Category: External TV (Page 205 of 419)

American Idol: awkward and head-scratching

February 18, 2009 /

Last night “American Idol” Season 8 on FOX kicked into high gear with 12 of the final 36 contestants performing in front of 25 million TV viewers, a live audience, the four celebrity judges and Ryan Seacrest. And since it’s the eighth season, we can forgive them for a few awkward moments and some bad technical issues, right? Wrong! Okay, it’s live TV and most of these singers have never performed on a stage of this magnitude, so it’s okay if some of them stumble on their words when Seacrest sticks a microphone in their face. But there were some bad sound problems, and even a moment where a video montage of the wrong contestant forced Seacrest to improvise. He does that really well, but he shouldn’t have to. I have a feeling someone is getting fired today, or slapped with a written warning.

Anyway, things are different this season since they added a fourth judge–Kara DioGuardi. This was inevitably going to make the comments from the panel take even more time. Also, of the twelve performing each of the first three Tuesdays of live shooting, only three make it through to the finals–one guy, one girl, and the next highest vote getter. What does this mean? It means you have to be damn good the first time out and you have to pick the right song, something the contestants of Idol seem to mess up with stunning regularity. After each one sang, we’d get about five minutes of judging banter and then an interview with each contestants’ parents and/or spouse as soon as they came off stage. Whoever came up with this idea is likely being handed a pink slip now as well. Damn, I feel like Donald Trump today. Anyway, it was really awkward, especially for those who performed horribly…and there were a few of those.

Here is how it went down, broken down by the good performances, the in-between and the bad, as we have done before in this space.

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American Idol, External TV, Reality TV, TV

Friday night — where good shows go to die

February 17, 2009 /

In theory, Fox had a solid idea. Pair Joss Whedon’s new hour-long drama, “Dollhouse,” with “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” to create a male-skewing sci-fi block on Friday night. They’ve had success on Friday’s in the past with sci-fi; “The X-Files” flourished there (or at least paid for itself) for several years. But The Live Feed reports that ratings for both shows were a disappointment.

The series premiere of Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” was seen by 4.7 million viewers Friday night and garnered a 2.0 preliminary adults 18-49 rating and 6 share. It was beaten in the 9 p.m. hour by ABC’s “Supernanny” (6.1 million viewers, 2.2/7) and is the lowest-rated scripted series premiere on a major broadcast network this season aside from NBC’s now-defunct “Crusoe.”

“Dollhouse” was paired with the midseason return of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” (3.7 million, 1.3/5), which was shifted from its previous Monday post. “Terminator” came in third place in the hour and hit a series low (by like 27%). “Terminator” beat NBC’s “Howie Do It” (3.9 million, 1.2/4), but not by much. Both “Ghost Whisperer” (10.3 million, 2.4/8) and “Wife Swap” (4.3 million, 1.5/5) did better.

I thought “Dollhouse” had a pretty solid premiere, but I was by no means blown away. The premise is interesting — that there’s a business that can reprogram “dolls” to become whatever its clients need. In the premiere, Echo (Eliza Dushku), started out as a party girl meant to entertain a rich playboy, but was reprogrammed to become an expert in kidnapping scenarios. Dushku looks great in a dress, but was a little stiff when she was trying to convince the father of a kidnapped girl that she was the right person for the job. I’m not sure that she’s the right one to carry the series, though future episodes will decide this. Stepping back a bit, I’m not sure how some viewers may react to seeing this pretty girl having her brain wiped at least once per episode. If the heroine doesn’t have some consistent character traits week-to-week, she may be tough to relate to.

I’ve liked “Terminator” all along, and I’m surprised that it is struggling in the ratings. I suppose this has to do with the collective attention span of fans of the movie series. Maybe stringing out a serialized plot over 20+ episodes is just too slow of a pace for those that fell in love with the action-packed “Terminator” films. This is a perfect example of a series that should have a 13-episode season, like many of the series on HBO, Showtime, FX and TNT. Shorter seasons means a compact season-long story arc and no filler, which is the main reason that a series loses viewership. When people get bored they naturally move on.

Another Friday show that is dying a slow death is “Friday Night Lights.” It consistently scored in the 4.0-5.0 range in its first season, and that fell to the 3.0-4.0 range in its second foray. Now, after premiering on DirecTV this fall, the show is garnering ratings in the 2.2-2.8 range as NBC runs the episodes for the non-DirecTV folks. Is this enough to keep this stellar show on the air for another season? Only the big-wigs at DirecTV and NBC know for sure, but given the state of the economy, it would be surprising if it were granted a fourth season.

Actresses, External Entertainment, External TV, Friday Night Lights, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

10 Minutes and 10 Questions with Christian Kane

February 17, 2009 /

Tonight brings the first of the two parts of the first-season finale of TNT’s “Leverage.” We’ve commented on the show in the past here on Premium Hollywood, but after a slight false start in the early days of the series, it’s become an enjoyable blend of action, drama, and comedy that allows the viewer to escape into a world where the little guy actually gets to win once in awhile. We had a chance to talk to Christian Kane, who plays the rough-and-tumble Eliot Spencer on the show, and quizzed him about how the show’s gone for him. (We also snuck in a quick “Angel” question and checked on the status of his music career, too.)

1. If you can approach “Leverage” as a viewer rather than a fan for a second, are you surprised that “Leverage” was able to find an audience? Because a lot of series are in, out, and done in just a couple of episodes, but you guys found an audience quickly.

Yeah, we did, man. Y’know, it’s always surprising to me what works and what doesn’t work. I mean, I can’t believe that some of the stuff that’s on right now is on, and I can’t believe that “Arrested Development” ever went off the air. (Laughs) But it wasn’t surprising to know the track record of the people behind it. I mean, it was Tim (Hutton)’s first series (since “Kidnapped”), and I felt comfortable with that, but also John Rogers is an unbelievable writer, and Dean Devlin has had unbelievable success in the entertainment world, so we came in with a couple of big guns pulled out, unlike maybe some of the other people. So I felt confident in that. And then I started watching, and I got more confident. But then I remembered that, with the economy the way it is and the way the entertainment business is going… (Laughs) …it got a little bit scary for awhile, y’know, because you start thinking of stuff. But then when I went back to the economy stuff, and I went, “Y’know what? In this day and age, when The Man is sticking it to everybody, I think people are really going to want to sit back on the couch and really be part of the team and watch some people go out and stick it back to The Man.”

2. The “Ocean’s Eleven” comparisons that were being thrown around in the beginning were obviously really, really apt. Do you think the series has found its own identity yet, or is it still finding it?

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Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, External TV, Interviews, Movies, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, Video

Heroes 3.16 – I Hate People When They’re Not Polite

February 16, 2009 /

Really? They had to start the episode by reminding me about the plotline that loathe the most…?

Fair enough, let’s drive right into the Claire storyline. She’s continuing to get text messages from the mysterious rebel while lying to her mother and being shitty to her father, while HRG continues to offer up threats which are clearly pointless, since we all know that she’s going to ignore orders and do whatever she wants to do, anyway. Well, at least Zeljko is clearly pissed off about it. (We can only hope and pray that he actually acts on it.) By using another comic book store as a set piece, I couldn’t help but feel like the producers were saying, “Okay, let’s keep playing to the diehard geeks, ’cause if we lose them, we’re really screwed.” The sequences of Claire trying to save the life of Comic Book Guy were well-executed, but, again, it all came back to the issue of Claire being totally uncontrollable. If this had been a real government operation, she would’ve been imprisoned (at the very least) long ago, no matter who her father and stepfather were. And now she’s unnecessarily telling her mother what’s going on, knowing full well what effect that could have on her and, worse, leading to a touchy-feely scene at the end with Claire and HRG…? (The only redeeming moment of that sequence was having Comic Book Guy step out of the shadows.)

Dear “Heroes” producers: KILL THE CHEERLEADER, SAVE THE SHOW.

It felt a little too on-the-nose to have “Born to be Wild” playing on the stereo as Sylar set forth on his road trip with his new little buddy, Luke, but that was about my only complaint about their storyline this episode. The relationship between the two of them remains the most interesting thing about this new series, with Sylar doling out examples of his power and being flummoxed by Luke proving more fascinated than scared. The scene at the diner was also really well done, with Luke being irresponsible with his abilities and Sylar actually opening up to Luke about what he wants out of his encounter with his father. I thought sure we were going to see the end of Luke after he made the mistake of trying to be a nice guy by giving Sylar his dad’s address, but then Zeljko’s men invaded, and the end of the scene was…well, how did you feel about it? I’m sure Luke thought that Sylar had betrayed him by leaving him to be captured, but I felt like Sylar imagined that he’d given Luke a bit of a thank-you gift by not just killing him outright. In the end, of course, Sylar clearly felt like he really did owe it to Luke to save his ass, and the sequence in the paddywagon was awesome…almost as awesome as having the two of them drive off into the night to the strains of “Psycho Killer.”

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Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External TV, Heroes, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

“Lost” tops online streamed TV programs

February 16, 2009 /

“Lost” and “SNL” are also popular online.

Lost, Saturday Night Live and Grey’s Anatomy were December’s three most popular entertainment TV programs streamed from tagged network websites and embedded network video players, according to VideoCensus data from Nielsen Online (via MarketingCharts).

In its first public release of ratings for online individual TV programs, Nielsen reported that ABC.com’s Lost had 1.4 million unique viewers in December — the most among streamed online broadcast TV network entertainment programs. NBC.com’s Saturday Night Live was a close second, with 1.1 million unique viewers, followed by ABC.com’s Grey’s Anatomy with 879,000 unique viewers in December.

The network websites included were from broadcast networks that had tagged their online offerings: ABC.com, CBS Television, CWTV.com, FOX Broadcasting, and NBC.com. The rankings exclude Hulu, which currently does not report VideoCensus data at the program level.Rankings include unique viewers who viewed a full episode, part of an episode or a program clip during the month.

“As I see it, the broad diversity of top television network entertainment programs online suggests that there is more to online viewership than a simple extension of the TV audience,” said Jon Gibs, VP of media analytics, Nielsen Online. “While the online popularity of some shows, like Grey’s Anatomy suggests that some people are using the internet to catch up on programs they usually watch on TV, the online popularity of other programs like Saturday Night Live, indicates that there is a web audience that might otherwise not watch these programs at all. These viewers are driven by a morning-after water-cooler effect.”

Nielson’s reports are incomplete until they start including numbers from Hulu as well, and we also need information about how these numbers stack up against popular online video sites.

It would have been interesting to see numbers from Novemeber and October, as “SNL” surely led the way with its political coverage.

External TV, New Media, News, TV

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