Back to You by Sam Jones/Fox
A time-period-winning 9.5 million viewers watched Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton return to prime time Wednesday in their new Fox sitcom, Back to You. Most of them surely tuned in to see two stars from two of their favorite shows, Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond. But the industry insiders are watching carefully for another reason: They’re curious as to whether the series about two over-the-hill local TV news anchors with a past can prove that the multi-camera comedy has a future. Steve Levitan, executive producer, writer and creator of the show with partner Christopher Lloyd, offered his thoughts to The Biz about meeting the challenge. TVGuide.com: Do you feel the future of the multi-camera sitcom is riding on this show?Steve Levitan: I hate the thought of that. We have enough pressure trying to do a funny show. But some people are saying it, and it does start to weigh on you. I’m not sure that’s fair. The No. 1 comedy on TV is a multi-camera show in Two and a ...
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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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Kelsey Grammer and wife Camille
A gold trophy isn't the only prize this year's winners will take home during Emmy week. Promotional gifting suites are already in full swing all over Tinseltown. We crashed the hottest parties from Rodeo Drive to the Hollywood Hills to give you a sneak peak at where TV's biggest stars spend their downtime before the big night. Sonya Dakar Emmy Beauty Boot Camp: I spy Paula Abdul batting her eyes after Ja'maal Buster of Fab'Lous Lashes applied lash extensions to her peepers. The American Idol judge loved the results so much that she scheduled another appointment for Emmy night.... Becki Newton breezed in and out of the Chi hairstyling suite between her GQ cover shoot and a table reading for
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Steve Carell, Kyle Chandler, the cast of Entourage, Back to You's Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton, Katherine Heigl, Hayden Panettiere, Jimmy Smits (Cane), Jon Stewart, Kiefer Sutherland and Kate Walsh have been confirmed as presenters for the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards, airing Sept. 16 on Fox. Yes, Ryan Seacrest is still scheduled to host.
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Lee Pace in Pushing Daisies by Bob D'Amico/ABC
Could the third time be the charm? Being an eternal optimist when it comes to TV shows I love, I certainly hope so. For the third season in a row, the show I’ve picked as my favorite pilot of the fall season is on ABC, and once again, after two consecutive seasons of my pick failing to make the grade, this show’s projected success is far from a slam dunk. But let me tell you why I believe, despite all logical skepticism to the contrary, that the dazzling “forensic fairy tale” called Pushing Daisies has a shot at making it.First, here’s why my earlier picks didn’t pan out. For one thing, both shows — Invasion in 2005, The Nine in 2006 — had the mixed fortune of being scheduled directly after Lost. (As we’ve learned, the Lost viewing experience is so intense and its fan base so obsessed that it’s pure folly to put any show, especially a demanding one, after Lost.) Both shows were also exceedingly dark in tone, whereas Pushing Daisies...
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Lena Headey and Thomas Dekker in The Sarah Connor Chronicles by Joe Viles/Fox
With the Fox network, it's often all about the mid-season, the time when shows like American Idol and 24 come along to rescue the network from its fall doldrums. Not that it's impossible for any of Fox's September newcomers to catch on. The Kelsey Grammer/Patricia Heaton sitcom Back to You looks very commercial. The situation is admittedly tougher for the downbeat New Orleans crime drama K-Ville or the murky supernatural crime drama New Amsterdam (about an immortal detective) to buck the odds and be a factor come January. While it's possible one or both may hit its mark, you can't help but feel that they might as well be titled "Placeholder 1" and "Placeholder 2" (shades of last fall's Vanished, Justice and Standoff).Once again, Fox is holding back one of its biggest guns (literally) for January. Easily the most anticipated show on the network's lineup is The Sarah Connor Chronicles (look for the word Terminator to be added to the title before it premieres): a high-octane, big-budge...
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Peter Liguori and Kevin Reilly by Frank Micelotta/Fox
“No one’s ever really fired in Hollywood, are they? No show’s ever really canceled.”So says network survivor Kevin Reilly, looking back at the whirlwind of what he calls “an active month” or so of network-hopping. At the May upfronts, he was still NBC’s entertainment president, an embattled position that he left around Memorial Day when the network actively pursued Ben Silverman for Reilly’s job. Mere weeks later, he’s back in front of the TV press at TCA in his new job as Fox’s entertainment president. Looking back on the circumstances of leaving NBC, he quips, “Let’s just say you can pick whatever trade euphemism you want. I segued, I thought over the holidays that I wanted to explore other opportunities. I wanted to spend time with my family — which I did for a few days.”Now he gets a “do-over,” performing basically the same job for a rival network. In moving to Fox, Reilly is reunited with his forme...
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Frank Booth eyeballing the White House? Per Variety, Dennis Hopper is the Democratic contender and Kelsey Grammer the GOP incumbent in Swing Vote, a comedy starring Kevin Costner as a working-class dad who holds the deciding ballot in a presidential election. Nathan Lane and Stanley Tucci are their campaign managers.... Pride & Prejudice's Rupert Friend has been cast as Prince Albert to Emily Blunt's Young Victoria.... Warner Bros. has grabbed big-screen rights to David Morrell's The Brotherhood of the Rose, previously adapted as a late-'80s miniseries.... Per the Reporter, Jennifer Esposito is a single mom who gets involved with Val Kilmer's mysterious Iraq War vet in Conspiracy.
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