Short Takes - July 2, 2006

I've been remiss in getting a lot of stuff posted including a new set of Short Takes. Mostly I've been watching the World Cup (did that referee on Saturday take a bribe from the Portuguese Mafia? - I don't know about some of those calls), doing stuff around the house and trying to stay cool without being forced to use the AC.

An interesting take on the PTC: In his Time Magazine blog, TV critic James Poniewozik makes an interesting point about Brent Bozell and the PTC's current outrage over the rape scene in a recent episode of Rescue Me (which I haven't seen so can't comment on). Poniewozik starts with the fact that the PTC's "righteous outrage" took nine days after the episode actually aired to be expressed. I've noticed the same thing on several occasions, notably when reviewing the time line presented for the CBS appeal of the fines related to the "Teen Orgy" episode of Without A Trace. Poniewozik then suggests that maybe this is because the PTC doesn't actually watch the shows they're complaining about but rather watches what becomes controversial in the press and then express their moral outrage. I think his conclusion on this is rather insightful:

If so, it tends to undercut the PTC's argument - that children and people of delicate morals need to be protected from raunchy content. Because it would seem the system actually works: shockingly, people who don't like risque TV aren't watching Rescue Me in the first place. Why? Because Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl notwithstanding, edgy TV pretty much advertises itself as such; Denis Leary does not promote Rescue Me by playing an acoustic guitar to children and puppets. And because people are not idiots. Not even PTC members.

Watch the Frog...say goodbye: With the coming of The CW, both UPN and The WB will be shutting down. While UPN has yet to announce plans for it's last day on Friday September 15, The WB has announced that their final day on September 17 will feature the pilots of what they consider to be four of their most important older series. The shows and times are Felicity(5-6 p.m.) Angel (6-7 p.m.), Buffy The Vampire Slayer (7-9 p.m.), and Dawson's Creek (9-10 p.m.). They will also air promos from their 11 season existence. Apparently the whole thing took a lot of difficult negotiations with the originating studios and the cable networks airing them. To get the rights the network has to include promos for both the show DVDs and the network(s) currently airing reruns. Sounds okay but it might be fun (or at least interesting) to see at least one show from The WB's first season like The Parent 'Hood. Or maybe not.

Exploding Star: Since I've never actually consciously watched The View I've never really gotten the Star Jones thing. I mean I've seen Barbara Walters of course ("What kind of twee would you be?"), Meredith Vierra both when she was a serious journalist and now that she was hosting Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Joy Behar's comedy act on occasion, and of course Elizabeth Hasselbeck when she was on Survivor (liked her better than Amber...then) but I didn't know anything about Star Jones or why she was on this show. I understand that she's a lawyer and all but beyond that I have absolutely no understanding of why she engenders such hatred from a variety of people. Apparently this hatred has extended to include the people on her show. It was expected that she would be dropped when Rosie O'Donnell was added to replace Meredith, and that happened. People were expecting an explosion between Star and Rosie (although again, I don't understand why - it would seem that the conservative Hasselbeck would be more likely to be confronted by O'Donnell) and believed that this was why Star was dropped. But Star was not about to go out quietly. After the announcement was made on the show, Jones fired back with some attacks on the producers of the show and Walters in particular, saying that she didn't jump, she was pushed. And she did it on every media outlet that would have her, including Larry King Live and The Today Show. But here's the thing that thoroughly and utterly mystified me - the heated reaction to her appearances by other people. Like this TV Squad post, or this one reacting to a repeat of the interview the next night. I can think of a lot of things that are vile - a network repeating an interview from the previous day is not one of them.

Casting news: David James Elliott will be joining the cast of Close To Home playing a new district attorney who used to be a Captain in the Navy. Sorry I made that last part up since the last series he was in ended with him being promoted to Captain in the Judge Advocate General's department of the US Navy. Elliott will be replacing John Carroll Lynch as Annabeth's boss on the show which will apparently be revamped to get rid of the show's central premise of crime in the suburbs. As part of this they killed off Christian Kane's character (Annabeth's husband) so I wouldn't be totally surprised if Elliott's character eventually develops a possible romantic interest for Jennifer Finigan's Annabeth. That is if he isn't married to a former Marine.

New rules - similar results?: I'm sure that if Bryce Zabel still reads this blog he'll deny this but it seems as though the new Emmy nomination process won't widen the field of nominees for the awards anywhere near as wide as was expected when the new procedure was adopted. In the new procedure the academy in its various branches votes for nominees, and the top ten or fifteen are then presented to a panel to select the five nominees who will be presented to the membership. According to this piece in the LA Times Gold Derby blog the ten drama series to make the second phase of the nomination process are: Big Love (HBO), Boston Legal (ABC), Grey's Anatomy(ABC), House (Fox), Lost (ABC), Rescue Me (FX), Six Feet Under (HBO), The Sopranos (HBO), 24 (Fox), The West Wing (NBC). The ten comedies are: Arrested Development (Fox), Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO), Desperate Housewives (ABC), Entourage (HBO), My Name Is Earl (NBC), The Office (NBC), Scrubs (NBC), Two and a Half Men (CBS), Will & Grace (NBC), Weeds (Showtime). Of the Drama nominees there's only one new show (Big Love), which is the only one that hasn't been nominated for an Emmy in some category - five of the series have been nominated for best drama. There are no nominations for series such as Battlestar Gallactica, The Closer, Everwood, Huff, Prison Break, Rome, or Veronica Mars in the Drama category. In the comedies the only new shows nominated were My Name Is Earl and Weeds while those two shows and those shows and The Office were the only shows on the list not to have previous Emmy nominations. Among the shows missing from the list: Everybody Hates Chris, Extras, Gilmore Girls, Monk, and New Adventures of Old Christine. So has the new procedure really succeeded in widening the nomination process or are people just writing down the names that they've heard before?

Better than advertizing on someone's belly: So there's this family in Peoria that thought they'd subsidize their summer vacation by selling ad space on their RV - those babies suck up a lot of fuel after all - so they put an ad on eBay. They got a response from CBS which thought that the RV would make a great mobile billboard and not only bought the ad space but hired the family of six to travel around the United States from Denver to Nashville and talk to people about The Amazing Race. According to George Schwitzer, president of CBS Marketing "I saw this posting on the web and immediately thought a traveling motor home would be the perfect vehicle to reach 'Amazing Race' viewers this summer. What better way to reach our core audience than by visiting them on the road and on their vacations at tourist sites across the country." As well as disseminating promotional material for the show at various locations and events, the family will interview people they meet in their travels including previous contestants on The Race and upload the interviews onto the CBS broadband channel Innertube.

Short Takes - April 8, 2006

I confess that I didn't think I had much for this piece. In fact I was thinking about not writing it and instead trying to figure out my feelings (and how to present them) about Katie Couric going to CBS to anchor the CBS Evening News. I'll probably get that out eventually but the short answer is that I'm not sure she can fully pull it off. Hey, personal opinion okay. I do have a couple of things though.

- Liberalism on morning TV is poison?: When Couric announced her move to CBS, her former employers at NBC's Today show were forced to find a replacement for her. In all honesty I don't think they were scrambling because they announced that Meredith Vieira will be the new host of Today the day after Couric announced her departure. Vieira is one of the five women on ABC's "after Good Morning America morning show The View as well as the quiz master (I desperately wanted to say the "hostess with the mostest") on the American syndicated version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Now I don't have much of an opinion on this - I'm never up early enough to watch Today, and my exposures to The View have been few and mercifully brief even if I have seen it more than Live With Regis & Kelly. So beyond a vague feeling that CBS owes ABC a coupe of draft choices and a journalist to be named later I don't have any opinions on Vieira or her fitness to work on Today. There are those who do. Apparently during her time on The View Vieira expressed her opposition to the War In Iraq literally from the beginning, and at one point said "Everything's been built on lies. Everything! I mean the entire pretext for war." She's also expressed her opposition to the death penalty on the air and when Ann Coulter, a guest on The View, repeated her claim that "liberals hate America” Vieira called her view "stupid". All of this has led to conservative websites such as Newsmax.com to condemn her appointment, as has Brent Bozell. When he's not trying to save America from what he and his acolytes regard as violent, obscene and otherwise objectionable television - all in the name of protecting the children of course - as head of the Parents Television Council, Bozell is also the founder of the conservative media watchdog Media Research Center. In response to Meredith Vieira being hired to host Today Bozell issued a statement on behalf of his groups that said in part that "NBC promises to poison Americans' mornings with liberal bias."

My take: Setting aside my personal biases (except to say that anyone who has the intestinal fortitude to call something that Ann Coulter says "stupid" to her face is all right by me) but if we're going to talk about bias, what about Bozell's own. I have to wonder just how much of Bozell's own pro-conservative bias filters into his work with the PTC? Isn't that as legitimate a question as wondering about Vieira's opinions, probably even more given Bozell's efforts to set his group up as the protector of American morals (in defense of the children of course)? When are we going to see Bozell come out with a statement that "NBC promises to poison America's children with liberal bias" since Today does air when America's children are getting up and getting ready for school?

As for Vieira and her views - the show she was working on when her opinions came out was called The View. The hosts are expected to express their opinions, as she did and as did Elizabeth Hasselback who happens to be a Republican. If you were to only watch Meredith Vieira on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, would you know her political stance? No. During her period working as a journalist on West 57th and 60 Minutes were her political opinions readily known? I don't seem to recall them being featured. I fully expect that Vieira will be able to be as successful in reining in her political views as Couric has been.

- Who "owns" Smallville?: This is a rather complicated legal story. As virtually everyone knows, Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1938 but through a variety of legal methods the rights to the character were owned by Detective Comics, the company which eventually became DC Comics. What's not so well known is that the character of Superboy was created separately by Siegel alone. He submitted the idea of Superboy to Detective Comics several times starting in 1938 and in 1940 he wrote a complete story which laid out the basis of the character. According to the reports of the case at comics news site Newsarama this included "his family life, his small town upbringing, and concealing his powers and true self while using his powers to help others." Sounds of sort familiar doesn't it. Siegel's pitch was rejected three times between February 1941 and August 1942. Subsequently Siegel went into the army and was stationed in the Pacific. In November 1944 More Fun Comics #101 hit the news stands with the first Superboy story, based on Siegel's materials but not credited to him. He sued, and in a 1947 decision the courts determined that Siegel owned the rights to Superboy while DC owned the rights to Superman. Siegel then sold the rights to DC - at a price that was favourable to DC. This would seem to be the end of it, but in the tortuous realm of copyright law a new element has appeared. There have been various copyright renewal laws - starting with the Copyright Act of 1976, and most recently the Bono Amendment (the Copyright Extension Term of 1998) - that have extended the duration of existing copyrights. A key beneficiary of these laws has been Disney, but other organizations have benefitted as well including DC Comics and its parent company Time-Warner. These extension laws also included provisions for creators or their spouses (if the creator is deceased) and direct descendants - and under the Bono amendment their executors - to terminate the transfer of copyright for material transferred under the old laws. Jerry Siegel's widow Joanne and his daughter Laura Siegel Larson filed Notification of Termination in November 2002 to take effect in November 2004. DC has subsequently argued that Siegel's work on Superboy was a work for hire situation. In a March 23 decision reported by Mark Evanier Judge Ronald Lew tossed out Time-Warner's arguments against the Termination Notice stating that the 1947 court case which awarded the copyright for Superboy to Jerry Siegel clearly proved that it wasn't work for hire, confirmed by DC Comics' purchase of the copyright. In other words the Siegel family has owned Superboy since November 2004. What hasn't been ruled on yet is what effect this will have on the TV series Smallville. In his decision, Judge Lew stated that "Smallville may be infringing upon the copyright to Superboy" In their argument Time-Warner states that Smallville "does not feature Superboy, but rather a young Clark Kent, which appeared in Superman comics prior to the first publication of Superboy in comics (1944). In making this claim, Warner Bros. said that the use of Clark Kent in Smallville are not subject to the termination of the transfer of copyright filed by the Siegels – even if the court does find the termination to be valid." However comic book scholars and the Siegel family attorney Marc Toberoff have noted "that images of a young Clark Kent that pre-date 1944 were limited to showing Superman as a baby, or as a toddler, not as a teenager or adolescent." Profits from Smallville are undoubtedly the most valuable aspect of this case particularly since, in the current comics Superboy (two versions of him actually, neither Superman as a boy in the current continuity) has been killed off during the current Infinite Crisis series. There's undoubtedly more to come in this case.

Well Ain't That A Kick In The Gonads

UPN and The WB will be merging to become the CW Network starting this fall.

Here I was, planning to take advantage of actually getting my TV on DVD stuff done on time for once by waxing a bit nostalgic about the newly cancelled West Wing and they dump this on me.

According to the Reuters report the new network will be a "50-50 joint venture" between CBS-Paramount (owners of UPN) and Warner Brothers Television.

Worth noting is the attitudes of the two corporate heads about their existing networks. Les Moonves said, "UPN was approaching a point where we were hoping to break even, and we were getting close." On the other hand Barry Meyer CEO of Warner Brothers Entertainment said, "We saw coming down the pike a challenged landscape to keep (WB) alive." Both expressed hopes for long term profitability for the merged network, which will follow the WB's programming plan of broadcasting Monday through Friday from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern and Sundays from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. with a primetime block running from 7 to 10. There will also be a Monday to Friday afternoon block from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern, and a five hour Saturday morning animation block for a total of about 30 hours weekly. Tribune Corporation has signed its sixteen WB affiliates to a ten year deal with the new network and CBS has done the same with its ten UPN affiliates. Dawn Ostroff, currently head of Entertainment at UPN will take the same role at CW while John Maatta, Chief Operating Officer at The WB will become COO at the new network.

In a press release Moonves stated, "This new network will serve the public with high-quality programming and maintain our ongoing commitment to our diverse audience. It will clearly be greater than the sum of its parts, delivering excellent demographics to advertisers, and building a strong new affiliate body. Additionally, The CW will be able to draw from the creative talent and production resources from the top two television production studios in the business, while also seeking programming from all sources - independent producers or other studios. With this move, we will be creating a viable entity, one well-equipped to compete, thrive and serve all our many publics in this multi-channel media universe."

The new network starts with a wide variety of programming assets to draw upon including: America's Next Top Model, Beauty and the Geek, Smallville, Gilmore Girls, Supernatural, Veronica Mars, Everybody Hates Chris, Girlfriends and Reba. The WWE's Smackdown, which has been a mainstay at UPN, is expected to play a role in the schedule (UPN's contract with the WWE was up for renegotiation).

According to the analysis provided by The Street, "Both WB and UPN have had brief periods of ratings success, with the younger-skewing WB in particular enjoying a period of rising fortune. But neither has achieved ongoing ability to establish itself as a network ratings leader. The result: high TV production and marketing costs and declining audiences for television have put pressure on both networks. Together they should be able to reduce costs and overhead. A merger also brings scale to the combined entity, allowing it to better compete in a world with a fragmented audience." On the other hand Now Playing Magazine's website headlined its coverage "UPN and WB to Merge; Viewers Likely Won’t Notice"

The Big Question of course is what the new network will show. The list of shows that are "likely safe" includes Veronica Mars, America's Next Top Model and Everybody Hates Chris from UPN and Smallville, Gilmore Girls and Supernatural from The WB, with Smackdown's continued availability probably dependent on negotiations with the WWE (it wouldn't break my heart if it weren't there though). The suspicion from a lot of people though is that the programming from the new network will have a high content of WB shows continuing. I think it's also possible that the new network will take the opportunity to clean house and develop the bulk of the new lineup as new shows.

Getting beyond press releases we come to the question of what it all means. There's at least one thing that most people won't pick up on and that is that there is going to be a sudden increase in the number of independent stations in areas where either UPN or The WB have affiliates that are competing with CBS or Tribune owned affiliates of the new network. It's possible that we might see a slight revival of the first run syndication market, particularly since many of these stations will be in the top 25 markets. What does the Los Angeles UPN affiliate show when there are no more UPN shows available to it?

Oh, and the name? It's very pedestrian - it's the first letters of CBS and Warner Brothers. According to BrandWeek.com Moonves quipped "We couldn't call it the WC for obvious reasons."

Smallville Spins Buffy

It's nearly Hallowe'en and I got to thinking about the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Mainly I got to thinking about them after a show last night, but I'll get to that in a minute. It seems to me that most of the cast - who were supposedly doomed to not working ever again according to a lot of people - are particularly active on TV this season. Allison "Willow" Hannigan is co-starring in How I Met Your Mother. Nicholas "Xander" Brendon has a supporting role on Kitchen Confidential. Charisma "Cordy" Carpenter has a role on Veronica Mars as a horny trophy wife and will be doing at least one episode with Allison Hannigan at the end of November. David "Angel" Boreanaz is starring in Bones, and Anthony Stewart "Rupert Giles" Head is seen in the British series Little Britain as the Prime Minister. He'll also be doing a second season episode of the new Doctor Who next spring. And while Sarah Michelle Gellar is apparently too good for TV (she's got a lot of films in production or post-production) "Buffy's" husband Freddie Prinze Jr. is in the truly dreadful Freddy so that's sort of guilt by association. And then there's "Spike" but I'll get into that in a moment.

With Hallowe'en becoming increasingly important in terms of merchandising and sales (apparently it is second only to Christmas in terms of retail in the United States and Canada) the networks have jumped on the bandwagon and are producing Hallowe'en episodes as well as Christmas episodes. In fact Hallowe'en episodes are easier for most show than Christmas episodes because you can schedule them closer to the actual day - Christmas comes in the post-November sweeps dead period - although this year the only network showing new episodes this Monday is Fox and they aren't showing Kitchen Confidential but rather two hours of Prison Break, and that place is scary enough without a Hallowe'en episode. Buffy The Vampire Slayer didn't always do Hallowe'en episodes but when t hey did they were memorable. There was the one where Ethan Raine sold cursed costumes to most of the kids in Sunnydale which made them - including Buffy who dressed as an 18th century beauty - take on the characteristics of their costume and forget who they really were. Then there was the episode where the gang goes to a party at a frat house and have to confront a fear demon (although the best thing about that episode was Anya dressed in a bunny costume because she was told to dress as something that really frightened her). With Buffy long gone from the air, other shows have to pick up the slack in this fun scary type of episode. For the past two seasons it's been Smallville which has done a couple of fun TV parodies.

Last year, Smallville took advantage of an ongoing story line which featured Lana possessed by the spirit of a 17th century witch to take a poke at another WB series, Charmed, with Lana inserting the spirits of two other witches into the bodies of Lois and Chloe. This season, with James "Spike" Marsters as part of the cast, the target was obvious - vampires with a Buffy The Vampire Slayer spin, - with a few shots at Batman Begins thrown in for flavour. In the episode called Thirst Lana decides to pledge a sorority at Metropolis University, but of course it isn't just any sorority, it's the most exclusive one on campus, which only allows one girl in per year. That's because the Psi Psi Psi Sorority is made up of vampires. They think Lana is "special" enough to join, so they initiate her in the old fashioned Buffy way - they drink her blood and then she drinks some of theirs. This actually isn't surprising since the head of the sorority is none other than Buffy - Buffy Saunders that is. The character is played by Brooke Nevin, but her appearance and attitude in this episode bears a strong resemblance to Mercedes McNab's character "Harmony" in both Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. There are some fun scenes - in one, Chloe tried to stop Lana with a cross only to be told "That only works in the movies." In another, Professor Milton Fine (played by Marsters) tells Clark "There's no such thing as vampires." In and of itself it's not funny but said by "Spike" it's the sort of in joke that this sort of episode thrives on as is the line delivered at the end of the episode by Daily Planet Editor in Chief Pauline Kahn (played by Carrie Fisher and a tribute to former DC Comics Publisher Jeanette Kahn) about "Slaying Buffy the Vampire." Even the way in which Lana is cured - being "staked" through the heart but with a hypodermic full of antidote rather than a piece of wood - refers to the Buffy The Vampire Slayer series. In the final scenes Chloe mentions that the events of the story were so strange that her room mate moved out and she was able to move under the same roof with her best friend - Lana. In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Buffy's roommate moved out and she was able to live under the same roof with her best friend, Willow.

There are other interesting references as well. Going to the sorority costume party, Clark tells Chloe that he "hates costumes." Clark is dressed as Zorro, which might be seen as a reference to the new Columbia Pictures movie The Legend of Zorro but actually has a much deeper reference to Batman. Bob Kane once state that his creation of Batman was at least partially influenced by watching Douglas Fairbanks in the 1920 Mark of Zorro (Robin was supposedly inspired by another Fairbanks film - Robin Hood - while The Joker was inspired by Conrad Veidt's appearance in the film The Man Who Laughs). Moreover Clark makes a comment about not liking masks because they're hard to see out of - odd for someone who can see through things - while Batman is famous for not only wearing a cape but also a mask.

This was scarcely the best episode of Smallville this year let alone of all time, but I don't think it was nearly as bad as the hardcore fans fo the show seem to think it was (of course the hardcore fans all seem to hate most episodes of the show). Moreover I think it's exactly the sort of show that a series like Smallville should do if they're going to do a Hallowe'en episode. They can't do straight horror or suspense and if the fans were outraged with this I can only imagine how they'd feel about an episode which dealt with all the characters hanging out at a costume party. So what's left for them is satire and why not do a satire which goes after well known series which approach the form with tongue at least partially in cheek, like Buffy and Charmed? As for the performances, most of the actors seemed to be having fun with it and it gave Kristin Kreuk another chance to play "Evil Lana", a character who is more wanton and assertive and generally wickedly fun than the normal version of Lana. Wisely they restricted James Marsters primarily to the B storyline which focused on the current season long arc and only linking it to the main plotline as needed. Making him a major player in the main story could have destroyed the character's credibility by reminding us more of the actor's previous part and leaving us with that memory. It wasn't a truly great episode but I at least had fun with it.

Of Frogs And Games And Enemas

Several things have come across the wires - well the Internet really - which while not worth in depth commentary are still interesting. Either that or I'm reaching for something to write during this irritating summer season.

Item: Here's an interesting little comment that I snagged off of the Huffington Post from contributor Adam McKay. What you see here is part of a larger article but this is the important bit, at least for our purposes. (Oh, and by the way, the spelling errors? His.)

"Shows like Fear Factor, Big Brother and The Apprentice seem to me like the emotional equivilent of the Roman Colliseum. We are fascinated by how much emotional and psychological abuse these people will take or heap on each other. Now here's the thing, if I were alive during Roman times I would hopefully decry the barbarism of the Colliseum, but at the same time it would be hard not to buy a ticket to the Six Aegean Slaves Vs a Rhinocerus matinee. Or how could you turn away from the Four Ostriches With Razors on the Talons Vs Two Monkeys and a Cobra. It's the same with these TV shows. Donald Trump is so awful and idiotic to these perspiring wannabe entrepenuers, it's enthralling. I can't wait for the day when one contestant says to Trump `What are you talking about Don? You inherited your seed money.'"

Comment: I had actually intended to write a lengthy commentary on this statement but I could never get it up to my standards so screw it. Bad spelling aside, he has a bit of a point. There is a certain fascination with watching this simply because it's unusual. There is an aspect of a freak show to many reality shows (however I will defend to the death the proposition that The Amazing Race should not, on the whole, be lumped into the catchall of "reality show" but that's an argument for another day). But consider this, no Roman worth his salarium would have questioned let alone decried the gladiatorial games - it was part of his culture - so what does it say about our culture that so many reality shows do well?

Item: Princes of Malibu has been pulled from the Fox lineup after airing only two of its six episodes. Linda Thompson and David Foster - the mother and stepfather of Brandon and Brody Jenner, the "princes" of the title - are getting a divorce after 14 years of marriage. Some people have suggested that the series, which had four more episodes in the can, was cancelled because of the divorce.

Comment: The divorce was apparently planned before the series went on the air, so suggesting that the divorce was the reason for the cancellation is a bit farfetched. The really interesting thing, although reportedly purely coincidental, is that while the split was only announced this weekend, Linda Thompson filed for divorce on July 11 - the day after Princes Of Malibu debuted. Since it was being destroyed in the ratings, it is perhaps a vain hope that someone at Fox suffered a bout of good taste which led to the cancellation. No, this is Fox we're talking about.

Item: The WB Network has decided that Michigan J. Frog, long the symbol of the network has (dare I say it - yes I do) croaked. At least as a network mascot. In a statement to the Television Critics Association on Friday Garth Ancier, WB Network chairman stated "In my opinion the frog is dead and buried. The frog was a symbol that was especially, in the extensive testing that we did, that perpetuated the young teen feel of the network, and that is not the image we want to put to our audience."

Comment: "Captain, the Titanic has struck an iceberg. What shall we do?" "Move that deck chair over there and put this one next to it." Even though they've been putting together some shows that are better than UPN, The WB's ratings have been declining and with PAX mostly gone the two are fighting to avoid being the lowest rated commercial network in the United States and the best Ancier can come up with is getting rid fo the network's symbol? I'm even going to suggest that even if the new shows that The WB brings to the table this year are enough to reassert the network's ratings position, dumping Michigan J. is going to be a move that backfires. Remember what happened when NBC dumped the Peacock for that stylized "N". Mark Evanier has a rather nice history of Michigan J. Frog on his blog. As for me, I'm on board with any movement to bring back the "green guy" but as a Canadian I don't really count.

Item: In his speech to the Television Critics Association, NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly stated: "Last season for us was kind of like a colonic. It wasn't a lot of fun to go through at the time, but it's going to be healthy in the long run. It literally took any residual sense of entitlement or complacency at our company and blew it out." Later in his statement, speaking specifically about this coming season he said, "Odds are we're not going to see a ratings difference. I'm pretty ... sure you're going to see a new tone coming out of this place.... That sense of entitlement of who we are is gone."

Comment: In truth I think he may have something there. It seems to me that every so often the networks need to get the complacency blown out of them so to speak. Who can forget the Fred Silverman years at NBC. In one season every new show that the network premiered was cancelled, but that period led to a series of golden years that included Hill Street Blues, Cheers, St. Elsewhere and The Cosby Show. CBS had a period not so long ago where their shows were both skewing older than any other network and drawing low ratings as that, and look at them now. Before this past 2004-05 season, ABC was mired in third or fourth place and now they have a diverse embarrassment of riches, from Lost to Desperate Housewives to Grey's Anatomy. Complacency stalls innovation and in a market where networks are not only competing against each other but against cable "networks" programming heads like Reilly and Ancier and the rest need to push beyond their comfort zone, (for better or for worse Reality TV was one such push), and that means doing more than just dumping the network mascot.

The End Of Two Sumer Shows

I hadn't planned on writing anything today but then I remember that Wednesday night represented the finales for two popular summer series - Beauty And The Geek and Dancing With The Stars - so I figured I might as well do a quick recap.

I actually don't have much to say about Beauty And The Geek. The final episode seemed to drag a bit because there was no final activities. The challenges in previous weeks had been a major factor in the enjoyment of the show and something was missing without them. That's not to say that there wasn't something of interest. We were finally able to see Richard in a situation where he wasn't acting the fool. He actually seemed to be a pretty good piano player. Had he been able to show this side of his personality earlier in the series he might have seemed less aggravating to everyone else - both in the mansion and amongst those watching. That's not to say that Richard wasn't good TV and you have to wonder just how much of what he was doing was the real guy and how much of it was playing to the cameras. Certainly it was the combative Richard/Chuck relationship that became the principal area of conflict in the series rather than the male/female relationships. So I suppose it was fitting that the two big "stars" - and their female partners - faced each other in the final episode. There was a tremendous conflict in styles. Away from the piano Richard was doing an exceptionally good imitation of the young Woody Allen (I'd previously compared Richard to the character of Urkel, but I think the Wood-man is closer to the mark), obsessing over everything that possibly could go wrong and what they should focus on for studying. Meanwhile Chuck - always controlled and disciplined thanks in part to meditation and martial arts training - took the attitude that what happens is what is meant to happen. And that's what basically occurred. The final elimination was tightly fought and literally came down to Richard not knowing what Mindy's middle name was while Chuck knew what Caitilin's was.

As for Dancing With The Stars, let me just say that it grew on me to the point where, if I currently had a special lady in my life, I'd probably be willing to head off to Arthur Murray's for some dance lessons which would probably go better than the ones I had before my high school graduation - although anything would have been better than that. The truth is however that John O'Hurley and Charlotte Jorgenson were robbed, in part by the judges and in part by the scoring system which gave as much weight to audience opinion as it did to judges scores. There was no possible way that Kelly Monaco and Alec Mazo's free-style dance routine was worth 10s across the board while John and Charlotte's was only worth 9s. Monaco's footwork was suspect in my view and she seemed to stumble at least once. The three point difference in the scores for the freestyle was enough to give Kelly and Alec a one point lead overall in the night's voting which meant 2 points from the judges while John and Charlotte got one. The audience voting last week apparently was stronger for Kelly and Alec - why, I don't know although it might be that she's younger or that she's on an ABC soap and thus more visible - than for John and Charlotte. However it may not have mattered. If the professional judges hadn't been so blind (or, if you're cynical, hadn't been told how to vote) and given John and Charlotte two votes and Kelly and Alec one, a tie would have resulted which apparently would have been settled based on the previous week's audience vote, so John and Charlotte were screwed either way.

Suggestions: Since The WB has already announced that Beauty And The Geek will be returning (much to my friend Ian J. Ball's disgust - see his Summer Update - 06/23/05) and since ABC is sure to renew Dancing with the Stars although they're not quite sure yet when they'll put it into the lineup, I should like to offer the following suggestions.

Beauty And The Geek: Geekier looking geeks. Richard really was the "geekiest" of the males although Joe had his moments. On the other hand the network should also look for women who are also more the way the website describes them - intellectually impaired. Just as an example, Scarlett - eliminated last week - may be a model and actress but she also had a college GPA of 3.4, a degree on business and is considering going for her MBA. The same held true of some of the other women.

Dancing With The Stars: More stars, less Bergeron. That guy really started to annoy me after a while and it wasn't a very long while. The British, Australian and New Zealand versions of the show had 10 teams which would make the initial dances shorter but would extend the series a few more weeks. Also, keep it in the summer. It may have been a big ratings grabber in the summer but I don't think it would have fared as well against new scripted programming. Finally and most importantly, fix the scoring! Audience participation is fine but it was a disaster in the final episode to have the audience vote count equally with the votes of the professional judges. Why not have each judge's vote count separately and the audience preference count for a quarter of the final total. After all theyknow what they're looking for. Oh yeah, and bring back O'Hurley and Jorgenson next year for another face-off with Monaco and Mazo.

If Only It Were The Ultimate Social Experiment

We came upon them upon their arrival, Geekus Americanus in a variety of subspecies. They seemed unfamiliar with their surroundings, blinking occasionally as though unfamiliar with the sun. The common types were present of course, the Fanboius and the Mensacus, but there was also examples of rarer types like the Scoutus Grosso, and the Doctorus Nervoso. Then we saw him, a magnificent specimen of a type thought only to exist as a myth and in bad movies, the Nerdus Maximus. For purposes of the study we named him Richard.

Soon the herd of Geekus Americanus were joined by a covey of Beautius Regina, lured by their mating call of Bling-Bling. They were a lovely sight. Their numbers included the diminutive Fashionista, Barbius Vivius, the rare Modelus Scantius, as well as the common Leaderus Cheeribus and the Sisterus Sororitanus. It was a rare meeting as the presence of Geekus Americanus in a location is with rare exceptions enough to drive out all signs of Beautius Regina. However it soon became clear that the circumstances here were anything but ordinary.

In advertising Beauty And The Geek The WB and producers Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg described it as the "Ultimate Social Experiment". If only it were the ultimate in one of the correct meaning of the word - that is the last. Sadly I doubt that this is the case. Although superficially similar in format to the various dating shows, or something like The WB's previous show High School Reunion, the "social experiment" here is to bring brainy but socially inept "Geeks" together with the attractive but less than intelligent "Beauties" and hope that a little of the Geeks' brains and the Beauties' social skills would rub off on each other. Oh who are we kidding, they just wanted to make fun of the Geeks being socially inept and the Beauties being too dumb to know who was President of the United States during the Civil War. At its heart it's really a six episode game show.

The format is simple the seven Geeks pair up with the seven Beauties. They share a bedroom and in some cases a bed. They have to work together to prepare for challenges which confront their perceived weak points. The not particularly intellectual Beauties are tested on things like intelligence or how to change a tire by themselves, while the socially inept Geeks have to dance with their partner or how to give a woman a massage. The Geeks have to teach the Beauties what they need to know for their challenge and vice versa. Then in Apprentice like fashion the teams that win their respective challenges get to select two teams to face elimination. If one team wins both challenges they get to pick both teams. Elimination is done by quizzing members of the teams on their weak points with the team that has the fewest correct answers when their scores are combined being ejected from the game. The last team left gets $250,000.

As always personalities are key to a show like this and, particularly among the Geeks they hit a gold mine. There's the usual suspects; a computer programmer, an English major who has never been on a date and a couple of Mensa members. There are three who really stand out however. Chuck is a medical student who has an unfortunate habit of getting a nose bleed when he's stressed out. He had two nose bleeds in the first episode. Bill is a civil engineer but he's also vice president of the Dukes of Hazard fan club, and if he wins the $250,000 would like to buy the General Lee - the actual car from The Dukes of Hazard. But beyond a doubt the star Geek was Richard. Richard, who is graduating from Brandeis University with a double major in History and Spanish, was described by his partner Mindi as "the white Urkel" and I swear that she got it exactly right. From big glasses to pants hiked halfway up to his nipples, he is a pigmentally challenged Steve Urkel. As for the women, well most of them are not particularly extreme, but of particular note is Erika who describes herself as a "lifesized Barbie model" to the point where she named her dog "Skipper". When confronted with some of the stuff they need to know for the "Beautys" first challenge (fifth grade school subjects) she says fifth graders these days must be really smart" because she doesn't know Then there's Lauren who thought that she had a really high IQ "like 500". She was the first one out of the first challenge because she thought that "tattoo" was only spelled with two "T"s not three. Krystal, a cheerleader dancer for the Philadelphia 76ers doesn't know which is further south , North Carolina or South Dakota, and doesn't care because it's not something she'll ever need to know.

In the end Richard and his partner Mindi won both challenges because self described Sorority Girl Mindi knew that the abbreviation IA stood for Iowa and the audience thought that Richard's "nerd dance" (I swear I saw Urkel do it once on Family Matters or maybe it was Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber) was better than the guys who at least tried to be serious about it. They chose Erica & Joe and Cheryl & Eric to face elimination with Cheryl & Eric being eliminated because Cheryl didn't know the answer to any of the history & politics questions she was asked. Still the fact is that the entertainment value of a show like this isn't in the anticipation of who will get eliminated, it's in watching the two groups of people being inept in the areas that the other takes for granted. Knowing that, I have to say that it's only mildly entertaining. I may watch it again if there's nothing else of real interest on, but if it was up against Dancing With The Stars or Hell's Kitchen or even certain reruns I could ignore it without any sense of loss. It makes me mourn the loss of better programs - like the original version of The Mole - all the more when I see a show like this.

The Summer Season Part 2

So having gone through Monday and Tuesday's new shows for the 2005 summer season (and having completely missed a couple of Canadian shows - see below) we move on to the rest of the week. (At times like this I wonder if the pains of being an amateur TV critic are adequately compensated for by the fame and fortune. The I remember I don't have fame or fortune.)

Wednesday
Dancing With The Stars (ABC, starting June 1): Six "stars" (the biggest names are probably former heavyweight champ Evander Hollyfield and supermodel Rachel Hunter) participate in a live ballroom dance competition partnered with professional dancers. This international hit under the title Strictly Come Dancing is making it's North American debut and oddly enough looks like it could be fun.

Brat Camp (ABC, starting July 13): Six real life families with out of control teenagers send them to the Sagewalk Wilderness Therapy Camp in hopes of getting back the kids they knew and loved. Another show that originated in Britain.

The Inside (Fox, starting June 8): A drama concerning rookie profiler Rebecca Locke (Rachel Nichols) selected to join the FBI's Violent Crimes Unit in Los Angeles by its Supervisory Special Agent Virgil "Web" Webster (Peter Coyote). Each of the team's five agents has his or her own personal baggage which makes them ideal for their job.

Beauty And The Geek (The WB, starting June 1): Take seven beautiful but not particularly bright women, match them up with seven brilliant but socially inept guys and see them try to rub a little of their skills onto each other. The guys have to try to make their partners smarter while the women have to make their partners a bit more socially graceful. From Executive Producers Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg.

So You Think You Can Dance (Fox, starting July 20): The search for America's best dancer. What makes me think that neither the Waltz nor Ballet will qualify you for this American Idol style competition?

Thursday
The Cut (CBS, starting June 9): Tommy Hilfiger play Donald Trump to a group of 16 style-savy contestants in an effort to find America's next great designer who will get a contract to design for Hilfiger's label.

Hit Me Baby One More Time (NBC, starting June 2): A three episode series in which five "veteran hit-makers" perform one of their old songs and something new, with the winner decided by viewer votes. First week's artists are "Flock of Seagulls", "Arrested Development", CeCe Peniston, "Loverboy", and Tiffany. Based on a British series and hosted by the British host Vernon Kay.

The Law Firm (NBC, starting July 28): Produced by David E. Kelly this "alternative drama" features real lawyers trying real cases with the results binding on the parties involved.

Sunday
Welcome to the Neighborhood (ABC, starting July 10): Seven diverse families compete for one dream house on the perfect suburban cul de sac (called Wisteria Lane ... oops sorry, wrong show). The prospective neighbors get to judge each family and in turn have their own assumptions and prejudices challenged. But no one gets killed by being hit with a blender.

Princes of Malibu (Fox, starting July 10): Brandon and Brody Jenner, the lay-about sons of Bruce Jenner and Linda Thompson are driving their step-father (Canadian) music producer David Foster nuts by living in his house, spending his money and partying day and night. He wants them to take a little responsibility for their lives - like growing up and moving out.

In addition there are new seasons of Average Joe on Tuesday nights, and UPN will have R U The Girl with T-Boz & Chilli, in which the two remaining members of TLC try to find a young singer to join them on a new album and concert tour.

CTV will be debuting the third season of Canadian Idol tonight, and the Canadian sketch comedy series Comedy Inc.will be returning to the line-up on Tuesday. Canwest-Global has Scott Thompson's reality series My Fabulous Gay Wedding starting June 1.

The Summer Season: Part 1

Long ago in a galaxy not unlike our own, there were three American broadcast networks, and two stations in Canadian cities ... if you were lucky. In those days (which I vaguely remember) many series ran for 39 weeks and to bridge the gap between the end of one season and the beginning of the next there were 13 week summer series. Most of them weren't all that good but they were scripted comedies or dramas. Later, when the number of episodes of a series decreased to 26 episodes, simply repeated series during the summer months. This was the trend through much of the period between the 1960s and 1980s. There were few summer replacements, and sometimes all you could count on was that the networks would air pilots for series that were picked up for the new season. The advent of sweeps weeks and the reduction of the number of episodes for most series to 22 meant that the networks were showing reruns of that season's shows through much of the years. Networks had to run new episodes during sweeps weeks and because the season usually starts in the second or third week of September it means that many series have used up almost half their new episodes by Christmas, and have at most only five or six of their 22 episode order available for January March and April. Those months and December tend to see a lot of reruns, or miniseries for the increasing number of shows that "don't repeat well". Suddenly new summer programming becomes attractive - if it can be had cheap.

I would like to suggest that the first modern summer season was the summer of 2000, when CBS premiered a couple of new shows for the summer. One had been a big hit internationally called Big Brother. The other was a little show about a group of disparate people dropped off on an island in the Pacific. CBS had big hopes for Big Brother based on all of the publicity, including attacks saying that the show was "degrading" and "junk TV" but it was a mild success, while that other show, something called Survivor, caught the attention of the nation and graduated into the big time by being shown during the regular season. The next year there was more summer programming from all six of the networks. This summer, the networks will be showing 17 hours of new programming (mostly reality shows) as well as burning off previously unseen episodes of two series. Every night except Saturday and Sunday will see new shows. Here's the list which will serve either as a reminder or a warning. (I was going to do this as one post but the list is just too long.

Monday
The Scholar (ABC, starting June 6): Ten high school seniors from across the United States compete for a full ride scholarship to the university of their choice, a prize valued at $250,000. They must demonstrate skills in the areas of academics, creativity, leadership and community service as well as coping with "sudden death oral exams" and defending themselves before an Ivy League admissions committee.

Hell's Kitchen (Fox, starting May 30): British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, probably best known for his British series Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares comes to Los Angeles to open a new restaurant and find America's newest culinary star from the group of hopefuls that Fox has selected. If you know anything about Ramsay you will expect the series to have a lot of bleeping, because Ramsay knows all the best cuss words, and uses them on his hapless staff.

Rock Star: INXS (CBS, starting July 11): Also seen on Tuesday and Wednesday, this is another Mark Burnett series. A group of aspiring singers will compete to become the new lead singer for the band INXS and will be part of their new album and concert series.

Tuesday
Empire (ABC, starting June 28): This six hour drama is a fictional account of the life of Octavian, the adopted son and designated successor of Julius Caesar, and the disgraced gladiator who is assigned to protect him during his time in exile.

Fire Me Please (CBS starting June 7): A four episode reality series in which contestant try to get fired from their new job as close to, but no later than, 3 p.m. on the day they're hired as possible. Hidden cameras follow their efforts at getting canned.

Big Brother 6 (CBS starting July 7): Also seen Thursdays and Saturdays, the Big Brother house is again filled with 16 exhibitionists from diverse backgrounds who have to live with each other 24/7 for three months under the constant gaze of cameras and people who shell out to watch online, all for a $500,000 prize.

Meet Mister Mom (NBC starting August 2): In which we follow the comedy that ensues when Mom is whisked away to a spa for the week leaving Dad to cope with the kids. There are two families each week with the Dads in direct competition to see who can cope best and being watched on closed circuit TV by the Moms.

Tommy Lee Goes To College (NBC starting August 16): The University of Nebraska Lincoln welcomes new student, Motley Crue founder Tommy Lee in this series which lasts six half hours.

I Want To Be A Hilton (CBS starting June 21): Kathy Hilton, mother of Paris and Nicky, attempts to instruct 14 young contestants on etiquette, haute couture and how to deal with the press. The winner gets a year of living the Hilton style high life.

Britney & Kevin: Chaotic (UPN started May 17): Britney Spears and her husband whatzisface. Ends June 14.

The Bad Girl's Guide (UPN started May 24): A scripted comedy starring Jenny McCarthy, Marcelle Larice, and Christina Moore as three modern "bad girls" (as defined by the Cameron Tuttle book of the same name as a woman who is "sassy, provocative, questions authority and knows what she wants from life and how to get it with style, confidence and humor". I suppose it's like Sex and the City but this time the city is Chicago.

The WB's 2005

The WB today announced their Fall 2005 lineup and the shows that have been cancelled. (List and grid originally provided by The Futon Critic).

Cancelled: Big Man On Campus, Drew Carey's Green Screen, Grounded For Life, High School Reunion, The Mountain (a cancelled some time ago). The Futon Critic doesn't list Jack & Bobby as being cancelled but it doesn't appear anywhere on The WB's list of shows, so unless another network has picked it up, consider it dead as well. Unfortunately.

Retained: 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls, What I Like About You, Reba, Living With Fran, Charmed.

Moved: Blue Collar TV (also expanded to one hour) One Tree Hill, Smallville, Everwood,

New: Just Legal, Supernatural, Related, Twins.

Complete Schedule (New Series in Capitals)

Sunday
5:00-5:30 p.m. Easy View presentation of What I Like About You
5:30-6:00 p.m. Easy View presentation of What I Like About You
6:00-7:00 p.m. Easy View presentation of One Tree Hill
7:00-7:30 p.m. Reba (encore presentation)
7:30-8:00 p.m. Reba (encore presentation)
8:00-9:00 p.m. Charmed
9:00-10:00 p.m. Blue Collar TV (new day and time)

Monday
8:00-9:00 p.m. 7th Heaven
9:00-10:00 p.m. JUST LEGAL

Tuesday
8:00-9:00 p.m. Gilmore Girls
9:00-10:00 p.m. SUPERNATURAL

Wednesday
8:00-9:00 p.m. One Tree Hill (new day and time)
9:00-10:00 p.m. RELATED

Thursday
8:00-9:00 p.m. Smallville (new day and time)
9:00-10:00 p.m. Everwood (new day and time)

Friday
8:00-8:30 p.m. What I Like About You
8:30-9:00 p.m. TWINS
9:00-9:30 p.m. Reba
9:30-10:00 p.m. Living With Fran

The WB also has two comedies and two dramas available as mid-season replacements.

Here are some brief summaries of The WB's new programs. Complete summaries can be found at The Futon Critic site:

Just Legal: A legal procedural series with Jay Baruchel as a brilliant 19 year-old legal prodigy and Don Johnson as a once great lawyer now eking out a living in a beachfront law office. Think Doogie Howser crossed with Erin Brokavich with maybe just a touch of The Rockford Files.

Supernatural: What The WB calls "a completely new kind of thrill ride; a journey into the dark world of the unexplained that will deliver the terror of films like 'The Ring' and 'The Grudge. '” Two brothers and a '67 Chevy Impala criss-cross the mysterious backroads of the country trying to find their missing father and hunt down supernatural forces.

Related: Four sisters ranging in age from 33 to 19 alternately nurture each other and fight each other in what the network describes as a "comedy ensemble drama." In short a little bit of everything there.

Twins: A comedy about twin sisters (presumably fraternal twins rather than identical) who inherit their family lingerie firm. On sister takes after her father and is brilliant at business, while the other sister is a beautiful lingerie model who isn't exactly a deep thinker - like their mom. Cast includes Oscar nominee Melanie Griffith and Mark Linn-Baker (Larry from Perfect Strangers) as the parents.

Comments: No real surprises in the cancellations (except, as I said, the Futon Critic doesn't list Jack & Bobby as cancelled) the big surprise is the decision to radically shake up the line up by moving Smallville and Everwood to Thursday night. With the elimination of Jack & Bobby this allows the network to pair up three new dramas with established programs, but it does put Smallville and Everwood on one of the toughest nights on TV. Beyond that, I simply have difficulty imagining how you can stretch Blue Collar TV to fill an hour.

Thoughts On A "Season" Finale

Among the things I do besides writing this blog is to write recaps for the Amazing Race newsgroup, and believe me it's a taxing self imposed job to the point where I'm often totally exhausted on the day after because I've been up until four in the morning or later. Consequently I haven't reviewed two of my favourite series this year - House and Lost not to mention Smallville. I intend to remedy that now that Amazing Race is over... but not right now.

Actually this post is about a show I've reviewed earlier. Last night was billed by The WB as the season finale of Jack & Bobby but the whole exercise stank of being the series finale. Not only did we finally meet the boys' father, played by Lou Diamond Phillips with the thickest Hispanic accent I've ever heard him use, but we also found out how Jack dies - gun downed in a convenient store robbery after being a war hero, a conscientious public defender and a Democratic Congressman. It also seemed to wrap up the documentary on the life of President McAllister with a final coda from Bobby's mentor Peter Benedict, played as an old man by legendary TV producer Norman Lear, and the documentary narrator played by Gore Vidal. The episode was good and set up the course that Jack and Bobby's lives would take because of their trip to meet their father, but there's a depressing finality to it as a way to end a show's season.

Of course it probably is the series finale. While The WB hasn't announce its "upfronts" yet, Jack & Bobby has been the lowest rated show on any network (with the possible exception of the soon to be defunct PAX network of course) in the United States and being last on the ratings list doesn't normally get you renewed even on The WB. Which is a damned shame really because the show is generally quite good. The problem may well have been when they chose to show it. It stated out on Sunday nights with Charmed and was moved to Tuesday nights following Smallville. Neither show was exactly a good fit for it - a better match for Jack & Bobby might have been on Monday nights with either Seventh Heaven or Everwood but with both series continuing and the network not wanting to anger affiliates like WPIX, WGN or KTLA by running a third hour of shows (thereby postponing the local news) putting it on Monday night is out. And the network doesn't have another night where the shows they have will work with Jack & Bobby. It's a shame really that a show like this will likely get cancelled when Joey has been renewed for next year.

Funny Women

I've stated before that I don't watch that many sitcoms. It's hard to explain why, but in part the sitcom has become formulaic, and for whatever reason I just can't get interested in shows like Arrested Development or Scrubs which apparently try to break the formula. Maybe I'm just unwilling to find the time for them. That's part of what makes Reba so unusual - I am willing to find the time to watch it.

Reba is the WB series starring Reba McEntire. While the average sitcom usually features a stand-up comedian with little or no acting experience (see Kevin James or Ray Romano) and surrounds them with talented actors with the hope that something will rub off, Reba McEntire is a country singer with more than a little acting experience - the movie Tremors and Annie Get Your Gun on Broadway - who is surrounded by reasonably talented actors in hopes that something will rub off. The result is in truth not as bad as some people seem to think.

Reba plays Reba Hart, a single mom who works too hard, loves her kids and never stops: who she is is who she wants to be - that's from the theme song if you couldn't guess. Actually Reba is divorced and got the typical TV divorce settlement - a big house and enough money that she doesn't actually have to work as hard as the theme song indicates that she does - at least not outside of the house. Not that life is all sweetness and light at home. Her eldest daughter Cheyenne got pregnant and married in her senior year of high school. As she put it "the three months between getting my drivers license and getting pregnant were the freest I've ever felt." Cheyenne married Van the high school football star who did a year of college before turning pro and having a career ending injury. They (and the baby) live with Reba. Middle daughter Kyra is a typical sitcom teenage girl - a smart-ass in other words. In an act of teenaged rebellion she went to live with her father and his new wife. Youngest child Jake is typically sitcom pre-teen cute both in looks and acts. Rounding out the cast is Reba's ex, Brock and his new wife Barbara-Jean who got pregnant with Brock's baby while Brock was still married to Reba.

If most of that sounds like a typical sitcom play book, well throw it out. For one thing the absolute best thing about this show is Melissa Peterman as Barbara Jean. Barbara Jean isn't stupid, but she is more than a bit dense. Somehow she doesn't grasp the notion that Reba might not want to be friends with the woman who broke up her marriage by getting pregnant with Brock's child. She is always showing up at Reba's house behaving as though she is not just a friend but Reba's best friend - which in a bizarre sort of way she is! What makes the character is not just the writing but Peterman's delivery and her rubber-like face. She is a hoot and her scenes with McEntire are some of the best in the show in part because Peterman seems to bring out the goofy side of McEntire. It happens somewhat with the other characters but Peterman and McEntire together just cut loose. McEntire proves that she can mug for the camera almost as well as Peterman and that's saying a lot. For once Christopher Rich as Brock isn't the dumbest person in the cast. He's frequently a little thick but not stupid. The dumb character is Van, played by Steve Howey, and in the grand tradition of comedy he makes dumb funny. Just as one example there's a scene where Barbara Jean says "And what is dog spelled backwards?" It takes Van 15 seconds to figure out that dog spelled backwards is God. It's obviously a scene that plays better than it sounds. Van's interaction with his wife Cheyenne, played by Joanna Garcia, is done to perfection, even though Cheyenne's IQ seems to go down in her scenes with Van. Even Scarlett Pomers (who first appeared as Naomi Wildmon on Star Trek: Voyager) as Kyra manages to make her smart-assed teen character funny even though she's usually given precious little to work with.

Apparently Reba is either a show that people really love, or a show that people really love to hate. For me, while the writing isn't special and most of the characters aren't particularly original, the relationship between Barbara Jean and Reba and (more importantly) the way that Reba McEntire and Melissa Peterman play that relationship makes it a show that I try very hard not to miss.

I Love Franny

Let me start out with a disclaimer. I was predisposed to like Living With Fran, and that's largely because I like Fran Drescher. If The Nanny was a retread of I Love Lucy with different accents (and think about it: Max and Fran as Ricky and Lucy, Niles and C.C. as Fred and Ethel) it was still funnier than a lot of shows of the same period. Besides, Fran Drescher made me laugh during one of the darker periods of my life and for that I am eternally grateful. That said, I will now state that I am somewhat disappointed with Living With Fran. The WB aired two episodes of the show tonight (separated by an episode of Reba, a show which is a guilty pleasure of mine) and while it's not the worst comedy currently on the air, it doesn't live up to the standards set by The Nanny, at least not yet.

Drescher plays Fran Reeves. Fran has been divorced for a couple of years and of course lives in a typical TV divorcee's house - big and with lots of rooms that are in the process of expensive renovations - that indicates that she took her ex to the cleaners in the divorce. What sets Fran apart from her time slot neighbour Reba is that not only is she sexually active but she's living with a much younger man. How much younger? Well it's not explicitly stated in the episodes that aired tonight but at one point he was supposed to be younger than Fran's son, although that concept seems to have been abandoned. Riley - or "R-dog" as he suggests the son can call him - is a 26 year-old contractor played with a certain charming density by Ryan McPartlin, formerly of the soap Passions, while the son, Josh, is played by new comer Ben Feldman. In the pilot episode Josh returns home after being expelled from Medical School (he suffered a nervous breakdown after 72 hours and 46 cups of coffee, and attacked a male nurse with a bone saw). Josh has issues, and they aren't improved with the jock who is now sleeping with his mother, or that they've changed his old room into a home gym (based on the equipment in that room she must have hit the jackpot in the divorce). To top it off there's a bass player named Duane (Branden Williams) living in Josh's old closet. About the only thing stable is that - like all sitcom siblings - Josh and his sister (Misti Traya) couldn't agree on what colour the White House is.

Originally called Shacking Up the show probably should be more ground breaking than it actually is. Except for the fact that Drescher's character is in her 40s and living with a man almost half her age, this could be just about any current sitcom, the elements are all there. It's a good idea, particularly in a world where people are wondering if Ashton Kutcher is going to make Demi Moore a mother again, but the execution may not be up to the job. The writing, particularly in the pilot episode felt weak and consequently the laughs seemed forced. Misti Traya is good as the teenaged sister, but the character is the typical sitcom rebellious teen. Feldman is quite good as the neurotic son, but has to contend with writing that at times makes him seem like an obnoxious jerk. In the two episodes screened on Friday, Branden Williams played a minimal role in the first episode, and was totally absent in the second. Actually the writing seemed to improve in the second episode shown, which happened to be the tenth episode shot. It also benefitted from the presence of Marilu Henner as Ryan's mother, who is as set against the relationship as Josh is, although she softens her objections when she hears the story of how the couple came together.

Of course the series will live and die on Fran Drescher's portrayal of Fran Reeves. At various times she's a woman at her sexual peak with a younger man to make love to, a very Jewish mother (she almost seems to be channelling the Sylvia Fine character played by Renee Taylor in The Nanny), and a woman who is finally happy with her life. As Fran describes her life she went from her parents' house directly to her husband's house and only now has found happiness in her life. Her son even notices it - he says that he's never really seen her smile during her marriage, to which she replied that the only time she'd smiled was when she threw her husband out. Drescher has to sell us on that and also that she's the sot of woman who can attract and keep a man almost half her age. It's not just a question of looks - at 47 Drescher is gorgeous - it's also a question of attitude. I think she carries it off but the question is how long she can carry it. In The Nanny she had a strong supporting cast most notably the extremely versatile Daniel Davis and Lauren Lane to work off of. In the new series her supporting cast is much weaker meaning that the show is even more of a potential showcase for Drescher than The Nanny was. I expect that I'll keep watching if only to see Fran work, and hope that the show improves around her. For now it goes on the guilty pleasure list.

The Child Is The Father Of The Man

Jack & Bobby is the sort of show we've come to expect from The WB. That is, it's a show focussed on teen angst but with a gimmick. It's standard stuff for The WB. Roswell gave us teen angst where the teens were aliens sent to earth to keep them safe from a civil war on their own world. Buffy The Vampire Slayer was teen angst where there were vampires and monsters to fight. Smallville is teen angst in a small town where one of the teens happens to be the guy who will become Superman and already has some of the powers. So what's the gimmick with Jack & Bobby? Well, one of them grows up to be president of the United States about 40 years from now. It's not a spoiler to say that it's the younger brother, Bobby. Still, it's Jack who is the angsty teen. While Bobby is the one who is being shaped, a lot of the events that are shaping him seem to be happening to Jack, while Bobby is in the background. Watching Jack making mistakes, or just living life, seems to be the leading influence on Bobby's course.

The other major influence on Bobby's life is his mother, Grace McAllister, played by the always interesting Christine Lahti (who as it happens is married to the show's Executive Producer, Tommy Schlamme). To put it mildly, Grace is larger than life, and in some ways almost a caricature. She's a liberal feminist professor at a small but well regarded university in Missouri. She's also a single mom (never married and the boys' father is an extremely shadowy figure), who tends to be overly controlling of her children even though her personal life is anything but controlled. She is overly fond of pot, something that brings her into conflict with Jack, and she's also started an affair with a younger man. Tom is not only her teaching assistant but she's also his thesis advisor. The affair has recently become public and has had major consequences for just about everyone, even if Tom is too dense to see them. Rounding out the main characters are Jack's best friend Marcus Ride, and the University president, Peter Benedict and his daughter Courtney. Peter Benedict is on his way to becoming a major influence on Bobby's life, one that tends to balance out Grace. Peter is conservative, but tends to treat Bobby as more of an adult than Grace does. For his part Bobby seems to have a puppy-like devotion to Peter, initially because Peter saved Bobby from a severe asthma attack but mainly because Bobby desperately needs an adult male role model.

An interesting aspect of the show is that each episode but one has had vignettes from the presidency of Robert McAllister inserted into the narrative. These are told by various people in the life of the adult Bobby, including his wife Courtney (the same Courtney who is the daughter of Peter Benedict and will be in a relationship with Jack McAllister) and his chief advisor Marcus Ride. These are done as a series of interviews for a documentary about the (presumably dead) President McAllister. We learn that Bobby became a Republican (much to his mother's disgust) but broke with the party and that he won the presidency because a bus load of students from Chicago drove to their home state of Missouri to vote for him. Mostly what we learn is how the events of the present that are the focus of the show reflect or influence the attitudes and decisions that President McAllister will make forty years from now. Their importance to the show can't be ignored - the one episode that didn't feature a "flash-forward" was unusually flat.

I enjoy Jack & Bobby and the show seems to have attracted a loyal fan base - a small, loyal fan base. The show was initially seen on Sunday and earned anaemic ratings and was soon switched to Wednesday nights after Smallville. It hasn't fared much better there, although to be fair the show is up against a powerful lineup on all four of the major networks - American Idol (Fox), The West Wing (NBC), Alias (ABC), and the combination of King of Queens and (now) Yes Dear (CBS). The one thing that the show has going for it (beyond that small but loyal fan base) is the critical acclaim that the show has garnered from a variety of sources. It has even earned Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations for Christine Lahti (she didn't win either losing the SAG award to Jennifer Garner, and the Golden Globe to Mariska Hargitay) which is rare enough for a WB show to be noteworthy. It seems likely that Jack & Bobby will be cancelled at the end of this season - which would be a shame because it is a rather likable series if people would just give it a chance. The simple truth is that the show has never been in a good time slot in terms of fitting with its lead-in. A better time slot would be on Monday after Seventh Heaven but that slot has been given to Everwood and isn't likely to be taken away from it. As much as I hate to say it - because I've grown to like the show even if I'm not a fanatic about it as I am with some other shows - don't expect to see Jack & Bobby on The WB's lineup next fall.