Kiefer Sutherland by Kelsey McNeal/Fox
The relentless wildfires ravaging Southern California have forced the evacuation of some 250,000 residents as well as singed the productions of several TV series. According to the Reporter, 24 had to rejigger a plan to film Kiefer Sutherland at the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro when cast and crew became overwhelmed by drifting smoke. (This truly is not Jack Bauer's best day.) Similarly, Cold Case had to rethink a location shoot when strong winds blew over a set, and ABC's Big Shots scrapped a cycling sequence in Malibu. FX's The Riches had to make alternate plans when sheriff's deputies working traffic control at a Santa Clarita shoot were pulled to, like, save lives instead, while NCIS needed to replace crew members who stayed at home to ward off the flames.Related: Dancing Star Jane Seymour Fears Malibu Fires
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Question: In previous years, whenever CBS aired a late-afternoon football game, it pushed the Sunday night lineup back, sometimes as much as a full hour, so they could air every show starting with 60 Minutes. But I noticed that on Sept. 30, when there was a late-afternoon football game scheduled, 60 Minutes was scheduled to start at 7:30 pm/ET and run until Cold Case started at 9. My question is, was this something specially scheduled because 60 Minutes did have high-profile stories (a Supreme Court justice and a rising football player), or will 60 Minutes always air in this pattern when CBS has late-afternoon games?
Answer: According to the TV Guide listings (a very useful resource on this website and in our magazine pages — I'm just saying), this expanded and late-starting version of 60 Minutes is scheduled for the next two Sundays. I'm a big fan of this idea, as it keeps the rest of CBS' prime-time lineup on track and without the overruns that aggravate so many loyal viewers of Cold
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This Sunday, as NBC's NFL coverage averaged 16.46 million total viewers from 8 pm/ET on:• The debuts of the CW's newsmagazine whatevers CW Now and Online Nation were sampled by barely a million viewers each. That's way less than half of the year-ago Sunday premiere of, say, Everybody Hates Chris.• The news was better for Fox, whose 'toons The Simpsons (9.44 mil, +500K), King of the Hill (7.74 mil) and Family Guy (10.65 mil, +1.3 mil) each drew healthy premiere audiences.• On CBS, Cold Case was welcomed back by 12.3 mil, a drop of five mil from last year's opener. Lead-out Shark christened its new day/time period with 11.54 mil, a mil fewer than caught its Season 1 finale in May.POLL: What do you plan to watch live tonight? Vote here with your 8 pm and 9 pm picks.
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Kathryn Morris by Eric Liebowitz/CBS
As CBS' Cold Case heads into its fifth season, series star Kathryn Morris has been blessed with a salary bump — reportedly to $180,000-$190,000 an episode, says Reuters. Morris is also launching her own production shingle, which will have a first-look deal with Cold Case producer Warner Bros. Television. Additionally, Morris has scored a feature-film gig in the dark comedy The Sophomore, playing a stoner school nurse. Bruce Willis stars.
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NCIS by Ron P. Jaffe/CBS
Pretty much crumbs here, but CBS sent out a few season-premiere deets for its fall lineup. If your show isn't here, it's because A) it's new, B) you could have written the supervague preview yourself and/or C) it's a sitcom that thrives independent of its story arcs.Cold Case: Several weeks after being shot, Lilly returns to work and tries to convince Stillman and herself that she's emotionally ready for work.Shark: Jessica helps Sebastian with a double homicide case, enlisting added firepower (Kevin Alejandro) from an organized crime unit.How I Met Your Mother: Robin hooks up with Enrique Iglesias, so Ted storms the bar scene with Barney.NCIS: The showdown between the team and an arms dealer reaches a deadly conclusion.The Unit: As Jonah evades an assasin, Bob secretly reports to a mysterious entity.Criminal Minds: A college campus killing spree... I dunno, prompts Gideon to rendezvous with Richie Cunningham's big brother Chuck?CSI: "Sara's fate remains in question." Yeah?Without a...
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Jorja Fox and William Petersen by Robert Voets/CBS
A ray of hope for CSI fans who are turned off by that whole... romance thingy... between William Petersen and Jorja Fox's characters. "The Sara-Grissom story line is going to conclude," Jonathan Littman, an executive producer for Jerry Bruckheimer's production house, tells the Orlando Sentinel. "Don't take it in that definitive term," he adds. "It's very smartly done." Littman also teases "a big story-line finish at the start of the season," one that will play out for a few episodes.Other scoopy bits from the Bruckheimer exec:• With Poppy Montgomery expecting, Without a Trace will probably make Samantha pregnant as well. "There's no reason not to," says Littman. "It's interesting for a single FBI agent who has dated two men in the office. [And] she was in bed with a [never identified] guy at the end of the season. That was just fortuitous."• Left in critical condition by a season-finale gunshot, Cold Case's Lily will "come back and deal with the aftermath and the fact that...
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Cold Case by Cliff Lipson/CBS
Did you ever imagine that life would become so complicated you’d need a text message to tell you whether Cold Case was going to start on time? CBS has. The network announced it will launch a service that will alert viewers when a prime-time show is delayed due to sports or news coverage. The problem occurs most frequently during the NFL season, when late games delay the start times of Sunday shows. This fall, once an NFL game runs beyond 7 pm/ET, viewers will get a "CBS Eye-lert" detailing the specific start time for that night's shows. You can register for the service through CBS.com, CBSNews.com and Sportsline.com. — Reporting by Stephen Battaglio
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Anthony LaPaglia in Without a Trace by Mitch Haddad/CBS
In years past, CBS's stability (which you've gotta know the other networks covet) has often been criticized as complacency, especially in these last few years of wall-to-wall crime dramas. Zzzzzz. That's about to change, with a fall lineup of new, intriguing high concepts that could open some eyes where the Eye net is concerned and give CBS the one thing it most desperately desires: Buzz. Let's hope some of the new stuff sticks.There is reason to be skeptical. The few shows from last season that went particularly "off brand" didn't last, most notably the serialized crime caper Smith (gone in three weeks) and the apocalyptic Jericho (canned after one season, which ended in a hail of bullets between warring towns, leaving fans on edge and up in arms themselves). The nagging question is if CBS will truly give its offbeat new lineup a chance to distinguish itself or instead will fall back on the tried and true that works so well for a network known for its satisfying, crowd-pleasing mai...
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CBS announced today its 2007-2008 Fall Prime-time lineup, featuring five new series: one comedy, three dramas and one reality program. These freshman series will join the 17 returning programs on the current CBS lineup, which helped the network win the 2006-2007 season in viewers and adults 25-54, continuing its multi-year winning streak. The five new series feature bold and creative concepts, including Viva Laughlin, where drama is accented by iconic music; Cane, starring Jimmy Smits as the head of a powerful South Florida Cuban-American family; Moonlight, a romantic thriller with a new twist on the vampire legend; The Big Bang Theory, a comedy about genius geeks from Two and A Half Men cocreator Chuck Lorre; and Kid Nation, a reality series where 40 kids attempt to build a new society in an abandoned ghost town.CBS will return television's No. 1 drama and scripted program, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation; the No. 1 comedy, Two and a Half Men; the No. 1 new comedy, Rules of Engagem...
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Question: Did you see the finale of Cold Case? Jack Bauer has bad days, but yeesh, Lilly really had one! First her mom dies, and then she and her boss are shot! The whole show was great. I was actually surprised by the whodunit, which doesn't happen often. Loved the ending, with Lilly speaking to her deceased mother. Is Lilly dead also? I guess that depends on if Cold Case is being renewed or not. Do you know anything about that?
Answer: Cold Case is coming back. Lilly Rush is not dead. What kind of a way would that be to end the show? Have you never lived through a May sweeps of over-the-top season finales before? Everywhere you turn, especially on crime procedurals, there are hostage situations and lead characters getting shot. I wish they'd all just give this kind of melodrama a rest for at least one season. And yet, Cold Case pulled it off better than most, in part because the week's mystery was so compelling and tragic. Still, it did seem a bit much for my taste.
But just to show
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