Monday, April 28, 2008
Could Kate Walsh Leave Private Practice? Is CSI on Its Last Leg? Will Fox's New Sci-Fi Shows Deliver? And More!
Kate Walsh, Private Practice
Question: Do you think there is any way Shonda Rhimes and the producers of
Grey's Anatomy would consider making Addison a permanent fixture at Seattle Grace again? After all,
Private Practice isn't called "Addison's Practice." The show could get on without her in my opinion, and I much prefer her on
Grey's. How do you foresee
Private Practice doing next year? Do you think the extended break will hurt its ratings? If so, Kate Walsh is guaranteed a spot back on
Grey's, right?
— Angela
Matt Roush: If Private Practice were to go under, I can't imagine why they wouldn't want Addison (Kate Walsh) back on Grey's, but I doubt they'll have to cross that bridge anytime soon. I'm not much of a fan of Private Practice (too silly to the point of asinine), but it was doing well enough, and the Grey's pedigree will inspire ABC to be very patient. But I liked her better on Grey's as well, and I am excited to see her returning as a special guest for this Thursday's episode. It's like Addison's IQ dropped in half (in inverse proportion to her libido) the minute she signed on at the Wellness Center. Private Practice is so smarmy it reminds me of Boston Legal with doctors, which is maybe what ABC was looking for. Anyway, the biggest question here is about all of the fall shows that got cut short by the strike but which will be relaunched in the fall: Practice, Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, Chuck and Life. Will they be able to recover from the lost momentum of this punishingly long hiatus? In most cases (not so much this one), I hope so.
Question: With the loss of Jorja Fox earlier in the season and now with Gary Dourdan announcing his departure from the show, should
CSI wrap up its series next year and go out on top? It looks like the show could lose all its major players at the end of next year, anyways, with William Petersen only signing a one-year contract and Marg Helgenberger and George Eads looking to follow suit.
— Emily
Matt Roush: Not being up to speed on everyone's contract status and unable to predict the future a year from now, I'll only say that CSI is in a position where it will soon find out whether it truly is as durable as NBC's franchise hub Law & Order. In other words, is CSI itself the star of the show, and will it be able to thrive without its marquee players? William Petersen is the key to all of this. He is already reducing his participation in the show from season to season, but he's still there more often than not, and if he were to leave altogether, that would create an enormous challenge. Losing Jorja and now Gary are interesting test cases, but I'm confident the show can soldier on without them — providing the show begins making some significant new hires to tweak and grow the cast. Marg is also integral to the ensemble, and so, of course, is George, but it's hard to imagine CSI without Grissom above all. At some point, CSI will have to deal with this reality, and I'm sure CBS is committed to keeping the show around for as long as possible, even if (shades of ER) it eventually is being carried by an entirely new generation of stars.
Question: I am extremely happy that ABC has decided to put
Women's Murder Club back on this season. I'm not really happy about the time slot, but I can always record
SVU.
Club has the best writing of all the new shows this past season, the chemistry is great and I'm just a huge Angie Harmon fan. Will ABC be picking it up for next season?
— Cathy
Matt Roush: Depends on how these next three episodes do, creatively as well as in the ratings. The experiment starts this Tuesday at 10 pm/ET — unfortunately, it's going head-to-head with a high-profile Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode featuring Robin Williams. In its favor, ABC would love to have a weekly procedural crime drama, and with James Patterson's name attached as well as Harmon's fan base, this still could be the network's best shot, if they're patient with it.
Question: Forgive me if you've answered this question already, but why on earth is FX delaying the final season of
The Shield until this fall? They've been mum about the premiere for weeks until the promos started airing recently. These episodes have been in the can for months and should be running right about now. We've already waited over a year, only to be told it will be six more months? Are they HBO-ing us? FX has made a habit of counter-programming the networks. I can't understand why they would want to compete directly with broadcast channels during the busy fall season and why fans have to wait so long for what promises to be great TV. What gives?
— Lisa G.
Matt Roush: The early reason I heard for why The Shield was being held back from the summer was that FX didn't want this show to have to compete with the Summer Olympics. Which doesn't seem like much of a reason to me, given that the Olympics only occupies two full weeks of summer airtime, and FX could throw repeats or movies into the schedule for those weeks. It is an unconscionable break, considering that the episodes finished shooting long ago. But FX may also feel that with viewing levels on the rise in the fall, The Shield may be able to take advantage of that, and with proper promotion, will be able to hold its own against the network big guns. (This show has typically aired in the winter or spring months, so going head-to-head with original network programming is nothing new.) We fans are a greedy bunch who crave instant gratification, but the strike has forced us to be patient when it comes to waiting for certain favorites to come back. The Shield may be the most extreme (and possibly needlessly so) case of that.
Matt Roush: Not having been part of the Peabody process, I can't really explain the snub, except to note that this year's Project Runway accolade is the first time a reality show has been so honored, and now that the gate has been opened, it may spur the Peabodys to give serious consideration to the most spectacular series this genre has ever produced. If the Peabodys can appreciate a show like Planet Earth, you'd think they might someday give a nod as well to the one reality competition that actually revels in the many wonders of the world.
Question: I was wondering if you had a chance to see the pilot episode for
Swingtown. I think the show looks very interesting, and I will be catching the premiere (which I'm glad they moved out of the way of the finale of
Lost.) My question is, in the wake of CBS trying to change its image, do you think they personally have gone in the wrong direction (think
Viva Laughlin)? The network must have an interest in the show if they put it back in production after almost being shut down because of the writers' strike. This show would seem to be a better fit on cable rather than network television, especially CBS. Do you think the show will succeed in bringing a different viewer to the network, or will it backfire on them?
— Josh L.
Matt Roush: I haven't seen Swingtown yet, but I'll get to it as soon as the season wraps if not sooner. But regardless of whether I like it or if it succeeds, CBS deserves some credit for trying to break out of its formula and expand the brand. Even Viva Laughlin, as ill-executed a flop as it turned out to be, was an adventurous notion, and I hope CBS keeps trying to mix it up, whatever happens with Swingtown. I'd be lying if I didn't say this one's an extreme long shot, especially given the off-season scheduling, but to suggest a show like this is better left to cable seems a self-defeating mindset. It's a realistic one, no doubt, that an ambitious drama with possible niche appeal might look like more of a success on Showtime or AMC or FX than it would on CBS, but I genuinely hope that NBC's new strategy of cheesy retreads isn't the wave of the future.
Question: I just finished watching the last episode of HBO's
John Adams. I don't remember the last time I have seen acting this good, especially on TV. Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney were absolutely extraordinary. Have you seen any previews for anything coming out soon that comes close to this wonderful miniseries?
— Tom, Baltimore
Matt Roush: That final chapter was heartbreakingly good, wasn't it? The best thing of its ilk (i.e., classic drama) I've seen since John Adams wrapped is the upcoming three-part Masterpiece Classic miniseries that starts May 4: Cranford, starring Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins among a gallery of delightful British character actors. (My review of that will be posted later this week.) Based on stories that were completely new to me (by Elizabeth Gaskill), this is a Dickensian heartwarmer about an isolated village in the mid-1800s that's about to be jolted into the "modern" world with the arrival of a railroad. In the meanwhile, this town of gossipy busybodies deals with the everyday travails of rural life, with tragedies and romance and all of the stuff of great storytelling. As in Dickens, the story deals directly with class differences, making us care equally about everyone from a family of poachers to the poshest ladies of the manor. I was entertained and moved throughout all five hours. Cranford is as good and as thoroughly enjoyable as anything I've seen on TV lately, including John Adams, and I can't recommend it highly enough. (Masterpiece has been on a winning streak just about all year.)
Question: What is the difference between a pilot and a presentation? I'm a
Moonlight addict, and I've read about this quite a few times but don't know the difference.
— Cobby
Matt Roush: Simply put, a pilot is usually a full-length episode (sometimes even of TV-movie length) meant to introduce the show's premise and establish its tone. A "presentation," such as Moonlight made before it was picked up last year, is more or less an expanded trailer, a collection of scenes that tell the network what the show will look like and where it's going, but produced at far less expense than a typical pilot. There are more series than ever producing presentations or even bypassing the pilot process and going straight to series production, and the reasons are all economic. Pilots traditionally are produced at a much greater budget than a regular series episode and thus tend to promise more than the actual series can deliver week in and week out. The one thing that pilots and presentations have in common, though, is that they're all works in progress. And what makes TV so exciting to cover is the process of watching a show either live up to the pilot, sometimes even improving along the way, or imploding.
Question: Please tell me why anyone involved with
Criminal Minds or CBS would find it appropriate to air an episode about a teenage killer on a murderous rampage ("Elephant's Memory," April 16) on the first anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre! I find this deeply insensitive and offensive. I know you have previously addressed the gratuitous violence and gore on this show, but are you surprised a network or show (I don't know who is at fault for something like this) would stoop so low? Shame on them for pouring salt in the wounds of grieving families, and God bless all those affected by the tragedy at Virginia Tech!
— Jen B.
Matt Roush: Nothing ever shocks me anymore where Criminal Minds is concerned, except for the high number of people who tune in each week, seemingly immune to its heinous mediocrity. Given the sensitivities surrounding the anniversary of that tragedy, I am somewhat surprised that CBS didn't either pull the episode or even the show for that week. But am I truly shocked? Hardly. Remember, this is the network that scheduled this show after the Super Bowl.
Question: This is in response to someone who
wrote about the large number of sci-fi shows with impressive pedigrees coming to Fox in the next year or two. You pointed out that the expectations will be very high because of the attachment of names like
J.J. Abrams,
Ron Moore and
Joss Whedon. I certainly think this is a problem, particularly since I'm not sure that these producers will live up to expectations. You've remarked before on a phenomenon that I've noticed, too: TV is much better at making new stars than it is at repackaging old ones. Actors who have starred in hit shows and have then gone on to do a show of equal or greater success are few and far between. But I've noticed that the track record for superstar producers hasn't been that great either in the last 15 years or so. Once upon a time, it seemed there were producers (Donald Bellisario, Steven J. Cannell, Aaron Spelling) who had a lock on creating successful shows. But now a lot of the superstars seem like one- or two-hit wonders. Whedon had
Buffy and
Angel, but when he moved beyond that universe with
Firefly, it never really caught on with wider audiences. J.J. Abrams had
Alias, and played a role in the creation of
Lost, but his role on the latter now is essentially nothing, and he's had other small-screen flops like
Six Degrees. Ron Moore had success with
Deep Space Nine and has created the remarkable
Battlestar Galactica, but let's not forget that he is also responsible for
Bionic Woman. [Editor's Note: Actually, Moore's Battlestar partner David Eick was responsible for that one. Thanks to readers for pointing that out.] I wonder if it's too much to expect lightning to strike twice or three times for these guys. The most successful serial producers now are probably Dick Wolf and Jerry Bruckheimer, who are essentially cloning a successful format to other shows. Producers like Abrams, Moore and Whedon seem unsatisfied with that approach. They want to take new creative tacks, and sometimes, perhaps often, that doesn't work.
— Jeff
Matt Roush: Intesting topic, and while I won't refute the specifics of your arguments (except to say that Firefly was only a failure because of Fox's short-sightedness, not because of anything on-screen), I will just remind everyone that TV is a brutal business and the failure rate is spectacularly high, especially for those who try not to repeat themselves. (Those who keep making the same show over and over again, with minor variations, are to me contributing to the death of TV.) These guys you're talking about are also, for the most part, producing in genres that traditionally are the riskiest. We're lucky that they keep trying, and in Joss's case, that he's deciding to return to the medium again. But it's also true that every so often (Six Degrees, Bionic Woman), one of their shows even actually deserves to fail. But unlike so much of the industry, I'm not of the mind that you judge a talent only by what they've done lately as long as they pick themselves back up and keep trying something new. The fact that the media now force them to operate under a microscope of relentless scrutiny makes the process harder, I'm sure, but when a miracle like Lost or Battlestar Galactica or Buffy comes along, isn't it worth it?
