The beginning of Fox’s two days at the TCA began with a Q&A session with Peter Ligouri, network chairman, and Kevin Reilly, the network’s new entertainment president, having just joined the network from NBC. (Well, technically, it began with a breakfast sponsored by “Hell’s Kitchen.”) The morning was a mixture of revelations from the pair coupled with a plethora of press releases which we found on our chairs when we arrived for the panel, so here’s a blend from the two sources:
* “So You Think You Can Dance” has already been renewed for a fourth season, to air in 2008; same deal with “Hell’s Kitchen.”
* Like its parallel-network counterpart, “The Singing Bee,” Fox’s very own missing-lyrics game show – “Don’t Forget the Lyrics!” – has been renewed for an additional 13 episodes.
* “COPS” will hit its 700th episode on Nov. 10th, during what will be its 20th season. (Man, I’m old. I still remember when it premiered!)
* “24” will have a female president this year, played by Tony Award-winning actress Cherry Jones. “Decisions are consistently made on ’24’ to reinvigorate the franchise,” says Ligouri, but he doesn’t want to give away any storylines to explain how a woman in the White House will change things. Also, the show will be trying to be as environmentally-friendly as possible, to the point where, if all things go as planned, the entire season finale will be, as the kids say, “carbon neutral.”
* Guest voices on “The Simpsons” this year will include Jon Stewart, Jack Black, Lionel Richie, Stephen Colbert, Steve Buscemi, Maya Rudolph, Dan Rather, Placido Domingo, Matt Dillon, Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce (Bob and Cecil Terwilliger, together again!), John Mahoney (as their dad!), Kurt Loder, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Keith Olbermann, Beverly D’Angelo (can it be possible that she’ll return as Lurlene Lumpkin?), and Topher Grace. Also appearing in the Jack Black episode will be…wait for it, comic geeks…Alan Moore, Art Spiegelman, and Dan Clowes.
* What happened to “Drive,” with its final two episodes being postponed twice and finally ending up solely for online viewing? “It will always be a complicated issue with serialized shows,” says Ligouri. “I do hope that, with all the broadband out there, loyalists will still get to see it, but if you’re going to dive into serialized shows, you have to realize that, somehow, you need to bring them some closure. It may not always be on broadcast with lot of marketing, but when shows have a narrow group of loyalists, you try to somehow satisfy them.” Gosh, what an utterly unsatisfying answer! It still doesn’t explain why those last two episodes got bumped altogether.
* MADtv” adds three new members to its ensemble: Johnny Sanchez III, Anjelah N. Johnson, and Dan Oster.
* Ligouri doesn’t think “Back to You” or any sitcom should be referred to as the savior of the traditional multi-camera comedy; Fox put it on the air because it’s funny, not because they were trying to bring back a particular comedic format.
* A controversial scene within the pilot for “The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” which involved a school shooting, was filmed prior to the horrific events at Virginia Tech and will be excised from the show before it airs.
* An episode of “House” will air immediately after the Super Bowl.
* On the accusations of “24” sucking really, really hard last year, Ligouri had about as little of substance to offer on that topic as he did on “Drive.” “Frankly, especially on ’24,’ that happens at the end and beginning of every season,” he claimed. “The show resets its table every year. They pick apart the weaknesses in their show; they don’t say that their show is perfect.” Ligouri doesn’t feel that it will require wholesale changes from the writers and producers to repair last year’s problems. “They’ve put on their game face, they know they have a bar to jump over, but those guys are very competitive and it fuels their creativity.”
* “Prison Break” may or may not have a break during its 22-episode run this season. It seems to be a time-will-tell situation…but, at the moment, the plan is for a break.
