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
franchise that there’s a lot of interest in.”
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).
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