New on TV: Blue Bloods

OK, I didn't watch the whole pilot episode, so take this for what it's worth. For what little I saw, this appears to be a servicable cop/family drama. I only saw scenes with Tom Selleck and Danny Walbergh, and while I liked them both there was too much stereotypical hot headed street cop in Wahlberg's character for my taste (would it surprise you that one of the scenes I saw involved Wahlberg's character getting information from a kidnapping suspect by repeatedly pushing the suspect's head into toilet water?).

The show did well, winning its time slot, and given the low to moderate expectations for Friday shows I expect it'll stick around. That's more than one can say for Outlaw, the NBC show about a Supreme Court justice turned lawyer for the little guy. It tanked, to the point where it couldn't best The Jay Leno Show's numbers from this time last season. That should be grounds for automatic cancellation.

New on TV: Hawaii 5-0 and Undercovers

It's premature to judge a series based on its pilot. As it's the episode made specifically to sell the series, you can have a ton of exposition that sets up the episodes to follow, or a lot of flash to get viewers hooked. This week, I've seen one pilot for each of these.

Hawaii 5-0 is the expositional one, as the hour delved into the creation of the 5-0 team and set up the back stories for each of the characters while trying to solve the murder of Navy officer Steve McGarrett's father. I didn't expect quite so much background from a series revival, but I think it was done because(a) current viewers under 40 have likely never seen an episode of the original, and (b) to differentiate the new version from the old for those of us who have seen it.

Getting past all of the set-up, the pilot did have a fair amount of action and more violence than expected, which I suppose gives the show a push towards the spectacle area. This, as well as the broad charge the governor of Hawaii (played by Jean Smart) gives McGarrett, makes me fear that this will be less a cop show and more a tropical riff on 24. Even so, I'm still going to give it a chance, and based on the ratings (the pilot won its time slot, and will likely be the most-watched new show of the first week), I'm not alone. Maybe we're all just happy they didn't mess with the theme song all that much.

Undercovers falls more squarely in the latter category. A married pair of retired spies is goaded back into service by a CIA handler (Gerald McRainey) to find a former colleague who has gone missing. In the course of the hour, the newly reinstated spies travel to three countries, con their way into a bank to see ATM camera footage, crash a wedding to steal information off of a cell phone, skydive, get involved in a rooftop fight and handle crises related to a wedding reception (the pair entered catering after leaving the Company). It's slickly done, has attractive leads with good chemistry, and promises a dashing mix of spy work and domestic semi-tranquility.

And yet I do not plan to watch it again. I just never quite engaged with the show. It was too light to take seriously, and just a bit too serious to completely lose any expectation of reality. When someone who devotedly watched Lost through all of the time travel, glowing island hearts and polar bears starts to think that a show is implausible, you may have a problem.

I'll also admit to feeling like I'm going to get burned again. The pilot to Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was also energetic, featured attractive leads with good chemistry, and moved at a pace that made an hour seem like it was five minutes. And then the whole thing caved in on itself and got cancelled. One bitten twice shy, I suppose. I'll happily wait for whatever JJ Abrahms has cooked up for Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn.

Cop No Killer

So we finally watched the Grey's Anatomy finale a couple of weeks ago, and for all of the upheaval (for those who don't watch, a gunman was loose in the hospital and shot a number of people, killing many, including two of the new supporting characters) there was one scene that really irritated me.

One of the main characters was trying to sneak out and get blood for her boyfriend when she encountered the shooter. He was planning on killing her (she unplugged his wife from life support), but the gunshot we hear wasn't from his gun, but from a SWAT team member. The shooter takes the bullet to the left shoulder. After which the shooter gets up continues to wander the hospital, shooting at least one more person before taking his own life - seconds before a phalanx of SWAT cops enter the ward where he's holed up (in the room where his wife died, which seems like the first place you'd station someone once you learn the identity of the shooter).

While I'm not an expert on SWAT procedure, it seems kind of odd to me that the cop that shot the gunman didn't advance, either to help protect the doctor or to check the status of the gunman. At the least, he'd radio in a position so his colleagues could move in. But neither seemed to happen.

This just seems careless, either for the writer who stuck it in here to add a little tension or for the director/producer for perhaps not ordering scenes in a way that would make sense. It's kind of a thankless task to expect logical thought from this show - seeing as logical thought would have prevented something like 95% of the romantic entanglements from ever happening - but this once, it wouldn't have hurt.

Bring Out Your Dead for 2010

I've once again set out to prove what little I know by entering the Ted Marshall Open, the Interweb's greatest TV dead pool. Ten shows, 20 points per show that gets canceled with bonus points based on how you rank your choices. My picks for the year:

1 - Smallville - widely announced as being in its final season, so easy points. I could have had even more easy points if I'd remembered that As the World Turns was packing it in this season. In my defense, this is the first year that non-prime time programming is eligible, and I thought that whatever long-running soap was ending had already done so.

Still, left points on the table, which is galling.

2 - Outlaw - I don't think it gets any worse than Friday at 10 on NBC for a time slot. Throw in a show with an odd premise (roguish Supreme Court justice steps down to take cases for ordinary folk) and it seems like a goner. Makes me wonder just who Jimmy Smits pissed off.

3 - Hellcats - a pre-law student needs money for school, so she parlays her gymnastics experience to get a scholarship as a cheerleader. It looks like it's trying to meld Glee with the Bring it On franchise, but as it's on the CW it will fail at both. It's also in the post-America's Next Top Model slot, which you think would help but never does.

4 - Raising Hope - Most of what I've read about this show is not positive.

5 - Defenders - I know two wrongs don't make a right, but with my luck Belushi and O'Connell will combine to win a Peabody.

6 - Chase - this story of a US Marshal and the criminals she tracks down just feels generic. It's also about 10 years too late to benefit from The Fugitive.

7 - Better With You - speaking of generic, here's the latest attempt at a multi-generational family romantic sitcom. I swear there's like a dozen scripts in a cave somewhere and the networks just change the names around every time they try this. My only fear with this show is that, nestled in ABC's Wednesday comedy block, it will be inoffensive enough to survive.

8 - Bob's Burgers - I'm hoping that this will be the season's Goode Family, existing only to provide faintly humorous content in a space that needs temporary filling. I can't see it cracking Fox's existing Sunday of animation.

9 - Running Wilde - this show scares the hell out of me, as it seems so ridiculous on its face that it should be a lock for cancellation. But you throw in Will Arnett and you think anything is possible.

10 - Shedding for the Wedding - some random NBC mid-season reality show that I assume is about brides trying to lose weight to get into their wedding dress. I suppose I'm way out of the target demographic for this, so I may be misjudging how it'll do. Or it'll be so bad that it won't air at all, either way.

Of course, there are some shows that made the top ten shows picked by all contestants that I didn't choose. They are:

Outsourced - the potential for this to fail is pretty high, and if it veers to far into lame ethnic stereotyping it's not going to last. But NBC was pretty tolerant with its sitcoms last year (thank you for renewing Community, BTW), so I left this off. It's the second most popular consensus pick, which usually means cancellation but not always (both Gary Unmarried and The Ghost Whisperer got a second season after landing in this spot; maybe you just need to be a CBS show to survive?).

Detroit 1-8-7 - thought of it, had some mixed reviews, but then I thought it might be a nice dose of action against The Good Wife and Parenthood. So I left it off, even if I do think it's the dumbest name for a new show this season. It's the consensus third-place show.

My Generation - I really should have put this in, as this is the sort of show I hate, with its fake nostalgia and forced surprise that the future you dream of as a teen rarely, if ever, comes to pass. I'm kind of pissed at myself now for not picking it. It's the fourth place pick, which just confirms that I should have trusted my instinct.

The Event - the latest attempt at forging drama out of government conspiracy. I'm not sure about it, but I'm hoping the current political climate makes it more appealing. Maybe Glenn Beck or one of his crowd will start referencing it like it's a documentary. That might help.

The Good Guys - there could be worse things than an old cop-new cop show. Like Bradley Whitford's sunglasses and mustache. Not crazy about the Friday time slot, but given the competition it could win regularly.

No Ordinary Family - I can see why this is on here, as it's really high concept and follows the collapse of Heroes a little too closely. Still, I think making this about a family rather than strangers is a nice direction, and I can't complain if I get to see Julie Benz on my TV every week. But I can see where this could go wrong quickly.

So there it is. Look for my complaining throughout the season.

Summer Season Selection

Quick hits on what I've been watching this summer:

The wife has gotten us into Wipeout, ABC's MXC ripoff. It's an hour of people falling into mud, getting coated with paint, and getting mocked by John Anderson and John Henson. The mocking isn't that funny, but watching people get decked by rotating padded arms is worth a guffaw.

We're apparently too lazy to then change the channel, as we're also watching three shows that come on after Wipeout. One is the Canadian cop drama Rookie Blue, which is more or less like every other TV show about rookie cops, except that the lead female character is apparently a former model turned cop (or so I assume, based on her appearance, we've not really watched the show closely enough to know if that's actually her backstory).

Then there's Downfall, a game show where contestants answer trivia questions to win cash and prizes. The twist is that as time goes on, the loot moves down a conveyor belt and, eventually, off the side of a building (the show takes place on its roof). The contestant can even get dropped off if all of the prizes go over. Theoretically, host Chris Jericho can also get dropped off, I assume if someone wins the $1 million top prize. As the contestants appear to be from the same excitable but somewhat dim contestant pool that most game shows use, Jericho is safe. Anyway, not a great show, either, but at least you get to see crap fall off a building.

Finally, there's Boston Med, the docu-series following doctors, nurses and patients in three Boston hospitals. I've only watched this in passing, and to my eye it seems like they spend a lot of time on the nurses, which should be to no one's surprise.

I was watching Through the Wormhole, the Science Channel's series about big universal questions hosted by Morgan Freeman. As much as I love Freeman, and as interesting as the topics are (episodes have covered time travel, whether there is a God, and what existed before the Big Bang), I never quite clicked with the show, and have given up.

We're also recording The Choir, BBC America's reality show about a choir director who puts together a singing group out of high school students with little to no musical background, which he then takes to an international competition in China. I'm sure its presence on the schedule is due in large part to the success of Glee, though outside of the superficial similarities they're very different.

And of course I've got the new seasons of Eureka and Mad Men to watch, so I'll be lucky to just get caught up before the new fall season starts.

Close the Branch

I was going to go into this whole thing about how The Office can't go on without Michael Scott, but then realized it's a widely-held enough proposition that it doesn't exactly need my analysis to prop it up. That being said, I do think there are three ways one could keep the show going without Michael Scott to kick around.

1. Bring in David Brent. As unlikely to happen as Michael Scott staying, but it's the best shot the show has to keep going on and going on well.

2. Retool the show around younger staffers. You know, like the last season of Scrubs.

3. Nudity. Moreso Pam than, say, Kevin.

There is talk that the show will carry on, and that the ensenble cast is strong enough to keep the show going. That's probably true. Maybe they can go the Murphy Brown route and have a different guest star as manager every episode. Anyway, it certainly can go on (what else does NBC have to air?), it just shouldn't go on.

Upfronts: The Recap

While I'm tempted to list the winners and losers of upfronts, I'm having a hard time decided who the losers really are thanks to the relatively mediocre line-ups we've been handed. It may be enough to say that networks lost by not trying to win. 

That's with the exception of CBS, whose schedule shake up puts them in a position where they could win every night (well, maybe not Saturday, but no one really cares about Saturday). They won't, at least on a regular basis, but they could. That's more than any other network can say.

As far as individual shows go, there is no show that makes me think that I really want to see what it's about. The closest I get is interest in how CBS revives Hawaii 5-0. There is some potential out there - Outsourced could be the last piece NBC needs for Thursday nights, and I'll admit some interest in No Ordinary Family - but there's not much else out there that really grabs me.

The only other thing of note that I have is that there's obvious knock-off shows this year. There isn't the usual rush by all networks to find the next Lost or Grey's, and we don't have multiple networks mining the same specific topic (like the year there were three separate alien invasion shows). That would normally be a good thing, but this year, I think I'd have at least found more humor in the attempt.

Upfronts: The CW

For a network focused on pulling in the youngest viewers, there are a surprising number of aging shows on the CW lineup for next season. Only two new shows for next season, helped by the network sticking to its plan to program weeknights only.

What's gone - Melrose Place would be the most notable cut, given how the network pushed for the show to match the same relative success as 90210. Casting Ashlee Simpson may not have been such a great idea, in retrosepct. The Beautiful Life, the network's latest attempt to translate the success of America's Next Top Model into episodic TV, also got the hook. Among the others, I only stop to note that I never knew there was a show called Blonde Charity Mafia. The name alone cried for cancellation.

Day by Day -

Monday: 90210 moves over to partner with Gossip Girl, which seems like a good idea. Why have one hour of backbiting rich kids when you can have two?

Tuesday: One Tree Hill moves in with adoption drama Life Unexpected. Which is fine, I guess.

Wednesday: America's Next Top Model continues, and will lead in to Hellcats, which follows a pre-law student at a Memphis university who,after losing financial aid, parlays her youth gymnastics experience into a spot on the school's cheerleading team, leading the usual backstabbing and Bring it On-type shenanigans. I think.

Thursday: The Vampire Diaries leads in to Nikita, a show about a woman who was recruited to become a spy and assassin as a teen, and who had now turned against those that trained her, an outfit known as Division. Meanwhile, they keep turning out teenaged spies, one of whom is beginning to see why Nikita decided to turn. This should sound familiar, it being the basis, more or less, for two feature films and a previous TV series.

Friday: Brings Smallville and Supernatural together, in a sensible pairing, even if Smallville seems like it's been around since 1994. This is supposedly the show's last season, which seems at least one season too late. I can't say I'm thrilled about the network playing the usual game of sticking its sci-fi/fantasy type series on Friday nights, but if the network really does skew younger it may not be a bad move, as most of the fans should be too young to go out to bars.

I can't say this is the worst lineup the CW could have come up with, though they may be trading stability for some of their younger viewers. That also may not be the worst thing if they can bring in a few more viewers in their 20s. Still, I don't see them threatening NBC any time soon.

Upfronts: CBS

You're the most-watched network on TV. What do you do for the upcoming season? Retool and look to maintain your status in the new decade.

What's gone - A lot, but nothing huge. The most notable cancellations mark the dismantling of CBS's Friday nights, which they've owned the last couple of seasons. Both Ghost Whisperer and Numb3rs are gone, as are sitcoms The New Adventures of Old Christine and Gary Unmarried, among others. The most notable drama cancellation outside of Friday was Cold Case, though that was fairly well expected.

Day by Day

Monday: The Big Bang Theory moves out, and Rules of Engagement moves in. Replacing Accidentally on Purpose is Mike and Molly, the latest creation from Chuck Lorre. It focuses on a couple that meets at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting and are now trying to build a relationship while shedding pounds. If nothing else it's refreshing that we'll have some fat people on TV, even if they're only Hollywood fat.

The day ends with the revival of Hawaii 5-0, about which I'm of two minds. I love the original (I could watch '70s cop shows all day), but am concerned with the new version, which sounds like they've moved 24 to the islands. That and they've made Kono a woman, though I'm OK with that given the casting of Grace Park in the role.  Speaking of casting, Daniel Dae Kim gets to stay in Hawaii, moving from Lost to play Chin Ho Kelly. I also approve of that, but for very different reasons.

Tuesday: Stays the same with NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles and The Good Wife. No need to mess with success.

Wednesday: The night kicks off with Survivor, which moves from Thursday in the network's biggest change for an existing show. It will pair with Criminal Minds and a new show, The Defenders, which is sadly not a revival of the great 1960s courtroom drama that starred E. G. Marshall and Robert Reed. Instead, it stars Jim Belushi and Jerry O'Connell as Las Vegas defense attorneys. Honestly, your eyes kind of glazed over right after "O'Connell," didn't they?  

Thursday: The Big Bang Theory lands here to kick off the night, which is now tailored to take on NBC's comedy bloc and ABC's dramas. It's paired with $#*! My Dad Says, which I am fairly certain is the first TV show ever based on a Twitter feed. In it, William Shatner plays the dad whose inappropriate comments become Internet fodder for his son Henry. They also target the other son, played by Will Sasso, and his wife, played by Nicole Sullivan. I don't know about this one - the Twitter thing seems like a gimmick to dress up a family sitcom - and there's always the fear that Shatner will be, well, himself. That could be a great thing, except when it's a horrible thing.

The night is rounded out by CSI, the original, and The Mentalist.


Friday: Medium moves up an hour to kick things off, and is then followed by CSI: New York, which makes me think that it'll disappear at some point so they can trot out NCIS: Random Coastal City. The night closes with the new drama Blue Bloods, which tells the story of the Reagan family, who have served the NYPD for generations, from the patriarch (and former chief) to the current chief (Tom Selleck) and his sons (Donnie Wahlberg and Will Estes). Bridget Moynihan plays the only Reagan woman, who as a girl apparently can't be a cop, so she's an attorney for the DA's office (and a single mom, hello art portraying life). There's likely some promise here, as the cast is good and Friday's not a bad night for a show that might be a little by the numbers.

Saturday: Two hours of Crimetime Saturday followed by 48 Hours Mystery. I suppose we should be thankful that they're running new programming at all.

Sunday: Mostly unchanged, as 60 Minutes, The Amazing Race and Undercover Boss all return to regular times, joined at 10 by CSI: Miami. Sunday at 10 seems later for a police procedural; it certainly didn't do Cold Case any favors.

So there you have it. Not sure if all the movement will bear fruit, but it's good to see CBS isn't being complacent. Just temporarily insane when it green lighted The Defenders.

Upfronts: ABC

So what's in store for the Alphabet next season?

What's gone - Well, Lost, of course, though that's the only show ending of its own accord. Notable cuts that I don't think were already known include Scrubs (which never should have come back), Better Off Ted, and, most annoying for me, Flash Forward. I liked that show quite a bit, and never felt like it quite got the right treatment, from its placement on Thursdays with Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice to its lengthy hiatus for the middle of the season.

Day by Day -

Monday: The winning formula of Dancing With the Stars and Castle returns. I also had Castle on my dead pool list, so things go from bad to worse.

Tuesday: Starts off with No Ordinary Family, which is about a family that survives an airplane crash in the Amazon and discovers that they've developed super powers. I know there has to be Lost/Heroes crossover fiction online, but I didn't think you could get a TV show based on it. It does start Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz, so perhaps it won't be a complete bust.

This is followed by an hour of Dancing With the Stars results show (snore) and a new cop drama, Detroit 1-8-7, which with the numbering sounds soooo 1995. I would like to think of this as a Great Lakes version of Homicide, but I'm reserving judgment.

Wednesday: The successful comedy block survives and is supplemented with Better Together, which revolves around three couples - one long-dating but not married, one getting married after just weeks together, and one the parents of the women in the other couples. I can't say I'm impressed, but I suppose it's just different enough from The Middle and Modern Family to have a shot.

The night ends with The Whole Truth, a legal drama that's supposed to be inventive because it shows how cases develop from both sides. I suppose that is a little different, but I don't know how that makes this any more compelling than any of the other legal dramas we've been subjected to over the years. Rob Morrow and Joely Richardson star.

Thursday: Grey's and Private Practice return, and are led in by My Generation, which returns to a group of people who were the subject of a 2000 documentary their senior year of high school to see how things have panned out.   I can't say I'm interested, but it's probably better suited for the night than Flash Forward was.

Friday: Starts with Secret Millionaire, which is Undercover Boss but with rich people moving to the ghetto to find the "unsung heroes" and give out some money to ease their consciences. This is followed by Body of Proof, which has Dana Delaney playing a surgeon who, after an accident that ends her surgical career, becomes a medical examiner. She, of course, uses her drive to discover not only what killed people but who. She also has to work on getting back into the good graces of her family, which she mostly ignored while building her surgical career. This might not turn out so bad, especially if it's played more for a family-centered audience than some sort of Quincy rehash.

The night ends with 20/20, which I don't think ABC is aware that it can cancel.

Saturday: College football in the fall, followed by repeats or movies or porn or something in the spring.

Sunday: Unchanged.

There are ton of mid-season shows in the offing, most notably Off the Map, a medical drama from Shonda Rhimes that puts doctors with baggage in an jungle clinic, and Mr. Sunshine, which stars Matthew Perry as the assistant manager of a sports arena who is re-evaluating his life now that he's turned 40. Off the Map sounds like a solid bet to replace My Generation and give us an entire night of soapy doctoring, while Mr. Sunshine co-stars Allison Janney, which is always a good thing. V is also returning at some point, and I'll just have to be happy about that.

Not sure if all of this is enough to stop ABC's casual slide, but I don't quite see another blockbuster in this group.

Upfronts: Fox

Fox is premiering more shows than I expected, but as they're doing their usual split season schedule I suppose it means more new TV for us. Whether that's a good thing remains to be seen.

What's gone - The big news is that 24 is done, though there'd been talk about that going into the season. I'm sure the Tea Party folks will find a way to blame this on Obama, too. Also out are Til Death, Past Life, Brothers, Sons of Tucson, Dollhouse, Out Little Genius (which I'd not heard of until seeing it listed as a cancellation), Sit Down Shut Up and The Wanda Sykes Show.

Also gone is Simon Cowell, whose long-expected departure was finally confirmed. No word on who will replace him, though I'd vote for Toby Young from Top Chef. He doesn't know music, but he as the acerbic wit and British accent required for the job.

Day by Day -

Monday: House shares the night with two shows. The fall will bring us Lonestar, which is sadly not about the character from Spaceballs. Instead, it's a Dallas meets Big Love soap about a Texas oil tycoon who has two families - and two identities - in separate parts of the state. Can he bleed both dry before being caught? Will I even pretend to care?

The spring will bring Ride-Along, where we take a passenger seat view of crime fighting in Chicago. The overblown description of the show makes it sound like a pulp novel come to life, though I think they thought it would evoke shows like The Wire and EZ Streets. I'd be marginally interested if the press release synopsis didn't try so hard to make it sound gritty.

Tuesday: Glee starts the night in the fall, followed by two new sitcoms. Raising Hope sees a young man at the center of a dysfunctional family cope with his infant daughter, who he gets to care for when he discovers a past fling had the baby while in prison. That half hour of cheeriness is followed by Running Wilde, which is apparently what you'd get if you crossed Ed with Arrested Development. Will Arnett stars as the spoiled heir to an oil fortune (what's with all the oil money?) who is trying to get the one thing he could never buy - the love of Emmy, the daughter of the Wilde family maid, played by Keri Russell. The set-up seems ridiculous, but that wasn't a problem for Arrested Development, so why would it be here?

For the spring, Glee and Raising Hope moves to Wednesday to make room for American Idol, and we get another new sitcom, Mixed Signals, a male-centered relationship show about which I can only say it features Roy from The Office.

Wednesday: Lie to Me returns and is paired with Hell's Kitchen. I have no idea why, but I find this combination amusing. In the spring, we get Raising Hope, a 30 minute AI results show (at least until Raising Hope is put on permanent hiatus) and Glee.

Thursday: Bones and Fringe remain on Thursday for the entire season, showing that Fox can resist the impulse to mess with something that works.

Friday: Human Target got renewed and lands here, I assume to draw in all those young males who stay home to watch TV to start the weekend. This also costs me a hit on the Ted Marshall TV Dead Pool, which is not going to go well for me this year.

For the fall, it shares the night with The Good Guys (assuming it survives its summer debut). It features Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks as cops, one "old school" and one "by the books." I'll let you decide who plays which stereotype. Once this show is over or canceled or whatever, it gets replaced with Kitchen Nightmares, which continues its sad approximation of the superior British version.

Saturday: Cops and America's Most Wanted, which we can pretty much pencil in here for eternity.

Sunday: The animation block of The Simpsons, Family Guy, The Cleveland Show and American Dad continues, and once football is over they'll be joined by Bob's Burgers, a show about a crappy burger joint and the man who runs it (along with his family). The press release goes into some detail into the neighborhood surrounding Bob's, which makes me think they realize the main premise about the annoying guy and his requisite quirky family - is a little thin. Good thing Fox canceled King of the Hill so they could show us this.

Not scheduled but mentioned as a mid-season replacement is Terra Nova, a family drama that's part Lost in Space and part Land of the Lost. Initially set in the mid-22nd century, the show follows the Shannon family as they are sent back to prehistoric times to join a settlement which aims to prevent some of the missteps that have irreversibly damaged the planet in their present. Compounding things is some sort of dark family secret that puts the Shannons at risk of getting sent back, as well as a potential conspiracy within the settlement.

There are some big names involved with the show - Spielberg most notably, but also veteran TV guys Brannon Braga and David Fury. This could be the most interesting show of the year for Fox, assuming it doesn't morph into Avatar: The Series.

Upfronts; NBC

Not surprisingly, there's a number of new shows on tap for NBC next season. That's what happens when your plan to fill five hours a week with a half-baked attempt at a prime time talk/variety show achieves its destiny by tanking. Still, it's not as bad as they year ABC brought on something like 25 new shows. So what's on tap?

What's gone - the two most notable cancellations are Law and Order and Heroes, neither of which was a surprise given the amount of chatter about cancellation beforehand. Mercy and Trauma also got the official axe, ending months of being on TV's version of a permanent vegetative state.

Night by night - here's how NBC's schedule looks as of now:

Monday - Chuck returns, thrilling its dozens of loyal fans. (That's a joke, save your hate mail).  It will be paired with two new shows. One is the conspiracy thriller The Event, which sees an "Everyman" uncover what's described as "the biggest cover-up in US history" while investigating the disappearance of his fiance. The cast has some notable names (Blair Underwood, Laura Innez, Zeljko Ivanek), but from a first reading it comes off as Vanished 2.0, which is a problem given how few of us were interested in the original.

This is followed by Chase, a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced hour about a team of US Marshals who try to catch America's most dangerous criminals. Nothing really jumps out at me from the description or the cast, and if not for Bruckheimer's name I'd think this generic sounding show would be toast by Christmas.

Tuesday - Two hours of The Biggest Loser followed by Parenthood, which against all odds seems to be working.

Wednesday - This is likely going to be NBC's most talked-about night of programming going into the season. It starts with Undercovers, the post-Lost project of JJ Abrams. It follows a married couple - who met as spies and retired when they fell in love - who get back into the espionage game when a friend of theirs disappears while investigating a Russian arms dealer. As with Chase, I don't know if this would really interest me without Abrams' involvement. I am more likely to check this out than Chase based on Abrams alone, but I do fear it's going to go the Alias route.

This is followed by Law and Order: SVU and Law and Order: Los Angeles. I can't say I care about either, and while the franchise will likely benefit from the west coast reboot, I don't know that we need yet another show involving LA-based cops and lawyers.

Thursday - Almost unchanged, as the quartet of sitcoms in residence this season will return, just with a slight change of times (30 Rock and Parks and Recreation are swapping time slots). With Parks and Rec slated to return in the spring, the fall will bring us Outsourced, where an employee of a midwestern novelties company is sent to India to oversee its new call center. Wacky culture clashes ensue, which could be an amusing twist on a popular business phenomenon or a half-hour of poorly done ethnic jokes ("Did you ever notice that Bengalis drive like this, while Kashmiris drive like this...). Still, I'm hopeful.

We then get an hour-long comedy to end the night, Love Bites, or more accurately, Love: New American Style. Becki Newton (Ugly Betty) and Jordana Spiro (My Boys) play friends who are still single, and its around them that each week's trio of romantic plot lines will turn. The show promises an edgy and irreverent spin to things, though I don't suppose it'd promise to be sappy, would it?

Friday - Brings back Dateline NBC and the celebrity family tree-tracing Who Do You Think You Are?, and adds to it Outlaw, which features Jimmy Smits as a Supreme Court justice who quits the bench so he can defend the little guy. There's a suggesting that this won't be as hokey as it sounds - Smits' character is supposed to be a bit of a rogue, and the idea that he'll use his inside knowledge of the justice system may bring us some juicy moments - but this does not sound promising. This is apparently the show that NBC bought from Conan O'Brien, I'm assuming because they felt bad about what they did to him.

There is also the reality show School Pride, where a team goes all Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on a run down school, with the idea that a better facility will translate into a better student body. It's not the worst idea, either for TV or education.

Saturday - repeats

Sunday - Football for the fall, and the combination of Dateline, Minute to Win It, and Celebrity Apprentice in the spring. In other words, NBC will own the night for half the season and take a knee for the other half.

The Replacements - there are a number of shows waiting in the wings for the inevitable failures. For dramas, we have The Cape, where a cop framed for murder by his crooked department goes into hiding and fights the corrupt system in the guise of his son's favorite comic book hero, The Cape. This is sadly the better of the relief dramas, as Harry's Law looks to combine Six Degrees and Eisenhower and Lutz by creating a strip mall law firm out of people who just kind of run into each other.

The sitcoms are even less interesting, as you have rehashes of Friends (Friends with Benefits), How I Met Your Mother/Rules of Engagement/Any Show Featuring a Group of Married People (Perfect Couples), and Curb Your Enthusiasm/It's Garry Shandling's Show (The Paul Reiser Show). I really, really hope Outsourced doesn't suck. And as bad as these sound, they're no worse than a lateral move from The Jay Leno Show.

Sentenced to Death

So you've likely heard the big news leading up to this week's upfront presentations by the major networks - after 20 seasons, NBC is finally giving the axe to Law and Order: Original Recipe. There's been some talk that NBC would let the show carry on to give Dick Wolf the honor of creating the longest-running dramatic series in prime time history (a mark it will now share with Gunsmoke, though the western aired more total episodes), but given NBC's sorry state, it's a smart move to clear out a series that's clearly past its prime (though for me, the show never quite got over the loss of Jerry Orbach, whose Lenny Briscoe was the quintessential New York detective).

And it's not like Wolf and company are going to be crying poor mouth. Law and Order: SVU is expected to carry on, and NBC's likely to announce tomorrow that they're picking up a Los Angeles-based version of the original show. So while the show that started the procedural craze (for better or worse) may be gone, it's offspring will continue to chug along.

More on the upfronts as they happen. That's pretty much the whole reason I started this blog in the first place.

Water Cooler Talking Points - Lost

(As this is pretty much the only show I watch in something approximating real time, I figured it was time to bring back the Water Cooler Talking Points, five items that will give you a rhetorical foothold in an office conversation about the show.)

During the show tonight, the unLocke remarked to Ben that the last thing that went through actual Locke's mind was that he didn't understand what was going on. With that fitting metaphor for the Lost viewing audience out of the way, here's the skinny on what went down.

1. The bomb worked. Last season ended with Juliet detonating the h-bomb, a scene repeated to start this season. The explosion fades into Jack on the Oceanic flight, and while he looks a little confused at first he snaps back into passenger mode after some turbulence doesn't result in the plane going down (we also get a graphic depicting the island - including the DHARMA huts - completely underwater, apparently for some time). Over the course of the first hour we see Rose and Bernard, Sawyer, Kate, Charlie, Hurley, Sun, Jin, Boone and Locke. And Desmond, who wasn't originally on the flight. There are a few other differences - Charlie tries to kill himself in the lavatory, and Hurley now considers himself lucky as he's still won the lottery and successfully bought his chicken franchise. At the end of the hour, the plane lands in LA without incident.

2. The bomb worked? The second scene of the episode is the explosion, which now fades into Kate coming to in a tree... within sight of the post-failsafe Swan crater. Most everyone is accounted for, lastly Juliet, who is buried under a bunch of metal in the middle of the crater. Sawyer gets to her, but she dies before she can tell him something important. Sawyer recruits Miles to help bury her, and uses his talking to the dead mojo to find out she was going to tell him the bomb worked. Which, after a fashion, it did, as this group is back in the present that has the undead Locke and company over by the statue. Speaking of Locke...

3. Locke=smoke monster? After talking about Jacob's death, the unLocke sends Ben out to get Richard. Some of the other Agira passengers (who are apparently Jacob's bodyguards - and well done there) enter the statue and shoot at unLocke. Followed shortly by an appearance by the smoke monster, who kills all of them (including a guy who got in some sort of protective circle of ash or sand; the monster figured out a way to knock him out of the circle without entering it). Locke later apologizes to Ben for having to see him like that, suggesting that the smoke monster is what is also possessing the unLocke.

4.Going to the temple and we're gonna get cured. Back at the Swan hole, Hurley is with Sayid, who is bleeding badly. While he's alone with Sayid, Jacob appears to Hurley and says that he needs get Jin to take him to the hole in the wall of the temple. He does (along with most of the others), and once they enter they get jumped for their trouble. They're led to a temple, where the powers that be decide to shoot them - until Hurley says that Jacob sent them and that they need to save Sayid. A message inside a huge ankh suggests the same thing, and they take Sayid to a spring. One which no longer runs clear. Sayid is held in the spring - more correctly under the water of the spring - and he dies.

5 Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles. Kate manages to knock out her escort in the only deserted bathroom in LAX, and escapes with some help from Sawyer and from the escort's gun, which she uses to hijack a taxi and its passenger, the very pregnant Claire. Jack, meanwhile, has learned that his dad's coffin has gone missing, and the airline has no idea where it is. At this point he meets Locke, who had his case of knives go missing. A brief chat leads Jack to offer a free consult to Locke, with the goal of proving that his irreperable spinal injury can in fact be fixed.

6. There's gonna be a shoot out. Back at the temple, Hurley talks to the powers that be (a guy who speaks Japanese and his hippie sidekick) about Jacob, and mentions that his visit was portmortem. This freaks the powers out something fierce, and they begin to barricade the temple and spread ash/sand around, all aimed at keeping "them" out. They set off a rocket, apparently to warn fellow templars about the danger. The signal surprises Richard, as does the unLocke, who has come outside and greets Richard by (a) saying he's happy to see Richard out of chains, and (b) beating the tar out of him. The unLocke expresses his disappointment at the crowd and then picks Richard up and starts walking (we assume to the temple). The last scene is back at the temple, where the hippie seeks a private audience with Jack. Jack declines, and the hippe starts to make a deal out of it until Hurley interrupts. It seems that Sayid is not quite dead yet. He sits up and wonders aloud what happened. As do all of us watching.

The Beginning of the End

Unless you've been living in a hole (or don't watch ABC), you know that tonight kicks off the final season of Lost. There's a level of fan excitement about this that's unusual, I think. Most fans would prefer that their favorite shows go on forever.

The difference with Lost, I think, lies in the questions. There's a desire to learn the reason behind every little secret, and the only way that will come close to happening is to have the show end. We should be happy that they're doing this in a thoughtful way and not running the risk of another Alias, where it seemed like things were slapped together solely to get the show to a conclusion.

Even so, I think there may be a little too much expected from tonight's episodes. My simple warning is that the folks behind the show have spent five years piling on questions while only providing a handful of answers. They have the entire season to even accounts, and it's safe to say that they'll use every single second to do so in a way that's organic. Not that the books will balance by the end; the folks behind the show have been very clear that there will be some questions left unanswered. Your call as to whether its out of deference to the story or because some of the questions are just too hard to answer in a way that's consistent with the rest of the show.

Not that there aren't other attractions to this season. We're going to get to see some of our favorite characters from the past (I'm hoping for some significant screen time for Mr. Eko), and there's been talk about a new narrative structure for this season, which given the way time is used on this show may mean anything.

In the end, I guess I'd say try not to get irritated if they don't throw out a bunch of answers tonight. Instead, savor the anticipation of each new episode while you can.

The Late Shift Redux

You've likely heard by now that Jay Leno's nightly 10 pm show on NBC is toast, and that after the Olympics the network is moving him to 11:35, where he'll do a half-hour show, with Conan and Jimmy Fallon each moving a half-hour later (no word on what happens to Carson Daly, who can't really move a half-hour later as it would put him into time held by the affiliates). The move has raised two major questions.

1. Will Conan stay or will he go?  I'll admit to having no idea how Conan's contract is worded, but most stories on this note that he'll have to approve the move, and that rather than doing so he could walk away and start up on another network (Fox gets mentioned here most often, followed by ABC).

There are arguements both for and against Conan leaving. On the pro-leaving side, there's the idea that this suggested move is an indication that NBC still favors Jay, so sticking around makes no sense. There's also the lure of creating a new franchise and helping another network develop a late night presence. And, of course, there's the benefit of getting away from NBC, a network apparently incapable of engineering a smooth late night hosting transition. The move could also allow Conan to return to New York, which seems more like his sort of town.

On the other hand, Conan is the host of the Tonight Show, the most venerated property in late night. It's not something one gives up blithley. Also, there's a good chance that this move will only last this season, as if the new late night Leno show fails to deliver (which is almost certainly the case), it would go away and allow Conan to return to his rightful place at 11:35. There will be damage to repair, but if Conan could build a following out of his meager Late Night debut in 1993, he can do the same here.

I'm guessing that Conan will walk if NBC commits to this plan. It's clear that he's going to be second fiddle to Leno until Leno decides to drive off into the sunset.

Then there's the other question:

2. What is NBC going to show at 10 o'clock for the rest of the season? It's not easy to fill five hours of programming a week, but NBC may be less screwed here than they seem, as:

• Friday Night Lights will be back, and can either take up an hour at 10 or allow another show to move.
• Law & Order will also be back, and while it's currently scheduled it's also got some history as a hole-plugger. Ditto for Dateline, which you have to figure will get at least one 10 pm slot.
• There are a variety of USA network shows that could be run, including Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Burn Notice, Psych and White Collar.
• They could order more episdoes of Trauma, which they cancelled but then brought back for a limited number of new episodes.
• They could also monkey around with their unscripted shows, as they have a new season of The Apprentice and Jerry Seinfeld's The Marriage Ref coming this spring and could, theoretically, hustle America's Got Talent into an early premier (though that would be reaching). Heck, why not a special week-long return of Deal or No Deal?

Most, if not all of these ideas would fill time rather than build an audience. Based on the way the Jay Leno Show's ratings fell over the course of the season, that's probably enough. Personally, I'd like to see them give some of the USA shows a tryout, but I expect we'll get retreads.

While there's still a great deal of uncertainty in this situation, there is one thing that is absolutely certain: this is a good year to be pitching a new show. NBC's going to need several come September.

Back From Hiatus

With the new TV season heading towards the halfway mark, it seemed like an appropriate time to write my first entry on the new season. Why wade in when everything is new and confusing?

It turns out that we've picked up very few new shows, which isn't particularly surprising given the number of shows we're already struggling to watch in something resembling a timely fashion. Of all the new shows, we're watching Glee (based on the pilot preview in the spring, smart move there), FlashForward, V (technically we're not watching it yet, but we're taping episodes), and Community (which the wife has bailed on but I still watch).

I'm not addicted to any of them, but I do like each of them in their own way. I'm a little irritated that both Glee and FlashForward are going away until the spring, but that does give us some catch up time with the DVR.

We never sampled the ABC's new lineup of Wednesday sitcoms, probably to our detriment given how well they've been recieved (excepting Hank, of course). We've also never ventured into Jay Leno's new show, but we didn't watch his old one, either.

I am finding that my interest in three returning shows has waned considerably. I'm at the point where I'm not even recording Heroes, and while I plan to catch up through on demand or online viewing, I could see it not happening. I really don't like any of the directions the show is taking this season.  I'm feeling more obligated than interested in Desperate Housewives and America's Next Top Model, but still watch both. Model in particular is a sad case, in that it's gotten very tired but is unlikely to get a makeover of its own (or canceled, even). I miss the days where the models drank (though it's easy enough to relive them given the reruns that are cropping up on various channels).

The only other thing to note is that I did manage to watch the most recent season of Mad Men in roughly the same period in which it aired. I have to say it was pretty depressing until the last episode. Hearing Lane Pryce wish Saint John Powell a Happy Christmas after getting fired was a welcome laugh after a season of watching the Draper marriage crumble.

So that's where things more or less stand now. More later, hopefully before May.

New on TV: Three for the Nerds

There's a trio of new shows I've been watching this summer, and while they have little in common, all appeal to the inner (or outer) nerd, one each on public, network and cable TV.

Taking them in that order, we'll start with PBS' Time Team America, a kind of History Detectives spin-off where a team of archaeologists visit sites and give the researchers regularly at the site three days of extra help, often using tools not readily available to the regular team.

The typical story arc of an episode is as follows:

Day 1: arrive at site, dig some trenches, use the geophysical instruments to survey.
Day 2: use the survey results to dig more trenches. Find random bits of pottery no bigger than your thumbnail. Survey some more, as a decent chunk of yesterday's data is inconclusive.
Day 3: Dig a bit more, and hopefully find something other than pottery. Maybe a post hole.

As this suggests, the biggest problem with the show is the lack of actual finds. While that's probably true of how archaeology works, it does not make for particularly riveting television. The host, who is also the team's artist (do archaeology teams regularly employ artists?), tries to pull things together and add background by interviewing various people with a connection to the site. He's also not the most dynamic person; at times it's like the show is being hosted by a somewhat annoying TA.

I'm also not a fan of the team's logo - which appears in the credits and on their vehicles - or the use of Coldplay's "Speed of Sound" as theme music. That'd have been a great choice if the show debuted in 2005.

Moving to network, we have Defying Gravity, a multinationally-produced series that ABC picked up for a summer run. Set in the 2050s (with flashbacks from approximately 5 years before the show's present), we follow the eight person crew of the Antares as they set out on a six-year mission to visit seven planets. The only problem is that there's something calling the shots on the mission that is not part of the International Space Organization. To this point it's only referred to as Beta, and it's monkeyed with the make-up of the crew and has taken one other member back to an ill-fated mission to Mars.

Add into the 2001: A Space Oddysey mix some notable romatic entanglements, including a married couple split up by Beta's shenanigans and a flight engineer (played by Ron Livingston) who had a one-night stand with another crew member (before she became an astronaut) but who is having regular booty calls with a different crew member. The show was apparently pitched as Grey's Anatomy in space, but I don't think we're quite at the point where the show is Grey's Astronomy. It's still too much involved with the oddities, from an Indian crew member who went on an unscheduled EVA with his statue of Ganesha after getting bumped to the aforementioned female member of the one night stand hearing baby cries (care to guess how the one night stand ended?). Odder still, none of the other crew seem suspicious that she keeps on asking them if they've heard something when no one else has.

It's not a great show, but it's good enough for the summer.

Finally, we have SyFy's Warehouse 13, which follows two Secret Service agents as they go about the country to claim objects of unusual power, which then gets stored in the title location, which is somewhere in South Dakota. The agents have a Scully and Mulder sort of relationship, only not as entertaining. They also seem a little slow, as in at least a couple of cases I managed to sort out what they needed to do before they did. Considering I only watched three or four episodes before removing it from my recording list, that's not so good.

I did like Saul Rubinek as the warehouse administrator and CCH Pounder as the program's shadowy leader, Mrs. Frederick (she should be on every episode). There's also a bit of a steampunky vibe to the show, from computers using manual typewriter keyboards to personal communicators in tin cases called Farnsworths, but there weren't enough of those elements to keep me watching.

Oh, and in a related noted, the rebranding of the Sci-Fi Channel to SyFy doesn't do anything for me. I suppose it loosens things up so they can show crap like the ECW and Ghost Hunters, but I fear that this is the start of a slide that sees the network go from something that covers a niche pretty well to one that, in an attempt to find a broader audience, loses identity.

New on TV: The Great American Road Trip

At the start of this NBC summer reality show, the host makes an important point when he tells the competing families that this is not a race. And given the nature of the show - seven families going from Chicago to LA in RVs while competing in challenges along the way - it was hard not to think (with reference to a similar CBS show) that is is also not amazing.

That being said, the show isn't awful in any obvious way. The host, Reno Collier (a comedian best known as Larry the Cable Guy's opening act), is game if not particularly dynamic. The families, as you'd expect, come from the various elements of our great melting pot/salad bowl. Just with more "energy." And in the case of the family from Texas, a set of gigantic fake knockers.

But I digress.

The point of the show is that the families drive their RVs to a location with some historic impact (such as Lincoln's home in Springfield, Illinois) and compete in a task. The winner gets a prize, while the bottom three families participate in another challenge, with the loser there going home. In the first episode, the yuppies from Westport, Connecticut, who saw their education as their greatest asset, lost in large part because they forgot that the shortest distance between to points is a straight line. I'm sure that'll keep them up nights in their McMansion.

And, of course, there's drama along the way, but as it's a family show the drama is more light comedy than something from Chekov. The Alabama housewife and Yonkers dad have a desperate moment while trying to come to grips with the uses for "youse" and "y'all." The Yonkers mom accuses the downstate Illinois family of cheating. The Long Island daughter throws a tantrum over gummy worms. Woo.

So while it's not particularly worth seeking out, it's not the worst a network could do for a summer series (ABC's The Scholar, for example). Just don't expect anything surprising.

2009-10 Season; Friday

There are a couple of notable changes on this second-least watched night of TV.

ABC - They probably have the biggest one, as Ugly Betty moves over from Thursday to anchor a night stuck between Supernanny and 20/20. There's two schools of thought on the move. The first is that Betty is being banished to Friday due to ratings that have been sagging over time and are now more appropriate to Friday nights. The other, as espoused by ABC Entertainment president Steve McPherson, is that they can use Thursday and the Grey's Anatomy/Private Practice pairing to help Flash Forward debut strong and build an audience.

I tend to fall in the former camp. Betty has seen its ratings diminish, and a declining show is least likely to survive on ultra-competitive Thursday nights. If it manages to bring its current fan base to Friday, the show would be a qualified hit. I don't know if Betty will boost the evening as a whole - I don't expect the intersection of Betty and 20/20 viewerships to be that great - but it has to be an improvement over Wife Swap, doesn't it?

CBS - Will continue to dominate Fridays thanks to The Ghost Whisperer and Numbers, which are now flanking Medium, picked up from NBC's scrap pile. Medium is kind of in a similar position to Ugly Betty in regards to bringing fans over (with the added difficulty of a new network to boot), but where it's going to a well-established night of programming it'll have more of a cushion, I'd think. It should also be less risky than bringing in a new show.

Fox - Opens the night with Brothers, a sitcom about a former NFL player who moves home to help his brother, whose restaurant is struggling, but then may wind up home for good if his mom has her way. What makes this interesting is that the show starts actual former NFL player Michael Strahan, who has plenty of charisma but hasn't acted much outside of Subway commercials. The cast includes Darryl "Chill" Mitchell, CCH Pounder and Carl Weathers, which should help to even things out if Strahan is a little uneven.

Brothers is paired with Til Death, which was off the air for most of this past season. It'll return in the summer on Sundays before moving to Fridays in the fall.

Perhaps the biggest surprise from Fox was the return of Dollhouse, Joss Whedon's drama about sexy secret agents who have their memories erased after each job. There wasn't much hope for the show when it premiered, but apparently Fox still feels bad about axing Firefly and is making amends here. If nothing else, it's the perfect capper to a strange night of TV.

NBC - If you were wondering if anyone actually tries to win the 49 and over demographic, this night may be your proof. It opens with Law & Order, now in its 20th season of ripping stories from the headlines. It's followed by Southland, the LA cop drama that was a surprise pick-up. It ends with Leno. If any night is AARP-approved, it's this one.

The CW - Limps into Friday with Smallville - it's still on! - and reruns of America's Next Top Model. For this they cancelled Everybody Hates Chris. It's official: The CW is the suckiest bunch of sucks to ever suck.

2009-10 Season: Thursday

Easily the night with the best programming across the board.

ABC - They've decided to break up their female-friendly night of programming by moving Ugly Betty and replacing it with Flash Forward. This high-concept drama takes place in the aftermath of every person in the world blacking out for two minutes and 17 seconds, during which time they get a glimpse of their future.

Does this sound like something that would go with relationship dramas? Not particularly, which makes me worry for this intriguing show. Shorts ads for it did run during Lost this past season, and it seems like those two shows would air together. And perhaps they will - assuming Flash Forward survives.


CBS - Returns with Survivor and CSI, and moves The Mentalist over to create a very strong night, likely their strongest of the week.

Fox - Pairs Bones with Fringe, which doesn't seem like an obvious paring but doesn't sound disastrous. There's also an interesting comparison to ABC, given that these shows have female leads but don't center around their loves lives. It'll be interesting to see if Bones - which is popular but not exactly a ratings-grabber - can boost Fringe, which fared OK in its inaugural season.

The CW - Opens the evening with The Vampire Diaries, which seeks to make hay off the Twilight craze, which seems like smart move but I don't know if the die-hards are going to cotton to a rip-off. It's paired with Supernatural, which makes sense. This could wind up being a decent night for the former Frog.

2009-10 Season: Wednesday

Remember when I said Tuesday was the night you could skip out and not miss anything on TV? Well, Wednesday isn't much better.

ABC - Throws an entire night of new shows at us, five of their total of eight new shows for the season. Four are sitcoms:

• Hank, starring Kelsey Grammer as an ex-tycoon looking to make his way back to the top;
• The Middle, a Roseann ripoff starring Patricia Heaton;
• The Modern Family, a documentary-style show about the different styles of families out there and how they operate and interact, starring Ed O'Neill;
• and Cougar Town, starring Courtney Cox as a newly-divorced mom getting back into dating.

ABC apparently showed the entire pilot of The Modern Family during its upfront, and at least one critic (Aaron Barnhart of TV Barn and the Kansas City Star) reported that it was pretty well-recieved. That's a good thing, as based on ABC's press releases they all sound like they were generated by the Sitcom9000.

The network ends the night with Eastwick, a drama based on the movie The Witches of Eastwick. Sadly, this is not the only show on Wednesday based on a 20+ year old movie.

Really, a pretty thin night for ABC, but it's probably enough to keep them in third place until they cancel some stuff and bring back Lost.

CBS - Will battle for first place for the night, starting with The New Adventures of Old Christine and Gary Unmarried, moving to Criminal Minds at 9 and finishing with CSI: New York. Solid night all the way around.

Fox - Opens with results shows (So You Think You Can Dance or American Idol) followed by one of two new shows. The first is Glee, the high-school dramedy that aired its pilot earlier this month to good reviews. The oddity is the other show, Human Target, which stars Mark Valley as a man whose job is to get close to potential targets of violence so he can become the target in order to save lives. I don't quite understand how this fits in with a night otherwise dedicated to singing and dancing.

NBC - Starts the night with the other show based on an ancient movie, Parenthood. This is the second go-round in trying to make this into a TV series, and I don't know why it will do any better now. It will move aside in the spring for Mercy, a medical show that's Grey's Anatomy from a nurse's perspective. Had NBC been thinking they'd have combined this with Trauma so they only had one Grey's ripoff on the schedule. That or they'd have scheduled them for the same night and time so that one runs into the other. Viewers may not even notice that they are different shows.

Law & Order: Criminal Intent follows at 9 and Leno wraps things at 10.

The CW - Gives us the next cycle of America's Next Top Model, and follows the unscripted show about model with a scripted one, The Beautiful Life. I wouldn't expect much from it, except that the cast has something for everyone - Elle Macpherson, The OC's Mischa Barton and High School Musical's Corbin Bleu are all in the ensemble. So this may actually work, or at least work as well as anything on The CW does.

2009-10 Season: Tuesday

After looking at the tentative schedule, if you were looking for a night to do errands or otherwise not be in front of your TV, this might be the night.

ABC - Wraps the results show for Dancing With the Stars around two new shows. The early one, Shark Tank, is an Americanized version of BBC America's Dragon's Den, as entrepraneurs present their ideas to a panel of five self-made millionaires in the hopes that they'll provide seed capital. Sounds find in concept, and hopefully the producers here will remember how NBC failed to turn Last Restaurant Standing into a success with Chopping Block.

On the other end is The Forgotten, which sees a group of amateur sleuths work to put names to unidentified murder victims, with the hope that an ID will help lead to an arrest. Reiko Ayelsworth, best known for playing Michelle Dessler on 24, is part of the cast. This may be enough of a twist on the police procedural to work, and having Jerry Bruckheimer involved should help, too.

In the spring, the first two hours will change to a show to be named later (I'm hoping it's the V remake, which sounds atrocious on principle) and a sitcom block of Scrubs and Better Off Ted. Both are somewhat surprising additions to the schedule. Scrubs got a proper send-off, and will now apparently toil on without Zach Braff. The surprise for me with Better Off Ted returning is that ABC managed to keep the right midseason sitcom, as they could have brought back In the Motherhood.

To my eyes, ABC has the best line-up for the night, which is depressing as I really don't feel compelled to watch any of these shows.

CBS - Looks to replicate the success of spinning off CSI into different locations by giving us NCIS: Los Angeles in the 9 pm slot, airing after the original NCIS. I don't know if that's such a great thing, though I suppose it's a way to build an audience with current NCIS viewers who may potentially follow the show to another night later in the season. The new show stars Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J, though once I hear the name "Chris O'Donnell" I start to look for the remote. I'd be surprised if this brings in enough viewers to make the cancellation of The Unit look like a smart move, though I may be underestimating the loyalty of the average NCIS viewer.

The 10 pm spot is filled by The Good Wife, the latest show to cast Juliana Marguiles as a lawyer. In this show, though, her character returns to practice more than decade after leaving to be a full-time mom, forced to pick things up again after a public sex and corruption scandal lands her husband in jail. The cast looks solid, as it includes Chris Noth, Josh Charles and Christine Baranski. If it's done well, this would be the best pick for the 10 pm slot for the night.

Fox - Will bank on reality for the night, with So You Think You Can Dance? in the fall and American Idol in the spring. I can't imagine they'll go a full two hours for Dance each week, especially with an hour-long results show the next night. Then again, Fox does like to milk hours with reality performance programming, so I'm sure they'll find a way to fill the time.

In the spring, AI will share the night with Past Life, about a pair of "detectives" who determine if your current problems are being caused by who you were in a past life. Um, no.

NBC - Dedicates pretty much their entire non-Leno programming in the evening to The Biggest Loser. In the spring, they'll cut the show to 90 minutes and add 100 Questions, the sitcom about the woman who has a wacky romantic anecdone for each of the 100 questions on a dating service survey. I guess it fits with the expected Loser demographic, but I can't help but have visions of quick-cancelled shows like The Ex-List and Emily's Reasons Why Not floating in my head. They'd have been better off snagging Samantha Who? off of ABC's discard pile.

The night ends with Leno at 10. Get used to that.

The CW - Brings back 90210 and adds to it a new version of Melrose Place. Laura Leighton and Thomas Calabro return from the original, and Ashlee Simpson appears as one of the young, new tenants. If only the network did three hours of programming a night, we'd be guaranteed a revival of Models, Inc. next season. Oh, to dream...

2009-10 Season: Monday

Monday offers up our first taste of split-season goodness, as three of the five networks have separate schedules for fall 2009 and spring 2010.

ABC - Will stick to the reality that's been successful on Monday, with a new installment of Dancing With the Stars in 2009 and The Bachelor in 2010. Backstopping both at 10 pm is Castle, the Bones meets Murder, She Wrote drama that one assumes will follow in the footsteps of mid-season premiers like Eli Stone and October Road and not make it past next season.

CBS - Keeps How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory and puts Accidentally on Purpose in the 8:30 slot. The show stars Jenna Elfman as a woman who gets pregnant after a one-night stand and decides to keep both the baby and the father, a younger guy whose immaturity makes Elfman's character think she has two children to raise. There are various friends and family members who offer her help and advice, as well as an ex-boyfriend (played by Grant Show) to keep things interesting. Sounds OK (though I assume it depends on how much you like Jenna Elfman), and it should last the season at least protected by the other sitcoms.


CSI: Miami rounds out the evening at 10.

Fox - Splits the season, with House in the 8 pm hour, with the 9 pm hour split between Lie to Me in the fall and 24 in the spring. Seems like a solid night for Fox, assuming they can get Lie to Me to build a bit.

NBC - The Peacock opens the season with Heroes at 8 and first-responder drama Trauma at 9. I don't quite think these shows go together all that well, but if Heroes couldn't mesh with the now-departed Medium I suppose it may not make that much difference.

In 2010, we start Mondays with Chuck, a surprise renewal given that the show wasn't mentioned during NBC's "infront" presentation earlier in the month. It pairs with Day One, the show about life after a massive infrastructure failure. I don't know if these shows go together all that well either. With both Heroes and Chuck firmly on the fence as far as ratings go, there's a real chance that all four could get axed at the end of the season if things don't go well.

And then there's the grand Jay Leno experiment, which sees him on at 10 pm every weeknight. I don't know if this is much of a risk, as Leno has a built-in fan base and (I assume) the show has production costs similar to reality programming, making it easier to turn a profit. It may also bring back fans who would watch The Tonight Show if it were on earlier. Probably not the most coveted viewers, but any viewers are welcome in this economy. Still, I'd be very surprised if it won the time slot on Mondays.

The CW - Gives us Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill. The former should keep doing well with its expected target audience, while One Tree Hill seems a little vulnerable with the loss of a couple of its stars. Still, this is probably their strongest night.

2009-10 Season: Sunday

OK, I missed the upfront presentations this week (as the four of you who still read this know, the wife and I had a baby last week, and as expected all of our schedules are out of whack). Instead, I'm going to look night by night at next season's schedule and mock the networks that way. All of this is based on the schedule grid posted over at The Futon Critic. We start with Sunday.

ABC - stands pat with a lineup of America's Funniest Home Videos, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters.

CBS - Returns 60 Minutes, The Amazing Race and Cold Case. They add in Three Rivers, a medical drama focused on an organ transplant team. There's a fair amount of Grey's Anatomy in this one, from the young female resident trying to live up to a legendary parent to the womanizing surgeon. It's going to air opposite Desperate Housewives, which seems like a bad idea.

NBC - has football for the first half of the season, and for the second half goes reality with Dateline NBC, yet another edition of The Apprentice, and something called The Marriage Ref, which sees celebs provide advice and guidance on marriage for non-famous couples. Because if there's any group of people known for rock-solid marriages, it's celebrities. Really, I have no idea why anyone would tune in to NBC once Sunday Night Football wraps for the year. And on that note, I would like to request a new version of the theme song. I'm getting a little sick of Faith Hill.

Fox - Finally gives us The Cleveland Show, the long-awaited spin-off of The Family Guy that features Cleveland Brown moving back to his hometown in Virginia to reuinite with his high school sweetheart. It can't be worse than American Dad, can it?

In 2010 Fox will add the live-action Sons of Tucson, the story of three boys who hire some guy they met at a sporting goods store to pose as their dad because their actual dad has gone to prison. I find this oddly intriguing, even though it doesn't really entice me to watch.

The CW- gave Sunday nights back to their affiliates, which is probably for the best as they've never been able to program the night correctly. Though I wouldn't have objected to them keeping the night in order to save Everybody Hates Chris. But more on that later.

American Idol - Four to Go

Last year, I handicapped American Idol when it got down to the final four, so I figure I should do so again this season. However, thanks to the magic of the DVR, I'm six weeks behind. So take these with an even larger grain of salt than usual (remember, I had David Archuleta at 1-4, and look how that turned out).

Kris Allen - I don't have much of a read on him, as he didn't get a lot of focus during the early part of the season. He's done pretty well in the first couple of episodes (and clearly does well going forward), but to me he's still a bit of a non-entity, at least compared to the other three. I suppose he'd be the "cute" one who makes the top five but never wins. I don't expect he'll be the guy to break the streak. But I may be underestimating him.

Odds of winning: 15-1

Danny Gokey - Unlike Kris, Danny did get a lot of attention in the early going, between auditioning with his best friend (who did not make the semifinals) and his tragic backstory (his wife died due to complications from heart surgery). But he sings well enought that he'd probably have made it this far regardless. Paula predicted he'd make the finals, and I can't say that I disagree.

Odds of winning: 6-1

Allison Iraheta - Allison was clearly the best of this season's subpar group of women. That she's made it this far isn't particularly surprising, as (from what I can tell) she's been very consistent and performs well in her rocker niche. Like Syesha Mercado last season, she's well-positioned from a demographic standpoint, as she's not only the lone remaining woman, she's also the only remaining teen and the only non-white competitor still in the field. While that didn't work out so well for Syesha, it may help that Allison appears to actually have a personality.

Odds of winning: 7-1

Adam Lambert - He's the other person Paula put into the final in her early season prognosticating, and despite a scare last week he seems like he'll make it. And while I don't dislike Adam per se, I can't say he's a fave. I'm not a fan of his emoish look, and in close ups I could swear we're looking at someone closer to 37 than 27.

As for his ability, he clearly has the greatest command of his voice. It's just that he likes to take it to odd, screechy places that, while technically impressive, don't do anything for me. But it does get people talking, as noted by his performance of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire," done in a style very similar to that used by Dilana Robichaux on Rockstar: Supernova (which Randy Jackson attributed to Jeff Buckley for some reason).

That being said, it seems like Adam tones it down enough in later weeks to get unceasing praise from judges and mentors alike (or at least that's what I've read), so he seems to have the inside track.

Odds of winning: 5-2

Upfronts 2009 - NBC

It's that time of year again, when the network bring in the advertisers and try to con them into buying air time during the coming year's programming. NBC kicked things off today with an announcement about the shows that will make up its 2009-10 season, but not the tentative schedule (that's coming later this month, which is when most of the other networks are scheduled to make their announcements).

Anyway, here's what the Peacock has on tap.

Old Shows - NBC announced most of their pick-ups earlier in the year, but we did learn that both Heroes and Medium will be back, while Chuck and My Name is Earl are getting the boot. It would not have surprised me if things went the other way around, though, as none of these shows set the world on fire this season.

I'm also interested to see that Law & Order: SVU is back, but there's been nothing said yet about the original. I assume it'll be back, though I could see it being held to plug a hole somewhere.

Knight Rider, Kath & Kim and Life are all also missing from next season's offerings for the time being, though out of the three I figure only Life might find its way back on the schedule, though I doubt it given that they're bringing Southland back.

New Shows - Most notable here is Jay Leno's new show that'll air each weeknight at 10 pm. I can't say I'm particularly interested (I can't recall the last time I watched a full episode of the Tonight Show), but I figure it will do reasonably well, or at least be cost-effective. I still think this is also motivated by NBC's inability to find solid dramas. They're happy to limp along with the L&O franchise and partner with DirecTV to keep Friday Night Lights afloat, but the vast majority of NBC's hour-long shows haven't been the most inspired offerings.

Which leads us to Parenthood, a second attempt at bringing the 1989 movie to the small screen. This one may go better than the first attempt, as the cast includes Maura Tierney, Peter Krause, Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia. Ron Howard and Brian Grazer also appear to be involved (or have at least allowed their names to be used in conjunction), so their input may also help. Still, it's a show based on a 20 year old movie. I expect next season we'll get a bold, contemporary re-imagining of Mrs. Miniver.

Still, this looks better than the other three dramas:

• Trauma is the latest attempt to center a drama around paramedics, which hasn't been successful since Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe played EMTs on Emergency! - in the 1970s.
• Mercy is Grey's Anatomy if the female doctors were nurses. There's even a new doctor for the lead nurse to get entangled with, as if we weren't already sick of the same thing going on at Seattle Grace Hospital.
• Day One follows a group of people who all live in the same southern California apartment building when a "global catastrophe" plays havoc with the infrastructure that keeps us alive. I'm assuming the episode where one of the building-mates gets eaten by the others will kick off fall sweeps.

NBC also announced two new comedies. One, Community, is about the wacky goings on at a community college. I'm leery of college-based shows, as they tend not to do well, but this may do OK buried among the other returning comedies. Even if the cast includes Chevy Chase. The other sitcom 100 Questions, is a romantic comedy where the female lead recounts humorous anecdotes that related to one of the titular questions, which make up a survey offered by a dating site the lead is joining. Ugh.

There are also three unscripted shows in the mix, which I won't bother to describe, though one features self-help guru Anthony Robbins. He's either five years too late to the party or will single-handedly revive the reality genre (and I can tell you which way it's going to go on my series of eight one-hour cassette tapes, on sale for a bargain price of $149.95).

Prognosis - somewhat unclear without seeing how the shows are going to be scheduled, but there's not much here to catch the eye.

They're Listening - Sort Of

While I've not seen any of the new season of American Idol, I am happy to report that Fox did implement two of my suggestions, at least partially. There will be more Hollywood this time around (but no reduction in auditions that I've heard of, though I understand the freak show aspect will be toned down), and they did add a judge, which isn't quite the shake-up I'd hoped for but it's something.

No check yet from Fox for the consulting, though. They must have sent it to my old address.

Worst Coverage Ever?

As much as I've maligned NBC for their Olympic coverage, I think we may have a new low-point for national sports coverage with TBS and their baseball playoff broadcasts.

My reasoning for this is threefold:

1. Announcers who make shit up. I'm looking mostly at Chip Caray here, as he's tried to foist upon the public the idea that the Red Sox's Dustin Pedroia is nicknamed the Little Pony and that Tampa Bay pitcher James Shields is known as Big Game James. I've not heard talk of the Little Pony at all, and it seems like Shields' nickname isn't familiar to Rays fans, either (based on comments over at Joe Posnanski's blog at least).

(BTW, you should read Posnanski's blog.)

Both nicknames could be clubhouse deals, or players having a bit of fun with the media, but I tend to think it's related to TBS not knowing much about baseball, outside of the Braves.

2. Announcers who don't know much about baseball. Back to Caray, who apparently thought that intentionally walking Jason Bay in last night's game was unconventional. The walk loaded the bases, creating a force out at any base, and gave the Rays a lefty batter to face a left pitcher. That's pretty much what you're supposed to do.

I'm assuming Caray's view came from Drew's stats against the pitcher, but even so you'd still walk Bay in this situation. Unless Drew was 97 for 100 with 89 HRs against the guy.

Seeing how this shaping up, maybe TBS just needs to get rid of Caray?

3. Frank TV. Enough has been said about the relentless promotion of this festering pile of television, but it's enough on its own to pray for the league to reconsider its contract. There has to be some sort of clause that lets MLB void the contract for crimes against humanity.

Bring Out Your Dead

Do Not Disturb has rung in the new TV season by becoming its first casualty. For those of you who missed it (or as I like to call them, everyone), it was a sitcom set in a hotel that starred Jerry O'Connell. I don't think I need to go into much more detail to get at why it was canceled, do I?

But this does bring up the subject of this year's Ted Marshall Open, the TV dead pool that used to be named for some Z-grade hack actress whose name I apparently can't mention in this context unless I want to get sued. Do Not Disturb was on my list, so I've got 9 shows to go. My entry:

ER - The venerable medical drama gets its send-off, finally. I'm only tuning in if they figure out a way to bring back Mark Green.

Valentine - This CW series crosses Cupid and Melrose Place by putting mythological beings into the real world (well, Los Angeles), where they live in the same building and do whatever it is that Earth-bound gods do.

This sounded pretty craptacular when I first heard about it, and given how it (and all of the CW's new Sunday lineup) tanked upon premiering last night, I'm looking forward to getting reruns of America's Next Top Model back by Thanksgiving.

Do Not Disturb - see above

Harper's Island - I took a chance on this CBS mid-season show about a destination wedding that happens on an island that may or may not still be the hunting ground of a serial killer. I try not to choose mid-season shows in case they never get aired, but this sounded just dopey enough to give a try. Unfortunately for me, the one review I've read of its teaser suggests it's going to be very good.

Crusoe - I've never liked it when NBC has adapted history or literary works for miniseries, so you can imagine my level of dread for turning one into a series. And while it came too late to factor into my decision, I'm heartened by this piece of research noting that Friday night shows have the worst renewal rate of any night. NBC is just 1 for 14 since 1999, so even better for me.

The Ex-List - As much as I enjoyed Elizabeth Reaser's run as Rebecca/Ava on Grey's Anatomy, I'm a little dismayed that she parlayed it into My Name is Earl done over as a romantic dramedy. In this care, Reaser's character goes to a medium and is told that the love of her life is someone she already rejected. So she now has to go through her exes to find out which reject she needs to take back. As quirky as that might sound, I'm not sure that the average person watching CBS on Friday nights is going to take to this.

Lipstick Jungle - For those who want the Sex and the City vibe without, you know, the sex.

Life on Mars - Now here I may have pressed a bit. I went with this show based on a gut feeling that ABC won't be able to adapt the show for American audiences. That and I didn't care for the one promo I saw this summer. Pretty flimsy, really. I am holding out hope that the crowd won't stick around for it, but there's not much competition on Thursday nights. Unless Eleventh Hour turns out to be a bigger hit than I expected (and really, that show would probably be a better choice here).

The Philanthropist - another mid-season, but it's hard to think that a show about a renegade billionaire fighting for social justice will stick. I suppose it has a shot airing against yet another series of The Bachelor, but I'm betting that people will opt to either watch CSI: Miami or go to bed.

According to Jim - adapting a principle from standard dead pools, once you put a show on the list, keep it there until it dies. I wouldn't do this with any show, but at this point the demise of Jim is getting to be a little personal. Probably too much so.

It turns out that six of these shows are among the top ten chose by pool entrants (Mars, Disturb, Ex List, Valentine, Crusoe, ER). So what four did I pass on that others took?

Gary Unmarried - How I passed on a show with Jay Mohr and Paula Marshall is beyond me. These should be free points. But it's in a good time slot (only Bones offers significant competition) and is protected (so to speak) by veteran shows The New Adventures of Old Christine and Criminal Minds. And if last week's numbers are to be believed, the show built on Christine's lead. So maybe I dodged a bullet here?

Knight Rider - thought it may pull in enough nostalgia/kitsch viewers to linger. From what I've read it's not very good, but we'll see if NBC has enough faith in it to keep it going or move it when something else tanks.

Kath and Kim - I was pretty conflicted about this one, as it looks positively awful from the 300 hours of promotion it got during the Olympics. But I feared that this would be one of those cases where I don't get the humor of the show while some broad segment of the population that I'm not in does get it. So I gave it a pass.

The Mentalist - this latest attempt to foist Simon Baker on the viewing public is yet another show where the protagonist has unique problem-solving abilities that may or may not excuse some set of character flaws. It's as if Jonathan Edward starred on House but with less abrasiveness and drug abuse (the show is on CBS, after all). I'd given this consideration, and then panicked a bit when the show premiered strongly, thinking I'd chosen it. But I didn't, and thus avoided the first show to get renewed this season. Good for me.

So Maybe I'll Watch the Emmys Now?

So, as usual, I didn't bother with the Emmys, and of course they had to go crazy this year and appear to use merit when giving out the awards. So much for my rant about the Emmy love affair with Boston Legal. I could start a rant about their love for 30 Rock, except that it's fave of mine, too.

OK, I did see a few minutes of the awards during a break in football, and caught the tail end of Josh Groban's theme song medley (which I'll have to YouTube), Laura Linney's speech after she won for John Adams (liked the snarky plug for community organizers at the end), and the Laugh-In bit (which was Rob Lowe sings with Sleeping Beauty levels of awful). I can't say I'm sorry to have not watched the show in its entirety.