Author: John Paulsen (Page 18 of 79)

NBC moves “Kings” to Saturdays

April 7, 2009 /

It debuted to low ratings, and the viewership just keeps dropping, so NBC has exiled “Kings” to Saturday nights.

Critically acclaimed but little-seen drama, which has disappointed on Sunday nights, is now being exiled to Saturdays.

Peacock plans to air two-hour editions of “Dateline NBC” in the 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. slot beginning this Sunday, April 12. NBC execs believe the newsmag will serve as a better lead-in to “Celebrity Apprentice.”

But rather than scrap “Kings” altogether, NBC will continue to air the show – but in the Saturday at 8 p.m. slot, where expectations are extremely small. Peacock mostly airs drama repeats on the night anyway.

NBC had been waiting to see if “Kings” would hold steady, but the drama posted its lowest rating yet this past Sunday – a 1.1 rating and 3 share among adults 18-49, and 3.6 million viewers.

I haven’t yet watched the latest episode, but the show has been pretty compelling thus far. NBC has to be taking a bath on the series — apparently the production costs are on the high end of the $2 million to $4.5 million range for an hour prime time network television. All 13 episodes of the first (and likely only) order are in the can, so fans of the show will at least get to see how the first season was supposed to end. Anything past that is a long shot.

External Entertainment, External TV, News, TV, TV Dramas

“Breaking Bad” gets greenlight for third season

April 2, 2009 /

Good news for fans of Walter White. AMC has renewed the chemistry-teacher-turns-meth-cook drama for a third season.

Breaking Bad is AMC’s second straight original hit, following the critics’ darling Mad Men. From creator Vince Gilligan, Breaking Bad fuses comedy and drama and tackles the lines between morality and criminality.

While it may be tough to root for a meth cook, the fact that White (Bryan Cranston) has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has a wife, a handicapped child and another baby on the way, it’s understandable that he’d turn to cooking crystal meth to make sure his kids can afford to go to college since he won’t be there to help.

The second season is even better than the first, and that’s quite the feat. I would like the creators to have a plan in place to wrap up the series in a season or two — this is not the kind of story that you want to drag out for seven or eight seasons. For the neophytes, I’d recommend this series to anyone who likes “The Wire” or “The Shield.”

Don’t miss Will Harris’ interview with Aaron Paul (who plays Walter’s partner in crime, Jesse Pinkman).

External Entertainment, External TV, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

“Life On Mars” producers explain what happened

April 1, 2009 /

In an interview with TV.com, Scott Rosenburg and Josh Applebaum talk about tonight’s series finale and why the show didn’t work on a major network.

TV.com: When did you find out that Life on Mars was not going to get picked up, and how did that change the production process for you?

Scott Rosenburg: We were crafting the 17th episode, and we always knew what it was going to be. It was a big culmination episode for us in a lot of ways. We knew the ratings were grim, and we went to ABC and we said, “Look, we know the ratings were grim.” We always knew what our end point was for a season finale and for a series finale, and we basically said, “Listen, we have this thing, and we’d love to be able to shoot two Act Six’s, you know, one for a series finale and one for a season finale.” And they came back to us and they said, “You can do the series finale.” We were like, “Okay, but what about the season finale?” And they were like, “Just do the series finale,” and that was a pretty good indication right there.

But it’s not something that [networks] often do. They usually wait ’til May, but it was a general true affection for the show in the executive’s suites at ABC, and because of that they let us actually wrap it up–because it just would have sucked to be cancelled and to have the 17th episode and all these cliff hangers. And now it exists as a complete thought. It’s got a beginning, middle, and an end.

TV.com: So the finale does have a full resolution. We will see exactly what’s going on with Sam.

Scott Rosenburg: Yes. Yes.

The duo go on to discuss the series finale.

While it will be sad to see the show go, this is soooooooo much better than ending the season with a bunch of cliffhangers and holding out hope that the show gets picked up for another season. I applaud the producers for confronting the network about the show’s future and the network for making a quick decision and allowing the creators to properly bring the season to a close.

External Entertainment, External TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

“Friday Night Lights” gets two-season pickup!

March 31, 2009 /

It’s probably uncouth to use an exclamation point in the title of a blog post, but I don’t really care. DirecTV and NBC came to terms on an agreement that will give “Friday Night Lights” two more 13-episode seasons.

DirecTV will get the first window on the episodes, to run commercial-free as the marquee property on its 101 Network channel, which is rapidly adding new and library product with appeal to TV aficionados from Hollywood’s majors (Daily Variety, March 23). This season, DirecTV ran the 13 episodes comprising “FNL’s” third season in the fall, while NBC’s run began in January.

Although the show has a loyal core aud, “FNL” has had a hard time drawing a broadcast net-sized aud. But the license fee NBC receives from DirecTV makes it financially feasible for the Peacock to continue with the show, which lends an aura of quality to the net’s sked at a time when NBC is struggling to rebuild its roster of scripted series.

It’s understood that DirecTV’s license fee covers just under half of “FNL’s” weekly production budget of a little more than $2 million per hour, which is modest by broadcast net standards.

I’ve been a die-hard “FNL” fan from the beginning and I figured that the show would probably be canceled after this season, but the ratings (while not strong for broadcast television) haven’t sunk below 3.8 million all season. It may not be huge, but the “FNL” fan base is loyal.

I was a little suspicious of this DirecTV/NBC relationship, but now it’s given one of my favorite shows a three-season extension. I also prefer the 13-episode season because, generally speaking, the shorter the season, the tighter the storylines.

No regrets.

External Entertainment, External TV, Friday Night Lights, TV

Battlestar Galactica: What the frak happened in the series finale?

March 21, 2009 /

I thought about posting last night, but I’ve gotten into a rhythm this season with letting the episode marinate in my brain overnight and then posting on Saturday morning. I know a lot of people TiVo shows nowadays (myself included) and end up watching the episode later that night, the next day or the next week, so there isn’t a huge rush to get something up.

Was it a great finale? Absolutely. Was I blown away? Not entirely.

Let’s start at the beginning (which is always a good place to start) — more flashbacks of life on Caprica. Bill is thinking about retiring and entering the private sector, Roslin has a blind date with a former student, Lee gets to know Kara. Great, let’s move on.

Back in the future, Baltar’s vision tells him that he will “take mankind’s remnants and guide them to their end.” Last week, after watching him struggle with the decision in the hanger, I wondered whether or not Gaius would in fact volunteer to go along with the rescue mission. The truth is that it should have been obvious that he would. Creator Ronald D. Moore wasn’t about to take one of the main players out of the game in crunch time.

After an emotional scene between Roslin and Doc Coddle, Laura had a great line:

“Don’t spoil your image. Just light a cigarette and go and grumble.”

Then the planning began for the assault on the colony — that’s when the episode really got going. The final four move Sam to the CIC (more on this later) and Galactica prepares to jump.

Like just about every battle scene in the entire series, this one rocked. Galactica jumps in and immediately starts to get pummeled by the colony’s weapons. After the terrific rescue mission on New Caprica, the show had a lot to live up to, and once the birds were away and Bill ordered his crew to ram the colony, Moore and Co. had cleared the bar. It was very cool to see Lee leading a group of Centurions into the colony. Even when they’re on “our” side, they still scare the ever-loving crap out of me.

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Battlestar Galactica, External Entertainment, External TV, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

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