Ezra Stead: There is a striking realism and intimacy to your films, going back to the first one, Walking and Talking, and I know a lot of material is taken from your own life or that of your friends. Is your apparent muse, Catherine Keener, generally playing the Nicole Holofcener alter-ego, or is your own personality spread out more among all your characters?

Nicole Holofcener: I guess I could say she has been my muse, but in a couple of movies she has not played the “me” character. She certainly does play me well, and all the characters, I suppose, are a part of me, and even if that character she’s playing is based on someone else, there’s still pieces of me. She has been a muse, definitely.

ES: I read somewhere, in another interview with you, where you said your friends say, “Don’t say that around Nicole, it’ll be in a movie.”

NH: I know, just one friend in particular; she’s very nervous [laughs]. If somebody has shame, I suppose they don’t want to be revealed. Most people’s shame is not very interesting or theatrical, so don’t worry I’m not gonna write about it. Whatever you’re doing that you’re embarrassed about, I don’t care [laughs].

ES: So in general, your films are fairly autobiographical, or was Walking and Talking more that way?

NH: No, they all are. I mean, none of them are real, none of them come from things that really happened; I suppose there are moments that really happened and lines that really happened, but most of it is made up but, I would say, based on me and my experiences, and my friends.

ES: What future projects are you working on now, if you can tell us?

NH: I’d love to tell you. I’m so glad I have that, thank god, it’s so hard when there isn’t one. Yeah, I’m in pre-pre-production for a movie that I wrote that Fox Searchlight has been making, and I start shooting in August, I think. I hope.

ES: Untitled, so far?

NH: It is. Not fun. I’m not good at titling things. The only title I really like, that seems correct, is Friends with Money, and that’s what I wrote when I first started writing it, you know, this is gonna be about “friends with money,” it was easy. This one has Julia Louis-Dreyfus in it, and James Gandolfini, so I’m happy to publicize my next movie.

ES: I also read that you were involved at one point in directing the Seth Rogen / Joseph Gordon-Levitt film 50/50. Is that you’re still interested in pursuing – directing features written by other people?

NH: I’m still gonna direct 50/50 [laughs]. It’s something I am very interested in, and I’m sad that I didn’t get to direct it, but it was family stuff, and that’s okay, it turned out well. I liked the movie.

ES: But you are interested in directing someone else’s script?

NH: Yes, if I fall in love with it. I really want to, have to, fall in love with it. Yes, please send me things. Send me good things [laughs].

ES: You’ve directed a lot of TV as well. What are some of the differences in TV vs. feature film directing?

NH: There’s not much difference. The television shows that I’ve worked on have all been single camera. It feels like I’m working on a little film. It differs from show to show. A show like Enlightened, I feel like I’m working on a movie; a show like Parks and Recreation, I’m at a party. I mean, it’s different. I guess, to some extent, working on a television show is easier because it’s not my problem, in the end – I didn’t write it, I didn’t create it – and for the same reason, it makes me more anxious because I have someone else that I wanna please, besides myself, and I really only work on shows that I respect and am proud to have my name on, so I really do wanna please the writer, and the creator. Other than that, they’re pretty similar.

ES: So you think that, when and if you end up directing someone else’s script, it’ll be similar to that?

NH: I hope so, yeah. I hope that I have that relationship where I turn to the writer and say, “You happy with that? Is that how you saw it?” That’s a real collaboration.

The Raven

Let’s just get this out of the way, this movie looks like shit, which is unfortunate given some of the names involved. “The Raven” was directed by James McTeigue, who was an assistant director for the “Matrix” trilogy before making his directorial debut with “V for Vendetta” in 2006. The cast includes Brendan Gleeson (“Braveheart,” “Gangs of New York,” “Harry Potter”), and stars John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe.

Poe’s death is shrouded in mystery, so the filmmakers took more than a few creative liberties in this fictionalized account of the writer’s last days. When a serial killer begins using his work as the inspiration for a series of gruesome murders, police enlist Poe to help bring the assailant to justice.

Reviews have been bad, hovering around 20 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and not without reason. Edgar Allan Poe was a fascinating human being. In 1836, at age 27, he married his 13 year-old first cousin. The man was a great many things: author, poet, alcoholic, opium addict, and the inventor of detective fiction. He uneqivocally was not an action hero or some macabre version of Sherlock Holmes. With such an intriguing life story, there was no reason to make him into such.

“The Raven” is the 241st film or television adaptation of Poe’s work. That leaves you 240 options that might not be garbage, so pick one of those. Or, better yet, pick up some of his written work, which is in the public domain (that means it’s free).

Safe

In “Safe,” Jason Statham plays Luke Wright, “the Big Apple’s hardest cop, once up on a time.” Now, he’s a a second-rate cage fighter who drives fast, kicks ass, and always has a wry one-liner up his sleeve. That is, Jason Statham plays Jason Statham doing Jason Statham things, only he’s got an American accent (sort of). In this case, his excuse for coating the streets in blood is protecting a 12-year-old Chinese girl who’s memorized a valuable code from some Russian mobsters. Purely by coincidence, they’re the same Russian mobsters who murdered his wife.

“Safe” couldn’t have a more appropriate title. It’s another formulaic Statham action movie that’s split critics right down the middle because even though you know what’s going to happen, you can’t help but be entertained. Perhaps Aaron Hillis of The Village Voice put it best: “Safe” is a “preposterously enjoyable—or enjoyably preposterous—action-thriller.”

If “Safe” is your style, go and enjoy it, you’ll get no argument from me. But since you already know the endings anyway, you might as well rent “Snatch” or “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels” instead.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

This 3D stop-motion film from the creators of “Wallace and Gromit” and “Chicken Run,” has received widespread critical acclaim. The Hollywood Reporter calls it “a delightful romp whose varied pleasures should please kids all along the age spectrum.”

“The Pirates!” stars Hugh Grant as the Pirate Captain, “a dreamer with grand notions, a blustering optimism and a deficient skills set,” who could be Wallace’s ancestor. The Captain yearns to win the coveted Pirate of the Year award, but always loses out to rivals like Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek).

The Captain’s rag-tag crew includes a number of faces (or voices) familiar to those partial to British television. There’s Martin Freeman, who’s been cast as Bilbo Baggins in the upcoming adaptation of “The Hobbit” and played Tim in the UK version of “The Office,” and Ashley Jensen, Ricky Gervais‘ co-star in “Extras.” Along the way, the group enlists the help of Charles Darwin, played by David Tennant, best known for his role as the tenth doctor in the BBC’s “Doctor Who.”

The film was released a month ago in the UK, albeit with a different title: “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists,” which is also the title of the book the film is based upon. Strangely and sadly enough, Sony Pictures felt the need to alter the title for the American release, because God forbid science or gasp evolution, be considered fun. Think of the children!

The Five-Year Engagement

It’s hard to go wrong when Judd Apatow’s name follows “produced by.” Take that home, throw in a screenplay by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, add some Chris Pratt and Alison Brie, baby you got a stew going!

Along with writing the film, Segel and Stoller, who’ve previously teamed up for “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “The Muppets,” starred in and directed “The Five-Year Engagement,” respectively.

Segel plays chef Tom Solomon, who proposes to his girlfriend Violet (Emily Blunt) after a year of dating. A wrench gets thrown in their plans when Violet gets a job at the University of Michigan, delaying the wedding by two years. Of course, this is the five-year engagement, so ultimately that time gets extended further.

Segel and Blunt are well supported by Pratt, best known as Andy in “Parks and Recreation,” who plays Tom’s best friend, and Brie, of “Community” and “Mad Men” fame, as Violet’s younger sister.

All this sounds fantastic, but the critical consensus is that “The Five-Year Engagement” is good but not great. While the film has its moments, it’s far from the best work of its relatively star-studded cast and crew, and it runs a bit long. As Bullz-Eye’s Jason Zingale put it:

Beginning where most romantic comedies usually end, you can’t fault “The Five-Year Engagement” for trying to deliver a fresh take on the genre, but although it boasts some really funny moments, like most Judd Apatow productions, the movie doesn’t know when enough is enough. The ensemble cast saves it from being a total disappointment, but the film definitely isn’t as good as it should have been.

Much like a stew, “The Five-Year Engagement” seems like it’s made up of leftovers. It’s not greater than the sum of its parts. Zingale says “Stoller and Segel appear so dead set on including every single one of their ideas that it drains the movie of some of its charm… ‘The Five-Year Engagement’ does just enough to keep audiences entertained, but with the talent involved, you’d expect better.”

That said, while “The Five-Year Engagement” may be average relative to some of its cast and crew’s previous work, Apatow, Segel, and the rest remain among the comedic juggernauts of our time, so even their middling productions are well worth the price of admission.

Oh, and one other note: in a further effort to avoid conceptual duplication, I’ve only written about each show once, so if you see a show’s title without anything written beside it, look back and you’ll find where I’ve already written about it. That, or I screwed up. Either’s possible, really. (I’m only human, after all.)

Best Shows to Come and Go within 2010

1. Terriers (FX) – It’s a testament to the quality of “Terriers” that FX president John Landgraf held a teleconference with journalists after breaking the news of the series’ cancellation in order to explain his actions, but I don’t think anyone really blamed the guy, anyway: the show’s ratings were as deplorable as the writing was phenomenal. Between the awful ad campaign for the show (no, it wasn’t about dogs) and the fact that many of the viewers who did tune in were kind of bummed out by too-real character traits and developments like alcoholism, infidelity, divorce, and mental illness, it’s not a surprise that it wasn’t a huge hit. But that doesn’t make it any less depressing.

2. Lone Star (Fox) – I’d like to think that this “Dallas”-esque series about a con man leading two lives would’ve been battling with “Terriers” for the top spot if only Fox hadn’t canceled it after only two episodes…but, then, if they can’t canceled it after only two episodes, then maybe viewers might’ve embraced “Lone Star” enough that it wouldn’t have been canceled at all. Oh, wait, never mind, I forgot: it was on Fox, so it probably still would’ve been canceled, anyway. Even so, Kyle Killen provided an intriguing concept and delivered it with the help of a top-notch cast. It’s just a shame we didn’t get to see more of it.

3. Warren the Ape (MTV) – So falls another network effort by one of our favorite fabricated Americans. Greg the Bunny couldn’t keep a show alive on either Fox or IFC, but it really seemed like a given that the shenanigans of Warren the Ape were tailor-made for MTV viewers. Not so, apparently. Frankly, the whole thing smacks of anti-puppetism. Warren himself has conceded that “fabricated Americans still have a very long way to go in this country, and I think it’s always going to be an uphill battle.” How right he was.

4. Happy Town (ABC) – Note to ABC’s publicity department: while I appreciate your intentions when you underlined the comparisons between “Happy Town” and “Twin Peaks” with a giant Magic Marker, you have to expect that “Twin Peaks” fans are going to offer up their equivalent of the old “I knew Jack Kennedy” line. Yeah, I know, you only meant it as a point of reference, and you never intended to imply that the two series were on even creative footing, but try telling them that. For my part, I thought it was a creepy little sleeper of a show…but, unfortunately, the other five people who agreed with me weren’t enough to keep it on the air.

5. Sons of Tucson (Fox) – I’m still not quite sure what Fox was thinking by trying to slot this poor live-action sitcom into the midst of their otherwise-animated Sunday night line-up. Maybe they’d hoped it would instill viewers with a bit of nostalgia for the days of “Malcolm in the Middle,” given the similarity in feel between that show and “Tucson.” If so, the plan failed miserably. In a perfect world, the network would raise the series from the dead and team it with “Raising Hope.” Now that’s a double bill I could get behind.

Best Shows I Discovered in 2010

1. Parenthood (NBC) – Although I was on board with this series since the first time I read the names of the cast members (which, at the time, still including Maura Tierney rather than Lauren Graham), I admit that I’m way late in officially joining the “‘Parenthood’ is awesome” club. What can I tell you? Too many shows, not enough hours in the day. Having finally had the time to devour Season 1 on DVD and begin to dig into Season 2, however, I just can’t say enough good things about the series. It’s about as realistic as family dramas get, full of strong performances and writing that’ll make you laugh and cry, sometimes even simultaneously.

2. Boardwalk Empire (HBO) – I used to be kinda iffy about period-piece series, but “Mad Men” effectively threw that issue out the window for me, so it was pretty easy to embrace this tale of sex, crime, and politics set in Prohibition-era Atlantic City. Frankly, the mere presence of Paz de la Huerta was more than sufficient to inspire me to tune in every week, but it’s been fascinating to see Steve Buscemi step into the role of an unlikely power figure, and Michael Shannon’s eye-popping performance as Agent Nelson Van Alden has been a blast to watch. I’m already ready for Season 2.

3. The Walking Dead (AMC) – It’s based on a comic book, it’s about zombies, and it’s helmed by the dude who did “The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile,” and “The Mist.” Basically, I was always going to tune in for the first episode…but, holy crap, what a first episode it was. Even if the subsequent installments didn’t always match the premiere, the exploration of humanity through the prism of a zombie invasion has proven consistently intriguing and deliciously gory.

4. Raising Hope (Fox) – Not everyone enjoys the taste of Greg Garcia’s comedies, but I saw a lot of people I recognized in the characters of “My Name Is Earl,” and I’m seeing the same thing with the Chance family. The show could almost coast by on reaction shots from Hope herself, who may well be one of the cutest babies ever to grace the small screen, but the comedic trifecta of Lucas Neff, Garret Dillahunt, and Martha Plimpton – aided ably by the legendary Cloris Leachman – have great chemistry together. Here’s hoping Fox finds the right companion show for the series, because “Hope” deserves the chance to grow up.

5. Justified (FX) – Here’s another one I need to play catch-up with, but I’ve seen more than enough to fall in love with the show already. Timothy Olyphant was the perfect casting choice for US Marshall Raylan Givens – who better to play a modern-day cowboy than an alumnus of “Deadwood”? – and Elmore Leonard’s sensibilities are firmly in place throughout.

Best Sitcoms of 2010

1. Modern Family (ABC) – Given that this ensemble comedy emerged fully formed from the womb, it shouldn’t really be a surprise that it’s managed to maintain its consistency in its second season, but you never like to take these things for granted. It’s a rare sitcom that earns appreciation from the viewers, the critics, and the Emmys, but “Modern Family” deserves every bit of the praise that’s been heaped upon it.

2. Raising Hope (Fox)

3. Community (NBC) – Another second-season series, but one which definitely has taken its time to figure out what it wants to be. When “Community” first kicked off, I didn’t get the impression that creator Dan Harmon actually intended for the driving force of the show to be its pop culture references (I figured the goal was to find the middle ground between heart and snark), but both the show’s ensemble and its writers have found their respective grooves, transforming the show into…an eventual cult classic, probably, since it’s definitely playing to the cool kids rather than the huddled masses. But you don’t hear me complaining.

4. Parks and Recreation (NBC) – Like “Parenthood” above, this is another case where I became a full-fledged series supporter as a result of DVD. If you weren’t impressed by Season 1, fair enough, but you should still check out Season 2. The show really takes off in a big way, fixing the issues from its freshman year and coming back smelling like roses. P.S. I’ve already seen the first few episodes of Season 3, which kicks off in January 2011, and if they counted in the final tally, “Parks and Recreation” would’ve ranked even higher.

5. How I Met Your Mother (CBS) – Last season was somewhat hit or miss, and executive producers Craig Thomas and Carter Bays freely admitted as much, but this season, while still not entirely up to the standards set in the show’s earliest years, has shown a comeback. Jennifer Morrison has begun to settle in as Ted’s friend / nemesis, Zoey Pierson, but the best part about her character is really her husband, The Captain, played to perfection by Kyle MacLachlan. Meanwhile, I don’t know if we’re actually going to see Marshall and Lily get pregnant or if it’s destined to occur in the mists of time beyond the run of the show, but the process of getting there has been an enjoyable one. We’ll see where the rest of the season takes us, but right now I’m enjoying this creative upswing.

Best Dramas of 2010

1. Breaking Bad (AMC) – Vince Gilligan continues to take Walter White and transform him slowly but surely from Mr. Chips into Scarface, but he’s not the only character going through a transition. In fact, Season 3 found just about everybody on “Breaking Bad” suffering through growing pains of some sort, with Jesse struggling to maintain equality in his relationship with Walt and stay clean and sober, Skyler dealing not only with a disintegrating marriage but the recent changes in the man to whom she’s been married for all these years, and Hank having to conquer obstacles on the way to emotional and physical health. Throw in the enigmatic Gus, the ridiculous Saul Goodman, and the terrifying Cousins, and you’ve got the best season of “Breaking Bad” to date.

2. Mad Men (AMC) – When Season 3 ended, the Sterling Cooper agency was no more, and when Season 4 kicked off, we said “hello” to Sterling Cooper Draper Price. Living up to the previous season’s finale was tough, and it took awhile for “Mad Men” to really build up a head of steam this year, but as America evolves in the ’60s, so have these characters, and creator Matthew Weiner continues to keep us guessing about where their paths will lead them.

3. Terriers (FX)

4. Boardwalk Empire (HBO)

5. The Walking Dead (AMC)

Best Reinvention of a Classic Property

Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated (Cartoon Network)

Like many members of Generation X, I have maintained a soft spot for Scooby Doo and his teenaged mystery-solving companions for many years, but virtually all of that sentimentality comes courtesy of “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” (1969 – 1970) and “The New Scooby-Doo Movies” (1972 – 1973). With all of the damage done to the franchise with the addition of Scrappy-Doo, the ill-begotten attempt to infantilize the Scooby gang (“A Pup Named Scooby-Doo”), and the consistently disappointing live-action films, it’s no wonder that my adoration of the original series had dissipated considerably. Thank heavens, then, for “Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated,” which plays both as a direct sequel to the events which took place within the episodes of “Where Are You” and a love letter to those who loved the original series and have spent 30+ years waiting for the magic to return. Inevitably, the characters have been modernized somewhat, but their back stories have been expanded to make them less two-dimensional. Another nice tribute to the old-school shows: although Matthew Lillard voices Shaggy, the voice of his dad is provided by Casey Kasem. Stalwart Frank Welker continues to play Fred as well as capably filling the shoes of the late Don Messick as the voice of Scooby himself.

Best TV-DVDs of 2010

The Six Million Dollar Man
Every episode of the series, all of the TV movies that preceded and followed it, plus more special features than your brain will be able to process. If you grew up in the ’70s, it’s worth every penny.

The Larry Sanders Show: The Complete Series
First they gave us Season 1, then they didn’t give us anything else for a very long time. Then, instead of Season 2, they gave us a best-of set, which – while awesome – still wasn’t what the fans wanted. Now, at last, Shout Factory cuts to the chase and just gives us the whole damned series…which is all we ever wanted in the first place.

Guiltiest Pleasure of 2010

Hellcats (The CW)
There’s no good reason why a grown man should feel comfortable about watching a drama about college cheerleaders, but surely you can at least understand why I find it hard to avert my gaze.

Before I headed back upstairs to the ballroom to get ready for the first proper panel of the day, I waited around for a few minutes in hopes of chatting with Sendhil Ramamurthy and Anne Dudek, but after loitering for 10+ minutes as they talked with someone from TV Guide, I could see no signs of their conversation abating. I finally gave up and decided that I’d just try to grab them at the NBC party that evening…which, FYI, I successfully ended up doing.

The Event

When I watched the pilot for “The Event,” a new sci-fi / action series that will immediately remind viewers of “Lost,” “Fringe,” and possibly even “24,” I was instantly captivated and loved every minute of it. Even as I watched it, though, I knew that my wife would be far less thrilled, owing to the fact that there is a tendency for the proceedings to bounce back and forth in time…and she hates that. Clearly, she’s not the only one, since the topic was addressed almost immediately during the show’s panel, but the show’s executive producers – Nick Wauters, Steve Stark, Evan Katz, and Jeffrey Reiner – reassured us as much as possible.

“It’s definitely something that we’re going to keep using, at least in the near future, as long as it serves character and story,” said Wauters. “But you may not see as much of it as we go along.”

“Also, I think if you look at the pilot, the pilot was about 50 percent flashbacks, believe it or not,” said Stark. “A little over that, actually. That’s not going to be the idea moving forward. In episode 4, there’s a whole series of just getting to know Sean and Leila from a character standpoint, but it’s just that.”

“Time will move forward from episode 2 on,” said Katz. “It will be a more linear approach, and there will be flashbacks, but the story will continue to thrust forward.”

I don’t know if that’ll make my wife feel a heck of a lot better, but it’s something, anyway. It also serves as a reminder that, although “The Event” has a tremendous cast, one which includes Zeljko Ivanek, Laura Innes, Jason Ritter, Sarah Roemer, Scott Patterson, and Blair Underwood (as the President of the United States), as a serialized drama, it’s the producers who hold the answers to all of the truly important questions. Heck, the actors don’t really know anything…and they’re not afraid to admit it!

“Before we each shot the pilot, we each got these character dossiers that explained to us who we were so that we weren’t just blindly going into it and not knowing anything, so that’s what we knew when we first started,” said Ritter. “Now, as the episodes come out, we learn more about who they are. But generally we don’t know a whole heck of a lot!

This begs another question for the producers, then: how quickly will viewers start to get answers to the questions that are posed in the pilot?

“I’ve been a big fan of ’24’ and ‘Lost’ and ‘Battlestar (Galactica),’ all those shows for years and since I was a kid, so that definitely influenced my writing and I’m very conscious of that, which is why we’re going to try and reveal as many answers as we can as we go and then set up new mysteries,” said Wauters. “So in a way, you will have more immediate answers to your questions, but you still have to kind of go on faith that we know what we’re doing. I came in with this bible, and all the characters were really developed from the beginning, even though that’s not really shown in the pilot because the pilot had so many characters and so many things going on. The pilot is kind of an invitation to the series, really. It’s an appetizer. I think as a viewer myself and a fan of ‘Lost,’ I think I’d ask for people’s trust.”

“We’re not waiting till episode 4 to find out more about these people,” confirmed Katz. “The pilot is very unique and very fragmented and really, really good at keeping things moving forward. I mean, it’s terrific, but, yes, you don’t know a terrible amount about these people. Starting in episode 2, episode 3, episode 4, you will not only find out about their backstories and more about, literally, their biography, but in how they react to the dilemmas, you will learn who they are as well. I think it’s about what you emotionally connect with. I think the pilot is emotionally affecting. I think you connect with the people. People, I think, connect to their dilemmas, and frankly, it’s whether or not you’re posing questions that you want to come back next week to see answered. And, you know, right now the show is really designed with a lot of cliffhangers at the end of episodes and a lot of, you know, what I call ‘holy-crap’ moments…although I use a different word.”

“Before NBC bought the pilot, I think the bible that we developed was longer than the script,” said Stark. “They were very clear where we’re going. So we have sort of tent-pole benchmarks we’re going to hit as the series progresses into even season 3. The dance of intrigue and satisfaction is what we’re going to be doing all the time, but ultimately we have these sort of benchmarks plotted out.”

“We would hope that the pilot elicits some trust,” said Reiner, reiterating Wauters’ point. “We would hope that it’s a good enough hook. That’s what we all set out to do. You know, in television sometimes the pilot is the hook, you know, because you’re 22 episodes. So I would hope that the pilot has served that purpose.”

“In my opinion,” said Katz, “the pilot speaks for itself.”

As far as I’m concerned, it does. I’m not yet willing to go out on a limb and declare that it’s my favorite pilot of the new season, just because we haven’t gotten final versions of all of the series yet, but I will say that it’s the one that I find most intriguing. When it premieres, I’ll be there…and I’ll definitely be sticking around to see what happens.

Undercovers

You’ve probably already read my comments about how disappointed I was by the “Undercovers” set visit on the first day of the TCA tour, since none of the cast members were in attendance. That wasn’t a problem with the panel for the show, thankfully, although I couldn’t help but notice that series co-creator J.J. Abrams was once again MIA…though given that I don’t get a whole lot of the Abrams feel from the pilot beyond the premise (a husband and wife who have been retired from the spy game for half a decade are asked to return to their former profession), maybe that’s not a coincidence.

One element of “Undercovers” that stands out – even though, obviously, it shouldn’t – is the fact that its lead actors, Boris Kodjoe and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, are both African-American. According to executive producer and co-creator Josh Reims, it’s a development that came about organically during the casting process.

“When J.J. and I wrote the script originally, we decided we wanted to write it like ‘The Philadelphia Story,'” said Reims. “You know, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn? But they’re dead, so we didn’t hire them. So when we finished the script and went into the casting process, we started out by saying, ‘Let’s just see every possible incarnation of a person. We don’t want to see the same people we’ve seen on TV 10 million times because it will look like many other shows that are on TV, which are perfectly good, but we want it to look different.’ And so we saw a bunch of people. And when Boris and Gugu came in, which was much later in the process, we sort of knew immediately, like, ‘OK, these are them.’ We didn’t go out of our way to say, you know, we’re hiring two black people to be the leads of the show, but we certainly did not ignore the fact that it would be great if we could do that and if we found actors who were great enough. And luckily, we found one of them in Gugu, and then we hired Boris, too.”

A fair enough answer, perhaps, but it was one which was accused of being somewhat disingenuous, resulting in a follow-up question wherein Reims was asked what he thinks the decision to cast two African-American actors means.

“We don’t consider that we’re revolutionizing TV, but at the same time, we do realize it is a big deal,” said Reims. “Yes, we all wish it wasn’t such a big deal at this point in time that there are two black characters who are the leads on a major TV show on a major network, but unfortunately that’s the way it is right now. And, you know, even since the casting of this show was announced, we’ve seen other shows have cast black leads that maybe, who knows, wouldn’t have happened. So if we can do that and other people realize, you know, ‘Oh, look, this is working well,’ then that’s great. But our plan was not, like, ‘Let’s, you know, revolutionize all the history of TV and cast black actors.’ It’s, ‘OK, if we can cast black actors who are great, it will be great.’ And it worked out. We’re already writing episode 7 or something, and they’re already shooting episode 4. It’s much more important now that we’re just trying to figure out who the characters are than worrying about how we cast at this point.”

Kodjoe agreed with Reims but also wanted to offer his two cents worth. “I think it’s important to recognize the fact that it is somewhat…I don’t know if you want to call it revolutionary, but it’s not the norm,” he said. “Although it should be the norm, because that’s what the world looks like. The world is diverse, and we come in all kinds of different shapes, sizes, and shades, but as you mentioned correctly, traditionally in TV it hasn’t been the case, and therefore it needs to be commented on. So I want to make a point that it is important that we get a chance to, I don’t know, be trailblazers or door openers or whatever you want to call it. On the other hand, let’s keep in mind or let’s inspire people to regard it as normal, so that more and more people don’t consider it taking a chance but just being creative. And at the end of the day, that’s what we all try to be. Even though it’s a corporate industry and even though it’s show business, to have that freedom is something that we aspire to. So Josh and J.J. have, I think, led the way, and hopefully the world will open up to it.”

As far as what we can expect from the series itself…since, really, isn’t that more important?…Reims said that we can expect the proceedings to be far easier to follow that Abrams’ previous spy series, with episodes that are more self-contained.

“The idea is, certainly, that every week you will have a case come to a conclusion,” said Reims. “That’s happening no matter what. As far as over-reaching stuff, you know, they are married, they do have their own business, there will be certain secrets that will be coming out that will be hinted at, so there will be some stuff that is carried throughout the season. Some of it will not be revealed until much later. Some of it will be revealed earlier. The great thing about the concept of the relationship is that they didn’t tell each other anything about their pasts. So they can find out stuff about each other the same way the audience can find out stuff about them because they don’t know anything from the past five years, you know, before that. So we will be laying certain things in there that will then play out, but there is no big, over-riding arc, though there will certainly be twinges here and there of stuff.”

Executive Session

The last time we saw Jeff Gaspin, Chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment, and Angela Bromstad, NBC’s President of Prime-Time Entertainment, it was in the midst of the great “Tonight Show” wars, so you can imagine that the duo were breathing a little easier this time around, if only because there wasn’t such a pressing agenda on the table. They still had plenty of new information to impart, however, and here are the highlights:

* There will be plenty of special premieres this season. First, “Parenthood” will be returning on Sept. 14, placed behind the next-to-last episode of “America’s Got Talent” in order to give it the greatest possible chance for strong ratings; similarly, after the “America’s Got Talent” season finale on the 21st, “Outlaw” will get a sneak-preview airing. Then, on the 23rd, “The Apprentice” – now with 100% less celebrities! – will have a two-hour premiere from 9:00 – 10:00 PM before settling into its regular 10 PM timeslot. Lastly, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” will also kick off on Sept. 22 with a two-hour premiere, s 9 PM slot the following week.

* “30 Rock” will be doing a live episode on Oct. 14, not from their usual set but, rather, from the famed Studio 8H, home to “Saturday Night Live.”

* “Law & Order: Los Angeles” has added Terrence Howard and Alfred Molina to the cast as district attorneys. Molina’s character is Deputy District Attorney Morales, the name of Howard’s character has yet to be revealed, but the actors will be alternating episodes.

* Rob Lowe’s status on “Parks and Recreation” – he plays state auditor Chris Traeger – has been upped from guest star to series regular. Series co-creator / executive producer Mike Schur said in a statement, “I am beyond thrilled that Rob will be joining the cast for more episodes. I have truly come to value his fashion sense, grooming habits, and workout tips. Also, he is hilarious and adds a wonderful dimension to the cast. But, really, it’s the workout tips.”

* On the guest-star front, Drew Carey will be appearing on “Community,” Kathy Bates is returning to “The Office,” and “Law & Order: SVU” is providing roles to Henry Ian Cusick, Joan Cusack, and Maria Bello,

* Speaking of “The Office,” Bromstadt said of Steve Carell’s impending departure that “Greg Daniels and Paul Lieberstein do have a plan in terms of who’s going to replace Michael, and so there will be a lot of storylines leading up to that, and there will be some mystery as to who that will be.”

* When asked about the differences between “Heroes” and NBC’s upcoming midseason superhero series, “The Cape,” Bromstad was predictably diplomatic on the subject of the lessons she may have learned from the network’s experience with the former. “I think that ‘Heroes’ was a great show, we had four tremendous years with that, and it was a very good business for us,” she said. “So if we could replicate that, we absolutely would. ‘Heroes’ was so much about the discovery of their powers. This is really more of a procedural, and this character in ‘The Cape’ doesn’t have super powers. He’s trained in a way that he just is able to manipulate things, but he doesn’t actually have super powers the way that the ‘Heroes’ characters did.”

* Other midseason series include “Love Bites,” “Harry’s Law” (the David Kelley series starring Kathy Bates), “The Paul Reiser Show,” “Perfect Couples,” and “Friends with Benefits.”

* Peter Berg and his production team will be taking on the long-promised adaptation of the BBC series, “Prime Suspect.” It’s being written by Alex Cunningham, late of “Desperate Housewives” and “NYPD Blue.” According to Bromstad, there’s a story outline which is planned as a two-hour pilot, and having heard that outline, the network is very excited about it.

Law & Order: Los Angeles

Although Dick Wolf began his appearance at the TCA Press Tour by saying, “We are here today to talk about the future, and basically the past is the past,” no one has ever accused TV critics of being able to take a hint, which is why the very first question unabashedly went against his explicit statement:

Can you confirm that “Law & Order,” the mothership, is dead?

Even though I think most of us were resigned to its demise, you could nonetheless hear a slight rumbling in the crowd as Wolf replied, “I can confirm that it has moved into the history books.” Damn. I’d really been hoping that someone might save the day.

Oh, well, at least we won’t be completely without “Law & Order” series. In fact, technically, we’ll still have the same number. Since nature abhors a vacuum, in addition to “SVU” and “Criminal Intent,” we’ll now have “Law & Order: Los Angeles,” starring Skeet Ulrich, a man who, by his own admission, has seen almost no episodes of any entry in the “Law & Order” franchise. (The only exceptions, apparently, were a few episodes of “Criminal Intent,” and only then because it stars his friend Vincent D’Onofrio.)

“Basically,” said Ulrich, “we had a meeting, we talked about what the show was going to be, and fortunately Dick
felt like I fit into that mold. I’m just grateful to be here.”

Ulrich admitted that, having only read one script thus far, he couldn’t really offer up too much about his character, but he gave us as much as he could. “He’s a second-generation LAPD,” said Ulrich. “I imagine there’s a lot to come, obviously, in terms of the character development, but he’s sort of a brass-tacks kind of guy. I mean, he’s to the point. I think one of the descriptions given is whereas it takes (Corey Stoll) many, many words to say something, I can sum it up rather quickly. So he’s pretty much an all-business kind of guy in terms of what he sees in his time at work.”

Stoll knows even less about his character, but, like Ulrich, he did the best he could to tell us about him. “I think our characters really play off each other in a great way,” he said. “I’m a second-generation American, and my father was a DP, and so I come from the entertainment industry. And there’s just sort of a skepticism and a street smartness within the entertainment industry that I think I bring.”

“I’ve never played a cop,” admitted Ulrich, “and as I’ve started to delve into this lifestyle — I have friends who are on LAPD and are on the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and stuff – and it’s fascinating. I can tell you, living here, I’m extremely grateful for these guys, having gone on a homicide scene recently and seeing what they do. And we are very fortunate to have the police department we have here. And I hope to live up to what it is they do on a daily basis because it is honorable to the nth degree.”

Rene Balcer balked at the suggestion that Los Angeles, in addition to having been done to death on cop shows over the years, simply isn’t nearly as interesting a setting as New York. “As far as divide between rich and poor, I don’t think you get any more dramatic a divide between East L.A. and West L.A.,” said Balcer. “The essential difference between New York and L.A. is New York is a big stew of people. It really is the melting pot. And it’s also been the site of innumerable TV shows, like ‘The Naked City.’ So I could argue that New York has been mined as much as L.A. has. L.A. is a mosaic of communities, and I think that’s going to be part of the fun of these shows is each episode can focus on a separate community, a separate piece of that mosaic. And though New York has Central Park, we have the beach, which is the great equalizer. It’s where everybody goes to. We even have an episode about surfers and the beach and how that played a part in the mythos of Los Angeles. So I think there’s all kinds of territory that has not been mined by a lot of shows. We have an episode on an oil rig, for example. So, you know, a lot of things, we can do here that have not been done by other shows.”

“One other thing to put to that is that, overall, the shows that have been in L.A., most of them show you one facet,” said executive producer Blake Masters. “More often than not, if they’re a cop show, they’re in one specific area of L.A.: ‘The Shield,’ ‘Southland,’ etc. The beauty of our HD is they cover all of L.A. County so that we can go and show very specific areas, and we only have to be there for one episode. We can go to Koreatown for an episode. We can go to East L.A. for an episode. Then we can go to the beach for an episode. So the idea is you’ll actually get a much wider variety of socioeconomic places.”

Facing Kate

I’m always embarrassed to go into a panel without having seen the show that it’s dedicated to, but in my defense, it’s not like we were provided with an advance screener. Our only option to watch the pilot was on the Beverly Hilton’s TCA channels, but although the networks kindly provide us with the opportunity to watch their shows’ pilots, they only show them late at night and early in the morning, and…well, I tend to be asleep at both those points, frankly.

Here, however, is what they have to say about “Facing Kate” on the USA Network’s website:

“Facing Kate” centers on Kate Reed (Sarah Shahi), a top litigator who has grown frustrated with the endless bureaucracy and injustice she has witnessed on a daily basis and decides to become the ultimate anti-lawyer — a mediator. Using her knowledge of the law, along with intuition and a whatever-it-takes approach to resolve conflict, Kate finds the middle ground for a wide variety of adversaries — from Fortune 500 corporations to bitter divorcees. Following the unexpected death of her father, she finds herself at odds with her new boss, her stepmother (Virginia Williams) — and back in bed with her lawyer/ ex-husband (Michael Trucco). Helping her keep all of this chaos at bay is her trusted, geek-chic assistant Leonardo (Baron Vaughn).

Executive producer Michael Sardo went into a little more detail on Kate’s profession, for those of us who aren’t legal scholars.

“A mediator can be someone who’s just trained to resolve conflicts, or lawyers can resign from the bar, which is what Kate
has done, to become a full-time mediator,” he explained. “In mediation, you basically bring people into a room who are in a conflict, and you resolve it according to the way that they want to resolve it. Mediation is exploding in this country. It’s exploding all over the world. In China last year there were 7 million mediations. In Florida, you can’t get divorced in a court until you’ve gone through a mediation. And what it requires is simply sitting down face-to-face with the person you’re having a conflict with and talking it out. In courts, on a regular law show, you have all this artifice around, and you have someone speaking for you and speaking instead of you, whereas we just get right to the heart of it and do our little anti-law law show where you put two people in a room in conflict, send in Kate, and things happen.”

Shahi was cast for the role of Kate because, unlike those who auditioned before her, she impressed Sardo with the way she reacted to a moment within her scene: she’s waiting in line for coffee, a guy comes in to rob the store and pulls out a gun, and another guy pulls out a bat.

“The reason we cast Sarah, in addition to her loveliness and her acting ability, is that we had looked at 100 women, and in that scene, whenever someone pulled out a gun…and there was no gun, it was just someone saying, ‘Give me the money’…100 people backed up, and Sarah was the only one who moved toward it and went, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa!'” said Sardo. “Because you can’t solve conflicts from a distance…and in life, I think (Sarah is) a little bit of a conflict divining rod. Kate is someone who’s very comfortable with conflict and moves toward it and solves it, and if she walks into a room where there is none, she stirs some up.”

“Except in her own life,” added Shahi. “She doesn’t have as much gumption in her own life as she does in the work force to confront some of her own issues.”

As far as what we can expect from the series, Sardo says that cases will come to Kate in different ways.

“Each one, in the writers’ room, we discuss in terms of a question,” he said. “‘What is your identity?’ ‘What is a life worth?’ ‘What is a hero?’ The episode after the pilot involves Kate negotiating a settlement between the City of San Francisco and the lawyer for a man who was wrongly imprisoned for 22 years for a crime he didn’t commit, and though initially it’s about the settlement, what it becomes for Kate is about healing this man who hasn’t dealt with this 22-year lapse who wants to go right back to where he was when he was 19. The show we just shot is ‘Who is a hero?’ and ‘What is a hero?’ and involves a woman who served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, but not until high school did she find out that she wasn’t a legal citizen of the United States. So she bought a Social Security number from a woman she believed to be dead and served two tours in Afghanistan as a hero, and it wasn’t until she came back to the States and tried to get a credit card that she found out the woman was alive. That gets reported to immigration, and Kate, in trying to clear up the credit problem, winds up with a woman in jail in immigration who’s going to be there for nine months and sent back to a country where the language spoken is not one she’s ever spoken because her parents raised her to be the all-American girl. So each one deals with a fundamental precept of the human behavior.”

The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell

I’m not a news junkie, so the name “Lawrence O’Donnell” doesn’t mean anything to me personally, but if you’re a regular MSNBC viewer, you almost certainly know him, since – as Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC, noted in his opening remarks – he’s been with the network since the very beginning.

“We debuted July 15th, 1996,” said Griffin, “and Lawrence was the first guest in the first hour, at 9 AM. Now, here we are 14 years later, and he has a show at 10 PM.”

“Yeah, I’ve said it before: I’ve been working part-time there for 14 years, and we’ve finally gotten to know each other well enough for me to go full-time,” said O’Donnell, laughing.

As for the title of the show, it came to him on a flight. “I just started thinking about, ‘What should I call this thing?’ And I started thinking about, ‘Well, it’s going to be the last word of the day,’ and I realized there was a title in the concept that I started thinking about, which is the last word. For people who have been following what’s been going on from ‘Morning Joe’ maybe through the day through our primetime schedule, at 10 o’clock we’ll be able to deliver a succinct and real last word on that subject or where a particular news story stands at the close of our news cycle. And I think what we’ll also have in the show is my last word on certain things: ‘This is what I think you need to know about this. This is what it comes down to.’

“There will be nights when I’m handing the last word on a subject to a guest, and it could be someone who I agree with. That will be very likely. It could also be someone who I’m not sure of or who I might not agree with. It’s conceivable to me, for example, that somewhere in the hundred days of the BP coverage, I might have given the last word to a BP executive on whatever their tactic was on that particular day that they thought was going to be the new advance on how to solve this problem. That doesn’t mean that what that person is saying is the final truth on something, but it might be the most important point to know as of this point in the development of a story.

“I’m at the beginning…or maybe it’s the middle…of the creative process of coming up with this show,” O’Donnell said. “It’s an interesting experience for me since I’ve only done this on the entertainment side and the drama side, creating television. And I’m finding that…at first I thought there were no translatable skills from that side of the TV box to this side, but it’s been a great few weeks now sitting around with Phil and others, trying to figure out how to deliver what it is I think we want to get delivered at 10 o’clock. And so we’re in the middle of that. I think some of the questions you might have about what this show is going to be like…? The truth is I don’t know yet. Some of it I do. Some of it is in my head in a way that I can’t really articulate. But it will be broadcast quality by September 27th.”

Outsourced

Most controversial series of the new season? Possibly, though having seen the pilot for “Outsourced,” it strikes me as little more than a tempest in a teacup. Not being in any way Indian, perhaps my perception of what is or isn’t offensive to Indians shouldn’t be considered the definitive barometer of good taste, but I just saw the show as a culture-clash comedy which is more about poking fun at clueless Americans. Again, though, that’s me, ever a possible poster boy for Very White Americans everywhere.

“I think where we approach this is certainly not a mean-spirited place,” said executive producer Robert Borden. “A lot of us have a life experience that’s relevant, and a third of the writing staff is Indian, so we’re not going to be wallowing in (Indian stereotypes), but we are going to have a lot of fun with characters who behave like relatable characters in a workplace comedy. For example, Parvesh, his character is modeled after that guy that everyone works with that will not stop talking to you. If you talk to them in the break room, they’re going to follow you out and talk to you on the floor, so you can’t get rid of the person. That’s neither American nor Indian. That’s how we’re approaching the show.

“We’re going to deal with culture clashes,” Borden continued, “and both sides of view will be represented. For example, down the road we’re going to have one character, Asha, starting an arranged marriage, something that the Western characters perhaps don’t understand and disagree with. And she’s going to represent her point of view by questioning Western marriages. ‘You know, 50 percent of your marriages end in divorce,’ and our character here, at a loss for words, will say, ‘Well, we crushed you in the Olympics.’ Like, he has no response for that. So we’re going to be dealing with cultural clashes in that way.”

Diedrich Bader is particularly excited about his character, Charlie, one of the resident Americans on the show, because it gives him a chance to be the guy who says what everybody else is thinking.

“It’s not exclusively American,” said Bader. “You know, like a Frenchman will want to go and hang out in the French community when they go to, say, Germany or something like that. I remember when I was a kid in France, there’d be a Mickey D’s there, and I would think, ‘Why would an American come all the way here and go to Mickey D’s?’ Well, a guy like Charlie would be that guy. He would be that guy that would be at McDonald’s going, ‘I just want what I want. Give it to me. I want it hot.’ He just tries to replicate his world wherever he goes, and for him, it’s really just a job, but it’s not without interest, you know. But the interest is mostly that he gets paid.”

For what it’s worth, the Indians amongst the cast don’t seem to be terribly offended by the show. Yeah, I know, they’re getting paid, so there’s an incentive to not be offended…but, dammit, for some reason, I believe them.

“I think a lot of people are commenting on the East, the Indian side,” said cast member Sacha Dawan. “I think with ‘Outsourced’ it’s very much about the West as it is the East. I think people assume that the gap between the East and West is so huge. I think what ‘Outsourced’ is doing is kind of making that gap very small and making loads of comparisons and similarities. Like my character, Manmeet, or ‘Man Meat,’ is, you know, very close to Todd. You know, they’re kind of roughly the same age, and they have a lot in common even though they’re from different sides of the world.”

“I’m Indian, or that’s what my parents told me,” said Rizwan Manji, “and my friends and family, they’ve seen the trailer, some of
them have seen the show, and surprisingly, they are very supportive and find it hilarious and quite accurate.”

“Also, a call-center job back in India is a really, highly prestigious job,” said Parvesh Cheena. “My mom was back in India when I found out, just visiting, and I called right before I got on the plane, and the whole family at the wedding just freaked out and erupted, and they’re excited.”

“I think all my family and friends are just really excited to see such a large Indian contingent on television,” said Anisha Nagarajan. “They’re just really excited that that’s happening and that we’re getting out there.”

Outlaw

“Outlaw” may be the fastest moving and most preposterously plotted drama of the new season, with Jimmy Smiths playing a conservative Supreme Court Justice who decides to throw caution to the wind and quit the Court in favor of traveling the country trying cases, some of which go against everything he’s ever believed in his legal career. So why is it that I walked away from it, thinking, “Ah, maybe I’ll give it a chance, anyway”?

Behold the power of Jimmy Smits.

“One of the joys about doing this show with Jimmy in the part is that he has a body of work that I think the public feels is virtuous and liberal,” said executive producer John Eisendrath, “and he’s going to play a character filled with vices who is conservative, so I feel like we will have a great deal of leeway to lean into the vices, to let Garza do and say things and be certain ways that we might not otherwise be able to do without someone with Jimmy’s persona playing Garza. I think that there will be many instances where he will play with fire, and he will risk a great deal in order to seek the justice that he’s set out to do. And I wouldn’t suggest that it’s just in his professional life that he’s going to toe that line. I think there will be many instances in his personal life too where he will do things that the audience will be like, ‘Oh, wait, he can’t do that. Oh, but I love Jimmy Smits. He’s got to be doing it in a way that we like.’ So I think that we will have him pay a price sometimes, but I think part of the joy will be to see him toe that line and find a way around the barriers that other lawyers and other judges live by. The whole point is that he’s going to not stop at the line that everyone else stops at in his quest for justice. He’s going to find a way around the barriers.”

There’s another thing that’s kind of ridiculous about this show, and that’s that the character of Garza is about 100x more in-your-face than any Supreme Court Justice we’ve seen in many moons: he’s a gambler, he employs a sexy private investigator who wears leather and flirts up a storm whenever an opportunity to do so presents itself…in short, he couldn’t be less private if he tried.

“I would say that the point-of-view character on this show is unlike any point-of-view character on another legal show you’ll ever see,” said Eisendrath. “It is about, yes, a Supreme Court Justice. None of them ever leave that way, so is it a heightened reality? I would say that it is in some ways a little bit of a fantasy. Every week they are going to go to a different city, taking up a different cause. One week it will be Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles. And wherever the case is that Garza thinks needs the most attention, looking out for the little guy, fighting against the system, this group will parachute in. Wouldn’t you want this lawyer and this legal team to come to your city to represent you in the case that matters the most to you? ”

“There’s a certain amount of license,” admitted executive producer David Kissinger. “But, you know, the reality is there were colorful Supreme Court Justices. I’d say the current group is probably, given the process that they have to go through, a little bit tamer. But people like William O. Douglas, who we talked a lot about in the development of this, had some very Garza-like qualities. So it’s not as far-fetched as I think you’re suggesting.”

“For me, the bottom line is what’s on the page,” said Smits, “and I think it was an opportunity to deal with legal matters and hot-button issues that are substantive in terms of a legal show but, at the same time, have a character that is outside the box in a lot of different ways. And since we’re at a point where we’re logger-jammed in terms of the political right and left, the fact that, because of what happens to him in the pilot, has made such a radical switch and then surrounds himself with a team of people that have different types of political viewpoints, it does give an opportunity for us to tackle these hot-button issues in a new and kind of fresh way.”

Chase

I hate to break it you folks, but I found this to be the least interesting pilot amongst NBC’s crop of new series for the fall. Sure, it’s full of action, but by the time the closing credits rolled, I couldn’t tell you a single thing about a single character…and it’s an ensemble show! Some of my fellow critics have shrugged and said, “Well, that’s what you expect from a Jerry Bruckheimer produced series,” but, look, I like most of Bruckheimer’s productions and I still think this is a big ol’ bore…and the fact that NBC could only spare 20 minutes for the panel for “Chase” made me suspect that perhaps the network felt the same way.

Apparently not, though…or, at least, that’s what executive producer Jennifer Johnson thinks. “NBC has been so incredibly supportive,” she said. “I believe them when they tell us that it’s their favorite show. We are thrilled to be with NBC.”

Maybe NBC does feel that way. After listening to “Chase” star Kelli Giddish talk about the series, I’m beginning to think I might’ve missed something. I mean, I’m pretty sure I didn’t, but, damn, she’s just so enthusiastic…

If Giddish looks familiar to you, then you must’ve been one of the few people who saw her as the star of Fox’s short-lived midseason series “Past Life.” Obviously, she managed to land on her feet, but if you go back and check the dates between when “Past Life” was canceled and when she was picked up for “Chase,” you’ll see that she barely left the ground in the first place.

“I think Fox had made the call after a couple of episodes it aired, and thank goodness they did and let me go, and Warner Bros. as well, because they’re the studio that did the show. They let me come over here, and I got it,” said Giddish.

Giddish launched into her new endeavor with all due enthusiasm, proving from the moment she stepped foot on the set that she was ready for anything. “It’s called ‘Chase,’ baby,” she said, laughing. “I show up on set the first day of filming, and they say ‘All right. You signed on. Go.’ So I did, and I was sprinting the entire first day.”

Prior to moving to Texas to film “Chase,” Giddish was in decent enough shape, but there’s more to playing a U.S. Marshal than just being fit. “I went down to train with the U.S. Marshals because…I mean, I’m from Georgia, I’ve been around guns, but, you know, I hadn’t gone and actually trained,” she said. “I got to do five days with them, riding around for 15-hour days, hearing the stories, serving warrants, and going out and really getting with the guys. A whole day of firearm training with five different types of firearms. It was absolutely awesome.”

That’s as may be, but I’m still not convinced that “Chase” itself is absolutely awesome. Still, Johnson’s assurances about what we can expect from the series sound good, anyway.

“We hope to keep the audience on their toes with very unexpected moments with the fugitives,” said Johnson. “With my background on “Lost” and “Cold Case,” a big difference of this show is we are really going to get to know the fugitives and then really get to know our U.S. Marshals, so the two points of view really make the show stand out.”

We’ll see about that.

Hunting Hollywood

I won’t be spending long on this show…not because it doesn’t sound interesting, but because it serves to remind me of how, when Sci-Fi changed their name to SyFy, they did so with the comment that they could therefore open up their programming and not limit it solely to science-fiction-related series. That really pissed me off. I mean, what, like there’s not enough room on the cable dial for a network that’s 100% science fiction…? Instead, they’ve taken to putting shows like this on their schedule…which, annoyingly, I would probably watch if it was on another network. I just don’t want to personally encourage SyFy.

Still, you deserve the right to watch it if you so desire, so here’s the deal with “Hunting Hollywood.” Treasure hunter Joe Maddalena tracks down some of the most sought-after showbiz and pop-culture memorabilia, ranging anywhere from Margaret Hamilton’s original Wicked Witch of the West hat from “The Wizard of Oz” to Mary Poppins’ carpet bag to original art from issue #12 of “The Fantastic Four” (first crossover with the Incredible Hulk), featuring Stan Lee’s original notes in the margins.

See what I mean? It’s an awesome concept…dammit.

Executive producer Jerry Shevick swears that SyFy was always his first choice for the show. “We had several offers for the show,” he said, “but we thought Syfy was perfect for us for two simple reasons. One, obviously, all the sci-fi, fantasy, horror stuff — that’s a big portion of Joe’s business in the memorabilia and collectible market, so, you know, we had a good overlap on Syfy’s core audience. The second big reason is…what we liked a great deal is with Syfy’s expanded branding now with ‘Imagine Greater’ and everything, all of these kinds of objects that Joe and his team are going to be tracking down really are so much more relatable to a broader audience, and so again, we thought that with where they’re going, it fit our show just perfectly. We really have the best of both worlds.”

Make no mistake: Maddalena’s got some terrific tales to tell, including one about a client who found an original poster for “Frankenstein” – valued at a million dollars, the most expensive movie poster in the world – in a trunk at a yard sale…and they’d gotten the trunk for free! Great story. I just wish “Hunting Hollywood” was airing somewhere else, so that I’d have more of a desire to watch it.

Destination Truth

I have to admit that I don’t regularly watch the show, but I do at least know that it’s at least an appropriate show for the network, so it gets a pass. (I know, I’m sounding ridiculously hard-ass about this. But I feel very strongly about it.)

According to host / executive producer Josh Gates, “New episodes come back on September 9th, and we’re going to be in the Pacific and Micronesia, the world’s very first overnight at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. They’ve never allowed cameras in there before. So we’re really excited about that. Our season premiere is going to be in Pompeii in Italy which is a really terrific episode, and then a bunch of stuff in various countries in Africa. So it’s a big season.”

School Pride

Cue Will’s inevitable comment about not being a huge fan of reality shows, but even if I probably won’t watch this one, it certainly has its heart in the right place. From executive producers Cheryl Hines and Denise Cramsey, “School Pride” is described by NBC as “a pro-active, alternative series that tells the stories of communities coming together to renovate their aging and broken public schools.”

Hines got involved in the series as a result of her daughter…sort of. “Don’t ask me why, but I was inspired to reach out to schools,” she said, “and my first thought was to reach out to schools in other countries that were in need. And my friend said, ‘Well, what about our country? What about our schools?’ And I foolishly said, ‘Oh, I think we’re OK.’ And he said, ‘No, we’re not OK.’ And at the time, I was volunteering with Read Across America, a reading program. And I was volunteering at this school in Compton. And I literally just picked up the phone and cold-called the principal there, a woman named Dr. Jackie Sanderlin. I said, ‘I don’t even know why I’m calling. Do you guys need help there?’ And she said, ‘Yes, we do. When can you be here?’ And I got in my car; I drove over. And Jackie and I started working together. We started renovating her school. And my friend said, ‘This should be a TV show. You should show the country what you’re doing and how to do it.’ And I said, ‘That sounds really hard.’ And then Denise Cramsey and I met, and she made it seem easy. It’s not easy, but she makes it seem easy.”

“The whole idea of ‘School Pride’ is to bring the community together, to empower the community to make changes in the school,” she said. “We’re not going in and changing the infrastructure of schools. We’re going in and saying to that school, ‘Reach out to your community, to local businesses. Everybody join together with the district. Work together and show the kids that you care about their school.’”

“And we’ve had great cooperation from the cities and the towns that we’ve been in,” said Cramsey, “so that, you know, everyone gets behind the idea of the school project, and they just help us get it done.”

“When people in their own community get together and say, ‘Regardless of what what’s going on in the world, we’re going take care of our community and we’re going to take care of the people around us,’ I think you can make changes because it doesn’t seem like we have to change the world,” said Hines. “It seems like we just have to take care of our community and each other. And I think when you break it down…you know, I was calling one other person. I wasn’t going to Capitol Hill and banging down their door, not to say that I wouldn’t do that because it’s probably in my future, but…what you can say is, ‘What can I, as an individual, do to make one tiny bit of difference?’ And you find out, actually, you can do a lot. And even if it’s just on one Saturday out of the year, it could really mean a lot to those 600 kids that walk through the door of that school. It doesn’t feel so overwhelming, and it feels doable. That’s what we’re trying to do with ‘School Pride.’ We’re trying to show people what they can do.”

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon / The 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards

The last time we saw Jimmy Fallon at a TCA event, he was just preparing to start his talk show and seemed more than a little bit nervous at the prospect of stepping into Conan O’Brien’s shoes as the host of NBC’s “Late Night.” These days, he’s had enough to success to earn himself a pretty high profile side gig, too: serving as emcee for the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards. But don’t expect to see too much crossover between the two shows.

“The Emmys, I think, is not ‘Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’ hosting,” said Fallon. “It’s me hosting. So I don’t want to push too hard. I want the Academy to be happy, and I want Don Mischer to be happy, and I want NBC to be happy. You know, it’s not really about me. It’s more about celebrating television and getting all of those face time.”

Fallon took a few minutes to step into the Wayback Machine and reminisce about his very first show, which featured an interview which he’s able to admit wasn’t exactly the best of all possible starts.

“First of all, I just want to say how cool Robert De Niro was to come on the show,” began Fallon. “He had nothing to promote. He just did it because he’s a New Yorker and I’ve worked in the past and he did me a favor. That being said, he does not like to talk. It’s a lot of head-bobbing and one-word answers. But I figured, ‘Baptism by fire. Jump into the fire, baby, let’s see what it’s going to be.’ And there’s so many things that I wish I could have done. I wish I could have made the temperature cooler, because I was sweating so much flop sweat during that first show. It was like I just came off a water slide. Oh, my God, I was so dewy during that interview. And I was like, ‘Whaaaaaaa…’ And, of course, it’s your first show, which…I don’t know why anyone does this, but my mom and dad want to come to the first show. And I go, ‘Can’t you come to the tenth show? Can’t you come to anything, but not the first.’ There’s so much pressure, you know. And I’m worried about if my mom. Is she going to sit in her seat? What if she has to go to the bathroom? Who’s going to take her? I got to worry about these things. I gotta worry about the show!

“I just remember going, like, ‘Well, now, this is it.’ I was behind the curtain, you know, just standing there. Higgins was announcing. If you go back and listen to it…oh, my God, Higgins is even off. He’s, like, ‘Live from Studio from 6H…NBC…Jimmy…’ It’s like the worst intro ever. And I was just standing, like, all right. And it’s almost like when the curtain opens, like you’ve seen that shot in movies before where, like, the curtain opens and you just see the silhouette of the comedian walking out like a gladiator. And I was, like, ‘It’s on. This is it.’ It’s, like. game on. And I think I had a good first joke. I forget what it was. I think someone was…was Rush Limbaugh rooting for me to fail? I think that was the first joke, I think. He just said it about Obama. It’s a dated reference now. But I remember going out there, and I go, like, ‘This is just it. You just have to do it.’ And I was so nervous about time cues and going out to commercial and, like, OK and just the story’s getting good, I cut him off and go like, ‘Thank you. We’ll be right back, bye. Thank you, bye.’ And it’s like…now, a year later, I know to just keep going, or if it’s not working, to go to commercial. I’m much more calm, and I kind of understand it better now. It’s, like, ‘Oh, we don’t have anything to worry about.’ But the best way to learn is that you have to just do it.”

Okay, back to the Emmys to bring this thing home. What can we expect from Fallon as the host of the show?

“Personally, as a fan of the Emmys and a fan of awards shows in general, you just want them to move along,” said Fallon. “You just want to keep them moving and keep it fast and tight. And so I think…I mean, we’re all with the same goal in mind. I mean, even the people in the crowd. I mean, there’s just like, ‘OK. I already lost. Let’s get this over with. I mean, I want to keep it moving and keep it fresh and fun and respectful, too. We’re going to do something with Twitter. We haven’t figured that out yet, but we have a couple of ideas for that just so maybe the people at home can somehow get involved with the award show somehow, make it a little bit interactive.”

Outstanding Comedy Series:

* Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
* Glee (Fox)
* Modern Family (ABC)
* Nurse Jackie (Showtime)
* The Office (NBC)
* 30 Rock (NBC)

My Pick: “Modern Family.” There’s no question that “Glee” is award-worthy, but not necessarily as a comedy, which is also where “Nurse Jackie” falters in this category. I feel like “The Office” and “30 Rock” coasted in on their past merits this year, but “Curb” got a huge boost from the “Seinfeld” storyline, so it’s the only real competition here. Still, the buzz on “Modern Family” is all over the place. I can’t imagine it won’t bring home the glory.

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series:

* Jim Parsons, “The Big Bang Theory” (CBS)
* Larry David, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (HBO)
* Matthew Morrison, “Glee” (Fox)
* Tony Shalhoub, “Monk” (USA)
* Steve Carell, “The Office” (NBC)
* Alec Baldwin, “30 Rock” (NBC)

My pick: Jim Parsons, “The Big Bang Theory.” And I’m going to keep picking him until he gets the award, dammit.

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series:

* Lea Michele, “Glee” (Fox)
* Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “The New Adventures of Old Christine” (CBS)
* Edie Falco, “Nurse Jackie” (Showtime)
* Amy Poehler, “Parks & Recreation” (NBC)
* Tina Fey, “30 Rock” (NBC)
* Toni Collette, “United States of Tara” (Showtime)

My pick: Lea Michele, “Glee.” All things being equal, I’d much rather see Edie Falco take home the award, but her best work on “Nurse Jackie” comes from her dramatic work on the series, and the same goes for Toni Collette on “United States of Tara.” I can’t see them giving Julia the award, Tina’s had her day in the sun, and I’m not convinced that enough Emmy voters are watching “Parks & Recreation,” which is one thing you definitely can’t say about “Glee.”

Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Comedy Series:

* Chris Colfer, “Glee” (Fox)
* Neil Patrick Harris, “How I Met Your Mother” (CBS)
* Jesse Tyler Ferguson, “Modern Family” (ABC)
* Eric Stonestreet, “Modern Family” (ABC)
* Ty Burrell, “Modern Family” (ABC)
* Jon Cryer, “Two and a Half Men” (CBS)

My pick: Ty Burrell, “Modern Family.” If Cryer wins, the critics will weep, and while Neil always deserves to win an Emmy, let’s hope he takes one home for his guest spot on “Glee” and shares it with Colfer. Stonestreet and Ferguson are great, but it’s only inevitable that they’ll split the vote, which leaves Burrell as the cast member to beat…and, indeed, the nominee to beat.

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Comedy Series:

* Jane Lynch, “Glee” (Fox)
* Julie Bowen, “Modern Family” (ABC)
* Sofia Vergara, “Modern Family” (ABC)
* Kristen Wiig, “Saturday Night Live” (NBC)
* Jane Krakowski, “30 Rock” (NBC)
* Holland Taylor, “Two and a Half Men” (CBS)

My pick: Jane Lynch, “Glee.” It’s the kind of performance that makes you want to just cut to the chase and give it to her now. With that said, however, I would have no complaints if either Vergara or Krakowski took it home. In particular, I’ve always felt that Krakowski was an MVP on “30 Rock” who doesn’t get nearly as much attention as she’s deserved. (Vergara, meanwhile, does get plenty of attention…and rightfully so. Yowza!) Bowen’s great, but much of her performance involves staring incredulously at Ty Burrell, and Taylor’s a class act, but she’s outclassed here. And don’t even get me started on Kristen Wiig. If you’ve got something to say about her, say it here and here.

Outstanding Drama Series:

* Breaking Bad (AMC)
* Dexter (Showtime)
* The Good Wife (CBS)
* Lost (ABC)
* Mad Men (AMC)
* True Blood (HBO)

My pick: Breaking Bad. If you need any more explanation about this pick, then just hit up my blog for the series. It clarifies my feelings pretty well.

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series:

* Bryan Cranston, “Breaking Bad” (AMC)
* Michael C. Hall, “Dexter” (Showtime)
* Kyle Chandler, “Friday Night Lights” (DirecTV)
* Hugh Laurie, “House” (Fox)
* Matthew Fox, “Lost” (ABC)
* Jon Hamm, “Mad Men” (AMC)

My pick: Bryan Cranston, “Breaking Bad.” As if there was ever any doubt, right? I said in September Laurie would earn an Emmy nomination based on his performance in the “House” season premiere alone, so it’s nice to see that I was right about that, and I’d probably have to turn in my TCA membership card if I didn’t cheer for Chandler’s nomination just on general principle. Fox’s nod seems more sentimental than anything else, though. It could well prove to be a three-way heat between Hamm, Hall, and Cranston, but I’m sticking with my favorite horse on this one.

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series:

* Kyra Sedgwick, “The Closer” (TNT)
* Glenn Close, “Damages” (FX)
* Connie Britton, “Friday Night Lights” (DirecTV)
* Julianna Margulies, “The Good Wife” (CBS)
* Mariska Hargitay, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (NBC)
* January Jones, “Mad Men” (AMC)

My pick: Julianna Margulies, “The Good Wife.” But with all due respect to Ms. Margulies, the person who I would’ve voted for didn’t even score a nomination…and, frankly, I’m pissed about it. In fact, I’m calling bullshit on the fact that January Jones received a nod for “Mad Men” while Anna Gunn was left out in the cold for her outstanding work on “Breaking Bad” this season. That’s right, I’m unabashedly calling out Jones as the one who doesn’t belong in this category: sure, she plays the ice queen to perfection, but if you saw her hosting “Saturday Night Live,” then you know that you’re seeing something not terribly far from her default setting. Jones coasted into this nomination via name recognition for the show, plain and simple, and not for her acting.

Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series:

* Aaron Paul, “Breaking Bad” (AMC)
* Martin Short, “Damages” (FX)
* Terry O’Quinn, “Lost” (ABC)
* Michael Emerson, “Lost” (ABC)
* John Slattery, “Mad Men” (AMC)
* Andre Braugher, “Men of a Certain Age” (TNT)

My pick: Terry O’Quinn, “Lost.” This is certifiably the single hardest category for me, because there’s literally no one in the running who I wouldn’t like to see take home the award, but gut feeling is that one of the two “Lost” cast members will end up winning, with O’Quinn being my personal favorite (not that Emerson isn’t great). In a perfect world, though, enough people would have watched the 3rd season of “Damages” to give their votes to Short. Braugher got to play a lot of great family drama, and, well, you know how I feel about “Breaking Bad,” but, seriously, Aaron Paul’s work this year as Jesse worked his way through rehab while dealing with emotional trauma was outstanding. And Slattery…c’mon, the guy makes me grin whenever he walks on camera. There are no losers here.

Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Drama Series:

* Sharon Gless, “Burn Notice” (USA)
* Rose Byrne, “Damages” (FX)
* Archie Panjabi, “The Good Wife” (CBS)
* Christine Baranski, “The Good Wife” (CBS)
* Christina Hendricks, “Mad Men” (AMC)
* Elisabeth Moss, “Mad Men” (AMC)

My pick: Christina Hendricks, “Mad Men.” I had a lot of trouble picking from my four favorite nominees here, but while Byrne, Baranski, and Moss were all great, Hendricks’ work with Joan’s struggles in her personal and professional lives made her the stand-out for me.

Outstanding Miniseries:

* The Pacific (HBO)
* Masterpiece: Return to Cranford (PBS)

My pick: The Pacific. Sorry, “Cranford,” but betting against “The Pacific” would be like going into a Harlem Globetrotters game and expecting to see them have their asses handed to them by the Washington Generals.

Outstanding Made for Television Movie:

* Masterpiece: Endgame (PBS)
* Georgia O’Keeffe (Lifetime)
* Moonshot (The History Channel)
* The Special Relationship (HBO)
* Temple Grandin (HBO)
* You Don’t Know Jack (HBO)

My pick: Temple Grandin. The competition is pretty fierce here, with the big guns all coming from HBO, but as much as I liked the network’s other two nominees, “Temple” has the edge because of the way director Mick Jackson brought to life the way Grandin sees the world.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie:

* Jeff Bridges, “A Dog Year” (HBO)
* Ian McKellen, “The Prisoner” (AMC)
* Michael Sheen, “The Special Relationship” (HBO)
* Dennis Quaid, “The Special Relationship” (HBO)
* Al Pacino, “You Don’t Know Jack” (HBO)

My pick: Al Pacino, “You Don’t Know Jack.” There were several occasions during the course of the film when I completely forgot that I was watching Pacino, and, man, I can’t think of the last time that happened. It’s good to have you back, Al.

Outstanding Lead Actress In A Miniseries Or A Movie:

* Maggie Smith, “Capturing Mary” (HBO)
* Joan Allen, “Georgia O’Keeffe” (Lifetime)
* Dame Judi Dench, “Masterpiece: Return to Cranford” (PBS)
* Hope Davis, “The Special Relationship” (HBO)
* Claire Danes, “Temple Grandin” (HBO)

My pick: Claire Danes, “Temple Grandin.” Yes, yes, we all know what was said in “Tropic Thunder” about performances like these, but the simple fact of the matter is that Danes did an exemplary job of capturing the awkwardness of an autistic woman trying not only to make it in a career dominated by men but, indeed, in society as a whole.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie:

* Michael Gambon, “Masterpiece: Emma” (PBS)
* Patrick Stewart, “Great Performances: Hamlet” (PBS)
* Jonathan Pryce, “Masterpiece: Return to Cranford” (PBS)
* David Strathairn, “Temple Grandin” (HBO)
* John Goodman, “You Don’t Know Jack” (HBO)

My pick: David Strathairn, “Temple Grandin.” I’ve got nothing but love for the PBS performances, particularly Sir Patrick’s, but Strathairn’s calm performance played wonderfully against what Claire Danes brought to the table as the title character.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie:

* Kathy Bates, “Alice” (SyFy)
* Julia Ormond, “Temple Grandin” (HBO)
* Catherine O’Hara, “Temple Grandin” (HBO)
* Brenda Vaccaro, “You Don’t Know Jack” (HBO)
* Susan Sarandon, “You Don’t Know Jack” (HBO)

My pick: Brenda Vaccaro, “You Don’t Know Jack.” This was another tough one, as Ormond and O’Hara were both exemplary…as was Sarandon, for that matter…but the brother/sister dynamic between Vaccaro and Al Pacino was too damned wonderful to ignore.

Outstanding Variety, Music, or Comedy Series:

* The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)
* The Daily Show With Jon Stewart (Comedy Central)
* Real Time With Bill Maher (HBO)
* Saturday Night Live (NBC)
* The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien (NBC)

My pick: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I’d love to hear Conan’s acceptance speech if he won, but I think he’s gotten sufficient just desserts simply by being nominated, so I’d rather the consistently strong work of Stewart and his crew get the Emmy.

Outstanding Reality Program:

* Antiques Roadshow (PBS)
* Dirty Jobs (Discovery Channel)
* Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution (ABC)
* Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D-List (Bravo)
* MythBusters (Discovery Channel)
* Undercover Boss (CBS)

My pick: “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.” It’s probably the least watched show on the list, but that never stopped “The Amazing Race” from winning in the past.

Outstanding Host For A Reality Or Reality-Competition Program

* Phil Keoghan, “The Amazing Race” (CBS)
* Ryan Seacrest, “American Idol” (Fox)
* Tom Bergeron, “Dancing with the Stars” (ABC)
* Heidi Klum, “Project Runway” (Bravo)
* Jeff Probst, “Survivor” (CBS)

My pick: Phil Keoghan, “The Amazing Race.” Believe it or not, this season was the first time I’d ever watched the show. Say, you know, it’s pretty good!