Archives for September 2010
THE EVENT Premieres and We’ve Got Your Good, Bad and Ugly
The GOOD: Heading into last night’s premiere with highly dubious expectations as a result of NBC’s recent track-record coupled with the immense disappointment we still feel after wasting more hours than we care to admit on FLASHFORWARD, we for one found ourselves pleasantly surprised by almost all of THE EVENT. Call us a complete sucker for a killer ending, but as a result of last night’s closing line that had the mysterious Sophia Maguire (Laura Innes) tell President Martinez (Blair Underwood), “I haven’t told you everything,” it pretty much goes without saying that we’ll be back next week to find out the rest of the story. That said….
TV Ratings: September 20, 2010 (Game On!)
Time | Network | Show | Rating | 18-49 |
---|---|---|---|---|
8PM | ABC | Dancing with the Stars | 19.37 | 4.3/12 |
FOX | House | 10.92 | 4.3/11 | |
CBS | How I Met Your Mother | 8.78 | 3.6/10 | |
NBC | Chuck | 6.10 | 2.1/6 | |
CW | 90210 | 2.18 | 1.0/3 | |
8:30PM | CBS | Rules of Engagement | 8.32 | 3.1/8 |
9PM | ABC | Dancing with the Stars | 21.41 | 5.1/13 |
CBS | Two and a Half Men | 14.49 | 4.8/12 | |
NBC | The Event | 10.89 | 3.5/9 | |
FOX | Lone Star | 4.54 | 1.5/4 | |
CW | Gossip Girl | 1.79 | 1.0/2 | |
10PM | CBS | Hawaii Five-0 | 14.21 | 3.9/10 |
ABC | Castle | 12.06 | 3.0/8 | |
NBC | The Chase | 7.84 | 2.4/7 |
The UNEXPECTEDly-Ugly Truth About LIFE As The Top Dog
What’s writing got to do with it? When you’re the showrunner of a major network television series, surprisingly little.
“I always say the show is a coming of age story and I feel like the experience of running the show has been one for me,” revealed Liz Tigelaar, the talented creator/executive producer of the CW’s sophomore series LIFE UNEXPECTED, who was kind enough to take some time out of her very busy schedule to pull back the veil on what it’s like to be a first time showrunner. “It’s funny, I was actually going to go up to Vancouver [where LIFE UNEXPECTED shoots], tomorrow because a big episode that I co-wrote is shooting and I want to be there. But literally right before I got on the phone with you, I cancelled my trip because I just felt like I haven’t had time to just write the show and there is so much that needs to be done.”
In other words, despite the impression you might get from the twitter feeds of Kevin Williamson (THE VAMPIRE DIARIES) or Steven Levitan’s (MODERN FAMILY), running a multi-million dollar television series isn’t all about the accolades, awards, and impromptu weekends in Vegas. It’s more like a daily pressure-filled cooker that forces you to reconcile the original vision of your show with that of a bunch of powerful network executives who may not be on quite the same page as you.
Must Read TV: GLEE, COMMUNITY, COUGAR TOWN & More!
• 90210-Oh-Oh, as the show ignores continuity and moves into full-blown idiocy.
• Men are from Mars Women are from Venus, and the COUGAR TOWN writer’s room wouldn’t have it any other way.
• Gwyneth’s a GLEEK! Reportedly in negotiations to guest on GLEE.
• Treat not Trick, COMMUNITY is planning an epic Halloween (Think: Zombies)
• Are you ready for the Very Odd Couple? Because J.J. Abrams is actually pitching a new show featuring the artists formerly known as Locke and Linus.
You Be the Critic: Monday Night Premieres
1) Did THE EVENT deliver the necessary amount of mythology and mystery to pique your interest and more importantly entice you to tune in next week? 2) Have you already gone ahead and downloaded “Awake My Soul” from LONE STAR’s fantastic final minutes? 2) Was the eye-candy offered on HAWAII FIVE-0 — be it of the scenic or scantily clad star variety — enough of an incentive to get you saying, “We have to go back [to the island]!?” 4) Did MIKE & MOLLY’s larger-than-life protagonists deliver equally sizable laughs? And finally, 5) Did anyone watch THE CHASE? Let us know in the comments below. Oh, and in case you’re wondering what we thought: 1) Yes, 2) Yes, 3) Yes, 4) Kinda, 5) No
A Non-TV Addicts Perspective of the New Fall Season
There are three types of people in this world. There are TV Addicts, who are acutely aware that tonight marks the official start of the Fall TV season. There are Network Executives, who will be spending the next week or so collectively holding their breath as they anxiously wait to discover whether the hundreds of millions of dollars they invested into their new fall slates was put to good use. And then there are the regular people, who have absolutely no clue as to the significance of this evening.
No, really. As it turns out, there are actually people whose life — get this — doesn’t revolve around waking up first thing tomorrow morning and looking up just how many viewers in the 18-49 demographic tuned into last night’s instalment of CHUCK! And what’s more, we spent and evening with them and lived to tell the tale.
Yet rather than judge these so-called “normals” who spell Joss Whedon’s name with an “h” at the end and wouldn’t know their Booth from their Brennan, we thought we’d use them as an opportunity to gain a little perspective. Which new shows are the average person looking forward to this Fall? We collected a cross section of people who may-or-may-not-have been already attending a family gathering to find out. See for yourself, after the jump.
We Preview CHUCK 4.0 with Co-Creator Chris Fedak
Lost amidst the 23549 new television shows that are getting set to premiere mere hours from now are an entire slew of returning ones. And while we probably don’t have to alert the intensely-loyal CHUCK Army that their favorite nerd-herders are back at 8PM tonight on NBC, they might be interested to know what this fourth season has in store for them. We certainly were, which is why we recently caught up with co-creator Chris Fedak on a conference call to discover just what the revelation of Mama Bartowski mean for our titular hero, the deal with all these great guest stars, and what the writer’s think of all those other spy shows hitting a small screen near you.
After last May’s finale, it appears this fourth season will have Chuck facing the mother of all problems! How big a deal will the search for Mama Bartowski play into the overall arc of the season?
Chris Fedak: You know mother issues, like all mother issues, there’s always a lot of story and a lot of mythology to kind of get into as we’ve kind of broken out this season in the writer’s room. In the past we’ve had organizations like Fulcrum and The Ring which were SPECTER/SMERSH-esque organizations. This year it’s the search for Mom, which is going to be a very interesting and kind of very emotional one. That said, like with most mother issues, there’s also great comic material for us to have fun with.
Watch, PVR, Pass: Monday September 20, 2010
Is LONE STAR The Next DALLAS?
You can’t set a primetime soap in Texas and not expect that it’s going to be compared to perhaps the greatest nighttime sudser of all time, DALLAS. So how does LONE STAR, the newbie premiering tonight at 9PM on FOX (Global TV in Canada) stack up? Well, that all depends on whether you’re looking at the long-running drama’s pilot… or what it eventually evolved into.
Like its predecessor, LONE STAR focuses on a hero and a villain. But while DALLAS had oily JR and his too-good-to-be-true brother, Bobby, LONE STAR has… Bob. See, Bob Allen (played to perfection by James Wolk) is living a double life. On one side of Texas, he’s a grifter who’s basically ripping off his friends and neighbors. On the other… he’s a quick-rising exec being mentored by tough-talkin’ tycoon Clint Thatcher. In both lives, Bob’s got a lady. Trouble is, he loves ’em both.
It’s hard not to look at Jon Voight’s Clint and not think of DALLAS’ similarly tough-talkin’ patriarch, Jock Ewing. Bob’s dad is longtime con man John, played by David Keith. And when Dad finds out that his son wants to go legit courtesy of his position in Thatcher’s company, well, you’ll be hard-pressed not to flash back to Digger Barnes warning daughter Pamela against trying to fit in with the Ewing clan.
The success or failure of LONE STAR rides almost entirely on how much you like Bob… and the good news is that Wolk is a powerful presence who manages to leave you rooting for him to somehow come out of this mess in tact. If there’s a flaw here, it’s that until the second half of tonight’s pilot, things are a little too dry… and everyone knows that’s the last thing you want from a good, frothy soap. It feels as if the folks at Fox want to have their cake (in the form of a soap) and convince non-serial lovers to take a bite, too.
But here’s the thing: That’s not so different from the original game plan of DALLAS. While the latter years became more about glitz, glamour and romantic intrigue, the first year or two, the infamous serial split it’s time between the bedrooms at Southfork ranch and the boardrooms at Ewing Oil. Long before becoming the most hated man in America, JR was just a guy desperate to win his daddy’s approval. His wife, Sue Ellen, was torn between her love/hate relationship with JR and her feelings for his nemesis, perpetual loser (in everything), Cliff. In LONE STAR, Bob plays both JR and Sue Ellen. He wants his father’s approval, but he also wants love.
Stick with the first 20 or 30 minutes and by the end, you’ll be hooked. Wolk is a wildly appealing presence who anchors the best new drama of the season. With our hero juggling two loves, jobs and lives, the stage is set for complications galore and, of course, the seemingly inevitable moment (season-ending cliffhanger, anyone?) when his worlds collide. As premises go, that’s a doozy… and a scenario we intend to follow every step of the way.
LONE STAR premieres on Monday September 20 at 9PM on FOX (Global TV in Canada)