who is, you know, the consummate professional and was truly fantastic to
deal with, as was Alexis — you know, we all talked about it. And I think that, at the end of the day, we just didn’t want to see ‘Gilmore Girls’ go on for another season and see the ratings go down even further. And I think we just felt that a lot of the stories had been told, and it was just time to move on. I was happy that the show ended on the two women, on the girls, because I felt that’s where the show started, and I was happy that that was the focus of how the show ended.”

* On the quick dumping of the much-tauted “Hidden Palms”: “We had ordered it as eight episodes,” explains Ostroff, “and we really saw it as probably a miniseries, a serialized miniseries of eight episodes. And if it were to catch on, we would have had the ability to do more episodes, but that’s really one of the ways that we talked about marketing it and having it on the air.”

* On dumping “Veronica Mars” after only three seasons, despite the loud clamoring of the show’s fans: “I can honestly sit here and I say I can not look back and have any regrets. I feel that we gave ‘Veronica Mars’ every chance,” declares Ostroff. “And as many of you here know, there was no stronger champion of that show than me. You know, we gave it a better time slot to follow up every single year that it was on the air. And eventually, we just had to say how much longer do we go on without the show really catching on? So the taking the show off the air for a while was not the demise of the show. We really tried every single year to figure out how we can bring more viewers in. We just weren’t able to crack it.”

To just close on a personal note, sorry, but I absolutely don’t buy that. “Veronica Mars” was a smart, funny, exciting series, and I refuse to believe that the network couldn’t have tried another timeslot or two to see if any of them worked any better. I mean, the diehards would’ve followed it anywhere they put it, so what would it have hurt?

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7/23/2007

TCA Press Tour: Have we learned nothing from “Cop Rock”?: Well, if we have, it’s only that if we’re gonna try to create a television show that blends a family drama about a casino in Laughin, Nevada, with singing, you’d better at least have a major star or two in the cast in order to up the “must see” factor…which might well explain why “Viva Laughlin,” CBS’s new “dramatic television show with music” (choice of phrase courtesy of producer Bob Lowry), features recurring appearances by Hugh Jackman and Melanie Griffith…and while I haven’t seen the pilot yet, in the clips we saw before the panel, we bore witness to the former making his entrance by way of The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy to the Devil,” while the latter cooed Blondie’s “One Way or Another” through a seduction scene.

I’m not saying there isn’t a certain amount of curiosity there. I’m just saying, when the curiosity factor has passed, will the series be able to maintain that level of interest when that responsibility lands on the shoulders of the show’s regular cast?

Maybe that’s why Lowry is, at least to a certain extent, trying to downplay the level of music in the series, throwing out the stat of “two and a half to three” when asked how many songs he was anticipating to appear per episode. “The way I get the fraction out of it,” he explains, “is sometimes we use a reprise.

“What I love about this show — one of the many things that I love about this show — is we always have about four balls in the air,” explains Lowry. “We always have the grounded stories in the casino franchise. We have a murder mystery which we need to have in the air. We have a family drama, we’re juggling that. And how these three areas interweave with our characters and how they play off of each other within these three different dramatic elements. And then, fourth is music. So music doesn’t really outweigh the other three. It’s a question of balance. And I think if we were excessive with music or if music weighed more heavily in these four elements that I’m talking about, then it would be perceived more as a musical. When we’re approaching these stories, we’re telling story first. And I tell them what we are doing is addre