 Well, as I mentioned a few posts ago, I wasn’t around for any of The CW’s panels after their “90210″ presentation…which, as it happens, was their very first panel. Fortunately, however, the beauty of being a member of the TCA is that I can still provide you with highlights from the panels I missed. God bless transcripts, that’s what I say… Even before we offer up the “90210″ coverage, however, let’s take a gander the info that emerged from the executive session hosted by the President of Entertainment at The CW, Ms. Dawn Ostroff.
* Like last year, The CW brought us details of a new reality show. This time, however, it’s not as underwhelming a pitch as “Crowned” or “Farmer Wants A Wife.” Not that I didn’t end up watching those shows, but “13 - Fear is Real” is one that I actually want to watch, since it’s executive-produced by Sam Raimi and Jay Bienstock. “The best way to describe this show is ‘The Blair Witch Project’ as a reality show,” said Ostroff. “It’s a competition show, but there’s certainly a lot of tension, a lot of fear, and it’s different. There’s an environment that they created in the bayou of Louisiana where, of course, they know it’s a reality show, but the intensity of the situation that they’re living in and the kinds of challenges that they’re faced with really feel real to them while they’re in it. This is hot off of the editing bay…this week, as a matter of fact…and it was shocking to see how invested these contestants were. I mean, they really felt the horror.” * There wasn’t much “Reaper” news, unfortunately, except that it definitely has a place on the schedule in mid-season. “It’s a great show for us to have in our arsenal,” said Ostroff. “It’s a show that we believe in, which is why we picked it up.” Yeah, but let’s call a spade a spade: they only believed in it enough to pick it up as a mid-season replacement, not for a full season. We can only hope that, come mid-season, the show’s fanbase has built up enough steam to keep it rolling for a third year. * There is currently no plan for another season of “Beauty and the Geek.” There is also no formal word of cancellation, however. * And I’ve saved this bit for last because, frankly, I don’t want to believe it, but…ugh…Ostroff claims to have been happy with the time-jump on “One Tree Hill.” “Our expectations were we would do something different that felt, certainly, in line with the show, because the actors had gotten older,” Ostroff said, “and they were excited about the idea of playing characters closer to their real age. We know that when characters often go into college years on a show, it’s sort of hard to keep them together, and the storylines aren’t quite as relatable, so the idea of jumping the show four years forward, having the characters outside of college, in the working world, being young adults, just felt like the time was right. We knew we would have interesting storylines for each of the characters, and Mark Schwahn is just a really good writer. He took all of these characters and put them into young adulthood, created new arcs, new situations, and the show had a renaissance. I mean, it was a great idea, and it really did pay off for us.” Pft. The results still felt trite to me, and I’m not backing down on this. Okay, now we move on to… Filed under: TV and Actors and Actresses and News and TV Dramas and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and Reality TV and Fall TV Preview and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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It’s rather gratifying to see Showtime continue to grow into its own as a premium cable network that can compete with HBO. For so long, they were hovering just a shade higher than Cinemax in the eyes of viewers (I don’t know about anyone else, but I distinctly remember seeing many a bare breast on the network back in the day), but now they’ve got a reputation for having at least as much quality original programming as the folks over at Home Box Office, and their popularity is such that the network earned their own executive session.
Matthew Blank offered us a heartfelt introduction, along with the announcement that “Inside the NFL” will be coming to Showtime next season, then promptly passed the buck to Robert Greenblatt, the network’s President of Entertainment, who provided us with several other revelations about upcoming programming: * Coming soon: “The United States of Tara,” which stars Toni Collette and John Corbett, is executive-produced and based on an idea by Steven Spielberg, and is written by Diablo Cody. * There are very serious discussions about an “L-Word” spin-off, though it seems to exist predominantly on paper at this stage of the game. “Eileen Chaiken is creating that for us,” said Greenblatt. “We’re going to be shooting it right after ‘The L Word’ wraps this year, and it will star one of the girls from ‘The L Word’ as a sort of crossover. The storyline at the end of ‘The L Word,’ the final episode in the final season, there will be an open-ended component to it. And Eileen is going to carry that story along on the Internet, which we think is an interesting way to keep ‘The L Word’ experience going. Then if we decide to go ahead with the spin-off that storyline will segue into the new series.” He would not, however, commit to which girl was intended as the star of the spin-off, mostly because the actress hasn’t even been told that she’s under consideration yet! * Another season of “Penn & Teller: Bullshit!” has been ordered, and with this 7th season, it will officially become the longest-running series in the history of Showtime. * There will be a new reality documentary series called “Locked and Loaded,” which is not about Denis Leary but, rather, about a gun store in rural Colorado. Greenblatt described the series as “sort of a fly-on-the-wall show. You see many, many different kinds of people coming into a gun store, and you see the reasons why they buy handguns and rifles and all kinds of other things.” * Based on the creative success (but, ultimately, due in no small part to the ratings success) of “Weeds,” the network has ordered two more 13-episode seasons of the show. * After much discussion on the ‘net about the possibility, Greenblatt confirmed that the Edie Falco pilot, currently known as “Nurse Jackie” (a title which may or may not stick), has been ordered to series. She plays what Greenblatt describes as “a very complicated nurse in a New York City hospital,” and based on the clips we saw, by “very complicated,” he means she’s a drug addict. And, yes, someone else did bring up the similarity to “House,” but Greenblatt assured us that “it’s not going to be big medical story of the week necessarily. I think it’s a different take on a medical show that’s grounded by a really iconic, caustic character played by a great actress.” * Even though they’re limited by history, Greenblatt thinks that there’s at least another two years of plot possibilities left in “The Tudors.” “The third season is the next two (wives of Henry VIII), Anne of Cleves and Jane Seymour…I love meeting people who think Jane Seymour, the actress, is in the show…and then the following season, I think, will be the final two wives,” he theorized. * The future of “This American Life” is murky. “Ira (Glass) is not only the most dedicated person in the world, he’s a perfectionist and he doesn’t want to put any episode out that isn’t really extraordinary,” said Greenblatt. “And I will tell you that’s not true of all producers. He’s also doing a radio show, and he will not let anything affect the quality of the radio show. And the same people are doing the radio show and the TV show. So every year, we step back and have a conversation with him. ‘Can we do ten? Can we do eight? Can we do six?’ There may be a year where we do a couple of long-form specials with him and we don’t do episodes of the show, per se, because it’s really hard to find those stories. They don’t just fall into his lap.” To put a fine point on it, a third season has not officially been ordered, but per Greenblatt, “We’re talking to (Ira) about how many he wants to do and what form it might take.” * Showtime is currently planning to air the three seasons of “Secret Diary of a Call Girl” - one’s already aired in the UK, Season 2 premieres there in September, and the third has been commissioned but hasn’t yet begun filming - and reserves the right to consider airing any future seasons, should there be any. “But,” added Greenblatt, “it looks like a Okay, that’s that. Now, we move onto a panel described as “Showtime’s SHO Stoppers,” which featured the stars and producers of the network’s four signature series: Weeds (Mary-Louise Parker and Jenji Kohan), Californication (David Duchovny and Tom Kapinos), Dexter (Michael C. Hall and Clyde Phillips), and Brotherhood (Jason Clarke and Blake Masters). Filed under: TV and Actors and Actresses and News and TV Comedies and TV Dramas and TV Action and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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You may have noticed that my postings have slowed down. You might not have cared, but you’ve probably at least noticed, if only because you haven’t gotten four or five Diggs from me every day. Well, there are two reasons for that: the first is that we’re dealing with days with one broadcast network as opposed to five or six different cable networks, and the second is that my wife joined me on Friday, and given that I hadn’t seen her since July 7th, I wanted to focus more on her than my work for a change. C’mon, I earned a break! And it’s not like I wasn’t still attending all of these panels for you…well, except for the majority of The CW’s panels. I must admit that, after the “90210″ presentation, we hit the road and went to Universal Studios…and, yet, even then I was working, so be sure to stay tuned for my coverage of the new ‘Simpsons’ ride, which was awesome. But, okay, enough of my apologies. Let’s continue with CBS’s presentations, shall we? The Mentalist: I’d like to take this moment to give a shout-out to my mother-in-law, who was interested in this series before it was even on my radar. When I told her I had started to get my usual flurry of advance screeners in preparation for the TCA tour, the first question she asked was, “Hey, have you gotten one for that show ‘The Mentalist’ yet?” In fact, I had just gotten one that day…and when I told her, she all but flipped out. “We need to watch that when I come over for dinner on Friday!” she informed me. She kept trying to tell us about the shows that the series’ star had been in, except that she was blanking on both his name and his other shows, but a quick trip to IMDb.com solved both problems, at which point she gave a look of disdain when I admitted that I’d never actually seen an episode of Simon Baker’s previous series, “The Guardian.” Finally, as we began to screen the pilot, the truth came out: she thinks he’s hot.
I can’t speak to the man’s inherent hotness because I don’t want “The Mentalist” to fall victim to what is henceforth to be referred to as “The ‘Moonlight’ Effect.” I really, really dug what I saw, possibly because it reminds me of what “Psych” could be if James Roday didn’t grate on my nerves. It’s a drama about a guy named Patrick Jane (Baker) who has honed his observational skills to a degree where he was able to make a living as a TV psychic, but he’s since given that up and become a detective. He’s got a major ego, but it’s warranted, given how good he is at what he does. Still, it’s been known to backfire on occasion; he has a dark history which is hinted at during the course of the pilot and will be explored during the course of the series. Baker admitted that he got particular enjoyment out of playing the flashback scenes to his character’s early days. “That was a lot of fun,” he said, “because you’re playing an actor and you get to actually comment on the shallowness of acting. You’re commenting on yourself, so it’s sort of self-deprecating in a sense. I love that the character is a fraud and is aware of his fraudulent nature.” Baker did not, however, have an opportunity to do much research for on playing a TV psychic, given the speed at which things happened with his casting and the pilot’s subsequent filming. “I was flown in from Australia, met with Bruno (Heller, producer) the day I arrived,” said Baker, “and a day and a half later, we were shooting, basically. So Bruno said, ‘Have a look at a few different people on YouTube,’ and I had a look at stuff. Next thing, I had my whole family around me, we’re all going, ‘Oh, my God, how did he do that? How did he do that?’ And then on YouTube, there’s also people posting other clips where they debunk, explaining how these tricks are working through NLP, neurolinguistic programming.It’s just tip-of-the-surface of the knowledge that these people have, so I didn’t ask anything. We had a consultant from the Magic Castle, who was more of a sleight-of-hand guy, but he had a few different hypnotizing tricks and stuff like that. And Bruno furnished me with a bunch of literature, holiday reading. It’s very heady stuff. What these guys get into and the skills that they have and then the capacity to remember things and move forward is…it’s too much for me. I’m pretending totally 100 percent to be a mentalist.” To bring things full circle, let us note that Heller is aware of the similarities to “Psych,” but he’s not worried about critics making snarky comments. “Patrick Jane isn’t pretending to be a psychic,” explained Heller. “He was someone who worked as a psychic but now is very honest and direct about not having those powers, so there’s no pretense. They’re two quite different shows. You can always draw parallels with other shows, but this is much more like Sherlock Holmes than (’Psych’).” I second that emotion. Filed under: TV and Actors and Actresses and News and TV Dramas and TV Action and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and Fall TV Preview and Pilots and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you can’t deny that CBS has been talked about quite a lot in the last couple of years. First, “Jericho” got the network lots of press as a result of their decision to resurrect the show for a second season because of fan demand, then it got them even more when they canceled the show for good after it failed to win the appropriate ratings. In recent weeks, they’ve been dealing with bitter vampire fans who can’t believe that “Moonlight” managed to win the People’s Choice Award for Best New Series, only to get canceled when it, too, failed to win the ratings necessary to earn it a sophomore season. Last year, Mandy Patinkin’s abrupt decision to bail out of “Criminal Minds” was all the talk of the TCA Tour, and, now, William Petersen is leaving “C.S.I.,” which is also chat-worthy. CBS President Nina Tassler took all comers in her Executive Session, and here are the highlights…besides that bit about “Moonlight,” of course.
* The future of “Swingtown” is ambiguous at best. “I’m very proud of the show, I love the show, everybody knows how passionate I’ve been about it,” she said. “I wish the ratings were better, but this is the life we’ve chosen for ourselves. But right now, we’re behind the show and we are proud of it.” When further questioned as to whether “proud” translated into “second season,” however, she wouldn’t commit. “We haven’t made that decision right now, but I am proud of the show. Creatively, I think they’re doing a great job.” (She also reiterated her disappointment in the ratings, which is surely not a good sign.) * Despite much prodding, Tassler claimed to have no actor in place to fill the shoes of “Billy Petersen” in “C.S.I..” “I don’t think you replace Billy,” Tassler said, “but you sort of look at adding elements to the show that are really going to invigorate and contribute to the alchemy of the show where it is today. They’ve created a great character. He’s a doctor, a scientist who’s got a very interesting DNA that is going to inform the duality of the character. Like I said, it’s not necessarily replacing Billy, but it’s adding an element that is going to sort of inform the dynamic of the team today. What I know of him so far…Carol (Mendelsohn) and Naren (Shankar) are still working on him…is that he is an outsider coming into the CSI unit. When Gil Grissom leaves, he’s the head of the unit, (but) this character doesn’t come in at the beginning as the head of the unit. He comes in a little bit as an outsider, someone who is ultimately going to work his way up within the team and ultimately become the head of the unit. But he has an interesting genetic profile that, in certain sort of medical contexts, they’ve noticed that many times serial killers have that same genetic profile. And this gentleman knows this about himself and is sort of in this journey and to discover who his true character will ultimately become.” The gentleman in question, however, has not yet been cast, and if there’s anyone under discussion, his name did not leak out during the course of the panel. * Disappointingly, “Harper’s Island,” the new thriller series starring Bill Pullman, is not scheduled to debut ’til mid-season. (Okay, granted, it’s probably not any better than your average slasher flick, since that’s clearly what it resembles, but I was still entertained by the teaser reel they sent us.) * There is no controversy over the omission of Jay Mohr’s new sitcom, “Gary Unmarried,” from the panels. “Jay is re-taking his vows with his wife and her entire family on the other side of the world someplace,” Tassler explained. “He planned this about a year ago, and he flew over his in-laws and his whole family, so that’s why he’s not here right now.” * Sophina Brown has joined the cast of “Numb3rs,” and Rocky Carroll has become a regular on “NCIS.” * Despite doing relatively well on CBS this summer, there are no plans to continue re-running “Dexter” on CBS. * There are six more episodes of “Password” being filmed, but there is no concrete time-frame as to when they will air. There is no word on the return of “Power of 10,” though CBS apparently reserves the right to bring it back. (At the very least, Tassler never said it was canceled.) * There will also be more Hallmark movies aired on the network, though no specifics were offered. * Despite rumors to contrary, there is no plan for an overhaul of “The Price Is Right.” “We are very respectful of the brand and the integrity of that show,” Tassler assured us, “and probably about a year, two years before Bob finally stepped down, there was a multiyear strategy to perhaps put a fresh coat of paint on some of the games that hadn’t been touched in years. As you’ve seen, the sets have been refurbished, but certainly respectful of what those doors looked like, what the lights looked like, but this is all basically it was a plan that was put in place years before Bob left just to sort of make some minor adjustments to the show.” * Tassler revealed that Sarah Chalke will be doing multiple episodes of “How I Met Your Mother” this year (hey, maybe Bill Lawrence was right!) and that Jason Alexander and Luke Perry would be turning up on “Criminal Minds.” * As to the problems with “Two and a Half Men” becoming “Three Men,” Tassler says, “You’re going to see Angus is going to be going through typical teen things. I mean, he’s 14. So it opens up a whole new treasure trove of stories. Charlie’s got a whole host of issues that he has to deal with in terms of having a teenager in the house, so it forms a great season of new storytelling for them on the show.” * “Flashpoint” may return. Or it may not. “Like I said, we’re in the ratings game,” said Tassler, “and if they do well, it’s certainly something for us to consider.” And that’s the end. From there, we move into… Filed under: TV and Actors and Actresses and News and TV Comedies and TV Dramas and TV Action and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and TV Sci-Fi and Fall TV Preview and Pilots and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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Because for the second year running, he bought us pizza for our TCA meeting.
Filed under: TV and Actors and News and TV Comedies and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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Even though each of these panels was its own entity, it just seemed best to combine them all into one posting, since I think most people really just want the bullet points about what we can expect from the new season. If I’m wrong, don’t be afraid to tell me so, but in the meantime, here’s what was doled out… Desperate Housewives
* The big news, as noted in the previous entry, is the five-year jump between last season and this season…or the “One Tree Hill”-ing of the series, if you will. (Look, I’m telling you, this description is so fetch. It’s totally gonna take off.) * Gale Harold is playing Susan’s new love interest. “He’s kind of an interesting artsy guy who’s very much very different from the previous man in her life,” says executive producer Marc Cherry, “and he will present her with all sorts of new challenges, especially the fact that she kind of doesn’t really even want to be in a relationship. She’s not sure. So that’s kind of some of the colors we’ll be examining there.” * There are no immediate plotlines planned which surround Andrew’s gayness, but “but some part of Andrew’s personal life will come up and probably cause problems for Bree soon enough,”says Cherry.
* Eva Longoria’s character, Gabrielle, is looking decidedly haggard after the five-year jump, but, then, that’s what happens when you pop out a pair of chubby little darlings in a short amount of time. (Yes, you read that correctly.) * When asked where Edie’s character would be going this season, Nicolette Sheridan instantly deferred to Cherry, who would only say that “Edie will come back to Wisteria Lane in a very surprising way, and we’re not telling you anything more than that.” * Neil McDonough is going to be moving onto Wisteria Lane. “He will be bringing the mystery with him,” says Cherry, “and all I’m going to tell you is he has revenge on his mind.” * Even though he and Susan are no longer together, you will see Mike Delfino in the show. “It will be revealed what happened to Mike and Susan,” said Cherry, “and that’s all I’m going to tell you.” (Do you sense a recurring theme here?) * The time jump has resulted in some of the actors and actresses playing the kids on the show to fall out of the show by necessity, but at least in the case of Andrea Bowen, who played Julie Mayer, Cherry says, “We’re going to bring her back and try to come up with stories to bring her back,” with fellow producer Bob Daily adding, “I think we’re hoping to see some of those kids in flashbacks.” * In further discussion of the five-year jump and how much in the way of flashbacks we’d be seeing, Cherry reiterated that they were very much committed to staying in this new time period, with Daily clarifying, “I think the fun for us and the audience is revealing in dribs and drabs what you missed in those five-year periods. Sometimes that will involve flashbacks and sometimes it won’t. I think we’re trying to parcel that out over the first half of the season and then leave some mysteries open.” Filed under: TV and Actors and Actresses and News and TV Dramas and Desperate Housewives and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and Fall TV Preview and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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Confirmed: Shannen Doherty is returning to “90210.” So sayeth producer Gabe Sachs.
At first, we thought he had hired her as a director of an episode, but, in fact, there will be an episode where West Beverly High puts on a musical, and Brenda Walsh will be the director of that musical. Per the official press release handed out by The CW after the “90210″ panel, Brenda’s departure for London resulted in her ultimately becoming a successful theater actress, splitting her time between London and New York. She soon transitioned into directing for theater and had equal success in that career, which is why West Beverly High has approached her to return to her alma mater as a guest director for the school’s musical production. And like you haven’t already heard, but Jennie Garth will be returning as Kelly Taylor (now a West Beverly High guidance counselor) and Tori Spelling will be back as Donna Martin, who now owns an upscale boutique. More importantly, though, Joe E. Tata will be back as Nat…and, yes, he’s still the owner of The Peach Pit. Well, he’s the owner of *a* Peach Pit, anyway. It’s not quite the same place you remember, apparently…but more details on that when I write up the “90210″ panel in its entirety. Filed under: TV and Actresses and News and TV Dramas and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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This was a nice idea: get the show runners for ABC’s returning dramas on one panel, and let the critics pummel all of them with questions at one time. It kinda worked…but it also kinda didn’t, with the biggest issue being that the panel ended up being dominated by the producers who also had panels for their own shows. Obviously, I would’ve liked to hear a lot more from Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (”Lost”), but I guess it really wouldn’t have mattered a whole lot even if they hadn’t had Marc “Chatterbox” Cherry, producer of “Desperate Housewives,” off to their left, since those guys aren’t exactly known for their loose lips. Here’s some of the info we managed to gleam from the various show runners… Lost: * We were given no answers as to when the Oceanic Six will return to the island, nor when the two timelines of the show might merge. “Season 5, obviously we’re not going to talk too in depth about,” admitted Lindelof, “but suffice to say, it’s very exciting for us to be 86 hours into the show. We’re going into Season 5, and the fact that people are still asking us, ‘What is the show going to be next year? How are you guys going to tell stories?’ It’s enormously cool. All we can say is it will take place in some time.” (This was the most illuminating thing offered by Lindelof during the entire panel, just so you know.) * When someone pressed the issue and asked if the Oceanic Six and those remaining on the island would spend any quality time on screen…perhaps a visitation, perhaps a dream sequence, Cuse responded, “Obviously, the turn that’s happening with the characters off the island is that the island does seem to be drawing them back, and Ben makes it kind of clear at the very end of the finale that it’s important that they go back to the island. So that, hopefully, is going to be something that you see a lot of in Season 5, and that’s something we are excited about: the journey about how those six kind of return to the island…or contemplate returning to the island.” * Lastly, Cuse provided the only actual fact about the upcoming season: “There will be more of Daniel Dae Kim in the series in some form.” Grey’s Anatomy: * Shonda Rhimes was - shocker! - tight-lipped about the reported major plotline for Izzie (Katherine Heigl’s character), saying only, “Storywise, we have a really great story worked out that we’re all very excited about.” The end. Ugh. * She did, however, open up a bit about the lesbian storyline that was introduced last season. “We have a really interesting, wonderful, funny way of laying out the story of Callie and Erica that I’m pretty excited about,” she said, “that I feel like is not necessarily your typical — if there can be a typical — way of dealing with the storyline. What I love is we sort of sat down with GLAAD and talked about women who figure out that they’re lesbians later in life and what that means, and we really were able to find some really great, humorous, and serious emotional stuff to play that’s going to feel really interesting and also affect their lives in the hospital.” Private Practice: * Rhimes really only offered one thing for her other show: “Our medical cases this season are really laid out in terms of having real medical and ethical dilemmas and the problems that doctors sort of face every day: what do you tell a patient? What don’t you tell a patient? I don’t think that we’re talking about less soap per se, in that word, but I think that we are talking about sort of making the medical cases stronger so that the soap is supported.” Desperate Housewives: God love Marc Cherry. If you looked up “hoot” in your Funk and Wagnalls, there’d be a picture of him. But he spent more time talking about how there should be less sports metaphors in conversation and more Broadway musical metaphors, and that ate up a sizable amount of time during the panel. Funny stuff, but not illuminating from a show standpoint. But we still managed to glean a few items of interest… * As already leaked by Marcia Cross, the show has jumped ahead in time by five years, thereby inspiring accusations that the series is pulling a “One Tree Hill.” (Actually, no-one even remotely said this, but I’m trying to popularize it, so don’t be afraid to say it to someone yourself.) Of the primary cast members, Eva Longoria has apparently suffered the worst as far as how her character looks. * Carlos will still be blind…for a little while, anyway. Ugly Betty: * Silvio Horta was asked if he’d always intended to get rid of Henry or his departure was to do with Chris Gorham, the actor who played the character. “You know, it was neither,” said Horta. “Part of it was going into the strike and having that time to really think where this was going. I think we kept rushing it and thinking we were going to continue the relationship. We had no end point in sight. And thinking about it and where we could go, I just didn’t see where there was a place that was exciting that I wanted to write about and where I thought the audience wanted to watch it. So it just made the most sense to part ways. Chris is great - this is the second show I did with him - and hopefully he’ll be a part of this at some point. It doesn’t mean that the door is closed to him being a part of this at any point. But it just felt like it was time to move on.” It is perhaps telling…or, okay, perhaps not…that, when asked if Henry would be back at all in the new season, Silvio replied, “I can’t tell you.” Brothers & Sisters: * Greg Berlanti only got one question about this show, too, and that was when someone asked if he was repeating himself by having a missing sibling in the last season. “Hopefully, as it plays out, people won’t feel that way,” he said, “and we certainly aren’t designing the story in the same way. I mean, I definitely, toward the end of the year…I think it was a byproduct a little bit of the strike in terms of we had wanted to lay out the story a little bit better initially, and we wanted to dismount from the story a little bit better. And everything was sort of abbreviated. So I don’t think we quite pulled it off entirely. But I’m looking forward to this year. I think people will enjoy the way it plays out.” Dirty Sexy Money: Not a word. Maybe Berlanti was saving his strength for later in the afternoon, when the show got its own panel. Filed under: TV and Actors and Actresses and News and TV Dramas and TV Action and Desperate Housewives and Lost and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and TV Sci-Fi and Fall TV Preview and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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My Disney Channel coverage is going to consist solely of me saying that there’s a new Cheetah Girls movie on the horizon where the gals take on India (”The Cheetah Girls: One World”) and that, while they might be hot, the Girls were way too damned perky for a 9:00 AM panel, constantly giggling and talking over each other. (Pity the poor transcriptionist.) Despite some insidiously catchy songs and Bollywood-styled production numbers, there’s no chance in hell that I’m going to be watching this…well, that is, unless my daughter wants to watch it. But she’ll only be three when it airs, so I’m hoping she’s not quite of “Cheetah Girls” age yet. If your kids are in that demographic, though, God speed to you. Okay, how about a little ABC Family Channel love? This network keeps impressing me with its programming, even if they aren’t necessarily aimed at people my age. They first caught my attention with “Kyle XY” (which returns in January), kept it and held me rapt with “Greek” (returning on August 26th, woo-hoo!), and now that they’ve added “The Middleman,” they’ve secured a position where I’m instantly curious about pretty much anything they put on the air. Of course, by casting Molly Ringwald as the mother of a pregnant teen in “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” (which just got picked up for 13 more episodes, by the way), they’ve made an entire generation feel really, really old, but at the same time, that generation suddenly has ABC Family Channel on their radar, and I sense that will pay off handsomely for them in the future.
Coming in September is a six-hour miniseries event from the producers of “Alias” and “Gossip Girl” that should really grab those of us who appreciate a chick who knows how to kick ass: “Samurai Girl,” starring Jamie Chung, Stacy Keibler, Brendan Fehr, and Kenneth Choi. Though “Samurai Girl” is based on a popular series of books by Carrie Asai and Annabelle Verhoye, producer Andre Nemec says we shouldn’t be looking for a precise translation from print to screen. “We really took the spirit and the archetypal nature of characters from the books,” said Nemec, “but because we didn’t really want to tell a story that had already been told, we spun a little bit of a different web. You can read the books, and they’re exciting and they’re wonderful and, obviously, the base for all of this, but the show goes off into a different direction in terms of the overall arc of the story, so it’s exciting and new.” Hmmm. That sounds a little dodgy, but having checked out some of the miniseries, I do have to admit that it looked great and flowed nicely between drama, action, and even comedy…but, most importantly, Jamie Chung kicks some serious ass…and looks good doing it. Filed under: TV and Actors and Actresses and News and TV Comedies and TV Dramas and TV Action and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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Man, I love “Scrubs.” I’m not gonna tell you that I love every episode equally, because I think even the show’s most diehard fans would concede that it hasn’t entirely been firing on all cylinders for the last year or two, but even the episodes that weren’t consistently great invariably still had moments that made me laugh out loud. So when Bill Lawrence says he’s excited about the prospect of this new season and that he’s feeling creatively reinvigorated, I couldn’t be happier.
“I’m really proud of the show this year,” he assured us. “If you go online, there’s a lot of nerds and blogs…I say “nerds” affectionately…that love to say this season was the best or that season was the best. But I’m going to put some of the shows that we’ve done this year out to people that are interested early before we premiere because I’m really proud of them, and I think they’re as good as anything we’ve done.” Let’s start off with a few revelations that Lawrence laid out during the course of the panel: * Ken Jenkins will remain a regular on the show. “Dr. Kelso won free muffins for life on the show,” Lawrence reminded us, “which gives him an excuse to hang around the hospital and be somewhat of a different character.” * Courteney Cox will be appearing for a three-episode arc as Dr. Kelso’s replacement as Chief of Medicine, and “we would have her back in a heartbeat,” said Lawrence. “I wrote on the first year of ‘Friends,’ so I know her a little bit, and her greatest attribute, besides the fact that she is hilarious and just a great actress, is that she is what we call a gamer. She is up for anything, and I don’t think you get that all the time with high-profile actresses.” * Don’t hold your breath waiting for another musical episode. “I think we were not the first people to do a musical, nor do I think we are definitely the best people to do a musical, even though I liked ours,” said Lawrence. “I think for us to do another one would be slightly insane, but, as always on this show, there’s a huge musical presence and already there’s a fantastic song that we wrote called ‘Steak Night.’ But probably not another musical.” Filed under: TV and Actors and Actresses and News and TV Comedies and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and Fall TV Preview and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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Just a quickie for all you “Moonlight” lovers out there, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler had this to say about the cancellation of the show: “Well, everybody knows I love vampires…werewolves, warlocks, I love ‘em all…but the response to ‘Moonlight’ was actually more actor-centric, so I think it certainly measures our decision on the show. Right now, I don’t question the decision we made.” Okay, what did I tell you people? If you’d just toned down the “Alex O’Loughlin is a hunka hunka burning vampire” stuff, maybe this show could’ve been saved… (For the record, though, she did say that she’d be glad to have him back on CBS again…in another series.) Filed under: TV and News and TV Dramas and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and TV Sci-Fi and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: 15 Comments Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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Life on Mars: As you may (or may not) have read in my previous posting, there have been a lot of rumblings on the ‘net about how this show has had to deal with the dreaded “R” word. That’s right: retooling. It’s one of the dirtiest words in the TV business, since it implies that something’s gone so horribly wrong with the show…or, more likely, it never gelled in the first place…but whether or not this is truly the case with “Life in Mars” depends on how much you trust the ‘net.
The original series told the story of Sam Tyler of the Greater Manchester Police, who, after being hit by a car in 2006, found himself in the year 1973, where he split his time between being a cop and trying to figure out what the hell happened to him. But what’s going to happen when this thing gets Americanized? According to producer Josh Applebaum, the differences aren’t quite as dramatic as you might want to believe, but there was a version by David Kelley at some point. “I think the main difference,” said Applebaum,” is that we’re moving the show to New York, which, for us, is a huge part of it. We’re New Yorkers. We think the show kind of will live beautifully being set in New York. When we think of the early ‘70 cop genre, it speaks so much to New York as a whole, and that’s primarily the difference. David’s version was set in Los Angeles. We’re moving it to New York and just trying to recapture the spirit of the British version. “We actually spoke to the creators from the BBC, and we sort of asked their permission to change the mythology of what’s going on with Sam Tyler, because in their version, ultimately, he was in a coma. And for us, to be doing hopefully a long-running series where you know that the whole thing is a dream or that he’s in this coma state, it felt unsatisfying. So with their permission, we are changing the mythology. And each week, we’ll be kind of deepening that mystery as to what’s going on with him. They have the three options that they sort of posed. Has he traveled through time, has he lost his mind, or is he in a coma? ” Time will tell which of the three it is. We certainly don’t have a clue; the original pilot was scrapped, of course, but no new pilot was available for our perusal. As stands right now, I guess we should just be glad that the clips we saw did indeed feature the Bowie song which gave the show its title. (American tastes in the ’70s were just nowhere close to as cool as the UK’s tastes.)
We’re psyched that Michael Imperioli decided to sign onto the show, given that his only truly notable post-”Sopranos” appearance has been a short, underrated stint on “Law & Order”….and even that was only a temporary gig. “Well, I definitely was picky,” admitted Imperioli. “I mean, something like ‘The Sopranos’ that fulfills your creative drive for such a long period of time and challenges you is a hard act to follow. If I’m going to commit to something that hopefully is going to be on for a long time, you want something juicy and you want something different. That’s really what I was looking for. I got the script, and I was not familiar at all with the British show. To be honest, I’d never heard of it! But I thought it was very well written and a really cool idea, and the idea of doing New York detectives in 1973 really, really appealed to me a lot, just of the flavor of it and the period. Culturally, what the city was like then…the ’70s is a period of time that I have an affinity for - the music and just politically what was going on - so I was really into it. And the character…I thought there was a lot of truth to the character, and I thought he’s different enough from what I had done in the past…although it seems to be most of the stuff I’ve been doing is either a cop or a robber! But if that pays the bills, that’s okay. The other thing was that it shot in New York, which was something that I was hoping to do; if I was going to do another series, it would be in New York. So it kind of satisfied all those things at once.” Not much else to tell you, really, except that all the Anglophiles in the viewing audience will be ready to rip this thing to shreds, so they’d better come roaring out of the gate or be ready to face the consequences. No pressure. Opportunity Knocks: While you have to pat the guy on the back for carving himself a niche as a television producer when just about everybody expected him to fall flat after “That ’70s Show,” I’ve never been a huge fan of Ashton Kutcher’s reality series. “Punk’d,” like all hidden-camera prank shows, had its moments, and as a self-professed geek, it would be a lie if I didn’t find myself rooting for the the guys in “Beauty & The Geek” once in awhile, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually seen an entire episode of either series. As such, there was really only one reason I stuck around for the panel for Kutcher’s new traveling game show, “Opportunity Knocks,” and that’s that…well, I just wanted to see Ashton Kutcher. (He’s a pretty big deal, you know.)
As it happens, the panel ended up being a lot of fun. The premise of the show is that the producers of the show go to the contestants’ houses, talk to their friends, family, employers, and even their friendly neighborhood postal carrier, and then they ask personal questions that, in theory, they should know the answers to. Or sometimes they’ll flip it around and play it “Newlywed Game” style, where they asked the contestant a question about themselves, and people close to them have to get it right before they reveal the answer. The show’s host, J.D. Roth, decided that the best way to get the critics involved in the series was…well, to get them involved in the series! They called TV Guide’s Matt Roush up to the stage, and when he arrived, they revealed that, while he’d been out at the TCA Tour, they’d been in his office at TV Guide…and they had the footage to prove it. They then quizzed him about what was written on a cue card that he had saved from his work on “America’s Next Producer.” He was unable to do so…so they brought up Brill Bundy from Zap2it.com, along with both her husband and co-worker, to see which of them knew her best. Which one did? Well, let’s just say that her co-worker won’t be sleeping on the couch for the next week or so… Sounds like a cute enough show, and the questions don’t appear to be malicious. It wouldn’t surprise me if this turned into a sleeper hit come the fall. Filed under: TV and Actors and Actresses and News and TV Comedies and TV Dramas and TV Action and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and TV Sci-Fi and Reality TV and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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I’d just like to pat myself on the back for a moment, if I may, and say that this is the first time since the first day of the tour that I’ve actually caught up to the point where I’m writing about a network’s presentations while that network is still doing their presentations. I don’t know how many people are reading my stuff with any regularity, but given how hard I’ve been trying to knock this panel coverage out in a timely manner, those of you who are keeping up will know how much ass I’ve kicked to get this close to being completely caught up. Okay, enough self-congratulation. On with the ABC coverage! And…what’s this? Why, it’s another executive session! Welcome, if you would, the President of ABC Entertainment, Mr. Steve McPherson. I posted about the first question of the panel the other day, but it was so funny that it bears repeating, so here’s the exchange as it went down:
Jimmy Kimmel: Hi, my name’s Tom Weinerman from the Sarasota Star-Herald Tribune. There are rumors that ABC is actively courting Jay Leno for 11:30. Is there any truth to those rumors? And if so, I have a follow-up, then. Genius. After Kimmel headed off to do untold damage to McPherson’s car, his boss assured us, “I can’t say enough about Jimmy. His show has just exploded this year. He’s done an amazing job. You know, I think everybody knows all the YouTube stuff, and the videos have been just an explosion. The live commercials he’s doing are groundbreaking. The show creatively is firing at all cylinders, and we’re hugely supportive of it. The Leno situation…to me it’s a question for NBC. I can’t believe that they’re going to let this guy go at the top of his game, and if that happens, I guess we’ll look at it at the time, and Jimmy will be involved in those discussions. And that will be that.” So there you go. As to other notable revelations from McPherson, they were as follows: * Will this be the last season of “Scrubs”? More details on that later from the horse’s mouth, but as far as McPherson’s concerned, “After talking to Zach, talking to Bill, and whether and/or all of the cast is a part of that, I still think there’s a great amount of growth there. It’s a show that, despite being moved around into like 17 time periods and really never being given the marketing support, has really performed unbelievably well on NBC. So we’re excited to have it as part of our comedy assets, and we do think that it will not hopefully be a one-season situation. But we’ll just take that step by step.” * The unique tone of “Pushing Daisies” will remain unchanged. (I guess there was some concern about that…? I couldn’t imagine they’d change a thing about it, given how it so defiantly stands apart from anything else on the television, but at least we have confirmation now.)
* “Private Practice,” meanwhile, will be tweaked to a certain extent…not the cast (thankfully, since it’s one of the best ensembles out there), but the direction. “If you watched the show last year, maybe the best episode was about the baby that was switched, and the kind of moral and ethical dilemmas that go on with that and real medical drama. We’re going to get Kate (Walsh’s) character back to actually doing surgery as part of that, which I think will be a big proponent for getting some more energy back, getting some medical drama. There’s going to be more interaction with the hospital, because I think she does an unbelievable job of character, but it works best when it’s laid over kind of a palette of these really great medical stories.” (Again, we’ll have more details when we cover the actual “Private Practice” panel.) * As far as his position on Katherine Heigl’s war of words with the “Grey’s Anatomy” writers, “I think it’s unfortunate when there’s any kind of turmoil on a show. There’s so many people who work so unbelievably hard to make that show the #1 show in the country. I think it’s a beautifully written, beautifully acted, beautifully produced show. Everyone from the grips to the writers to the EPs, I think, deserves an enormous amount of credit, and I never like to see when any of them are in any way taken lightly, so I think that was really unfortunate. She’s absolutely staying with the show. There’s an unbelievable storyline for her this year, which is really central to everything that’s going to go on this season. We’re really excited about that. Shonda (Rhimes) is really excited about that and is the one who actually crafted that. I think you’ll hear more about that from her as the season goes on…and maybe at the Show Runner Panel.” (That’s a big 10-4, by the way.) * According to McPherson, everything is just ducky with “Life on Mars.” “I don’t know where the rumors come from,” he said, perhaps rather naively. (Clearly, they come from the internet!) “I think people are kind of searching for something. There’s no conspiracy. It’s in great shape. We are keeping some of the cast. We’re in the process of recasting certain elements. Michael Imperioli is joining the cast. We’re pursuing a big element right now that we’re hoping will close. We’re shooting in New York, which we’re really excited about. So we continue to be extremely excited about that show. I don’t look at it as a troubled show at all. We’re really enthusiastic. We had a piece of casting that we booked two nights ago. It is a work in progress, certainly. But I would certainly not root against it at this point. It’s really one of my passion projects. It’s something we’ve been trying to bring to life for a few years.” * The rumors are true: Katie Holmes will indeed be guest-starring on “Eli Stone.” “I was at the table read. She was fabulous,” says McPherson. “It’s a great role for her. There’s actually some singing and dancing that she does, and she’s exquisite. It’s a really special piece of business. And obviously, for a show that we really creatively believed in and had a tough launch because of the strike, it helps us from a promotional standpoint. But first and foremost, Greg (Berlanti) came to me with the idea because he really had a creative way to do it, and him and Katie wanted to get back together and do something, so we were really fortunate that she agreed to do it, and we’re excited.” * The greatest lost ABC project of recent years: “A Will Ferrell Christmas.” “We had signed a deal to do a Christmas special variety show with Will Ferrell a couple years ago,” said McPherson, “until he realized how much money he made in features and decided to go do that instead.” * “Boston Legal” is ending because David Kelley has 13 episodes left him. Yes, it’s apparently really just that simple. “He really wanted to end it,” said McPherson. “He really wanted to do some things with our two core characters. It was really his decision, and I really like being able to know when shows are going out. Let’s let these creators who have created unbelievably compelling characters and iconic pieces of television end it with dignity and integrity and, to me, compelling content. And we can market it as such. For us, it’s an advantage. We really appreciate David signing up and getting excited about these final 13. We’re talking about how to really sell them as this kind of final crescendo for what, for us, has been a terrific series.” And those are pretty much the highlight’s from Mr. McPherson’s neighborhood. From there, we move on to… Filed under: TV and Actors and Actresses and News and TV Dramas and TV Action and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and TV Sci-Fi and Reality TV and Fall TV Preview and Pilots and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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First stop: the FX executive session, where we enjoyed a fireside chat by FX President and General Manager John Landgraf and learned a few things about what we can expect to see on the network in the future.
* “Nip/Tuck” has finished production on the final eight episodes of a 22-episode Season 5. The season will begin airing in January 2009. The network is also ordering an additional 19 episodes of “Nip/Tuck,” and which will be the final episodes of “Nip/Tuck.” The series will end its run on FX in early 2011, going out on the magic 100-episode mark. * “Rescue Me” is currently in production on a 22-episode season, and will return in Spring 2009. Michael J. Fox will do a four-episode arc on the show, beginning in the Season 5 premiere. He will play Janet’s new boyfriend, who is confined to a wheelchair. * Marcia Gay Harden will be joining Timothy Olyphant and William Hurt as series regulars for the second season of “Damages,” and - bonus! - Ted Danson will be back as Arthur Frobisher. (More on that when we get to the “Damages” panel.) * Jay Karnes, a.k.a. Detective Wagenbach on “The Shield,” will be joining FX’s new series, “Sons of Anarchy,” for six episodes (and maybe more, depending on how things pan out), and Drea de Matteo will also pop up for three episodes. * The network intends to produce 39 more episodes of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” in addition to the 13 that are * They’ll also be ordering 13 episodes of a new original comedy series created by Kenny Hotz, the former “South Park” writer who went on to create the excruciating Comedy Central series, “Kenny vs. Spenny.” Currently titled “Testees,” the series is a scripted comedy which focuses on two friends in their early 30s who earn their living as medical guinea pigs. It will premiere on Thursday, October 9th, at 10:30 p.m. following a new original episode of “Sunny.” I will possibly not be watching when it does. * “The Riches” may not be back for a third season. Said Landgraf, “We haven’t made a decision yet. We are really struggling with the decision. On the one hand, you know, it’s a show I have spilled blood, sweat, and tears on with (creator) Dmitry Lipkin and with the cast. I love the show. Tremendously proud of it. It was a very challenging tone to take on. I know, because you and I talked about it, that you felt it wobbled and some of you felt it wobbled a little bit in the beginning, but I think we really stuck the landing finally and it grew into something terrific. On the other hand, it fell 44 percent in ratings from Season 1 to Season 2. So that looks to me like the core audience is much smaller, that even though the show continued to grow creatively, there was a significant amount of rejection of the show from Season 1 to Season 2. It’s always a little bit of a question: do you hold onto the past or do you sprint toward the future? And we just haven’t made that decision yet on ‘The Riches.’” So there you have it. And, now, on to… Damages: I’ll gladly admit that I missed out on “Damages” during its initial run on FX (I also missed out on the “Damages” panel at the press tour last year, which might have something to do with why I wasn’t caught up in all the buzz), but once the first season of the series came out on DVD, I was addicted right from the first episode and was on the edge of my seat all the way until the closing credits rolled on the season finale. And, wow, what a finale, huh? Talk about a perfect set-up for Season 2! It’s been a long wait, but the show’s coming back - tentatively, anyway - in January 2009, and co-creator Daniel Zelman began the “Damages” panel by setting the stage for what we’ll be seeing. Filed under: TV and Actors and Actresses and News and TV Dramas and TV Action and The Shield and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and Fall TV Preview and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
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Okay, maybe this needed its own posting and maybe it didn’t, but to my way of thinking, any panel that includes Matt Groening and Al Jean (producers of “The Simpsons”), Mike Judge and John Altschuler (producers of “King of the Hill”), Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman (producers of “American Dad”), Mike Henry and Richard Appel (producers of “The Cleveland Show”), and Seth MacFarlane (producer of “Family Guy,” “American Dad,” and “The Cleveland Show”) is automatically gonna be funny enough to get it’s own posting. I was proven right when MacFarlane came onto the stage and, knowing that the previous panel had been for Fox News, asked, “Is this where Karl Rove sat? ‘Cause I don’t want to get AIDS…” (When the room erupted in boos, MacFarlane grinned and replied, “Use that as the bar.” Here are some of the panel highlights:
* The “Empire Strikes Back” episode of “Family Guy” just had its animatic screening, according to MacFarlane, and will be shipped off to be animated in a few weeks or so. No air date has been set yet, however, and there’s apparently some question about whether it might be released on DVD prior to being aired on Fox. (MacFarlane would also like to do a “Family Guy” version of “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” but he’s pretty sure Paramount won’t let them do it.) * Don’t look for any crossovers between “The Cleveland Show” and “Family Guy” anytime soon. “Cleveland’s moving out of town, and there’s a whole new fresh crop of characters,” said Henry, “and we’re not going to have Peter come visit anytime soon. Cleveland’s not going to go back anytime soon. We’re really looking to establish ourselves.” * This year’s “Treehouse of Horror” will include a “Peanuts” parody called “It’s the Grand Pumpkin, Millhouse,” where a pumpkin comes to life and is so upset at what humans do to pumpkins that he tries to kill and eat everybody. * Seth Rogen is writing an episode of “The Simpsons,” where Comic Book Guy creates a superhero that gets turned into a feature film, with Homer playing the lead. Seth Rogen plays a personal trainer who helps slim Homer down and get him into great shape, but when the movie ends, he can’t afford this trainer, so his life goes back to hell. * There was silence when I first asked the panel if they had any guest stars in the upcoming season they could discuss, but Jean finally responded, “We had Mark Cuban and Jeff Bezos playing themselves with what’s probably the richest supporting cast in the history of animation.” (”Other than the ‘Simpsons’ cast,” quipped Groening.) Inspired by Jean’s forthrightness, MacFarlane then admitted that we could expect a “Family Guy” episode where Stewie and Brian go to Russia with Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. * Despite years of gossip to the contrary, Matt Groening and Seth MacFarlane do not dislike each other. “Matt and I get along very well,” MacFarlane assured us. “People want us to hate each other. We get along extremely well. He’s a wonderful guy.” * When one writer mentioned that “Family Guy” was on the list of the Emmy Awards’ 10 finalists for Best Comedy and asked what Stewie would wear to the Emmys, Seth MacFarlane turned to the crowd and laughed, “Jack McGee over there, with his hard-hitting questions!” (After the laughter died down, he thanked us for getting the reference.)
* Matt Groening has an issue with 3-D eyeballs. “Know what really bothers me about animation?” he asked us. “This shows that I’m from the wrong generation. Every one of those CGI animated movies that has a cute animal in it, for me they look like toys. They look like figurines that you would see in the toy store. But that’s okay, I can get by that. It’s that they have human eyeballs with little human irises, and so whenever I’m watching any of those movies, I get freaked out because I go, ‘They put human eyeballs in those characters,’ and that really bugs me. So I like the fact that I get to work with animators who is are able to draw almost perfect circles, little ovals with dots. That’s an eyeball.” * Although a George Bush presidency has been great for “American Dad,” Mike Barker is willing to put the country ahead of the show and root for the Democrats. “It’s going to be really interesting,” he admitted. “Stan has been on the winning side for so long. To see him deal with what is hopefully going to be the other side, it’s going to be an opportunity. It’s actually really cool for the show because it gives us a chance to see him kind of vulnerable and kind of more frustrated. So we’re looking forward to it for more reasons than one.” * When someone asked the panel what they might say to the person who might say, “I can’t watch this, it’s just a cartoon,” MacFarlane suggested, “Give ‘Scrubs’ a chance?” (After the “Scrubs” panel, Lawrence was informed of this jab and replied with a smirk, “Wow, MacFarlane’s doing another cartoon, huh? Gosh, but he does so much other stuff!” He then clarified that he and MacFarlane have a relationship, and that “it’s okay to fuck with each other.”) * When the panel was asked if they were concerned that they might accidentally steal stuff from each other, Appel assured them that he consciously steals stuff from them, while Mike Henry said, “I don’t know if people know, but the scripts for ‘The Cleveland Show’ are just going to be ‘Good Times’ episodes.” * As long as Fox wants “The Simpsons,” Groening and Jean are ready to keep doing the show. “We’re having a really good time,”confirmed Groening. “The task that we face at ‘The Simpsons’ is trying not to repeat ourselves, trying to come up with new ideas that we haven’t done ourselves already. And under the guidance of Al, the animators and writers are coming up with ideas that I don’t think we’ve done before.” “And that we’re really excited about,” added Jean, who also acknowledged that “since we’re not now doing a movie and a ride at the same time as the show, it’s kind of easy.” * Mike Judge has no definite idea when “King of the Hill” will end, but it sounds like he wouldn’t be surprised if it ended tomorrow. “I keep thinking I’ve got one bad season in me, and then we end up having some really good episodes,” he said. “Then I think the next one will be the bad last one. I don’t know. It seems like as long as the episodes are still good, I’ll keep doing it as long as FOX renews it and, you know, it’s still fun.” Filed under: TV and Actors and News and TV Comedies and External Entertainment and External TV and TCA Press Tour and Fall TV Preview and TCA Blog 2008 Comments: None Digg this! Add to Del.icio.us |
