Question: While this sounds like a defeatist question, I'll ask it anyway: Do you know how big an order ABC has made for Pushing Daisies? From what you heard and saw at TCA, how committed is ABC to this show should it not be an immediate hit? Will we get 13 episodes (the Firefly scenario), a full season (the Boomtown scenario), or will the plug get pulled at the first sign of panic (the Wonderfalls scenario). And unrelatedly, about Mad Men, I'm guessing the rave reviews are coming from critics in their forties or younger, who did not live through the era portrayed and are fascinated by this "alien" culture. Being old enough to have lived through it once already, I am not quite so enamored. I loved the first episode, liked the second and tolerated the third. There was a revolution on Madison Avenue back then, led by Doyle Dane Bernbach (who got a brief mention in the third episode), presaging the one that was about to hit the culture in general. I was hoping for a show about people ...
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Question: I was one of the few who was able to see a screening of the Pushing Daisies pilot at Comic-Con and I completely disagree with William's assessment. Not only did Anna Friel and Kristin Chenoweth work, but they were some of the best parts of the show, and Chenoweth completely stole the panel afterwards. But my biggest problem with his comments were when he said that Chenoweth doesn't work simply because of her height. That was so absurd that it negated William's other observations about the show. Also, why is the viewing public always looking for reasons to hate shows that they admit to enjoying? Just recently, in your column I believe, someone said how much they love Scrubs and then listed all the things they hated about it. Why is it that TV viewers are always looking for the show to "jump the shark" (the most overused phrase ever)? And now people are looking for that moment before the show even airs. Have people forgetten how to just sit back and enjoy TV?
Answer: I'm all for
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Cavemen by Craig Sjodin/ABC, Bionic Woman by Mitchell Haaseth/NBC Photo
According to a TV Dailies poll of 3,100 people, NBC's Bionic Woman reboot and ABC's Cavemen com are the highest-rated fall debuts in terms of viewer buzz, awareness and intent to watch. Among the 18-to-49 crowd, Jaime Sommers boasts the most awareness and intent to watch, while the GEICO-inspired Cro-Mags are tops in buzz. (I know Ausiello and I disagree on this, but I think Cavemen is kinda cute, with the Nick character being a real scene-stealer.)Placing third were Kid Nation (in awareness and buzz) and Kitchen Nightmares (in intent to watch). Coming in fourth were Pushing Daisies (awareness and buzz) and Private Practice (intent to watch).
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Question: I know that you and every other critic seems to be in love with Pushing Daisies. I just watched the pilot, and while I was thoroughly entertained, there are three problems that I think could become much bigger over the long run. Firstly (in order of escalating seriousness), I imagine that the extensive narration, though helpful in the pilot's exposition, will become very grating after a few episodes. In the pilot, I think the narrator had more lines than any individual character, including Ned. The second is the weakness of the supporting cast. Lee Pace does such an amazing job portraying the whimsical and fast-talking Ned, and Chi McBride plays a great strait man to his oddball. But Kristin Chenoweth and Anna Friel absolutely cannot keep up with him and his fast-paced dialogue. I feel like every scene where he talks to either one of them slows the whole thing down. Was Alexis Bledel not available? Chenoweth is so distractingly short that she can't properly interact with ...
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Question: I was intrigued to hear that the creative team behind Dead Like Me is producing the new Pushing Daisies. And since Tony Award-winning actress Kristin Chenoweth is in the cast, I can't be more excited for this show. I find her to be one of the most underrated talents in television and film. Producers are now choosing their actors from the Broadway community (i.e., Sara Ramirez) more than ever. Considering Chenoweth's career as a popular character actress in film and television (remember her show Kristin?), it will be interesting to see how her persona comes through and is challenged by this character.
Answer: As I've been telling everyone, and as I reported again in the last days of the TCA press tour, Pushing Daisies is easily my favorite pilot of the new fall crop. Besides Chenoweth, the cast also includes stage vets Swoozie Kurtz, Ellen Greene and, as the romantic leads, theater-trained Lee Pace (who was also seen in Bryan Fuller's Wonderfalls) and Anna Friel (Broadway's
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Dancing wtih the Stars by Carol Kaelson/ABC
ABC's fall season leads off with no less than five and a half hours of reality TV, courtesy of Dancing with the Stars and The Bachelor. Uitlmately, some scripted stuff will make its way onto the screen. UPDATE: Boston Legal's premiere will be announced "soon," an ABC source assures me. Here is the premiere plan:Monday, Sept. 248 pm/ET: Dancing with the Stars (90-minute premiere)9:30 pm: The Bachelor (90-minute premiere)Tuesday, Sept. 25 8 pm: DWTS (90-minute performance show)Wednesday, Sept. 268 pm: DWTS (results show)9 pm: Private Practice10 pm: Dirty Sexy MoneyThursday, Sept. 278 pm: Ugly Betty9 pm: Grey's Anatomy10 pm: Big ShotsSunday, Sept. 307 pm: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (two-hour premiere)9 pm: Desperate Housewives10 pm: Brothers & SistersTuesday, Oct. 28 pm: Cavemen 8:30 pm: Carpoolers9 pm: DWTS (results show; regular time period)Wednesday, Oct. 38 pm: Pushing Daisies (woohoo!)Sunday, Oct. 77 pm: That home-videos showFriday, Oct. 128 pm: 20/209 pm: Women's Murder C...
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Harold Perrineau by Mario Perez/ABC
8:54 am: We're in the homestretch, folks, and that can only mean one thing: Critics have begun recycling their old underwear. That explains the wall of stank I just walked through entering the Beverly Hilton's ballroom.8:58 am: As we wait for ABC president Stephen McPherson to take the stage for the exec session, let me take a moment to extend a big thank-you to the generous folks at ABC Studios who had a case of Diet Raspberry Snapple shipped to my room yesterday afternoon. Just for that, I'm going to take it easy on Big Shots. I was planning to call it a charmless piece of fecal matter; now I'm merely calling it unwatchable. Behold the power of Snapple!EXECUTIVE SESSION9:10 am: The first question... does not include the words "Isaiah" or "Washington." Darn. 9:13 am: On Lost's game-changing season finale, McPherson says it really "opened up a new world" for the show, adding that Team Darlton "pitched us where they're going this year, and where they're going the next two years." He ...
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Mad Men courtesy AMC
I can't remember the last time the most buzzed-about show at a summer critics' press tour had nothing to do with the broadcast network's fall offerings. But this week, the show we can't stop talking and thinking about, and wishing we had more episodes to watch, is AMC's Mad Men, a period drama about advertising men and their professional and sexual exploits at the dawn of the '60s. (It premieres Thursday at 10 pm/ET.) Here's how I logged my first impression of the show in the pages of TV Guide recently, where I gave it a score of 9 out of 10: "Wow. The period look is dazzling: the women's tight skirts, the men's slicked hair. If iconic director Douglas Sirk (Written on the Wind) had made TV, it would have looked like this. But this sleek, sexy, smartly cynical drama about selling everything from cigarettes to Nixon also nails the era's attitudes of casual prejudice and sexual manipulation."In this show, men are wolves and women are pawns, Jews are invisible or patronized, and gays a...
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Nothing like having a posse get your back when someone throws dirt in your eye. That's what I was thinking as I read the 45 — yes, 45! — comments that came in response to last week's blog and the news that ABC has let our contracts lapse. With the enormous outpouring of support here, on IMDb and on the various fan forums, I wanted to make sure you guys knew that we at Traveler appreciate all the dedication you've shown to the series. And thus, I have affectionately deemed you "the Porters." This is, of course, an allusion to Billy Mayo's character, the guy who keeps an eye on Jay, Tyler and Will when Jack Freed's Homeland Security thugs get in the way. So, my "Porters," I have promised another Q&A for this entry, and I will get to answering the questions I managed to sift out from those wonderful 45 comments you left last week: JKEB126 writes: Is there any way that the network will not cancel it for next season?The million-dollar question. Right now, with the Nielsen n...
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Question: I am eagerly awaiting the fall season, and I was just wondering which network you think has the most ambitious lineup. I think ABC is the most ambitious, especially creatively, although I already have an ABC bias, having been a fan of Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives, Invasion, Alias and Eyes. I am looking forward to Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, Miss/Guided and maybe Private Practice. Anyway, it's nice to see a network separate itself from the pack by striving for creativity and quality.
Answer: I don't want to show my hand on the full fall lineup just yet, but I will say that if you like what ABC has been serving you, I think you'll be mostly pleased by the new stuff, especially Pushing Daisies, which is heads and shoulders above anything else on the fall lineup in terms of creativity and execution. Otherwise, shows like Dirty Sexy Money and Hot Shots feel very much like the ABC you already know and love, maybe too much so. ABC seems to hav ...
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