The CW’s 2011-12 Season

The CW, the network that some has described as “the cable of broadcast television,” has announced its 2011-12 line-up. Four new hour long series will be debuting in the Fall with two new series and one returning series debuting at mid-season. In addition three series will be changing either their time or their night.

Cancelled: Hellcats, Shedding For The Wedding, Life Unexpected, Smallville (planned ending).

Moved: Gossip Girl, 90210, Nikita.

Renewed: America’s Next Top Model, Vampire Diaries, Supernatural

New Series: Dramas – Hart of Dixie, Ringer, Secret Circle
Reality – H8R

The CW also has two reality series – Remodeled and The Frame – for mid-season. As well returning series One Tree Hill will be returning at mid-season for thirteen episodes to bring the show to its conclusion.

Complete Schedule (All times Eastern, new shows in Capitals)

Monday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  Gossip Girl (New Time)
9:00-10:00 p.m.  HART OF DIXIE

Tuesday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  90210 (New Day)
9:00-10:00 p.m.  RINGERS

Wednesday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  H8R
9:00-10:00 p.m.  America’s Next Top Model

Thursday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  Vampire Diaries
9:00-10:00 p.m.  SECRET CIRCLE

Friday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  Supernatural
9:00-10:00 p.m.  Nikita (New Day)

In Hart of Dixie, Rachel Bilson plays Dr. Zoe Hart, a new doctor who expects to follow in her father’s footsteps as a cardio-thoracic surgeon. That is she does until her dreams fall apart and she receives an offer from a stranger, Dr. Harley Wilkes to work in his rural Alabama practice. When she gets to the Gulf Coast town of Bluebell Alabama to join the practice she discovers that Dr. Wilkes has died and left the practice to her. The problem is that at least some of the locals aren’t displaying the legendary Southern hospitality, notably Dr. Brick Brick Breeland the other doctor in town, and his daughter Lemon (Jaime King) on the other hand she does have a few allies: the towns may Lavon Hayes (Cress Williams), her bad-boy neighbour Wade Kinsella (Wilson Bethel), and lawyer George Tucker (Scott Porter) who just happens to be Lemon’s fiancee. While Rachel’s initial instinct is to go back to New York, a visit from her snobby mother leads Rachel to change her mind and discover both small town life and a side of herself she never knew existed.

H8TR is a new reality show hsted by Mario Lopez that brings celebrities face to face with the ordinary peple who hate them, in an attempt to win them over.

Ringer marks the return of Sarah Michelle Gellar to series television in a dual role. Gellar plays Bridget Cafferty and her identical twin sister Siobhan Marx. After recovering addict Bridget witnesses a professional hit. Despite the assurances of her FBI protection agent Victor Machado (Nestor Carbonell) she decides to flee New York and go to her sister. Bridget and her sister Siobhan have been estranged for some time to the point where no one in Siobhan’s wealthy and pampered life knows of Bridgett’s existence, including her husband Andrew Marx (Ioan Gruffedd), The sisters seem to be on the road to mending their relationship when Siobhan suddenly disappears. Bridgett decides to take on her identity. As Siobhan she discovers shocking secrets about her sister'’s life and marriage and about Siobhan’s best friend Gemma (Tara Summers) and her husband Henry (Kristopher Polaha).

Secret Circle is the new series from the creators of The Vampire Diaries. After Cassie Blake (Britt Robertson) loses her mother in a seemingly accidental fire the teenage girl goes to live with her Grandmother Jane (Ashley Crow) in Chance Harbor Washington. As Cassie gets to know her new classmates –  sweet-natured Diana (Shelley Hennig), her boyfriend Adam (Thomas Dekker), brooding loner Nick (Louis Hunter), mean girl Faye (Phoebe Tonkin) and her sidekick Melissa (Jessica Parker Kennedy) – strange things start to happen. Cassie doesn’t believe them when they inform her that they are descendants of powerful witches, and that they have been waiting for her to join them to complete a new generation of the Secret Circle. However when she finds a a message from her mother in an old book of spells in her mother’s childhood bedroom she comes to understand her true and dangerous destiny. None of the teens are aware of the darker powers at play in the town that may be linked to the adults in town, including Diana’s father (Gale Harold) and Faye’s mother (Natasha Henstridge).

In mid-season reality series Re-Modeled modelling industry veteran Paul Fisher attempts to bring together small modelling agencies from around the country into a single organization known s The Network. The objective of the Network is to keep the small town agencies rom getting screwed and to empower models to take control of their careers and lead healthier lives.

The Frame is a concept that I’m not sure I can do justice to because I don’t fully understand it myself so I’ll leave it to the network press release about the show: “Ten teams of two, chosen for their dynamic personalities and their existing deep-rooted relationships, are selected to compete in this wild social experiment. These teams will each live in one Frame - a stripped down version of their home living space - for up to 8 weeks, with the entire world watching their inter-personal soap operas play out atop a highly formatted game. Couples cannot physically see one another, but each "frame" is rigged with plasma screens & communication devices that allow for visual and verbal interaction. The teams will face outrageous challenges, punishments, head-to-head competitions, and eliminations, all while isolated from the outside world. With 24/7 web cams streaming content live, and a bi-weekly television show, audiences will vote for - and have control over - many elements of the show, from rewards to punishments to eliminations. The last couple standing will be America's favorite pair, and walk away with a cash prize.”

Comments

The CW is always a difficult network to evaluate because what defines success and failure for them is usually quite different than it is for other networks. Few CW shows, even the ones that have been on since the network began, have ever earned the sort of ratings that would see the shows from being cancelled after the second episode. The person who called The CW “the cable of broadcast television” isn’t far wrong if you define “cable” in this context as catering to a niche audience. The CW has largely defined its niche as a teen and young adult female audience, hence shows like Gossip Girl, 90210, One Tree Hill, America’s Next Top Model, and Vampire Diaries. Shows that don’t entirely fit into this model do exist – I’m thinking specifically of Supernatural and to a lesser extent Nikita – but they tend to be aberrations. Clearly, of course, I am not a member of the core group that the network is trying to reach, which makes evaluating their shows difficult for me.

Nevertheless there are a couple of things that can talk about. Clearly the big story for the network is Ringer. The show was originally intended for CBS (which owns 50% of The CW Network and is the “C” in CW), but it seems that while programming executives at the network liked the show, they didn’t seem to think it would work on CBS. They did however think that it was an ideal fit for The CW. It is also probably the only CW show that I am likely to make a serious effort to watch. I would certainly have watched it if it had in fact made it into the CBS lineup, or any of the big broadcast networks.

I’ve seen at least one commenter in a forum state that the series summation for Hart Of Dixie made it sound a lot like Everwood and I’m not entirely sure that they’re wrong about that. Admittedly the principal of the show fits the CW’s preferred demographic more than Everwood did – a young single woman doctor rather than a middle-aged widowed male doctor – but so many of the details are the reminiscent of the older show. As to Secret Circle, this show is undoubtedly going to get a good run. It’s a good fit following The Vampire Diaries but quite frankly it is a show that is so far outside my wheelhouse that there’s not much I can say about it.

Turning briefly to the network’s reality shows, I can’t wrap my admittedly aged (by CW standards, and even by network demographics standards) brain cells around why any network would want to touch H8R with a ten foot pole, and Re-Modelled just sounds boring. The one reality series that the network has that sounds even borderline interesting is The Frame. I don’t entirely get it, but I get the impression that it’s a lot like Big Brother the way the British do it… so of course my impression will be entirely wrong. Given the “success” of The CW’s attempts at reality shows (including the apparent decline in ratings for America’s Nest Top Model) maybe The CW should abandon that type of programming the way they dropped sitcoms.

I think that, while I cannot claim to totally understand some of the decisions the executives at The CW have made, this is a relatively good schedule for them. It isn’t going to set the world on fire, but how often has anything that has come from The CW really set the world on fire. When I’m able to say that there is one show that I am likely to watch more than one episode of on the network it’s a good thing. I haven’t honestly been able to say that about any show that has debuted on The CW – most of the shows that I have watched on that network were brought over from the old WB. It’s not a standard that I’d hold other networks to, but for me, having that one show that I want to see more than once means that the network’s new schedule is a success.

CBS’s 2011-12 Schedule

CBS announced their new fall schedule at their upfront presentation on Wednesday. Seven shows were cancelled or had been cancelled earlier in the year, while three new hour long dramas and two half hour comedies were announced to debut in the Fall. In additions a fourth drama has been announced for mid-season. Three shows were moved, and one show – Undercover Boss – was held over until the mid-season.

Cancelled: Chaos, Criminal Minds Suspect Behavior, The Defenders, Medium, Live To Dance, Mad Love, $#*! My Dad Says.

Moved: CSI, The Good Wife, Rules Of Engagement.

Renewed: Two And A Half Men, How I Met Your Mother, Mike & Molly, Hawaii Five-0, NCIS, NCIS Los Angeles, Survivor, Criminal Minds, The Big Bang Theory, The Mentalist, CSI: New York, Blue Bloods, The Amazing Race, CSI: Miami.

New Shows: Dramas – Unforgettable, Person Of Interest, A Gifted Man
Comedys – 2 Broke Girls, How To Be A Gentleman

In addition the network has announced that returning series Undercover Boss, and new series The 2-2 will be available for mid-season.

Complete Schedule (All Times Eastern; new shows in Capitals, except NCIS and CSI)

Monday
8:00-8:30 p.m.  How I Met Your Mother
8:30-9:00 p.m.  2 BROKE GIRLS
9:00-9:30 p.m.  Two And A Half Men
9:30-10:00 p.m.  Mike & Molly
10:00-11:00 p.m.  Hawaii Five-0

Tuesday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  NCIS
9:00-10:00 p.m.  NCIS Los Angeles
10:00-11:00 p.m.  UNFORGETTABLE

Wednesday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  Survivor
9:00-10:00 p.m. Criminal Minds
10:00-11:00 p.m. CSI (new day and time)

Thursday
8:00-8:30 p.m.  Big Bang Theory
8:30-9:00 p.m.  HOW TO BE A GENTLEMAN
9:00-10:00 p.m.  PERSON OF INTEREST
10:00-11:00 p.m.  The Mentalist

Friday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  A GIFTED MAN
9:00-10:00 p.m.  CSI: New York
10:00-11:00 p.m.  Blue Bloods

Saturday
8:00-8:30 p.m.  Rules Of Engagement (new day and time)
8:30-9:00 p.m.  Comedy Encores
9:00-10:00 p.m.  Drama Encores
10:00-11:00 p.m.  48 Hours Mystery

Sunday
7:00-8:00 p.m. 60 Minutes
8:00-9:00 p.m.  The Amazing Race
9:00-10:00 p.m.  The Good Wife (new day and time)
10:00-11:00 p.m.  CSI: Miami

2 Broke Girls is a new comedy from Executive Producers Michael Patrick King and Whitney Cummings (who is starring in the new NBC comedy Whitney) about two waitresses with a dream. Max is working two jobs just to get by while Caroline is a “trust fund princess” who is having a run of bad luck. Max initially sees Caroline as the latest in a line of inept servers that she’s had to cover while working the night shift at the retro-hip Williamsburg Diner. Caroline surprises her though by having as much substance as style. And when Caroline finds out how good the cupcakes that Max makes are she sees the potential for a lucrative business. All they need is the money. Also stars Garrett Morris as Earl, the 75 year-old cool cat cashier; Jonathon Kite as Oleg, the overly flirtations cook, and Matthew Moy as the new, eager to please owner of the  diner.

Unforgettable stars Poppy Montgomery as Claire Wells as a former police detective who is quite literally incapable of forgetting anything. In fact the only things that she can’t remember are the details that could help solve her sister’s murder. One thing that she does remember are her conflicted feelings toward her former partner and ex-boyfriend, Detective Al Burns (Dylan Walsh). When she consults on a case with Al and his team, it somehow feels right. She decides to go back to work solving homicides, including her sister’s murder… if she can remember the details that her mind made her forget. Also stars Michael Gaston, Kevin Rankin, and Daya Vaidya as the members of Al’s team.

How To Be A Gentleman, from the book of the same name, is a comedy about two very different friends. Andrew Carlson (David Hornsby) writes an etiquette column who is devoted to ideals from a more civilised time. This leads him to live a life detached from modern society. When his editor Jerry (Dave Foley) tells him to make his column more modern and sexy or be fired, Andrew seeks out someone from his past. Andrew get Bert Lansing (Kevin Dillon) to be his life coach. Bert is a reformed bad boy who inherited a gym but can still be rude sloppy and loud. Andrew hopes that with Bert’s help he can become less a gentleman and more of a “real” man. Nancy Lennhan plays Andrew’s mother, Mary Lynn Raskjub plays his bossy sister, and Rhys Darby plays his brother-in-law.

Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson star in Person Of Interest a new drama from J.J. Abrams. Caviezel plays Reese, a former CIA operative who is presumed dead. while Michael Emerson plays billionaire software developer Finch, who has come up with software that will allow him to detect people who are about to become involved in a violent crime. Reese and Finch team up to use state of the art surveillance equipment and satellite technology to stop crimes before they happen. Reese comes to the attention of Detectives Carter and Fusco (Taraji P Henderson and Kevin Chapman) who he is able to use to his advantage.

In A Gifted Man Patrick Wilson plays Dr. Michael Holt, a doctor who is living a life of luxury as a result of wealthy patients and his obsession with work. The love of Michael’s  life was his ex-wife Anna (Jennifer Ehle) who has died sometime before the series begins. Thus it is something of a shock when she appears to him and asks him to help keep the free clinic that she started operating. Needless to say this surprises a lot of people. Michael’s sister Christina (Julie Benz) is happy that Anna is back in her brother’s life – even as an illusion – because he was always a better person when she was with him. At the clinic Michael meets Autumn (Afton Williams) a volunteer who is trying to carry on Anna’s work. Michael finds himself touched by the patients at the clinic and his attitude towards serving the rich and poor is turned upside down, and he begins to see that there’s room in his life for everyone. Margo Martindale plays Rita, Michael’s efficient assistant at his practice, while Liam Aiken plays Christina’s son Milo.

The 2-2, which will debut at mid-season, is a new police drama from Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal that follows a group of six rookie cops as they patrol the streets of upper Manhattan. The rookies are a diverse group: Jennifer “White House” Perry (Leelee Sobieski) a former college volleyball star and Marine MP in Iraq, Ray “Lazarus” Harper (Adam Goldberg) a former police news reporter with better sources than many seasoned cops, Tonya Sanchez (Judy Marte) whose family has a criminal history and who has very personal connection within the force, Ahmad “Kiterunner” Kahn (Tom Reed) an Afghan native who fought his way to freedom, Kenny McClaren (Stark Sands) a fourth generation cop with qualms about joining the force, and Jason Toney (Harold House Moore) a former basketball prodigy who squandered his chance in the NBA. Daniel “Yoda” Dean (Terry Kinney) is their Field Training Officer, a case hardened unsentimental veteran who emphasizes the basics and holds each rookie accountable for their actions.

Comments

Maybe as interesting as the new shows (and in my view more interesting than some of them) is the shows that are moving to new time slots. The most puzzling move is probably the decision to put Rules Of Engagement on Saturdays. It has been a long time since any network except FOX had scheduled new episodes of shows on Saturdays when they weren’t trying to burn off the episodes that they’ve paid for. I basically have two theories on this: first, the network is trying to get enough episodes of the show in the can so that they can sell it for a syndication deal and since they’re paying for them they want to get all they can from them; and second the network wants the show available in its traditional role as a utility player, filling in for a comedy that dies quickly (and personally I have a choice for that “honour”) but wants the show to have a full run of episodes in case it isn’t needed.

The other big moves are taking The Good Wife to Sundays and CSI to Wednesday. I think that the network programmers putting The Good Wife up against the declining Desperate Housewives as an alternative for women who don’t watch football is about as good as it gets. That makes it a two-way race with a critical hit getting a chance in a time slot that could benefit it going up against an aging veteran whose ratings have slid in the past couple of years.

The CSI move is a puzzler to me. I know that while the show still draws well in the Thursday time slot it does do as well as it has done in the recent past. And I know that at least some people on the Internet, like Marc Berman, have spoken of moving it. However the time slot they suggested wasn’t the third hour of Wednesday night but either swapping the show with The Mentalist on Thursday night or cancelling CSI: New York and returning CSI to Friday, the day (and time) where it debuted. The Wednesday move makes some sense, giving it a very strong lead-in with with Criminal Minds but also involves some risk by putting it in competition with the still popular Law & Order SVU. I don’t know about this one yet.

Turning to the new comedies, I really like 2 Broke Girls as a concept and I think it’s likely to fit nicely into the Monday time slot between How I Met Your Mother and Two And A Half Men. The show I have no confidence in is How To Be A Gentleman. It just strikes me as one of the dumbest concepts for a comedy ever, and based on the commercial that I saw for it (since CBS has blocked YouTube videos of upfront clips for non-Americans) I just can’t see this show gaining an audience let alone holding it, even with Big Bang Theory as a lead-in. Think of it this way: what if Leonard and Sheldon’s neighbour wasn’t Penny, but some body-builder type who undertook the task of turning them into “real men.” Would you hve watched that series? I wouldn’t.

Turning to the dramas, it’s a mixed bag in terms of what I’d watch: the Good, the Bad, and the “I’ll have to see it.” The Good is most definitely Unforgettable. I really like Poppy Montgomery and the concept is quite intriguing. The Bad in my books is A Gifted Man. The idea has a lot in common with something like Joan Of Arcadia or maybe even a version of the movie Ghost. Of course I think that others (women) are going to see it differently. Certainly it is the sort of show that CBS has had success with in this time slot before, but I guess I’d just like to see something with a different sort of appeal. As far as “I’ll have to see it” goes, that would be Person of Interest. The whole idea sounds a lot like that Tom Cruise movie Minority Report. The description has a bit of a Big Brother (and not the reality show) feel to it and I’m not sure people are going to buy into it. But I really need to see it before I make a final decision. The mid-season show The 2-2 quite frankly sounds like something I’d be more likely to watch.

Looking at the CBS line-up the obvious thing you can say about it is that it represents a great deal of stability. There have been strategic moves and most of the shows that have been added aren’t exactly pushing the envelope. There was one choice that I clearly didn’t like and a couple of shows that I’m dubious about but these are things that you can try when your the network that’s at the top of the ratings. It isn’t as good as the ABC line-up, but nowhere near the level that the NBC or FOX line-ups managed. It’ll work.

ABC’s 2011-12 Schedule

ABC announced their new TV schedule on Tuesday. The network announce thirteen new shows and relocated several others. The cancellation of eleven shows had previously been announced.

Cancelled: My Generation, The Whole Truth, V, Supernanny, Skating With The Stars, Brothers & Sisters, Better With You, Detroit 187, Mr. Sunshine, No Ordinary Family, Off The Map.

Moved: Extreme Makeover Home Edition

Renewed: Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Castle, Modern Family, The Middle, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Dancing With The Stars, Desperate Housewives, Body Of Proof, Happy Endings, Saturday Night College Football, The Bachelor, Shark Tank.

New Series: Dramas – Revenge, Charlie’s Angels, Once Upon A Time, Pan Am, Good Christian Belles, Missing, The River, Scandal
Comedies – Last Man Standing, Apartment 23, Man Up, Suburgatory, Work It.

ABC also has returning series Cougar Town and new series Apartment 23 and Work It for mid-season. Currently the intention is for Cougar Town and Apartment 23 to air in the Tuesday 9:00-10:00 p.m. time slot during the Dancing With The Stars hiatus

Complete Schedule (New Shows in Capitals, All times are Eastern)

Monday
8:00-10:00 p.m.  Dancing With The Stars Performance
10:00-11:00 p.m.  Castle

Tuesday
8:00-8:30 p.m.  LAST MAN STANDING
8:30-9:00 p.m.  MAN UP
9:00-10:00 p.m.  Dancing With The Stars Results/Cougar Town & APARTMENT 23
10:00-11:00 p.m.  Body Of Proof

Wednesday
8:00-8:30 p.m.  The Middle
8:30-9:00 p.m.  SUBURGATORY
9:00-9:30 p.m.  Modern Families
9:30-10:00 p.m.  Happy Endings
10:00-11:00 p.m.  REVENGE

Thursday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  CHARLIE’S ANGELS
9:00-10:00 p.m.  Grey’s Anatomy
10:00-11:00 p.m.  Private Practice

Friday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  Extreme Makeover Home Editions (moved)
9:00-10:00 p.m.  Shark Tank
10:00-11:00 p.m.  20/20

Sunday
7:00-8:00 p.m.  America’s Funniest Home Videos
8:00-9:00 p.m.  ONCE UPON A TIME
9:00-10:00 p.m. Desperate Housewives
10:00-11:00 p.m. PAN AM

Last Man Standing is Tim Allen’s return to network TV. Tim Allen plays Mike Baxter, the marketing director for an iconic sporting goods store. He drives a pick-up truck and he likes having adventures whenever he travels for work. No one can deny his manliness at work. At home he lives in a home dominated by women – his wife Vanessa (Nancy Travis), and daughters Kristin (Alexandra Krosney), Mandy (Molly Ephraim) and Eve (Kaitlin Dever). When Vanessa returns to the workforce and is rapidly promoted Mike is forced to take on a greater role in parenting. Hector Elizondo also appears.

Man Up is a comedy about three guys who try to redefine what being a “real man” means. Will (Mather Zickel) is an evolved, sensitive man who works as an insurance agent. These are the reasons why his wife Theresa (Teri Polo) married him, but he still wonders what defines a real man. His friend Craig (Christopher Moynihan) is a sensitive soul who still yearns for his college girlfriend Lisa. His other friend Kenny asks, “What would Toby McGuire do?”  when his ex-wife Brenda starts seeing a guy (Henry Simmons) who is everything he’s not. Also features Jake Johnson and Amanda Detmer.

Apartment 23 had a working title of “The Bitch in Apartment 23” (which naturally got the Parents Television Council up in righteous indignation). June (Dreama Walker) came to Manhattan with a dream job that came complete with a company apartment. It all disappears because the company CEO was a Bernie Madoff type and the firm collapses. In debt and on the streets, June thinks she gets lucky when she gets a job in a coffee shop and finds a roommate. Unfortunately her new roommate, Chloe (Krysten Ritter) is charming and vivacious she also has “the morals of a pirate.” She and her boyfriend James Van Der Beek (playing himself) swindle June out of her life savings. What they don’t expect is that the naive June is smart enough to turn the tables on them. That’s good enough to earn June entry into Chloe’s colourful band of friends.

Suburgatory is a comedy starring Jeremy Sisto and Jane Levy as a father and daughter who leave New York for suburbia. When George (Sisto) finds a box of condoms on the nightstand of his 16 year-old daughter Tessa’s (Levy) nightstand, the single father decides to move his daughter to the “safety” of suburbia. Initially Tessa is horrified by the “over-manicured lawns and plastic Franken-moms” not to mention the local kids. But once you get beneath the surface, the people aren’t that bad. Moreover the experience of living in the ‘burbs might just help to bring George and Tessa even closer together than they already were. The series also stars Carly Chaikin, Allie Grant, Alan Tudyk, and Cheryl Hines.

Revenge is a drama starring Emily van Camp as a young woman seeking to right some of the wrongs of her past. Emily Thorne is a young woman who recently moved to the Hamptons. She fits in well, but there’s something odd about such a young woman living in this wealthy town on her own. What no one else knows is that Emily isn’t exactly new to the Hamptons. She lived there as a child something happened that ruined her family and their reputation. Now Emily has returned to right some of those wrongs.

Charlie’s Angels is a remake of the classic TV series from the 1970s, with a twist. Instead of being ex-cops, the Angels in the remake are no saints. Abby (Rachel Taylor) is a “Park Avenue Princess” who became a world-class thief. Kate (Annie Ilonzeh) is an ex-cop who lost her career and fiancee in disgrace. Grace is a former Army lieutenant with a way with explosives. When Grace is killed, the women’s mysterious boss Charlie persuades Abby and Katie to work with Gloria’s childhood friend Eve (Minka Kelly) a street racer with a mysterious past. Ramon Rodrigues plays Bosley, who serves as the unseen Charlie’s intermediary. The Executive Producers for the series include Alfred Gough and Miles Miller (who did Smallville), Drew Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen (from the Charlie’s Angels movies) and Leonard Goldberg (from the original Charlie’s Angels series).

In Once Upon A Time not everything is as it seems. Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) is a self-reliant bail bond collector who has been on her own since she was abandoned as a baby. Everything changes for her when the son that she gave up years ago finds her. Henry (Jared Gilmore) believes that Emma is the exiled daughter of Prince Charming and Snow White who was sent to our world from the world of fairy tales to avoid the curse of the Evil Queen. This curse trapped the Fairy Tale world forever and brought the people who lived there to the little town of Storybrooke where they don’t remember what they were before. Emma doesn’t believe a word of it, but when she brings Henry back to Storybrooke she begins to worry about the boy and decides to stay. The series also stars Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Carlisle, Lana Parilla, James Dornan, Josh Dallas, and Rafael Sbarge.

Pan Am is a period piece set in the 1960s when Pan Am was one of the dominant airlines in the world and flight attendants were called stewardesses (or “stewardii “ as comedian Shelley Berman put it). In those days the men and women working for Pan Am had to be educated, cultured and refined; able to deal with everything thrown at them from emergencies to unwanted advances from passengers without mussing her hair. Dean (Jonah Lotan) plays Dean, a charismatic pilot who is one of the first not to have beeen trained in the war. Christina Ricci plays Maggie, a rebellious bohemian in her outside life who becomes a buttoned down professional in order to see the world as a stewardess. The rest of the flight crew are flirtatious Collette (Karine Vannasse), adventurous Kate (Kelli Garner), and Laura (Margot Robbie), Kate’s sister who ran away from the prospect of married boredom for the excitement of working for Pan Am.

Good Christian Belles is the adaptation of Kim Gatlin’s book Good Christian Bitches (which was the working title of the series, which drew protests from the PTC even though ABC made it clear that the name was going to be changed). Leslie Bibb plays Amanda Vaughan, a woman whose marriage ends in scandal. She returns to her hometown of Dallas, where she soon becomes reacquainted with some of her former high school classmates. The ultimate “mean girl” as a teen, Amanda has changed in the 20 years since she left school.  But will the women she went to school with forgive her or seek revenge… or both? The series also stars Kristin Chenoweth, Annie Potts, Jennifer Aspen, Miriam Shor, Marisol Nichols, Brad Beyer, Mark Deklin, and David James Elliott.

Missing stars Ashley Judd as Becca Winstone, a woman whose only son has gone missing. When he was 8 years old Becca’s son Michael saw his CIA agent father Paul (Sean Bean) murdered. Now, ten years later Michael (Nick Eversman) has been given the opportunity to study in Europe and his mother reluctantly lets him go. When he disappears a few weeks into his trip, Becca flies to Rome and picks up on the clues that were left behind. What the kidnappers don’t know, but will soon find out, is that Paul wasn’t the only CIA agent in the family. To find her son Becca will not only have to rely on her old skills and determination but will also have to tap old friend and open old wounds. Cliff Curtis, Adriano Giannini, and Terez Voriskova also star.

The River is about the search for famed wildlife expert and TV personality Dr. Emmett Cole (Bruce Greenwod). Cole went missing without a trace on an expedition down the Amazon. Now, six months later, his emergency beacon suddenly goes off. At the urging of his mother Tess (Leslie Hope), Cole’s son Lincoln (Joe Anderson) joins in the search for his father, who has always seemed an enigma to him. In order to finance the expedition Tess and Lincoln make an agreement with Emmett’s former TV producer Clark (Paul Blackthorne) to film a documentary on the expedition. The expedition includes the sexy and resourceful Lena (Eloise Mumford), mechanic Emilio (Daniel Zacpa) and bodyguard Captain Kurt Brynildson (Thomas Kretschman). Paulina Gaitin, and Shaun Parkes also star.

Scandal is the latest series from Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rimes. Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is a former White House media consultant who now runs a firm that protects the public profiles of the nation’s elite, to prevent scandals from being exposed to the glare of the press.. The only problem is that while Olivia and her staff are able to manage the lives of others, they have a great deal of difficulty managing their own lives. Also stars Henry Ian Cusick, Columbus Short, Guillermo Diaz, Darby Stanchfield, Katie Lowes, Jeff Perry and Tony Goldwyn.

Comments: 
 As always my comments are based entirely on the description provided in the network upfront presentations.

Like the other major networks, ABC is attempting to develop a second comedy block, and is being ambitious in their attempt by using the hiatus period of Dancing With The Stars as an opportunity to make their Tuesday comedy block an equal to their Wednesday comedy block. The ABC comedies are a bit of a mixed bag  as far as I’m concerned. The two that have the most interest for me are Apartment 23 and Suburgatory while the new Tim Allen series, Last Man Standing sounds – at least on the surface – like his old series Home Improvement except with daughters rather than sons. The thing that intrigues me about Apartment 23 is the nature of the relationship between June and Chloe, a relationship which sounds – at least on the surface – like the Oscar and Felix relationship in The Odd Couple. As for Suburgatory, the father-daughter relationship is in general not one that is frequently addressed. Beyond that I quite like the hook in which the family moves to the suburbs and find it not an idyllic world but a different sort of jungle to be negotiated.

Turning to the dramas there are several that I like. Charlie’s Angels isn’t one of them, although I’m convinced that it’s probably going to work. The problem for me is that they’re not only rebooting the show but they’re doing it in such a way that it moves away from where the original TV series was. It’s light enough as a concept to fit in with series like Castle and Body Of Proof, but there’s just something about it that rubs me the wrong way. I’m also uncertain about Once Upon A Time, although I don’t think it will last long enough to really matter given that it will be opposite Football (if there’s no strike), the FOX animation block and (probably) The  Amazing Race. The concept is an inventive one, and it reminds me of descriptions I’ve heard about a comic book series called Fables. I just don’t think the public is going to warm up to it.

Based on the ABC descriptions, there are two series that I’m pretty much convinced that I’ll watch. One is Missing, if it is done in such a way that it can retain an audience in an environment that looks at “one and done” is the expected format for dramas (one episode in which the entire mystery is resolved). I like what I’ve seen of Ashley Judd, and I think that the fact that the show will appear at mid-season and won’t be trying to stretch 22 episodes across 35 or 36 weeks will help in the story telling with a continuity intense series. The other show that really intrigues me is Pan Am although I have to confess that it’s not a show that is really directed towards me. It still sounds like a fun idea.

Apparently advertisers have been telling ABC that their line-up has become too “women-centric” and that this line-up attempts to increase the network’s attractiveness for men. In that area alone it seems like a failure to me. I do think that there are some really good elements in the line-up which should draw an audience. I like more of the shows that ABC is proposing than I did from the NBC and FOX presentations. How much success they’ll have with these new shows is another question entirely.

FOX’s 2011-12 Schedule

The FOX network unveiled its 2011-12 schedules – since FOX likes to reveal both the Fall and mid-Season line-ups at the same time – this afternoon. While the network made considerable changes the actual list of cancellations was rather modest. Five new series will debut in the Fall and three more will show up at mid-season.

Cancelled: Lone Star, Running Wilde, The Good Guys, Lie To Me, Human Target, The Chicago Code, Traffic Light, Breaking In, America’s Most Wanted.

Moved: House (at least for half a season).

Retained: American Dad, The Cleveland Show, Family Guy, The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, Glee, Fringe, Raising Hope, Bones, American Idol, Kitchen Nightmares, House, Cops, So You Think You Can Dance.

New Series: Dramas – Terra Nova, Alcatraz, The Finder
Comedies – New Girl, I Hate My Teenage Daughter, Allen Gregory, Napoleon Dynamite.
Reality: The X-Factor.

Complete Schedule (New Shows in capitals; All times are Eastern; Shows scheduled to debut at mid-season are named after the / )

Monday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  TERRA NOVA/ House
9:00-10:00 p.m.  House (New Time)/ALCATRAZ

Tuesday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  Glee
9:00-9:30 p.m.  NEW GIRL
9:30-10:00 p.m.  Raising Hope

Wednesday
8:00-9:30 p.m.  X-FACTOR PERFORMANCE/American Idol Performance
9:30-10:00 p.m.  I HATE MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER

Thursday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  X-FACTOR RESULTS/American Idol Results
9:00-10:00 p.m.  Bones/THE FINDER/Bones

Friday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  Kitchen Nightmares
9:00-10:00  Fringe

Saturday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  Cops
9:00-10:00 p.m.  Encores or America’s Most Wanted (Specials)

Sunday
7:00-7:30 p.m.  The O/T / Animation Domination Encores
7:30-8:00 p.m.  The Cleveland Show
8:00-8:30 p.m.  The Simpsons
8:30-9:00 p.m.  ALLEN GREGORY/NAPOLEON DYNAMITE
9:00-9:30 p.m.  Family Guy
9:30-10:00 p.m.  American Dad/Bob’s Burgers

Terra Nova, created by Steven Spielberg, was announced at last year’s upfronts but production difficulties meant that it wasn’t available for the 2010-11 season. This family adventure is set in 2149. Earth is dying of overcrowding and overdevelopment. The only hope for mankind’s salvation is the discovery of a fracture in time that will allow humanity to be resettled in Earth’s primeval past. The Shannon family are part of the Tenth Pilgramage to the first colony: Terra Nova. They are Jim (Jason O’Mara) a devoted father with a checkered past, his wife Elizabeth (Shelley Conn) a trauma surgeon, his 17 year-old son Josh (Landon Liboiron) who resents leaving the world he knew behind him, 15 year-old Maddy (Naomi Scott) an awkward teen who hopes that she can reinvent herself in her new home, and 5 year-old Zoe (Alana Mansour) who is the subject of a secret that could jeopardize the family’s place in this new world. Stephen Lange plays Commander Nathaniel Taylor, the leader of the new settlement who warns the new arrivals of the dangers they face…and not just from the local dinosaurs. There are threats outside of the colony, and inside as well. Also stars Allison Miller and Christine Adams.

Alcatraz is the new series from J.J. Abrams. While investigating a grisly murder San Francisco Police detective Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones) makes a shocking discovery. A fingerprint found at the scene belongs to Jack Sylvane (Jeffrey Pierce), a man who died decades ago… in the Federal Prison at Alcatraz. Both Rebecca’s links to the prison run deep – her grandfather and her surrogate uncle were both guards there – and when Federal Agent Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill) tries to impede her investigation she becomes even more determined, particularly when she discovers that not only is Sylvane alive and leaving a trail of bodies throughout the city, but he hasn’t aged a day since he was in Alcatraz. Teaming with Alcatraz expert and comic book geek Dr. Diego Soto (Jorge Garcia) Madsen is eventually forced to team up with Hauser and his technician Lucy Banerjee (Parminder Nagra). Together they discover that Sylvane may be the first prisoner from Alcatraz to appear, but he won’t be the last… and it appears that Hauser is expecting it. Also stars Santiago Cabrera, Jonny Coyne, and Jason Butler Harner.

New Girl stars Zoe Deschanel plays Jess Day, a young woman who moves into an apartment with three guys after suffering a bad breakup. Jess is off-beat and adorable, described as goofy, positive vulnerable and honest to a fault. She’s more confident in dealing with women than she is with men, particularly at home. Of her three roommates, Nick is the most grounded. Although he once had big plans for his life he eventually stopped caring and became a bartender. Schmidt (Max Greenfield) is a an hustling young professional who is both socially ambitious and considers himself a modern Casanova. He regards Jess as a gateway in to the female mind. The third roommate Coach (Daman Wayans Jr.) is a former high school athlete who now works as a personal trainer. He maintains a macho exterior but it covers his shyness with women. Rounding out the cast is Cece (Hannah Simone), Jess’s life long friend. A deadpan somewhat cynical professional model she has the street smarts that Jess lacks. Their qualities balance each other and they accept each other despite their faults.

X-Factor is a new musical competition show created by Simon Cowell. The show’s judges – Cowell, Antonio “L.A.” Reid, Cheryl Cole, and Paula Abdul – travel the country seeking singing acts over the age of 12, whether individuals or groups. The audition process will occur before audiences of thousands in a number of cities. Those acts that survive the auditions graduate to a “boot camp” where they’ll be split into four groups, each of which will be mentored by one of the judges. Not only will the show be a competition between the acts but between the judges as they see whose acts will dominate the competition. Nicole Scherzinger and Steve Jones host the show.

What happens when you give your kids all of the things that you were denied as a child? I Hate My Teenage Daughter gives one answer. Annie (Jaime Pressly) and Nikki (Katie Fineran) were high school outcasts whose grew up and had daughters. Their parenting strategies were informed by the way they were brought up. Annie was raised in a strict religious household and had virtually no freedoms. As a result she allows her own daughter Sophie to do just about anything she wants. Nikki, who had been an overweight social pariah, has reinvented herself as a Southern Belle whose main goal in life is to give her daughter everything she never had. The intent was good but the result is anything but as their daughter have become the sort of girls who had once made Annie and Nikki’s life a hell. Annie’s daughter Sophie (Kristi Lauren) is embarrassed by her mother and takes every opportunity to ridicule her, even though she secretly knows that she need her mom. Nikki’s daughter Mackenzie works her mother’s insecurity to her own advantage. And the men in their lives aren’t much help. When their daughter’s mean-girl antics go too far Annie and Nikki realize that they need to take action and dole out some real punishments, and that maybe together they’ll be stronger in doing this than they are by themselves. Rounding out the cast are  Eric Sheffer Stevens as Annie’s ex-husband Matt, Kevin Rahm as his brother Jack who Annie has a secret crush on, and Chad Coleman plays Nikki’s ex Gary.

The Finder which used an episode of Bones for a backdoor pilot is about Walter Sherman (Geoff Stults) a former military policeman who had knack for finding insurgents, deserters and IEDs. After being caught in an IED explosion and being in a coma for two months, Walter discovers that he now has the ability to find anything that has been lost. Operating out of a Key West bar Walter is helped by bartender Ike Latulippe (Saffron Burrows), a woman with many hidden skills who is grateful to Walter for helping her to escape from “a dangerous life.” Leo Knox (Michael Clarke Duncan), a lawyer who has reinvented himself after the death of his wife and children, serves as Walter’s legal advisor and tempers some of Walter’s paranoia.

Allen Gregory is an animated comedy about “one of the most pretentious seven year-olds of all time.” Allen Gregory de Longpre (Jonah Hill) doesn’t see a child when he looks in the mirror, he sees a talented sophisticated worldly young man. He has a strong bond with his father Richard (French Stewart) and virtually no respect for his father’s life partner Jeremy (Nat Faxon). Also part of the family is his adopted Cambodian sister Julie (Joy Osmanski) who Allen wishes would run away and never be found. Now, Allen faces the greatest challenge of his life: attending elementary school. Despite having allegedly composed operas, written novels and dated Chloe Sevigny he is out of his element and desperately wants to fit in. Other voices include Leslie Mann, Renee Taylor, Jake Johnson, Cristina Pucelli and Will Forte.

Napoleon Dynamite is an animated sequel to the hit movie of the same name featuring the voices of the moivie’s original cast including Jon Heder as Napoleon, Aaron Ruell as his brother Kip, Sandy Martin as Grandma, Efren Ramirez as Napoleon’s friend Pedro, Tina Marjorino as Deb, Jon Gries as Uncle Rico, and Diedrich Bader as Rex Kwon Do.

Comments
Going into the upfronts the biggest news out of FOX might have been the cancellation of America’s Most Wanted. The show is almost as old as the FOX network itself, appearing in the network’s second season. According to network entertainment president Kevin Reilly, the show hasn’t actually been profitable for a number of years and the network needs an outlet for “encore” shows. The series will return to its traditional timeslot for quarterly specials, and series creator John Walsh is reportedly shopping it around to various Newscorp owned networks.

Turning to the actual schedule, I hate to say it but there is little here that excites me. The big ticket item in this season is X-Factor, which the network has been pushing practically since the beginning of the 2010-11 season. The show is a remake of Simon Cowell’s British success of the same name. It should probably be mentioned that the British original was created by Cowell to replace Pop Idol (which was the genesis for American Idol) because Cowell didn’t own all of Pop Idol and wanted a series that he would get all the profit from. X-Factor may have some differences from American Idol but it really doesn’t seem that different to me. In a very real sense it is almost as though Fox is looking for a way to have American Idol for a full season and that in turn makes it seem like a cynical effort on the part of Fox. The sad thing is that I’m sure it’s going to work too and hurt some shows that I like.

None of the three dramatic series – Finder, Alcatraz, and Terra Nova – really does it for me. Finder is quite clearly the show that will work the best, simply because it is the show that is most like something that is already on. People like something that’s familiar.  While I think that the concept of Alcatraz is the most intriguing one and one that I’m likely to watch, I don’t think that it’s an idea that the network will find easy to sell to the public. In some ways it “feels”a lot like Fringe, and while Fringe has a loyal – one could easily say a “rabid” following (which includes me) – it isn’t a large following, which ha sled to the show facing cancellation on an annual basis. In a similar vein, I think that Terra Nova will gain a strong sampling when it debuts but I’m not sure how many will stick with it. Me? Well I’m part of the “nitpickers” club, which is going to be talking about how the show sets up a temporal paradox in sending people back in time to potentially become their own ancestors; and besides, wouldn’t bringing the entire population of a dying Earth into the past lead to them making exactly the same mistakes that brought them to this situation, just a couple of million years early?

The two non-animated comedies are both female oriented. While I really like Zoe Deschanel, the concept behind New Girl feels a great deal like The Big Bang Theory without the geniuses and from a female perspective. I think I’d need to see at least one episode before I drew a conclusion on it, but right now I think it has a strike against it for being imitative  without truly understanding why the original works. I Hate My Teenage Daughter is a lot less imitative – which is to say that I can’t think of a show that it’s like that’s on the air right now. Whether that’s enough for it to gain an audience is a big question. The only actress in this that I’m familiar with is Jaime Pressly which isn’t by itself a bad thing. I think the female perspective and the new take on a family comedy is intriguing, and the placement after X-Factor/American Idol gives it a huge potential audience. whether the show will ratain that audience is what we’re going to have to see.

I’ve never really gotten into the network’s animation fixation so I have virtually no interest in either Allen Gregory or Napoleon Dynamite.


Take as a whole this is a very lackluster effort from FOX. Even though I wasn’t particularly excited by the network’s 2010-11 season there was at least a show that I thought had a certain amount of quality to it. That show was The Chicago Code and I’m really disappointed that the network cancelled it. This time around there’s nothing of that sort of quality. I think there are a couple of shows that might work, but the one show that really does anything for me – Alcatraz – is one that I don’t think there’s an audience for.

NBC’s 2011-12 Schedule

Although NBC’s official announcement of new shows won’t be official unveiled until Monday morning, the network made an announcement of their new schedule to the press on Sunday, and thanks to the network’s “new media strategies team” this blog was included in this.

The network announced a dozen new series, although not all of these will debut in the Fall season. In addition, several series have been moved, and there are some returning shows that as yet have not had an official release date.

Cancelled: Law & Order: LA, Outsourced, Outlaw, Friday Night Lights, The Event, Friends With Benefits, Love Bites, Perfect Couples, America’s Next Great Restaurant, The Paul Reiser Show, School Pride, The Cape, Chase.

Moved: Chuck, The Sing-Off, Parks & Recreation, Celebrity Apprentice, Harry’s Law.

Retained: Biggest Loser, Community, The Office, Parenthood, Dateline NBC.

New Series: Dramas – The Playboy Club, Prime Suspect, Grimm
Comedies – Up All Night, Free Agents, Whitney

Coming at Mid-Season or Not yet scheduled: Smash (Mondays after the Football Season replacing The Playboy Club), The Firm (Sunday night after the Football season, following Celebrity Apprentice), Awake, Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, Best Friends Forever, Bent. As well, returning series 30 Rock (on hiatus due to Tina Fey’s pregnancy), and Who Do You Think You Are? have been renewed but are not currently on the schedule. As well I have no official information on game show Minute To Win It. Or at least I’ve never seen anything official.

Complete Schedule: (New Shows in CAPITALS; All times are Eastern)

Monday
8:00-10:00 p.m.  The Sing-Off
10:00-11:00 p.m.  THE PLAYBOY CLUB/SMASH

Tuesday
8:00-10:00 p.m.  The Biggest Loser
10:00-11:00 p.m.  Parenthood

Wednesday
8:00-8:30 p.m.  UP ALL NIGHT
8:30-9:00 p.m.  FREE AGENTS
9:00-10:00 p.m.  Harry’s Law (New Day and Time)
10:00-11:00 p.m. Law & Order: SVU 

Thursday
8:00-8:30 p.m.  Community
8:30-9:00 p.m.  Parks & Recreation (New Time)
9:00-9:30 p.m.  The Office
9:30-10:00 p.m.  WHITNEY
10:00-11:00 p.m.  PRIME SUSPECT

Friday
8:00-9:00 p.m.  Chuck (New Day and Time)
9:00-10:00 p.m.  GRIMM
10:00-11:00 p.m. Dateline NBC

Sunday (after the NFL season)
7:00-8:00 p.m.  Dateline NBC
8:00-10:00 p.m.  Celebrity Apprentice
10:00-11:00 p.m.  THE FIRM

The Playboy Club, from Oscar winning Executive Producer Brian Grazer and Image Entertainment, is a period piece in the style of Mad Men. The period is the early 1960s, and the place is the legendary Chicago Playboy Club where Chicago’s top movers and shakers – on both sides of the law – mingle for a good time. Eddie Cibrian plays Nick Dalton, one of the city’s top lawyers who has mysterious ties with The Mob. Nick comes to the aid of Maureen (Amber Heard), a stunning, if naive, new Bunny who accidentally kills the head of the Berlanti crime family. Nick is dating Carol-Lynne, “the first Bunny” who realizes that her time at the club is drawing to an end. She is in conflict with club manager Billy (David Krumholtz). Also in the cast are Wes Ramsay, Jenna Dewan Tatum, Naturi Naughton, and Leah Renee.

Up All Night is a new comedy created by Emily Spivey who also serves as Executive Producer along with Lorne Michaels from Saturday Night Live and Jon Pollack. The show stars Christina Applegate and Will Arnett as new parents Reagan and Chris. Chris is a stay at home father while Reagan is a successful PR Executive. The arrival of their baby has set them on a new path towards being responsible adults, although balancing work, marriage and parenthood is not without its share of pressures. Maya Rudolph co-stars as Reagan’s boss whose whirlwind social life is a reminder of how things were for Reagan before the baby. James Pumphrey plays Reagan’s “socially awkward hipster assistant.”

Free Agents is based on a British series of the same name. Hank Azaria plays Alex, a newly divorced advertising executive who can barely keep himself together, while Helen (Katherine Hahn) is his co-worker, a woman who thinks is obsessed with her dead fiancee. She may think that she has it all together but in fact she’s on the edge of falling apart. When, after a drunken night of partying, Alex and Helen wake up in bed together, they decide to reamins “just friends.” However when Alex’s friends (Mo Mandel, Al Madrigal, and Anthony Stewart Head) are able to persuade Alex to re-enter the dating scene, Helen becomes jealous. And when he ultimately gets cold feet about going out on a date, the two end up back where they were – in  a “casual intimate and beautifully awkward relationship.”

Whitney is a new multi-camera comedy starring Whitney Cummins as a woman who is in a happily unmarried relationship with her boyfriend Alex (Chris D’Elia). After attending yet another wedding of their friends Whitney starts to feel that their relationship is on the verge of becoming boring. After a few attempts to spice things up on the advice of a couple of her opinionated friends (Zoe Lister-Jones and Rhea Seehorne) that end up with her and Alex in hospital ER, Whitney realizes that their relationship might not be perfect but it works for them. Also features Maulik Pancholy and Dan O’Brien.

Prime Suspect is a remake of the classic British series of the same name. Maria Bello plays Jane Timoney (the role played by Helen Mirren in the British series with a differnt name) a tough as nails woman detective with her own vices and a questionable past, who has to buck “boy’s club” atmosphere of her new precinct. She’s forceful, rude and reckless but she’s also a brilliant detective. Also stars Aidan Quinn, Brian O’Byrne, Tim Griffin, Kirk Acevedo, Joe Nieves, Damon Gupton, and Peter Gerety.

Grimm is a detective series with a difference. David Guintoli plays Nick Burkhardt, a homicide detective who finds himself seeing things he can’t explain. When his ailing Aunt Marie arrives for a visit she reveals to him that they are descended from a legendary group of hunters known as “Grimms” whose mission is to keep humanity safe from the supernatural creatures of the world. As Nick digs deeper into his heritage he discovers that the mythology of the Brothers Grimm is all too real. Also stars Russell Hornsby, Bitsie Tulloch, Silas Weir Mitchell, Reggie Lee, and Sasha Roiz. Jim Kouf and David Greenwalt are the creators.

Smash is a musical drama centered on the schemers and dreamers who populate the world of the Broadway musical. Tom and Julia (Tony award nominee Christian Borle and Emmy winner Debra Messing) are a successful songwriting team who are given the opportunity to write another hit, based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Vying for the lead role are an inexperienced Midwesterner played by Katherine McPhee trying to find fame against all odds, and a stage veteran determined to leave the chorus line played by Megan Hilty. Anjelica Huston plays Eileen, a determined producer who jumps all over the Marilyn Monroe project and brings along a brilliant but cunning and amoral director played by Jack Dvenport. The series is based on an idea by Steven Spielberg and features songs by Grammy and Tony award winners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman.

The Firm is based on John Grisham’s novel and the movie of the same name. Young lawyer Mitchell McDeere brought down the Memphis law firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke which had operated as a front for the Chicago Mob. Now, after ten years in Witness Protection Mitchell and his family have emerged to reclaim their lives. They soon come to realize that past dangers and new threats are lurking. No casting has been announced.

Awake stars Jason Isaac as a detective living a bizarre double life. After a car accident Michael Britten regains consciousness to discover that his wife has died but his son Rex (Dylan Minnette) has survived. Trying to put his life back together Michael awakes to find himself in an alternate reality in which his son died but his wife Hannah (Laura Allen) survived. To keep both of his loved ones in his life he tries to live in both realities, which to say the least is confusing. To try to regain a certain amount of “normalcy” he goes back to work as a detective in both realities… with two different partners played by Steve Harris and Wilmer Valderrama. He also has therapists in both realities, played by Cherry Jones and B.D. Wong.

Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea is a comedy based on Chelsea Handler’s book of the same name. Laura Prepon plays Chelsea, a twenty-something bartender who is a force of nature determined to live life to the fullest. Co-starring are Jo Koy as Mark, a charming bartender whose wit makes him a perfect foil for Chelsea; Angel Laketa Moore as Shoniqua, a smart and sassy waitress who looks out for Chelsea’s best interests; Mark Povinelli as fellow bartender Todd whose wry sense of humour keeps Chelsea in check; Natalie Morales as Ivory, Chelsea’s best friend; Lauren Lapkus as Dee Dee, Chelsea’s shy and sheltered roommate; Lenny Clarke as Chelsea’s father and Melvin Handler as Chelsea’s sister Sloan.

Best Friends Forever is a single camera  comedy starring Jessica St. Clair plays Jessica, a woman who decides to move back with her best friend Lennon (Lennon Parham) after her husband divorces her. Unfortunately Lennon’s boyfriend Joe (Adam Pally) has just moved into the apartment and turned Jessica’s old room into a perfect home office. The two women soon fall back into their old patterns of life, leaving Joe feeling like the odd man out. While Lennon tries to find a balance between her boyfriend and her best friend, Jessica has to deal with the unresolved feelings that her old friend Rav (Stephen Schneider) has for her. St. Clair and Parham are Executive Producers along with Scot Armstrong and Ravi Nandan.

Bent is a romantic comedy about two people who are suddenly attracted by qualities that usually repel them. Amanda Peet plays Alex, a tough and resilient lawyer who is now a single mother of an eight year old daughter (Charlie, played by Zoe King). Deciding to downsize she moves into a smaller house and hires Pete (David Walton) to redo her kitchen. David is a recovering gambling addict and an unapologetic womanizer for whom the remodelling job is one last chance to prove that he isn`t a screw-up. Pete doesn`t know what`s about to hit him when he encounters Alex, while for her part Alex isn`t ready for someon who isn`t afraid to call her out for her flaws. Jeffrey Tambor plays Pete`s father Walt, an out of work actor while Margo Harshman plays Alex`s wild younger sister Screwsie.

Comments:
As usual, I am giving an instant uniformed analysis based on the synopses given by the network in their press release. I`ve watched a couple of of the clips that NBC provided with their press release but I haven`t looked at them all yet, and while the NBC clips are available to me, clips from the other networks may not be.

First up, some thoughts on time slots. NBC will be running reality shows in the 8-10 p.m. time slot two nights in a row – Monday and Tuesday – for the first half of the year, and three nights in a row once Celebrity Apprentice returns (with or without Donald Trump, depending on whether or not he decides to run for the Republican nomination for the Presidency). In my opinion this is altogether too much. Worse, their reality competitions on Monday night will be running up against the established time slot domination of ABC`s Dancing With The Stars. I don`t think that bodes well for Sing-Off or The Voice. I’m also dubious as to whether Playboy Club will be able to carve out an audience up against the established competition of Castle. Even the highly touted Hawaii Five-0 had difficulty in the time slot this past season. One thing’s for sure; the Parent’s Television Council, which has a knee-jerk negative reaction to anything or anyone even tangentially related to Playboy, will be watching this show like a hawk to find something to protest (in fact they already are protesting a supposed nudity clause in the actors’ contracts) – which in an odd way will probably make long-time anti-censorship advocate Hugh Hefner rather pleased. No matter, I don’t hold out too much hope for this show.

Sadly, another show that I don’t hold out much hope for is the one that will replace Playboy Club on Monday nights at midseason, Smash. If Studio 60, a series about the television industry, was considered to be too much “inside baseball” by viewers, how are they expected to react to a show about the inner workings of Broadway musicals. I realize that NBC is trying to tap into the audience that has made FOX’s Glee a big success, but I just don’t see this show catching on, particularly against the established competition.

Of the remaining NBC dramas debuting at the beginning of the season, the one with the greatest chance of success is obviously Prime Suspect. The network has finally decided to stop fooling around with a full night of comedies, and is making a serious push for viewers in the 10-11 p.m. slot on Thursdays. I have a couple of reservations about the show however. They are again trying to establish a beachhead in a time slot with established competition, and while Private Practice might be ready to be pushed out, I think the best that NBC can hope for is a second place finish. I have to wonder if the show will deal with criminal cases in a multi-episode manner, in the way that the British original did, or whether it will be just another “one and done” procedural like most of the shows on TV. Finally, with all due respect to Maria Bello as an actress, she has some mighty big shoes to fill taking on a role originally played by Dame Helen Mirren, and even if Bello is brilliant in the part she will inevitably be compared – negatively – to Mirren’s performance in the part.

Grimm is probably doomed by the time slot alone. Conventional wisdom does suggest after all that Fridays are a dead night for TV viewership. There is at least one point in its favour, and that is that it is paired with an established series in Chuck. The problem is that while Chuck has an ardent following, it is a small ardent following, and by the description Grimm comes across as odder than the show that will lead into it. The same can probably be said for Awake, except of course that we don’t know the time slot that they show will occupy. In fact, if NBC holds to their stated intention of ending Chuck after thirteen episodes Awake might lead into Grimm which in my opinion would be a disaster.

Turning to the comedies, I will remind you that I am not a very good audience for comedies, so my opinions on those series is probably not worth much. The one that stands out for me is probably Free Agents. It is probably the comedy that I would have put into NBC’s Thursday night line-up instead of Whitney. To me – and to others – Whitney doesn’t seem like a good fit on the night. As to the rest of the comedies – and this is just a gross generalization – there is nothing that really gabs me as being original or ground-breaking. There seems to be a lot of romantic comedies and attempts to duplicate the success of Friends. Judged purely on the descriptions and with no reference to the star power attached to the projects, I’d have to say that there’s nothing in this list that reaches out and grabs me the way that I would need to be grabbed if I were going to watch a comedy.

On the  whole I think that NBC has some ambitious show ideas, but I’m doubtful as to how successful these ideas will be when placed before the public. NBC is trying stuff which is good, but I'm don’t think people will be watching in the numbers that the network is hoping to attract.

(Editted to complete the list of cancelled shows.)

An Apology

This is for those of you who have bookmarked this site or who have it on your blogrolls and the like. I haven’t been writing a lot over the past few months. I can’t say it’s been ripping me apart but it has been very frustrating for me not to post when I have something to say.

What’s behind this? Well there are several things. I have been quite busy in my non-blogging life, and it usually comes at the same time when I do some of my writing; in the afternoons. Other things happen at night when I also write a lot.

But of course, If being busy was the only problem it wouldn’t be too bad. I could make the time to do the writing. A bigger problem is that I seem to be undergoing some sort of massive writers block which I really haven’t been able to get around. I start writing something and start to get a good flow and then after a while I’ll read what I’ve written and quite literally get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. What I’ve written feels like utter crap, and I give up on it. This happened earlier this week. I was writing a piece about why Smallville “worked” and became the longest lasting science fiction style show on TV (I attribute a lot of its success to it being about Superman and that it was on the right network, which is to say not one of the “Big Four”). The problem was that as I got deeper and deeper into it, the less happy I was with it, and as the time to run it became less and less my displeasure with it became greater and greater.

Finally I feel a rising sense of frustration with what effect I can have writing about TV. I love TV and I love writing about the medium. I don't recap shows because the medium seems to me to be a rich smorgasbord and there’s so much to try. The problem is that as I don’t get any of the preview materials that professional critics do – particularly screeners of network shows – I have to write my reaction after I see the show as an ordinary viewer. And really that’s too late, particularly if I don’t get my review written overnight. Even if the review of a new show is finished by the next afternoon – and remember I am sometimes busy or otherwise distracted in the afternoons – any ability I or anyone in my situation has to influence anyone who is reading this is gone. Television is a slave to the ratings numbers and those come out in the morning. Someone like Marc Berman of AdWeek – for whom I have a certain amount of respect even though his is a purely scientific measure of determining whether a show deserves to survive or not – is able to tell me that that show that I liked last night is doomed to die in a little while because the ratings say no one is watching it. It makes it all feel frustrating and pointless. Why bother analysing the dramatic qualities of a show; just print the numbers and declare that “this is a bad show.”

I can’t do anything about the whole ratings frustration. TV isn’t about art; it is about getting people in position to watch commercials, and the only way you can define if a show does that job is with ratings. And maybe that’s at least partly the source of the writers’ block – I don’t write because of the apparent futility of writing. Still, I can at least try to beat the writer’s block in the only way I know how: by forcing myself to write through it. To that end I intend to do a recap of episodes of a single season show from a few years back that intrigued me to the point where I want to share my views about it. Let’s see if I can power through my problem. In the meantime I’ve got another article that I could be writing, and upfronts are next week, so I’m going to have to write about those – if I can find the time.

Down A Man–Charlie Sheen Fired From Two And A Half Men

So CBS and Warner Brothers have fired Charlie Sheen from Two And A Half Men. HOORAY!!!

Now what?

Look, I’m as happy as anyone that Sheen and his absurd activities will be disappearing from the medium in short order. And I certainly get why the show’s creator Chuck Lorre, Warner Brothers and CBS are fed up with him. But it seems to me that this firing leaves the network, the production company and the show with a large, Charlie-sized hole. A hole in the network’s line-up or a hole in the show depending on what the network decides to do. None of the options that the network has before them is particularly palatable.

What are the options?

1. End the show

Maybe the best or at least the easiest solution, but this is a potential earthquake across the CBS line-up. One problem here is that Jon Cryer, Angus Jones and the rest of the cast are signed for another season, but for the most part this could be dealt with. The network has a bigger problem though. Two And A Half Men is one of their biggest shows, the anchor of their Monday line-up. If you drop the show you need something to replace it that has the same sort of drawing power for their Monday line-up. The obvious answer would be to bring The Big Bang Theory back to Monday nights from its current time slot on Thursday, but then what do you do on Thursdays? Do you keep comedies in the first hour and if so what anchors the night? How I Met Your Mother? Mike and Molly? Rules of Engagement or $#*! My Dad Says (the two shows that have held down the second half hour on Thursday following The Big Bang Theory)? Probably not that last option since neither of those series has shown any particular strength on the night.

Or do you decide that the whole experiment was a bad idea and move Survivor back to Thursday night? Or do you keep Survivor on Wednesday night and replace the comedies with a drama? If you do go with a drama is it a new show that you might have put elsewhere or do you move an established show to the time slot?

2. Kill off the Charlie character – or otherwise take him off the show – and just not replace him

This is really a non-starter. Oh sure, NBC initially did that with Valerie Harper’s character on Valerie when NBC and Paramount fired here from that series (for reasons that were far far less disruptive than what we’ve seen from Sheen). The problem is that this totally violates the premise of the show. At its heart Two And A Half Men is The Odd Couple with Jake as the equivalent of Murray the Cop, or something like that. Take away Charlie without some sort of replacement and what you get is One And A Half Men, and the show becomes a father dealing with a teenaged son. That’s a quick death for this show.

 

Still I like the idea of killing Charlie off…preferably in a messy and totally absurd way, like having a boulder drop on him. A piano would be good too.

3. Kill Off Charlie – or otherwise dispose of him – and replace him

This is probably what they’re going to do if they continue on with the show. It’s what they eventually did with Valerie Harper, and what happened when John Ritter died in real life. There are a couple of options they could use in this situation.

 

a) Bring in an older relative

They did this when John Ritter died. James Garner became the adult male lead on Eight Simple Rules, along with David Spade. Maybe Charlie and Alan’s father didn’t die of food poisoning but rather escaped from Evelyn. Maybe some other older male relative shows up after Charlie gets turned into a bloody splat in the road. The point is that whoever this relative is he has to be as thoroughly debauched as Charlie was, and just as good looking in spite of it. Too bad they killed off Robert Wagner’s character a few years ago.

b) Alan and Charlie’s long-lost and never before mentioned half brother of roughly the same age as Charlie

This was after all the way that they finally replaced Valerie Harper on what became Valerie’s Family (and later The Hogan Family) – Valerie’s sister-in-law, played by Sandy Duncan – came to live with the family after her death. And with Evelyn’s history why wouldn’t there be a forgotten brother or half-brother or “something” vaguely unsavoury, running around. You could even bring on Charlie’s previously unsuspected bastard son – and let’s face it, there’s plenty of potential for many such unsuspected mistakes to show up and take up residence.

4. Replace Sheen, keep Harper

This is the classic soap opera solution to this sort of situation, and what they did when Dick Sargent replaced Dick York. If you need an explanation (as often as not soap operas didn’t offer an explanation; they’d just say that the role of so-and-so is no being played by a different actor; Bewitched didn’t even do that) say that after a fire – probably related to his drinking – Charlie had to go through reconstructive surgery and now looks like John Stamos instead of Charlie Sheen. Sure, it’s a hokey solution but there are some reasons why it can work. Not only does this provide a smooth transition, it lets the writers just keep writing the same character as they have been from the beginning. The face changes but the attitude and the character traits remain the same. The question is whether the public would accept that Charlie Harper as played by John Stamos? Or should they just cast Ted “Show Killer” McGinley in the part and admit defeat.

Personally I think that CBS should bite the bullet and end the show. Maybe they can get Chuck Lorre to come up with something new. After all he seems to be the current CBS “King of Comedy.” Do I think that they’ll pull the trigger though? Probably not. I think that the network will go with the “non-nuclear option” and keep the show on the air for all or part of another season to clear the actor’s contracts and give Lorre or someone else time to create something outstanding to replace it. No matter what the network decides to do, I would be very much surprised to see Two And A Half Men on the 2012-13 line-up, which is not something I would have been sure of before this whole mess with Sheen blew up.

I would be even more surprised to see Sheen acting in just about anything in the next few years. I think his recent behaviour has made him box office and TV screen poison, and if it is possible for him to recover his reputation it will take a long stretch of good behaviour to manage it. I wish him the best in all of the recovery that he needs to do, but I think I’ss stick with the smart money when it comes to his future employment prospects.