Two Tivos To Paradise 03.18.11: Bracket Buster Edition

Posted by Al Norton on 03.18.2011

News on the renewal of The Office, Community and Parks and Recreation, the fight to save The Dish, the future of Eastbound and Down, Fox's summer plans, raves for Zach Galifianakis and SNL and more!



Hello friends. I hope you're not yet eliminated from your March Madness pools and that your St Patrick's Day celebrating was kept to an acceptable level (hey, don't be calling me for your bail money!). I gave up carbonation for Lent and so far it's been ok; it's a great combination of a test of my will power and aiding me in my quest to drop 50 pounds.

A little bit of a smaller version than usual this week, which should hit the spot after last week's mother of all editions. Hope you caught Monday's interview with Howard Gordon and Tuesday's with V star Elizabeth Mitchell. Next Tuesday you can read my chat with Marcel Vigneron (Marcel's Quantum Kitchen and Top Chef) and then on Wednesday you'll find my one-on-one with Justified's Joelle Carter.

Spike's Coal is the latest reality series from Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers' creator Thom Beers…

No Mistakes
Tags: No Mistakes

Here's a look at ABC's comedy Happy Endings, premiering next month…



I never meant to be so bad to you, one thing I said that I would never news.

Preacher Man, Don't Tell Me Heaven Is Under The Earth
Danielle Fishell stunned her audience when she announced at the end of last Sunday's episode of The Dish that Style had cancelled the show and that this week would be the show's last. A pop culture week-in-review series from the producers and writers of The Soup, The Dish premiered in August of 2008 and until a recent shift aired Saturdays at 10pm.

Well this certainly won't do. The Dish is one of my favorite half hour of TV each week and Danielle, aside from being a TTTP TV Entertainer of the Year Award winner and an official Friend of TTTP, is the hottest funny woman on TV. Or is that the funniest hot woman on TV? Either way, she is a smart, funny, and easy on the eyes, so I am at a loss as to why Style would want to cancel the show. The ratings may not have been great but the show's following was a loyal one, and more importantly, the show was very, very good, skewering pop culture and TV but from the loving perspective of someone who was actually watching all of these shows. The regular segment "What the Hell is Going on in this Ad?" was as biting a mocking of fashion and fragrance advertising as there was.

While I never hold out a ton of hope for the Save The Show campaigns that pop up whenever any show gets cancelled, in this case I urge you to go to this FACEBOOK PAGE to show your support for Danielle and The Dish. Every little bit helps!

The Road Is Long, With Many A Winding Turn, Leading To Who Knows Where, Who Knows Where
The newest version of ABC's Extreme Makeover franchise – Weight Loss Edition – premieres on May 30th following The Bachelorette. Each of the 8 episodes follows a single individual over the course of a year, with the person starting over 200 pounds overweight and with the goal of losing more than half their body weight in 12 months. Trainer Chris Powell moves in with them for part of the journey and trains/motivates/coaches them throughout, helping them to lose weight and change their entire lifestyle.

While some of you may be rolling your eyes at a show like this, to me it has the potential to represent the best that the reality genre has to offer; a look at people trying to change their lives for the better, following them through the up's and downs, and hopefully along the way inspiring others to make similar changes. Obesity is a pretty major issue in the US right now and one of the reasons people dealing with weight issues don't make what others view as obvious and necessary choices is a feeling of helplessness, of powerlessness. A show like this, which documents the up's and down's of the year in a realistic manor, could show folks that changes and a lot of hard work can pay off.

Will it be emotionally manipulative? Of course it will, but to me something like this – real people trying to make a real difference in their own lives – is way better than any sort of "rich folks see how the other half lives" series that seem to be all the rage. Between this and the upcoming season of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution ABC seems committed to shining a light on this issue and for that I applaud them.

Rolling Through These Hills I've Known I'd Be Coming, Ain't A Man Alive Who Likes To Be Alone
Fox unveiled their summer line up this week and unlike last year there are no new series and no scripted series with new episodes. Here's how it looks starting in June…

Monday
8pm Masterchef (season premiere 6/6)
9pm House encores

Tuesday
8pm Masterchef
9pm Raising Hope/Traffic Light encores
9pm Hell's Kitchen (season premiere 7/19)

Wednesday
8pm So You Think You Can Dance? (season premiere 6/1)

Thursdays
8pm So You Think You Can Dance? (season premieres 5/26)
9pm Glee encores

Fridays
8pm Bones encores
9pm Lie to Me encores

So it's pretty much all reality plus some reruns all summer from Fox, with the MLB All Star Game in July to break things up a bit. The good news here is that they are clearly trying to build an audience for Raising Hope and Traffic Light. The Chicago Code will air in reruns on Saturdays at 10pm as well; Hope has already been renewed but they wouldn't bother scheduling Light and Code if they had given up on them.

I Thought That I Heard You Laughing, I Thought That I Heard You Sing
Jason Isaacs, already cast as the lead in the NBC pilot REM, got some co-stars this week when Steve Harris (The Practice, Friday Night Lights), Wilmer Valdarama, BD Wong, and Laura Allen signed on. Created by Kyle Killen (Lone Star) and executive produced by Howard Gordon (24, Buffy, Angel, X-Files), the show is about a cop who creates a new reality in his mind when unable to deal with the death of his son in a car accident. In the alternate reality it was his wife who was killed in the accident and the cop finds himself unable to tell the difference between life and dreams. The show has been frequently been compared to Inception in the press and when I talked to Gordon about that he had this to say, "it's only Inception like in that someone's dream world is a character in it. It's as much about Inception as Time Traveler's Wife is about Terminator. They couldn't be more different and I think it's a short hand the press has latched on to."

Harris plays Isaacs' partner in one reality, a gritty veteran of the force, and Valdaramma is his hot shot rookie partner in the other. Allen (Terriers, Dirt, The 4400) plays a teacher of his son's who helps him deal with the loss of his Mom. Wong plays his therapist in the reality where his son has been killed.

I usually put the pilot info in the pilot section but the combination of how interesting this show seems to me and allowing me to pimp my interview with Howard Gordon made it worthy of its own news item. I was a huge fan of Lone Star's two episode run so a show by Killen draws my interest, as does one that finally manages to bring Isaacs' talents to the world of network television (he did great work on Brotherhood but it's not like a lot of people saw it).

It Was A Slow Day And The Sun Was Beating Down On The Soldiers By The Side Of The Road
An email conversation with Joel McHale (yes, to paraphrase Ric Flair, I am a shameless name dropping son of a gun) about the likelihood of Community getting a third season made me realize it was the time of year to start to keep track of such things, so here is part one in a four part look at where each of the big networks current series fall on the renewal map. Keep in mind this is just my take on it.

The CW

SURE THING
90210
America's Next Top Model
Supernatural
Vampire Diaries

GOOD ODDS
Hellcats

TOO SOON TO TELL
Nikita
One Tree Hill

DONE FOR (OR MOST LIKELY)
Life Unexpected
Shedding for the Wedding
Smallville

Two hours each night and no Friday or Sunday programming make for a tight fit in The CW lineup. Nikita is actually a pretty entertaining action series so I'd like to see it get a second season. I've been with One Tree Hill since the beginning but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be ok with the gang heading off into the horizon at this point. They still haven't been able to develop a companion reality series to ANTM that runs in between cycles of Tyra's ego stroking. I really liked last year's Plain Jane but they completely botched the marketing of the show.

Sunny Day, Sweepin' The Clouds Away, On My Way To Where The Air Is Sweet
A new feature here at TTTP – the Sesame Street video of the week…



Like A Coin In Your Mint, I's Dented And I'm Spent With High Treason
This is the time of year where news on network pilots flies fast and furious so it makes sense to carve out a new section for updates…

ABC
Good Christian Bitches just got a lot more interesting to me as Kristin Chenoweth joined the cast, leading the pack of CHB's who (perhaps not so warmly) welcome Leslie Bibb back to the town she grew up in after a very public divorce. David James Elliot is in the cast, too… Della Reese has joined Donal Logue, Terry O'Quinn, and Jesse L Martin in Halleljuah…Curb Your Enthusiasm's Cheryl Hines is now on board the comedy Suburgatory…The River now has two TTTP faves; last week Bruce Greenwood was hired and now Paul Blackthorne is a part of the show. Also on board is 24's Leslie Hope…Cybill Shepherd and Mo Gaffney will play opposing Grandmother's in a battle over the way their grandson is raised in My Freakin' Family…Bad Mom has potential to me base; the story follows an absentee Mom who has to step in to raise her kids after Grandma says she wants her life back , with the Mom played by Jenna Elfman and the Grandma by Frances Conroy, best known for her work as the matriarch of the Fisher clan on Six Feet Under...Madeline Stowe, Henry Czerny are now a part of the Emily VanCamp fronted Revenge…

CBS
Kyle MacLachlan, Scott Foley, and Michael Boatman are all a part of The Doctor, which features Christine Lahti in the lead role…Veteran character actor Terry Kinney has signed on to Rookies…Last week Michael Chikilis signed on to a CBS pilot and now his No Ordinary Family co-star Julie Benz is in the cast of Jonathan Demme's untitled supernatural drama…Dylan Walsh landed the lead in the untitled police drama where Poppy Montgomery plays a former cop with a photographic memory for everything she sees and hears who is brought back to the NYPD as a consultant. Walsh plays the cop who lures her back in…

FOX
Tom Sizemore returns to TV for the first time in 10 years in the Ethan Hawke fronted Exit Strategy…Eric Winter has joined Lauren Ambrose in Weekends at Bellevue…Zach Gilford (Off the Map, Friday Night Lights) is in the cast of the comedy Iceland…

NBC
Eddie Cibrian landed the lead in NBC's 1960's set drama Playboy…Stand up Nick Thune is one of the leads in the comedy I Hate That I Love You…Paget Brewster and comedian Jon Dore are the leads in the Jack Black produced comedy My Life As An Experiment…Noah Emmerich (The Walking Dead, White Collar) has the lead in S.I.L.A, a drama about police work and politics from the writer of the movie Traffic…

The CW
Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights, The Good Wife) is the male romantic lead opposite Rachel Bilson in Hart of Dixie…Titus Welliver (Sons of Anarchy, Lost) is a part of the zombie thriller Awakening…Thomas Dekker (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) will star opposite Britt Robertson in The Secret Circle…

But You Were Up To Your Old Tricks In Chapters Four Five And Six
All you need to know about the Nielsen's for the past 7 days…

THURSDAY
If American Idol is on, it's the top program of the night in every measurable audience group…Bones was up 3% from its last new episode…Rules of Engagement was up 17% from last week's series low thanks to a new episode of Big Bang Theory as a lead-in, which came in even from its last outing…

FRIDAY
The Defenders season (and maybe series) finale won 8pm in totals while Kitchen Nightmares took the demo title for the hour…CSI: NY posted the best demos of the night and was up in total viewers as well…Blue Bloods was the night's most watched show…Fringe matched last week's demos while dropping ever-so-slightly in total viewers…

SUNDAY
Secret Millionaire dropped 21% in week two, although some of that may be attributed to Daylight Savings Time. It still won 8pm in totals and demos…America's Next Great Restaurant was down 13% from week one's not-so-impressive numbers…CSI: Miami was up 17% to win 10pm in totals and demos…Interestingly enough, The Celebrity Apprentice was down 4% from last week but up from week two last cycle…The Cleveland Show was up 14% despite having a rerun as a lead-in…

MONDAY
A pretty bad night all around…NBC's entire line up hit series demo lows, although Harry's Law did post it's best total viewers number since early February…Mad Love was down 13% to hit a season/series low…The Bachelor finale won the night, up 29% from the season average, although it was the lowest rated finale in 3 years…House was down 8% (albeit with the best scripted demos of the night) and The Chicago Code was down 5%...

TUESDAY
Third night in a row that overall TV viewership fell for 8pm…Glee's last new episode until mid-April won the night in demos but was down 6%, and The Biggest Loser was down 7%...V was up 6% for the season finale, and Detroit 1-8-7 jumped 18%, thanks mostly to facing all reruns…Raising Hope dropped 7% but Traffic Light was up 7%...

WEDNESDAY
As you might guess, American Idol won the night, with over 22 million total viewers and demos that doubled the next closest show…Criminal Minds was the top ranked scripted show of the night in both totals and demos, with lead-out Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior winning 10pm in both as well…Despite SVU being a rerun Off the Map still finished third at 10pm…The CW's Shedding for the Wedding posted demos that will undoubtedly be the worst for any primetime show on the big 5 this week…

All The Young Dudes, Carry The News
Industry News, Notes, and Hot Rumors…NBC renewed Community, The Office, and Parks and Recreation for the 2011 - 2012 season...Netflix outbid HBO and AMC for House of Cards, a new series executive produced by David Fincher and starring Oscar winner Kevin Spacey as a politician with big plans. Netflix picked up 26 episodes (two seasons) and the show will be available via direct DVR download, streamed, and possible via the traditional DVD route the company is famous for…The Brink is a crime drama with supernatural themes being developed by Starz by Gore Verbinski. The pilot is written by Stephen Susco (The Grudge) and is an adaptation of J.C. Hutchins' novel Personal Effects: Dark Art…While Danny McBride recently announced that the upcoming third season of Eastbound and Down would be the show's last, HBO has said that not only has nothing been confirmed, they'd like to stay in the Kenny Powers business as long as McBride and co-creator Jody Hill feel they still have something to say…Salman Rushdie is writing a drama pilot for Showtime…Fox has decided not to run the pilot of Terra Nova this spring following one of the final episodes of American Idol and instead will premiere the show in the fall with the rest of their new lineup… NBC ordered an 8 episode first season of the game show Still Standing, where people compete against a small group in a matching of trivia knowledge…Chloe Sevigny is developing a four hour mini-series about the life of Lizzie Borden for HBO…Tv Land is thisclose to ordering a first season of Happily Divorced, starring and created by Fran Drescher. The show, based on Dresher's real life, is about a woman managing her relationships with her new boyfriend and her gay ex-husband. Peter Marc Jacobson, who teamed with Dresher on The Nanny, is on board this project as well…Multiple sources have confirmed that The Daily Show has approached Larry King about becoming a contributor to the show…ABC has picked up a 16th cycle of The Bachelor and a 7th of The Bachelorette…WE picked up a 10 episode second season of Joan Knows Best?…Record executive L.A. Reid and Enrique Iglesias are heavily rumored to be in final talks to join Simon Cowell's new The X-Factor as judges/coaches…Syfy picked up a second season of Face Off…Spike ordered first seasons of new reality shows Inkmasters (tattoo artists competition series) and Car Boss (struggling car dealerships get the Kitchen Nightmares/Salon Makeover/Restaurant Impossible treatment)…Philip Seymour Hoffman is developing a series for HBO about a guy who moves his family to middle America to take a job at a new private (as in, for profit) prison…NBC picked up an 11th season of Last Call with Carson Daly…

Turns Out Not Where But Who You're With That Really Matters
The top thing I watched since the last column went to press aka The Best of What's Around…

Zach Galifinakis hosted SNL for the second time in two seasons and did not disappoint, bringing his own bizarre brand of funny and mixing it quite well within the famous sketch comedy format. These were my three favorite segments…










People Say I'm Crazy Doing What I'm Doing. Well, They Give Me All Kinds Of Warnings To Save Me From Ruin
What's flashed before my eyes the last seven days …I've always been an admirer of The Daily Show but more from a far, usually just catching clips posted via social media, but I added it to the season pass list on the tivo in the room where my exercise bike is and can now firmly agree with those who worship at the altar of Jon Stewart et al. It's as smart as show as there is on TV, and their editing staff are the unsung heroes, finding all the news clips that show just how much hypocrisy there is in both politics and the media…Everyone has different ways of dealing with stress; for me, when it comes to TV, I like to lose myself in a drama that requires enough thought so as to make me stop concentrating at what's rushing around in my head, so to me it's high praise that The Chicago Code has made the jump into the group of shows I put in that category. It's so good that Jennifer Beals Chicago accent doesn't bother me anymore, and it's so good that even an episode like this week's, one without an appearance by the great Delroy Lindo, is still an excellent hour of television…Chopped All Stars has been fantastic so far, with the second episode featuring the Food Network chefs being easily the best in Chopped history. Great (And great looking) food made by top level professionals under extreme conditions, with healthy competition but no in-fighting…Last night's Archer was perhaps the best of the season, with the bit about the Doctor calling back at the end done to perfection. Not a lot of comedies would be able to mine a cancer diagnosis for laughs but Archer has already demonstrated that it is not a lot of comedies…Geoff Peterson showing up on The Soup was a tivogasm inducing moment, and him calling Joel "Mr. Tosh" was sheer brilliance…Speaking of which, I watched my first two Tosh.0 episodes and came away thinking it was funny but too much about him. I suppose if I found him to be a more engaging person (he is funny, sure, but there was nothing about his comedic viewpoint that made me think I needed to see more of it) than I'd appreciate how it's more about him than the clips but that's not the case…I officially gave up on Harry's Law when Harry and Tommy walked into the basement safe room and didn't think the guy might lock them in. I can take many things from my TV characters but that level of stupidity is not one of them…I'm a HUGE Glee fan and thought Kathy Griffin had the unfortunate luck of playing the single worst written character in the show's history. She wasn't great in the part but it really wasn't her fault as the jokes were so easy, obvious, and frankly beneath the show that it threw the brakes on what was other than that a wonderful episode. I loved Loser Like Me and really felt the show connected with its roots the last two weeks in terms of the mix of teenage emotional angst, comedy, music, and the general triumph of the little guy spirit. I was sad when Tuesday's episode ended since it meant they wouldn't be back until mid-April…

TV Pick Of The Week
Longtime fans of How I Met Your Mother knew we were bound to meet Barney's Dad at some point and the recent news that the great John Lithgow would be playing him only increased the anticipation. The wait is over on Monday when Neil Patrick Harris and Lithgow share the screen. Expect lots of laughs and a few moving moments as well.

Don't miss How I Met Your Mother, Monday at 8pm on CBS.

Hope You Need My Love, Babe, Just Like I Need You
Here is some other noteworthy programming of the next seven days…

*The new season of Shark Tank doesn't start until next Friday night but ABC is running an unaired episode from season one on Sunday at 9pm as a warm up.

*The 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony airs Sunday at 9pm on Fuse. This year's class included Tom Waits, Neil Diamond, Alice Cooper, Darlene Love, Dr. John, and Leon Russell.

*Big Love concludes its run on Sunday at 9pm; the HBO series had some ebb and flow over the seasons but when the show was at its best it was among the best dramas on television.

*TV Guide Network premieres the two hour documentary Diana: Queen of Hearts on Tuesday at 8pm' narrated by Sir Richard Attenborough, the special looks at the life and death of the Princess of Wales and includes exclusive interviews with confidants. Some of you younger readers who can't fully appreciate how major a world figure Diana was might want to check this out, as will any of her millions of devoted fans.

*The spring finale of the hottest show you don't know about if you're not a 15 year old girl – Pretty Little Liars – airs on Monday at 8pm on ABC Family.

*It's serious rock and roll night on Bio, with Biography episodes on The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, and Black Sabbath

*I'd be telling you about Marcel's Quantum Kitchen – premiering Tuesday at 10pm on Syfy – even if I didn't have an interview running with Marcel himself next week, but now it's self hype, too.

*The great David Morse guests on Lights Out (10pm, FX) Tuesday at 10 pm.

*All those Benson and Stabler shippers out there will get some great new material when the two go undercover at a swingers club on this Wednesday's Law & Order: SVU (10pm, NBC).

*If I had two TV Picks of the Week, the second would be this week's Community (Thursday, 8pm, NBC), where Jeff throws Abed a Pulp Fiction themed birthday party.

*Tonight's Archer (10pm, FX), part two of their Archer-has-breast-cancer-arc, contains perhaps the best homage to a Magnum PI episode ever. And not just any Magnum PI episode, but the one with the best end in series history. Fans know the question that goes with it.

*Fairly Legal (10pm, USA) wraps up its first season on Thursday. The show is clearly on the bubble so if you want it to come back then you'd best be watching. To me the show is not great but has enough potential to warrant a second season.

*If I had three TV Picks of the week the third would be the season two premiere of The Hard Times of RJ Berger this Thursday at 11pm. The MTV comedy was one of the best surprises of 2010 and I think it's great that the network is giving it such a great showcase, airing it with the season finale of Jersey Shore as a lead-in.

Two Tivos To Paradise
30 Rock, After the Catch, American Idol, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, Antiques Roadshow, Archer, Auction Hunters, The Big C, Big Love, Boardwalk Empire, Being Human, Bones, Bored To Death, Breaking Bad, Brothers & Sisters, Burn Notice, Celebrity Apprentice, Cake Boss, The Chicago Code, Chopped, Chuck, The Closer, Community, Cougar Town, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Daily Show, The Deadliest Catch, Desperate Housewives, Destination Truth, The Dish, Entourage, Eureka, Fact or Faked, Fairly Legal, Flipping Out, Food Feuds, Food Network Challenge, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters Academy, Ghost Hunters International, Ghost Lab, Glee, Gossip Girl, Great Food Truck Race, Grey's Anatomy, The Hard Times of RJ Berger, Hawaii 5-0, Hollywood Treasure, House, How I Met Your Mother, How To Make It In America, Hung, If You Really Knew Me, Iron Chef America, Justified, Kate Plus 8, Last Comic Standing, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Launch My Line, Law And Order: Criminal Intent, Law and Order: Los Angeles, Law And Order: Special Victims Unit, Life Unexpected, Lights Out, Live to Dance, Mad Men, Man v. Food, Men of a Certain Age, The Middle, Mike and Molly, Mr. Sunshine, Modern Family, Next Food Network Star, Next Great American Restaurant, Next Iron Chef, The Office, One Tree Hill, Paranormal State, Parks & Recreation, Private Practice, Project Runway, Psych, Raising Hope, Real Time With Bill Maher, Rescue Me, Restaurant Impossible, Royal Pains, Rules Of Engagement, Sanctuary, Saturday Night Live, Shear Genius, So You Think You Can Dance?, Sons of Anarchy, The Soup, Spectacle: Elvis Costello with…, Sports Soup, Supernatural, Table For 12, Top Chef, Top Chef Just Desserts, Top Chef: Masters, Top Design, Torchwood, Traffic Light, True Blood, V, The Vampire Diaries, The Walking Dead, Warehouse 13, Web Soup, Worst Cooks In America,

People Love You When They Know You're Leaving Soon
Here ends another Two Tivos To Paradise.



We'll be back next week with an update on all-things-TV. Use the comments section below to sounds off on anything you've read above as well as anything you watched the past week. See you next Friday!

Sources for this week's column include Daily Variety, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, and Hollywood Reporter (plus the web sites for those publications) as well as Aintit.cool.com and TVline & Deadline.com.