FOX’s 2012-13 Season

Fox announced their new season Monday morning, and at first glance it appears to be primarily a case of moving some of the chairs around. Only three new series will debut in September – one dram
a and two comedies – but several series will find new time slots. And as always with FOX the mid-season will see even more planned changes. One other thing that is patently missing from FOX’s line-up is the sort of big budget, high profile series that typified the network’s new shows in previous years.

Cancelled: House, Terra Nova, Allen Gregory, I Hate My Teenaged Daughter, The Finder, Alcatraz, Napoleon Dynamite

Moved: Raising Hope (new time), Glee, Touch

Renewed: American Dad, Bob’s Burgers, Bones, The Cleveland Show, Family Guy, Fringe, New Girl, The Simpsons, The X-Factor,

New: Mob Doctor, Ben & Kate, The Mindy Project

Held Until Mid Season: American Idol, Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, The Following, The Goodwin Games

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


Monday
8:00-9:00 p.m.: Bones
9:00-10:00 p.m.: THE MOB DOCTOR (The Following at mid-season)


Tuesday
8:00-8:30 p.m.: Raising Hope (new time)
8:30-9:00 p.m.: BEN AND KATE
9:00-9:30 p.m.: The New Girl
9:30-10:00 p.m.: THE MINDY PROJECT


Wednesday
8:00-10:00 p.m.: The X-Factor (American Idol at mid-season) 

Thursday
8:00-9:00 p.m.: The X-Factor (American Idol at mid-season)
9:00-10:00 p.m.: Glee (new day and time)


Friday
8:00-9:00 p.m.: Touch (new day and time)
9:00-10:00 p.m.: Fringe (Hell’s Kitchen at mid-season)

Sunday
7:00-7:30 p.m.: The OT (Animation Domination reruns after Football season)
7:30-8:00 p.m.: The Cleveland Show
8:00-8:30 p.m.: The Simpsons
8:30-9:00 p.m.: Bob’s Burgers
9:00-9:30 p.m.: The Family Guy
9:30-10:00 p.m.: American Dad


The Mob Doctor tells the story of Dr. Grace Devlin (Jordana Spiro) and her double life. A top resident at Chicago’s Roosevelt Medical Center, she’s been hailed as one of the most promising young cardiothoracic surgeons in the country. However she owes a lifetime debt to the Chicago Mob to pay off her brother’s life threatening gambling debt. In her public life she is involved with compelling cases ranging from a toddler who needs heart surgery to the chaos of a crash on The El. In her other role she patches up injured mobsters, removes bullets from dead bodies to destroy incriminating evidence, and even dealing with an aging mobster’s erectile dysfunction. She has to keep her life with the mob secret from everyone in her life; her best friend Nurse “Ro” Angeli (Floriana Lima), her blue-blood boyfriend Dr. Brett Robinson (Zach Gilford), her boss Dr Stafford White (Zeljko Ivanek), her mother (Wendy Makkena) and even the brother Nate (Jesse Lee Soffer) whose debt led her into her deal with The Mob. The only person who really knows the extent of her activities on both sides of her life is the Mob boss to whom she owes her debt, Constantine Alexander (William Forsythe).


Ben And Kate are a brother and sister who couldn’t be more different. Kate Fox (Dakota Johnson) has followed the rules all of her life with one exception. That exception was getting pregnant out of wedlock which forced her to quit college just before graduation. After the birth of her daughter Maddie (Maggie Jones), Kate put her 20s on hold to be “responsible.” She works as a bar manager to maximize her time with Maddie. Her brother Ben is the opposite of Kate. He likes trouble more than she ever did, and has an infectious energy that draws people into his crazy schemes and bad ideas. When Ben arrives to crash on Kate’s couch for a few days he quickly realises that for the first time in their lives she needs his help, because Kate is surviving rather than living. Lucy Punch plays Kates Best friend BJ, a waitress at the bar that Kate manages, and Echo Kellum is Tommy, Ben’s “partner-in-crime” who not only treats Ben as his hero but also has a serious crush on Kate.


The Mindy Project stars former star of The Office Mindy Kaling as Dr. Mindy Kahiri, a talented OB/GYN with a chaotic personal life full of bad habits. She can quote every Meg Ryan romantic comedy – because the girl always gets the guy even in the bad movies – and is determined to become a well-rounded, perfect woman, able to win the perfect guy. This means trying to be more punctual, spend less money, lose weight and read more books. Her work life isn’t perfect either. She shares a practice with several other doctors, including Jeremy Reed (Ed Weeks) who is “the walking definition of bad news, and sometimes shares Mindy’s bed, despite her best efforts to resist. Then there’s Danny Castellano (Chris Messina), a hot headed guy’s guy who not only steals Mindy’s patients but also constantly criticises her for he supposed lack of professionalism to her struggling love life, even though he secretly admires her work. Rounding out the cast are Gwen Grady (Anna Camp) a married lawyer turned “Pilates mom” who has Mindy’s best friend since college, and the practice’s two receptionists, Betsy Putch (Zoe Jarman) and Shauna DiCanio (Dana DeLorenzo).


The Goodwin Games is a comedy about three siblings who are in line to inherit fortune from their recently deceased father. Benjamin Goodwin (Beau Bridges in a guest starring role) felt guilty about not being a better parent to his three children. In an effort to get his children to rediscover their true selves Benjamin arranges with his estate lawyer April (Melissa Tang) to set up a number of challenges for them to win his $20 million estate…an estate that none of his children knew existed. Henry Goodwin (Scott Foley) feels he is the most deserving to inherit. He’s a successful surgeon who feels he’s a role model for his less successful siblings and lets them know it at every opportunity. Chloe (Becki Newton), the middle child had been a math prodigy but turned her back on it to be a “popular girl.” Benjamin’s challenges for Chloe are intended to reconnect her with her old love of numbers. Finally there’s family screw-up Jimmy (Jake Lacy), a small-time ex-con and “dull-witted guitarist” with a big debt to a loan shark. Jake may be a screw-up but he’s got more heart than any of his siblings.


Imagine if the 300 or so serial killers that the FBI believes are currently active were somehow able to communicate with each other, work together, even form alliances. And imagine if one notorious serial killer not only set this up but develops an almost cult-like following among them. This is the premise behind The Following. When serial killer Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) escapes from death row and resumes his killing spree, former FBI agent Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) is brought out of retirement to consult. Hardy knows everything possible about Carroll, but his pursuit of the killer nine years ago left him mentally and physically damaged. The FBI team currently on the case – tough as nails Jennifer Mason (Jeananne Goosen) and razor-sharp Mike Weston (Shawn Ashmore) – regard Hardy as a liability rather than an asset, but it is Hardy who uncovers the network of serial killers that Carroll has been creating. In the course of the case Hardy reconnects with Carroll’s ex-wife, Claire Matthews (Natalie Zea) who is the mother of Carroll’s ten year-old son Joey (Kyle Catlett). In the past Hardy and Claire were close and she is able to provide insight about Carroll’s moves.


Comments:
A very conservative roster for FOX. The centrepiece of the line-up is the combination of The X-Factor and American Idol together with the Sunday night animation block. that gives them a stable four and a half or five hours for the network to build from. With only three new shows and a careful redistribution of existing shows Fox seems to have built up a fairly safe, although not particularly exciting schedule.

Looking at the shows that have moved the biggest switch has been the move of Glee from Tuesday to Thursday nights. This allows FOX to build up a two hour live action comedy night on Tuesday, and gives Glee the advantage of the X-Factor/American Idol powerhouse as a lead-in. The move of the Keifer Sutherland show Touch to Friday night as the lead-in to the final thirteen episodes of Fringe might be seen by some as sacrificing the show in the “Friday night death slot” as a way of getting rid of the show. Another weakness might be the use of Raising Hope to open the comedy block on Tuesday night. Ratings for Raising Hope with Glee as a lead-in have not been stellar and there is probably reason for concern that it might not be able to anchor the night.


Looking at the new shows, I believe the greatest strengths are the midseason drama The Following and the fall debuting The Mindy Project. My personal opinion is that audiences won’t readily buy into the premise of The Mob Doctor. As for Kate And Ben, it seems to derivative of aspects of shows like 2 Broke Girls and Don’t Trust The B---- In Apartment 23 (and those shows are themselves derivative of The Odd Couple) in which two disparate people are forced to live together by circumstances and find that they can learn from each other or are stronger working together than they are alone. By contrast The Mindy Project seems a bit fresher, blending elements of The New Girl with Bridget Jones’s Diary in that you have a romantic single woman trying to overcome her shortcomings. The Following appears to be FOX’s big project of the season (with apologies to The Mod Doctor which is a show I just don’t think will fly) and it presents a frightening, if somewhat far-fetched, vision. Done right I think it could do well; done wrong it could be a disaster, although FOX is no stranger to those.


FOX’s safe and conservative line-up looks like it should deliver for them both ratings success and stability. It’s not earth shaking, and quite frankly there’s no show in the line-up that thrills me the way something like The Chicago Code did a couple of years ago (or even Alcatraz this past season – yes, I was the guy who liked it). Most of all it is dependent on a couple of key players staying as successful as they have been over the past few years. A sound if somewhat boring schedule.

NBC’s 2012-13 Season

NBC broke with precedent this year and presented their new shows on Sunday afternoon rather than on Monday morning. The network which was in trouble for the past few years announced seven new comedies, five new dramas and four “alternative” programs. The network will have at least an hour of sitcoms on four of the six nights that the network programs. Thirteen shows were renewed, but only six of last season’s fourteen entertainment programs are coming back. I don’t have much hope that this year will be the start of a comeback for the one time “must see TV” network.

Cancelled: Chuck, Prime Suspect, The Playboy Club, Free Agents, Harry's Law, Are You There Chelsea?, Best Friends Forever, The Firm, Bent, Awake, Who Do You Think You Are?, The Sing-Off

Moved: Community, Up All Night, Whitney,

Renewed: Grimm, 30 Rock, Law & Order: SVU, Parenthood, Parks and Recreation, The Voice, Dateline NBC, The Office, Rock Center with Brian Williams

New: Go On, The New Normal, Animal Practice, Guys With Kids, Revolution, Chicago Fire

Held until mid-season: Smash, Fashion Star, The Biggest Loser, Celebrity Apprentice, 1600 Penn, Save Me, Next Caller, Do No Harm, Infamous, Hannibal, Stars Earn Stripes, Howie Mandel’s White Elephant, Surprise With Jenny McCarthy, Ready For Love

Complete Schedule (All times Eastern, New Shows in capitals)

Monday
8:00-10:00 p.m.: The Voice
10:00-11:00 p.m.: REVOLUTION

Tuesday
8:00-9:00 p.m.: The Voice
9:00-9:30 p.m.: GO ON
9:30-10:00 p.m.: THE NEW NORMAL
10:00-11:00 p.m.: Parenthood

Wednesday
8:00-8:30 p.m.: ANIMAL PRACTICE
8:30-9:00 p.m.: GUYS WITH KIDS
9:00-10:00 p.m.: Law & Order: SVU
10:00-11:00 p.m.: CHICAGO FIRE

Thursday
8:00-8:30 p.m.: 30 Rock
8:30-9:00  p.m.: Up All Night (moved)
9:00-9:30 p.m.: The Office
9:30-10:00 p.m.: Parks & Recreation
10:00-11:00 p.m.: Rock Center with Brian Williams

Friday
8:00-8:30 p.m.: Whitney (moved)
8:30-9:00 p.m.: Community (moved)
9:00-10:00 p.m.: Grimm
10:00-11:00 p.m.: Dateline NBC

Sunday
7:00-8:15 p.m.: Football Night In America
8:15-11:00 p.m.: Sunday Night Football

Sunday (after the end of the Football season)
7:00-8:00 p.m.: Dateline NBC
8:00-9:00 p.m.: Fashion Star (moved)
9:00-10:00 p.m.: Celebrity Apprentice
10:00-11:00 p.m.: DO NO HARM


Revolution asks the question of what would happen if the lights went out – permanently. Fifteen years after all electrical power suddenly stopped  people are living what appear to be quieter and simpler lives lit by candles and lanterns. All is not what it seems though. When a young woman’s father, who seems to have had something to do with the blackout, is murdered it leads to an unlikely alliance between two young people to find answers to what happened in the past and in hopes of reclaiming the future. From producer J.J. Abrams and Eric Kripke, and starring Billy Burke, Tracy Spiridakos, Anna Lise Phillips, Zak Orth, Graham Rogers, J.D. Pardo, Giancarlo Esposito, David Lyons, Maria Howell, Tim Guinee and Andrea Roth.

Go On is a comedy starring Matthew Perry as Ryan King, a sportscaster who recently lost his wife in an auto accident. He’s ready to go back to work but his boss insists that he go to counselling. He wants to get back to work as quickly as possible and sets about disrupting his therapy group. He has no interest in healing and his irreverent attitude to “healing” might be exactly what the group needs. Also stars Laura Benanti, Julie White, Suzy Nakamura, Khary Payton, and Allison Miller.

The New Normal looks at the new American family. Brian (Andrew Rannells) and David (Justin Bartha) are a happy and committed couple. The only thing missing is a baby and it seems like that’s something that won’t happen. That is until Midwestern waitress Goldie (Georgia King) and her eight year-old daughter come into their lives. Goldie is broke but fertile and is willing to serve as a surrogate for Brian and David. Ellen Barkin also appears as Goldie’s small-minded mother.

In Animal Practice Justin Kirk stars as top New York veterinarian Dr. George Coleman. George has a way with most kinds of animals…except the human kind. George used to be involved with Dorothy Crane (no actress named for the part) who is the new manager of the Crane Animal Hospital. Dorothy is smart and ambitious but her romantic past with George and her total lack of experience with animals threaten to cramp his style, which includes playing poker with the clinic’s resident capuchin monkey. Also stars Tyler Labine, Bobby Lee and Betsy Sodaro.

They say it’s easier to become a father than to be one. Guys With Kids from Executive Producer Jimmy Fallon looks at three men in their 30s who are determined to hold onto their youth despite their new responsibilities as fathers. Chris (Jesse Bradford), Nick (Zach Cregger) and Gary (Anthony Anderson) undertake the daily challenge of taking care of their babies while maintaining a social life. Tempest Bledsoe and Jamie Lynn Sigler also star.

Chicago Fire from Law & Order producer Dick Wolf looks at the high intensity life of the firefighters at Chicago’s Firehouse 51. The men and women of the station’s Engine Squad, Rescue Team and Paramedics are under pressure to perform and make split second decisions in deadly situations. When the station loses one of their own tensions boil over between the leader of the Rescue Squad, Lt. Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney) and Lt. Matthew Casey. But when a call comes in, personal rivalries are set aside to get the job done. Also stars Eamonn Walker, Charlie Barnett, David Eigenberg, Monica Raymund, Lauren German, Teri Reeves, and Merle Dandridge

NBC’s midseason comedy 1600 Penn is about an ordinary family with an extraordinary home – The White House. They have all the problems of most families – a son who moves back  with the family, kids who are smarter than their teachers, and a stepmom trying to win over the kids. The President’s eldest son (Josh Gad), code named “Meatball” by the Secret Service is the Gilchrist Administration’s greatest liability, and also the glue that holds his family together. Bill Pullman plays President Pullman while Jenna Elfman plays his wife. Also stars Martha MacIsaac, Andre Holland, Amara Miller, and Benjamin Stockham.

In Save Me Midwestern housewife Beth (Anne Heche) has a near death experience after choking on a hero sandwich. She soon discovers that this event left her with a special gift: she has a direct line to God. Her husband Tom (Michael Landes) is dismissive and his mistress (Alexandra Breckinridge) is stunned to learn that her lover’s wife is a prophet. It’s an odd choice to use a desperate housewife as God’s messenger on Earth, but they do say that He moves in mysterious ways. Also stars Heather Burns and Madison Davenport.

Next Caller pairs Dane Cook as foul-mouthed satellite radio DJ Cam Dunne who is partnered with a young, former NPR host. New co-host Stella Hoobler (Collette Wolf) is 26 and ready to take on the world. In this case that means trying to elevate “Booty Call with Cam Dunne” from the sort of locker room humour that Cam has always done. Jeffrey Tambor, Joy Osmanski, and Wolé Parks co-star.

Do No Harm is a modern take on the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story. Dr. Jason Cole (Steven Pasquale) is a highly respected neurosurgeon who has it all. He also has a deep dark secret that has suddenly re-emerged, an alternate personality. Every night at the same time Jason Cole changes into “Ian Price”, a seductive devious borderline sociopath. Jason has been able to keep “Ian” from reappearing for many years thanks to a powerful experimental sedative, but now the serum has stopped working. Not only is “Ian” back but he’s out for revenge…on Jason. To protect everything he holds dear, including his patients, friends, coworkers and even the woman he loves, Jason has to find a way to stop Ian once and for all. Alana De La Garza, Mousa Kraish, Michael Esper, Ruta Gedmintas, and Phylicia Rashad co-star.

In Infamous Detective Joanna Locasto (Megan Good) goes undercover to investigate the Bowers family. When Joanna’s childhood best friend Vivian Bowers dies of an apparent drug overdose, everyone accepts that it was the end result of her hard partying lifestyle. Everyone that is except FBI agent Will Moreno (Laz Alonso). He sends Joanna back to Vivian’s home where her family worked as servants. Joanna is quickly re-embraced by the Bowers family and rediscovers the allure of the family’s wealthy an luxurious lifestyle, as well as reigniting a romantic relationship. She also uncovers the family’s dark secrets, secrets which put Vivian’s life in danger. Victor Garber, Tate Donovan, Katherine La Nasa, Neil Jackson and Ella Rae Peck co-star.

Hannibal takes characters from Thomas Harris’s novels and puts a new twist on them. William Graham (Hugh Dancy) is a gifted criminal profiler with the ability to empathize with anyone, including psychopaths. However when the mind of the criminal he’s pursuing is too complex for him, he turns to one of the most highly regarded psychiatric minds in the country: Dr. Hannibal Lecter. What the audience knows (and not just from our previous exposure to the character) and Graham doesn’t is that Lecter is a serial killer. The NBC press release does not name an actor for the role of Lecter. Bryan Fuller is the writer and one of the Executive Producers.

Stars Earn Stripes takes stars from various fields and exposes them to different forms of pressure. In this new reality-competition series from Dick Wolf and Mark Burnett, nine celebrities are brought together at a secret training facility where they will be challenged to execute missions inspired by real military training exercises. Money raised through the competition will be donated to various veterans charities. According to the NBC press release, “these stars will be tested physically, mentally and emotionally – and emerge in awe of the men and women who do such tasks on behalf of our country every day.”

Howie Mandel’s White Elephant is a version of the popular party game. One player will pick an unmarked box from a studio full of prizes. The next player has to decide whether or not to steal the box from the first player or pick another box and hope that  it is worth more. When the contest gets down to the final two competitors, they each face a choice of whether to share or steal. If both select “Share” they share the prizes that the have won. If one chooses “Share” and the other choses “Steal”, the one who chose “Steal” gets all of the prizes. But if both choose “Steal” they both win…nothing.

Eva Longoria is the Producer of Ready For Love, a unique approach to dating shows because every eligible woman in America is a potential participant. Longoria has personally selected three impossibly handsome “Grooms.” Three of the best Matchmakers in the world will then screen women who appear at mass auditions. Those selected by the Matchmakers will then participate in a journey that, “will combine the best elements of in-studio competition and story-based reality.” Each episode will see some of the women eliminated by the Matchmakers until the three “grooms” and the final three “brides” will decide if they’ll get engaged, get married or just live “happily ever after.” Bill and Gulianna Rancic are the hosts.

Surprise With Jenny McCarthy has McCarthy springing “the surprise of a lifetime” on ordinary people. As each episode develops, the audience gets to know the story of the people involved, making the pay-off all the more emotionally satisfying.

Comments:
NBC seems to be putting a lot of product out there, presumably hoping that at least some of it will stick, and I’m not convinced that much will stick. The network appears to be relying a lot on their comedy line-up, with comedies on four of the six nights that they are programming. This may be a mistake. NBC’s Thursday night comedies – The Office, Community, Parks & Recreation, and 30 Rock – are critical successes, but the fact the fact is that for the most part the shows have poor ratings. And of the new comedies introduced in the 2011-12 season only two – Whitney and Up All Night – have survived to get a second season. I’m not sure – based on the descriptions provided by the network (I haven’t looked at most of the clips from the shows yet) – how many of the new comedies will survive more than a few episodes. I have watched the clip of 1600 Penn and quite frankly it looks dismal.

Turning to the network’s new drama’s they seem to be a very mixed bag. Revolution is reminiscent of so many shows that we’ve seen in the not too distant past, from Jericho to Flash Forward to The Event that it’s hard to think that it will work. After the failure of Awake I’m not sure that the audience will be too accepting of the premise of Do No Harm. As for Hannibal I think the concept of a profiler working with someone that we know – and he doesn’t know – is a serial killer. The question is whether we have been exposed too much to Hannibal Lecter (and Anthony Hopkin’s portrayal of the character) to accept the TV version of the characters. They might have been better off starting with a new character without the baggage. The two dramas that interest me the most are Chicago Fire and Infamous. I think there’s a lot of potential in a series built around firefighters, and Chicago is an ideal setting , maybe partially because of the movie Backdraft. As for Infamous, it’s success may be more problematic. It’s obviously a show with a long story arc, which is always a risk. Done right it could work; done wrong it could be this year’s Ringer.

Some miscellaneous thoughts on the schedule: NBC won’t be running two cycles of Biggest Loser this year. Based on the ratings this past year it might be a good idea to reduce it to one cycle in a season just to give it a rest. They’re also reducing Celebrity Apprentice to one hour from the current two. If you’re going to have Celebrity Apprentice on the schedule cutting it to an hour – at least for as long as Do No Harm and/or Fashion Star lasts – is a great idea. At two hours the show seems terribly bloated. NBC’s decision to run the low rated Rock Center With Brian Williams in the third hour of Thursday basically abdicates the time slot to ABC and CBS. They are giving up on Thursday night after the comedies just the way they gave up on the third hour when they put Jay Leno on in primetime. Finally, I think I’m going to miss Who Do You Think You Are? which I couldn’t have imagined when the show debuted. It’s a damned sight better than the reality drek – Stars Earn Stripes, Howie Mandel’s White Elephant, Ready For Love and worst of all Surprise With Jenny McCarthy – that NBC has available instead.

On the whole I am unimpressed with this line-up.

Canadians Are Different–A TV Perspective

Care to guess what the most popular TV series in Canada most weeks is? Survivor? NCIS? American Idol? Big Bang Theory? Dancing With The Stars?
If you said any of those, you’d be wrong. The most popular TV series on Canadian TV most weeks is…The Amazing Race! Week after week and year after year The Amazing Race is among the top five series on Canadian TV and is usually in the top three. This illustrates a point: Canadians are different from Americans and illustrating this difference what is and isn’t popular on TV.

Allan Strachan of Postmedia did a survey of Canadian TV – or rather (as he describes them) the “Canadian mainstream broadcast networks” as the end of the TV season approached, giving shows letter grades based on the night and the ratings. Canadian ratings are based on live viewing an “Average Minute Audience” (AMA) The ratings they deal with are “live” audiences who watch the show as it’s broadcast  rather than Live-plus-seven, which would include PVR usage within a week of the show airing. There also doesn’t seem to be any differentiation based on demographics, at least not in the ratings that are available to the general public.

The most important thing to know about Canadian TV ratings is that anything over a million viewers is considered a hit and anything over two million is a huge hit. Anything over three million is the NHL playoffs – with a Canadian team. When you consider that Canada has a population of 34.5 million (according to the 2011 census) this means that a show that attracts over 3 million viewers is being watched by nearly 1/10th of the country. For a show in the US to have an equivalent audience it would have to draw 30 million viewers. Live.

In his article Strachan points out that ratings for the top shows are down from last year. He states that there are two possible explanations for this; either Canadians are watching less TV, or “as is looking more likely, consumers are watching TV in new ways, ways that don’t lend themselves to the traditional way of  measuring audiences.” These would include streaming video onto MP3 devices, or recording them on PVRs and watching them a day (or more) after they air – “so-called ‘live-plus-seven” ratings. There is a third alternative that he fails to acknowledge, namely that people are watching shows that aren’t available on the “Canadian mainstream broadcast networks,” including shows on specialty channels, on premium channels, and on “on-demand” services. There also doesn’t seem to be any differentiation based on demographics, at least not in the ratings that are available to the general public.

Strachan arranged all of the shows on Canadian primetime by day and then gave them a letter grade – A, B, C+, and D (with D really being an F). What I intend to do is look at the shows on a day by day basis, pointing out Strachan’s A and B shows, and also shows in the C+ and D range where there is a major discrepancy in popularity on one side of the border or the other. It is also worth noting that shows that air on the City system of stations tend to underperform. This is at least partly because the City system has broadcasting stations in five cities – Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver – plus three small affiliates in the interior of British Columbia, although they have recently entered into agreements to buy a station in Montreal and to acquire a cable presence in Saskatchewan.I’ll include notes for particular shows or situations. I’ll also include the Canadian AMA and ratings position where available and the US overall audience and position where available. These will be done with Canadian Ratings for the week ending May 6 (the most recent available to me) and the US ratings for the comparable period. There are thirty shows in the Canadian list from the BBM Canada and twenty-five in the US list form TV By The Numbers.

Monday

Show	Group	Canadian Network	Rank	AMA	US Network	Rank	Overall Viewers	Status
Hawaii Five-0	A	Global	9th	1,967,000	CBS	14th	10,909,000	Renewed
The Voice	A	CTV	29th	1,076,000	NBC	20th	9,515,000	Renewed
Dancing With The Stars	A	CTV	21st	1,318,000	ABC	3rd	16,200,000	Renewed
Two & A Half Men	A	CTV	12th	1,672,000	CBS	12th	11,321,000	Renewed
Mike & Molly	B	CTV	–	–	CBS	17th	10,162,000	Renewed
2 Broke Girls	B	City	–	–	CBS	23rd	9,237,000	Renewed
House	B	Global	10th	1,852,000	FOX	–	–	Ending
Bones	B	Global	11th	1,682,000	FOX	–	–	Renewed
Castle	B	CTV	13th	1,604,000	ABC	13th	11,081,000	Renewed

Notes: Two & A Half Men is listed in the Canadian ratings as airing on Tuesday night in the week ending April 29. Hawaii Five-0, Mike & Molly, 2 Broke Girls and Two & A Half Men. For the week ending April 15th, which is the period when Strachan did his research, Hawaii Five-0 finished 8th in Canada with an AMA of 1,821,000.

Tuesday

Show	Group	Canadian Network	Rank	AMA	US Network	Rank	Overall Viewers	Status
NCIS	A	Global	–	–	CBS	1st	17,583,000	Renewed
NCIS: LA	A	Global	4th	2,206,000	CBS	5th	15,212,000	Renewed
Glee	A	Global	16th	1,558,000	FOX	–	–	Renewed
Missing	A	CTV	15th	1,570,000	ABC	–	–	Cancelled
Rick Mercer Report	A	CBC	–	–	NA	NA	NA	NA
Unforgettable	B	CTV	22th	1,308,000	CBS	15th	10,658,000	Cancelled
22 Minutes	B	CBC	–	–	NA	NA	NA	NA
Whitney	B	CTV	–	–	NBC	–	–	Renewed
Hot In Cleveland	B	CTV	–	–	TVLand	NA	NA	Renewed

Notes: Both The Rick Mercer Report and 22 Minutes are Canadian made political satire shows and don’t air in the United States. Whitney was included in Strachan’s list because he was dealing with the whole year. It had ended its season in March. Hot In Cleveland’s US ratings aren’t included here because it is a cable series. Schedules for the two CBC shows are disrupted by the NHL playoffs. Missing aired in Canada on Tuesdays and on Thursdays in the United States.Finally, Strachan doesn’t include the Dancing With The Stars Results show in his breakdown. For the week ending April 29th the show finished 20th with an AMA of 1,190,000. This puts it three places ahead of the performance show with 11,000 more viewers!

Wednesday

Show	Group	Canadian Network	Rank	AMA	US Network	Rank	Overall Viewers	Status
Survivor	A	Global	5th	2,206,000	CBS	21st	9,428,000	Renewed
American Idol	A	CTV	8th	2,031,000	FOX	2nd	16,664,000	Unknown
Dragon’s Den	A	CBC	–	–	NA	NA	NA	Renewed
Criminal Minds	A	CTV	19th	1,370,000	CBS	11th	11,470,000	Renewed
CSI	A	CTV	6th	2,087,000	CBS	19th	9,749,000	Renewed
Republic of Doyle	B	CBC	–	–	NA	NA	NA	Renewed
Bomb Girls	B	Global	–	–	NA	NA	NA	Renewed
Revenge	D	City	–	–	ABC	–	–	Renewed

Notes: Bomb Girls was a short run dramatic series that has been renewed for a second season. Republic of Doyle is a CBC “dramedy”. Dragon’s Den is the Canadian version of the worldwide series that originated in Japan. It debuted before the American Shark Tank which has the same format (and two of the same investors on their panels – Kevin O’Leary and Robert Herjavec, both Canadians). I included Revenge to illustrate the effect of a show being on the City TV system. It is one of the breakout hits of the 2011-12 season but the show doesn’t have an audience on Canadian TV because it’s on City.

Thursday

Show	Group	Canadian Network	Rank	AMA	US Network	Rank	Overall Viewers	Status
Big Bang Theory	A	CTV	1st	3,232,000	CBS	6th	13,908,000	Renewed
Grey’s Anatomy	A	CTV	3rd	2,266,000	ABC	24th	9,237,000	Renewed
The Mentalist	B	CTV	7th	2,050,000	CBS	9th	12,944,000	Renewed
Touch	B	Global	–	–	FOX	–	–	Renewed
Person Of Interest	C	City	–	–	CBS	8th	13,270,000	Renewed

Notes: Person of Interest is included as further proof of what I call the “City Effect.”

Friday

Show	Group	Canadian Network	Rank	AMA	US Network	Rank	Overall Viewers	Status
Blue Bloods	A	CTV	17th	1,519,000	CBS	16th	10,356,000	Renewed
Marketplace	B	CBC	–	–	NA	NA	NA	Renewed
CSI: New York	B	CTV	–	–	CBS	–	–	Renewed
Grimm	B	CTV	26th	1,094,000	NBC	–	–	Renewed
the fifth estate	B	CBC	–	–	NA	NA	NA	Renewed
Undercover Boss	B	CTV	–	–	CBS	–	–	Renewed
The Finder	B	Global	–	–	FOX	–	–	Cancelled

Notes: Marketplace is a national consumer affairs show that will be going into its 40th season in 2012-13. the fifth estate is a newsmagazine series that will be going into its 38th season. The two shows are currently off the air due to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Saturday

Show	Group	Canadian Network	Rank	AMA	US Network	Rank	Overall Viewers	Status
Hockey Night in Canada	A	CBC	20th	1,358,000	NA	NA	NA	Renewed
Celebrity Apprentice	D	Global	–	–	NBC	–	–	–

Notes: The ratings stated here for Hockey Night In Canada are actually the cumulative ratings for CBC’s second round playoff coverage, which was on six of the seven nights in the ratings period. Celebrity Apprentice airs six days after it airs on NBC. Strachan states that the show struggles to reach 300,000 viewers most weeks. Strachan understands that the delay of almost a week in airing the show contributes to the low ratings, but also states that “the numbers suggest hardly anyone in Canada watches NBC on a Sunday night.”

Sunday

Show	Group	Canadian Network	Rank	AMA	US Network	Rank	Overall Viewers	Status
Amazing Race	A	CTV	2nd	2,602,000	CBS	22nd	9,404,000	Renewed
Once Upon A Time	B	CTV	14th	1,601,000	ABC	–	–	Renewed
Heartland	B	CBC	–	–	NA	NA	NA	Renewed
Desperate House-wives	B	CTV	–	–	ABC	25th	9,223,000	Ending
GCB	B	CTV	30th	1,046,000	ABC	–	–	Cancelled
The Good Wife	B	Global	–	–	CBS	–	–	Renewed
CSI: Miami	B	CTV	–	–	CBS	–	–	Cancelled

Notes: Heartland is a Canadian drama.

Edited to include up to date information.

Crisis!

I’m having a problem with my PVR. I’ve had the Pace Tahoe cable box and PVR for about four years (I bought it from Shaw Cable shortly after they started selling them) and bought an eSATA PVR Expander a month or two after that, Well, within the past few days the Tahoe has stopped recognizing the Expander and taken a huge number of the shows I’ve recorded with it. The indicator light on the Expander lights but I’m not sure if the Hard Drive is still functional. I’ve done the various things that you’re supposed to do to reinstall the expander to no effect. I don’t know if this problem will resolve itself but I’m not counting on it.

 

And before you ask, I would love to buy a new cable box – the new ones that Shaw offers has a larger hard drive capacity – but I can’t afford one.

Forgotten TV Shows - Gang Busters

I got a lot of good response from the first of these so I’ve decided to stick with it. Yes I should be reviewing some modern shows, and I think I’ll get around to it, but I have to confess that I’ve been kind of busy the past few weeks. And just maybe I’ve become a bit too set in my viewing habits. Doing these pieces is at least letting me keep my toe in until I get motivated to do more.




Title: Gangbusters
Dates: March 20, 1952 to December 25, 1952 (12 Episodes)
Starring: Philips H. Lord (Narrator) Otherwise it was an anthology show.
Surprising Fact: According to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present it may be the highest rated TV show ever to be cancelled.
Why Forgotten?: It only ran for 12 episodes. As an anthology show it had no big name stars. It shared – quite literally – the time slot with Dragnet.

The story of Gang Busters might be described as a complicated one. The show debuted on radio in July 1935 on NBC before moving to CBS from January 1936 to June 1940. In October of that year it moved to NBC’s Blue Network until the end of December 1948. In January 1949 it returned CBS and ran until June 1955. It was heard on the Mutual Broadcasting System from October 1955 to November 1957. It was in fact one of the last two half-hour dramatic series on Mutual. In the end it assembled an impressive radio run of 22 years. Few radio shows could claim a run that long. The show also spawned a movie serial in the 1940s and a DC comic book series that ran for 67 issues between 1947 and 1958.

The radio show was controversial in its time and for the usual reason that shows and media are controversial – the supposed impact on children. Parent-Teacher groups placed the responsibility for juvenile delinquency on children and teenagers listening to the exploits of the criminals depicted on Gang Busters. In 1940 Time Magazine was able to find a parole officer in the juvenile justice system who claimed that he learned about techniques that the young criminals of his town were using by listening to the show. He also said that he learned how to respond to the slang being used by the juvenile delinquents he was dealing with. When the show temporarily left the air in June 1940 – the time when it shifted from CBS to the NBC Blue Network – the writer for Time seemed positively triumphant about the end of the show because it couldn’t sell toothpaste: “But last week Gang Busters faced a foe that got them down.Convinced that Gang Busters might be catching crooks but were not selling Cue, the liquid dentifrice, the sponsors decided not to renew their contract. Still shooting, still with their boots on, Gang Busters vacated the airwaves.” Somehow Time didn’t pay much attention to the show’s return to the air later that year, on a different network, with a different sponsor.

The television version of Gang Busters doesn’t seem to have excited that same hatred that the radio version did during the 1930s. Of course by 1952, everyone “knew” that juvenile delinquency was caused by comic books thanks to Dr. Frederic Wertham. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Gang Busters came from radio to television; according to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present over 200 radio shows made the transition to the new medium. No, it was the circumstances of Gang Busters coming to TV that were a bit different, and it has to do with another radio show transitioning to TV, Dragnet.

Dragnet debuted on TV in January 1952 after two and a half years on radio (where it would continue until 1957). Apparently Webb had a problem delivering a complete half-hour episode to NBC every week so in March 1952 it was decided to alternate another program with Dragnet. That show was Gang Busters. One week would feature an episode of Dragnet and the next week an episode of Gang Busters. Again, while not common this was certainly not unheard of in network TV in this period. For most of his time on TV (the 1954-1960 period) Jack Benny was only on every other week, alternating first with Private Secretary (starring Anne Southern), then with Bachelor Father, and in the final year of the arrangement with The George Gobel Show.

The television version of Gang Busters jettisoned one of the main components of the radio version of the show. The radio show was hosted by a member – or former member – of a law enforcement body: Colonel H. Norman Schwartzkopf (Sr.) who had been in charge of the New Jersey State Police at the time of the Lindbergh Kidnapping in 1932 hosted Gang Busters on radio for a while. This host would interview a police official directly tied to the original case. And you could tell they were the real deal because quite frankly most of them were awful in front of a microphone. In the TV version of the series, the show host was dispensed with and the “cops” who told the story were a lot more professional in front of the microphone…mostly because they were the actors who played the real life cops in the dramatic portion of the episode. But except for this change, and the addition of a bumper at the end of the episode featuring Jack Webb telling about next week’s episode of Dragnet, the format of the series stayed pretty much the same as it had been in radio, right down to alerting viewers as to a different criminal on the loose every episode.

The team of Dragnet and Gang Busters hit television like a storm. In the 1951-52 season ratings which ran from October 1951 to April 1952, Gang Busters aGangctually had a higher rating than Dragnet – 38.7 for Gang Busters to 36.3 for Dragnet. Of course, since Gang Busters only began in March 1952, just a few weeks before the end of the rating period while Dragnet debuted in January 1952, this isn’t an entirely fair comparison. The 1952-53 ratings are more significant. Dragnet finished fourth with a rating of 46.8, which made it the highest rated NBC show for the season. Gang Busters finished in eighth place with a rating of 42.4. What you must remember too is that until 1960 the ratings represented the percentage of all homes that had TV sets that were watching a particular show. In other words, 42.4% of all homes with TVs were watching Gang Busters. The other 57.8% of homes with TVs were either tuned to one of the other three networks – ABC, CBS and Dumont – or they weren’t turned on. The situation was such that Dumont, CBS and ABC aired public affairs programs in the time slot until after the Presidential elections in November and then what must be described as “sacrificial lamb shows” for the rest of the year.

And yet Gang Busters was cancelled in January 1952, and the authors of The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present suggest that the cancellation might all have been according to plan. They write, “The reason for the cancellation appears to be that Gangbusters was never intended to be a full-time TV series , but merely a stopgap provided by the sponsor to fill in the weeks when Dragnet wasn’t on. Jack Webb even appeared at the end of each telecast to plug the next week’s Dragnet episode. Webb could not at first provide a new Dragnet film every week, but when he could, Dragnet (which was even more popular than Gangbusters) went weekly and Gangbusters had to make way.” It is nearly impossible to think of a modern network executive (particularly one at NBC) willingly dropping a show with this degree of popularity. They would find a spot for the show, possibly even have tried to find a way to have it follow Dragnet. In short it would be a property too valuable to waste. Which leads me to wonder what other influences were at play around this decision both at NBC and at whatever advertiser was the direct sponsor of the series.

In the end, Dragnet is highly regarded as one of the landmarks of 1950s television and in some ways as the predecessor of the procedural series that fill the airwaves today. Meanwhile Gang Busters is a little known series with a small cult of fans. The one and only reviewer that the series had at IMDB wrote: “Yet, what worked so well on radio just didn't jell on the small screen. Despite series creator Phillips H. Lord's total involvement in the production, it all looked so disjointed and cheap, judging from the four episodes I have on DVD. NBC obviously knew this as well, for despite very high ratings, they regarded this show as a stop gap filler for the equally successful "Dragnet" during its early years as a bi-weekly show. When Jack Webb filmed enough episodes for a weekly slot, "Gang Busters", one of the highest rated series of the 1952 season, had to go. So, what could have been a potential landmark in television history, as it was on radio, was merely a low-budget bench-hitter during the early days of TV.” I think it may be a rather poor and inaccurate assessment of the show. Based on some early episodes of Dragnet that I’ve seen on DVD it could seem “low-budget” and “disjointed and cheap” itself at times. Moreover, as I’ve said both the network and the advertisers should have jumped at the chance to have a show that drew as high a percentage of homes with TVs as Gang Busters did on the air, selling their products. Some episodes are apparently available on DVD but be aware that the image that they show on the IMDB page for the show is actually of the DVD for the 1942 Gang Busters serial not the TV series. I’ve only seen the first episode of the series in its entirety (I’m including it below) but except for the hokiness of the Hugh Sanders’s speech at the end of the dramatic part of the episode, I can honestly say that I’ve seen worse, and of far more recent vintage. Judge for yourself.

Forgotten TV Shows–The Life Of Riley (1949)

Yeah, I’m back… sort of. I think that in the past two months I’ve started three or four different articles but so far nothing has germinated into being good enough to post.I’m not second guessing myself, I have just been quite busy and as a result quite tired. And besides, I bought one of the cheap Kindles, and I’m reading quite a bit.

Still I’ve been wanting to get back in harness and putting something together on “forgotten” TV shows on a weekly basis – well an approximately weekly basis – seems like a direction to take. After all my blogging buddy Bill Crider features postings about “Forgotten Films” or “Forgotten Books” on an almost daily basis in his blog Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine, and frequent commenter her and elsewhere Todd Mason regularly collects links about overlooked film and other A/V material in his blog Sweet Freedom, so I figured I might as well join the trend. After all, if you`re going to steal an idea, steal a good one. And since my blogging buddy Ivan G. Shreve Jr. is just ending a contest to give away a box set of Radio Spirits’ Life Of Riley CDs (the program guide for which was coincidentally(?) written by that distinguished radio historian Ivan G. Shreve Jr.) at HIS blog Thrilling Days Of Yesterday, well the choice for the first show to profiled is pretty obvious.

Title: The Life Of Riley
Dates: October 4, 1949 to March 28, 1950 (26 episodes)
Starring: Jackie Gleason, Rosemary DeCamp, Lanny Rees, Gloria Winters, Sidney Tomack, John Brown.
Surprising Fact: The show won an Emmy in 1950 as “Best Film Made for and Viewed on Television in 1949,” the first situation comedy to win an Emmy (it beat out The Lone Ranger and Silver Theater).
Why Forgotten?: Several reasons: First the star: Jackie Gleason (in his first TV series) instead of William Bendix who played the part on radio and in a movie that debuted the same year that the TV series did. Second, the show lasted less than a full season.Third, it was 1949. Fourth, both the show and the star went on to better things.

Now let’s go into the situation in depth. The Life Of Riley began as a radio show in January 1944 on the NBC Blue Network which was in the process of becoming ABC. It shifted to NBC in September 1945. The radio show starred William Bendix as Chester A. Riley,  Paula Winslowe as his wife Peg, and John Brown as both Riley’s best friend Jim Gillis and most famously as Digby “Digger” O’Dell “the friendly undertaker” (he also played a third character named Waldo Binny) The told the story of Riley, a Brooklyn born riveter at a California aircraft plant, his wife two kids and their friends. Riley is a sentimental guy whose attempts at taking a tough line or do something he thinks is right – usually on advice from Gillis – he ends up getting into trouble. With some good advice from Digger and a lot of help from the level-headed Peg he manages to survive the situations he finds himself in. As an interesting side note, one of the developers of the radio series was theatrical  Milton Marx – known to Marx Brothers fans as Gummo, the brother who never appeared in the movies.

In 1949 a Life of Riley movie was made starring Bendix, Rosemary DeCamp as Peg, Meg Randall and Lanny Rees as Riley’s kids, Babs and Junior, Brown as “Digger” O’Dell and James Gleason as Gillis. With TV beginning to gain ground and the movie further building awareness of the visual possibilities of the show, It seemed like a great idea to put The Life of Riley on TV, with Bendix recreating his radio role. The problem was that Bendix was under contract to RKO Radio Pictures as a movie actor, and like a lot of movie stars his contract prevented him from doing TV. So, the role of Riley had to be recast. Sometime movie actor and nightclub comedian Jackie Gleason was tapped for the role. Rosemary Decamp and Lanny Rees came over from the movie as did Brown. Gloria Winters – who is much more famous for her later role on Sky King as his niece – played Babs. Gillis, who was played by John Brown on the radio show, was played by Sid Tomack. The problem was of course that the radio show was still on the air and would stay on the air until 1951. There were obvious comparisons between the TV Riley and the radio version – who had also been seen in the movie – and Gleason, with his popping eyes didn’t fit people’s vision of Riley. Plus, Gleason was 33 when he got the role as Riley, a man with a teenaged daughter and a son who either was a teenager or was about to become one.

And yet, it does not appear that the show was cancelled for poor ratings. The show ran for 26 episodes which today seems like a full season or even more than a full season at a time when the typical series runs between 22 and 24 episodes. However in 1949-50 the typical season was 39 episodes. So what happened? Apparently the show’s producer Irving Brecher, got into a dispute with the show’s sponsor Pabst Brewing over extending the show to a full 39 episode season. In those days shows were effectively controlled by sponsors and their advertising agencies, with the networks having far less power.

Another reason why the show is largely forgotten today is that it was being made in 1949. There were only about 125 TV stations in the entire country. Many TV shows, and most comedies were shot and broadcast live from New York for much of the country. Stations in the Pacific and Mountain time zones were provided with kinescopes; the episodes were filmed off of the TV monitor which were then flown to California to air on NBC regional network based there. Kinescopes were inevitably poorer quality than would be seen either when the shows aired live or once the three camera set-up became the standard for producing TV series. The net result is that while a considerable amount of Gleason’s version of The Life Of Riley apparently survives, not many people saw it at the time, and the whole idea of syndicating reruns wouldn’t really be thought of until I Love Lucy came on the scene a few years later.

Maybe the biggest reason why the show qualifies as “forgotten” is that both the show and its star went on to bigger and better things. Gleason would get his own variety show, The Cavalcade of Stars, on the Dumont Network in 1951. The show was a hit for Dumont, and so was promptly poached by CBS which could promise the advertisers a much bigger audience than Dumont could deliver. The show then became The Jackie Gleason Show which spawned a number of character driven sketches including The Honeymooners, which ran as a stand-alone series in the 1955-56 season. Gleason himself would continue to work with CBS on a number of series until 1970. The Gleason show for much of he 1960s – initially known as American Scene Magazine and later as The Jackie Gleason Show would feature Honeymooner episodes, many in colour.

As for The Life of Riley, in January 1953 William Bendix – apparently freed from the restrictions of his RKO contract – appeared in a revival of The Life of Riley. Marjorie Reynolds played Peg, Wesley Morgan was Junior, Lugene Sanders played Babs and Tom d’Andrea was Jim Gillis. Joan Blondell’s sister Gloria Blondell appeared as Gillis’s wife Honeybee for most of the show’s six seasons, and Groucho Marx had a writer’s credit for “story”. The show ran until 1958 with various neighbours coming and going. Even the Riley kids eventually left the show; Babs got married and Junior went off to college. They would however make frequent appearances on the show. One character who did not make the transition from the radio version – and the first TV version – of the show was Digger O’Dell. John Brown, who played Digger was blacklisted as a result of accusations made in the pamphlet Red Channels. Although Brown lived until 1957, dying a few weeks after his 53rd birthday, he career ended in 1952. For whatever reason however it was decided not to try to find someone else to play the O’Dell character. The show did fine without him, spending four of its six seasons in the top 30 in the ratings and entering syndication after production on the 217 episodes was completed.

The 1949 version of The Life Of Riley is apparently in public domain. Several releases of the Gleason version of the show are available. Depending on the version these can be expensive. Some episodes are also on YouTube. What follows is the complete second episode of the show. Note that there is no laughter, and that the theme is whistled. The former is because the show was filmed and before the three camera system was developed that meant that there wasn't a studio audience to react to the jokes. The latter is because the musicians union was on strike when the show was being made.