This $#*! Ain’t So Hot

There are reasons why I don't like reviewing a new show based on the pilot, and this show is an example of why. If I had written about $#*! My Dad Says after the first episode of the show aired I would have panned it quite badly. And it would have deserved it too because that pilot episode was pretty dreadful. About the only sympathetic character in the whole episode was Tim, the "nice homosexual from the DMV," and his role was almost entirely as a deus ex machina, intended to make the Shatner's character stop being so damned obstinate about his relationship with his kids. If the show had continued in this vein it might have survived but wouldn't have been enjoyable to watch. Fortunately something changed, and while the show is never going to be an outstanding artistic success it also isn't going to die a quick death.

William Shatner plays Ed Goodson, a retired Navy Doctor in his mid 70s whose relationship with his two sons can best be described as strained. Ed is opinionated and is not shy about sharing his opinions with anyone who is nearby, whether they're interested in them or not. This may at least partly explain why Ed's two marriages broke up. Ed thinks he's perfectly happy living alone – he doesn't need anyone and he doesn't have much patience for anyone who isn't as self-sufficient as he is. That would include his younger son Henry (Jonathon Sadowski) who lost his job at a magazine as a result of the recession and needs a place to live. Ed was ready to give him the bum's rush until some he met Tim at the DMV and he came to realise that unless he at least tried to compromise with his sons he'd be all alone. As a result Ed finds himself living with Henry in a relationship that is not without its disagreements (massive understatement) – which of course is the root of the humour. Rounding out the cast are Will Sasso (MadTV and Less Than Perfect) and Nicole Sullivan (also from MadTV as well as King Of Queens) as Ed's other son Vince and Vince's assertive wife Bonnie.

Unusually, Thursday night's episode focuses on the relationship between Ed and Vince with Henry taking a back seat and the B Plot in the episode. Vince has always craved affection from his father, affection which – of course – he's never had. Every week Vince invites Ed over to their place, which as we discover is just a few blocks away from Ed's house, (and has a view of a place that has a view of the ocean), and every week Ed never shows up. One might expect that this would discourage Vince and he'd give up on his father showing up, and it might to an ordinary man. But Vince is no ordinary man. At least where his father is concerned he's an eternal optimist hoping that he'll get some sort of recognition from his dad. At work – they sell real estate – Vince and Bonnie arrange to have Henry take their bulldog Root Beer out for a walk. However, because Henry has an emergency meeting with an editor who wants to publish some of his freelance writing, Henry is forced to leave the dog with Ed. Naturally Ed is determined not to bond with the dog, and just as inevitably he ends up doing just that, to the point where he sings a lullaby to the dog ("Hush Little Baby") and seems depressed when Vince and Bonnie come to take the dog home. In fact he's so put out by the dog leaving that he actually goes to their condo "for dinner." Vince has set a place for his dad, like he does every week, while Bonnie is so sure that he won't show up that she makes a bet with him, like she does every week (apparently it involves sex). They're both surprised when Ed walks in the door, but it soon becomes apparent that Ed isn't interested in spending time with his son and daughter-in-law; all he wants to do is spend time with Root Beer. Ed claims that spending time with Root Beer has led him to a breakthrough, that there was a member of the family that he neglected and was never there for. This gets Vince's hopes up that his father is about to acknowledge that maybe he wasn't there for his eldest son and that he's sorry for all of that. But it doesn't work out like that. It turns out that the family member that Ed is sorry about neglecting is his former dog Schwarzkopf. Ed leaves as soon as he gets that off his chest. Vince is crestfallen but it is the effect on Bonnie that is really galvanizing. She goes all "mama grizzly" on Ed and tells him how much Vince looks forward to seeing his dad, and how Schwarzkopf wasn't the only one that Ed neglected and was never there for when he was working. When Ed tells her that Vince is fine, Bonnie makes it absolutely clear to him that Vince isn't fine, that he craves his father's attention and every time his father blows him off or ignores him it hurts and disappoints him and makes him feel inadequate. When Vince comes home from walking Root Beer, he finds his father there. He tells his son to come over to the couch where he's sitting and indicates that Vince should put his head on Ed's shoulder. Once he does he starts singing "Hush Little Baby" to Vince. When Bonny comes home she found Vince, asleep on his father's shoulder. Ed tells her to be quiet; that he'd just got him (Vince) down.

The B Plot in this episode was much weaker than the main plot. It featured Henry, who is supposed to be the second lead in this series, looking to "expand" his love life. This is after a date with a girl named Donna who is "safe" and in Henry's view boring. As we discover, her job is literally to watch paint dry. Henry is looking for someone who has a bit more of an edge. When he visits Vince and Bonnie's office he meets their boss, Katie. What he doesn't know about Katie is that she's manipulative and doesn't appear to have any boundaries. She had previously given Bonnie listing that would have represented half her total commission for the year, but suddenly took it back. Then Henry shows up at the office and suddenly Katie turns all sweet and charming as she flirts with Henry. Henry is clearly interested in Katie. When Henry leaves, Katie reverts to type and informs Vince and Bonnie that if they can deliver Henry to her for dinner she'll give them back the listing. She makes it clear to them that Henry will be dinner. When Henry arrives at the office, he's expecting a normal date starting off with dinner. Katie has something different in mind. She's wearing a trench coat which she strips off to reveal a lacy black bustier and stockings. She proceeds to ravage him. When Henry returns home his shirt is torn and he can barely walk, and he spit out at least one tooth. After giving Bonnie her listing, he informs his father and sister-in-law that while he was looking for someone crazy, he had in mind Playboy Mansion crazy, not Bates motel crazy. As henry described it, Katie did something that was "so profound and so disturbing to me that it would make German pornographers blush." Suddenly boring Donna doesn't look so bad to him.

There is nothing particularly innovative about $#*! My Dad Says. The basic premise is of a man who is forced by circumstances to move in with someone who is the polar opposite of himself. Think of The Odd Couple mixed with Two And A Half Men and you won't be far from the direction of this show. Into the mix you can add just about any show in which a parent is forced to deal with the mistakes he (or she) made in raising their adult kids. Or not as the case may be (Alan and Charlie's mother on Two And A Half Men refuses to face her failures in raising her sons; at least Ed is trying... a little). I think that this has a lot to do with the source material. As everyone knows, $#*! My Dad Says started out as the Twitter feed (and later book) Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern. Halpern's explanation on the Twitter feed is simple: "I'm 29. I live with my 74-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down shit that he says." Which if fine for 140 characters at a time, or a collection of those 140 characters at a time. The problem comes in taking those pithy remarks and building a television series around them. While the writing, particularly for Shatner can be quite funny, the show as a whole comes across as feeling like a bit of a retread. Yes it's funny – much funnier than I found the pilot to have been – but the sense of "I've seen this before" is inescapable.

Which leads us to the cast. The supporting cast is something of a mixed bag. I love Nicole Sullivan in just about anything that she's done and while I'm less familiar with Will Sasso, I'm quickly becoming something of a fan. He's a strong actor in a supporting role and his face is capable of conveying his emotions in a way that we don't see with some other actors. It's a significant part of his acting arsenal, and it gives him a sympathetic air. As for Sullivan, Her character of Bonny is very much the dominant member of this pair, even though she can be kind of pathetic in her desire to please and to be upwardly mobile. In a previous episode she tried very hard to become friends with two married high end brokers, and it didn't matter that they may have run over a guy in Mexico and killed him (what broke up the "friendship" was that the wife was pro-Angelina Jolie while Bonnie was pro-Jennifer Anniston). Sasso and Sullivan work well together, having spent several years at MadTV during the same period, and I don't think it is that hard to see them as the leads in a fairly typical domestic comedy. For me, the weakest of the supporting actors on the series is Jonathon Sadowski. Much of Sadowski's role is spent reacting to Shatner of course, but there is something about Sadowski that is doesn't measure up to the other three actors in the show. Sadowski spends a lot of his time reacting to Shatner and generally being antagonistic to the character of Ed. Henry is the voice of "sanity" in this family, even more so than Bonny. I think part of the problem is the way that Henry is written. His major reaction to any opposition from Ed is to threaten to leave or to feel insulted, and for me that just doesn't work. Still part of the problem has to go to Sadowski because I just don't think that he has the comedy acting chops that the other actors in this series do.

Sadowski's biggest problem may be that he's the actor who spends the most time working with Shatner, and Shatner kind of overpowers him. Shatner isn't brilliant in this, at least not as brilliant as his list of Emmy wins for The Practice would indicate, but he delivers what he's asked to deliver here. They've given him the character of a crusty curmudgeon when, when you eventually get through the crust has a somewhat less crusty interior. Shatner is loud (few scenes with him are delivered below a low bellow) bombastic, and chews the scenery with the intensity of my dog when she gets a dog treat. In an earlier episode there was a scene where Ed has to sing karaoke. He did "I'm Too Sexy" in a fashion that wasn't quite as painful as Shatner's version of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" was very much in the expected Shatner style. And this Shatner, who is very much a caricature, is probably exactly what the producers is looking for. I think that's true about just about any producer who hires Shatner these days. The effect can be quite funny, and it's part of what makes Shatner work as a comedic actor. Still it's got to be hard for someone like Sadowski to work against a presence like William Shatner.

To sum up my feelings about $#*! My Dad Says is kind of difficult. I think it is funny, but I'm well aware that there are people who found According To Jim to be funny (I just don't know anybody who'll admit it). Having said that it's funny I'm also wise enough about the show to know that it isn't innovative in the way that shows like 30 Rock, The Office, or Modern Family are innovative, and I don't find it hilarious the way that I find The Big Bang Theory which precedes it on Thursday nights to be. I mostly like the cast even though I think that Jonathan Sadowski is not the ideal person to play opposite Shatner in as key a role as Henry should be. I think that the writers were presented with a significant problem given the vague and limited nature of the original source material. There were directions that they could have taken that might have been more innovative but they didn't; they took the safe and well trodden path. And, as Robert Frost might said, that made all the difference, because $#*! My Dad Says could have been more than just a funny show, it could have been a very funny show that been another option for future writers. In twenty years people may feel nostalgic for the show, but nobody will be talking about the new ground that it broke. I think we may have been spoiled by the shows that have debuted in recent years.

Full episodes of $#*! My Dad Says can be found online at the show's CTV website for Canadians. Apparently it is not currently available online in the United States.

Weekend Videos – Top Rated Shows 1965-1969

After too many weeks of not being on a regular schedule with this stuff I'm finally back with clips from the top shows of each year (okay so this is a couple of days late for the weekend – I got caught up with a couple of things that kept delaying this). This is the fourth of these articles. In the first I covered the 1950-51 to 1954-55 seasons; in the second I did the 1955-56 to 1959-60 seasons and in the third I took on the 1960-61-1964-65 seasons. This time around I cover the 1965-66 to 1969-70 seasons.

Just to remind you of the rules I have imposed on myself are these: I will list the top three shows for each season along with the percentage of the nation's televisions that were tuned to that show during the season. These figures are drawn from the Complete Directory To Prime Time Network And Cable TV Shows 1946-Present. If the season's top rated show has already been featured either in this post or in the previous post in this series I'll find a clip from the second highest rated show, provided that it also hasn't been featured before, or the third highest rated show if the first and second place shows have been featured, and so on. The same procedure holds true if there are no clips of the show available online. I will be including the overall rating for the show. Previously I've expressed these in percentages however in 1960 the way that A.C. Nielsen calculated ratings changed and I'm not sure that percentages is a precisely accurate manner in which to describe these numbers. Finally I will be including my own comments about the shows.

1965-66:

1. Bonanza 31.8, 2. Gomer Pyle USMC 27.8, 3. The Lucy Show 27.7

I have very fond memories of Gomer Pyle. While it was a spin-off of The Andy Griffith Show, taking one of the most popular supporting characters off of the original series and making him the biggest "fish out of water" by putting him in the Marine Corps, I didn't know that at the time. I don't recall seeing The Andy Griffith Show during the period when Jim Nabors – or even Don Knotts – were regulars on the show. As a result the misadventures of the naive country boy in the Marines (the Marine Corps that didn't go to Vietnam) were totally stand-alone for me, and it works quite well as a stand-alone. Nabors is great as Gomer, who isn't book smart but has a native goodness and way to come out on top despite all of the objects strewn in his way. However the best part of the show was always watching Frank Sutton as Sergeant Carter. Sutton, a character actor who had been an Army sergeant during World War II (ironically he failed the physical for the Marine Corps), was ideal as the gruff, cynical and easily exasperated Sergeant Carter, Sutton, who graduated cum laude from Columbia University's Dramatic Arts program, had one of the best slow-burns in the business. As the year's passed Carter became increasingly friendly and even protective of his naive charge. The episode that I have here is one of my favourite first season episodes in which Carter is teamed with Gomer on a survival test... and finds himself the fish out of water in Gomer's world. Be sure to try to watch the second half of this one.

1966-67:

1. Bonanza 29.1, 2. The Red Skelton Hour 28.2, 3. The Andy Griffith Show 27.4

I'm going to take the name of my good friend Ivan Shreve in vain a couple of times in this piece and here is the first. I know that Ivan has stated in the past that he prefers Red Skelton's radio work to his TV series, and having heard some – but not nearly enough – of the great man's radio work, I can see the point. On the radio Skelton could integrate his characters more smoothly than he could on the TV show. He could switch from Junior the Mean Little Kid to Willie Lumplump in seconds. That meant that the radio show could flow far more than any TV show ever could. And of course it was easier to believe Harriet Hilliard (later Harriet Nelson of course) as Junior's exasperated mother if you couldn't see that the two had only a four year age difference. For my part, I am a huge fan of Skelton's TV work. It lacked the flow of the radio show. Skelton was reduced to the typical comedian hosted variety show, with a monologues, dancers, and sketches, but he made it work. More to the point it allowed him to do things that were impossible for him to do on the radio. On the hour-long show there were long sketches that would span commercials, and of course there were Skelton's pantomime bits that were separate, silent sketches. Most importantly for me is that Television allowed you to see an extra dimension to Skelton's performance, his facial reactions; very visible and inevitably funny but totally lost on a radio audience. Growing up in the 1960s Skelton was my second favourite comedian on TV (the other was, of course, the immortal Jack Benny).

1967-68:

1. The Andy Griffith Show 27.6, 2. The Lucy Show 27.0, 3. Gomer Pyle USMC 25.6

The Lucy Show was a favourite of mine growing up, but I don't think it holds up nearly as well as that show she did in the 1950s. Created, interestingly enough, by Lucy's ex Desi Arnaz (he seems to have wanted to "get the band back together" to the point where he was angry reported to have been angry at Bill Frawley for taking the role of Bub on My Three Sons) and forced on CBS by pressure from Desilu Productions, it became a hit. People were used to watching Lucy and it didn't seem to matter if there was no Desi (CBS feared that Lucy couldn't carry a show without Desi as her co-star) and with Vivian Vance taking her leave. Lucy surrounded herself with friends. Gale Gordon came on in the second season after he completed his contractual obligations on Dennis The Menace. Their relationship went back to the late 1930s when they were both on a variety show with Jack Haley. Mary Jane Croft took on Vance's role as Lucy's best friend. Croft had been a regular on the last season of I Love Lucy (and was married to Elliott Lewis, who had been the Executive Producer of The Lucy Show for two years after Desi left), but their friendship went back to Lucy's radio show My Favorite Husband where she was a frequent guest star. The 1967-68 season was the last for The Lucy Show, mostly because the sale of Desilu Studios to Paramount was completed in that year, and Lucy was not interested in appearing on a show that she did not own. Instead she formed her own production company, Lucille Ball Productions, and created Here's Lucy, which featured much of the same cast (Gordon, Croft, and occasionally Vance) with the addition of Lucy's teenaged children Lucie and Desi Arnaz Jr. This clip features the notorious episode with Joan Crawford. Joan said of Lucy, "Lucy can out-bitch me ANY day of the week!" while Lucy complained that Joan was constantly drunk and unable to remember her lines, and repeatedly asked if she could be replaced with Gloria Swanson.

1968-69:

1. Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In 31.8, 2. Gomer Pyle USMC 27.2, 3. Bonanza 26.6

It always seemed to me that Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In flashed across the TV firmament like a comet that was gone too soon. In fact, the show lasted six seasons, which surprises me. Of course only about half of those seasons were actually good, and the show suffered from cast defections which were part of what killed it. The show was little more than a series of blackout sketches that normally didn't last more than a couple of minutes at that. This was surrounded by various extended bits, like "Laugh-In Looks At the News," but the pace was like a machine gun so that even if a bit failed you might not really notice. Every episode of the show was star studded in a very real way; in the clip that I'm using here we have Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, Guy Lombardo and this guy with a fiddle – and I haven't even watched the full clip. In fact I'm using this clip rather than the "first" clip in this episode (which really wasn't the first part of the show) because of that guy with the fiddle. There are a couple of problems with this show. It was extremely topical, more so than the obviously political Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. It's rooted in the culture of the late 1960s and is probably only watchable today as an historical relic. Nevertheless in its time it was brilliant and, as various producers who tried to replicate its success discovered, unique. We'll never see its like again.

1969-70:

1. Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In 26.3, 2. Gunsmoke 25.9, 3. Bonanza 24.8, 4. Mayberry RFD 24.4

This is my other nod to my friend Ivan. Because the first three shows in the 1969-70 Top Ten have already been done, I have to work with the fourth place show, which is Mayberry RFD. That's a big problem for me because I have never (EVER) seen the show! The one local station here in Saskatoon didn't take the show, and I don't think it has ever rerun on a station that I've had access to. So I can't tell you a damned thing about this show. Fortunately I don't have to. Ivan, over at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear has been running his continuing Mayberry Mondays articles in which he, in his own inimitably sarcastic fashion, examines the goings on of Sam the poor dirt farmer and city council head, the Maybery Brain Trust Goober the town idiot (but forgets to remind people that he's the cousin of Gomer), Howard and Emmett, and of course Mike the idiot boy (who was played by Jodie Foster's brother... and after the book he wrote about her a few years ago I'm betting "Idiot Boy" is one of the nicer things she has to say about him). If you want to find out more about the show I encourage you to read Ivan's take on the show. The clip I have for this is quite obviously a copy digitized from a video tape, but it's the best that I can find online.

Belated Weekend Videos – Composer Of The Month Johnny Williams

I took a break from the Weekend Videos concept for a while, first because of the Emmy Polls and then out of lack of inspiration. However I'm not feeling that well right now and that gives one plenty of time to explore the Internet... when my head doesn't feel like it's bursting. Something I saw a while ago inspired this new theme for the Weekend Videos, and since it's the Thanksgiving long weekend (here in Canada; in the US it's the Columbus Day weekend and only Federal employees are sure to get the day off) I thought it might be time to star singling out the composers of theme music, starting with one who may come as a surprise to you, John Williams.

About the only TV theme that a lot of people would credit John Williams, composer of the scores for Star Wars, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark and a host of movies might be this.

That, of course is the NBC News theme. Or maybe you remember this theme from frequent collaborator Steven Spielberg's 1985-87 series Amazing Stories. (This is not the original opening sequence. While there are episodes of Amazing Stories available on YouTube, including the one of my favourite episodes, The Mission, they all seem to have clipped off the theme music, and no one has posted

Both of these themes have all the qualities that we usually associate with John Williams's movie music: lots of brass mixed with strings, and a certain heroic quality with – dare I say it – a side order of bombast. That's what we think of when we think of John Williams and his music. What a difference the years make. Maybe. Because back in the late 1950s and early '60s John Williams, or as he was known at the time Johnny Williams was doing TV themes. Pretty good TV themes in fact; some of them quite memorable. And there was one theme that could have become very memorable except for the fact that it was totally unsuited to the show. Let's start off with the earliest Johnny Williams theme that I can find, for a childhood favourite of mine, Checkmate starring Sebastian Cabot, Doug McClure, and Anthony George. In this case I'm going with the end credits, not only because they offer a glimpse of John Williams's onscreen credit but because it offers a more complete version of the theme.

There is a certain recognizable Williams quality in this piece, a little brassy and heroic although it doesn't reach the level of bombast in my opinion. Still I think it fits the swirling fog of the title sequence and indeed the show which, when you come right down to it, was a essentially a clone of such Warner Brothers private detective series as 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye.

The next theme that Williams composed for a TV show was this one for the Kraft Suspense Theater (I think this is the second version of the theme).

The Kraft Suspense Theater theme does have the brassy quality that we've come to expect from Williams but from there all bets are off. The theme has an eerie, haunted quality about it that is perfect for a suspense series. Coupled with the starkly angular and modernistic "stick figures" in the titles it becomes almost a minor masterpiece in terms of title credits.

We tend to remember John Williams's long, ongoing collaboration with Steven Spielberg, and through him with George Lucas, but before that he had a long association with Irwin Allen. Williams did the scores for two of Allen's disaster movies – The Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno – but he also did the highly memorable themes for three of Allen's TV series. The first Allen series that he created the theme for was Lost In Space. Unfortunately it is impossible to find the actual opening credits sequences for most of the Irwin Allen series on YouTube. You can find it on Hulu...unless of course you aren't an American.

This wasn't the original Lost In Space theme that was used in the unsold pilot. That theme had a much more serious tone to it, and reflected the serious tone of the series itself. However the producers discovered that they couldn't sell the series to CBS unless it was played less seriously, hence the addition of Dr. Smith and the big role for The Robot. And a show with a less serious tone needed a theme with a less serious tone. Williams uses the combination of flutes and string basses (I initially thought a tuba, and there might be one in there, but repeated listening says string basses) as major elements in the score to imply that light tone of the series.

Williams did his next score for Allen for the more serious science fiction series The Time Tunnel (also my personal favourite of his series, though none of them hold up that well).

It has a bit more of what we think of as the typical Williams style, but he uses the ticking clock motif to immediately signal to us that the show is about Time. He leaves it to us to discover what Time is of such importance to the show, besides of course the fact that the show is called The Time Tunnel. At the same time you have the driving, vaguely exotic beat competing with an exciting, adventurous but more conventional beat. It's a nice blend that works in all of the elements of the concept.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of John Williams final score for an Allen TV project, which was for Land Of The Giants. I've never seen the show, and I'm not sure that I really want to, to be absolutely honest with you. I mean the year that Land Of The Giants started was the same year that Allen did The Great Vegetable Rebellion episode of Lost In Space, so I'm not sure I could handle another Allen series at this late date. I've managed to find a copy of the opening of the episode with the music. Unfortunately it appears to have been taken off a Brazilian station, and while the English language credits are intact and the music can be heard, there is a Portuguese speaking announcer jumping in with a translation of every credit, and in a very loud voice, obviously stepping all over the music. Still even this is better than nothing which is what I would have had if I hadn't found this.

I'm really not sure what to make of that theme. It is certainly the most bombastic of his TV themes and it seems to have a certain light-hearted nature to it, particularly with the Season Two theme (note the addition of the "cat sound effect," I suppose representing one of the dangers the little people faced), but as I say I really don't have a sense of how it really fits with the series.

John Williams received his first Oscar nomination for the score for Valley Of The Dolls in 1968, the same year that he did the Land Of The Giants theme, and it pretty much marked the end of his TV series work. His music was sometimes used in TV shows after that, most importantly his music for the John Wayne movie The Cowboys which was used in the TV series of the same name which was a continuation of the story, and just about anything Star Wars related, and he has done commission work, like the music for NBC's Olympics broadcasts. Some of his music was apparently used on Jack & Bobby but I suspect it was music that he had done for something else. However, there is one other TV theme that he did. Quite honestly I think that all of us can be quite grateful that the pilot for this show was reshot and a new theme used. Keep an eye on the end credits.

Yes, John(ny) Williams did write that. Well all except for the little bit over the end credits, which was the closing from the show's we're familiar with. My guess is that they didn't have the music for the credits on the unaired pilot. As for the song, what can I say? Totally unsuitable for a three hour tour out of Hawaii (where the pilot was shot) or even out of San Pedro, but the fact is that Calypso style music was hot in 1963.

Finally a real treat, the man himself in a situation totally unlike what one might expect from the composer of Star Wars and Superman and the former conductor of the Boston Pops. According to IMDB this is one of only two appearances John Williams made as an "actor." And while we all know how reliable IMDB is about cast appearance. This is the end of the first episode The Naked Truth. Keep an eye on the piano player that John Cassavetes as Staccato is jamming with and who takes over on the piano when he leaves. A similar scene is also seen at the beginning of the episode when Staccato leaves the piano and the same guy takes over for him.

That guy is John Williams. Red Norvo was on vibes (him I recognize thanks to the face fungus) while Shelley Mann is probably on drums. Also probable are Pete Candoli on trumpet. Barney Kessel and Red Mitchell but my ability to identify them is limited. According to the Complete Directory To Primetime Network And Cable TV Shows 1946-Present entry for Johnny Staccato: "Working at the club, and often featured in musical numbers, was the jazz combo of Pete Candoli, which included Barney Kessel, Shelly Mann, Red Mitchell, Red Norvo and Johnny Williams." (emphasis mine obviously). Apparently Johnny Staccato will be coming out on DVD. In fact, according to TV Shows on DVD it is supposed to be coming out on October 12 (ie the day that most of you will be seeing this because I couldn't get it finished on time). I think I might have to find a way of getting a copy. The first episode looked so hot it was cool man.

I used to listen to a CBC radio show host who didn't like John Williams. The kindest thing he could find to say about Williams was that he was a thief, who had stolen most of his "ideas" from the likes of Eric Korngold and Franz Waxman. I'm not sure he would have said that if he could have heard some of the TV work that John Williams did, and if anything a lot of what he was to do  later is apparent in this work.

Double Header Poll Results – What Will Be The First New Comedy Cancelled In the New Season... Plus!

We have a couple of results to post. First up we know know the identity of the first drama to be cancelled this season. And the winner...for being the first loser... is FOX`s Lonestar. The series, which received a grand total of one vote in our previous poll was cancelled after two episodes and will be replaced by FOX`s Lie To Me, which held down the Monday second hour slot for most of the summer. Bye-bye Lonestar; you were hailed by the critics as one of the best new shows of the year but the public didn`t bother to watch.

Moving to the current poll, despite the fact that I don`t normally write much about comedies in this blog, the category of the first Comedy to be cancelled in the new TV season has turned out to be one of the most popular that we`ve had. Seventeen votes were cast and with one exception, CBS`s Mike & Molly, all of the series got at least one vote. In fifth place with one vote (6%) was $#*! My Dad Says, from CBS. In fourth place with two votes (12%) was NBC`s Outsourced, while in third place with three votes (18%) was FOX`s Running Wilde. In second place with four votes (24%) was the other new FOX sitcom, Raising Hope. But the winner that you think is going to be a loser, with seven votes (41%) is ABC`s Better with You.

We had one real comment on the shows mentioned in the poll (there was a second comment that didn't make a whole lot of sense in light of the shows that were mentioned). Ben wrote: "I'm gonna guess Raising Hope. The premise of a guy raising a child after the baby's mother gets executed is just begging to get cancelled." Was it executed or just incarcerated? Either way, for reasons that I get into, I'm inclined to agree with you.

Now the first thing that you have to know is that the only one of these sshows that I`ve actually seen is the first episode of $#*! My Dad Says so as always I'm not on top of the comedy line-up. That said, I don't really think that this is a particularly good year for comedies. Mike & Molly is a standard "couple getting together" show with a gimmick – in this case the gimmick is that the couple are overweight. This could be good or a disaster depending oon how they deal with the weight issue. $#*! My Dad Says is following the sort of formula that was made most famous by The Odd Couple – two basically incompatible guys living under the same roof – combined with an "old guy who is free to say anything he wants because he's old" element. It works but it's hardly original. Better With You is another show that is hardly going to set the world on fire with originality. But that doesn't make it a bad show. In fact I like the two lead actresses, Jennifer Finnegan and Joanna Garcia, quite a bit. Even Outsourced isn't that innovative. Think of it as The Office with a fish out of water quality added. It is, dare I say it, reasonably innocuous.

That leaves us with the two FOX comedies. Strike one on these shows is that they're on FOX. How long has it been since there's been a really successful live action comedy on FOX? I'm thinking back to Married With Children. And no, I don't count Arrested Development. It may have been artistically brilliant but it stayed on the air despite ratings that would have had most shows cancelled in under thirteen weeks. There've been other shows that stayed on FOX for more than a single season, but those have also had people scratching their heads. Of the two shows, Running Wilde seems the more attractive show to me. It does have some ties to shows that have gone before in that you've got a basically unsympathetic protagonist, but the concept is reasonably fresh. With the right lead-in and the right nurturing I think it could do well enough, or at least become a show that the network would want to keep around despite less than strong ratings. The problem is that the show has Raising Hope as a lead-in, and everything that I've heard about that show has me wanting to run the other way hard and fast, starting with the presence of Cloris Leachman. I didn't like Leachman in Mary Tyler Moore, I didn't like her in Phyllis and I didn't like her in Dancing With The Stars. The premise of the show makes me cringe and some of the things that I've heard about the show (the vomiting scene) are just too gross. In a battle between unoriginal and gross-out people tend to watch unoriginal. I think the first comedy to be cancelled is going to be Raising Hope. The real question may be whether or not it takes Running Wilde with it.

Hawaii Five-0.2

I don't think that anyone will ever accuse CBS of really pushing the envelope when it comes to most of their dramas. Or at least the shows that work. The network has been willing, on occasion to try a show like Viva Laughlin, and replaced the marginally successful Moonlight with the disastrous The Ex-List, but for the most part the network seems content to build on and spin-off or copy (with some changes) their own successes. You can see this in the 2010-11 season. The three new dramas on CBS are Blue Bloods, a cop show merged with a family drama, The Defenders, a dramedy built around a pair of
lawyers who are just a couple of steps above being ambulance chasers (and which just might be the most innovative of this year's CBS dramatic crop), and the subject of this review, Hawaii Five-0.

Hawaii Five-0 is of course a remake of the classic CBS series that debuted in 1968 and ran until 1980. The original, which starred Jack Lord, James MacArthur, Kam Fong and a host of others, is one of the most iconic television series ever. The theme is so well known that the first introductory notes, before the theme really gets going, are enough to identify the theme and bring back memories of the show's title sequence and thoughts of Hawaii. It's an almost Pavlovian reaction. In fact when the new version of the show was announced with an "updated," more "rock oriented" version of the theme, the villagers were out like a flash with their torches and pitchforks to destroy the "monster," which was successfully accomplished.

The big question is how do you handle this sort of iconic series when you want to do a new version? You could got the "Next Generation" route; have the new series be a continuation of the old series set a couple of decades later with new characters and references to the past. That was in fact done in an unbroadcast 1998 pilot featuring Gary Busey as the current head of Five-0. That pilot also featured a number of members of the original series cast (including Kam Fong playing his old role of Chin Ho Kelly despite the fact that the character had been killed during the series; no one connected with that revival remembered). The other way to go is to simply use the characters names and the basic concept of the show but to ignore everything that had occurred in the previous series. It worked very well when they remade Battlestar Galactica and much worse when they remade Bionic Woman. This is the approach that the producers of the new Hawaii Five-0 have taken.

The pilot episode of the current Hawaii Five-0 set up the whole premise of the series. Navy Seal Commander Steve McGarrett (Alex O'Laughlin) is part of a heavily armed escort detail transferring terrorist Anton Hesse to a different facility. However Hesse's brother Victor (James Marsters) took McGarrett's father, John, hostage and forced him to call his son. This allows Victor and his gang to locate the convoy that is transporting Anton and direct another group of terrorists to attack it. During the attack, Anton manages to escape and gets a gun. Steve is forced to shoot Anton and in retaliation Victor murders McGarrett's father. Returning to Hawaii for his father's funeral McGarrett is brought to meet Hawaiian Governor Pat Jameson (Jean Smart) at a public area of Pearl Harbor. She has a proposition for him; she will appoint him to head a special state task force to track down Hesse and other criminals like him. He will essentially have carte blanche to pick his own people and a promise of immunity for just about anything that they might have to do in order to get the job done. McGarrett turns her down. He's after Hesse himself. While at Pearl Harbor, McGarrett meets up with Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim) who had been John McGarett's protégé at the police department. Although Chin Ho is now working as a security guard in the public areas of Pearl Harbor, he gives Steve some information about the case and how seriously it's (not) being taken. The Police Department has picked a "haole" (a word in the Hawaiian language which is usually taken as meaning Caucasian, although in this context it seems to used as a term of contempt for someone who doesn't have roots in Hawaii). Returning to his family home, Steve finds and observes several clues that tell him about the number of people who were involved in the murder of his father. He is interrupted in his search by an armed man who just happens to be the haole detective that Chin Ho mentioned. Danny Williams (Scott Caan) is a divorced cop originally from New Jersey who came to Hawaii to stay close to his young daughter. He's not very happy with Steve McGarrett becoming involved in his case. This leads Steve to call the Governor and accept her offer, even being sworn in over the telephone. Suddenly Danny is Steve's subordinate, and not in a position to give any orders. Clues found at the house leads Steve and Danny to a suspected arms dealer who supplied Victor with some of his weapons. The man is not exactly happy about the police coming around and a running gun battle starts. It ends when the arms dealer threatens to shoot McGarrett and is shot by Danny. Steve isn't exactly pleased with having his one lead killed but the discovery of a Chinese girl, tied up in the arms dealer's house gives them a new direction to try. Steve reasons that Hesse might be using snakeheads, or people smugglers, to get him out of Hawaii.

In order to get a line on the snakehead responsible for bringing the girl they found at the arms dealer's house, McGarrett turns to Chin Ho. He's happy to provide some information but when Steve asks him to help on the case he refuses. He's been shuffled off to the side – given a rubber gun as he puts it – despite fifteen years on the force, because of allegations that he took bribes. Steve believes in him though because his father believed in Chin Ho. At a meeting with one of Chin Ho's confidential informants, a Hawaiian seller of shaved ices, Steve and Danny are excluded while the informant gives Chin Ho the name of the snakehead. They need to get the man to incriminate himself. The problem, as Chin points out, is that on an island the size of Oahu, all of the bad guys know all of the good guys. They need someone who isn't known, and Chin Ho has just the woman, his cousin Kona Kalakaua. They meet Kona (Grace Park) at the beach where she's surfing. A former professional surfer, she blew out her knee which led her to enter the police academy. She hasn't graduated yet, which makes her an ideal candidate to go undercover to get information to incriminate the snake head. She goes in as a Chinese immigrant who wants to get her family out of China. Outside the rest of the team is waiting in a semi-trailer equipped with some of the latest electronics, including a special laser microphone that will allow them to hear through walls. To prove that she's not a cop wearing a wire the snakehead forces her to strip down to her bra and panties, but because she has beach sand in her hair the snakehead is convinced that she's a cop. Just as things are about to go very bad for Kona the semi smashes through the wall of the old warehouse where the snakehead is based. After a gun battle, the snakehead is defiant. He claims that McGarrett and his team are guilty of entrapment and that he'll get off. After Danny discovers a group of people locked in an shipping container, Steve has some leverage on the man. The threat of prison isn't going to break the man so he threatens to have his wife and son sent back to Rwanda, where the boy is just about old enough to become a child soldier. He gives up Victor Hesse's location – a Chinese freighter that is ready to leave Hawaii soon. McGarrett contacts the Governor and insists that she stop the ship from sailing. She's worried about an international incident if American cops invade the freighter, but McGarrett not only reminds her of her promise of full immunity for his actions but claims that if it becomes public that a known terrorist was found aboard a Chinese freighter they won't press the matter of the ship being Chinese territory. McGarrett and his team drive their car up a ramp and ont the ship. In a gunfight they wound or kill most of Victor's men. In a confrontation on top of a shipping container Victor and McGarrett manage to disarm each other but recovering a gun Victor seems to get the upper hand before Steve manages to get his hand on a gun and shoot Victor. He falls off the top of the container into the ocean, but as the body doesn't come to the surface there's some question of whether or not Victor is dead. The episode concludes with Steve surveying the new headquarters of his task force in Honolulu's Iolani Palace. As the group enjoys a beer, Kona brings up the idea that they need a team name.

In 1998 Kam Fong, who played Chin Ho Kelly on the original version of the show once spoke about the possibilities of a remake: "When you have a show that runs successfully and you try to duplicate it, people who watched the earlier version can't help but associate the current cast with the former one. If they did Five-O again, everybody would compare Jack Lord with the new guy. It's never the same. The original is always better than the remake." While anyone who compares the two versions of Battlestar Galactica critically would be inclined to disagree with the assessment that "the original is always better than the remake," it is almost inevitable that one would compare the various actors to those who played the originals. This presents a problem because of the differences in acting styles over the years. I was generally pleased with Alex O'Laughlin's portrayal of Steve McGarrett; it was looser and more relatable than Jack Lord's performance. In Hawaii Five-O at least, Lord always seemed to run the emotional gamut from A to A-; for the life of me I can't ever recall his McGarrett smiling, let alone laughing. O'Laughlin's version of the character not only smiles and laughs but he comes across as a more human character. The approach with Scott Caan's version of Danny Williams is also very different from James MacArthur's. Caan's version seems to be a more mature adult than MacArthur's even though his life off the job is probably more messed up. Caan's version of Williams comes across as more of an equal to McGarrett rather than a protégé which is how MacArthur's version of the character always seemed. Making the initial relationship confrontational created more of a "buddy cop" vibe than was ever achieved in the original series. There is big difference between Kam Fong's portrayal of Chin Ho and Daniel Dae Kim's. As portrayed by Kam Fong, Chin Ho was a garrulous veteran cop (his first line in the pilot of the original series was something like "Have no fear, Chin Ho is here!") who was very well connected, often through family connections. He also represented something of an institutional memory – he had a lot of facts at his command. Daniel Dae Kim's Chin Ho has some of these qualities. He's a veteran cop and he has plenty of connections. The allegation that he's a corrupt cop who took bribes is something that would never have been used for the original character. His link to Steve McGarrett, and the reason why McGarrett is willing to bring him into his task force is that Chin Ho was his father's protégé. John McGarrett believe that Chin Ho wasn't guilty and because his father believed in and trusted Chin Ho he's willing to trust him as well. The biggest change is of course the character of Kono/Kona Kalakaua. Zulu who played Kono was a big Hawaiian guy who quite frankly had limited acting ability. The character was essentially the group's muscle, and generally had little to do in most episodes besides providing the muscle. Grace Park place Kona (that's the feminized version of the name Kono, although apparently the show will use the name Kono for the character interchangeably), and the character has been give a lot more to do than her previous male counterpart. They've made the character a tough, capable kick-ass woman with a lot of potential for storylines. Just as an example, making the character a new cop, fresh out of the academy, and therefore unknown to the bad guys means that she is likely to be the character most likely to go undercover in many episodes. I'm impressed with the direction that they're taking with the character, making her far more visible and important than Zulu's character ever was. Where I have a problem is that they have not only made the character an Asian woman with a Polynesian name, and presumably some Polynesian ancestry, but they've reinforced this by making her Chin Ho's cousin. But as you'll see this is a problem that I have with the show in general.

I generally liked the pilot, although there are a few things that I had problems with. The decision to start the series with a pilot that explained how the "Hawaii Five-0 unit" (as it is going to become known, though I don't think that the "naming session" at the end of the episode actually got around to mentioning that particular name) was created was probably a good one. It not only gives us background as to why this particular group of people came together but it also gives the characters a back story. In what will not be the last reference to the old series in this review, that is something that was painfully absent from the original Hawaii Five-O. In fact we probably knew more about the private lives of the characters on Law & Order, a modern series that was notorious for focusing only on the professional lives of its characters, than we ever knew about Jack Lord's version of McGarrett and we knew more about him than we ever knew about any of his team members. There were other nice touches, such as an explanation of why McGarrett calls Williams "Danno" (it's the name that Danny's daughter used when she had first tried to say his name). More to the point we saw the origins of the McGarrett and Williams relationship. In the original we never knew how Danno became McGarrett's protégé/second-in-command. In this we saw the relationship develop from open hostility to grudging respect.

Turning to things I didn't like, my biggest problem with the show as a whole is that there seems to have been no effort made to use local Hawaiian talent in the show, particularly Polynesian-Americans. Of the four main cast members, not one was born in Hawaii, and none is a Polynesian American. In the original series Kam Fong and Zulu (real name Gilbert Lani Kauhi) were both born in Hawaii (in fact Kam Fong was a sixteen year veteran of the Honolulu Police Department) as was later cast member Herman Weidemeyer. Another later cast member, Al Harrington, was of Samoan ancestry. A bigger problem for me – and this is something that might improve in later episode – is the sense of pace. The episode seemed to race to a conclusion in the "hour" (including commercials; more like 45 minutes without) apparently winding up the entire case a lot faster than any other show on TV. When you consider just how many of the scenes in the episode were action sequences you have to wonder how smart a terrorist Victor was to be caught the way he was. The pace of the whole thing was frenetic, and to my mind this pace left too much unexplained. This is a show that would have benefited from slowing the pace down by either running the pilot as a two hour movie – not something that's done much anymore – or splitting the pilot between two episodes. Hopefully in later episodes they'll even out the pacing.

I'm not going to say that this version of Hawaii Five-0 is better than Jack Lord's Hawaii Five-O (the replacement of the letter "O" with the number "0" is an official edict from the show's producers). The original series was very much a product of its time, and is constructed in the way that shows at the time were done, without necessarily delving deeply into the backstory of either the people or the organization that they were working for. The viewers are meant to accept what is presented to us without questioning their origins too much. Because of what we've generally become used to in shows, this lack of exposition can make the original show feel old-fashioned. Viewing a few old episodes in a recent marathon that Spike TV ran prior to the debut of the new series, I couldn't help but feel that at times the show just didn't hold together well. Based solely on the pilot the new Hawaii Five-0 has given us many of the qualities that the original series didn't explore because they didn't need to. Where I find fault with the new series (besides the lack of local actors in leading roles) is that based on the pilot the pacing isn't right. This is something that can be readily fixed so that we aren't inundated with action with bits of exposition in between to fill in the gaps. I think that the show needs to be a bit more believable as a procedural in order to live up to its namesake. While in my opinion the show has some room for improvement, Hawaii Five-0 is still a solid performer that people are going to watch, and I doubt that few of them are going to feel short changed when they watch it.

As far as the network is concerned, Hawaii Five-0 is a safe bet for CBS in this time slot. It follows the networks formula of generally playing it safe and not taking too many risks. It builds off an established name and concept and doesn't do much in the way of pushing the envelope. This may be something that the professional critics, and amateur reviewers like me may bemoan on occasion, but I think that we all have to admit that this is a formula that works. It's a formula that CBS is riding, cautiously, all the way to the bank.

New Poll - Which Of These Shows Will Be The First Comedy Cancelled In The New TV Season

Better late than never on this I guess. At least nothing's been cancelled yet, so I might as well poll on which new Comedy will be the first to be cancelled. As I mentioned in the last poll, unless a comedy really really doesn't work they tend to get a fairly good chance to prove themselves. The problem of course is that it is almost inevitable that a network will put out a comedy that someone at the network must think is funny but which the great American public doesn't get, or doesn't want to try to get, and they die a fast and spectacular death. Does anyone remember Kelsey Grammer's last show, Hank for any reason other than the way it died a quick and well deserved death? I don't think so.

What I want to know is what you think will be the first drama to disappear from the line-up (and for the purpose of this poll I'm likely to count "indefinite hiatus" as a cancellation, at least if it comes from FOX). In this case you should probably pay attention to previews that you've seen – a lot easier to do if you're an American – and online "buzz" about the shows. And as always please feel free to comment on why you think a show is going get the Viking funeral (with the unaired episodes being loaded aboard a boat and burned).

Deadline for this poll will be September 28^th.

(Apologies for not getting this poll up as quickly as I had hoped for. There was a bit of a crisis in something else that I do online, and I had to help in my own little way in restoring something resembling equilibrium. It took some time and there were a lot of semi-angry words. I will be stepping back from my involvement in this for a while after the 25^th of this month, but until then I can't tell how much I'll be accomplishing in this coming week.)

Poll Results - Which Of These Shows Will Be The First Drama Cancelled In The New TV Season?

All right, we have the results of the first of two polls about which new shows will be the first to be cancelled this season. There were thirteen votes cast for the shows you think will be the first of the sixteen new dramas to be canned. Unlike other polls I won't be listing the shows that didn't receive any votes. There are too many of them. Instead, here are the eight shows that actually got votes (hour indicates the first, second or third hour of prime time since, as the folks at the PTC keep reminding us, prime time is different in different time zones). With one vote (7%) each are Lone Star (FOX, Monday, second hour), Detroit 1-8-7 (ABC, Tuesday, third Hour), and Undercovers (NBC Wednesday, first hour). And in first place, with two votes each (15%) are Chase (NBC, Monday, third hour), No Ordinary Family (ABC, Tuesday, first hour), My Generation (ABC, Thursday, first hour), Nikita (The CW, Thursday, second hour), and Outlaw (NBC, Friday, third Hour).

In other words, gentle readers, there's no real consensus among the thirteen of you who chose to vote. I'm not sure if this is a good thing in that you think that the shows are all reasonably good, or whether it's a bad thing in that you think that these are the worst of a pretty bad lot. I've got to say, I'm not too sure myself. I think that it may very well be that a lot of what we'll be seeing next week, when most of the new dramas debut, is a floodtide of mediocrity. There are two, possibly three shows that might, might, rise above the crowd in terms of quality, but the bitter truth is that quality doesn't always – actually doesn't ever – trump popularity in the world of network TV. For the record, in my opinion those two or three shows are going to be The Event (NBC, Monday, second hour), Detroit 1-8-7 (ABC, Tuesday, third hour) and Blue Bloods (CBS, Friday, third hour). I might have added Lone Star (FOX, Monday, second hour) but there is something about that show that just seems to rub me the wrong way.

Before I weigh in on that I think will be the first drama to be cancelled I want to look at the comments that this poll generated. Ben had this to say:

I'm guessing My Generation. It sounds kind of interesting, but youth-oriented shows fail more often than they succeed. See Life as We Know It, Get Real, etc.

I'll talk about My Generation in a bit, but for the moment let's just say that this show has a ton of problems beyond it being "youth oriented" starting with its opposition in the time slot.

Todd Mason had this to say about his choice, Chase:

Going with historical trends...NBC has had a history of killing whatever they put up against CSI MIAMI in its crib.

At which point I reminded Todd that CBS had moved CSI: Miami to Sunday night and that Chase will be going up against Hawaii Five-0 which really could be worse. Todd responded:

Indeed. I'd forgotten CBS had decided to bury that thing on Sunday. But, yes, being against H50.3 and CASTLE, which is a sleeper with a devoted audience, will probably not help the apparently rather dull CHASE out. A cursed slot for NBC, maybe.

But Ben ain't wrong, either. However, CW or tween cable might try to grab it if ABC decides against it.

I'm trying to think of the last time that NBC had something that lasted more than a season in the Monday third hour time slot. Okay, I wasn't thinking about it, I had to look it up. The answer is Medium(!?) in the 2005-06 season. Still, that's a long dry spell and I don't think that Chase will break the trend. But I don't think it will be the first show cancelled either. In fact I think that it might limp through most of the season before expiring.

Looking over the shows that are in contention - based on your votes - for the dubious honour of being the first drama to be cancelled, the two shows that stand out to me as "vulture bait" in the drama category are My Generation and Outlaw. My Generation has a really tough time slot to try to conquer – the comedy combo of The Big Bang Theory and $#*! My Dad Says on CBS, Community and 30 Rock on NBC, Bones on FOX and even The Vampire Diaries on The CW. That right there gives it a tough hill to climb, but then you have to add on the subject matter. As Ben pointed out, "youth-oriented shows fail more often than they succeed" and while I'm not absolutely convinced that this show is as "youth oriented" as he seems to think I'm really concerned that the subject matter isn't going to click. The ensemble cast isn't going to help, particularly when it seems like you aren't going to get too much overlap between cast members. We've seen plenty of examples where shows with ensemble casts which tell the stories of individual ensemble members have fallen flat fast.

The other show that I think will be gone fast is NBC's Outlaw. The show has the advantage of Jimmy Smits as the lead, although we all remember how well Cane did a couple of years back when Smits was the lead. The time slot is a bit of a problem in that it is going up against CBS's Blue Bloods (with Tom Selleck) and ABC's aged news magazine 20/20, and NBC offers a weak lead-in with Dateline NBC while CBS has CSI: New York. But that's not why I think Outlaws will be gone quick. I think that the big problem for Outlaw is that people are going to have a tough time accepting the premise. I don't think they'll believe that a Supreme Court Justice would suddenly give it all up to set up in private practice to work for the downtrodden. And based on the fact that Smits's character is a womanizer and a gambler makes you wonder how he managed the confirmation hearings to get onto the bench – any bench – in the first place. Combine all of these factors – time slot, lead-in, Smits versus Selleck (in terms of actor popularity), the apparent absurdity of the premise, and just the way that CBS "gets" the sort of audience that they're dealing with on Friday evenings and I think that Outlaw is likely to be gone by the end of thirteen weeks.

I hope to have the poll for the comedies up sometime tomorrow … after I get back from the casino.


 

New Poll - Which Of These Shows Will Be The First Drama Cancelled In The New TV Season

I have a new poll up, although because of the number of shows that I'm asking about I can't use my usual polling client which limits me to a maximum of ten answers.

The question this time around is what the first freshman drama to be cancelled this season will be. With the new TV season starting in two weeks – although The CW will be debuting their two new dramas this coming week – the inevitable question is what will survive and what will go down hard and fast. If past performance is any indicator the first shows to be dumped will be dramas because dramas tend to be more expensive to produce than comedies. On the other hand, if a comedy really really doesn`t work it will be out pretty quick too. And that`s at least part of the reason why I`m not asking about all of the new shows. My next poll will focus on the comedies.

It`s another case of wanting to know what you think will be the first drama to disappear from the line-up (and for the purpose of this poll I'm likely to count "indefinite hiatus" as a cancellation, at least if it comes from FOX). In this case you should probably pay attention to previews that you've seen – a lot easier to do if you're an American – and online "buzz" about the shows.

As always, if you feel so inclined, please include an explanation of why exactly you think that a particular series is heading for the chopping block like an unpardoned Thanksgiving turkey. You might even include a date by which you expect the show to be entering TV Tartarus. Deadline for this poll is September 14 at 5:30 p.m.

A Belated Emmy Round-up

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." That's how I felt about the Emmys.

I know, I know, quoting Dickens when writing about an awards show is sort of trite, although I suspect that if Dickens were alive today he'd be writing for TV. The magazines that he wrote for in his day were the episodic mass entertainment media of the day, delivering serialized stories for those who couldn't or wouldn't go to plays but probably patronized Vaudeville and Music Hall. Still whether or not Dickens was writing for TV, I do feel that he wouldn't have anything to do with awards shows except as a recipient. Sunday's Emmy Awards was a show that gave us the best of times and the worst of times.

So why did I use that quote? Well, I used the quote because there were times when the show worked for me, times when it was fun and it flowed. But there were other times too, when I was ready to throttle several of the people associated with the entire endeavour. The fact that the worst of it pretty much coincided with the Movie and Miniseries categories – aka the "let's honour HBO for being the only people to continue to make this sort of stuff" segment of the show – is not really the point. There were tons of problems with the show and the way it was paced and put together. It was a show of parts rather than one that really flowed well. On the whole it made the show a big disappointment.

The show got off to a reasonable start with a musical number featuring host Jimmy Fallon several of the young cast members from Glee and an assortment of actors from other shows, including (but not limited to) Tina Fey, John Hamm, Joel McHale and Jorge Garcia, all singing so reasonably well that one wonders if the Autotune equipment was deployed. Fallon even did a reasonably good Bruce Springsteen riff at the end... or maybe he was just lip-syncing. No matter it was an energetic start to the proceedings, but then one of the symptoms of the problems that I was going to have with the whole thing surfaced. We had Fallon with an acoustic guitar, assisted by Amy Poehler, introducing the Comedy portion of the show. And I don't mean that they were doing humour at the beginning of the show. We had Fallon "paying tribute" to the three big shows that that left the air this year, 24, Law & Order, and Lost by doing parodies of various musicians. To show how out of touch I am, the only one that I recognised was the Elton John tribute to 24 I had to discover later that the Law & Order tribute was Boyz II Men and the Lost tribute was Green Day. Now pardon me if I'm wrong but aren't those references all nostalgia but just nostalgia for different people? No matter my tolerance for musical Fallon is apparently quite low.

Something else that annoyed me was the whole idea of the "Twitter introductions." These were introductions to some of the presenters that were supposedly written by ordinary decent civilians like you and me who submitted them using Twitter, I suppose in the hope that the show would seem hip and involving for the viewers by embracing social media. Look, I already know that Hollywood is embracing the whole social media thing because they've got an entire show inspired by a Twitter feed on the Fall schedule ($#*! My Dad Says), but it's a fact that most of the people posting on Twitter aren't as funny as the guy whose posts inspired $#*! My Dad Says, and if you needed any proof you had it in the lame intros that the public submitted (or supposedly submitted). And these were the ones that someone involved in the show thought were funny! Can you imagine the ones they rejected?!

I mentioned that I had a low tolerance for musical Jimmy Fallon. I also seem to have a very low tolerance for Ricky Gervaise. This time around he came out to present the award for Outstanding Musical Comedy or Variety Show, a category that has basically become the catch-all for the late night talk shows since nobody is doing primetime variety or even variety specials anymore, and he riffs on the idea that the show needs for people to be drinking. Maybe then things would get more exciting, presumably in the hope that someone would say something outrageous that the FCC would want to fine NBC for (but can't at least until the Supreme Court rules on the decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals – and no Gervaise didn't go into that, that was mine). It's what goes on at the Golden Globes (which Gervaise is hosting this year). Setting aside the fact that this is a fairly serious event and would there be an open bar at the British version of this, the BAFTAs, the fact is that I thought that Gervaise was allowed to go on too long without being that funny (certainly not as funny as he thought he was) in a show that is inevitably tight for time.

One other thing that I found a bit annoying was the way that they handled the writing and directing categories in all four genres (Comedy, Drama, Musical Comedy & Variety, and Movies & Miniseries). Instead of announcing the names of the writers, the producers tried to replicate the vibe that the Musical Comedy & Variety writers and producers get up to with their short productions naming the (many) people who participate in putting their shows together. They asked the writers and directors questions and aired the answers. Some of the answers were humorous, but not all of them. That was part of the problem with doing it this way – some of the nominees didn't bring the funny – but the big thing was that I just didn't get the names of the people who won. I want to know the names of the people who win, and if you feel the need to have something under the announcement of the names, include clips of the show instead.

There were good things about the broadcast. In fact if I'm going to be absolutely honest the good things outweighed all but the worst of the bad things. For one thing Fallon and the producers seemed quite intent on running a tight show and showing the world that they were running a tight show. From time to time at the cutaways they showed a clock that indicated where they were in terms of run-over. The longest time of run-over that the clock showed – or that they showed on the clock – was 1:56. Not one hour and fifty-six minutes but one minute and fifty six seconds. And from that point the run-over decreased and by the end of the night I was under the impression that they were just slightly short. The better part of this is that they were able to pull this off without making whatever cuts they made in the running time without making those cuts seamlessly. It never felt like massive amounts of material was dumped, and as far as that part goes it flowed well. I suppose that they were helped by the fact that George Clooney's speech accepting the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award (the Hopes were friends of his Aunt Rosemary) was short but nonetheless a heartfelt call for people to keep giving even when the disaster of the day has left the headlines, because the need was still there. There was also time for some good material. I was particularly impressed with the comedy bit done with eventual Outstanding Comedy winner Modern Family that culminated with Julie Bowen, Sofia Vergara, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet together with George Clooney (who was a good sport about the whole thing). The use of John Hodgeman as a back stage announcer, giving "humorous" opinions about the winners of various categories as they made their way to the stage, was good if expected. After all he's been doing this for the past three episodes or so.

Which brings me to the biggest problem I had with the show and it's a big one. One of the things that I learned when I was running my old Diplomacy zine was laying out a page. I wasn't great at it but I did alright. Setting the running order of the awards is the equivalent of doing layout on a printed page, and in this case I think that they producers of the Emmy's did a lousy job. They did a lousy job – in my opinion – because the segregated the categories by genre. Thus you had all of the comedy awards that were given out on Sunday night (except the Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy, which was the last one presented on the night) all together, followed by "all" the Reality Emmys (all one of them!?) presented together and so on. That was a real problem for me and, if the ratings are to be believed, for a lot of people. According to Marc Berman of Media Week viewership for the last half hour of the Emmy Awards dropped from 11.21 million to 9.37 million. The last half hour of the Emmys roughly coincided with the grouping of all the Movie & Miniseries Emmys, or as I like to call it, the "Let's pat HBO on the back for doing the stuff that Network TV can't make pay and is afraid to do anyway" portion of the Emmys. And why would they. If we accept the premise that most Americans either only watch Broadcast TV or watch Broadcast TV and a selection of basic cable channels but don't subscribe to a premium service like HBO, then why would they be interested in watching Temple Grandin and You Don't Know Jack sweep through the awards in this category like Sherman swept through Georgia. Only slightly more absurd than the fact that there was only one Reality show category in the Emmys and yet there was a whole section of the awards ceremony devoted to Reality Show is the fact that there were only two entries in the mini-series category. People skipped this part of the ceremony in droves, I suppose preferring to watch the end of the pre-season football game on FOX.

Ah I can hear people say, but how else can you do it? If you only put the big categories at the end of the show won't people tune out and just catch the big awards at the end? That's what defenders of the way the show was set up this year are saying. The fact is that you don't have to present all of the big awards at the end of the night. Why can't you mix up the categories and present the award for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy right after Outstanding Writer Movie or Mini-series and just before Outstanding Reality-Competition Series. You can still have the clip pieces about the year in TV Drama or Comedy or what have you but they don't serve to demark sections of the show. There are really only two awards that have to be at the end – Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Drama Series – but otherwise they can pretty much be presented in whatever order works for the producers, and people will keep watching because they won't know when a category they'll really be interested in will be coming up. But that's just my opinion.

Turning to the awards themselves, it was a big night for Modern Family, winning in the Writing category as well as for Supporting Actor in a Comedy for Eric Stonestreet, and the Outstanding Comedy Series award. Where it didn't win was in the two lead categories where the show had no one entered, and in the Directing and Supporting Actress categories where everyone knew that Jane Lynch was going to win for her portrayal of Sue Sylvester. (Interesting note – both Jane Lynch and Eric Stonestreet had minor speaking parts in third season episodes of The West Wing: Lynch was a reporter in the press room and Stonestreet was one of White House Council Oliver Babich's assistants.) As the blog poll predicted Jim Parsons won the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy, but the bigger story is that the Outstanding Lead Actress Emmy went not to the poll's preferred actress Amy Poehler but to perpetual Emmy favourite Edi Falco. It seemed to come as a shock to her, because she claimed in her acceptance speech that "I'm not funny." And while that may be her self-deprecating way of saying that she herself isn't funny it sticks with the sense of a lot of people that her show isn't funny. Also in the realm of surprises was that Kyra Sedgwick won the Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Drama after her fifth nomination. I would like to note for posterity that our Emmy poll had a three way tie in this category and still failed to name the winner in a six woman race. I guess that our preferences as fans don't match what the TV Academy is looking for.

Despite the fumble with the Outstanding Actress in a Drama category the poll had a good time at the awards this year, getting not only Parsons and Modern Family but also the Reality Competition winner. You guys picked Top Chef when I was sure that The Amazing Race would win a seventh award despite a lacklustre season (but I still contend that this last season of Survivor had it over both shows and has only been nominated once in this category since they started giving Emmys in it). The Emmy for Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad was, despite the poll's support for Michael C. Hall, less a case of Emmy Entropy than it was a case of the Academy getting it right and rewarding outstanding work. The same can be said of the award for his Breaking Bad co-star Aaron Paul in the Supporting Actor category. Still, it was only in the two Actor categories that Breaking Bad triumphed. Despite, or perhaps because, Mad Men having two cast members (Elizabeth Moss and Christina Hendicks) in the Supporting Actress in a Drama category, it was The Good Wife's Archie Panjabi who won there. Dexter's Steven Shill won as outstanding Director in a Drama series, but it was Mad Men that won the Outstanding Drama Emmy, not poll choice and departing series Lost.

And that's the 2010 Emmy awards. Not the best Emmy show ever and with plenty of room for improvement, but far from the worst Emmy show ever – that "honour" would go to the year the Reality Show hosts hosted. Hopefully whoever has the show next year will learn from the good points and missteps of this year's show. Somehow I doubt it though.

(This article is way late. I'll just give the excuse that I had to go to my brother's birthday party on Monday, and couldn't get much work done during the whole day. It has the singular virtue of being true. This would never have happened if they'd run the show when it's supposed to run - the middle of September. Then I'd have a host of other excuses for being late.)

The Emmy Poll Round Up – Who Should Win and Who Will Win

Or at least who I think will win. Since of course should win and will win are entirely different animals.

In the Outstanding Actress in a Drama category the result was a three-way between Glenn Close, Connie Britton and Mariska Hargitay. Wait, let me try to scrub that image from my mind. No, that's not going away. Of these three I think that Glenn Close has the best chance of taking it home, the Academy tending to follow a policy of giving the statue to whoever won it last unless they've got a damned good reason not to. The thing is that the more I think this over the more I think that they do have a damned good reason to give it to someone else, but that someone else is someone who didn't get any votes in this poll. That would be Julianna Margulies, whose performance as Alicia Florrick in The Good Wife is a strong one and is getting a lot of favourable buzz the closer we get to the Emmy's. She already has a SAG Award, a Golden Globe and a Satellite Award for the part. And it's a good fit for her. I think the Academy will complete the set by giving her the Emmy, and I think it's probably well deserved.

In the Outstanding Actress in a Comedy category, the poll came up with Amy Poehler from Parks & Recreation as the winner. This is really a category that I have no strong opinion on because I don't watch any of the shows. The one thing that I will say is that I don't get Edie Falco's nomination here, even though reportedly this is a performance that will make you forget she was ever Carmela Soprano. But is it a comedy? In a situation like this I will retreat to "Emmy Entropy" and suggest that either last year's winner Toni Collette or the winner in earlier seasons Tina Fey will take it. Still you can't ignore the fact that the Academy does love Edie Falco. This one's a real scramble.

The poll for Outstanding Actor in a Drama gave us Dexter's Michael C. Hall as your choice to win the Emmy. It is a very strong field this year and I think that Hall is probably deserving of the award. I just don't think he'll win it. As I said in the article when I gave out the poll results, I think that Bryan Cranston is almost certainly going to win this category for a third year in a row. Anyone else, but in particular Kyle Chandler is a long shot. The academy has shown that they prefer the complexities of Cranston's performance to just about When you consider that everyone in this category except Chandler and Fox – both of whom have been nominated for the first time in this category – has lost to Cranston in the past two years, it seems unlikely that there'll be an upset in this category. Give the Emmy to Cranston again, but at least you can't belame "Emmy Entropy"; he's earned it.

Turning to Outstanding Actor in a Comedy responses to the poll came down heavily on the side of Jim Parsons from The Big Bang Theory an opinion that I personally share. Incumbent winner Alec Baldwin was a distant second in my poll. I won't disagree that Parsons is what elevates The Big Bang Theory above the level of some sort of Friends knock-off and for that alone he is deserving of the award. I desperately want him to get it, hope that he'll get it, will that he'll get it. I just fear that, like last year, the Emmys will ignore Parsons's performance and give the thing to Alec Baldwin... in which case I'm blaming Will Wheaton because that's something Sheldon would do.

Of the three "Outstanding Series" categories that I polled on, Outstanding Reality-Competition Series is probably the least suspenseful of them all. The poll picked Top Chef over American Idol but the perpetual winner in the category is The Amazing Race and despite what I think most viewers would consider a pair of less than stellar outing in the past TV season, it's the show most likely to succeed. Part of the reason is that American Idol didn't exactly have a great season either. And while Dancing With The Stars did have two strong seasons I don't think the Academy will reward it. The problem with all of this is that none of these shows was the real Outstanding Reality-Competition Series this year. The true Outstanding Reality-Competition Series was Survivor: Heroes vs Villains and everyone except the Academy knows it. The show had all the elements that a good Reality-Competition show needs; drama, comedy, a bit of carefully blurred nudity, injuries, despair, a villain that you could really hate (Russell Hantz), an unlikely hero (Boston Rob, the first person who really saw Russell for the rat that he was), and a winner who was both unexpected and likeable (Sandra Diaz-Twine). But for whatever reason – probably because the Academy thought it "unworthy" – the show wasn't nominated. Of the shows that were nominated Amazing Race is the one that they probably liked the best.

In the Outstanding Comedy Series category the poll chose Modern Family over The Office. Now I won't disagree with Modern Family as the winner. I think that it's a show that has altered the dynamic of the family comedy significantly. That said I'm not convinced that it will be the winner in the category for two reasons. The first is that it might be a victim of "Emmy Entropy" and lose to repeat Emmy winner 30 Rock even if the show has been weaker this year than in previous years. The other possible winner is this year's critical darling Glee. All things considered, while I personally think that Modern Family should win, 30 Rock is the show that I think will win.

Finally, in the Outstanding Drama Series category, Lost won the most votes in my poll. I think this reflects in part the show's cult following and also the fact that the show has left the air. I think that if it does win the Emmy it will be because it was the show's final season. I just don't think that it will win. I'm mostly convinced that Mad Men will repeat in this category for the third season in a row. It would be my personal pick, but The Good Wife has a lot of buzz. Still, I think that "Emmy Entropy" will win out again, and that Mad Men will be the last show to be honoured in tonight's show.

I won't be live-blogging the Emmy's this year, but I will be taking notes and will be doing a wrap-up, after I recover from the show.