Author: Will Harris (Page 126 of 261)

Will is a member of the Television Critics Association and has written for Decider.com, the Onion A.V. Club, The Dissolve, Indiewire, Rhino.com, TV Week Magazine, The Virginian-Pilot, Popdose.com, and EW.com along with writing for Bullz-Eye.com and Premium Hollywood.

TCA Press Tour, Day 2: AMC

July 10, 2008 /

At the 2007 TCA Press Tour, the critics were all abuzz about this new show on AMC called “Mad Men.” Some of us had seen the screeners of the first episode or two, some of us had not, but there was absolutely no-one in the house whose curiosity wasn’t piqued about this series which would take place in the early 1960s and examine the life and times of ad men…and, of course, the women who love them. Over the course of the year, “Mad Men” became a full-fledged television phenomenon, bringing new attention to AMC as a place to find top-notch original series (a reputation aided in recent months by “Breaking Bad”), and with the recent release of Season 1 of “Mad Men” on DVD, the excitement over the impending premiere the show’s second season is at a fever pitch.

How disappointing, then, that the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner, is so steadfastly against revealing anything about the upcoming season.

Not that I blame the guy. As much as I love a good spoiler, I can totally understand why a show’s producer wouldn’t want to spill his guts about what we can expect to see in the future, because he wants us to be as surprised as everyone else. But with that said, AMC did provide us with the first two episodes of the new season, and he was even hesitant to discuss the events that take place in those.

So, y’know, basically, the big scoop we can reveal about the second season of “Mad Men” is that there is one.

Okay, I’m just kidding. There’s a little bit that we’ve gleaned about it, and the bit that’s probably going to be the most frustrating for those who like to get their answers quickly is that there’s been a bit of a time shift, jumping ahead slightly rather than picking up immediately after the events at the end of Season 1. There’s a specific reason that Weiner has opted to go this direction, however…well, actually, make that two reasons.

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Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External TV, News, TCA Blog 2008, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Dramas

TCA Press Tour, Day 2: WEtv

July 10, 2008 /

I must admit, I have a soft spot in my heart for WEtv. It’s not because I find myself watching it all that much of my own accord, you understand, but my wife is a diligent viewer of “Bridezillas” marathons, and I’ve been known to get caught up in an episode or two while she’s watching that show. And, okay, I had quite a few laughs at “Party Mamas,” too. Oh, hell, if I’m going to talk up the network at all, then I should also praise “High School Confidential,” which was a really fantastic reality series that explored the lives of twelve girls over the course of four years.

Fine. I like WEtv. Happy?

And I’m probably going to end up liking it a bit more now that they’re adding a very interesting new series called “The Locator.”

Troy Dunn is the titular character of this reality series, and he’s a gentleman who has spent the past 18 years finding over 40,000 people and reconnecting lives. Steve Cheskin, head of programming for WeTV, couldn’t say enough good things about it, but probably the greatest compliment he paid was this: “It was the best-testing, highest-testing pilot I ever remember in my 20-some years of being in the business.” Indeed, it’s such a heartwarming premise for a series, with Dunn going on a quest in each episode to find a friend or family member who’s been MIA for years…and, in the case of the latter, they’ve sometimes never even met, such as in the pilot episode, where we see a young woman named Katie go on a quest to find her mother.

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TCA Press Tour, Day 1: Style / G4 / E!

July 9, 2008 /

Okay, I’m not going to lie to you: I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time regaling you with information about Style’s new show, “Ruby,” which focuses on Ruby Gettinger, a woman in Savannah, GA, who’s battling with weight issues…like, to the point where, at her highest, she weighed 700 pounds. I’m not anti-Style by any means, but…okay, look, here’s the thing: I’m a heavyset guy, and I need to lose weight, too, but I’ve never been terribly overly interested in “The Biggest Loser” (I thought I had become a regular viewer this season, but it just didn’t end up keeping my attention), and, ultimately, I’m just not that enthralled with the idea of watching Ruby’s quest to lose weight. I wish her well, sure, and she seems like a really nice lady, but based on what I saw in the clips they provided before the panel and the things that were said during the panel, I’m not very fond of her “you skinny people” and “us fat people” mindset. I don’t get the impression that she means it in a bad way, but, still, it somehow feels like sides are being drawn…and I’m a little concerned about what side I’m on, frankly.

Thankfully, I was far more interested in the proceedings when G4 put the spotlight on their signature series, “Attack of the Show,” hosted by Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn. I’ve really only caught the show a couple of times, but I’ve always been entertained by it, and having gotten more than a few laughs from Kevin and Olivia (as well as their producer, Gavin Purcell) during the course of their panel, I’m thinking I might need to check it out more often in the future. At the very least, I’ll be pursuing an interview with them as soon as I get back.

I was approached by one of my peers after the panel, and since he’d never seen the show before, he asked me if it was really as much about frat-boy humor as it was made to appear by the footage they offered up during the panel. Funny thing is, I’d never gotten the impression that it was that kind of show. I’d always gotten the impression that it was more a show for people who might ordinarily be labeled as nerds or geeks but refuse to let themselves be dragged down by a description like that…so, yeah, they focus on gaming and technology and shows like “Heroes” and “Lost,” but they also get a giggle from a fart joke, too.

Purcell acknowledged that it was a difficult balance to maintain sometimes. “(It) really has to do with the intelligent angle you try to take on things,” he said. “We always try to think of things the smarter way. We’ve got to believe our audience has come up, and a lot of them are not the guys that were on the football team. They’re the guys that were on the chess team or the AV club…and the funny thing is that those guys are the popular people now. So it’s really
important for us to be smart and serve that audience.”

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External Entertainment, External TV, News, Reality TV, TCA Blog 2008, TCA Press Tour, TV

TCA Press Tour, Day 1: BBC America

July 9, 2008 /

When the BBC America panels began, we were pleasantly surprised to be blessed with a heretofore-unmentioned appearance by Ted Koppel, who has joined the BBC World News America team. Granted, Koppel’s appearance was via satellite, and it only lasted for a few minutes (he had to get back to other activities which were, we can reasonably presume, far more important than talking to a bunch of lousy TV critics), but let it be said that the man left an impression one simple exchange…

Reporter: How did all this come about for you? How did you get involved with these guys?
Ted Koppel: Well, I was off in a sleazy back alley, buying pornographic magazines…

And here I thought I couldn’t respect a newsman more than Brian Williams, who was heard to say during last year’s tour how such-and-such “really made my sphincter tighten.” But I think I’ve gotta give the title to Koppel now. (The reporter who asked the question thanked him for that quote, by the way…as well she should have.)

But, really, you have to like a guy like Koppel, anyway, if only because he’s not afraid to speak his mind, an opportunity he was given on a silver platter when he was asked why American viewers were being denied the kind of news coverage being provided by BBC America.

“Well, as you all very well know, that’s the subject of a very long discussion,” he admitted, “but the simple answer is economics. As there have been more and more outlets and the competition has become greater and the audiences have
become smaller and the amount of money that news divisions are making still has to remain high, there’s been a tendency to focus more on that demographic that brings in the largest amount of advertising dollars, and that’s the young demographic…and for reasons I never quite understood, the assumption is that young people don’t care about overseas news. And the other half of the answer is that the bean counters decided that one way to save money for the news divisions was to close down these very expensive foreign bureaus which are not necessarily on the air every day. And so, where in my heyday as a foreign correspondent, ABC, for example, may have had 30 or 35 correspondents, now they’ve got maybe five or six. And that’s the same with NBC and the same at CBS. There are just far fewer correspondents, far fewer bureaus, and that’s the one area in which the BBC remains preeminent.”

Preach it, Ted. Oh, and if you’re wondering, Koppel still considers the Discovery Channel to be his primary employer these days…but given how enthusiastic he sounds about working for BBC America, I’m left wondering how long that will prove to be the case.

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Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External TV, News, TCA Blog 2008, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Action, TV Comedies, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

TCA Press Tour, Day 1: HDNet

July 9, 2008 /

If you’re not familiar with HDNet, it’s time for you to get informed. Mark Cuban, chairman of HDNet (not to mention owner of the Dallas Mavericks), came out and gave the assembled audience a brief summary of the network’s “Sneak Preview” program and Ultra Video On Demand program, which provides a unique opportunity for indie films to be seen both theatrically and on cable simultaneously.

“We’re particularly proud of this not only because of the great movies that we’re showing and the opportunity to really take on independent film and create a home for them when the market for independent film is so bad,” said Cuban, “but more importantly because it’s unique. We also own Magnolia Pictures Distribution and Landmark Theatres, (which) puts us in a very unique position. We’re the only organization that can do this, and the reason is that the big movie chains, AMC and Regal, will not play a movie once it’s appeared on TV or once it’s appeared on a cable channel of any sort. So despite the fact that people want to be able to see movies where they want them, when they want them, how they want them, the big chains aren’t going along with it, but Landmark Theatres and Magnolia and HDNet Movies are.”

HDNET’s big-ticket flick at the moment is “Humboldt County,” co-directed by Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs and starring Fairuza Balk, Brad Dourif, Madison Davenport, Francis Conroy, and – perhaps most awesomely – Peter Bogdanovich as Professor Hadley. IMDb’s description of the film reads thusly: “A disillusioned medical student is stranded for a summer in a remote community of counterculture pot farmers, the last place in the world he imagined he would discover himself.”

Said Grodsky, “Danny and I have long been influenced by our favorite era of filmmaking, which is Hollywood filmmaking from the ’70s, so for us to be able to work with Peter, whose films we have long admired was, A) sort of a dream come true, and B), a great link for us to have to the era of filmmaking and the era that we really tried to emulate in terms of tone of making a film.”

“And,” added Bogdanovich, “they paid us in pot. I have no memory of the entire thing.” He was probably just kidding…but I’m pretty sure I saw him wink when he said it.

Well, with that being the case, let’s jump back to Cuban, who’s clearly quite happy about the way HDNet’s plans have been working out, based on the fact that their film “Flawless,” which starred Michael Caine and Demi Moore, did more than a million at the box office but actually did more than that via Ultra VOD. Nowadays, an Ultra VOD film has the potential to pull even bigger numbers.

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