TCA: ABC Getting a Fall Reboot
Kate Walsh by Michael Desmond/ABC
If you get deja view looking at ABC's not-so-new fall lineup, there's a reason for that. Much of the schedule is a redo from last fall, with a number of promising shows returning that were cut short by the writers' strike- most notably the Wednesday lineup of
Pushing Daisies, Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money.
"Our Wednesday night was to us an unbelievable success and we're very excited to get back to that," ABC entertainment president Steve McPherson said during a session with critics at the TCA press tour Wednesday morning. "We have kind of the advantage going in that we felt we had a dominant fall and a real strong core schedule and we didn't need that much new programming."
In recent seasons, ABC has tended to single out just a few new shows for massive fall promotion, and this season it's planning to embrace a few old favorites. "We can actually prioritize returning shows," says McPherson. One in particular:
Desperate Housewives. "We love what [Marc Cherry] is doing in terms of the jump forward. We're going to make Sunday night and
Desperate Housewives a priority to launch in the fall, which would not be a regular thing if we had a lot of new shows."
Like Fox, which preceded ABC at press tour, ABC has only two new shows on the fall schedule: a feel-good family game show,
Opportunity Knocks, airing Tuesdays at 8 pm/ET as a lead-in to the
Dancing With the Stars results show; and
Life on Mars, an adaptation of the cult British time-warp crime drama that's undergoing significant cast changes and reshoots (with the show moving from Los Angeles to New York) and which, despite the bad buzz such makeovers attract, McPherson continues to describe as a "passion project." (When David E. Kelley quit the show after developing it, McPherson assigned it to the team behind
October Road. Make of that what you will.)
"I would certainly not root against it," McPherson says, noting
Mars' plum Thursday time slot following
Grey's Anatomy- which can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how it delivers. (McPherson says
Knocks will likely get more fall-launch promotion than
Mars because of its more challenging time period, opposite hits like
House and
NCIS.)
Neither of ABC's new shows has been shown to critics yet.
Knocks apparently is still refining its game elements, while
Mars in particular is a "work in progress," with casting of some major roles in the reworked pilot still unresolved. (Jason O'Mara in the lead role is the sole survivor from the original pilot's cast.)
McPherson says relaunching many of ABC's sophomore shows will be a challenge for show-runners, both in getting a new audience to tune in while not alienating the shows' core fans. Midseason underdog
Eli Stone is facing that challenge in several ways: most notably by stunt-casting Katie Holmes (who worked with creator Greg Berlanti in their
Dawson's Creek days) in the season's second episode. "It helps us from a promotional standpoint," says McPherson. But also, with Eli (Jonny Lee Miller) having survived the risky surgery to remove his aneurism in the season finale, "They absolutely reset the premise of the show and where it's going."
In a later panel, Berlanti elaborated: "If last year we were posing the question, 'Is this happening to me or not? Is this just a defect in my brain or is it something more miraculous?' I think Eli sort of embraces that part of it this year. It becomes more about how much the people around him begin to embrace that. It becomes more public." He says the writers "talk about Eli as thought it's sort of this super power. And at the end of last year, he said, 'I don't want this super power, I want a normal life.' But he chooses it again in the season premiere. He re-chooses it for some very significant reasons, to reinvest in this role and in his status. He commits, and this year it becomes about the trials and errors of that commitment."
Berlanti also teases that the show will continue to produce epic moments like the climactic earthquake that partially destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge. "We definitely start the year with another sort of bang of the same kind of size that we ended the year with."
But the returning show getting the biggest overhaul appears to be
Private Practice, which McPherson says is going to emphasize "real medical drama" over the suds. "When it just became kind of a soap opera about those people's lives, it was a lot of talking, a lot of times in the coffee room talking about the angst, and that's not the show." He says Addison (Kate Walsh) will be doing more surgeries and there will be more interaction with the hospital. "[Shonda Rhimes] does an unbelievable job with character, but it does best when it's laid over a palette of great medical stories."
The workplace setting will also feel more real, with the partners contending with financial worries. "It didn't feel like a real business. It didn't feel like real stakes, like a hospital. They really do have to get back to doing surgery, they really do have to worry about the reality of health care, actually helping people, saving people, instead of just being this eco-friendly nice place to be."
And what of
Grey's Anatomy, rocked this summer by rumors of discord after last year's Emmy winner Katherine Heigl took herself out of contention, seemingly dissing the writers for not giving her strong enough material? "She is absolutely staying with the show," says McPherson. "There's an unbelievable storyline for her this year [crafted, he says, by Rhimes] which is really central to everything that's going to go on this year."
McPherson's session got off to a rollicking start when late-night clown Jimmy Kimmel surprised the critics, pretending to be a reporter from Sarasota as he peppered his boss with questions about rumors that ABC would pursue Jay Leno for late night when the
Tonight host's contract expires next year. "If you were even to talk to Jay Leno, wouldn't that be like contract tampering? Wouldn't that be illegal? Couldn't you go to jail for that? Are you at all afraid that if you do replace Jimmy Kimmel, he might do something crazy to you or your car?" As the room erupted in laughter, he promised: "I'll be out in the parking lot."
But seriously. McPherson, pledging support for Kimmel in what has been something of a breakthrough year (including on YouTube with the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck music parodies), says he still can't believe NBC is "going to let this guy go at the top of his game. If that happens, I guess we'll look at it at the time, and Jimmy will be involved in those discussions."
Sound bites and a floor show. Gotta love press tour.
