An all censorship edition of Short Takes this time around I’m afraid (because there were a couple of other bits of news that need to be cur for space). The PTC has released a major report on the depiction of Religion on TV. Before that we have a reaction to some of what FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is doing, with a couple of interesting comments on one of the PTC’s fellow travelers in the battle against what they perceive as indecency.
Right again: I reference the Creative Voices In Media blog here a lot. Mostly because I agree with a lot of what they have to say, particularly about the FCC and the efforts of certain groups to make the Commission all about censoring TV and making everything suitable for kids to watch. Perhaps I should say what these organizations regard as suitable for kids to watch. Most recently the blog reprinted part of a column from Ad Age’s “Media Guy” Simon Dumenco in which he called on FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to resign. The Dumenco article, titled “FCC Chairman Martin? It’s Time For You To Resign” is quite interesting. Dumenco notes “Martin has pumped up his case for a morals crisis in American broadcasting by allowing the use of fraudulent complaints to shape the FCC's great crusade. We're talking about just another form of un-American ballot-box stuffing: quasi-automated complaint e-mails about ‘indecency’ that are invariably generated by a handful of religious organizations that whip their members into click-and-send frenzies, usually with few of the members ever having witnessed any (supposed) broadcast offense.” As an example he cites a report in Broadcast & Cable that noted an increase in indecency complaints from 1,798 in January 2006 to 138,527 in February, fueled in large part (approximately 134,000 complaints) by an organized campaign by the America Family Association “a powerful religious group.” This is dangerous: “Liberals and conservatives alike should be panicking about this, because the FCC absolutely shouldn't be beholden to any one minority group, let alone a religious lobby that's manufacturing the appearance of mass outrage. The FCC should be striving to reflect the views of the majority of Americans; the commissioners should not be held hostage by one hyperactive, megaphone-wielding group looking to impose its point of view on the rest of us.” Dumenco compares Martin to Donald Rumsfeld as having “stubbornly and willfully relied on faulty intelligence that does not reflect reality outside of a certain hermetically sealed bubble.” Dumenco’s major point on the FCC’s recent push on indecency (he also spends time attacking Martin on the issue of media mergers and acquisitions) is worth noting:
Martin and his ultra-conservative religious allies would have us believe that they've found the moral equivalent of WMDs on our airwaves: an epidemic of foulness that necessitates the FCC's invasion of American living rooms to protect us from broadcast evildoers.
But the average American simply does not want the government deciding what adults can and cannot watch -- and certainly doesn't want censorious rules to extend to pay-cable networks (such as HBO), as Martin hopes to do. All TV can't, and shouldn't, be reduced to the level of Blue's Clues (or The 700 Club, for that matter).
If the vast majority of Americans are not freaking out about naughty broadcasting -- and they're absolutely not -- then the FCC is overstepping its mandate and creating a political and regulatory crisis where one does not exist.
Who does the PTC hate this week: And speaking of a “one hyperactive, megaphone-wielding group looking to impose its point of view on the rest of us,” our “friends” at the PTC have finally stirred themselves out of their election induced torpor and come up with several new things to hate. The PTC now has it hate on for the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show which aired on CBS for the sins of presenting “Degrading imagery, themes of bondage, nods to voyeurism and fantasies of teenage girls.” They back this up by pointing out a model in a dog collar, a model who “stomps down the runway wearing a large key around her neck. On her underpants, a padlock has been embroidered in sequins.” But it’s the “teen imagery” that bothers them most. They say about the sequence promoting the Victoria’s Secret “Pink” line, “the segment that showcases it looks as though it is intended for girls who have yet to get their drivers licenses. On the runway, models are dressed as not-so-subtle tributes to the kinds of dates a teenager would go on. One model is dressed as a box of popcorn and carries a bottle of soda while another model has what looks like a picnic blanket tied to her lingerie. It also pays homage to a teenager’s hobbies and ambitions. One model is dressed as a cheerleader while another carries a glittery electric guitar. To top off the segment, a model dressed in graduation regalia struts down the runway to illustrate the rite de passage of every high-schooler.” Or it could be the right of passage (I hate people who pretentiously use faux French) of every college woman, whose interests – including cheerleading, music, and dates at the movies (and later, perhaps, removing her Victoria’s Secret “Pink” underwear for the guy she was dating) – are remarkably similar to high school girls.
What else? The PTC hates the fact that the networks have the absolute gall and temerity to use their legal right of appeal to go before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In not one but two postings on their main page the PTC attacks the networks: “The networks are in court right now, suing for the right to use the publicly-owned broadcast airwaves to air indecent content and claiming their right to use the f-word and s-word on television regardless of context or time of day.” And then there’s this report of the PTC filing an amicus brief with the Second Circuit: “Unwilling to abide by the law and accept additional guidance from the FCC about what would be found indecent, the major networks have taken those rulings to federal court and now hope to undermine the very existence of broadcast decency law.” Apparently only the PTC and it their allies in this crusade for “decency” – Reverend James Dobson’s overtly religious Focus On Family, Concerned Women For America (“US coalition of conservative women which promotes Biblical values and family traditions.”), and Citizens for Community Values (“We strive to be a leader in the restoration of those Judeo-Christian moral values upon which this country was founded…”) are allowed to appeal a previously made decision.
But the big thing from PTC-land was the release of their report on “Entertainment Television & Religion 2005-2006” called Faith In A Box . Brent Bozell announced the report on Fox News, saying “The results of this study clearly show that the entertainment industry is not reflecting the strong religious beliefs of Americans in its television programming. The industry is in fact hostile to people of faith – no matter if the person is Christian, Jewish, or Muslim,” The report finds that Fox had the most anti-religious depictions – one out of every two – while CBS had the highest percentage of pro-religious depictions at 47%. It’s mainly the Christian religion although there are mentions of positive and negative depictions Judaism, Islam and even Hinduism. Of course the definition of pro and anti religious is somewhat suspect in my mind – Lisa Rinna on Dancing With The Stars saying “Some higher power came in and started dancing through me” is classed as positive; on The War At Home Larry telling the person on the other end of a wrong number “No thank you, I don’t want to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.” is classed as negative.
What is really interesting to me is that the PTC is even commissioning such a report. The obvious connection is that somehow respect for, and indeed support of, religion should be regarded with equal weight as broadcast decency. If the PTC’s central objective is “to promote and restore responsibility and decency to the entertainment” then positive depictions of religion over negative depictions would seem to be irrelevant. But of course, positive depictions of religion aren’t irrelevant to the organizations that the PTC is allied with they are integral.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Saturday, December 16, 2006
New Poll - What night has the fewest shows that you MUST see?
An easy one this time around, the flip side of last week's poll. In short, what night (besides Saturday) is the biggest loser TV wise for you, the one where most of the shows are ones that you couldn't be bothered to waste electrons (and neurons) on?
As usual, feel free to put any comments you need to make here. And remember vote in the poll!
As usual, feel free to put any comments you need to make here. And remember vote in the poll!
Poll Results - What night has the most shows that you MUST see?
There was a small but interesting turnout for this poll. Five people voted – fewer than I’d hoped but probably about what I expected if I’m going to be honest with myself. No one categorized Sunday or Thursday as having the most shows they must see. One person each (20%) picked Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The winner with two votes (40%) was Tuesday.
I’m not entirely sure what to make of this result. It’s possible that the smallish turnout had an effect, and of course I’m locked into the network mindset in part because I can’t see what the American cable channels are presenting. I certainly expected Thursday to get some consideration; it’s one of the major nights for me even if Fox is at its weakest – in my opinion it’s a strong night for the CW , NBC (its comedy lineup capped with ER), ABC, and of course CBS. I don’t find Tuesday to be as strong – CBS can’t find a show to work in the third hour – although there is strength from all five American networks. Friday is weak for Fox and ABC, but good for NBC and again CBS (and I suppose the CW – I’ve never fully understood the attraction of pro-wrestling in the Vince McMahon era).
New poll up in the morning.
I’m not entirely sure what to make of this result. It’s possible that the smallish turnout had an effect, and of course I’m locked into the network mindset in part because I can’t see what the American cable channels are presenting. I certainly expected Thursday to get some consideration; it’s one of the major nights for me even if Fox is at its weakest – in my opinion it’s a strong night for the CW , NBC (its comedy lineup capped with ER), ABC, and of course CBS. I don’t find Tuesday to be as strong – CBS can’t find a show to work in the third hour – although there is strength from all five American networks. Friday is weak for Fox and ABC, but good for NBC and again CBS (and I suppose the CW – I’ve never fully understood the attraction of pro-wrestling in the Vince McMahon era).
New poll up in the morning.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
I'm A Lovable Hostoric Lunatic
I hadn't planned on posting this but then I saw who I got. Let's face it, if you're going to be a known historical lunatic, this guy is probably the one to be. Plus he appeared on an episode of Bonanza (played by Sam Jaffe) along with his subject Sam Clemmons.
Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.
Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Peter Boyle - 1935(?)-2006
I’ve tried to get away from writing obituaries for TV performers, but sometimes you just can’t avoid it. This is one of those times.Peter Boyle died today at New York’s Presbyterian Hospital. Until fairly recently Boyle was probably best known for his screen roles – notably the campaign manager Lucas in The Candidate and the Monster in Young Frankenstein - he also did considerable television work before Everybody Loves Raymond. One of his first acting parts was in the 1970 CBS summer series Comedy Tonight. He played Senator Joseph McCarthy in the TV movie Tailgunner Joe, and the title character in a short-lived show (six episodes) called Joe Bash about a lonely cop. This show is so obscure that only the barest of episode descriptions can be found. In 1994 he played “Stanilslas Kelly” in an ABC pilot Philly Heat, the cast of which included Ving Rhames and Tate Donovan. Most of his other pre-Raymond TV work was as a guest star. In Midnight Caller he played the Gary Cole character’s father J.J. Killian in two episodes. He played Dan Breen, Andy Sipowicz’s AA sponsor who is eventually killed by his abusive, mentally disturbed son. Perhaps most famously he played Clyde Bruckman in one of the most famous episodes of The X-Files “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”, the role for which he won his only Emmy Award.
Of course it was for the role of Frank Barone that most TV viewers know him today. Amazingly he was the only member of the adult cast of that show not to win an Emmy award, despite having been nominated seven of the nine years the show was on the air. Boyle was perfectly cast as the sarcastic, angry, Frank, and you could always see a sort of twinkle in his eye when his character put one over on his wife Marie, played by Doris Roberts. Reportedly, when he auditioned for the part of Frank, producer Phil Rosenthal kept him waiting, which made the actor increasingly angry so that when he finally came in to read, “He came in all hot and angry, and I hired him because I was afraid of him.” Because of efforts to cross several of CBS’s Monday night sitcoms over, Boyle appeared in an episode of Bill Cosby’s last series Cosby. That show co-starred Madeline Kahn, who had appeared with Boyle in Young Frankenstein and before that in Comedy Tonight.
Peter Boyle met his wife Loraine Alterman on the set of Young Frankenstein - she was a reporter for Rolling Stone. Through her close friendship with Yoko Ono, Boyle developed a friendship with John Lennon, who served as Best Man at the couple’s 1977 wedding. They had two daughters. In recent photos he appeared increasingly gaunt and ill, possibly as a result of the multiple myeloma (a form of plasma cell cancer) and heart disease that he suffered. Peter Boyle was either 71 (according to most sources including IMDB) or 73 (according to Wikipedia).
Sam's Christmas Meme
My blogging buddy Sam Johnson – sorry, The Real Sam Johnson! – sent out a meme for some of us and I decided that it was worth doing. I’ll let Sam explain the premise:
I gotta Christmas meme for everyone and it's very simple. Santa Claus has sent out an X-mas Genie to only the super good boys and girls out there and he's come to your house. Genies only give out three wishes, but X-mas Genies give four for Christmas. What do you ask for and remember, nothing is off bounds.
So what do I wish for, remembering that nothing is out of bounds?
1. Personal Poker lessons from the greatest and most beloved living poker player, Mr. Doyle Brunson. He can bring some of his friends along with him, Johnny Chan, Howard Lederer, his son Todd Brunson, Annie Duke, Jennifer Harmon, but mostly I want to learn from The Master. And then I want to play in the main event of the World Series of Poker, but I think that with Doyle’s teaching I can handle getting the $10,000 entry fee together myself. Or at least win an online satellite.
2. A home entertainment system set up to my personal standards. I’m thinking a 42 inch LCD, surround sound stereo system HD cable box, DVD Recorder with hard drive, plus a Windows Media Center computer (or maybe something similar from Apple), a Slingbox, a US satellite dish, and a lifetime subscription to every available station on both my Canadian cable and my US satellite system.
3. A spot as a Racer on The Amazing Race (and oh yeah, I'll probably a partner too, one who can drive). I can’t participate in The Amazing Race because I’m a Canadian, but of all of the reality shows in the world this is the one I would do just about anything to be a contestant on. I quite literally dream of being on The Amazing Race and afterwards hobnobbing with other Racers past, present and future including – yes I admit it – Rob & Amber. Oddly enough, in my dreams I never win The Race – I usually come in third or fourth – but the producers like me as a contestant so much that they immediately invite me back for the next installment.
4. This is a tough one, but I suppose it would be to obtain gainful employment as a TV critic with a newspaper – in other to get paid money to do something I enjoy, and oh yes get the screeners and promotional material that real critics get. The part of me that associates Christmas with trains wants the time, money, materials, and a suitable location to build my dream model railway. I suppose that with gainful employment you could build a great model railway, but then again I suspect that if I were paid to watch TV for a living I’d be too busy watching TV do actually run or even build the railway.
You’re supposed to forward a meme to others in hopes that they’ll do something with it. I guess I pick Tim and Linda.
I gotta Christmas meme for everyone and it's very simple. Santa Claus has sent out an X-mas Genie to only the super good boys and girls out there and he's come to your house. Genies only give out three wishes, but X-mas Genies give four for Christmas. What do you ask for and remember, nothing is off bounds.
So what do I wish for, remembering that nothing is out of bounds?
1. Personal Poker lessons from the greatest and most beloved living poker player, Mr. Doyle Brunson. He can bring some of his friends along with him, Johnny Chan, Howard Lederer, his son Todd Brunson, Annie Duke, Jennifer Harmon, but mostly I want to learn from The Master. And then I want to play in the main event of the World Series of Poker, but I think that with Doyle’s teaching I can handle getting the $10,000 entry fee together myself. Or at least win an online satellite.
2. A home entertainment system set up to my personal standards. I’m thinking a 42 inch LCD, surround sound stereo system HD cable box, DVD Recorder with hard drive, plus a Windows Media Center computer (or maybe something similar from Apple), a Slingbox, a US satellite dish, and a lifetime subscription to every available station on both my Canadian cable and my US satellite system.
3. A spot as a Racer on The Amazing Race (and oh yeah, I'll probably a partner too, one who can drive). I can’t participate in The Amazing Race because I’m a Canadian, but of all of the reality shows in the world this is the one I would do just about anything to be a contestant on. I quite literally dream of being on The Amazing Race and afterwards hobnobbing with other Racers past, present and future including – yes I admit it – Rob & Amber. Oddly enough, in my dreams I never win The Race – I usually come in third or fourth – but the producers like me as a contestant so much that they immediately invite me back for the next installment.
4. This is a tough one, but I suppose it would be to obtain gainful employment as a TV critic with a newspaper – in other to get paid money to do something I enjoy, and oh yes get the screeners and promotional material that real critics get. The part of me that associates Christmas with trains wants the time, money, materials, and a suitable location to build my dream model railway. I suppose that with gainful employment you could build a great model railway, but then again I suspect that if I were paid to watch TV for a living I’d be too busy watching TV do actually run or even build the railway.
You’re supposed to forward a meme to others in hopes that they’ll do something with it. I guess I pick Tim and Linda.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
The Amazing Race Finale - Sunday!
If you've been reading this blog for any serious length of time you will know that I am a huge fan of The Amazing Race. I watch Survivor, I tolerate Big Brother, I enjoy Hell's Kitchenand I am occasionally amused by Beauty and the Geek, but for me the best reality-competition series on television - bar none - is The Amazing Race. I love it because of the people, the originality of the tasks but most of all for the different locations they visit. Often enough the American contestants find themselves amazed at how giving the "foreigner" can be and the audience often get to wonder whether they would display the same attitudes that people on the show do. Most of all, The Amazing Race is the most accessible of the Reality-Competition shows. I couldn't imagine myself on "the island" in Survivor, and I'm not pretty enough to be on Big Brother (although I'm getting to "sacrificial wily old guy" age), but I could very easily see myself with a partner being "Philiminated" late in the game. I can't see myself actually winning anymore but the thing about this show is that just about anything is possible.While I wouldn't rank this season of the race up with the best ever (my absolute favourite has to be TAR7 - the season of Rob & Amber and the miracle airplane situation that allowed Uchenna & Joyce to get on the plane and win) I has been a pretty good one. The show managed to add another six countries to the list of places they've taken viewers to - Mongolia, Kuwait, Mauritius, Madagascar, Finland and Ukraine - and without the showiness of Survivor's "segregated tribes" managed to have one of the most diverse casts ever, including two South Asian players (Vipal & Arti), two followers if the Islamic faith (Bilal & Sayeed), two people of Korean descent (Irwin & Godwin Cho), two African American single mothers (Lyn & Karlyn), a pair of recovering drug addicts (Tyler & James), a father trying to restore his relationship with his Gay daughter (Duke & Lauren), a Kentucky coal miner and his never travelled before wife (David & Mary), and an amputee who runs triathlons teamed with the guy who built her prosthesis (Peter & Sarah). It made the requisite Gay couple (Tom & Terry) seem positively pedestrian.
There were several changes from previous seasons, one good, one bad, and one which needed some work. In the first episode, two teams were Philiminated, one without warning. This was not received well by fans of the show. On the other hand the punishment for finishing last on a non-elimination round was changed from losing your possessions to having to finish first in the next leg or being "marked for elimination", an automatic thirty minute wait after reaching the mat before checking in at the Pit Stop - if there was at least one other team behind you when the penalty expired you were safe otherwise you were out. That was well regarded by the fans. As for the one that needs work, that would be the newly created Intersection. This forces two teams to work together as a four person team until they are told to stop. This one showed up when there were six teams left and teams essentially chose who they would work with. Things would have been much better both in dramatic terms and probably in show terms if the Intersection had been implemented earlier in The Race when there were more teams and if the teams had been forced to team up with the next two players to arrive, given the animosity between a couple of the teams.
But the big thing in The Race are the people and how they faced the tasks. This season's most memorable team was the Dave & Mary a couple so isolated that they didn't know any Asian people and had never met any Gays until they met Tom & Terry: "But I like 'em!" It was hard not to enjoy the enthusiasm that Mary felt at every new experience during The Race, and even the most hated and aggressive team on the show - Dustin & Kandice, "the Beauty Queens" - regarded them as good people. They managed a first for The Amazing Race, an alliance that lasted longer than the time between tasks and where alliance members actually stuck together and tried to help each other. The "Back Pack" and later the "Six Pack" alliance died after Dave & Mary left but it was amazing while it lasted. There were other things to remember as well. There was Tom & Terry who, failing to defeat the currents in a Vietnamese bay by rowing a sampan jumped into the water and pulled it in the style of Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen. There was the sight of Sarah, the woman with a prosthetic leg and a "racing" foot climbing up the Great Wall Of China, up a cliff, and up the outside of one of the famous Kuwait Towers, while her able bodied partner waited on the ground cheering her on. There was a Beauty Queen driving a Ukrainian T-64 tank like a pro while her male counterpart from the Models team of Tyler & James stalled it, got soaked to the skin crossing a small stream, collided with the only other tank on the course and - as he put it - "drove like a girl"
So we come to the big questions: Who remains and who will win?
Lyn & Karlyn - Team Bama: These are the single mothers. Based on the way the show has been edited I don't like them. They don't seem to take any joy in the places they're visiting. They're in it for the money and that seems to be it. They have endured a great deal, and if I'd been asked at the start I would have picked them to be eliminated very early in the game, not to be the first all-female team to make it to the final three and to actually cross the finish line. They aren't particularly fit physically but they have a ton of grit and determination plus a willingness to be unsentimental. They are definitely tougher than they look. I still see them as the probable third place team.
Tyler & James - The Recovering Addict Models: The Amazing Race has a tendency to cast Models. It's an occupational advantage for them since the show requires all participants to be able to take off about 30 days from work. Models are able to arrange their schedules to do that in the same way that struggling actors, self-employed entrepreneurs and retired people can. What makes Tyler & James unusual is their back story. They are both recovering from serious drug addictions, and in fact they met in rehab. This has definitely made them a strong team. They are the team in this season of The Race that has finished first in more legs than any other team. And yet there sometimes seems to be something lacking in them. I wouldn't be surprised to see them finish first but I also wouldn't be surprised to see them make some minor error and finish second or even third.
Rob & Kim - Relationship Challenged: Every season there is a team that is testing their relationship, trying to see if it will survive going to "the next level". Actually there are usually several. This season there was Rob & Kim and Peter & Sarah (who ended their romantic relationship after they were eliminated). It's a dumb Idea unless you want to spend 30 days, literally 720 hours together, usually no more than 20 feet apart as mandated by the Race rules. This more time in one stretch than most adults ever spend with another adult. The situation is full of stresses that are nearly impossible to describe. Teams usually end up fighting with each other, and again there is usually one team that stands every season for their fighting. That was Rob & Kim. Everything was drama with them and they wouldn't be in the final three if I had anything to say about it, but I, and the other fans, and the producers, don't have any say which is the great thing about The Amazing Race - it is all the abilities of the players, not popularity. Rob & Kim have only finished first in two legs, but after the first two legs they've never finished lower than third. I'm willing to suggest that they are the team that Tyler & James are going to have to defend against most if they hope to win the million dollar first prize.
The Amazing Race has had it's best season ever in terms of ratings helped, ironically enough, by the thing that fans of the show feared would hurt it the most, overruns of NFL football games on CBS. Ratings on nights when football games ran long, delaying the start of 60 Minutes have been among the highest that the show has ever experienced. The one hour finale of the 10th Amazing Race airs this Sunday following the Denver San Diego football game and 60 Minutes. After that the show will be on hiatus until February (I believe) when the All-Star version of The Amazing Race begins. I have some thoughts on that, but they'll keep until the teams are announced.
New Poll - What night has the most shows that you MUST see?
It has been a while since I have done a poll for this Blog and I thought it was high time that I did another one. Besides we have reached what in some ways is the halfway point in the TV season, in so far as most series have shown us perhaps half of the shows they'll be doing this year - or close to it - and some shows have entered a midseason "we don't repeat well" hiatus, so it's about time that we answer the questions that we've been dying to know a collective answer to.
I've been tweeking the list of questions I'll be asking to add a few more categories to what I asked last year during November sweeps, but I thought I'd start out with a fairly simple one. Essentially I'd like to know what night is "must see TV night" for you this year. What night has the most shows that you absolutely have to see each week? (In TV terms of course, which means that there's no Saturday since no one is actively programming it.)
As usual, feel free to comment here. Poll result will be up next Saturday Morning, when I'll also have my next Poll question.
I've been tweeking the list of questions I'll be asking to add a few more categories to what I asked last year during November sweeps, but I thought I'd start out with a fairly simple one. Essentially I'd like to know what night is "must see TV night" for you this year. What night has the most shows that you absolutely have to see each week? (In TV terms of course, which means that there's no Saturday since no one is actively programming it.)
As usual, feel free to comment here. Poll result will be up next Saturday Morning, when I'll also have my next Poll question.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
This Class Gets A Failing Grade
(I should have written this yesterday, but a number of things kept me from doing much of anything Tuesday.) One of the things about reviewing a show that has entered a string of reruns - particularly if you don't or can't watch the show on a regular basis - is that you don't know whether the show has improved since the episode you're reviewing. Of course its the same with judging a show by its pilot or second episode. When a show is good that's not a problem because the expectation is that they'll keep up the standard, but when the show is bad or at least underwhelming then you wonder if it will get better or work out the problems. That's the problem I had with The Class. I don't normally get to see the show, since it runs on my bowling night but my current sojourn at my brother's place gave me the opportunity to watch it. I was less than pleased. The episode I saw was "The Class Blows The Whistle", which was the fourth episode of the series. In it Lina (Heather Goldenhersh) goes out on a second date with Richie (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), while her twin sister Kat (Lizzy Caplan) initially balks at and the decdes to fix Ethan (Jason Ritter) up on a blind date with a woman who is "really easy." Meanwhile Nicole (Andrea Anders) is dismayed to discover that her husband Yonk (David Keith) is becoming friends with her old high school boyfriend Duncan (Jon Benrthal) for whom she still has feelings (and maybe more - it wasn't clear from the episode). Finally Holly (Lucy Punch) is driving Kyle (Sean MacGuire) and his boyfriend Aaron (Cristian de la Fuente) to distraction with her efforts to to get her daughter Oprah into the exclusive private school where Kyle teaches. That's a very basic summary of the episode and I think it illustrates one of the major problems that this show has, at least at this stage of its development - too many storylines without providing a real focus for the episode, or even tying the stories together. There were four unrelated story sequences and except for a couple of phone calls between Kat and Lina there is nothing holding the elements together. It was as if the writer and producers decided that they had to use the entire cast in the episode even if there's really no reason for it. The Class was created by David Crane - who was the creator of Friends - along with his life partner Jeffrey Klarik. Seemingly he has forgotten one of the things that helped hold Friends together as a show. While the series had a large cast it usually had a primary story thread and a secondary storyline with at least some connection between the two. There are other problems with the show. The character of Perry Pearl (Sam Harris) who is married to Holly is so highly effeminate as to represent a gay stereotype, to the point where Holly seems to be the only person who doesn't realize that her husband is gay. It is a concept that gets very old, very fast. Another joke that got old fast was Holly's inability to understand Aaron when he was speaking. Although Aaron (who is Hispanic) speaks with little or no accent, to Holly he is virtually incomprehensible. Either this is an effort to show how stupid Holly is, or whether it's meant as a way for Holly not to interact with Aaron, it's not terribly funny. The acting here is adequate even though none of the actors really delivers a standout performance. That in itself is vaguely disappointing, given that the cast contains a number of reasonably good young actors including Ritter, Anders and MacGuire. They have the ability to deliver strong performances but at least in the episode that I saw they were betrayed by the less than stellar writing and the format that the producers decided to impose on the episode. With all of the elements taken together (and remember I was only able to see one early episode so there is the chance that this show might have improved from what I saw), it's hardly a series that I can recommend. Find something else to watch in this half hour. It's better than some of the comedies that debuted this season but there are plenty of shows that are superior to this.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Short Takes - December 3, 2006
I'm doing this from my brother's computer as he's away for about ten days and someone has to look after his house and dog - not necessarily in that order. One thing this will allow me to do is watch some Monday night TV without the problems inherent in taping stuff - you wouldn't believe the backlog of Heroes episodes that I have. On the other hand his keyboard is extremely stiff.
NBC shuffles its schedule: Probably not as much as I would have but they have made some adjustments. They've moved Friday Night Lights to the first hour of Wednesday from the first hour of Tuesday and are following it with Deal Or No Deal. Dateline NBC moves to the first hour of Tuesday, as well as appearing in the first hour of Sunday (opposite 60 Minutes) and airing reruns on Saturday night in the first hour. In addition to Dateline NBC, Sunday nights will feature a new reality show called Grease: You're the One That I Want, which will be auditioning people for a new Broadway revival of the musical Grease. This will be followed by the latest revival of The Apprentice, this time coming out of Trump's Southern California holdings. Finally (and I do mean finally since it will be debuting on January 21 after two weeks of Grease: You're the One That I Want and The Apprentice running for an hour and a half each) will be the much awaited - by me at least - return of Crossing Jordan.
I really would have liked to have seen a much more sweeping change in the NBC lineup given the trouble that a number of shows have been having. Since Heroes isn't really helping Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip in building an audience, why not move a much more compatible series - Medium - into that time slot. Why not move Law & Order: Criminal Intent to the third hour of Wednesday opposite CSI: New York and put Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip into the Tuesday time slot.
Perhaps an idea that should catch on: The CW has announced that they will be airing two highlights shows of the series Britain's Next Top Model in the Wednesday time slot currently occupied by America's Next Top Model. The episodes will air on December 13 and December 20, the two weeks following the finale of America's Next Top Model. The two episodes will summarize the two cycles of Britain's Next Top Model in single one hour episodes. This might be a way to beat those mid winter (and full summer) TV blahs. There are any number of British or Australian versions of American shows - particularly reality shows - that the Americans have either "adopted" or (more rarely) had taken from them. Instead of whatever CBS is intending on showing on Sundays this summer, what would they lose by showing the Amazing Race Asia which is done in English with an Asian American host (most of the cast speak English better than some of the teams on the US race), or maybe a summary from the British or Australian versions of Big Brother. ABC could serve up Britain's Strictly Come Dancing or the Australian Dancing With The Stars.
Another more than likely stupid idea: I like reruns. They give me a chance to watch shows that either I haven't seen before or really, really liked the first time I saw them. Networks it seems, do not like reruns. They used to but now they complain about shows "not rerunning well." It's not all shows - the CSI series works so well in reruns they're like a great utility baseball player. But of course most shows that are rerun are rerun in their usual time slots, which means that they're being rerun to an audience base that they already have. And so, as we enter the period that we fans of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel knew all too well as "Rerun Hell", I offer this probably stupid idea: when a show goes into reruns, put it in a different time slot for the duration of the rerun period. I mean I'm sure there is a very good reason why the networks don't do this but I don't know what it is. What strikes me is that you have good shows, like Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip and Friday Night Lightsthat aren't finding an audience in their current time slot and might benefit from moving to a different day and time to see how well they do there. Why not try rerunning Studio 60 in the second hour of Tuesdays and putting the reruns of Law & Order: Criminal Intent in the third hour of Mondays? And if both shows prosper then make the change permanent. But I'm sure that smarter people than I have thought about this idea and come up with reasons why it won't work.
Who does the PTC hate thisWeek?: Apparently our friends at the PTC are in some kind of mourning for the Republican Congress because for the fourth straight week in a row their Worst Show of the Week is that same damned episode of Boston Legal. And they still hate Clorox and Microsoft. (yawn)
With that in mind and feeling rather bored, I've decided to take a look at what the PTC thinks of some of the new shows that debuted this year (and are still with us). As some of you might know, the PTC rates shows using a traffic light motif: Green for "Family Friendly", Yellow for shows containing adult themes and dialogue, and Red for shows that "may include gratuitous sex, explicit dialogue, violent content, or obscene language" and are unsuitable for children. They rate shows for Language, Sex and Violence and produce an overall evaluation. Of course, like a lot of things on the PTC website, what they've evaluated is not exactly up to date.
NBC shuffles its schedule: Probably not as much as I would have but they have made some adjustments. They've moved Friday Night Lights to the first hour of Wednesday from the first hour of Tuesday and are following it with Deal Or No Deal. Dateline NBC moves to the first hour of Tuesday, as well as appearing in the first hour of Sunday (opposite 60 Minutes) and airing reruns on Saturday night in the first hour. In addition to Dateline NBC, Sunday nights will feature a new reality show called Grease: You're the One That I Want, which will be auditioning people for a new Broadway revival of the musical Grease. This will be followed by the latest revival of The Apprentice, this time coming out of Trump's Southern California holdings. Finally (and I do mean finally since it will be debuting on January 21 after two weeks of Grease: You're the One That I Want and The Apprentice running for an hour and a half each) will be the much awaited - by me at least - return of Crossing Jordan.
I really would have liked to have seen a much more sweeping change in the NBC lineup given the trouble that a number of shows have been having. Since Heroes isn't really helping Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip in building an audience, why not move a much more compatible series - Medium - into that time slot. Why not move Law & Order: Criminal Intent to the third hour of Wednesday opposite CSI: New York and put Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip into the Tuesday time slot.
Perhaps an idea that should catch on: The CW has announced that they will be airing two highlights shows of the series Britain's Next Top Model in the Wednesday time slot currently occupied by America's Next Top Model. The episodes will air on December 13 and December 20, the two weeks following the finale of America's Next Top Model. The two episodes will summarize the two cycles of Britain's Next Top Model in single one hour episodes. This might be a way to beat those mid winter (and full summer) TV blahs. There are any number of British or Australian versions of American shows - particularly reality shows - that the Americans have either "adopted" or (more rarely) had taken from them. Instead of whatever CBS is intending on showing on Sundays this summer, what would they lose by showing the Amazing Race Asia which is done in English with an Asian American host (most of the cast speak English better than some of the teams on the US race), or maybe a summary from the British or Australian versions of Big Brother. ABC could serve up Britain's Strictly Come Dancing or the Australian Dancing With The Stars.
Another more than likely stupid idea: I like reruns. They give me a chance to watch shows that either I haven't seen before or really, really liked the first time I saw them. Networks it seems, do not like reruns. They used to but now they complain about shows "not rerunning well." It's not all shows - the CSI series works so well in reruns they're like a great utility baseball player. But of course most shows that are rerun are rerun in their usual time slots, which means that they're being rerun to an audience base that they already have. And so, as we enter the period that we fans of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel knew all too well as "Rerun Hell", I offer this probably stupid idea: when a show goes into reruns, put it in a different time slot for the duration of the rerun period. I mean I'm sure there is a very good reason why the networks don't do this but I don't know what it is. What strikes me is that you have good shows, like Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip and Friday Night Lightsthat aren't finding an audience in their current time slot and might benefit from moving to a different day and time to see how well they do there. Why not try rerunning Studio 60 in the second hour of Tuesdays and putting the reruns of Law & Order: Criminal Intent in the third hour of Mondays? And if both shows prosper then make the change permanent. But I'm sure that smarter people than I have thought about this idea and come up with reasons why it won't work.
Who does the PTC hate thisWeek?: Apparently our friends at the PTC are in some kind of mourning for the Republican Congress because for the fourth straight week in a row their Worst Show of the Week is that same damned episode of Boston Legal. And they still hate Clorox and Microsoft. (yawn)
With that in mind and feeling rather bored, I've decided to take a look at what the PTC thinks of some of the new shows that debuted this year (and are still with us). As some of you might know, the PTC rates shows using a traffic light motif: Green for "Family Friendly", Yellow for shows containing adult themes and dialogue, and Red for shows that "may include gratuitous sex, explicit dialogue, violent content, or obscene language" and are unsuitable for children. They rate shows for Language, Sex and Violence and produce an overall evaluation. Of course, like a lot of things on the PTC website, what they've evaluated is not exactly up to date.
- The Class gets an overall "Yellow" rating. "The Class is a show about adults, so the content is for more mature audiences. Language on the show includes uses of the words “crap,” “suck,” “hell,” “ass,” and “bitch.” Sexual content is frequent but not overly offensive. Two characters, Nicole and Duncan, are having an affair behind her husband’s back and there was a penis joke in the first episode. Which sounds like the PTC is loosening up their standards. Compare this with the evaluation they gave of the other CBS comedy in the first hour, How I Met Your Mother: "This sitcom may have a reference to parenthood in the title, but it is about adults and contains a lot of adult content and humor. Language used includes “damn,” “hell,” “bitch,” “bastard,” “crap,” “suck,” and “ass” with moderate frequency. Sexual humor is relied upon heavily in this series as well. Men on this series have visited strip clubs more than once: episodes have included Barney getting Ted a date and Ted thinking she was a prostitute, Ted dating a porn actress, Lily and Marshall urinating in front of each other, and other racy themes. Barney doesn’t believe in committed relationships, so there are also frequent references to his promiscuity and using women for sex and then dumping them." How I Met Your Mother gets a Red rating.
- Heroes gets a Red Rating, except for language where it gets a yellow despite including such words as “hell,” “damn,” and “bitch” frequently. Where it really falls down is on violence (as you might expect) and on sex: "While one might think, based on the name of the show or its premise, that Heroes is a show for everyone, these heroes are not your All-Americans like Superman or Spiderman. For instance, one “hero,” Niki Sanders, is a single mother living in Las Vegas who provides for her son by stripping on her internet porn site. Her alter ego randomly takes over her mind and body and is capable of committing unspeakable acts of violence and sexual deviance." In fact Niki seems to be the major cause for concern for the PTC as far as sex goes, since they reference her Internet business later in the review.
- Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip gets one of the stranger evaluations. It gets a Green light for violence (there's none that I've seen on the show) but Reds for Language and Sex and Overall. Language is the principal concern: "'Hell,' 'damn,' and 'ass' are used frequently as well as harsher words like 'bitch,' 'slut,' 'screw,' and 'son of a bitch.'” But it is Sex where the weird evaluation comes: "Sex has not been an issue at this point in the series, but as relationships progress, sex scenes can be expected." And because of that they gave it a Red Light for sex. There's no sex in the show but it still gets condemned for having too much sex! (Okay, admittedly there's been a bit more of what they would consider sexual content recently - Harriet seen apparently naked except for her panties in a seem where Tom and Simon enter her dressing room without knocking; Harriet seen changing for a scene, showing her bra; Jeannie getting a B12 shot just below her panty line; Jordan revealing her "out of wedlock" pregnancy - but they wrote this review before any of that was seen.)
- Jericho gets Yellow lights across the board. The PTC doesn't consider language an issue with the show although "the words used include 'hell,' 'damn,' and 'ass.'" As for Sex, in a show where Deputy Mayor Eric Green is having an extra marital affair, "Sexual content isn’t very frequent either, but the character of Eric Green is shown kissing a woman that isn’t his wife and later sleeps with her." But it's violence where they seem particularly lax, particularly in view of what happened in episodes after the PTC did their evaluation: "Violence is mostly implied death and injury with scenes of crashed vehicles, airplanes, and the distant mushroom clouds on the horizon. There were two gun-play confrontations as well, when some escaped prisoners killed a policeman and then in the following episode were killed by a local cop and a civilian." Setting aside for the moment the fact that it was Jake Green who shot one of the convicts and he wasn't a cop, this totally ignores subsequent events like the visit to the Rogue River hospital, the battle at the bridge with the mercenaries and the murder of Gracie Leigh. But the PTC apparently doesn't revise these assessments, so Jericho is rated as more suitable for younger viewers than either Bones or America's Next Top Model, and the same as Biggest Loser (although Loser's only Yellow light was for language it got a Yellow overall).
- The Nine got a Red Light for Sex and Yellow lights for Language and Violence even though they state that their major concern is " that the violence seen in these flashbacks may be too intense for children. The violence has been primarily limited to these flashbacks throughout episodes, but involves the thieves threatening hostages with handguns and the implied murder of two major characters." Language included "hell" and "damn". As for Sex, "Sexual content has involved post-coital couples kissing in bed and also a few other scenes where characters kiss." Now remember, they gave this series a Red light for Sex and a Yellow light for Violence, but at the end of their review they say, "Due to intense violence, The Nine is not appropriate for children under the age of 14."
- Ugly Betty - a show which recently received the Best New Series award from the Family Friendly Programming Forum for helping to "promote the development of and airing of family-oriented television programs during prime-time hours" and which received funding from the Forum's Script Development Fund - got a Red Light from the PTC. According to them, "Sexual content is the main concern with this show. With the exception of Betty herself, it seems that every character engages freely in casual sexual relationships, but most of the sexual content stems from Daniel. In the premiere episode there is a scene in which it is implied that he is receiving oral sex from a woman hidden under his desk and he has often been seen in post-coital situations. In one scene Betty offers to sell diet pills to resident homosexual Marc and he replies, 'Unless it’s Taye Diggs covered in baby oil I’m not interested.'" Language is apparently also an issue: "Foul language includes words such as “damn”, “ass,” and “bitch,” are used frequently on the show." Violence is not listed as a concern, but the web page for the show gives it a Yellow light for Sex, a Green light and a Red light for Violence.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Well That Sort Of Sucks
No sooner did I finish posting my review of 3 Lbs. than a report popped up in TVSquad stating that Broadcast & Cable is reporting that the show was canceled by CBS after three episodes. According to the report 3 Lbs. received ratings that were 16% lower than the show it replaced, Smith which also ran three episodes.
And I'm not kidding about that "No sooner did I finish posting my review..." bit. If you check the time on the TVSquad report and compare it to the time of my review, you'll discover that it was posted slightly more than two hours later.
Wow, talk about bad timing.
And I'm not kidding about that "No sooner did I finish posting my review..." bit. If you check the time on the TVSquad report and compare it to the time of my review, you'll discover that it was posted slightly more than two hours later.
Wow, talk about bad timing.
What Makes Us Us
3 Lbs.It is the weight of the human brain. The weight of memory, of knowledge, of inventiveness, of personality. The weight of the soul. Your real weight when it comes down to it.
It is also the title of a quite involving new TV series starring Stanley Tucci and Mark Feuerstein as neurosurgeons. And because people who write about TV for a living like to say that a show is like something else, this show gets compared to House for what I feel are largely superficial reasons. But I’ll get to that later.
In the episode I saw on Tuesday night featured two stories (I hesitate to call one of these stories a case). In the main story Kathleen Ellis, a woman that Dr. Doug Hanson (Tucci) treated three years ago for a cerebral aneurysm, has returned to the hospital complaining about double vision, symptoms similar to what she exhibited before. Tests conducted by Hanson and his new associate, Dr. Jonathon Seger (Feuerstein) reveal that not only has she developed a new aneurysm but it is located in a part of the brain that is extremely difficult to reach and nearly impossible to operate on without either killing her or leaving her with extreme brain damage. Hanson is all for trying to deal with the aneurysm surgically, but Seger expresses doubts about whether it might be better to do nothing and let nature take its eventual course. He and Hanson go with the patient to a nearby park to discuss her options and in a move that thoroughly surprises Seger, Hanson clearly and concisely tells her off all the risks that go along with the surgery. Her trust in Hanson and his abilities is so complete that she gives her consent to the operation without qualm despite Seger’s insistence on repeating his reservations.
Things are complicated by the arrival of the patient’s brother, Brad. He’s a lawyer and immediately on arrival at the hospital he cancels the woman’s surgery and is intent on taking her out of the hospital as soon as she awakens from some medication that the doctors gave her to sleep. He is convinced that because Hanson operated on her successfully the first time he is able to exert undue and improper influence on her to get her to agree to the surgery. He demands that Hanson give him the odds that his sister will die during the surgery. Hanson has no patience with the man and tell him that the odds of her dying are 100% since the procedure requires that he reduce the body temperature to induce hypothermia and stop her heart for exactly thirty minutes while he repairs the aneurysm. And then he goes ahead and prepares to do the surgery anyway. After all, the brother can’t revoke the approval that his responsible adult sister gave. When the Brad finds out that the surgery is going ahead he flies into a rage, threatening to sue the hospital and getting into a physical confrontation with Seger, who isn’t part of the surgery because of the doubts he’d expressed to Kathleen about the surgery. Eventually Brad settles down and starts to play a piece of classical music on a piano that is located near Hanson’s office.
Eventually, Seger decides to go to the OR, persuaded by his colleague Dr. Adrienne Holland (Indira Varma) that he needs to participate in the operation. He arrives at just the right time. The heart surgeon who is working on the case and needs to do a bypass before the cooling procedure can be accomplished doesn’t believe that he can harvest a viable piece of vein to do the surgery and wants Hanson to go ahead without the bypass. Seger informs the heart surgeon that the likelihood of success goes from 23% to 25% if the bypass is done, but if the operation is done without the bypass and fails people will blame the heart surgeon while if the bypass occurs and it fails the blame will go to Hanson. The bypass is successful, as is Hanson’s surgical procedure although he finishes just seconds before the time limit for the hypothermia.
The “B” Plot in this episode is not quite comic but is far less serious and more personal than the main story line. A visiting professor of Astronomy who starts to see his student’s faces only as smudges. He is suffering from something called Prosopagnosia or “face blindness.” He goes to see Dr. Adrienne Holland about his situation and she puts him through a series of tests to determine if he actually does suffer from the condition. At the same time she is feeling an intense attraction to him – he’s handsome, gentle, intelligent and she has always had an interest in astronomy. In conversations with Seger she goes over the ethics of doing other tests when she knows that there is nothing medically that can be done for the condition. Eventually, after she admits to the patient that there is no medical treatment and that there are no more tests she can perform, he invites her out on a date, which she accepts. And suddenly things go all wrong. When he arrives at the hospital for their date, he asks Adrienne if Dr. Holland is in her office. He doesn’t know her face, just the context of her in the office. She claims that she has work to do and can’t go out on the date and then agonizes over her decision. It all ends up well in the end when he shows up at her home shortly before he is supposed to leave the city. He takes pictures of parts of her face and it is highly implied that they made love.
3 Lbs. is an interesting show although not one that is easy to dissect. The two principal actors are excellent of course. I first became interested in Stanley Tucci when he played Richard Cross in the first season of Murder One opposite Daniel Benzali. I first saw Feuerstein when he played Cliff Calley, one of Aaron Sorkin’s assorted “good” Republicans in The West Wing. Tucci brings the right degree of arrogance to the role of Doug Hanson without being over the top about it. It is a similar quality to what the character Richard Cross had. On the other hand Feuerstein is nicely positioned to play the less arrogant and more wondering Seger. I am less impressed with Indira Varma’s performance as Adrienne Holland, which seemed to consist mainly of bantering with Seger and looking beautiful. I have a suspicion that this might have been the fault of the episode that I was watching rather than of the actress or the character. One character whose existence in the episode, and possibly the series, I did not understand was Dr. Thomas Flores, played by Armando Riesco. In the episode I watched he seemed to do nothing beyond drinking coffee and acting hyper because of it. Oh yes, he also broke up the fight between Seger and Brad Ellis, but mostly his role seemed to be comic relief and not very good comic relief at that.
I found the writing good at points, uneven at others. There are things – like the piano outside the office – that I’m sure would have become clear to me if I’d seen the earlier episodes, but there are other things that seemed just too convenient. At other times, as when Kathleen’s brother Brad cancels the surgery and said that if he hadn’t been in Asia when his sister had the first surgery he wouldn’t have permitted that, when I wondered at the character’s motivations. Did he want his sister dead, paralyzed or otherwise subjected to the effects of the aneurysm exploding? It was even more convenient at the end, after Kathleen’s surgery had been a success and he was waiting for her to regain consciousness, that he suddenly became Hanson’s biggest booster. It is too sudden a transition. The secondary plot was fun but it really felt as though it had simply been tacked on to give Indira Varma something more to do in the episode than just banter with Seger.
The obvious comparison is made to House, and as usual with such comparisons I think it is made simply because writers need to compare shows to each other. For all that House the show is interesting to watch because of the performance that Hugh Laurie delivers as Gregory House, the character is damaged. I’m not talking physically but rather emotionally. This emotional damage makes him susceptible to addictions, it makes him treat the people around him badly, and yes it makes him arrogant. Hanson on the other hand is arrogant because he’s a surgeon. He’s not just any type of surgeon either, he’s a neurosurgeon, on of the two sorts of surgeons – along with heart surgeons – for whom the old line about the difference between God and a surgeon (God doesn’t think He’s a surgeon) truly applies. In short he comes by his arrogant manner honestly. He’s not damaged. He doesn’t treat his subordinates like ignoramuses even while he doesn’t treat them as equals. On the whole, House is a more complex character filled with various nuances, while I suspect that Hanson is more realistic in that he feels (at least to me) closer to what a real neurosurgeon would be like.
As for the show, I have to say that House is far superior to 3 Lbs. but they are different shows in tone and substance. I hate to suggest that 3 Lbs. is the more realistic program but it seems more grounded in reality. The show is reasonably interesting, and probably worth watching at least a few times, even with the things that irritated me about the writing, but I can’t say that it falls into the top echelon of shows that must be seen. And opposite Law & Order: SVU and Boston Legal that might very well be what it would need to be.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Short Takes – November 26, 2006
Haven’t been doing much blogging this week. Too much other stuff going on. I have a ton of stuff on tape that I need to get to, including most of Heroes and a couple of new series. There are a couple of shows I haven’t been taping that I should get to work on too. Plus I keep struggling, trying to write something about Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. It’s just a matter of finding the time and time hasn’t been real abundant lately, and that doesn’t look likely to change for a couple of weeks. I’ll do what I can, but I can’t guarantee much.
The triumph of mediocrity: Fox showed that they learned nothing from last year’s debacle with Reunion by pulling Vanished from the Friday “death slot” that they assigned the unfinished serial to. The filled that slot with Justice which had been following Prison Break on Monday and not doing well. Meanwhile Fox has given the producers of Standoff and ’Til Death orders for more episodes, six for the former and nine for the latter. I’m sorry, but in my obviously flawed opinion either one of Justice or Vanished is eminently superior to either Standoff or ’Til Death and if Justice were on ABC, CBS or even NBC it would be drawing far better ratings with the cast it has.
A crossover is a terrible thing to waste: Since I didn’t get this up last week I missed the opportunity to comment on last Friday’s episode of Las Vegas which was a November sweeps cross-over with Crossing Jordan. What’s that you say? Crossing Jordan isn’t on? Well you’re right, it isn’t but it was supposed to be on by now. In fact it was supposed to be on in the first hour of Friday night, just before Las Vegas but then someone at NBC had the idea that they should try out a new game show called 1 vs. 100 in that time slot and it hit. So instead of an episode where Danny and Delinda get involved in a case in Boston during their leaf peeping trip to New England, after which Jordan and Woody would fly back to Vegas, what we saw was the second half of a case with no starting point that we know about. This is why stations that strip series in syndication hate crossovers; because they don’t make sense if you don’t have the other show, particularly if the other show has the first half of the crossover. NBC has not yet announced when Crossing Jordan will return, but because they were preparing to start in October or November, they’ve shot an episode where Danny and Delinda show up in Boston on a leaf peeping trip and get involved in a case involving Jordan and Woody. And episodes cost money.
Mixed messages from NBC: NBS is sending seriously mixed messages. On the one hand they renewed Friday Night Lights for the full season, then almost immediately afterwards announced that it had been pulled from its Tuesday night time slot and would be replaced with Dateline NBC, the newsmagazine which has recently been going through a series of staff cuts. This is supposed to begin towards the end of December, which basically coincides with the end of the NFL season so it seems likely that Friday Night Lights will end up on Sunday.
Who does the PTC hate this week?: In terms of Worst Show Of The Week our friends at the PTC seem to be in a bit of a rut. Either that or they have reached the conclusion that this year'’ TV season offers nothing to upset them. No I think they’re in a rut. For the fourth week in a row – unprecedented as far as I’m aware – they’re laying the hate on that episode of Boston Legal with the “incestuous” mother and son.
On the other hand they are going after advertisers with a couple of statements to corporate shareholders meetings. First up was a statement to the board of Clorox by the Director of the Bay Area Chapter of the PTC in which she castigated the company (which had previously won the PTC’s “Advertiser Seal of Approval Award for responsible advertising practices”) for not sponsoring more family friendly programming. In her statement the Bay Area Chapter Director, Debra Timberlake took the company to task for sponsoring shows like Medium, CSI, CSI: Miami, and Two and Half Men which “contained either brutal violence or explicit sexual content.” If the transcript of her statement published on the PTC website is complete, her major concern was with CSI. “During the course of its run the show, CSI featured the following: graphic scenes which depicted cannibalism, a fully nude female corpse, and mutilated victims of a deranged killer. Sexual situations in this series are extremely graphic. In the past, scenes included a brother and sister having sex, men receiving S&M beatings from a dominatrix in a sex club, pornographic snuff films, and a woman making a sex video for her 15-year-old stepson. All shows linked to the CSI franchise have developed increasingly offensive graphic images, including close-ups of corpses with gunshot wounds and other bloody body injuries.” She finishes with the following statement: “You used to be a responsible advertiser but you’ve gotten off course lately. We offer our resources to you and look forward to working with Clorox to get back on the right track and once again support family-friendly programs that truly reflect their corporate philosophy.”
Next up was a shareholders meeting at Microsoft where the PTC’s Manager of Advertising Programs Glen Erickson took Bill Gates and Microsoft to task for their advertising practices, particularly for the Xbox 360. Erickson started off by praising the company and Gates in particular before getting to the meat of the matter: “Microsoft is clearly a leader in the betterment of the lives of children. Mr. Gates, your philanthropic work through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has helped children all around the world. Surely, you understand how Microsoft’s irresponsibility in the media marketplace can undermine your good works. It is a shame that Microsoft cannot demonstrate leadership as a responsible corporate citizen as reflected in the support of the company’s consistent pattern of advertising on some of the most violent and vulgar programming on television.” Erickson then proceeded to list a number of shows that Microsoft advertises on including The Family Guy, CSI, The O.C., and The War at Home before getting to the heart of the matter, the PTC’s continuing war on the FX Network cable series Nip/Tuck. The statement contains some rather graphic language which amazingly enough wasn’t censored on the PTC’s own website! “Last season, the XBOX was advertised in a Nip/Tuck episode that included this exchange between two lead characters: Christian: ‘How would you feel if I took a mold of my cock, passed it around South Beach and called it a career?’ Kimber: ‘If you thought it was a solid business venture, I would let you.’ Christian: ‘Now you’re full of shit.’ Later in the show, the Colleen character approaches Christian and he grabs her hands and presses them to his crotch. And this is a show sponsored by Microsoft’s XBOX.” I can only imagine that the PTC, being under the mistaken belief that since the Xbox is a gaming system the primary market is children. This is inaccurate. according to current data, the average age of the owners of computer game systems is 33 and 69% of systems are owned by people over the age of 18. In other words the target market for a show like Nip/Tuck. Erickson finishes with the following statement: “I am here today to plead with you, on behalf of millions of Americans, to stop underwriting sleaze and adopt responsible advertising guidelines that will keep Microsoft off of programming that contains foul language, gratuitous sex, and graphic violence. Will Microsoft continue paying for the ‘cultural sewage’ that is broadcast into our homes on a nightly basis? Or, will Microsoft be a responsible corporate citizen and dedicate its advertising dollars toward sponsoring pro-social, family-friendly programming. The Parents Television Council would like your response to this question by the first of December so that we may let our 1.1 million members know whether or not Microsoft is dedicated to responsible advertising and not to return to sponsoring some of the most offensive and violent programming on television. I hope that I will be able to tell them that Microsoft is adopting advertising guidelines that reflect its corporate values.” Or to be completely accurate, advertising guidelines that reflects the PTC’s values.
And the contrary view: The Center for Creative Voices in Media filed a brief to overturn “the FCC's recent consistently inconsistent indecency decisions.” This was duly reported in their blog. In the blog entry (and possibly the brief – it’s not entirely clear) they made the following statement:
The results of the FCC’s campaign against broadcast indecency are clear. Much of the programming that is being censored, pushed back to a late hour, or dropped entirely by broadcasters is the very programming that Americans overwhelmingly want to see – some of the highest-quality programming available on television. When the FCC’s inconsistent and confusing indecency decisions force broadcasters to censor, delay, or drop shows like Eyes on the Prize, The War, 9/11 and others, its clear that the high quality television ‘baby’ is being thrown out with the indecent ‘bathwater.'
Many parents want to watch this programming together with their children. By causing quality television to disappear, the FCC has taken a powerful tool out of the hands of parents who use television to open up a dialogue with their kids about controversial topics like violence, poverty, racial disparity, and cultural diversity,” says Peggy Charren, famed children’s television advocate, founder of Action for Children’s Television and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “Consider how many parents watched Roots with their children and then engaged in a dialogue with them about the issues raised by that provocative program. For the FCC to deny them that opportunity – that’s not helping kids, it’s harming kids.
Organizations like the PTC and other “social conservative” organizations that attempt to use the FCC to enforce their vision of morality on the American TV viewer in the cause of “protecting the children” are enhancing this climate of fear. They don’t need to “succeed” to succeed, only to sew enough fear into broadcasters and advertisers. At the same time the provide a sop to parents who can’t be bothered to pay attention to what their children are watching, let alone watch programs with them and decide for themselves what is appropriate for their children, as individuals. As well, the PTC and their adherents seem to forget the story of the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve can be drawn into eating the forbidden fruit because of the fact that it is forbidden without an explanation of why. Parents talking to their children can provide the why one show with strong language or nudity is acceptable while another program is not; organizations which adhere to a rigid agenda can’t and more importantly won’t.
The triumph of mediocrity: Fox showed that they learned nothing from last year’s debacle with Reunion by pulling Vanished from the Friday “death slot” that they assigned the unfinished serial to. The filled that slot with Justice which had been following Prison Break on Monday and not doing well. Meanwhile Fox has given the producers of Standoff and ’Til Death orders for more episodes, six for the former and nine for the latter. I’m sorry, but in my obviously flawed opinion either one of Justice or Vanished is eminently superior to either Standoff or ’Til Death and if Justice were on ABC, CBS or even NBC it would be drawing far better ratings with the cast it has.
A crossover is a terrible thing to waste: Since I didn’t get this up last week I missed the opportunity to comment on last Friday’s episode of Las Vegas which was a November sweeps cross-over with Crossing Jordan. What’s that you say? Crossing Jordan isn’t on? Well you’re right, it isn’t but it was supposed to be on by now. In fact it was supposed to be on in the first hour of Friday night, just before Las Vegas but then someone at NBC had the idea that they should try out a new game show called 1 vs. 100 in that time slot and it hit. So instead of an episode where Danny and Delinda get involved in a case in Boston during their leaf peeping trip to New England, after which Jordan and Woody would fly back to Vegas, what we saw was the second half of a case with no starting point that we know about. This is why stations that strip series in syndication hate crossovers; because they don’t make sense if you don’t have the other show, particularly if the other show has the first half of the crossover. NBC has not yet announced when Crossing Jordan will return, but because they were preparing to start in October or November, they’ve shot an episode where Danny and Delinda show up in Boston on a leaf peeping trip and get involved in a case involving Jordan and Woody. And episodes cost money.
Mixed messages from NBC: NBS is sending seriously mixed messages. On the one hand they renewed Friday Night Lights for the full season, then almost immediately afterwards announced that it had been pulled from its Tuesday night time slot and would be replaced with Dateline NBC, the newsmagazine which has recently been going through a series of staff cuts. This is supposed to begin towards the end of December, which basically coincides with the end of the NFL season so it seems likely that Friday Night Lights will end up on Sunday.
Who does the PTC hate this week?: In terms of Worst Show Of The Week our friends at the PTC seem to be in a bit of a rut. Either that or they have reached the conclusion that this year'’ TV season offers nothing to upset them. No I think they’re in a rut. For the fourth week in a row – unprecedented as far as I’m aware – they’re laying the hate on that episode of Boston Legal with the “incestuous” mother and son.
On the other hand they are going after advertisers with a couple of statements to corporate shareholders meetings. First up was a statement to the board of Clorox by the Director of the Bay Area Chapter of the PTC in which she castigated the company (which had previously won the PTC’s “Advertiser Seal of Approval Award for responsible advertising practices”) for not sponsoring more family friendly programming. In her statement the Bay Area Chapter Director, Debra Timberlake took the company to task for sponsoring shows like Medium, CSI, CSI: Miami, and Two and Half Men which “contained either brutal violence or explicit sexual content.” If the transcript of her statement published on the PTC website is complete, her major concern was with CSI. “During the course of its run the show, CSI featured the following: graphic scenes which depicted cannibalism, a fully nude female corpse, and mutilated victims of a deranged killer. Sexual situations in this series are extremely graphic. In the past, scenes included a brother and sister having sex, men receiving S&M beatings from a dominatrix in a sex club, pornographic snuff films, and a woman making a sex video for her 15-year-old stepson. All shows linked to the CSI franchise have developed increasingly offensive graphic images, including close-ups of corpses with gunshot wounds and other bloody body injuries.” She finishes with the following statement: “You used to be a responsible advertiser but you’ve gotten off course lately. We offer our resources to you and look forward to working with Clorox to get back on the right track and once again support family-friendly programs that truly reflect their corporate philosophy.”
Next up was a shareholders meeting at Microsoft where the PTC’s Manager of Advertising Programs Glen Erickson took Bill Gates and Microsoft to task for their advertising practices, particularly for the Xbox 360. Erickson started off by praising the company and Gates in particular before getting to the meat of the matter: “Microsoft is clearly a leader in the betterment of the lives of children. Mr. Gates, your philanthropic work through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has helped children all around the world. Surely, you understand how Microsoft’s irresponsibility in the media marketplace can undermine your good works. It is a shame that Microsoft cannot demonstrate leadership as a responsible corporate citizen as reflected in the support of the company’s consistent pattern of advertising on some of the most violent and vulgar programming on television.” Erickson then proceeded to list a number of shows that Microsoft advertises on including The Family Guy, CSI, The O.C., and The War at Home before getting to the heart of the matter, the PTC’s continuing war on the FX Network cable series Nip/Tuck. The statement contains some rather graphic language which amazingly enough wasn’t censored on the PTC’s own website! “Last season, the XBOX was advertised in a Nip/Tuck episode that included this exchange between two lead characters: Christian: ‘How would you feel if I took a mold of my cock, passed it around South Beach and called it a career?’ Kimber: ‘If you thought it was a solid business venture, I would let you.’ Christian: ‘Now you’re full of shit.’ Later in the show, the Colleen character approaches Christian and he grabs her hands and presses them to his crotch. And this is a show sponsored by Microsoft’s XBOX.” I can only imagine that the PTC, being under the mistaken belief that since the Xbox is a gaming system the primary market is children. This is inaccurate. according to current data, the average age of the owners of computer game systems is 33 and 69% of systems are owned by people over the age of 18. In other words the target market for a show like Nip/Tuck. Erickson finishes with the following statement: “I am here today to plead with you, on behalf of millions of Americans, to stop underwriting sleaze and adopt responsible advertising guidelines that will keep Microsoft off of programming that contains foul language, gratuitous sex, and graphic violence. Will Microsoft continue paying for the ‘cultural sewage’ that is broadcast into our homes on a nightly basis? Or, will Microsoft be a responsible corporate citizen and dedicate its advertising dollars toward sponsoring pro-social, family-friendly programming. The Parents Television Council would like your response to this question by the first of December so that we may let our 1.1 million members know whether or not Microsoft is dedicated to responsible advertising and not to return to sponsoring some of the most offensive and violent programming on television. I hope that I will be able to tell them that Microsoft is adopting advertising guidelines that reflect its corporate values.” Or to be completely accurate, advertising guidelines that reflects the PTC’s values.
And the contrary view: The Center for Creative Voices in Media filed a brief to overturn “the FCC's recent consistently inconsistent indecency decisions.” This was duly reported in their blog. In the blog entry (and possibly the brief – it’s not entirely clear) they made the following statement:
The results of the FCC’s campaign against broadcast indecency are clear. Much of the programming that is being censored, pushed back to a late hour, or dropped entirely by broadcasters is the very programming that Americans overwhelmingly want to see – some of the highest-quality programming available on television. When the FCC’s inconsistent and confusing indecency decisions force broadcasters to censor, delay, or drop shows like Eyes on the Prize, The War, 9/11 and others, its clear that the high quality television ‘baby’ is being thrown out with the indecent ‘bathwater.'
Many parents want to watch this programming together with their children. By causing quality television to disappear, the FCC has taken a powerful tool out of the hands of parents who use television to open up a dialogue with their kids about controversial topics like violence, poverty, racial disparity, and cultural diversity,” says Peggy Charren, famed children’s television advocate, founder of Action for Children’s Television and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “Consider how many parents watched Roots with their children and then engaged in a dialogue with them about the issues raised by that provocative program. For the FCC to deny them that opportunity – that’s not helping kids, it’s harming kids.
Organizations like the PTC and other “social conservative” organizations that attempt to use the FCC to enforce their vision of morality on the American TV viewer in the cause of “protecting the children” are enhancing this climate of fear. They don’t need to “succeed” to succeed, only to sew enough fear into broadcasters and advertisers. At the same time the provide a sop to parents who can’t be bothered to pay attention to what their children are watching, let alone watch programs with them and decide for themselves what is appropriate for their children, as individuals. As well, the PTC and their adherents seem to forget the story of the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve can be drawn into eating the forbidden fruit because of the fact that it is forbidden without an explanation of why. Parents talking to their children can provide the why one show with strong language or nudity is acceptable while another program is not; organizations which adhere to a rigid agenda can’t and more importantly won’t.
Friday, November 17, 2006
The Most Important Network Most Of Us Can't See?
Is Al Jazeerah English the most important news network in the world?I normally don’t cover “the News” in this blog – too real – but the long delayed and long awaited debut of Al Jazeerah English might be a reason for breaking this silence. I’d probably know better if I could see it, but like virtually all Canadians and an extremely high proportion of Americans I can’t. In Canada the English language network isn’t licensed by the regulatory agency – the CRTC – and a license hasn’t been applied for. The Arabic service was licensed - to considerable uproar – in 2004, but there are restrictions imposed on any service provider that are regarded as onerous. Any cable and satellite companies carrying the service were required to monitor the network 24 hours a day seven days a week to censor any “abusive comment” and “alter or curtail” any programming found to be offensive. In order to carry Al Jazeerah English, a new application would have to be made and the potential for similar restrictions means that none of the service providers has yet made such an application. In the United States, while the FCC has no such regulatory reach few carriers – and none of the major services – is offering the network. Only four American services will carry Al Jazeerah English: GlobeCast, a satellite network specializing in international news services, JumpTV and VDC (Virtual Digital Cable), both online subscription services, and Fision a “fiber-optics to the home service” that will begin operating in the Houston area in December. By contrast, Al Jazeerah English is widely cleared in most of Europe including England, France and Germany as well as Israel. (A listing of services carrying Al Jazeerah English can be found on the network’s website.)
So why do I think Al Jazeerah English might be the most important news network in the world? After all it is only reaching an estimated 80,000,000 households worldwide. This is in contrast with outlets like BBC World, which reaches approximately 270 million homes worldwide or CNN International, which claims to reach “more than 1 billion households and hotel rooms in over 200 countries.” However, Al Jazeerah English brings one thing to the table that CNN International and BBC World don’t – a non-western perspective. As much as I love BBC World (and to a lesser degree CNN) they do present the news through a Western industrialized lens and there are a great many influential English speakers outside of the industrialized world who need or would appreciate a different perspective, and Al Jazeerah English is delivering a different perspective. The network claims to have more reporters in the Southern Hemisphere than their competition. In their launch day reporting the network included in an in depth report on the elections in the Congo, and live reports from Darfur, Iran, Zimbabwe and Brazil. There was report on a flare-up of violence along the Gaza Strip in which an Israeli woman was killed and a documentary on the problems faced by a Palestinian ambulance driver. Riz Khan, formerly of the BBC, hosted a show in which he conducted live satellite interviews with both Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniya. There were no reports on Naomi Campbell’s trial for assaulting an assistant, or People Magazine naming George Clooney the Sexiest Man of the Year, and I suspect that the word TomKat never appeared on their broadcast.
In the end the influence of Al Jazeerah English won’t be on North America where it can barely be seen, and probably not in the industrialized world at all. Where it will be influential and possibly even the option of choice for a lot of people is in those areas of the world that aren’t well served by the international news media. People in those areas are quite likely to see Al Jazeerah English as their station of record because it is concerned with their stories, stories that are largely ignored by the western media or twisted in an effort to give them a slant that will play in New York or London. I am not convinced that even if the network proves to be biased it isn’t valuable to have it available on the North American airwaves if only to, in the words of Robert Burns, “To see ourselves as others see us.” It might be illuminating, if not vaguely scary.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
"Ladies Let's Salsa!"
I can’t help wondering if William Shatner – back when he was doing Romeo And Juliet at Stratford – ever thought that he’d end up as the over the top host of a cheesy game show. Maybe. Back in those days the Canadian acting community was small, it was a buyer’s market, and there were a lot of people who were willing to just about any job – Shatner did one week on the Canadian version of Howdy Doody because James Doohan’s agent couldn’t agree with the CBC on a contract for his client and the guy who got the gig couldn’t start until a week after the series was supposed to start. In the 1950s actors in Canada had one rule: “Show me the money.” Which coincidentally is the name of the cheesy new game show that Shatner is the over the top host of.People writing about Television, and indeed pitching shows, tend to look for something known to compare the shows to. Maybe it’s the whole mindset that “imitation is the sincerest form of television.” The quote is from the legendary radio comedian Fred Allen, although I suspect that at least one of the people who used the quote with regard to Show Me The Money has no idea who Fred Allen was. More than one reviewer compared to Show Me The Money to Deal Or No Deal although I’m not absolutely clear on the reasoning for this. I mean sure, there are similarities. Prize amounts are revealed by extremely attractive young women; thirteen dancing girls to be precise although why they had to be dancing girls is beyond me. I can imagine the pitch meeting though: “Imagine thirteen, count’em, thirteen beautiful dancing girls.” Almost makes me think of those girly shows at the fair when I was too young to get into them. That’s where the similarity stops. In Deal Or No Deal you pick a briefcase and then spend the rest of your time deciding which case to pick next and answering offers from the Banker. Show me the money is more complex.
It may in fact be too complex. Players are given a “header” which is the first word or word of three questions, A, B, or C. The player then picks a question to answer but has the option to pass on the question twice on each header. They must provide an answer for one question in each category. Once the player has answered a question, but usually before the player is told whether the answer is right or wrong, the player must pick a dancer who will reveal the prize amount by opening a scroll placed in a holder in front of them. If the answer is correct that amount will be added to the player’s prize pool; if the answer is wrong that amount will be subtracted from the pool. The game ends when the player has either answered six questions correctly (+) or incorrectly (-). There are twelve prize amounts ranging – in $20,000 increments – from $20,000 to $250,000. One dancer has the “killer card”. If the player’s answer was correct there’s no penalty and neither a + or a – is added to the players list. If the answer was wrong however, the player is then asked a “sudden death” question. Again if the player answers correctly there is no change in status. If the answer is incorrect the player loses everything that has been won and the game ends immediately. And from time to time, for no apparent reason, everybody dances. Including Shatner, who dances like a 75 year-old man trying desperately to look hip.
The first, 90 minute, episode featured two contestants and surprisingly both finished their games. The first contestant on the show was perhaps the gayest human being ever to come out of the state of Oklahoma. He carried a “man purse” or “Murse” which contained some lip balm and his prized Shania Twain ticket. He claims to be a huge fan and amazingly enough it came into play during the game – he passed on a question where the correct answer was Shania Twain. He played the game quite well, getting his first four questions correct and at one point looking like a contender for a prize of over a million dollars before his luck turned slightly and he ended up with just over $500,000. Still he managed to show the quality of the Oklahoma educational system by informing us that Amsterdam is in Denmark. The next contestant wasn’t so lucky. He was a Commander in the US Navy, a fighter pilot stationed at “Top Gun” (because picking a pilot who flew off of the USS Enterprise would be just too much of a coincidence). He had a rough time of it, starting in a slight hole but recovering and building up a small pot…which he proceeded to lose on one question. He built his money up again until he ran into “the killer card.” He was forced to face the “sudden death question” and it was better suited to the guy with the “murse” – What was the name of the man who became known as “Mr. Liza Minelli” after he married her? He lost the money but probably reassured a whole lot of people by not knowing the answer to that one.
I’m not sure if this show would have gotten on the air if it weren’t for the presence of William Shatner, and I’m not sure whether or not that qualifies as a good thing. The rules are complicated but there is the germ of a good idea here. The questions are for the most part challenging unless you’re a geeky know it all (hand raises slowly). But it’s the sheer insanity of people suddenly starting to dance for no more reason than Shatner shouting something like “Ladies, let’s Salsa!” A lot of how you feel about this show will depend on how you feel about Shatner – my mother managed about 5 minutes of the show. The over the top personality he adopts for this show is even more extreme than the personality he used for the abortive UPN attempt at bringing Iron Chef to the United States. This isn’t (I sincerely hope) the “real” William Shatner but rather a parody of a parody. In the end I’m not sure how watchable this show will be regardless of how much you like William Shatner. Definitely not my cup of Earl Grey.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Why I'll Be Watching The Dancing With The Stars Finale
Forget Emmitt Smith (right) and Mario Lopez (left), I'm watching this show because of their partners, Cheryl Burke and Karina Smirnoff. It's sort of like "Chick Flicks". Guys who "know" realise that you get the best nudity in "Chick Flicks." Guy films have nudity all right but it's usually one of the action heroes who's exposing his bits, as opposed to - you know - a woman. Well in Dancing With The Stars you have lithe athletic young women without a trace of excess body fat that I can detect, dressed in frequently revealing costumes shaking what their Mamas made them. And best of all, the Parents Television Council thinks it's all good clean fun. I'm glad they can't read my mind!
Monday, November 13, 2006
A Quiz on Accents
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: North Central "North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot. | |
| The West | |
| The Midland | |
| Boston | |
| The Inland North | |
| The South | |
| Philadelphia | |
| The Northeast | |
| What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes | |
Well really it does make sense - I am a Canadian after all. More to the point I'm a western Canadian, so a North Central accent makes sense. Going into the States we most frequently use the port of entry in North Dakota (and I actually have been to Fargo, not to mention Moorehead which is across the Red River). What I normally don't get is the supposed Canadian accent which has us all sounding like counterfeit Scotsmen - oot and aboot indeed.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Short Takes – November 12, 2006
More network moves: I’ll get to what’s going on at NBC in a bit but I want to focus on what’s going on there apart from the other network moves. First, Fox is pulling Justice off of Monday nights and will be replacing it with a House rerun. Yep, another show I liked gone, but don’t ask me what it means. With Prison Break going on a long hiatus once 24 starts it has to mean something. Next, we’ve got ABC moving Men In Trees, newly anointed with a full season order, to Thursday night opposite ER and Shark. This would seem to be near suicide but there’s a method in their madness because the quirky Alaska show follows the quirky Doctor show. What’s really interesting to me is that Abraham Benrubi’s current series is going head to head with the series that he basically debuted in. Meanwhile Six Degrees has been put on hiatus until January (yeah, right, like that’ll really happen). The CW hasn’t been as kind to Veronica Mars and One Tree Hill in terms of orders for new scripts – they’ve only received orders for three scripts each.
Big things shaking at NBC: Unfortunately none of them are being caused by Jeff Zucker’s head rolling. The first move of the current group is to put Twenty Good Years out of our misery by pulling it from the schedule indefinitely. They’ve also decided to take 30 Rock and move it to the second hour of Thursday nights along with Scrubs. There’s an element of sacrificial lamb being served up there perhaps, but maybe not since these shows are different enough from what the other networks have this time that they might draw an audience or at least retain a significant portion of the audience from the bloc of My Name Is Earl and The Office. 30 Rock starts airing in its new time slot (sort of) this coming Thursday, which means that it fills the time between a 36 minute My Name Is Earl, a 44 minute The Office, and a 59 minute ER.
NBC has also announced that they will be giving a full season order to Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, a show that people love or abhor. The show’s demographics are apparently very interesting to the network. Apparently the while the series hasn’t done well in total viewers or in the coveted Adults 18-49 group (of which I’m no longer a member), which leads Marc Berman of MediaWeek to perpetually label it a “loser”, it does attract some extremely desirable subgroupings. According to NBC it has “consistently delivered some of the highest audience concentrations among all prime-time network series in such key upscale categories as adults 18-49 living in homes with $75,000-plus and $100,000-plus incomes and in homes where the head of household has four or more years of college." That makes it highly attractive to advertisers and may explain why the show actually makes a profit for the network. That said the renewal is not unconditional. Charlie McCollum of the San Jose Mercury News reports that in order to get the full season order Warner Brothers had to promise to cut production costs. Part of this will be absorbed by pay cuts for Aaron Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme. Part of the reduction will be made up by reducing the number of episodes that each member of the cast is guaranteed to appear in (actors are paid on a per episode basis with the guarantee being the minimum number of episodes the actor will appear in, or at least be paid for). Finally, NBC has announced that they will be announcing a new schedule next week, and the show will “not necessarily stay on Monday.” One can only hope for a makeover that will not only save Studio 60 but also Friday Night Lights, it being too late for Kidnapped.
NBC all about cutting costs: And I can’t help but wonder why. First we have Jeff Zucker announcing that NBC will no longer program dramas or comedies in the first hour of prime time claiming “that advertisers just won't pay enough money during the 8 pm time slot to cover the costs of comedies and dramas.” Then there’s the demand for reduced production costs for Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. In between we’ve had an announcement that NBC News would be cutting staff members including 17 staff members at Dateline NBC with more cuts to come. I suppose the question is why is NBC-Universal going all out with these cost cutting measures? I suspect that the answer has little to do with actually needing to cut costs and a whole lot to do with padding the bottom line for the NBC part of NBC-Universal. But maybe I’m just being cynical.
Who does the PTC hate this week?: Our “friends” at the PTC still haven’t replaced Boston Legal, last week’s “Worst of the Week”, so apparently it was really evil. The PTC does hate someone new this week – it’s the FCC. In a recent decision the FCC overturned two previous indecency decisions on appeal. In the first case the Commission overturned a decision related to a CBS Early Show interview with a recently evicted Survivor contestant in which the contestant referred to one of the other players as “a bullshitter”. The FCC allowed the appeal because the interview could arguably be described as “a news item.” In the other case the FCC overturned a decision stemming from “several complaints about various variants of ‘shit’ on NYPD Blue, which aired at 9 p.m. Central Time in Kansas City.” According to the report that appeared in the Center for Creative Voices in Media Blog the complaint was overturned on a procedural cause when the Commission discovered that none of the complaints about the show actually came from the Kansas City area.
Both sides seem to be engaging in a bit of spin on these two issues. On the Early Show case the PTC stated “The FCC’s ruling about the indecent language on CBS Early Show is troubling. The Commission has arbitrarily created a ‘news exemption’ for indecency where none existed before. In this case the Early Show carried an interview with a cast member promoting another CBS program, and that is considered a “news” event? This creates a loophole big enough to drive a truck through. Even more ominous is the creation of a provision for the networks themselves to determine what fits this ‘news’ definition. Virtually any programming could be called a ‘news’ program. With the networks left to their own devices and already arguing in court for an unfettered ‘right’ to air profanity at any time of day, this means that the American people will be subjected to ‘f-bombs’ and other raunchy, inappropriate language on any program a network chooses to call a ‘news’ show.” For their part the Center for Creative Voices in Media cites Duke University law professor Stuart M. Benjamin an expert on telecommunications law, “This makes it all the harder to claim we've got a set of clear consistent rules, which is what the FCC's claim has been all along." The PTC is of course expecting the worst off the television networks with their claim that “virtually any programming could be called a ‘news’ program.” This is absurd. Like every other network CBS maintains a clear separation between their news and entertainment divisions Admittedly sometimes these definitions can sometimes be blurred – witness the way that the ABC News Division was used to create a series devoted to a “study” of online dating – but on the whole the split is pretty clear-cut. Only in the minds of people like the PTC could a network define a show like CSI or even Survivor as a “news” show. The Early Show has always been considered part of the CBS News division and the interview with the Survivor contestant was both live and unscripted, at least on the part of the contestant. Both the PTC and the Center for Creative Voices in Media do recognize the fact that the FCC’s decision broke new ground and created an exemption where none had existed before.
The decision on NYPD Blue provoked a different reaction. According to the Center for Creative Voices in Media, the original decision was overturned because none of the complaints came from the Kansas City area, which was specifically where the complaints cited the problem as existing. This was discovered by Amy Schatz of the Wall Street Journal – most media outlets simply characterized the decision as “procedural”. The PTC – which was playing its now favourite card, using the time zones to define a show as indecent in one are but not indecent in another area – was defiant. They claimed that the FCC was claiming that “the FCC maintains that only one complaint was filed over ABC’s NYPD Blue in 2003, and because that complaint was incorrect, there is no basis to consider action against ABC for the program in question.” According to the PTC “there were at least 96 separate complaints from individuals in at least 28 states filed with the FCC over the use of the words ‘B.S.’ in NYPD Blue. Once again, the FCC Enforcement Bureau, which has a long, disgraceful and well-documented history of botching, or simply ignoring citizen complaints, has apparently dropped the ball, thus once again violating its charter. This is an outrage.” However, if the complaint about the show was specifically focussed on the airing of the show in Kansas City, which is what the statement from the Center for Creative Voices in Media indicates, the fact that there were 96 (or even 9600) complaints from 28 states doesn’t really matter if none of them came from the Kansas City media market.
I wonder what we can expect from the FCC now that both houses of Congress are controlled by the Democrats, even if a lot of the new Democratic Party members are social conservatives?
Big things shaking at NBC: Unfortunately none of them are being caused by Jeff Zucker’s head rolling. The first move of the current group is to put Twenty Good Years out of our misery by pulling it from the schedule indefinitely. They’ve also decided to take 30 Rock and move it to the second hour of Thursday nights along with Scrubs. There’s an element of sacrificial lamb being served up there perhaps, but maybe not since these shows are different enough from what the other networks have this time that they might draw an audience or at least retain a significant portion of the audience from the bloc of My Name Is Earl and The Office. 30 Rock starts airing in its new time slot (sort of) this coming Thursday, which means that it fills the time between a 36 minute My Name Is Earl, a 44 minute The Office, and a 59 minute ER.
NBC has also announced that they will be giving a full season order to Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, a show that people love or abhor. The show’s demographics are apparently very interesting to the network. Apparently the while the series hasn’t done well in total viewers or in the coveted Adults 18-49 group (of which I’m no longer a member), which leads Marc Berman of MediaWeek to perpetually label it a “loser”, it does attract some extremely desirable subgroupings. According to NBC it has “consistently delivered some of the highest audience concentrations among all prime-time network series in such key upscale categories as adults 18-49 living in homes with $75,000-plus and $100,000-plus incomes and in homes where the head of household has four or more years of college." That makes it highly attractive to advertisers and may explain why the show actually makes a profit for the network. That said the renewal is not unconditional. Charlie McCollum of the San Jose Mercury News reports that in order to get the full season order Warner Brothers had to promise to cut production costs. Part of this will be absorbed by pay cuts for Aaron Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme. Part of the reduction will be made up by reducing the number of episodes that each member of the cast is guaranteed to appear in (actors are paid on a per episode basis with the guarantee being the minimum number of episodes the actor will appear in, or at least be paid for). Finally, NBC has announced that they will be announcing a new schedule next week, and the show will “not necessarily stay on Monday.” One can only hope for a makeover that will not only save Studio 60 but also Friday Night Lights, it being too late for Kidnapped.
NBC all about cutting costs: And I can’t help but wonder why. First we have Jeff Zucker announcing that NBC will no longer program dramas or comedies in the first hour of prime time claiming “that advertisers just won't pay enough money during the 8 pm time slot to cover the costs of comedies and dramas.” Then there’s the demand for reduced production costs for Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. In between we’ve had an announcement that NBC News would be cutting staff members including 17 staff members at Dateline NBC with more cuts to come. I suppose the question is why is NBC-Universal going all out with these cost cutting measures? I suspect that the answer has little to do with actually needing to cut costs and a whole lot to do with padding the bottom line for the NBC part of NBC-Universal. But maybe I’m just being cynical.
Who does the PTC hate this week?: Our “friends” at the PTC still haven’t replaced Boston Legal, last week’s “Worst of the Week”, so apparently it was really evil. The PTC does hate someone new this week – it’s the FCC. In a recent decision the FCC overturned two previous indecency decisions on appeal. In the first case the Commission overturned a decision related to a CBS Early Show interview with a recently evicted Survivor contestant in which the contestant referred to one of the other players as “a bullshitter”. The FCC allowed the appeal because the interview could arguably be described as “a news item.” In the other case the FCC overturned a decision stemming from “several complaints about various variants of ‘shit’ on NYPD Blue, which aired at 9 p.m. Central Time in Kansas City.” According to the report that appeared in the Center for Creative Voices in Media Blog the complaint was overturned on a procedural cause when the Commission discovered that none of the complaints about the show actually came from the Kansas City area.
Both sides seem to be engaging in a bit of spin on these two issues. On the Early Show case the PTC stated “The FCC’s ruling about the indecent language on CBS Early Show is troubling. The Commission has arbitrarily created a ‘news exemption’ for indecency where none existed before. In this case the Early Show carried an interview with a cast member promoting another CBS program, and that is considered a “news” event? This creates a loophole big enough to drive a truck through. Even more ominous is the creation of a provision for the networks themselves to determine what fits this ‘news’ definition. Virtually any programming could be called a ‘news’ program. With the networks left to their own devices and already arguing in court for an unfettered ‘right’ to air profanity at any time of day, this means that the American people will be subjected to ‘f-bombs’ and other raunchy, inappropriate language on any program a network chooses to call a ‘news’ show.” For their part the Center for Creative Voices in Media cites Duke University law professor Stuart M. Benjamin an expert on telecommunications law, “This makes it all the harder to claim we've got a set of clear consistent rules, which is what the FCC's claim has been all along." The PTC is of course expecting the worst off the television networks with their claim that “virtually any programming could be called a ‘news’ program.” This is absurd. Like every other network CBS maintains a clear separation between their news and entertainment divisions Admittedly sometimes these definitions can sometimes be blurred – witness the way that the ABC News Division was used to create a series devoted to a “study” of online dating – but on the whole the split is pretty clear-cut. Only in the minds of people like the PTC could a network define a show like CSI or even Survivor as a “news” show. The Early Show has always been considered part of the CBS News division and the interview with the Survivor contestant was both live and unscripted, at least on the part of the contestant. Both the PTC and the Center for Creative Voices in Media do recognize the fact that the FCC’s decision broke new ground and created an exemption where none had existed before.
The decision on NYPD Blue provoked a different reaction. According to the Center for Creative Voices in Media, the original decision was overturned because none of the complaints came from the Kansas City area, which was specifically where the complaints cited the problem as existing. This was discovered by Amy Schatz of the Wall Street Journal – most media outlets simply characterized the decision as “procedural”. The PTC – which was playing its now favourite card, using the time zones to define a show as indecent in one are but not indecent in another area – was defiant. They claimed that the FCC was claiming that “the FCC maintains that only one complaint was filed over ABC’s NYPD Blue in 2003, and because that complaint was incorrect, there is no basis to consider action against ABC for the program in question.” According to the PTC “there were at least 96 separate complaints from individuals in at least 28 states filed with the FCC over the use of the words ‘B.S.’ in NYPD Blue. Once again, the FCC Enforcement Bureau, which has a long, disgraceful and well-documented history of botching, or simply ignoring citizen complaints, has apparently dropped the ball, thus once again violating its charter. This is an outrage.” However, if the complaint about the show was specifically focussed on the airing of the show in Kansas City, which is what the statement from the Center for Creative Voices in Media indicates, the fact that there were 96 (or even 9600) complaints from 28 states doesn’t really matter if none of them came from the Kansas City media market.
I wonder what we can expect from the FCC now that both houses of Congress are controlled by the Democrats, even if a lot of the new Democratic Party members are social conservatives?
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