My Summer Project – Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip

One of the things that I promised myself that I would do to try to get back in the swing of writing again was a summer recap project. I want to recap a single season of a show that I’m particularly fond of, and it would help if the show ran a single season, and that I had the boxed DVD set. Well actually there are a couple of series that I would have broken one of those rules for. I was tempted to do the first season of Life even though I don’t have the second season (I’m too cheap to buy it at the local HMV and I haven’t seen it anywhere else), and I would love to do the seventh season of The Amazing Race, and would have except that I’ve lost two of the DVDs (I do have the complete first season, and maybe next year I’ll write it up).

Realistically though the only show that I really wanted to do was Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. There are several reasons why I want to write about the show, besides the fact that I didn’t at the time and regret it. First up, I know that it has gotten a bad reputation in the years since it left the air and I don’t think that it is entirely deserved. It is a poor effort by Aaron Sorkin, but the fact that people usually won’t acknowledge is that a poor show by Sorkin is generally better than most of the stuff that’s on TV today, and I think that’s true of Studio 60. Some people regard the show as a ratings bomb, and to a degree that’s true, but if you look at the NBC ratings for dramas in that time slot (or indeed any time on Mondays) since the show left the air, most have not performed as well as Studio 60. Certainly the show did well with DVR users, with the highest gain in viewership on the “live plus seven” ratings of any network show. According to the Nielsen ratings at the time, “Studio 60 adds nearly 11%, or almost a million viewers, to its total every week as a result of these ‘live plus seven’ viewers.” But ratings at the time only included those who watched the show as it aired. Today, ratings are based on “Live plus Same Day” viewing figures. And this is despite the fact that I think that the network reached a point where it treated the show worse than what you’d scrape off your shoe after a run through a dog park.

Two other reasons why I wanted to revisit Studio 60 are that I think that a lot of the criticism of the show that I can remember was more about what people wanted the show to be than about what it was, and that it provided more than a bit of insight into the big picture of TV. Those are tied together, and I think they’re more than a bit important. The critics, or maybe just those who wanted to watch a show about a show like Saturday Night Live wanted to see the comedy and when they did they found it wanting. and to a degree they’re right, but a lot of the show isn’t about the comedy, it’s about the making of the comedy and about the bigger picture of network politics and control. The show talked about issues that are coming to the fore today: “incidental indecency,” product placement, and the bi-coastal nature of the medium just to name three (there are more). It maybe “inside Baseball” to a lot of people but it’s the sort of stuff that I find interesting.

So let’s start looking at Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.

James Arness - 1923-2011

He was a big man. He stood 6’7” tall…on his left leg. His right leg was 5/8ths of an inch shorter, a result of his military service in Italy a few days after the landings at Anzio. He wore a lift in his right shoe to balance him out. James Arness was a big man, and the role he played in the early days of television was fittingly a big part.

James Arness was born James Aurness in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1923. Never a good student – he often skipped classes – he managed to graduate from high school in 1942. Rejected by the Army Air Force – he had wanted to be a fighter pilot but was five inches too tall – he worked at various menial jobs until being drafted in 1943 as an infantryman. Serving with the 3rd Infantry Division he was the first man off his landing craft during the Anzio landings because of his height; his commander thought that how high the water came on him would be a good gauge of the depth for the rest of the men – it came up to Arness’s waist. A few days later he was shot while serving as point man on a night patrol. He spent over a year in Army hospitals and was honorably discharged in January 1945. At the suggestion of his brother Peter (who would later act under the name Peter Graves) he enrolled in a radio announcing school and got a job as a disc jockey at a Minneapolis radio station. A few months later he quit that job and joined a friend on a trip to California.

In California, Arness made a variety of show business contacts and decided to use his GI Bill benefits to study acting at the Bliss-Hayden Theater’s little theater school. His first screen role was in the Lorretta Young film The Farmer’s Daughter as one of Young’s brothers. Other small film roles followed in such films as Battleground (directed by William Wellman and starring Van Johnson) and Wagon Master (directed by John Ford and starring Ward Bond, Harry Carey Jr. and Ben Johnson). He also appeared as the title character in The Thing From Another World, and as an FBI agent in Them. His big break came when he signed with John Wayne’s production company Batjac. They developed a close friendship and Arness co-starred with Wayne in four films – Big Jim McLain, Hondo, Island In The Sky, and The Sea Chase. And it was through John Wayne that Arness got the role that made him a legend – Matt Dillon.

While there is apparently no truth to the story that Wayne was approached to play the role of Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, he was a vocal advocate for his protégé James Arness to get the part. Initially Arness was uncertain about taking the role. Like many actors of the time he worried that doing television would stall his film career. Nevertheless he took the part, and after getting an enthusiastic endorsement from Wayne, who filmed an introduction to the first episode of the show, he stayed with the show for twenty years, as well as five made for TV movies. Including the movies, he played the character of Matt Dillon in five decades; the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s for the series, and the 1980s and ‘90s for the movies. After Gunsmoke was cancelled in 1975 Arness appeared as Zeb Macahan on the ABC series How The West Was Won from 1976-78. His last series was McClain’s Law. The drama was something of a departure for Arness in that he was playing a modern role rather than appearing in a period piece. The series ran on NBC for sixteen episodes and was criticized for its violent content.

James Arness didn’t create the character of Matt Dillon. Beyond the shows creators, the elements of Mister Dillion’s character were really put into place by William Conrad who played the part on the radio show. Conrad had a tremendous voice that fit our collective image of the Western lawman. If you ever have the chance to hear Conrad playing Dillon on one of the radio episodes – and heaven knows there are a ton of podcasts that play episodes of the radio Gunsmoke on a regular or occasional basis – do it, setting aside what you know of how Conrad and Arness looked, and you’ll understand how perfect Conrad was for the part…on radio. The trouble is that Conrad, who had been a fighter pilot during World War II, was a big man who got bigger over the years. Although my good friend Ivan Shreve points out that Conrad looked a lot like real western lawmen of the period looked, his body type was not what we the audience expected out western heroes to look like. We wanted John Wayne in Stagecoach or Fort Apache rather than John Wayne as he would appear in True Grit. We wanted someone big and powerful who radiated power and masculinity. In other words we wanted James Arness. Arness created the visual image of Matt Dillon and in so doing created a visual template for the way that Western lawmen should appear, at least if they were the lead character in their shows.

And because Arness played the role of Matt Dillon for so long, he had the opportunity to get better with age in terms of fitting the role. It used to be a feminist talking point the while women got wrinkles, men got “character,” but in James Arness’s case it was true. As James Arness grew older he face grew craggier and became more interesting. He increasingly became the wind-blown and dried plainsman, tough as rawhide but with a kindly side that you saw in his eyes. I suppose that if anyone remembered the radio shows with Conrad’s voice they might say that as he aged, Arness looked more and more like Conrad sounded.

By most accounts Arness was a generous actor in terms of letting his co-stars carry episodes from time to time. While Gunsmoke had a very strong primary supporting cast for Arness – including Milburn Stone, Amanda Blake, Dennis Weaver, and Ken Curtis, as well as Burt Reynolds and Buck Taylor for shorter terms – the show could hardly be described as an ensemble show. Marshal Dillon was very much the most important character on the show, and there were indeed episodes where the supporting characters were seen only in cameo appearances. For Arness to allow himself to be put himself into that sort of situation, particularly early in the show’s existence, shows something about the man’s self-confidence and his willingness to let others have their time in the sun. Later these absences had a practical aspect to them. As he got older Arness’s war wounds were becoming increasingly stressed by the physical aspects of playing Marshal Dillon. By the end of the series Arness was having considerable difficulty mounting a horse, which is a definite liability when doing a Western series. Thus you had episodes that focused almost entirely on characters like Festus, Doc Adams, Miss Kitty or even Newly O’Brien (Buck Taylor), where Dillon would only appear sitting at table having a cup of coffee with other characters on the show.

In the wake of James Arness’s death there have been numerous comments in various blogs and in response to newspaper articles that spoke quite glowingly about him, and Gunsmoke, particularly the early seasons of the show which in the opinion of most commenters were the show’s best seasons. I won’t dispute that. I would however point out that Gunsmoke was a show that lasted twenty years on network television at a time when network TV was the only game in town and there were only three networks playing the game. It survived that long by adapting to the changing trends in the medium, and by responding to actions like the protests about violence in the media. The show evolved over time. But Matt Dillon didn’t evolve; he didn’t have to. The ideals that he stood for, upholding the law and making sure that the the weak were defended from the strong were valid throughout the show’s run. They may have been black & white concepts that wouldn’t necessarily be in keeping with the whole notion that things have to be looked at in a nearly infinite number of shades of grey, but for this show and this character they were the right ideals. In the end James Arness’s portrayal of Matt Dillon embodied these ideals.

In the end, James Arness and Matt Dillon were lucky to have found each other. It is impossible to imagine anyone else – including John Wayne – being able to fit into the role of Matt Dillon, and it is just as had to imagine Arness having the success that he did without being Matt Dillon. It was the perfect confluence of actor and part. James Arness was meant to be Matt Dillon and Matt Dillon wouldn’t have worked if he hadn’t been played by James Arness.

I’m including two clips of opening sequences from Gunsmoke here. The first is from 1964 (based on the clip for the next episode), and the second is from the period after the show was cancelled in 1967. The first title sequence is the classic “the bad guy shot first but Matt shot best” opening, while the second version is the only one that I could find of the “Matt racing his horse across the prairie” opening that turns into the insets of the actors along the Main Street of Dodge City. The riding sequence was reportedly shot on the day that the cast found out that the show had been cancelled. Reportedly they were shooting a scene where Matt was riding across the prairie and he just let go in and rode his horse hard as a sort of catharsis and the director decided to keep the cameras rolling.

Upfronts 2011 – Video Trailers

I usually try to put up trailers for the season’s new shows every year so that you can see what’s going to be on next season. I was unsure about doing one of these this year after what happened last time, when none of the American networks was willing to make their clips available outside of the United States. When I did find a non-American source for the clips they were shut down within a few days. It wasn’t worth the hassle. If the situation didn’t change this year, well I wasn’t going to push the issue.

This year three networks took the trouble to make their clips available internationally. One of them was NBC. That network has, in the past couple of years, made a real effort to reach out to me and to other Bloggers. They have dedicated a lot to new media strategies and it shows. Both FOX and The CW also have clips on YouTube that are available to international viewers. The latter is particularly interesting since The CW is at least partially owned by CBS which is the network which I, as a Canadian blogging about TV, have had the most trouble with.

Naturally this brings me to a Rant. Neither ABC nor CBS have made their show trailers available to people outside of the United States. In the case of ABC, it is possible to see clips from their new shows if you go onto the new show webpage on their site. The clips are presented in a very small window on the page but you can expand them to full screen. In no way shape or form is this as convenient as having the clips available freely on YouTube or some other video site, if for no other reason than you cant embed these clips. Oh, they have the clips on YouTube, but as a Canadian I can’t see them and that makes them useless to me.

As for CBS, they give me nothing that I can use, either to present to my readers or to just watch and develop my own views on the shows. It’s totally useless, and it bothers me because I really can’t understand the reasoning behind this. It’s not as if, as Leo Laporte would put it, I am about to download all these clips and peddle them to the public from a  blanket on my lawn. There’s not enough material from the shows in question to make this worthwhile. I suppose there’s a question about international licensing and copyright but again, the clips are so small that I don’t see them being that much of a threat to the broadcaster’s position. I think in fact that the benefits of having them available internationally probably outweigh not having them available. One of the big things about “New Media” and “Social Media” is that it is without borders. If the Analytics for this Blog are correct, most of the visits to this blog come not from Canada but from the United States by a ratio of about five to one. More visits to this Blog come from California and New York combined than come from all of Canada. That strikes me as a promotional opportunity that is being missed because of fear of, well I’m not exactly sure what.

Anyway, here are he clips that I have from the networks. As much as possible I have tried to organize the clips by day, followed shows that will be debuting at mid-season

NBC

FOX

The CW

CBS

To see trailers from CBS, please click here.

ABC

To see trailers from ABC, please click here. I you are from outside the United States you can see trailers from the new series at the ABC website (I hope).

In addition you can search for the individual CBS and ABC show names on YouTube and (at least for now) be able to find copies of the trailers that have been posted by third parties without regional restrictions. How long this will last is anyone’s guess but from experience it likely won’t be long.

The 2011-12 Season–Night By Night

It's time now to take a look at the Fall 2010-11 TV schedule on a day to day basis. What I'm trying to do her is to handicap each night's programming and to attempt – sight unseen, not even a trailer (maybe a couple of commercials but that's all) – to pick the winners and losers from each night. It's an inexact science that verges on Voodoo, and I'm not much of a practitioner.

Last year’s predictions weren’t as good as I had hoped. I hit some things right on the nose – Lonestar was one where I was right on unfortunately – but others I got very very wrong. I didn’t foresee Law & Order: Los Angeles collapsing the way that it did for example. In a lot of cases I was a lot more optimistic than I probably should have been. Even expressing the possibility that Chase had even the slightest chance of survival was wildly hopeful. We’ll have to see how I do this time around.

I want to do things slightly differently this time around. I’ll still give a prediction about the various new shows but in addition I’ll give a “Battle of the Night” which will be the time slot which I think has either the most interesting confrontation between two shows or where it could be a make or break battle for all of the networks on the night. I will also name a “Show to keep an eye on”; a show that interests me or that I think will either go big quickly or go away quickly. And I’ll give predictions abut the new shows.

Monday

	ABC	CBS	FOX	NBC	The CW
8:00-8:30	Dancing with the Stars	How I Met Your Mother	TERRA NOVA	The Sing-Off	Gossip Girl
8:30-9:00	Dancing with the Stars	2 BROKE GIRLS	TERRA NOVA	The Sing-Off	Gossip Girl
9:00-9:30	Dancing with the Stars	Two and a Half Men	House	The Sing-Off	HART OF DIXIE
9:30-10:00	Dancing with the Stars	Mike & Molly	House	The Sing-Off	HART OF DIXIE
10:00-11:00	Castle	Hawaii Five-0	Local	THE PLAYBOY CLUB	Local

Battle of the Night:
8:00-10:00 p.m. Dancing With The Stars vs. The Sing-Off

Show to keep an eye on: The Playboy Club

CBS and ABC have owned the night in the 2010-11 season and that’s reflected in the stability on the night. The two networks have only added one new show, and I think that show, 2 Broke Girls fits well enough between the two existing shows that it should be safe for the full season. There’s a question about whether the change from Charlie Sheen to Ashton Kutcher is going to work on Two And A Half Men but the shouldn’t have too much trouble on the night. Moving to FOX sight unseen I have a big problem with Terra Nova. It’s a genre show, and it’s a show that I’m not entirely sure will be embraced by “science geeks” because of the whole “temporal paradox” aspect. You have to ask yourself whether FOX would have bought the show if the name Steven Spielberg wasn’t associated with it. Unless Spielberg has some sort of deal with FOX to give the show a full season, I expect this show will go quickly. Maybe the most interesting show for me is The Playboy Club, which is why I put it as the show to keep an eye on. Because NBC has Smash set to appear at mid-season, I’m not sure if this is a place holder with a beginning middle and end or if the network has hopes that it will survive on a different day and time.

Tuesday

	ABC	CBS	FOX	NBC	The CW
8:00-8:30	LAST MAN STANDING	NCIS	Glee	The Biggest Loser	90210
8:30-9:00	MAN UP	NCIS	Glee	The Biggest Loser	90210
9:00-9:30	Dancing with the Stars	NCIS: Los Angeles	NEW GIRL	The Biggest Loser	RINGER
9:30-10:00	Dancing with the Stars	NCIS: Los Angeles	Raising Hope	The Biggest Loser	RINGER
10:00-11:00	Body Of Proof	UNFORGET-TABLE	Local	Parenthood	Local

Battle Of The Night
10:00-11:00 p.m. Unforgettable vs Body Of Proof vs Parenthood

Show to keep an eye on: Ringer

Tough night to pick a battle of the night for. My initial instinct was to say Last Man Standing and Man Up against everything else in the time slot but quite frankly I don’t hold out too much hope for the two ABC comedies. On the other hand the 10-11 p.m. time slot looks like a pretty substantial battle between three shows that have a very different feel to them. Body of Proof is a show with fairly light feel like Monday’s Castle, and Parenthood is a family drama which I am still convinced is at least an hour too late in the night. From what I’ve heard about the show, Unforgettable sounds like it will be heavier than Body Of Proof. I think it will be interesting to see how the audience will break down for these three shows and whether they might all still be where they started at the end of the season. Unforgettable was going to be my “Show to keep an eye on” for Tuesday but after a bit of thought I decided that a lot of interested has been piled onto Ringer, since it stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and it was originally intended for CBS. It will be interesting to see, with that pedigree, what sort of ratings it can draw for The CW.

Wednesday

	ABC	CBS	FOX	NBC	The CW
8:00-8:30	The Middle	Survivor	X-FACTOR PERFORM-ANCE	UP ALL NIGHT	H8TR
8:30-9:00	SUBURGA-TORY	Survivor	X-FACTOR PERFORM-ANCE	FREE AGENTS	H8TR
9:00-9:30	Modern Family	Criminal Minds	X-FACTOR PERFORM-ANCE	Harry's Law	America's Next Top Model
9:30-10:00	Happy Endings	Criminal Minds	I HATE MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER	Harry's Law	America's Next Top Model
10:00-11:00	REVENGE	CSI	Local	Law & Order: SVU	Local

Battle of the Night
10:00-11:00 p.m. CSI vs Law & Order: SVU

Show to keep an eye on: X-Factor

X-Factor is the elephant in the room on Wednesday nights, which is why I think it’s the “Show to keep an eye on.”  The 2011-12 season will see four and a half hours a week, every week, devoted to singing reality-competition shows, between The Sing-Off, The Voice, American Idol and The X-Factor. And that doesn’t include the summer series America’s Got Talent which every year features a lot of singers. I desperately want to believe that we are at or near the saturation point when it comes to this sort of singing shows. It’s not that I want this series to fail (though I wouldn’t shed a tear if it did) but I really think that one of these shows on any network is enough, particularly since – with minor changes in format and judging, they really are the same show.It worries me when a show like this, which is touted by many as destined to be a huge hit is in a position to take better or more interesting shows off the air (and yes I do include Survivor in that number). As for the battle of the night, CSI vs. Law & Order: SVU has all the makings of a classic confrontation between two aging heavyweights. With Mariska Hargitay apparently wanting to reduce her episode commitment on the show and Jennifer Love Hewitt looking as if she’ll be the replacement on the episodes Hargitay doesn’t do, I think the one surviving Law & Order series could be vulnerable. However CSI has been showing erosion in its audience since William Petersen left and Laurence Fishburne came in. Of the new comedies on the night, I think Suburgatory should be a reasonable fit into the ABC set of family sitcoms and should do nicely between The Middle and Modern Families. I’m dubious about the NBC comedies; I think Free Agents would probably be better in the Thursday night line-up than partnered with a family style sitcom like Up All Night.

Thursday

	ABC	CBS	FOX	NBC	The CW
8:00-8:30	CHARLIE'S ANGELS	The Big Bang Theory	X-FACTOR RESULTS	Community	Vampire Diaries
8:30-9:00	CHARLIE'S ANGELS	HOW TO BE A GENTLEMAN	X-FACTOR RESULTS	Parks And Recreation	Vampire Diaries
9:00-9:30	Grey's Anatomy	PERSON OF INTEREST	Bones	The Office	SECRET CIRCLE
9:30-10:00	Grey's Anatomy	PERSON OF INTEREST	Bones	WHITNEY	SECRET CIRCLE
10:00-11:00	Private Practice	The Mentalist	Local	PRIME SUSPECT	Local

Battle of the Night

10:00-11:00 p.m. Prime Suspect vs Private Practice

Show to keep an eye on: Prime Suspect

With NBC back in the business of dramas on Thursday night, after two years of dailing comedies like The Jay Leno Show and whatever they had there in the 2010-11 season, the 10-11 p.m. hour suddenly comes into play more than it has. The Mentalist is the top show in the hour, and I don’t think that will change this season at least. However I think that the lesser of Shonda Rhimes’s two Thursday night shows is Private Practice. If Prime Suspect shows any strength at all it might be enough to take the time slot. Even without that situation though, Prime Suspect is a show to keep an eye on if only to see if NBC can mess up yet another adaptation of a British series and how badly. Turning to the other new series, Secret Circle should mesh better with Vampire Diaries than Nikita did. On the other hand I don’t think that Whitney will work as well out of The Office, as the Free Agents would have, NBC might want to consider swapping those two series before the start of the season. Charlie’s Angels is nice light fluff that should probably do well enough between 8 and 9, although that seems to be a time period where all of the networks have high profile shows. That could be a real dog fight with no obvious winners emerging, at least early on. Purely from the commercials that have aired on CBS – because as usual CBS has blocked the YouTube clips to everyone outside the United States – I’m concerned that How To Be A Gentleman will work. I’m assured that the cast is excellent but somehow the concept just doesn’t work for me.

Friday

	ABC	CBS	FOX	NBC	The CW
8:00-9:00	Extreme Makeover Home Edition	A GIFTED MAN	Kitchen Nightmares	Chuck	Nikita
9:00-10:00	Shark Tank	CSI: New York	Fringe	GRIMM	Supernatural
10:00-11:00	20/20	Blue Bloods	Local	Dateline NBC	Local

Battle of the Night 
I’m not really sure. Maybe 8-10 with all the scripted shows going up against the three reality series.

Show to keep an eye on: Grimm.

This one was hard. No one, with the possible exception of CBS and maybe The CW expects much from Fridays, so if you’re a network that isn’t CBS you schedule reality shows like Kitchen Nightmares, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and Shark Tank, or you put on shows that you think are going to draw genre or “geek” audiences like Fringe, Chuck, and Grimm that either have a track record or which you expect will have limited audiences. What I would like to see is those genre shows getting even halfway decent ratings and at least one of them bucking the trend and and getting a higher rating than Extreme Makeover Home Edition (a show that I have come to loathe) or Shark Tank (I rather like Kitchen Nightmares so I won’t mention it in the same context). Think that a sufficiently large audience for a scripted show other than one of the CBS shows might persuade the networks to stay in the business of doing original scripted shows on Fridays. That’s why I think you should keep an eye on Grimm, particularly when someone like Marc Berman says outright that he thinks it will be the first show to be cancelled and Dateline NBC will be expanded to two hours…again. It’s probably too much to hope for, but I can dream, can’t I?

Sunday

	ABC	CBS	FOX	NBC	The CW
7:00-7:30	America's Funniest Home Videos	60 Minutes	The O/T	Football Night In America	Local
7:30-8:00	America's Funniest Home Videos	60 Minutes	The Cleveland Show	Football Night In America	Local
8:00-8:30	ONCE UPON A TIME	The Amazing Race	The Simpsons	Football Night In America	Local
8:30-9:00	ONCE UPON A TIME	The Amazing Race	ALLEN GREGORY	Sunday Night Football	Local
9:00-9:30	Desperate Housewives	The Good Wife	Family Guy	Sunday Night Football	Local
9:30-10:00	Desperate Housewives	The Good Wife	American Dad	Sunday Night Football	Local
10:00-11:00	PAN AM	CSI: Miami	Local	Sunday Night Football	Local

Battle of the Night
9:00-10:00 p.m. The Good Wife vs Desperate Housewives

Show to keep and eye on: Pan Am

Ignoring FOX, whose Animation Domination shows are (a) likely to go on forever, and (b) directed at a teen and young adult audience (and (c) – in my opinion at least – a lazy way out of programming the night) the night is all about people who don’t watch football. And traditionally the big audience for that is women. I know that sounds sexist but I’m also pretty sure that there are statistics to prove that. The battle between The Good Wife and Desperate Housewives looks like it could be a big one. The Good Wife won an Emmy for Archie Panjabi in it’s first season as well as a huge number of nominations, while Desperate Housewives won Emmys in it’s early seasons but hasn’t won anything lately. That makes The Good Wife the up and comer while Desperate Housewives the aged veteran seeking one last ratings triumph. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I think that The Good Wife, which struggled in it’s original Tuesday night slot could find an audience here, even with periodic Football Overruns on CBS delaying the show. The show I think we should keep an eye on is not Allen Gregory. I’ve already read comments on Cartoon Brew the mildest of which which described the lead character as “the most UNlikeable character ever placed in a prime time show.” That doesn’t bode well for any interest in the show. Pan Am on the other hand at least has the advantages of being an interesting premise and trying something different. It may not succeed, but at least you’ve got a network trying something totally outside the box.

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.