MagneticMediaFed

This is the week. This is what a summer of network boredom hath brought. Starting Monday, we will be inundated with so much new television we’ll start developing a callus on our thumb in that exact location where we grip the fast-forward button on our trusty remote control. For me, this is the week where I fear all of my friendships will begin to dissolve as I focus with hibernation-like intensity on watching just about everything I possibly can. Why do I do this? So you don’t have to. After the jump a day-by-day breakdown of the major players vying for your free-time as well as notes on what I’ll be watching, what I’ll be blogging and what I’ll be skipping…

(more…)

The cast of ABC’s new fairy-tale Pushing Daisies

The bliss that is summer in the city has obviously slowed down my production output. This raises several significant problems. The first being less content for you, dear reader. The second is the fact that the network pilots tend to change as fast as we’re able to watch them (the mess that was ABC’s Cavemen has all ready recast a role and decided to write a new pilot episode).

So here I am, finally committing some thoughts to type weeks after first seeing ABC’s crop of dramas that the network hopes will ultimately wow millions across America. A few of the series are strong contenders, a few others should just be forgotten before the embarrassment is broadcast to an entire nation, and one is really, really great. Despite the high (or not so high praise) remember, these are just previews, not reviews. A lot can change between now and air — and probably will. The full breakdown down after the break…

(more…)

ABC hasn’t really had a significant hit comedy since the early 90s heyday of the family sitcom. They had Home Improvement, Roseanne, and TGIF which seemed to have raised a generation of kids unable to go out on a Friday night. Once Seinfeld and Friends took off, however, the network was left in the dust with its only line of defense being Damon Wayans, Jim Belushi and George Lopez. In recent years the network has tried a myriad shows, none of them sticking (that being said, no one has been able to make comedy successful anywhere on broadcast television).

This isn’t to say all of their attempts at getting back into the comedy game have been failures. It was ABC that gave life to Sports Night for a season-and-a-half before low ratings ultimately sunk it, and in recent years the network has fully embraced the single-camera format despite not being able to figure out how to actually use it to make people laugh. In a way, the best thing ABC had done in the comedy department was flirt with the idea of picking up Arrested Development from FOX before it was ultimately shot in the head. When all was said and done it proved to be nothing more than a casually tossed out suggestion, but at the very least it gave the impression of the wanting to put their mark on a genre (like what they’ve been extremely successful in doing with dramas).

For fall 2007 ABC has released pilots for three new comedies (Cavemen, Carpoolers and Samantha Who?) which I have been lucky enough to view. I’ll preview each after the jump…

(more…)

Ah, CBS. It’s a network full of hit shows that no one particularly cares about. For “the eye” the name of the game this fall is to develop a crop of shows that people will actually talk about, not just watch in a semi-comatose state. To do this the network has picked up five new series they hope to be the text book definition of buzzworthy (actually, I’d love to see a text book that had a definition of ‘buzzworthy.’ Maybe I could develop a show around that premise!). Unfortunately, of those five only three were provided in their entirety and none of the three were particularly show-stopping (well, maybe one) or worthy of buzz. The full scoop after the jump…

(more…)

Since you can only watch so many episodes of Man Vs. Wild before you feel like you could literally survive anywhere on the planet (so long as you’re willing to bite into a living fish), I’ve decided to finally tackle this stack of pilots for the new falls network shows and report on my findings. Over the next week or so I’m hoping to hit (at the very least) the highlights from the CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and CW fall schedules.

“Preview” is the operative word here as a lot of these pilots could change between the copies provided now for screening and what will actually air on television. I won’t be writing reviews, per se, but an early reaction and whether or not I’d like to see another episode. Still, there’s only so much a network can do to gussy up a walking disaster. In the same vein a series can have a great pilot and then fall apart in its second episode (i.e. Studio 60 and the Sunset Strip) which is why the television pilot is such a crazy beast to begin with. In 20 or 45 minutes an audience member needs to meet all of the important characters, understand the basic motivations, and hopefully be at the very least “slightly dazzled” providing reason enough to tune in the following week.

The shows that succeed as art are the ones that somehow managed to get through development relatively intact. The one’s that are insufferable and not worth the plastic they’re burned to tend to be those shows that have the stink of network meddling or were simply green-lit on a shaky pitch and then were built from the top down. The problem, of course, comes from the sad, unpredictability of to what an audience will actually respond. The real successes on television commercially tend to be those shows that can strike the right balance of high-concept originality and mainstream aesthetic (Lost, Desperate Housewives, The Office, hell, even the first CSI).

Either that, or it’s chimps with a dart board. It could be either one.

By the end of next week, just about every new/returning fall show will have premiered on the networks (just about). This means we’ll finally be at a point in which we can take a step back, assess what we’ve seen, and try to figure out just how the hell we’re going watch everything it is we want to watch.

Here’s how my current (network) line-up is looking:

Monday
The Class, CBS 8:00
How I Met Your Mother, CBS 8:30
Heroes*, NBC 9:00
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, NBC 10:00

Tuesday
Friday Night Lights*, NBC 8:00
Knights of Prosperity*, ABC 9:00
Help Me Help You*, ABC 9:30
Veronica Mars, CW 9:00
Smith, CBS 10:00

Wednesday
30 Rock*, NBC 8:00
20 Good Years*, NBC 8:30
Lost, ABC 9:00
The Nine*, ABC 10:00

Thursday
Ugly Betty*, ABC 8:00
Survivor, CBS 9:00
The Office, NBC 8:30
Shark, CBS 10:00

And then on Sunday
The Simpsons, FOX 8:00

Where the (*) depends upon premiere episodes that I have yet to see. Of course, like every year, I start out optimistic about the new shows, but one by one they seem to fall off our radar. Sometimes its because they’ve been pulled from the schedule by network suits, and sometimes its because they’ve been pulled from our schedule by that nagging sensation that you could be outside going for a walk and/or communicating with other humans.

Which then begs to ask the following question: of everything you’re watching on television right now, what do you think you’ll be trying to watch NEXT September?

I hate James Woods. I hate the snide, know-it-all character he always plays. I hate those devil-eyes of his that seem to shiv your ribs while you watch him screech his way through his roles*. All that being said, when you cast him as blood-sucking, high profile, defense attorney, he’s just about perfect.

In comparison to the just-awful Justice, which covers basically the same kind of “law” (that kind being the high profile anything-for-a-win kind), Shark at least seems to have some sort of conscious about things. Woods plays Sebastian Stark (because y’know, calling him Sebastian “Shark” would just be too silly), a confident defense-attorney who switches sides after a troubling outcome on one of his cases. That’s right! A defense attorney turning the tables on the system!

Everything here is by the numbers, luckily the show doesn’t take itself all that seriously (he has a courtroom built in his basement to practice — he claims to have the bench from “To Kill A Mockingbird” and Ito’s gavel) and thus the hour is mostly a fun time. The series even gives Mr. Stark some plot-lines revolving around his home-life and his daughter giving us a bit more than your typical law-procedural.

This isn’t Perry Mason or Matlock or hell, even Ally McBeal, but it isn’t an entirely unpleasant way to spend a hour on a nondescript Thursday evening.

Shark premieres on CBS Thursday, September 21st at 10:00pm et.

*With the exception being his role as the father in The Virgin Suicides, which I found delightfully understated.