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Tips and stories from around the Web, Part 3

There are lots of good posting being written in the blogging world (and Internet) at the moment.
Here are seven that caught my eye over the last few days.

  • – Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan opens up to Tim Goodman about his show in an hour-long podcast, with talk about, but not limited to, writing, characters, and surprisingly an actual discussion about the series’ atypical use of sound, color and aspect-ratio. Really refreshing considering people rarely take into account a TV show’s visuals .
  • – Nancy Franklin from The New Yorker writes an interesting piece about HBO’s The Pacific, and how there’s no “big picture” unlike Band of Brothers.
  • – Ken Levine posted a great video of the late Jackie Gleason apologizing live to his audience for having hosted the week prior an awful game-show. This will most likely never be done again on television.
  • – Margaux Froley writes on her fresh new blog about the importance of “listening” to your characters. What goes on in their lives between the lines?
  • – LAT‘s Denise Martin has an interview up with Parks and Recreation‘s co-creator Mike Schur about the departure of Paul Schneider from the show.
  • – There’s also another interview, this time by The Wrap’s Iain Blair, with writer Elmore Leonard. It is brief, but he shares dirty deets, both about FX’s upcoming Justified and the exclusive fact that AMC is working on a Mr. Paradise adaptation.
  • – And last but not least, The Guardian has asked a few authors about their 10 Rules of Writing. They’ve published in two parts the results. A must-read.

The CW 2010: It’s for dudes too

The CW 2010: It’s for dudes too

For my first blog back on A TV Calling 2.0, I will try to continue the trend talking about what teenagers like, to Alex’s great dismay.

And what they (seem to) like is The CW. Born from the merger of The WB and UPN, The CW is equally the property of Time Warner and CBS Entertainment. All of their pilots in development are produced by both their production arms, Warner Bros. TV and CBS Paramount TV. Problem is, since fall of 2006, the netlet barely produced an original hit, focusing on the sure bets of both the WB and UPN. So, it carried the last seasons of “Gilmore Girls”, “Everybody Hates Chris”, “7th Heaven”.

The only sure-fire hit born under the CW banner is “Gossip Girl”. And one can argue that this show is mainly watched by female teenagers. And yes, this season has brought us “The Vampire Diaries”, who is also targeting the same female viewership, and whose showrunners’ mission is to try and not resemble “Twilight” too much. If you think I’m joking, go read this Paley Festival recap.


But for this fourth season on air, both those hits can be attributed to luck, and hide a network who has trouble expanding the soap-opera fare, and more crucially, beyond female viewers. It brought back “90210” last year and “Melrose Place” this year, but the scandal-ridden storylines barely mesmerized viewers. One is struggling in its second season, and suffered a showrunner switch in the middle of the first season, and the other returned last week to catastrophic ratings. It’s not expected to make it past this season, a shame when you know the original series lasted seven seasons.

So Dawn Ostroff, The CW’s President of Entertainment, decided to take drastic measures: having male viewers back to The CW. What better than a highly-trained female assassin played by the cutie from Die Hard 4? Yep, “La Femme Nikita” is about to be resurrected with Maggie Q as the lead. And Lyndsy Fonseca (“Desperate Housewives”, the upcoming “Kick-Ass”) is to play her hunter, a 19-year old felon that makes a deal with a secret organization (what else?) to escape a lengthy prison sentence. It sounds good and all, but don’t forget that they can make it lighter, a la “Alias”, than the original USA Network show. But ass-kicking females playing cat and mouse is sure to bring back boys to the yard.


Another pilot, still untitled and penned by Amy Sherman-Palladino, centers on a hunky horse trainer that becomes the patriarch of his parent’s Wyoming ranch after the parents die. And “Nomads”, produced by Ridley and Tony Scott, features globetrotters working undercover missions for the CIA. This last one sounds more FOX-like than CW-like. But it’s all about finding a hit outside their comfort zone, or this could spell the end of Dawn Ostroff’s tenure of the netlet.
Or it could be just a bluff move, where none of the shows are picked up and Ostroff’s people decide to go with companion shows to “Vampire Diaries”, like “Betwixt”, or “Grey’s Anatomy”-lite like “HMS” (Harvard Medical School).

NBC programming keeps going down South

NBC programming keeps going down South

So, I woke up this morning with another news that symbolized the continued downfall of the Peacock network.

“Southland” has been cancelled after a quick run in the spring, and while it was scheduled to return in the Friday slot of death in just 2 weeks.

Today, TV commenters are dumbfounded by the decision, which was prompted, according to sources, by a content deemed “too gritty” for 9 p.m. viewers. Some people call it “the first casualty of Jay Leno”; others “the end of NBC’s commitment to excellence in drama”. They’re absolutely right. But I also think it shows tragic misdirection in NBC’s management of their development slate.

“Southland” premiered in the Thursday slot left vacant by “ER”, which was run by John Wells, who also produces this show. The ratings were surprisingly solid, which was seen as a “tour de force” in an otherwise bleak season. But, as we all know, Jay Leno would take all the 10 p.m. slots in the fall. NBC sure wanted to stay in business with Wells, so they decided to renew the show, but put it on Fridays at 9.

Usually, if a show had a gritty content, execs would ask to lighten up the tone of the stories somewhat. Not the case here: they waited until six episodes were completed, and decided it was inappropriate to show on Fridays. This comes after news that Amaury Nolasco was leaving the show, the premiere was pushed back a month…

And there was still a slot on Sundays at 10 pm on midseason.

Oh, wait. That’s “The Apprentice” time.

As we all know, apart from “Law and Order SVU” and its comedy block (with modest ratings compared to the Must-See TV days), nobody even bothers watching the fiction programming anymore. “The Biggest Loser” apparently does fine, and, coming October, “Dateline NBC” will do fine….especially for NBC, who produces the program in-house rather than buying an expensive and “dark” John Wells production for a hefty price tag.

Nikki Finke also reported that “Trauma” could be next to face the axe, with less than 6 million viewers. Barely surprising. And I also bet that the new JJ Abrams project, as well as a few other shows, will be fast-tracked for midseason, once all the drama slates are left vacant.

In conclusion, an interesting analysis from a NPR specialist.