The Prime Times: Next Season’s Guest Stars Edition

By on Jun 25, 2012 in In Brief |

This installment of the Prime Times is all about the cool guest stars we’ll all get to see on our favorite shows… in a few months’ time. Sorry for the blue balls, folks. With the seventh-season premiere a torturous three months away, Showtime has released a teaser-trailerfocusing on the fallout from last season’s “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with a knife” finale. More details are surfacing about the second season of FX’s creepfest American Horror Story. Now we know that Jessica Lange will play a nun and administrator (presumably in the 1960s-era East Coast insane asylum, which was previously announced as the season’s setting). And filling out the cast are Adam Levine and James Cromwell. ER reunion ho! Maura Tierney will recur on the next season of The Good Wife, sharing the screen once again with Julianna Margulies. According to Deadline, Tierney will play “a...

Ratings Revelations and Ridiculousness

By on Jun 5, 2012 in Tinseltown |

As reported by TV.com, Nielsen has released a list of all the shows on broadcast networks this past season, ranked by average number of viewers in the 18-to-49-year-old demographic… and the list is surprising on many counts. I’ve transposed the complete list below, but in case you want the abridged version (you impatient ingrates!), I readily relinquish my reflections and ruminations on the ratings ranking. The most-watched scripted show is Modern Family (ABC, #4), and that fact makes me damn proud of America. Good on you, viewers! CBS sitcoms continue to dominate, especially The Big Bang Theory (#6), Two and a Half Men (#7), and 2 Broke Girls (#9). And, against all rational thought, Rules of Engagement (#35) is still surprisingly popular. I mean, I don’t know anyone who watches it, but… Grey’s Anatomy (#10) is doing remarkably well for a show entering its...

Cancellations, Renewals, and Resurrections

By on May 22, 2012 in In Production |

Along with all the hoopla about the broadcast networks’ new shows, upfront season is also the day of reckoning for their existing lineups.  And this month’s renewal and cancellation news has been nothing if not surprising.  Here are my thoughts. The vultures were already circling when Cougar Town returned to ABC in February to even worse ratings than before, but then—huzzah!—TBS announced that it would be rescuing the show.  First Conan, now Cougar?  Dammit, TBS, I could kiss you all over the face right now. And speaking of criminally-underappreciated comedies, FOX’s Raising Hope and NBC’s Community were granted renewals.  And I’m not worried at all that Community is moving to Friday nights—its small, diehard fanbase will move right along with it. Though I only saw one episode of Once Upon a Time once upon a time, I’m so pleased that a non-procedural...

New Show Haiku

By on Dec 6, 2011 in Inanities |

Like every other reputable TV critic, I’ve seen absolutely none of this season’s crop of new shows, except for the first episode and a half of New Girl. (Cut a guy some slack; we’ve been trying to slash Dexter from my to-watch list.) So since there’s no time like the holidays for frivolity, let me recklessly and unfairly pass judgment on all the broadcast network’s new scripted offerings… in haiku form! Bonus: Watch as my poetic form deteriorates toward the end of the post! Charlie’s Angels Lame reboot; no buzz Not even Minka Kelley could save these Angels Pan Am Flight attendant? Hah! You call her “stewardess” Or just say “Ricci.” How To Be a Gentleman In laugh-less sitcom, One guy is Johnny Drama, Other’s just up-tight Allen Gregory I’m not sure what makes This Jonah-Hill-voiced kid Diff’rent than...

2011 Pilot Watch: The Best of the Winners

By on May 27, 2011 in Tinseltown |

The tribe has spoken. The networks have voted. And this development season’s pilots have either received series orders or have been all but forgotten about. After watching clips of (or, at least, reading synopses of) the new shows, I’ve decided which shows I can’t wait to check out. (And my track record is pretty great: only two-thirds of the shows I recommended last year were cancelled! Hey!) Alcatraz Another in a proud line of mysterious dramas from J.J. Abrams, FOX’s Alcatraz deals with the sudden reappearance of prisoners and guards who had disappeared three decades prior. I’d be excited for the Abrams-ness of it all, but it also features an enviable cast (Lost’s Jorge Garcia, Jurassic Park’s Sam Neill, ER’s Parminder Nagra). Apartment 23 ABC’s roommate-from-hell comedy works because Krysten Ritter (Veronica Mars) is...