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Special Wednesday Post #1 – HARPERS ISLAND—after the finale.

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Spoiler alert:  If you have yet to watch the finale of CBS’s Harper’s Island, do not read further.  Trust me.  If you didn’t see it, you can go to CBS.com to watch.

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Now that the killer was revealed in the final, chilling, exciting episodes of Harper’s Island, I gave Co-Executive Producer Karim Zreik a call to find out how he and the creative team of the show configured the show and if they knew from Day One who the killer really was.

Jim Halterman:  I literally just finished watching the last 3 episodes of Harper’s Island and it was such a rush.

Karim Zreik:  When you and I talked about the show before it aired, I said it kind of feels like two different shows because the first 4-5 episodes it’s a lot of set-up and then from the end of episode 5 on, it was just so fast-paced.  It became like a running gun, horror, dark whodunit thing.

Chloe and Cal just about to take a leap.

Chloe and Cal just about to take a leap.

JH: I’m still shocked that CBS let you get away with such gruesome murders. Each one shocked me more than the one before.  I know it’s chilling but I started thinking which murder was my favorite so I wanted to ask which one was your favorite?

KZ:  The one that took the longest to shoot was Mr. Wellington (Richard Burgi) in episode 5.  The other one that is probably in everyone’s top 2 is the Cal/Chloe (Adam Campbell/Cameron Richardson) in episode 11 when they fall off the bridge.  That was so emotional and then the song playing in the background…

JH:  What was that song?  It was really great.

KZ:…Civil Twilight is the name of the band.  It just sort of amplified the emotions.  I also liked when Booth (Sean Rogerson) accidentally shot himself in episode 4.  That just sort of came out of nowhere and was very emotional.  And Sully (Matt Barr), when Sully gets stabbed in 13.

JH:  I don’t watch a lot of horror films anymore because they don’t truly scare me but this show got me because it didn’t just have the gore but you also got to know the characters really well.  And, in terms of the gore, I loved that you guys didn’t hold back and went there.  I mean, that poor guy…Danny (Brandon Jay McLaren) who gets his eye blown out by the memo holder.  I loved the way you guys shot it when you see, from Danny’s POV, the sharp tip of the memo holder right there.

KZ:  The best thing about it was the sound effect that scrunch.  [laughs]

Henry (Christopher Gorham) isn't the good guy we thought he was.

Henry (Christopher Gorham) isn't the good guy we thought he was.

JH:  Did you know the killer was going to be Henry (Christopher Gorham) the whole time?

KZ:  Yeah, the whole time.  When we first started breaking the story, we broke it backwards.  We always knew it would be Henry because he was the one character who provided us the most motive and gave us the most reason for why he would want everyone on this island and slowly kill them off.  There was a lot of back story that never made it into the show because, as you can imagine, there’s just not enough time to do it.  We tried to cram it all into episode 13 by showing flashbacks of Henry and Abby (Elaine Cassidy) as kids, which led Henry to do what he did.  It was always Henry from day one.

JH:  When did Chris Gorham find out?

KZ:  Right before we started shooting episode 8 I told him and we ended up having a three hour meeting in Vancouver just going over everything and why and who and everything and all the back story because he didn’t know any of this

JH:  What was his reaction?

KZ:  He loved it!  And then after you know you just want to know everything.  You want to know why, who, what made this character do all that stuff so he loved it.

JH:  I think Gorham did a great job with it.  Henry is definitely not the same guy that we saw in the beginning.

KZ:  Even his death scene at the end of 13…you feel sorry for him.  He did such a good job.  I guess that was residual from following him for 12 episodes as a good guy.

JH: With all the back story that came out, it all made sense and because you did get to know him, he wasn’t a total villain like John Wakefield (Callum Keith Rennie), who we hate from the first moment we meet him.  Wow!  So, what will the DVD have that we didn’t see on the show?

KZ:  The DVD comes out on September 8th and we’ve got commentary on four episodes, we’ve got a lot of behind-the-scenes footage, there were 2-3 murders that we had to trim and cut some gory stuff out so we put those back in the DVD as part of the deleted scenes so we could give the audience an example of what we wanted to do.  Cast interviews from when we started shooting about who they think the killer is.

JH:  I saw on the Harper’s Island show page where the actors talk about how they’d like to see their character get killed and then you get to see how they actually are killed on the show.  Much fun.  What’s next for you guys?  I really don’t want this kind of show to go away but I know CBS isn’t going to move forward with a show like this.

KZ:  I don’t know.  It’s a discussion on a larger scale because we have always been the guys to deliver serialized television.  Jericho and Harper’s are both very serialized shows and it just seems that…you take a look at the last development season and no real serialized shows were picked up.  It’s all back to the procedural, close-ended one-hour dramas and I think that this development season we have to get back to that especially if we want to stay active in the network TV business we have to find procedural, close-ended shows.  I think serialized shows are just going to go away.  It’s tough.  It’s tough for many reasons.  Getting viewers to dedicate themselves to follow the show it requires a lot of Tivo and DVRing, which advertisers don’t want to hear that   I think Harper’s Island will have a good life on DVD.  I think it’s one of those things where you can go on and watch it 100 times and watch for the clues that you missed now knowing everything.

You can still watch episodes of Harper’s Island at CBS.com and watch for the complete series on DVD on September 8th.

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Galecki & Parsons talk THE BIG BANG THEORY

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

Your Progressive TV blogger Jim Halterman is taking a much needed break so here is his interview from March with BIG BANG THEORY’s Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons.  With Emmy nominations coming out next week, don’t be surprised if this gem of a series (and Galecki and Parsons) aren’t part of the mix.  Jim will be back next week.

Every season, as some shows like ER are saying their final goodbyes, other shows are gaining momentum and look to be around for many years to come.  Case in point, CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, the sitcom about the lives and loves of brainiacs working at Caltech, was recently given a renewal for two more seasons.  Stars Johnny Galecki (who plays Leonard) and Jim Parsons (Sheldon) took some time out of rehearsals in Los Angeles last week to talk to me about why they think the show has grown in popularity, what they know about Sara Gilbert returning to the show and how theater plays a part in  their work.  (photo below:  from the episode “The Dead Hooker Juxtaposition, Valerie Azlynn, Galecki and Parsons)

Jim Halterman:  Congratulations for the two-season pick-up.  Does that take the pressure off knowing you’re going to be on the air for two more years?

Jim Parsons:  I guess it is pressure off.

Johnny Galecki:  It’s kind of both.  I was thinking about it this week.  It’s so rare for an actor at all to know that they have a job for that long.  So we’ve been doing a lot of celebrating but at the same time I’m so accustomed to looking at the chunk of the calendar and what that responsibility means.  With this, you can’t do that because it’s such a fantastically long span of time.  You just have to kind of learn to integrate it into your life.   Or integrate life into the job and the responsibility.  It’s a little daunting at the same time.Jim Parsons:  It’s a luxury that very rarely as an actor you get to experience the problems of that much consistent work but it’s not just hitting the water.  There’s a lot of responsibility that goes along with it but it’s that kind of responsibility that we all want.

Jim Halterman:  A good problem to have, right?

Jim Parsons:  A very good problem to have.

Jim Halterman:  What was it about this past year that saw the show really jump up in popularity.  Were you doing anything differently?

 Jim Parsons:  I’ll say first that I think the show is getting better all the time which one would hope when people who are good at their jobs get together and keep working together, one would hope would always happen.  On paper, it should be getting better.  That said, it doesn’t always happen.  We’re very fortunate to be in a place where I think it is getting tighter, cleaner but funnier.  But I think word of mouth, too.  I think a lot of people have been telling a lot of people.  I hear it all the time.  So-and-so told me to watch it.  My brother-in-law told me to watch it.  That’s really a verbatim thing that I’ve heard ten times or more in the past six months.

Johnny Galecki:  I hear that constantly.

Jim Halterman:  Jim, looking at your credits, it doesn’t look like you’ve done a lot of sitcom work.  How was it jumping in to the sitcom format?

Jim Parsons:  In hindsight, somewhat not that hard, to put it in really bad grammar construction.  It’s got so many seeds in the same ground as theater, which I had done a lot of and, specifically, I had done a lot of comedy, too.  I had been lucky enough to do camera work here and there leading up to this so nothing was completely unfamiliar to me when I got here as far as all that went.  And really the biggest part is the theater being the biggest part of my work and, frankly, this work is a live play that we film every week so I was comfortable in that aspect.  We’ve always had a solid group around us both as actors and crew and especially the writers so that’s solid ground to be in and it takes a lot of the fear away.

Jim Halterman:  Johnny, after being on Roseanne for so long, how do you think the TV business and sitcom has changed over the years?

Johnny Galecki:  I think the business has certainly changed.  Everyone has 900 channels to watch now.  I mean, just look at the numbers and the number one show pulls maybe 20 million where before it was 30 million only ten years ago so obviously the [landscape] has changed.  I don’t know that the sitcom has changed too much.  Obviously, there are more single cameras now but I don’t think the multi-camera format of sitcom has changed much.  Like Jim said, it has so many feet in the theater of even hundreds and hundreds of years ago and that’s basically what we’re doing is trying to put on mini-plays while single cameras are trying to put on mini-movies.  And there is a familiarity that the audience has with watching any kind of theater.  It’s kind of ingrained on a cellular and cultural level.  I think that some shows have tried to kind of reinvent the wheel and it just hasn’t worked.  I mean, its foundation is to a very, very traditional theatrical vein and those shows who have done that, for example, that have changed the cultural landscape like All In The Family, are on a character-based and story-based level but not with bells and whistles or special effects or technology or anything of that nature.

Jim Halterman:  I love all the pop culture references on the show whether it’s Summer Glau or Radiohead.  Do you offer any of those up or is that all the writers’ doing?

Jim Parsons:  I have nothing to do with those, I swear to God.  [to Johnny]  Do you offer anything up?

Johnny Galecki:  Not really but it’s hard to say and this was the case on Roseanne, too.  When writers and actors are working together and you get along, even the briefest of conversations can influence one another.  Whether it’s them telling me a story about what happened during a cup of coffee and I can integrate that into an idea performance-wise and vice versa.  Sometimes things end up in scripts that sound familiar from a conversation but it’s very, very casual and done in a way that we’re just rubbing elbows, not suggesting a Radiohead joke.

Jim Halterman:  What can you tell me about what’s coming up the rest of the season?  Anything you can tease our readers with?

Johnny Galecki:  I wish.  They kind of tease us if anything.  They keep all that information very much under wraps.

Jim Halterman:  I went back and watched the pilot and realized the whole dynamic between Leonard and Penny (Kelly Cuoco) has really settled into more of a friendship, at least for now.  Is there going to be any progression there?

Johnny Galecki:  I think that’s the progression in a lot of ways.  They’ve taken a few steps back, or they think they have, but I think that friendship is going to be the foundation for a much more significant relationship than they would have had otherwise where it was really just Leonard’s infatuation with her for so long.  And even in this friendship, even though she’ll give him advice on other women, there are tinges every once in awhile of jealousy on both of their parts.  That friendship does become uncomfortable when other people are involved once in awhile.  I certainly don’t know for a fact but I think she, without knowing, is molding him into the man that she wants and he’s slowly, blindly learning that.

Jim Halterman:  As Leslie Winkle, Sara Gilbert is great on the show.  Is she going to be coming back? 

Jim Parsons:  We know her fate about as well as we know the plots.  Until we get a script that has Leslie Winkle on it, we have no idea if we’ll ever see her again. I don’t mean that as cryptic as it just sounded.

Jim Halterman: What are your plans for your hiatus?

Jim Parsons:   The ideal would be to work although I have no set-in-stone plans at this point and then, other than that, if there’s an excessive amount of time off I won’t really look that gift horse in the mouth either. I’d love to visit my family in Texas and things like that and frankly just get to be for a little while.  It’s one of the greatest luxuries of this job.  I guess if I had my druthers, I’d go ahead and we’d do some work over the break, as well.

Johnny Galecki:  Me, too. I just want to work.  I’m a workhorse.  And if it’s not there, then I’ll travel around and wander aimlessly and tread water until I get to work again.  Very, very healthy.  [laughs]

Jim Halterman:  Going back in your careers, what would each of you call your first big break in the business?

Johnny Galecki:  That’s so tough.  Everything leads to something else, you know?  Work always begets work.

Jim Parsons:  I’ll tell you what, I did do a pilot for CBS and while this wasn’t the only thing that helped me along, it was a major help.  I did a pilot for CBS four years ago and the pilot didn’t get picked up but it was well-received and from that I did this kind-of holding deal with CBS where I just auditioned for their stuff, nothing else, for that pilot season.  I did some episodes of Judging Amy related to that and here I am on a CBS show, which I did not under that deal because that’s not how the world works.  But I think I would be remiss not to mention that there’s some sort of connection even though I don’t know all the ways that it helped and panned out.

Johnny Galecki:  For me it was certainly the Roseanne show.  It was such a good show at the time, such a great show, and I mean I figure in the industry it opened many more doors for me than any other jobs.  There have been other jobs that have led to other things but I guess I’ve learned more doing certain things on an internal level.  I’ve never, ever done a job in the last twenty-some years that I felt was a waste of time.

Jim Parsons:  Here-here.  Agreed.

Jim Halterman:  Best of luck with the show in the next few seasons.  I’ll be watching as a fan because I think you’re both great.

Jim Parsons:  Thank you.

Johnny Galecki:  Come by the set if you can.

Jim Halterman:  I’m in New York but if I get out to LA, I will.

Johnny Galecki:  Yeah, there are airplanes.  [laughs]

The Big Bang Theory airs every Monday night at 9:30/8:30c on CBS.  It’s third season premiere is slated for September 21st.

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Photos courtesy of CBS.

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HIMYM finale…GOSSIP spinoff…and TRUE BLOOD on DVD

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

The finale of How I Met Your Mother is this coming Monday and while the producers have been saying for months that we’ll get closer to finding out who the ‘mother’ is, will fans be happy with what we do (and don’t) find out in the finale?  The show is at the point where it just won’t be able to make everyone happy, which is not a bad place to be in and the season finale is a perfect example of that. 

One thing became very clear in last night’s episode – Stella (Sarah Chalke) is not the mother, which, honestly, is kind of a bummer.  Chalke is so utterly likeable, blended in well with the rest of the HIMYM cast and has great chemistry with Josh Radnor’s Ted that the actual mother better be able to top her.

So, since I’m not a fan of spoilers, I will pass on what you will find in Monday’s finale – the infamous goat reappears, there’s unexpected development on the “Barbin” front, Lily reappears in scenes obviously shot awhile back (notice the difference in Cobie Smulders own hidden pregnancy early in the episode and then in the scenes with Lily), Ted makes a ‘great leap’ – also the name of the finale episode – regarding his new architecture company and, yes, we do get closer to finding out who the mother is.  Do we find out, though?  My lips are sealed… though I will say that some fans are going to be disappointed every time we don’t get to the definitive answer of who the mother is while others will continue to relish the guessing game at the core of the series.

But all this makes me ask a pretty obvious question – does How I Met Your Mother really need this mystery of who Ted (Josh Radnor) is going to end up with father his two kids?  I’ll stand up and say it doesn’t.  While the mystery is a nice hook for the show and gives the writers something to fall back on during sweeps and end-of-season finales, the real reason to watch the show is the ensemble of Radnor, Alyson Hannigan, Neil Patrick Harris, Smulders and Josh Segel.  These five actors bring more hilarity and the sense that they’re truly friends more than Friends ever did.

As the series reaches the end of year four, it is as sharp, funny, heartwarming (when it needs to be) as any other show that gets more press and higher ratings.  Kudos to CBS for letting the show breathe and become something you can’t say about a lot of other situation comedies – unique.  

The How I Met Your Mother finale airs on Monday, May 18th at 8:30/7:30c on CBS.

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Am I the only one who was underwhelmed with the potential Gossip Girl spin-off which aired last night?  Built around Lily (Kelly Rutherford) recalling her own teen problems as she deals with those of her daughter Serena (Blake Lively), the show interspersed a story with  a younger Lily (played by Brittany Snow) and her arrival in Los Angeles, hooking up with her “bad” sister (Krysten Ritter, above right with Snow) and also getting in trouble with the law.  With half of the episode devoted to Lily’s flashbacks, the only reason that this show should be given a birth of its own is because of Ritter, not Snow.  Snow does an OK job but playing Lily as a fearful, wide-eyed innocent is, well, boring.  Ritter (who is also shining on the current season of Breaking Bad) is the real spark here and, if anything, producers should build a show – any show – around her.  Also, airing the spin-off world against the zippy world of Gossip Girl also hurt it because it’s clear that the spin-off has no real juice of its own.  Of course, that could change if it were to actually go to series but, as of right now, I’m not sold.

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Have you heard of this great show on HBO about vampires living among us?  I know, I know.  I came on board late with True Blood, which may be an emerging pattern with me and critically acclaimed shows because I did the same thing with Mad Men when it first premiered.  I’m currently deep into the Season One DVD and am – wait for it – completely sucked in.  The smartest thing Alan Ball did with this series is making everyone already aware of the vampires living among us and, also, the stories move at a quick no-time-to-get-bored pace.  And (*giggle*) there’s a lot of blood.  One thing is clear, though, and that is True Blood feels different because it is different.  I could go on and on and on…and I will…in Friday’s DVD blog.  The first season DVD of True Blood comes out next Tuesday so let me tell you right now – get your wallets ready.  (And Nelsan Ellis’s Lafayette (right) – he’s one bad boy!)

Just a reminder that Progressive Television (and Progressive Pulse) is all over the web.  You can find me on Twitter and Progressive Television has a group page on Facebook.  Check it out and follow/join today! 

Until next time…keep watching.  

Photos courtesy of CBS, the CW and HBO.

 

 

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HARPER’S ISLAND slices and dices on CBS

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

CBS is not normally the home for blood and gore but times are changing as the network premieres Harper’s Island, a series where each week one of the regular characters is killed in a gruesome way that will surprise network viewers.  Will viewers tune into a 13-episode series where the regular cast could end up six feet under?  Co-Executive Producer Karim Zreik thinks so.  I talked to Zreik last year when Jericho had been saved thanks to the Internet and he was more than happy to talk to me last week about the origins of Harper’s Island, dealing with network standards on a horror series and how the television business is changing. 

Jim Halterman:  The Harper’s Island pilot was pretty gruesome!  I liked all the blood.  [laughs]

Karim Zreik:  For network TV, we had to hold back a little bit.

Chloe Carter (Cameron Richardson) screams bloody murder!

JH:  I expected you to hold back more than you did.  There’s some pretty horrendous stuff that I was truly surprised to see.  (Photo: Cameron Richardson)

KZ:  Going in to selling the show to CBS as a horror show, we knew we were going to be limited and restricted in what we can do especially with the network’s standards and practices but they were all so good with us.  What we did was shot everything like we would of for a feature film. So, we shot the blood, the guts, the decapitations, everything and when we got to the editing room, we sort of cut around it for network restrictions. But all that gory stuff that you’re not going to see on network TV we’re going to hold on to for the DVD.

JH:  That’s terrific. 

KZ:  We were able to do some fun stuff and the writers were trying to map out how to kill the next victim.  It was awesome.

JH:  Can you go back to how the project came to be? 

KZ: We developed it internally.  There’s a good friend of mine who is a reality show producer named Robert Sizemore and he came in and pitched the idea for a reality TV version of this.  Dan Shotz, Jon Turteltaub and myself – the three of us make up Junction Entertainment – and we thought ‘We don’t think it’s a reality show, we can make a drama out of this.’  One of the things we learned coming off of Jericho was to tell the story as fast as you can.  Don’t keep audiences lingering for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 seasons especially if you’re a new show and you don’t know if you’re going to be around that long so we came up with the idea of doing it in 13 episodes.  After 13 episodes, the story of Harper’s Island is done completely.  We’ll reveal who the killer is (or killers) at the end of episode 13.  We will reveal how he, she or they committed all these murders, how the whole thing unraveled and then if we’re fortunate enough to get a season two, it’ll be a whole new storyline, a whole new setting and a whole slew of characters.  So it could be like Harper’s Safari or Harper’s Sorority Row.  [laughs]

JH: Will the audience find out who the killer is before the characters on the show? (Photo above: Christopher Gorham)

KZ:  You will all find out at the same time.

JH: I’m sure this came up during development, but TV series are all about getting viewers hooked on characters that you want to watch year after year.  How is that going to work with Harper’s Island when characters are getting picked off one by one?

KZ: What we had to do was structure these thirteen episodes like we would a feature film.  The first three or four episodes are basically set up.  Get to know your characters, get to like your characters, get to hate your characters, form feelings for these characters and figure out who you like or don’t like, sort of in the same vein as a reality show.  There are certain people on Survivor that you like [and] there are people that you don’t like.  That’s part of the television experience is finding out who you’re going to be rooting for.  By episodes 5, 6 and 7 our characters on the show have now witnessed the first murder. People are being killed off in the first four but no one sees anything until episode 5 and that’s when we go into all hell breaking loose, fast paced, the look of the show changes, it just becomes darker and gorier until the final two or three episodes where we reveal the killer or killers and wrap up the story. 

JH:  How did you go about not letting the actors in on who the killer was or if they were getting killed during production?  (Above, Elaine Cassidy and Gorham)

KZ:  This was the cool part about making the show.  Nobody except a handful of us producers and writers knew who the killer was.  The actors would show up for work every day not knowing who the killer was.  Even the killer didn’t know who the killer was.  What I would do every week before the new script came out is I would tell the actor that was being killed off that he or she was going to die in that episode because we didn’t want them to read it and go, “Awww, I get killed.”  So I’d pull them aside and they all knew they were going to die since it was what they signed up for but it made for probably the most well behaved cast in television history.  They all wanted to stay as long as possible. 

JH:  Where did you shoot?

KZ:  We shot in Vancouver and there couldn’t be a more perfect location to do a horror show than Vancouver especially the way the weather changes.  The first three-four episodes of the show, it’s bright and sunny.  It’s 30 people going to a destination wedding.  When these murders start unraveling themselves it gets cold and dark and grey and that’s exactly what happens in Vancouver come September, October, November. 

JH:  Was there actually an island that you shot on?

KZ:  We shot on Bowen Island, which is about a 20-minute ferry ride from Vancouver.  A lot of stuff was shot there and everything else was in a soundstage in Vancouver and in and around the greater Vancouver area.

JH:  Matt Roush in TV Guide was not very kind in his review of the show.  How do you respond to that?

KZ:  We knew going in that this show wasn’t going to be for everybody.  I think fans might expect a Friday The 13th type horror show and you can’t deliver that for network TV.  Network TV lives and dies by the character or characters that your show puts out. You have to like certain people.  I don’t think Friday The 13th gives you enough opportunity to fall in love with characters.  We needed 3-4 episodes to formulate relationships and character development and then get into the blood, guts and gore.  I think going in we knew we couldn’t rely on blood, guts and gore to carry us across thirteen episodes.  Those are just the network restrictions.

JH:  Outside of the financials, how do you see the TV business changing? (Photo:  Zreik (left) and yours truly)

KZ:  On the producing side, I think what we did for Harper’s Island as we were developing it, we were also developing a web series called Harper’s Globe (www.harpersglobe.com) and it’s going to be 16 webisodes.  It’s a prequel to Harper’s Island so we’ve created a fictional character who comes to Harper’s Island and you get to see her experience before our show begins.  The webisodes will continue as the show airs and there’s an episode where our webisode main character shows up on the show.  We did it with a company called EQAL, who is responsible for lonelygirl15 and Kate Modern, and these guys are just smart.  I think nowadays you need to start thinking about the Internet component to any show you launch and our show is perfect for the webisode series and also an Internet campaign.  I mean, you’re talking to the guys who did Jericho.  We lived and died on the Internet so there’s nothing we’re going to do from now on that doesn’t involve the Internet in some capacity.  That’s the way people are watching TV now and we have to be conscious of that. 

JH:  I watched the whole first season of Mad Men on my IPod before I ever watched it on my television.

KZ: That’s what the future holds.  You’ve got to start thinking about making content that people can watch on their computers or their IPhones.  As a producer, at some point you have to find a way to embrace that.

Harper’s Island premieres tomorrow night in its regular timeslot of Thursday at 10/9c on CBS

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BREAKING BAD scores & interview with HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER’s Carter Bays

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
  • CONTEST WINNERS:  Congratulations to the winners of the Breaking Bad first season DVD  –  Sean Au (San Francisco), Ashley Gunn (Portland) and Sean Crouch (Los Angeles).  Meanwhile, the second season premiere aired Sunday night and, according to Television Week, ratings were up 40% over last season’s average with 1.7 million viewers.  The show also generated a 36% increase among adults 18-49 and a 50% increase with men 18-49.  Sounds like viewers are listening to all noise about this great series.
  • NEW PODCAST:  My full podcast interview with Kari Lizer, creator of The New Adventures of Old Christine has been posted.  Just go to this link to listen to Lizer talk about the Julia Louis Dreyfus sitcom.   http://www.progressivepulse.com/news.htm#pptv
  • LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL:  CBS is on a roll with their sitcoms, especially those that air on Monday night.  Overall, according to Television Week, the Monday night comedy block of The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother and Two And A Half Men have gained 14% in overall viewership while The New Adventures of Old Christine (Wednesday 8pm) has boosted the ratings in that time slot up 12% in viewers.  While The Big Bang Theory, which is quickly becoming as must-see as NBC’s 30 Rock and The Office, has grown 21% in viewers in its sophomore season while How I Met Your Mother is growing even more with a 33% increase in its fourth season.

Last week, I talked to co-creator of How I Met Your Mother, Carter Bays on a CBS press call.  Predictably, he was secretive about many details coming up but talking about the workings of this sitcom made the conversation just as interesting.

  • There are a lot of rumors that we’re going to finally find out who the ‘mother’ is.
  • Carter Bays:  I’m not going to say one way or another just because it’s a cool surprise but the party line that we all agreed on is that the last few episodes will address the title of the show which is How I Met Your Mother and we will be picking up some storylines which may have been dormant for a little while and one of those is Ted’s romantic life and his search for the woman who will eventually mother his kids.
  • You and the writers seem to pull a lot out of the air with characters popping back up or storylines picked up.  Is that always by design or is it just as random?
  • CB:  Part of the fun of the show is that every now and then we get to reach into the grab bag of the four years of history that we’ve built between these characters and pull things out that you might not have expected to see again or things that you’ve been waiting to see and finally come back so there’s some surprises coming up.
  • There has been a lot of speculation that the adult narrator is unreliable.  How unreliable is he?
  • CB:  We like to play around with it, definitely.  For instance, when he tells the kids that they were sitting around eating sandwiches, we all know what that actually means [it means they’re smoking pot] so we’re trying to be playful with it but I think as far as the big stuff, I think we would feel cheap doing this and people would feel ripped off if big things in the story turned out to be “Oh the narrator was lying.” I know I’ve heard some theories about who the mother is that involves that its actually Barney telling the story which I can confirm that that’s not the case.  The narrator is Ted and he’s grown up.  So we want him to be somewhat reliable but it is fun playing around with…using it as a way to observe the way people tell stories and the way certain things get told.
  • Any big name guest stars coming up on the show?
  • CB:  Danny Glover.  Well, it’s not exactly Danny Glover coming on our show but Danny Glover will appear in the episode.  That’s completely cryptic but I’d like to save the joke, if I can.  (March 23 episode)
  • Was it a big decision to not write the pregnancies of Alyson Hannigan and Cobie Smulders into the show?  Were you tempted?
  • CB:  When this came up, we tried to look at every potential setback as an opportunity.  When Alyson first came to us and then Cobie came to us then it was all bets are off.  When Allyson first came to us, we thought, “Ok this could be interesting.”  Maybe we write this in.  We didn’t plan on it but young couples sometimes don’t plan on it and maybe we write this into the show and it could be fun.  We had the debate that married couples actually have where we thought, “Alright, this show is really fun and we go to the bar every night and we have all these great adventures.  Would we not be able to have all these great adventures if we have to watch after this kid?”  We sort of debated that there could be babysitters and nannies and eventually the decision that we made is that we’re not ready.  Not yet…there’s so many parents on our staff now.  Young parents. There’s just a ton of great stories and I look forward to the day that we actually do get to tell those stories and Marshall and Lily have kids but right now we’re not ready.  We’re still having fun so we’re going to hold off on that until we have told every last ‘the gang goes to the bar and gets drunk’ stories.
  • Any big changes coming up for the fifth season? 
  • CB:  There’s going to be a shift in setting to some degree.  There’s going to be a new world that some of the characters enter and it will provide a reason to bring us closer to meeting the Mom…and it will also will provide new dynamics for a couple of the characters.
  • Is there anything you can attribute to the fact that the show has really taken off this year?
  • CB:  I think it really kind of had a lot to do with word of mouth more than anything else.  When the show began to a very different degree, the cast was…Neil was quite famous and Allyson was, too, but none of them were big stars.  It was just sort of a sitcom about five friends hanging out in a bar.  There was nothing about it that was really big and hooky and exciting.  What has always been at the core strength has been it’s just…we try to tell funny stories and we have five really, really funny actors acting them out.  It may have, on a poster, not been the catchiest show and it kind of had a weird title when it came out and that may have made people nervous about it…but I think over the years people have discovered it and they told their friends about it and more and more I get emails saying that all of a sudden everyone in their office is watching it.  I kind of like that.  I’d rather be a show that gets its fans not from…not that we have the flashiest poster o
    r the craziest premise.  People find us because other people like it and tell them about it.
  • I know you’ve addressed the time a few years ago when Neil Patrick Harris publicly came out of the closet.  It obviously hasn’t affected the show at all but has it affected you telling gay stories at all because it might take people out of the show knowing that he’s gay?
  • CB:  It really doesn’t.  One of the first things he said when he came out, when we had the conversation with him was he was worried about…the way he put it he said he didn’t want the way we write the show to change at all and I think we’ve stuck to that.   And, you know, we can pretty much do jokes about anything and Neil is just tremendously game and on board with it.  I think the audience is, too.  I think he handled that whole situation in such an inspirational way.  I think he really set a great tone for other actors who are going to do that in the future and it really hasn’t changed anything about the show.
  • What do you think it says about audiences that they’ve accepted that in 2009?
  • CB:  I think it says something good.  In hindsight, I’m really glad that it happened because I feel like that kind of stuff can’t happen enough.  People just like every family there’s someone who has a friend who’s gay or is related to someone who’s gay and it helps to create a culture that we’re still creating of realizing that we’re all a family.
  • How I Met Your Mother airs every Monday night on CBS at 8:30/7:30c.
  • Until next time…keep watching.
  • Photos courtesy of CBS 

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Old friends and new: THE AMAZING RACE and DOLLHOUSE’s Eliza Dushku plus my review

Friday, February 13th, 2009

First, thanks to everyone who entered the The New Adventures of Old Christine DVD giveaway.  Winners are at the end of this blog.  Keep checking back for more giveaways!!

Now…on with the shows.  Some television series just never seem to go away and though you might see press on them once in awhile, it’s almost only to serve as background for the hot new thing.  Well, my recommendation this week is to take the time to engage yourself with an old friend and maybe give a new one a chance to grow on you. 

The old friend is CBS’s The Amazing Race, which returns for its 14th season this Sunday at 8/7c.  I was a big fan of the competition series about 10 seasons ago when gay couple Reichen and Chip won the million dollars.  I stuck around for a few more seasons and then failed to jump on board.  Well, the premiere episode of the new season is terrific.  The challenges are exciting (lawyer Victor, left, does a bungee jump from the 2nd highest point in the world), entertaining and the show is at its best when it shows both the comedic and dramatic elements that go into being a part of the race.  The casting this season is also top notch with some of the usual suspects (the arguing young couple both vying for control, the blonde flight attendants, the older couple) but there’s also a father and son team (Mel and Mike) who are both gay and, my favorite, the mother and her deaf son, who happens to not read lips and must rely on his mother for all communication.  Margie and Luke (below) are a perfect example of what makes this Race so amazing.  They’re not only engaging people to watch during the race but they have a great story that immediately hooks you in.  And, trust me, if you don’t find yourself tearing up at certain emotional times in the show, then you might want to check your pulse.  The show is still in top form and is the perfect hour to spend winding down from the weekend and gearing up for your Monday. 

Also, I had a great chat with longtime host Phil Keoghan where he talked about how the Race is feeling as fresh as ever and he gives some insight into how the contestants are chosen and why he’s not a newbie to some of the challenges we see on the Race.  You can see that interview at http://www.thefutoncritic.com/rant.aspx?id=20090213_amazingrace.

______________________________________

Now, let’s talk about the new kid on the block. Dollhouse arrives tonight on FOX and, if you didn’t get enough from my Joss Whedon interview on my Tuesday posting, I also talked to star Eliza Dushku earlier this week.  Is Dollhouse a hit or a miss?  Read on for my review…

Joss Whedon is known for creating the classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series so when he was ready to come up with a new series, he got together with Dushku, who had played the role of Faith on Buffy, to breakdown the story.  Not just wanting to be an actor on the series, Dushku has taken on another role that has her very involved in the direction of the series – Executive Producer. 

I have sort of picked up and learned a lot about how the machine operates.  It was just more exciting than anything and it also just sort of made me that much more invested in just the fine details of the show and then just even in things, the political aspects and everything from moral on the set to making sure our crew members felt heard and looking for warning signs.  There are just so many elements, but I absolutely loved it because, again, this is something that I asked for.  I mean I asked for every single bit of it and I can truly say I’ve loved every bit of it, like the responsibilities, the effort, enthusiasm, the whole crew, the whole cast, everyone involved in the show has wanted it as badly as Joss and I have.

In the series, Dushku plays Echo, an “Active” who has had her personality wiped clean and now works for an underground company called “Dollhouse” that implants different personalities in women so they can fulfill the needs and desires of their wealthy clients.  In the pilot, for example, Echo is fitted with a personality that makes her a hostage negotiator.  Dushku explained how things begin to go awry.

…the dolls are starting to have these memories and develop these little flickers of self-awareness and recognize one another and remember things from engagements.  Of course, that’s considered a glitch in the Dollhouse system and that’s where all hell breaks loose.  That’s kind of where the show expands and that’s where it gets interesting to me.

Dushku also talked about how Dollhouse is going to push the envelope and serve as a somewhat reflective mirror of our own society. 

It’s provocative.  It’s disturbing in some ways.  It’s controversial.  We’re dealing with altering and programming people and I think that that’s a very sensitive topic, but I think that it’s relevant and I think that it’s exciting because I’ve always wanted to do work that has to do with us evolving and questioning, making people uncomfortable I guess.  That’s sort of what interesting storytelling is to me is asking different questions and taking a closer look at desires and fantasies and taboos and sexuality and these are all things that Joss and I initially discussed in our infamous first lunch when we were talking about making a show. 

So, changing hats from interviewer to critic, does Dollhouse deliver on its promise?  Unfortunately, not really…or maybe I should say not yet.  The concept is terrific and after talking to both Whedon and Dushku, I was ready to be enthralled by this new world and, knowing Whedon’s work in the past (Buffy ranks in my all-time top 10 favorite series) the expectations were clearly higher than most shows fresh out of the gate. 

First, the concept.  Having a series focusing on an “Active” that changes personalities is only interesting if we know where she came from and who she really is.  With her changing personalities, I’m not sure how viewers are supposed to connect with the character.  In a more traditional series, when a character goes undercover (a la Jennifer Garner in Alias, for example), part of the intriguing and fun part of watching the scenes unfold is knowing who the person really is and how they’re pretending to be someone else to achieve a goal.  We’re not given enough about Echo’s past to really care how she became an “Active.”  Also, there’s a glimmer of hope for the story to take an interesting turn when Echo begins getting flashes of memories that throw her off her perfected game but the story stalls there without a promise of what is to come.

One other important element missing from the series is humor.  Whedon has addressed (more…)

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PROGRESSIVE PILLARS: Hamish Linklater from “The New Adventures of Old Christine”

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

VOTE!!  Change is in the air and as long as you voted, you know you had a say in the matter.  By the end of today, we’ll finally know who the next President will be.  I’ll be glued to my news channel of choice tonight!  So, to keep our minds off the waiting…

…I’m proud to introduce a new feature to Progressive Television.  “Progressive Pillars” is a new, regular highlight of some of the pillars of our favorite television series.  These are the actors who play the supporting roles and hold up the leads of the series.  Be it Ethel Mertz on “I Love Lucy”, Miss Kitty on “Gunsmoke”, Alice Nelson on “The Brady Bunch”, Mr. Bentley on “The Jeffersons”, Skippy on “Family Ties, Nate from the Peach Pit on “Beverly Hills, 90210), Jack & Karen on “Will & Grace” and Toby on “The Office,” these characters are solid performers that may be in the background a bit more than the stars, but they’re a vital component to a series’ success.  There’s always the chance that a supporting character will launch off into his or her own starring vehicle (think Frasier Crane from “Cheers”), but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Airing Wednesdays at 8pm EST on CBS, “The New Adventures of Old Christine” is a show that may not be at the top of the ratings but it’s consistently well-written and acted by some of the best supporting actors in the business.  Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Christine wouldn’t be nearly as endearing if it weren’t for the array of characters around her.  One of those characters is her brother Matthew, portrayed by Hamish Linklater who talked with me about life before “Christine,” being a parent, how vampires become vampires and why digging latrines surprisingly is not the best job ever.

I looked at your bio.  I saw you were kind of born into the acting community since your mother was a theater professor.

She actually started a theater company called Shakespeare and Company in Western Massachusetts and that was where I grew up.

Early on was it a given that you’d be an actor?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I came out of my mother’s womb and then she put little comedy/tragedy masks on me and said, “You’ll wear these everyday for the rest of your natural born life.”  I didn’t want to do it.  I kept trying to think of other things to do but nobody would hire me to do anything else so eventually it just ended up being acting. (above, Linklater with ‘Christine’ co-star Michaela Watkins)

Your mother raised you as a single parent.  I’m curious how you think that affected your view on marriage, family and raising kids?

My mom was never married and actually a lot of the kids that I grew up with – like my best friends…I had these three best friends from elementary school and two out of the three are also only-children of single mothers and the third one had a nuclear family so we spent all our time over at his house.  It’s incredible…I got married pretty young -I got married at 24 or maybe it was 25 to make up for lost marriage time I guess in our family.  We have a year and a half old daughter now and…between me, my wife and our almost-full time nanny we can barely stay on top of this child so I’m blown away by what my Mom was able to do all by her lonesome.

It’s a lot of work, isn’t it?

Yeah but you know what, also because I grew up in that theater company it was really like all the other actors would sort of take care of me, as well…it was really very commune-y…but without a theater commune, I don’t know how a single parent does it.

When did you realize you were funny?

That is still a verdict out to the jury.  They’ll hire me occasionally and I’m able to deliver funny lines sometimes adequately but that’s basically it.

Growing up in the theater community, how was the transition into the film and TV world?  What was that like?

It’s a really different world but…I’m still hooked on your last question that was a really good one and I’m wondering how it really affects me.  But, no, I’m going to transition with you about the transitioning into film.  I was desperate and scrambling and fought like crazy to get out of theater and get in front of the camera and now that I’m there I’m like Ah!    It’s real nice.  The people are nice.  Being able to afford a wife and child are nice.  But the theater is pretty darn great.

When you were getting started with your career, what were you doing to make ends meet because everyone has been at that point where they’re auditioning a lot.  What were you doing just to pay the rent?

I had a couple of stupid jobs.  I was a sign maker for a little while in New York.  I would put those, you know the big glass storefront window I’d put a little sign up like 50% Sale This Month decals.

Like the painting on the window that you see in stores?

There’s actually a massive machine.  It’s like a huge decal maker and I’d apply those decals and try not to get the bubbles in it.  I also had a job filing death certificates for an insurance company.  (slows speech) That was a really…grim…job.  Those are cute jobs and then the other ones are just bussing tables and working in a bookstore and dumb things like that.  But being a sign maker and filing death certificates…they were the funnest jobs but were also that ones where I thought I could turn into a Russian really quickly if I did that for too long.  I’d start yearning for Moscow no matter where I am for the rest of my life.

Would the death certificate-filing job be considered the worst job you ever had or is there something worse?

I volunteered one summer to dig latrines in Honduras and that was a terrible job although I got to see the world and I probably dine out on stories about that job more than anything.  Digging latrines in Honduras for zero money as opposed to filing death certificates for eight dollars an hour.  I don’t know.  It’s probably a toss up.

My friends are big fans of the movie “Groove” and they said I had to ask you about it and how that came about.  What was your experience with that movie?

That was my first time ever acting in front of the camera.  I was so excited to get that job.  It was like I had dropped out of school and I’d been trying to be an actor and I’d been doing plays and stuff like that and then I was like I gotta get this job.  I’ll sleep with anyone to get this job and it worked out.  They eventually hired me but I had to put in my time on the casting couch to get into that one.  It was super fun, though.  We were in San Francisco.  We were all sleeping on couches and pretending like we were method actors who were really going to try the drugs we were supposed to be acting like we were on.  I have very fond memories.

Before you landed “Christine”, what was the best job you had as far as your work?

I was on a TV show with Andre Braugher before this called “Gideon’s Crossing” that lasted for a year and that was a great job because it moved me and my wife to Los Angeles and got us started here.  I did a movie called “Live From Baghdad” that was fantastic because we got to go to Morocco to shoot it and I bought carpets there.  “The Fantastic Four” was in Vancouver and that’s Canada and that’s good.  The best job probably was also a very hard job but it was a great job because I did this play that my wife wrote in New York and then when we finished the play – it was in a church where the theater was – and we got married on the set of the play so that is pretty nerdy.

I think that’s romantic!  And how did “Christine” come about?

Auditioning.  Auditioning really hard.  Going in but fortunately Julia is like the nicest lady in the world and she was in there in the auditions and helping us out.  The writer, Kari Lizer, is just so nice.  I had auditioned for her for another pilot earlier in the season where I was going to play something like Joe the Plumber or something like that and it was a bit of a stretch but she was really pushing for me so this time it was a slightly more natural fit and fortunately she was able to convince them to give me the job. (above, Linklater with Julia Louis-Dreyfus)

Do you have siblings of your own?

No.  I’m an only child.

I have five and watching the show and watching you and Julia…you seem like you are siblings.  There’s such a camaraderie so I was curious what you pull from your own life to play that?

No, no, no.  I wish.  I just try to pretend she’s like an old girlfriend that I’m stuck with.  (laughs)  I try to use that instead and just let whatever chemistry comes from that hopefully translate and then maybe people will remember that we call ourselves brother and sister and hopefully it works out.

How much input have you had with the direction of Matthew.  Now he’s a therapist and he’s embarking on a new relationship.  Does Kari pull all that out or do you help her and give her suggestions?

I give her suggestions all the time and she refuses to follow any of them.  (laughs)  It’s really what she wants to see me do.  I actually have a moustache right now.  I grew a moustache for Halloween.  It’s my Halloween costume. Just facial hair.  So I thought maybe it would be funny if he grew a moustache and she was like, No.  Not funny at all.  She’s been cross with me all day.  She doesn’t listen to anything I say because she’s concerned with having quality in her show.  (laughs again)

One of the things I love about Matthew is he seems to have a lot of issues with women and they are constantly bringing up incest between he and Christine and the recent episode where Matthew tried desperately not to call his mother before he went to bed.  It’s hilarious but it’s also very real.  People have those issues.  How do you approach that as far as that part of Matthew?

My mother, her name is Kristin Linklater, she’s actually like a theater guru type.  She teaches voice for actors.  She has something called the Linklater Technique, which is actually taught across the country at different Universities and she has a book called “Freeing the Natural Voice.” So she’s like a real institution.  It’s all about freeing your natural voice.  I don’t know if you can tell from my voice but it’s probably one of the least free things that’s ever been uttered or voiced.  So, yeah.  You just use what ya got.  You use what ya got.  We did this one thing one time where she wanted to help me for a high school play.  She was like, “Ok, just say the line and I’m going to put my hand on your stomach and just breathe into your mother’s hand.”  (laughing)  There’s no way!  No way!  C’mon!

The bits with you and Wanda Sykes’s character are hilarious because there’s actually a nice chemistry there and I get the feeling that Matthew is still kind of holding a torch for her.  How has that been playing that up with her?

It’s really easy with Wanda.  We get along pretty well.  I think she’d agree with that but maybe she wouldn’t.  (laughs)  We have a nice time and we have some things in common which are funny.  When my mother came out here to watch a taping we went to the Smokehouse across the street, which is this terrible old LA restaurant.

Oh yeah.  I know the Smokehouse.

We shut it down.  Actually, my mother and Wanda shut it down.  I have these grainy photos of them sort of holding each other up outside the Smokehouse.  I don’t know.  Birds of a feather.  It’s nice.  I hope…and I know that Wanda hopes, too, that somehow we find our way back to each other.

I know you did a guest spot on “Pushing Daisies” last season.  Any other roles either on that show or another or any guest spots coming up?

No.  That was one of these super convenient things where it was also Warner Bros and they actually shoot about three stages down from us and that episode came up while we were on a hiatus week here on our show.  So it was one of those lucky star things where scheduling-wise worked out and company-wise it worked out.  And it was somebody within the company someone wanted to hire me again and that will never happen.  That person was crazy and their numbers are terrible so they’re being run out of town for hiring me right now.

It’s all your fault.

That should be the title of this piece.  The man who killed “Pushing Daisies.”

Are there any shows on right now that you’d like to do a guest spot on.

“True Blood.”

It’s so good.  What would you like to play?

I’d do anything there would be amazing as long as I got to do the accent.  I think it’s so cheap when they don’t do the accent.  Like that new woman who’s on it who has the Connecticut accent.  I just think that’s so cheap.  Everyone should have very thick accents on that show.  Basically, my wife and I watch my show and watch True Blood and it’s a sickness.  I don’t get it.  The one thing I don’t understand on that show is how do you become a vampire?  It’s like about half way through the show every time we watch it my wife is like,  “You know what bothers me?”  And I say, “I know what bothers you.”  “How do you become a vampire?”

I only know from other shows.  I was a huge “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” fan and with that, I believe, if you get bit by a vampire but the vampire doesn’t suck all your blood and you’re actually left alive then you’ll become a vampire.  I think that’s what it is.  But I think the show has the kind of flexibility that they can make it anything they’ll want so maybe they’re purposely not saying. 

Maybe that’s what it is and maybe we’ll find out later one.  But he’s been sucking Sookie’s blood and Sookie hasn’t become a vampire yet so I don’t understand.  And other people get their blood sucked but they don’t become vampires.

If I find out for sure, I will let you know.

Great.

One of the things of being a celebrity and I haven’t seen you in the tabloids yet.  What’s up with that?

I’m really good at being a celebrity and keep my nose incredibly clean.  I don’t know.  Maybe I just haven’t screwed up publicly enough. I’ll hang on to that as long as possible.

Since you became a parent, has it changed your perspective on the world in both the bigger and smaller sense?

It’s interesting. You think about education a little bit more and then you…we did the diaper service with the cloth diapers.  We did cloth diapers for the first year and were really impressed with ourselves for that.  And then she sort of got good at taking them off and she’d running around being agile and eventually I just gave up.  I was thinking is this going to be emblematic of all my old fashioned progressive leanings and eventually I’ll just be like forget the fundraiser at the public school and let’s just send her to private.  Let’s just write a check.  Having a child puts more of an exhaustive strain on your progressive inclinations which is perverse because it should be more ‘I have to create the right world for my child.’  And then you’re like ‘I’m so tired.’

Would you want your child being in the entertainment business?

Not the entertainment business but I’d love for her to be an artist.

Of any role out there, what would your dream role be if you could do anything?

I’d love to play the President because those speeches are so good.  So dramatic.  But, other than that, something new…something new and impressive. I’d like to play a part where I get to grow a moustache.  (laughs)

Do you have any acting heroes who you look up to?

Basically, Marlon Brando and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Is there anything else you’re working on besides “Christine” or coming up during your next hiatus? 

My wife and I created a pilot for ABC, which we shot during the last hiatus so we’re waiting to hear if it gets picked up for a mid-season run.  It’s actually Hamlet but set in Detroit in a car company.  It’s really terrific and really good but the auto industry…we have a couple of references to the big three, which may now be the big two or the big one with Ford being sort of the ugly stepsister.  The shifting in that industry now would make it pretty tricky to update or keep current.

Are you acting in the project or more from a producing standpoint?

Just producing.  Producing.  Creating.  Bossing people around.  (laughs)  We had Andie McDowell, Aidan Quinn, Rutger Hauer, Piper Perabo, Sharon Lawrence and Morris Chestnut.  Do you seriously watch “True Blood?”

Yes.

Did you see where there were three other vampires that joined in?  Bill’s friends.  The black vampire is named Aunjanue Ellis, she was in “Ray.”  She’s in our TV show.  She’s awesome.

Good luck with that.  I hope you get the call.  So, Hamish, those are all the questions that I have for you but thank you so much for your time and continued success with everything.  It’s been great talking to you.  I’ll make sure to get you the link to the interview on the site so you can check it out.

Likewise.  Thank you!  Or I’ll get my google alert and think ‘Someone out there cares about you.”

You can catch Hamish Linklater as Matthew on “The New Adventures of Old Christine” every Wednesday at 8pm on CBS.

Photos by: Michael Ansell/CBS and Warwick Saint/CBS.

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ER still on top, ELEVENTH HOUR does its job and the EX LIST charms

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

After it’s initial airing last week, “Eleventh Hour” was a bright spot on CBS when it tied with the premiere of ABC rival “Life on Mars,” which I reviewed here last week.  The winner of the competitive 10pm broadcast network timeslot however?  The 15-yr old series “ER,” which may not be the juggernaut it once was but it’s obviously still a fan favorite and the promos hyping the final season seems to be working.  And, by starting the season with killing off Mekhi Pfifer’s character, Greg Pratt, the show is making good on its promise to go out with a bang.  Maura Tierney is next to leave but, thankfully, the inside track says her character will not die a horrible death.  Tierney has been the heart and soul of the series ever since she took the reign from original holder Julianna Margulies.  Will Margulies and George Clooney return for the finale?  No word yet but I’m holding my breath.  (Photo: Pfifer and Stamos during Pfifer’s last episode.  RIP, Greg Pratt!)

So, back to my look at “Eleventh Hour.”  The drama is another procedural from Jerry Bruckheimer who brought us the “CSI” and all it’s spin-offs, “Without a Trace,” “Cold Case” and, yes, even “The Amazing Race.”  In this series, Bruckheimer pairs an FBI agent (Marley Shelton) with an eccentric scientist named Jacob Hood (Rufus Sewell) as the twosome work together to solve unsolvable crimes in “Eleventh Hour.”  The series premiered last week in the plum CBS slot of 10pm on Thursday following ratings powerhouse “CSI.”

To its credit, “Eleventh Hour” does exactly what it’s supposed to – create a mystery, corral a series of suspects and wait until Dr. Jacob Hood (Sewell) can figure it out.  In the episode airing this Thursday, 11-yr old boys in a small town are having fatal heart attacks and Hood and Rachel Young arrive on the scene to point the finger.  After many misleads and red herrings (just enough to fill the hour time slot), the killer is uncovered and the requisite exposition answers all remaining questions.   My favorite part of the first episode was not the solving of the crime but in seeing the actors keep a straight face while talking of the act of ‘toad licking’ when a certain type of toad lets off a hallucinogenic that some of the boys have been using recreationally.  Yes, the case is interesting enough and the twists and turns are inventive and even intriguing.  No complaints there—if that’s all you need in a series.  (Photo: Shelton, Sewell and guest star Zach Mills)

To be perfectly clear, the show isn’t a misfire at all and Sewell and Shelton do share a nice chemistry that needs to be amped up and explored to give this show more of a pulse.  And before the emails start flooding in, I’m fully aware that these procedural shows remain popular and it’s only a matter of time before another CSI appears (Law & Order is already planning a London spin-off to air overseas) but I have yet to find one that holds my interest for repeat viewings.  “Eleventh Hour” is 90% case/10% character development and, for this viewer, that just doesn’t cut it. 

So, here’s my bottom line—if you can’t get enough of the procedural dramas, then this one is probably right up your alley.  Otherwise, it will just seem like you have seen a lot of this before and though you may not guess the endings ahead of the characters, you won’t be surprised with the solutions they miraculously uncover.  I suggest giving “ER” another shot if you haven’t watched.  The water cooler days may be over but the show is consistently strong and the writing and the cast couldn’t be better.  John Stamos has even grown on me and is now just as strong of a presence on the show than Noah Wyle ever was.   

On the lighter side of things, one the brighter spots on the CBS schedule continues to be “The Ex List,” which is one of the more charming series of the new season though the ratings thus far have been less than spectacular.  Elizabeth Reaser is a delight as the clumsy-in-love Bella and, though I do think she could stand to lose the neighbors who take up the B story in most episodes, her sister (Rachel Boston) and ex (Mark Deklin) bring enough personality and fun to the series to make up for it. 

Last Friday, the second episode of the series fell off by a not-so-good margin from the solid “Ghost Whisperer.”  The series is definitely not the smartest or most inventive series out there but it gives a bit of lightweight entertainment for the end-of-week viewing.  It definitely deserves to grow, especially since creator Diane Ruggiero left the show last month and executive producer Rick Eid is now calling the shots.  It may take awhile for the show to get on its feet and hopefully CBS will show some patience since “The Ex List” is a good fit with “Ghost Whisperer” and “Numbers.”  Fingers are crossed.

Coming on Friday, the last special Friday blog with one last new series.  The movie channel Starz! gets into the series game with an adaptation of the 2006 Best Picture “Crash,” starring film vet Dennis Hopper.   I’ll be watching this week and report back on Friday whether it’s worth subscribing to the movie channel or not. 

Until next time…happy viewing!

Photos:  Joel Warren/NBC, Adam Tayler/Warner Bros, Monty Briton/CBS and STARZ! 

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TV Movies of the Week…a dying breed??

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

The Burning Bed.  The Day After.  Something About Amelia.  An Early Frost.  Sarah T : Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic.  The one thing these titles all have in common is that they are from an era of television when the made-for-television movies held prominent spots on the schedules of all the networks, which, at that time, were CBS, NBC and ABC.  Yes, that was it.  Crazy how times have changed, huh?  The topics of these movies were usually controversial (spousal abuse, nuclear holocaust, drugs and alcohol abuse) and were commonly used as an arena for television actors to show that they could do something different than what audiences were used to seeing.  Feature film actors would also turn up in these movies, usually in “Special Guest Star” roles that added weight to the overall film.  Back in the day, the networks cranked out TV movies like well-oiled machines, often with 4-5 two-hour slots on their prime time schedules allotted for them. In 2008, however, if you look at the networks schedules, a made-for-TV movie is a rare occurrence.  With a bevy of reality shows and re-airings of their popular shows filling slots, the TV-movie has been sent off to cable, where some may say they thrive but to an often smaller, more targeted audience.  Lifetime is a perfect example of a cable channel that regularly airs made-for-TV movies that have a female sensibility.  Lifetime has made so many of these TV movies that there is even another cable channel (LMN or Lifetime Movie Network).  HBO is probably the only place where the TV movie is still handled as an event and the care and quality of these productions is evident. 

Knowing where the state of the TV movie rests today, imagine my surprise when I heard that film/theater/cable series star Mary-Louise Parker was headlining a made-for-TV movie on – gasp – CBS!  These days, when CBS airs a TV movie these days, it’s attached to the Hallmark moniker and actually comes with a nutrition table so you know how much sugar is included.  (OK, I’m being a little sarcastic there but the Hallmark movie is usually sappier than anything Aunt Jemima has on her shelves).  Vinegar Hill, based on the novel by A. Manette Ansay and airing this weekend, comes from the inherited force of the TV movie – the “Based On An Oprah Book Club Selection” label.  Since the name alone invokes prestige and high quality (or nausea, depending on how you feel about the big O), it also raises the bar on what audiences will expect from Vinegar Hill.

First, I’ll get my Mary-Louise Parker praise out of the way.  Parker is one of those acting forces that make anything better.  A true actor’s actor, she possesses that unnamed quality that makes you take notice of her and believe anything she says or does.  I stand by my proclamation that Showtime’s Weeds doesn’t owe its success to the “edgy” subject matter of a mother who ends up selling marijuana in her upscale community but, instead, to Parker and Parker alone.  Last season, when her character was (once again) between a rock and a hard place, Parker walked into her house and, without speaking, took off her jeans, went outside, jumped in the pool and, underwater, literally screamed at the top of her lungs.  I can’t think of any other actor who could take an acting moment like this and make it seem believable and not indulgent and showy.  Parker is phenomenal. 

In Vinegar Hill,  Parker plays Ellen (Parker), a woman who, with her out-of-work husband (Tim Guinee), moves their children to the home of the husband’s parents in rural Wisconsin.  The husband’s parents (played by Tom Skerritt and Betty Buckley) are hard as nails, with so much anger (more…)

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DEXTER slices into CBS…and edited to bits??

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Good news–the writer’s strike seems to be wrapping up this week but it will still take some time before new episodes of your favorite programs hit the air.  Most one-hour dramas may be able to squeeze out 3-4 new episodes while sitcoms may be able to produce a few more.  More information as it develops but the deal potentially struck seems to be making both sides happy.   More good news – Dexter makes the jump from pay cable to network broadcasting this weekend.  A one-hour drama with a serial killer as our main focus?  Keep reading…

There’s a scene in the pilot of Dexter that will send chills down your spine and hook you into the series at the same time.  It’s a flashback sequence (one of several) where a teenage Dexter is given a talking-to by his loving foster parent, who, after finding several large knives that belongs to his foster son, agrees to help Dexter reign in and control his desire to kill and keep it for the good of things.  Dad (played by Sex and the City’s James Remar) cites that there are a lot of bad people doing bad things out in the world and Dexter listens intently, soaking in his every word.  The words are frightening but the emotion is one of caring and the kind of love a parent has for a child and vice versa.  The one other thing that scene gives us is the justification for a television series where a serial killer is our protagonist and, yes, hero.

Michael C. Hall, (right) in his performance as Dexter Morgan, is as different as night and day from his Six Feet Under persona, David Fisher, who spent his time accepting life as a gay man amidst his eccentric family.  In Dexter, Hall is a forensics expert in blood splattering that assists the Miami police on the many murder cases in the city.  Dexter is not only very good at what he does in his day job but it also fuels his self-appointed night job of tracking down murderers and making them suffer for making others suffer.  What should make Dexter a despicable character and the least likely center of any television series, actually makes him one of the most intriguing characters ever on network and cable television.

There are several other layers at play here in Dexter’s world.  His foster sister (Jennifer Carpenter) is an insecure vice cop wanting to move over to homicide, where Dexter’s co-workers are employed, keeping everyone in close proximity.  Lt. Maria Laguera (Oz’s Lauren Velez) has an obvious (more…)

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