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...

Episodic Blockbusters = Commercial Magic

By on May 11, 2012 in Tinseltown | 1 comment

(Revised! See the afterword below!) The recent box office success of The Avengers got me wondering: why don’t blockbusters ever start on the small-screen? Why can’t the stories behind these tentpole movies (which are often novels or comics) be reformatted episodically and aired as limited-run series? Wouldn’t advertisers be tripping over themselves to put their commercials in such a broadcast? Wasn’t the six-part Roots adaptation one of the highest-rated television events ever? That got me to running some numbers. Let’s imagine the final Harry Potter book as a 36-part series by arbitrarily splitting the story into the novel’s 36 chapters (grouping the epilogue in with the last chapter). Such a series would run nicely between the beginning of September and the end of May—the span of the normal broadcast TV season—even if the series took a week off for...

The Prime Times: Shelly the Nymphomaniac Edition

By on Apr 30, 2012 in In Brief |

A hot, steaming cup of TV news, ready for you to guzzle: Anderson Cooper has had another one of his famous giggling fits on air, and it’s so unflattering but so adorable. Yes, I call Anderson adorable. Okay? Totes adorbs. Patrick Dempsey channelled his Grey’s Anatomy character’s heroism recently by pulling a Malibu teen from his flipped Mustang, waiting with him until the paramedics arrived, and even calling the teen’s mother to update her on her son’s condition. I’m loving Big Love right now, and I’m especially loving three leading ladies: Jeannie Tripplehorn, Chloë Sevigny, and Ginnifer Goodwin. So it thrills me to no end that Sevigny (who’s name I just had to Google to pronounce) will be a star of the next season of American Horror Story, playing a character named “Shelly the Nymphomaniac” who faces off with Jessica...

100 Posts Later

By on Apr 18, 2012 in Announcements |

Often, a TV show’s 100th episode is viewed as a milestone. Not only because it’s such a rare occurrence among shows in today’s cutthroat market, but because it also makes the show eligible for syndication. (Ka-ching!) We bloggers are less lucky. No one is baking me a cake or popping a bottle of bubbly, and TNT certainly isn’t offering me wads of cash for rerun rights. But hey, this is still my hundredth post, and I’m damn proud of that fact! And in celebration of that fact, here are my ten favorite posts so far. (Not that every post isn’t pure gold…) The Blog Post Where Plot Twists Go to Die for not only its content but also its awesome Dawson pic. “Mad Men” Poster Madly Dissected because somewhere out there, someone is analyzing the poster to the exact same degree, only earnestly. Shit My Boyfriend Says because we all have shit to say about...

“Newsroom” Preview Suggests Sorkin Masterpiece

By on Apr 5, 2012 in Previews |

Aaron Sorkin is an idol of mine—a true wordsmith whose whip-smart writing has exalted Sports Night, The West Wing, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip on television and A Few Good Men, The American President, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Social Network, and Moneyball on film. (And now he’s even getting in the Broadway game, teaming up with Hugh Jackman and Wicked songster Stephen Schwartz for a musical about Houdini.) So imagine my unbridled glee when I heard that he was coming back to television. (I wasn’t sure he would after the untimely demise of Studio 60). And I was even more psyched when I found out that he’d be berthed at HBO, where he’d presumably have more creative freedom and less pressure to deliver instant ratings. Add to that an interesting cast including Jeff Daniels, Jane Fonda, Allison Pill, Dev Patel, Sam Waterston, Olivia Munn, and Emily...

The Blog Post Where Plot Twists Go to Die

By on Mar 21, 2012 in Inanities |

Or, Everything That’s Ever Been Spoiled For Me Try as hard as I might, there’s no escaping spoilers in my role as (amateur) TV critic. As I’ve said before, I’m incapable keeping up with all the worthwhile, buzz-worthy, quality TV on the air today. And while most blogs and publications are good about preceding spoilers with warnings and burying plot reveals in the body of an article instead of leading with them, others are not so conscientious. And even with the diligent outlets, there is a statute of limitations with spoilers—at a certain point, after an arbitrary amount of time has passed, it has to be allowable to rehash and discuss major plot points without recrimination. So I don’t always blame the spoil-er for the spoiling; I just regret that it happened (unless I just don’t care). At the risk of paying the sin forward, here are all the twists...