Two Tivos To Paradise 06.10.11: Fringe, Community, The Jersey Shore, Katie Couric, In Plain Sight, and more!
Posted by Al Norton on 06.10.2011
News on Fringe and Community finally get some love from award shows, more Jersey Shore on the way, Laurence Fishburne leaving CSI, raves for In Plain Sight and more!
Hello friends. Well, summer temps hit Boston, with two days in the 90's along with high humidity making for a lot of sweating going on in the city. My non-TV plans for the week were crushed when the Bruins being in the Stanley Cup Finals caused the Glee Live show I was attending to be moved a day, meaning I could not attend. Boo.
We are now just five weeks away from our big 250th column celebration, with the RSVP's continuing to come in. Have I mentioned that Will Dailey, the official singer/songwriter of TTTP, is attending? Also, speaking of mark-your-calendar worthy dates, the 5th Annual Norty Awards will be given out on Friday, July 8th! If you were a part of the TTTP Facebook community you could have been lobbying me for your favorites this past week!
Here's a trailer for Syfy's new Alphas…
A longer look at ABC's new Combat Hospital, premiering in a couple of weeks…
Some folks are born to waive the flag, ooh, they're red, white, and news.
Got No Time For The Corner Boys, Down In The Street Makin' All That Noise
MTV has officially picked up a 5th season of Jersey Shore that will begin production later this month in Seaside Heights, just days after filming of the 4th season is completed in Italy. The network will air a one hour special that examines how the show has become a pop culture phenomenon on July 28th, with the 4th season premiering on August 4th.
Leaving aside that the show offers no redeeming value, entertainment or otherwise, there is no denying that it's a bit of a freight train in the ratings department, with demos that were topping those of major network shows going against it. Even more surprising, episodes in the most recent (third) season set and re-set ratings highs, meaning there are still folks hoping on the bandwagon.
It's almost like there are two sets of programming executives at MTV; the ones that do Jersey Shore, The Real World, and the Teen Mom shows and then the other group which greenlights projects like If You Really Knew Me, The World of Jenks, and The Buried Life, which are genuinely interesting and emotionally compelling series.
A friend of mine recently commented that she didn't watch MTV because they glamorize the people on Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant and I was in the odd position of coming to the network's defense, saying the shows themselves actually make the lives they lead seem pretty lousy. The responsibility of glamorizing the cast members on those shows falls to US Weekly, People, Star, the internet, and entertainment news shows like The Insider and Access Hollywood. In other words, the responsibility falls on us, or rather those who read those publications/web sites and watch those shows. That's where they glamour comes in; if all you do is watch the shows you end up feeling pretty depressed.
I don't get why people watch Jersey Shore, at least not more than once, but then again I've never derived even an ounce of entertainment pleasure out of watching people and thinking, "look how stupid these people are." Wait, that's not true; in clip form (The Soup, Web Soup, Tosh.0, The Dish, Best Week Ever) I can laugh my ass off but that's because I feel like I am laughing at those who watch this stuff as much as I am the shows themselves. You can tell by looking at my long list of Season Pass programming below and seeing that there are no Real Housewives of…, Bachelors, Big Brothers, Real Worlds, or Jersey Shores that if I am going to invest my time into real people they need to be people I'd be interested in knowing in real life.
I Don't Know What You Expected, I Don't Know What Else You Heard, I Guess You Think You Got What's Coming To You, And I Got What I Deserve
The first annual Critic's Choice Television Award nominees were announced on Monday, with a much wider array of nominees than we've seen in the Emmys or Golden Globes lately. Below is a rundown of the major categories (winners will be announced on June 20th at a ceremony hosted by Cat Deeley and televised on Reelz.
Best Drama: Boardwalk Empire, Dexter, Friday Night Lights, Fringe, Game of Thrones, The Good Wife, Justified, The Killing, Mad Men, The Walking Dead
Best Actor, Drama: Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire), Kyle Chandler (FNL), Michael C Hall (Dexter), Jon Hamm (Mad Men), William H Macy (Shameless), Timothy Olyphant (Justified)
Best Actress, Drama: Connie Britton (FNL), Mireille Enos (The Killing), Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife), Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men), Katey Sagal (Sons of Anarchy), Anna Torv (Fringe)
Best Supporting Actor, Drama: Alan Cumming (The Good Wife), Walton Goggins (Justified), Shawn Hatosy (Southland), John Noble (Fringe), Michael Pitt (Boardwalk Empire), John Slattery (Mad Men)
Best Supporting Actress, Drama: Michelle Forbes (The Killing), Christina Hendricks (Mad Men), Margo Martindale (Justified), Kelly McDonald (Boardwalk Empire), Archie Punjabi (The Good Wife), Chloe Sevingy (Big Love)
Best Comedy: Archer, The Big Bang Theory, Community, Glee, Louie, The Middle, Modern Family, The Office, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock
Best Actor, Comedy: Alec Baldwin (30 Rock), Steve Carell (The Office), Louis C.K. (Louie), Charlie Day (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Joel McHale (Community), Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory)
Best Actress, Comedy: Courtney Cox (Cougar Town), Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie), Tina Fey (30 Rock), Patricia Heaton (The Middle), Martha Plimpton (Raising Hope), Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation)
Best Supporting Actor, Comedy: Ty Burrell (Modern Family), Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation), Ed O'Neill (Modern Family), Danny Pudi (Community), Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family)
Best Supporting Actress, Comedy: Julie Bowen (Modern Family), Jane Krakowski (30 Rock), Jane Lynch (Glee), Busy Phillips (Cougar Town), Eden Sher (The Middle), Sofia Vergara (Modern Family)
Best Reality Series: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Hoarders, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Sister Wives, Undercover Boss
Best Reality Series, Competition: The Amazing Race, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Project Runway, RuPaul's Drag Race, Top Chef
Best Reality Show Host: Tom Bergeron (DWTS), Cat Deeley (SYTYCD), Ty Pennington (EM:HE), Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs), Ryan Seacrest (American Idol)
Best Talk Show: Chelsea Lately, The Daily Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Oprah Winfrey Show
Quick Thoughts: Leaving it in the hands of people whose job it is to watch TV made for nominations much more deserving than any other awards giving group I have seen recently. Huge props for them recognizing Community, The Middle, Archer, Louie, and Justified, as well as many of the cast members on those shows. This is not to say there were not some head scratchers, like the omission of any noms for Men of a Certain Age (I like William H Macy, too, but his role on Shameless is SO showy and nowhere near the subtle and honest performance Ray Romano is giving on Men) and Terriers. Also, Laura Linney is considered a front runner for her work on The Big C but she didn't make this list at all. Perhaps Martha Plimpton (SO great on Raising Hope) being put in the lead category played a role, although that did open up a slot in the Best Supporting Actress that was grabbed by the very deserving Eden Sher (or perhaps it was Busy Phillips who snuck in).
Most of the issues are caused by their being simply too many strong shows and performances on TV right now for all to be properly recognized; you could do two whole different sets of nominations for the comedy and drama Best Supporting Actor categories and not miss a beat.
These awards will be given out on June 20th, which is four days before Emmy ballots have to be turned in, so it will be interesting to see if this first time ceremony holds any influence over the more prestigious Academy of Television Arts and Sciences voting body.
And He Tells Her He's Workin' Late Again But She Knows Too Well There's Something Going On
Katie Couric and ABC officially signed the deal that will give her a daytime talk show as of September of 2012 as well as have her play a role in the network's news division. The talk show will air at 3pm and will be offered to all ABC affiliates first before being shopped elsewhere, which puts the network's current 3pm timeslot occupant General Hospital in limbo. Couric's deal is for two years and pays her $10 million as an advance on the profits for the show, which she will own; as a point of reference, successful daytime talk shows can make between $100 - $300 million a year).
ABC has made a point of saying GH has not been cancelled but what is clear is that as of September of 2012, it won't be on at 3pm anymore. The network announced the cancellation of All My Children and One Life to Live earlier this year, replacing them with new shows The Chew and The Revolution, leaving GH as their sole remaining daytime drama. The likely scenario is for ABC to wait and see how these two new shows do before making any decision; the likelihood of both performing well is pretty minimal, so there's a good chance the fall of 2012 will find one renewed and paired with GH while the other is cancelled. This is not to say the future of GH, both short and long term, isn't in jeopardy, just that there's still a pretty good shot it gets renewed for the 2012-2013 season.
All the recent soap cancellations have made for uneasy times for those who remain; Days of Our Lives is renewed through the fall of 2012 but is already making serious changes to combat falling ratings, firing their head writer and bringing back popular actors Deidre Hall, Drake Hogestyn, and Matthew Ashford as a way to reverse the audience drop.
Sunny Day, Sweepin' The Clouds Away, On My Way To Where The Air Is Sweet
The Sesame Street video of the week…
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
Game two of the NBA finals easily beat all competition in totals and demos…The premiere of Love Bites finished last at 10pm in totals and demos…
SUNDAY The MTV Movie Awards were down 5% in the demos from last year while just about even in total viewers. The female teen audience tuned-in in droves to see the Twilight cast, though, with that demo's numbers up 46%...Teen Wolf was down in totals and demos from The Hard Time of RJ Berger, which premiered in the post-Movie Awards timeslot last year, although the number for female teens were up 105%...The finale of Randy Jackson Presents: America's Best Dance Crew, which lead off the night, was up 38% from last year…The season two premiere of A&E's The Glades was down a slight amount in totals and up a slight amount in demos from last year's series debut…Game 3 of the NBA Finals was down 3% from last year but up from the Game 3 numbers in any of the previous six years…The season finale of The Real Housewives of Orange County was the most watched episode in RHOC history, with demos that were a season high…NBC's weekend coverage of The French Open was up 63% from the corresponding weekend in 2010…Game of Thrones hit a new series high, both for the first airing and the replay. Overall the show is up 22% from the premiere, a pretty remarkable number…
MONDAY Switched at Birth became the most watched series premiere in ABC Family history in both totals and demos. Combined with the replay later than night 4.9 million people saw the pilot…Just under 3.5 million tuned in for the season finale of American Choppers: Senior vs. Junior…The Bachelorette and Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition were each down double digits from last week but both still won their timeslots in totals and demos…MasterChef, which last year had the finale of Hell's Kitchen as a lead-in to the series premiere, was down 33% in its season two debut
TUESDAY
The two hour first live episode of The Voice was down 8% in the demos but NBC was still very happy with the numbers the show put up…Game 4 of the NBA Finals won the night in totals and demos…America's Got Talent was down from last week's season premiere but still performed quite well…
WEDNESDAY America's Got Talent won the night in demos and totals, up 24% from its Wednesday premiere last season in the former…So You Think You Can Dance finished a VERY close second in the demos although was down 10% from last week…
All The Young Dudes, Carry The News
Industry News, Notes, and Hot Rumors…Laurence Fishburne will not return to CSI in the fall, ending his 2 & ½ season run on the show. Fishburne is leaving to focus his career on movies…NBC outbid the competition and will air the next two winter and two summer Olympics, paying 4.83 billion for the package the runs through 2020…Fox's coverage of the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup series is up 11% from last year, the single biggest year-to-year increase since the network has had the series. The key male 18-34 demo was up 20%...Discovery launches One Man Army next month, a reality competition series where four super tough men compete each week in three challenges (speed, strength, intelligence) and the winner gets $10K…Bravo renewed The Real Housewives of New Jersey for a 4th season…Season five of Flipping Out launches July 6th…TLC ordered a 16 episode second season of Extreme Couponing…Marv Alpert has signed with CBS Sports and will become part of their NFL coverage this fall (fingers crossed)…Cash Cab host Ben Bailey landed the front man gig on NBC's upcoming game show Who's Still Standing?…Brittany Snow and Aml Ameen will not be back for Harry's Law's second season this fall…Chloe Sevigny's first post-Big Love role will be starring the British series Hit or Miss as a transgender hired killer who finds out that before she made the switch she actually fathered several children. The show is created by Paul Abbott (Shameless) and has a six episode first season planned. There is no US home for the show but it's expected to be snapped up quickly…Thomas Gibson still has not reached an agreement to return to Criminal Minds in the fall, which is starting to become more of a pressing issue as production (i.e. writing) for the new season is set to begin this month…Craig Ferguson and The Late Late Show are taping a week's worth of episodes in Paris France later this month that will air in August…Snoop Dogg is shopping a rap version of American Idol to the networks…Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) will guest on iCarly…Danny Glover has joined the cast of Touch, Fox's mid-season drama starring Keifer Sutherland as a Dad who realizes his autistic son can predict the future…William Shatner will guest on PSYCH this summer as Juliet's con-man Father...Mark Pellegrino will appear on multiple episodes of The Closer as a ruthless attorney who defends Brenda when she is hit with a wrongfull death lawsuit...
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…
Usually a show having three showrunners in four seasons means something isn't working, and you'd be hard pressed to imagine the guys who wrote There's Something About Mary (Ed Dector and John Strauss) would be a good fit for a character-driven drama set in the witness relocation program, but against all odds the current season of In Plain Sight is easily the show's best.
Mary McCormick has never been better, showing the layers behind the gruff exterior, and giving Fred Weller's Marshall a life of his own this season has been a huge boost to the series as well. The biggest and best change from previous seasons is that the "witness of the week" stories have been more about the people and their experiences adjusting to WITSAC, as opposed to previous seasons when each week was simply about people trying to kill someone in the program; that type of story has still occurred this season but because it's not every week it seems a little more powerful, and realistic.
It was great to see Mary and her ex-husband together this past Sunday as it gave us a rare glimpse of her without her shields fully raised, and her interaction with her sister Brandi continues to be interesting when it's kept in the background.
I have always been an In Plain Sight fan but it looks like this may be the season it makes the jump from "good way to spend an hour in the summer" to "quality television program."
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…This is a special Children's Programming Edition of this section, with a look at what I've been watching because my kids have been watching it (as well as stuff that I have scouted to see if it's ok for them)…Both me and the twins were unfamiliar with The Fresh Beat Band two weeks ago but that seems like ancient history now that they are both obsessed with what amounts to High School Musical minus 10 years. What makes it so odd is that the cast are all clearly high school aged (or older) but the issues they deal with each episode are really more for younger kids, like the anxiety of the first day of school or how to make friends. The four leads are pretty engaging and the music annoyingly catchy. The show premiered this past fall so it's not gone mainstream yet but my guess is it will be the next big thing…Curious George has timeless appeal and the current series running on PBS is much fun, getting in some education in pretty subtle ways…One of my favorite things to do when watching kids shows is listen for celebrity voices; Nick Jr's Oswald features Fred Savage as the lead and none other than Squiggy himself, David Lander…Sesame Street amazes me in that they make changes for the show to stay current but never ever come across like they are trying too hard. There are times when I am more entertained than the twins and think the show is unquestionably better than it was when I was growing up…The less said about Dora, the better; the pauses are creepy, the stories repetitive, and at least once a day at work I feel like announcing, "I'm the map!"…I'm in the minority by not being incredibly annoyed by Barney. Hey, there are worse things to teach your kids than to love and be respectful of others…Sid the Science Kid is one of the best mixes of education and entertainment I have ever seen in programming aimed at kids or adults; there's singing, dancing, games, friends, family, school, and lots and lots of science! That my kids have learned quite a bit from this show that will have practical application later in life…There is no question to me that Little Bill is among the better children's programs I have ever seen, with a retro-cool animation style, some cool voice work (Gregory Hines and Phylicia Rashad as the parents), and dealing with subject matter that kindergarten and first grade age kids can relate to. Sure, their issues might seem silly to someone with perspective but to a 6 year old many things are the end of the world and Little Bill teaches without talking down and entertains without preaching…I've been very impressed with Sprout's original programming; the rotating hosts of The Sunny Side Up Show are all big hits in my house, and Chica is a god-like figure. We've also all picked up a little bit of sign language thanks to Nina and Star. Again, it far surpasses what passed for entertainment when I was growing up…The single biggest change I have found is the lack of violence in the cartoons. Yes, there is some danger – Thomas is snowed in; whatever will happen?!!? – but compared to, say, the Smurfs, where as bumbling as Gargamel was, he was still trying to exterminate the entire race of Smurfs, these shows are much more gentle in tone and content, and I mean that as high praise…
TV Pick Of The Week
If you like to remember a time in sports when rivalries were nasty, competitors going head to head with a passion so strong in seem to border on hatred, then McEnroe & Borg: Fire & Ice (Saturday, 10pm, HBO) is right up your alley. These two were not just two of the best of their generation, they were two of the best of all time, and their matches were truly epic, both because of how good they were at what they did but because of how different the ways they went about being that good were.
This would be worth watching for the tennis alone – yes, there was a time in which the game wasn't all aces, with points that would take minutes to win – but the interview footage from both then and now really puts a context to both their contests as well as the world in which they took place.
Don't miss McEnroe & Borg: Fire & Ice, Saturday at 10pm on HBO.
Hope You Need My Love, Babe, Just Like I Need You
Here is some other noteworthy programming of the next seven days…
*Jane Lynch sits down with Bill Maher for a segment on tonight's Real Time (10pm, HBO).
*VH-1 Storytellers (11pm) continues a strong season tonight with an hour featuring Ray LaMontagne.
*Encore is running a 24 hour Gunsmoke marathon this Saturday at noon as a tribute to the James Arness, who passed away last week.
*The Glee Project (Sunday, 9pm, Oxygen) is a new reality competition show where undiscovered talent competes for a fantastic prize – a multi episode guest role on Glee. This has everything I love in a reality show; singing, dancing, people putting themselves on the line in pursuit of a dream, and a prize that you really couldn't get anywhere else. This has already been season passed.
*TTTP fave Ally Walker (Sons of Anarchy, Tell Me You Love Me) stars in the new Lifetime drama The Protector (did they buy that title from TNT?) as a top NYPD detective who is also a single Mom. I am not sure if Lifetime can pull off gritty but I will give any show that puts Walker front and center a try. And the lead-in this new show is getting is the season five finale of Army Wives, one sure to leave fans uneasy for the next few months.
*Not to go too heavy on the HBO documentaries this week but Matter of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt is a must for all foodies as it follows the New York chef over more than five years of his career.
*Showtime brings two Monday night comedies to a close; for Nurse Jackie (10pm) it's just until next year but for The United States of Tara (10:30pm) it's goodbye for good.
*Two very mediocre TNT dramas begin new seasons on Tuesday night, with Memphis Beat kicking off season two at 9pm followed by season three of Hawthorne.
*Fran Drescher is back! If that sentence excited you than you'll want to check out her new TVLand comedy Happily Divorced (Wednesday, 10:30pm), based on her real life friendship with her ex-husband, who is now openly gay.
*Bravo launches a new reality series Wednesday that mixes cooking and party planning; Rocco's Dinner Party finds a group of chef/party planner wanna-be's competing to plan a dinner party for chef Rocco DiSpirito. The lead-in to this series premiere at 11pm is the season finale of Top Chef Masters.
Two Tivos To Paradise 24 Restaurant Battle, 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, Burn Notice, Celebrity Apprentice, Cake Boss, The Chicago Code, Chopped, Chuck, The Closer, Community, Cougar Town, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Deadliest Catch, Desperate Housewives, Destination Truth, 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, Happy Endings, The Hard Times of RJ Berger, Haunted Treasure, 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, The Killing, Last Comic Standing, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Law And Order: Criminal Intent, Law and Order: Los Angeles, Law And Order: Special Victims Unit, Mad Men, Man v. Food Nation, Men of a Certain Age, The Middle, Mike and Molly, Modern Family, Next Food Network Star, Next Great American Restaurant, Next Iron Chef, The Office, One Tree Hill, 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 Show with Norm McDonald, Supernatural, Table For 12, Top Chef, Top Chef Just Desserts, Top Chef: Masters, Top Design, Torchwood, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, The Voice, 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 in 7 days with all the latest TV headlines. Also, check back with the site on Sunday for my interview with The Glee Project's Robert Ulrich.
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, TVline.com & Deadline.com.
