There's something about this show that reminds me of a glazed doughnut. It's nothing you haven't had before and something you know you should stay away from, but in the end, you choose it anyway, not only because it's comforting, but because as hard as you try not to, you can't help but enjoy it.Our setup (if the millions of promos that Fox ran didn't give it away first) is this: Chuck Darling and Kelly Carr were the dream team of Pittsburgh's local news scene. Now, 10 years later, Chuck's made it to L.A., where one disastrous on-air blowup regarding a supremely ditzy coworker results in his being bounced back to the minor leagues. Only (in that classic pre-Seinfeldian sitcom twist) it turns out that Chuck unknowingly, "left a part of [himself] in Pittsburgh," in the form of Gracie Carr. Cue the final credits.Now, I consider myself to be the kind of cool and with-it gal who loves the kind of hip, ironic, single-camera sitcoms that no one actually watches, but I'm also a child of the...
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Blake Lively and Penn Badgley in Gossip Girl by Andrew Eccles/The CW
Is it possible that this season, Wednesdays are the new Thursdays? An incredible amount of high-profile new programming — nine freshman series in all — will be introduced to the Wednesday prime-time schedule over the next few weeks, and when the dust settles, I can only hope a few of my new favorites will survive.First up are CBS, the CW and Fox, launching their newbies a week before the official season begins. The biggest headlines so far have been generated by CBS' unseen-by-critics and instantly controversial Kid Nation, a reality show in which 40 kids are set loose in a desert ghost town (actually an unused film set) and tasked to create a Utopian adult-free society. Sounded kind of prosocial and heartwarming until all those red flags began to surface about possible abuse of child-labor laws, penurious confidentiality agreements that made boilerplate mention of such possible reality-show liabilities as STDs, and allegations of injuries on the set. Something tells me th...
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Question: I snapped up TV Guide's Fall Preview issue, and I find it a mixed blessing. While I appreciate the behind-the-scenes reportage and the luxurious layout, there's one crucial aspect that I miss greatly: your Picks (and yes, the capital P is deliberate). Of course, there were the "10 Shows with Buzz," but they included some shows you don't even like (Gossip Girl, etc.). And while you gave a helpful day-by-day analysis of the new programming, I and no doubt many other readers miss the days when you essentially said, "Here are the best dramas and comedies airing." And so, for old times' sake, I put in this plea: What is your must-see list among 2007's new crop?
Answer: I would think it's pretty clear from reading those nightly roundups which shows I'm crazy about, and I state pretty bluntly that Pushing Daisies is unquestionably my favorite pilot. Everything else, even those I more or less like, pale by comparison in terms of ambition and execution. But in a nutshell, my short list
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Wow. I have not gotten into so much trouble for not completing my homework assignment since grade 9. You have no idea how many people have been riding me like Zorro for not keeping up with this blog. Thanks for caring. "I'mmmmmm back!" Well, not to make any excuses, but we have been shooting the second SG-1 movie, Continuum, for the last three weeks and things have been a bit hectic. Not to mention the fact that the first shooting week overlapped with my wife's last week of filming her movie on Vancouver Island, so I was working during the day and being both mother and father at night. This wouldn't have been that much of a chore if my daughter Mia hadn't gotten a bad cold in Victoria, and happened to keep both her and I up through the entire first night before filming. Zero sleep is not the best way to kick off the work week. "Tough darts, Batman." Anywho, the filming for Continuum has been great: frozen sets, Air Force F-15s and Richard Dean Anderson's return all crammed inside tw...
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Patricia Heaton and Kelsey Grammer in Back to You by Joe Viles/Fox
If you could just ignore those pesky months between September and December, Fox would be sitting pretty. The challenge each year for this network is how to schedule a fall start that will live up to the blockbuster spring finish provided by late-arriving shows like American Idol and (even a diminished) 24.In the last of the week’s Upfront presentations, Fox Entertainment president Peter Ligouri made the curious choice of putting himself in the middle of a 24 parody, trading exchanges on the phone with clips of Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland, not in attendance in New York this year) from 24, in which Jack addressed “the president.” The ticking-clock (ticking bomb?) metaphor isn’t the most natural fit for a sales presentation, you’d think. And given that the first thing anyone in Los Angeles (where I’ve been the last three weeks) wants to talk to me about is the steep decline in 24’s quality this season, is this really putting your best foot forward? ...
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The new dramas premiering this fall are K-Ville, starring Anthony Anderson and Cole Hauser as police officers in post-Katrina New Orleans; and New Amsterdam, the first American television project from Oscar-nominated director/producer Lasse Hallström, featuring newcomer Nikolaj Coster Waldau as a unique New York City homicide detective.The new comedy slated for fall is Back to You, from executive producers Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd. Set at a TV news station in Pittsburgh, the sitcom stars Emmy Award-winners Patricia Heaton and Kelsey Grammer, and is directed by James Burrows.The new unscripted series that will premiere this fall include The Search for the Next Great American Band(working title), a reality competition from the producers of American Idol, which will do for undiscovered groups what Idol has done for singers. From the producers of Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, Nashville (working title) is an unscripted docu-soap featuring a group of ambitious you...
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As most of you know by now, Wedding Bells was given the axe this past week. Which means yesterday's episode was the last and from what I've heard, the actors didn't even complete filming the season finale. So, more likely than not, this show will never make it to DVD. Which is a shame, considering how many loose ends we were left with last night. For starters, we'll never know if that kiss between Annie and David would have amounted to anything more or if it was just a result of them getting too caught-up in the moment. I'd like to think they would have given their romance a second chance, as their chemistry was undeniable. If they had though, I’m sure it would have been a rocky road for them. Which could have translated to a lot of fun drama for us...but we'll never know.We'll also never know if Russell would have been able to successfully start a franchise for the Wedding Palace in Vegas. Although, with all of that money Amanda was helping them rake in last night, the...
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Annabelle Gurwitch, Fired!
Getting fired is never fun. But Annabelle Gurwitch's journey to the unemployment line was particularly unpleasant: Not long after she landed a dream gig in a Woody Allen play, the neurotic nebbish complained that she looked "retarded" and promptly sacked her. The comic actress — who's best known for her six-year stint as cohost of TBS' Dinner & a Movie — was devastated. How could she fight back? By mining her experience for laughs, of course! First she published a personal essay in Show People magazine. Next she organized a series of performances, both in Los Angeles and New York, where celebrities like Illeana Douglas and writer
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The latest batch of fall-pilot news, from the Hollywood Reporter and Variety:• Marissa Jaret Winokur, a Tony winner for Hairspray and a survivor of Stacked, will star in the CBS comedy Fugly, in which three siblings pool their money to give one sister (not Winokur's character) an extreme makeover.• Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix) has joined ABC's Suspect, playing a cop.• Fred Willard is the sports anchor for Action News, starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton.• William Baldwin (not Alec and not the DUI one and not the born-again Christian) is a senator in ABC's Dirty Sexy Money.• Brian Benben (Dream On) is one of NBC's Mastersons of Manhattan.• The CW has picked up Hell on Earth, about a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who gets a second chance after getting fatally hit by a bus.
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Jane Lynch, Lovespring International
Who put the overly amorous boss from The 40 Year Old Virgin in charge of a dating service?! Part of the credit goes to Will & Grace's Eric McCormack, one of the executive producers of the Lifetime series Lovespring International (premiering tonight at 11 pm/ET). In this improv comedy, Jane Lynch plays Victoria, the head of an "elite Beverly Hills" dating service... based out of Tarzana, California... whose staffers are as pathetic as its pretend pedigree. At the
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