April 9, 2008 10:02

HBO Seeks Programming Head; Also, Programming

According to the Hollywood Reporter, HBO may be close to naming Sue Naegle of United Talent Agency to replace Carolyn Strauss as its chief of entertainment.

Now all the pay channel needs to do is finds some, well, entertainment. Says TV Guide, the cupboards are sufficiently bare—post-strike, post-12 Miles of Bad Road's termination, post-John from Cincinnati, etc.—that HBO will not be airing new series this summer. Entourage, Big Love and Flight of the Conchords are to return this fall at earliest, when Alan Ball's vampire drama True Blood is also planned to debut. As for the summer, HBO will move up the premiere of Iraq miniseries Generation Kill, run movies, and... um... well, hey, it's summer! Shouldn't you be outside getting some exercise?

In cable-channels-that-are-actually-signing-up-new-series news, meanwhile, AMC has struck a deal with Darren Aronofsky to make "psychological thriller" Riverview Towers. (Link via TV Tattle.)

Sounds like the sort of thing HBO might have done, before its slogan became, "It's not TV, it's HBO. Also, it's not HBO either until around September, so in the meantime please enjoy this rebroadcast of Music and Lyrics."

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April 9, 2008 8:30

The Morning After: Uninspired

Michael Johns rocks the ascot again with an Aerosmith cover. / Frank Micelotta / FOX

My reviews of last night's Idol Gives Back week performances are now up on time.com. Just because this is a charity week does not obligate me to go all Paula on the contestants, so I'll say upfront that "inspirational" songs did not really inspire the best work from any of the singers. My roundup after the break:

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April 8, 2008 2:42

Nonprofit Press Release Theater: ANTM, Put Some Clothes On

Today, Corporate Press Release Theater™ makes equal time for a non-corporate press release. The Parents Television Council has lodged a new decency complaint, this time against America's Next Top Model:

LOS ANGELES (April 8, 2008) – The Parents Television Council ™ filed an indecency complaint over CW’s “America’s Next Top Model” for showing a nude model and is encouraging its members to file complaints with the FCC.

The episode showed a model posing fully nude for photographs while lying on a bed. The nudity was partially blurred. The episode aired on March 26, 2008, during the so-called “Family Hour” at 8 pm ET/7 pm CT.

“It is irresponsible for the CW Network to air full frontal nudity on the public airwaves at 8:00 pm, and based upon our analysis of the broadcast in question we believe this has crossed the legal threshold for broadcast indecency. This episode portrays a photo-shoot where the model is entirely naked; and the nudity includes the model’s pubic region in full view, albeit slightly blurred,” said PTC President Tim Winter.

There are episodes of America's Next Top Model in which models don't appear nude? Where do I write to complain about that?

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April 8, 2008 11:51

Idol Gives Back Gives Back

This week's edition of American Idol will attempt to raise consciousness about, and propose solutions to, one of the most tragic problems afflicting our planet: that there are not enough hours of American Idol already programmed on Fox every week.

Last year, you'll recall, Idol Gives Back week ended with a surprise non-elimination round, because the producers decided that sending a singer home on the night of the charity fundraiser would harsh everyone's humanitarian buzz. But as I blogged last year, the problem was: "What does this mean for next year? They can't pull the same surprise twice."

Well, it turned out that Idol will solve the problem the same way Idol solves pretty much every problem: with more Idol. After Wednesday's two-and-a-half-hour telethon, there will be a results show on Thursday instead. 24 hours, apparently, is enough time to get over our sentimental feelings.

Tonight, the remaining eight contestants sing—for the planet, for the children, for the chance to cut an album with Clive Davis. Care to suggest an "inspirational song" for your favorite contestant? I want Brooke White to do One Tin Soldier!

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April 8, 2008 10:05

Report: CNN, CBS Seek Innovative, Exciting New Ways to Lay Off Journalists

So over here you've got CNN, which has a big international newsgathering organization, but whose corporate daddy (and mine), Time Warner, is like, too totally cheap to buy it a sibling broadcast network, like all the other kids have, which is, like, totally unfair.

And over here, you have CBS, the network that has a decades-long tradition of being called the network that used to have the decades-long tradition of having a strong news division.

One of them's got a chocolate bar that's been broken into pieces by its corporate owner, and the other's got a jar of peanut butter, 60% of which has been scooped out and sold to increase the share price for Viacom shareholders. In the TV news business, we call that two once-great tastes that taste great together!

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April 8, 2008 8:34

The Morning After: Now I've Seen Everything

Yamaguchi: skating without the blades and the triple lutz. / ABC

"Now I've seen everything." You say that, every now and again, right, but of course it's a joke, since if you fiddle with the random premutations enough there are always things you haven't seen. An elephant in a cocktail dress playing Scrabble, for instance. You haven't seen that.

Or, for another instance, I might say, "Now I've seen everything." And you'd say, "Well, no. You've never seen Kristi Yamaguchi dancing the pasodoble to a cover of Blue Monday."

And now I can respond, "Well, as a matter of fact, yes. Yes, I have."

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April 7, 2008 3:47

Corporate Press Release Theater: Project Runway to... Lifetime?

It's out! / BRAVO

Well, I wasn't expecting this one. Project Runway—not the reruns, mind you, the actual series—is moving from Bravo to Lifetime. Yes, that Lifetime. The one with Army Wives and the Nora Roberts movies.

Excerpts from the Weinstein Company press release and a few thoughts after the jump:

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April 7, 2008 2:39

Post-Strike Return Watch: Samantha Who?

Kiele Sanchez on tonight's episode of Expose Samantha Who? / ABC

The show: Samantha Who?

Returns: Tonight, ABC, 9:32 p.m. E.T.

Episode description: "'The Girlfriend' - Samantha is forced to move back into the apartment when she discovers that she could be evicted for subletting it to Todd - who has just invited his new girlfriend, Chloe (Kiele Sanchez, "Lost"), to move in with him. Meanwhile, when Sam fails to show up for a makeover night with her mom, Regina and Dena end up bonding and having a girls' night at the house."

Did I remember that it still exists? Kind of.

Eagerness to ever see it again (scale 1 to 10): 5. 6 if you count getting the chance to see Nikki from Lost on TV again. Anyone out there more eager than I am?

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April 7, 2008 11:31

How Can FNL Fans Save Jericho?

Answer: by getting DirecTV, at least in a roundabout way. According to today's New York Times, the deal by which NBC got the satellite provider to pony up for a third season of Friday Night Lights could be a model for saving other shows with small but passionate followings—if it succeeds. Says the NYT's Brian Seltzer Stelter, CBS has been discussing a similar deal for Jericho with the cable company Comcast.

On a related note, what reason is there to continue calling the show "NBC's Friday Night Lights"? If it's airing on DirecTV four months or more in advance, that sounds like "DirecTV's Friday Night Lights" to me.

Just another example of how network brands are starting to become less and less relevant to TV watchers—how long until we see "Amazon Unbox's Pushing Daisies" or "iTunes' In Treatment"?—but if that keeps shows like FNL alive, that's fine by me.

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April 7, 2008 10:08

SNL's Document Dump

The Democratic primary returned to SNL's cold-open slot after a few weeks' absence this weekend:

* The Clinton campaign released the couple's tax returns late Friday afternoon, which means they had to throw this sketch together quickly. So I can only imagine how lousy the skit it replaced must have been. After a few weeks that featured Jeremiah Wright, Hillary's sniper-fire embarrassment and Barack Obama trying to bowl, this was the best they could come up with?

* If you're keeping score on cold opens, that's: defense of Hillary, defense of Hillary, meta-criticism of Hillary encasing a spoof of Obama, and now, defense of Hillary again. (Notwithstanding the obligatory Bill-is-a-horndog jokes, the essential message is: why should having a lot of money disqualify anyone from running for president?)

* Having said that, I'm not sure that the issue at SNL is that it's in the tank for Hillary. On Weekend Update, for instance, Seth Myers had this line: "Hillary Clinton on Tuesday said she is not a quitter and compared herself to Rocky Balboa... the washed up, over-the-hill white contender, who despite a Herculean effort, is soundly beaten by the charismatic black guy." It's the disparity between Amy Poehler's strong Clinton and Fred Armisen's stiff, tentative Obama. Poehler, simply, is ready on Day One, whereas SNL seems to have no idea what to do with Barack. (I don't agree with critics who say that a black man has to play Obama, but I will bet that not having a black actor has made SNL all the more cautious in writing material for Armisen that could possibly offend anyone.) So when in doubt, SNL pitches to Poehler's clearly superior impersonation.

If Clinton fails to get the nomination, she won't be the only accomplished woman whose long period of preparation will have been for naught. Is it too late for Poehler to start working on her Obama impression?

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