Category: TV Dramas (Page 50 of 235)

TCA: Human Target

January 15, 2010 /

If you’re finding yourself concerned that Fox’s “Human Target” might tarnish your memory of Rick Springfield’s interpretation of the DC Comics character, then it means 1) you’ve got a really long memory, and 2) your memory is perhaps a little faulty, because Springfield’s version really wasn’t that good. Fortunately, what I’ve seen of the new “Human Target” actually is pretty good…if you like action-packed spectaculars, that is.

“Yeah, the show is a lot about action,” admits McG, one of the series’ executive producers. “But, truthfully, what I respond to mostly about the show is indeed the writing and the ability for these three guys to entertain. My favorite moments in the show are the character moments between what I think is an interesting triangle where you have three characters that occupy very different space. There’s nothing about each that would step on the other’s toes, and that, for me, makes it very entertaining to watch.”

The first episode takes place on a train, the second on a plane, and, yes, there’ll be an episode set on a boat coming up in due course. (Chi McBride claims there’s also one on a tractor, but we’re pretty sure he’s kidding.) Yes, set-piece stuff has been done to death via just about every mode of transportation there is, but McG’s fellow executive producer, Jonathan E. Steinberg, swears that they’re trying to expand beyond the predictable.

“We’re trying to do something you’ve never seen before in every one of them,” he says. “That’s the challenge for us: to kind of wade into a genre that’s been trod over for a long time and find a way to turn it on to you every week.”

Taking the original comic book character and making him into a TV series wasn’t quite as easy in 2009 as it was back when Springfield was playing the part, owing to the reinvention of the Human Target through DC’s Vertigo line of comics. “When I tell people that I was doing research for the character, I was reading the DC Comics,” said Valley. “Then I started reading the Vertigo Comics, and there seems to be a fairly significant departure when it goes into Vertigo. The characters seem to become a little bit thinner, a little more introverted, and a little more obsessed with his own existentialism. And the original DC character seemed like a little more like what Jon has on the page, actually. So in terms of kind of sticking with what the original character was, I think we are right in line.”

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External Entertainment, External TV, Interviews, News, TCA Blog 2010, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

TCA Tour: 24

January 14, 2010 /

Having already seen the first four hours of the new season of “24,” I can tell you without hesitation that it’s absolutely going to be worth your while to tune in when Jack Bauer’s latest day kicks off on January 17th, but, then, if you’re a fan of the show, you’ve probably already had your Sunday night planned out for quite some time now. What you’re likely more interested in knowing is if this will be the last season of “24.” Fortunately, that was the first question posed of Kiefer Sutherland and his fellow executive producer, Howard Gordon, during Fox’s panel for the series.

“We’ve always approached each season, just the task of doing it, as so great that, literally, from the very first season on, we’ve completed that season, and it was really FOX’s decision to pick us up,” said Sutherland. “There’s never been one specific season that the next season was guaranteed or ensured. This has been one of the greatest gifts of my life, the ability to do ’24.’ So for me, yeah, it’s something that is absolutely open. I’ve always said that as long as people wanted us to make it, and people were really interested in watching it, I would be interested. There’s a lot of components involved. The task of writing it is far greater than the task of acting in it, so Howard can talk about that for a moment, but certainly, it’s always open to continue on doing it.”

“I sort of second Kiefer’s thoughts about it,” said Gordon. “It’s always been a very year-to-year, minute-to-minute, day-to-day experience. There’s the intellectual and sort of emotional and creative curiosity. The writers sit around, and in the margins of the time when we aren’t working on Season 8 we do ask ourselves, ‘What if…?’ So it certainly is a possibility.”

So there you go: now you can safely enjoy the new season without feeling a sense of dread that they’re entering it with feelings of finality. We’ll get back to Messrs. Sutherland and Howard in a bit, but with that bit of pressing information out of the way, let’s check in to see what some of the other “24” folks are thinking about as they prepare for the premiere…

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24, External Entertainment, External TV, Interviews, News, TCA Blog 2010, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas

TCA Tour: Lost

January 13, 2010 /

Let us begin our coverage of ABC’s “Lost” panel by giving all due props to Jonathan Storm, TV critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, who kicked things off with the following statement: “Hello, I’d like to ask each one of you to tell exactly what happens in the final season.”

Nice try, Mr. Storm.

Fortunately, Storm had a back-up question ready to ask of the panel – which consisted of Emilie de Ravin (Claire), Daniel Dae Kim (Jin), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Evangeline Lilly (Kate), executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, Terry O’Quinn (Locke), Michael Emerson (Ben), and Jorge Garcia (Hurley) – once the laughter stopped: how are you feeling as this comes to an end?

“As we were walking out onto the stage and this montage was playing, I was whispering to my cast members, ‘I am going to cry like a baby when this show ends,'” said Lilly. “It’s become so nostalgic for us to look back over six years and have grown up together and grown up in front of all of you together. It’s been so intense that for it to come to an end is going to be life-changing.”

Garcia instantly agreed. “Certain places that we shoot, it’s, like, ‘Wow, I haven’t been here since season three,'” he said. “Right now, it’s very appreciative and precious.”

“There’s a lot of camaraderie on set now,” acknowledged Holloway. “It feels…a lot of magic, like the first season. It was an incredibly magical year, and the whole experience, of course, has been incredible, but this last year, everyone’s really getting that sense of camaraderie and nostalgia, and it’s just been fabulous.”

“You know, personally, I’m just feeling a tremendous amount of gratitude,” said Lindelof, “and the idea that we’re getting to end something while anybody still cares and while we still kind of love each other, as opposed to everybody saying, ‘It’s about time.’ This is sort of a once-in-a-lifetime or once-in-a-career experience, for a show that’s still performing, for the network to allow us to end it, is a tremendous gift. As Evangeline was saying, as I was walking onto the stage, I was sort of experiencing a sense of, ‘I can’t believe they’re going to actually let us get away with this.'”

When asked how long the conclusion of “Lost” had been determined, Cuse acknowledged that there really wasn’t a definitive answer to that question. “We came up with the final image of the show a long time ago back when we were first plotting out the mythology in the first season, then we started adding elements to that as we went along…and, really, between the first and the second season is when we cooked the mythology,” he said. “We kind of knew what the end point was, but as you move towards the end point, you add elements. Obviously, the end is not yet written, and there are certain sort of mythological, architectural elements that are intact for that ending, but a lot of character stuff will get worked out as we go along. I mean, that’s part of the discovery process of writing. For instance, Michael Emerson wasn’t on the show at that point. It’s a fun process because we sort of have a concept of where we’re going to end the show, but there is still the process of actually executing it and there still is the process of discovery, particularly on a character level, that will come into play as we finish the show.”

“So if you guys have any ideas,” said Lindelof, “we’re open-minded.”

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External Entertainment, External TV, Interviews, Lost, News, TCA Blog 2010, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

TCA Tour: NBC Executive Session

January 10, 2010 /

I think it’s fair to say that there wasn’t a single member of the Television Critics Associate who wasn’t chomping at the bit to see how this session was going to go down. With all of the controversy breaking about the reported cancellation of “The Jay Leno Show” and rumors of its host moving to a half-hour slot at 11:35 PM, thereby moving the other members of the late-night line-up – “The Tonight Show starring Conan O’Brien” and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” back by an hour, everybody wanted to know how NBC was going to handle damage control.

“I see we have a full house,” said NBC Universal TV chairman Jeff Gaspin, as he walked onto the stage and stood before a ballroom filled with TV critics, many of whom were poised to pounce. “I heard there were some scalpers outside.”

The levity quickly went by the wayside, however, as Gaspin went into the recitation of what one can only presume was a well-tweaked statement, confirming that, starting February 12th, “The Jay Leno Show” will no longer air at 10 PM. He admitted that, although the series performed at acceptable levels for the network, it did not meet the needs of the network’s affiliates, hence the change in programming strategy. He also stated that NBC’s goal was to keep all three of its hosts as part of the late-night landscape – “The Jay Leno Show” at 11:35 PM, “The Tonight Show starring Conan O’Brien” at 12:05 AM, and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” at 1:05 AM – while acknowledging that this plan was in no way a done deal and that talks are still ongoing.

“It’s a fluid situation,” said Gaspin. “Everybody has the weekend to think about it, and we’ll see what happens when we start the new week tomorrow.”

While he would not confirm the hosts’ specific reactions to the new plan, Gaspin said that all three gentlemen were “incredibly gracious and professional” and that they acknowledged that they knew it was a difficult situation. As for anything else that went down during the discussions, he merely described it as a “private conversation,” adding, “When it’s all settled, you can go and ask them what their feelings were.”

Gaspin expects that the new late-night line-up will be in place by the time NBC’s coverage of the Olympics begins in February.

Unsurprisingly, the critics’ claws were soon out, with one wanting to know exactly what happened with the network’s assurances during the summer TCA tour that the success or failure of “The Jay Leno Show” would not be determined fully until the series had run for a full 52-week cycle. Gaspin maintained that the 52-week plan still would’ve been his preference but again cited the affiliates’ concerns as being the driving force behind the comparatively-quick removal of the series from its prime-time berth.

“Starting in November, the affiliates started calling, saying that local news was being affected more than expected,” said Gaspin. By the end of the month, the stations which utilized people meters for their ratings continued their complaints, now citing statistics where, in some cases, #1 local news broadcasts had dropped to #3. Gaspin continued his constant dialogue with the affiliates, requesting that they wait and see how the show would do against repeats…and, indeed, “The Jay Leno Show” did do better, but only by about a tenth of a rating point, still coming in second to either CBS or ABC on a regular basis. When the smaller affiliates without people meters got their November book numbers, “the drum beat started getting louder,” Gaspin said, and as it became progressively more clear that they were only going to be getting more vocal about their displeasure, throwing around comments about possible preemption, “we realized things were not going to go well if it was kept in place.”

Gaspin continued to clarify, however, that despite the feelings of the affiliates, NBC did not feel that “The Jay Leno Show” was a disappointment on a network level. “It was working at acceptable levels financially, making money at 10 PM,” he said. “For the network, it was not a wrong decision.”

He also underlined that, insofar as he was concerned, the reason behind the limited viewership had nothing to do with the show or its level of quality. “There’s a lot of choice at 10 PM,” he said. “We thought it could be everybody’s second choice, but there were just so many other choices that people thought were better.” In the end, Gaspin conceded that “The Jay Leno Show,” while being easy entertainment, simply wasn’t the first or even second choice of enough viewers.

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External Entertainment, External TV, Interviews, News, TCA Blog 2010, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Action, TV Comedies, TV Dramas

TCA Tour: Showtime Executive Session

January 9, 2010 /

You’ll have already seen my story about Showtime greenlighting “The Borgias,” which I posted because it was easily the biggest news within the network’s executive session, but Robert Greenblatt, Showtime’s President of Entertainment, did have a few more things to say during his remarks…and these are some of them:

* First of all, it must be said that Greenblatt had us from “hello,” offering an opening which couldn’t have been more perfectly designed for his audience. “I’m glad this is the first day,” he said, “because it’s so great when you guys are not sort of at the end of the rope here after rolling your eyes from all of what we’re saying to you, and I hope I can engage you enough today, because I’m sure all of you are just waiting for tomorrow’s NBC presentation. I’d love to get my temporary TCA card so that I could sit in on tomorrow’s session.”

* Coming soon is Showtime’s first foray into the world of traditional reality series. Get ready for “The Real L Word of Los Angeles,” which Greenblatt says will be on the air probably this summer. “We’ve just cast those women,” he said, “so at some point we will parade them in front of you for some kind of grilling…and I mean ‘parade’ in the best sense of the word.”

* When discussing the network’s new series, “The Big C,” a dark comedy starring Laura Linney as a woman dealing with a diagnosis of stage-four cancer, Greenblatt said, “I hope you all got our press announcement yesterday that we greenlighted a series about a character facing a terminal illness; I just want to make it clear that we have not picked up ‘The Jay Leno Show.'” Ouch…and ho, ho, HO!

But seriously, folks, Greenblatt says, “We look at the show essentially as a wake-up call as she begins to kind of look at her life and decide how she’s going to live it for the last amount of time that she has, and I think in the best possible world here, I think what we’ll do with this show is humanize the dilemma of her illness. Obviously, the show will walk the line between drama and comedy, and I don’t think there’s anybody better who could do that than Laura Linney. We’ve also surrounded her with some extraordinary people, an ensemble of great actors: Oliver Platt plays her husband, and we have Gabourey Sidibe, who’s the star of ‘Precious,’ who’s in the show as well.”

The pilot for “The Big C” was directed by Bill Condon, who already has experience with directing Linney and Platt from when they all did “Kinsey” together. We aren’t yet privy to the entire pilot, alas, but Greenblatt offered us a sizzle reel from it, and it looks really good, but for my money, no line topped this one from Linney to Sidibe: “You can’t be fat and mean. You can either be fat and jolly or a skinny bitch. It’s up to you.” The network has ordered 13 episodes, and the series goes into production as soon as Linney finishes her current commitments at the Manhattan Theater Club, with a premiere planned for later this summer.

* Greenblatt also spoke briefly about “Episodes,” the network’s new comedy, which was announced a few months ago. Created by David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik, the series is about a British couple who have a hit series on the BBC and, when an American TV network comes to them and convinces them to come to Hollywood and do an American version of their show, Hollywood just systematically destroys the show.

“Not,” added Greenblatt, “that that would ever happen at Showtime.”

Although “Episodes” won’t actually begin production until the spring, the producers thoughtfully put together a short piece to give us an idea of the flavor of the series…and it was funny. As you may have heard, the series will start the former Joey Tribiani, Matt LeBlanc, who will play himself as the woefully miscast star of the show within the show, and the piece showed us what he had to go through to get the part. (“I’d be playing myself, and I have to read? Fuck Showtime!”) Production on the series starts in late spring, and Greenblatt hopes the series will be on the air in the fall…and if it maintains the tone of what they showed us, then so do I.

External Entertainment, External TV, Interviews, News, TCA Blog 2010, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Comedies, TV Dramas

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