Friday, May 4, 2007
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Well-Known Secret: ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Spinoff for ABC
Like a doting parent trying to hide a child’s Christmas bike under the bed, ABC has been pretending to hope that no one notices what could be its biggest winner in next fall’s television season, a spinoff of its hit nighttime soap opera “Grey’s Anatomy.”
On Thursday night the network will broadcast a two-hour episode of “Grey’s” titled “The Other Side of This Life,” in which Addison Montgomery, the neonatologist played by Kate Walsh, will travel from Seattle Grace Hospital to Santa Monica, Calif., in search of a new life and, mostly likely, new loves.
If all goes according to plan, the episode will set the stage for a new series beginning in September that will feature Ms. Walsh and a new cast of kooky physicians — including the actors Amy Brenneman, Tim Daly, Taye Diggs, Merrin Dungey and Paul Adelstein — in private practice in the oceanside environs west of Los Angeles.
But despite the buzz being generated by a potential spinoff of its highest-rated scripted show, executives at the ABC network and its television studio have refused to talk publicly about the new venture. Actors in the new series, which has been called “Private Practice” in news reports, appear to be under strict orders of silence. And a publicist for “Grey’s” declined to comment on the show’s potential title or even to confirm reports of the new characters’ names.
“Until we know if the show is picked up” for the fall schedule, said Amy Astley, the chief publicist for “Grey’s Anatomy,” “we’re not talking about it.”
Except, of course, when they are talking about it. ABC has sent out a steady stream of news about casting and production of the show, including naming Marti Noxon, best known for overseeing the series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” for the WB and UPN networks, as the executive producer who will be in charge of day-to-day production of the new series.
Representatives of Ms. Walsh and Shonda Rhimes, the creator and executive producer of “Grey’s Anatomy” and the writer of Thursday’s special episode, declined requests for interviews to discuss the potential spinoff.
But the Internet is abuzz with speculation about the cast and the potential series, in which Ms. Walsh’s character goes to California to visit a couple, friends from medical school who she apparently believes have a blissful marriage.
In fact, the pair’s relationship has pronounced fissures. The wife, played by Ms. Dungey, is a fertility specialist, opening up myriad possibilities for Ms. Walsh’s aging yet childless character. The husband, played by Mr. Diggs, is a health guru, author and television personality, and the two have surrounded themselves with other doctors whose defining characteristics qualify them as much for group therapy as for a medical clinic.
Ms. Brenneman, for example, late of “Judging Amy” on CBS, portrays a self-doubting therapist, and Mr. Adelstein, who this season starred on Fox’s “Prison Break,” portrays a lovelorn gynecologist who, in production photographs from next week’s episode, is holding an ice pack to his face the morning after a date.
Like “Grey’s,” whose hunky male stars are regularly referred to by swooning nicknames like McDreamy and McSteamy, the new series offers its female fan base plenty of buff eye candy. Mr. Daly portrays what is said to be a bed-hopping widower and specialist in alternative medicine; he can be seen leering seductively at Ms. Walsh in production photographs.
And Chris Lowell, the 22-year-old heartthrob seen recently in CW’s “Veronica Mars,” plays a receptionist/surfer who commutes to the medical office directly from the beach, first showing up in the office shirtless and carrying his surfboard.
But the series will also have a distinct difference from “Grey’s Anatomy.” While that show began as a group of people who did not know one another well and who were thrown into a stressful situation and resorted to sex to ease the anxiety of professional life, the new series will be about a group of people who know one another intimately and who resort to sex to ease the anxiety of personal life.
For all the secrecy, few people in the television industry doubt that the new show will be given a prominent place on ABC’s fall schedule, largely because the network desperately needs a boost.
With a month to go before most prime-time series end their run of new episodes, ABC is mired in third place among the top four broadcast networks, according to Nielsen Media Research, behind Fox and CBS both in average total viewers so far this season and among adults age 18 to 49, the demographic group that attracts premium advertising dollars.
Except for “Ugly Betty” and “Brothers & Sisters,” most of the new scripted series introduced by ABC last fall are either far down in the ratings or have been canceled altogether. Among the flops were the dramas “Day Break,” which starred Mr. Diggs, and “The Nine,” and the comedies “The Knights of Prosperity” and “Help Me Help You.”
Even some of the network’s bigger hits, like “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost,” have slumped in the ratings this year, attracting far fewer viewers than in their first two seasons.
Yet “Grey’s” can seemingly do little wrong. Even after going so far as threatening to kill off its lead character, the medical intern Meredith Grey, played by Ellen Pompeo, in one episode this winter, the series has ranked first or second among adult viewers for all scripted shows this season.
With Ms. Rhimes easily the brightest star at ABC, the only surprise would be if the “Grey’s” spinoff fails to keep viewers and advertisers entranced.
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'Gilmore Girls' Canceled!
CW, WBTV wrap production on show
Say goodbye to "Gilmore Girls."
After weeks of talks aimed at bringing the show back for a limited run next season, the CW and Warner Bros. TV have decided to wrap production on the quirky dramedy that focused on fast-talking femmes. Skein, now in its seventh season, will air its final episode May 15.
"Gilmore" was a holdover from the now-defunct WB network. Debuting in 2000, it quickly became one of the Frog's signature skeins, with crix eating up the witty banter between mom Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and her daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel). Series was set in the fictional hamlet of Stars Hollow, CT.
CW and WBTV released a joint statement noting the passing Thursday morning.
"Announcing the final season of 'Gilmore Girls' is truly a sad moment for everyone at The CW and Warner Bros. Television," statement read. "This series helped define a network and created a fantastic, storybook world featuring some of television's most memorable, lovable characters."
David Rosenthal exec produced and served as showrunner on the current season of "Gilmore," which was created by Amy Sherman-Palladino. WBTV and CW thanked the producers and cast for their work, as well as crix who supported the show with glowing reviews.
"(We) promise to give this series the send off it deserves," statement said.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Summer Programming Schedule
TV season is over, now what? Each summer, the networks bring us new programs to help keep us entertained until our favorite shows come back in the fall.
The following is the premiere schedule for summer programs:
Studio 60 - May 24 on NBC
Traveler - May 30 (May 10 preview) on ABC (New Series)
Standoff - June 8 on Fox
Kyle XY - June 11 on ABC Family
Rescue Me - June 12 on FX
Monk - July 13 on USA Network
Psych - July 13 on USA Network
Big Love - June 18 on HBO
The 4400 - June 17 on USA Network
The Dead Zone - June 17 on USA Network
The Closer - June 18 on TNT
Heartland - June 18 (New Series) on TNT
Saving Grace - July 18 (New Series) on TNT
Is '24' running out of time?
JACK BAUER, America's favorite counter-terrorism agent with the violent code of honor and the weird sadomasochistic bent, is squaring off against a stealthy and unforgiving new enemy.
His fans.
After peaking in the ratings last year, Fox's thriller "24" has been getting dumped on by seemingly everyone in this, its sixth season. Critics and fans alike are aiming tomatoes at the stage, carping about the soapy and repetitive plotlines that unspool Jack's unlikely familial past, tiresome romantic triangles in the security bureaucracy and endless bickering among Oval Office advisors.
Last week, with a fresh episode designed to lay the groundwork for what the creators promise will be a typically suspenseful finale next month, "24's" ratings in the key young-adult category swooned to their lowest level in more than three years, with a total audience of just 10.4 million, according to figures from Nielsen Media Research.
More than one-third of viewers have bailed since the special four-hour season premiere that aired over two consecutive nights back in January. And if that wasn't enough bad news for the series, last week "24" was one of the prime-time shows that the Federal Communications Commission singled out in urging Congress to curb TV violence.
The vox populi protests have not escaped the attention of the show's producers, who promise that some big changes are on the way for Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) and other regulars next season. There's also speculation that something else might be at work in accounting for viewers' tune-out this season, but more about that in a minute.
"It hurts to hear the criticism," said executive producer and writer Howard Gordon, who spoke with me last week by phone as the cast and crew crashed to finish shooting the season's final episode, set to air May 21.
"I don't dispute it's been a challenging season to write for us. But it's reinvigorated our determination to reinvent the show. This year could be seen to be the last iteration of it in its current state."
Oh, dear. Reinvention? That does sound ominous. But Gordon says not to worry, as Jack "won't be flipping burgers."
"It won't be a musical or a half-hour," he added. "I've got a couple ideas, none of which I could even begin to share responsibly."
So "24" — the TV institution, to say nothing of the show's ongoing narrative — has at last arrived at a crossroads, and what an odd trip it's been.
Premiering less than two months after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, "24" initially amounted to barely a blip on the pop-culture radar. The premise — each episode unfolding in real time over the course of a single day as Jack races to foil some dastardly conspiracy — sounded gimmicky. And given recent American history, Jack's missions against Middle Eastern bad guys could easily have struck too close to home. (As it is, the show has prompted plenty of complaints for propagating noxious ethnic and religious stereotypes; witness this season's major plot involving a diabolical terrorist overlord named Abu Fayed.)
But Fox stuck by the show, and, thanks in large part to the about-to-explode television DVD market, it steadily grew a fan base that finally made it blossom into true hit-level status sometime during the critically acclaimed and Emmy-winning fifth season.
I always loved "24's" willingness to work without a net, to go to crazy extremes in expanding the thriller format and somehow live to tell the tale — to outLudlum Robert Ludlum, as it were.
But two personal anecdotes brought the show's mass appeal home for me: My 70-something mother-in-law, a rock-ribbed Republican with narrow TV tastes outside of "The O'Reilly Factor," confessed that she never missed "24." And last year, while walking in downtown Burbank, I happened to observe a middle-age man take his female companion's hand and inquire, in a tone of voice at once soothing and conspiratorial, "What do you say we go home, build a fire and watch '24'?"
But the clock is ticking, for fans as well as for Jack Bauer. Longtime devotees are struggling to keep the faith during this trying season.
"The writers have recycled some plots this season that are glaringly obvious: a recording, an almost removed president, an assassination attempt on that president, an attack on a Middle Eastern country, an impending nuclear strike, a person close to Jack kidnapped, etc.," Victor Lana, a novelist who follows "24" for BlogCritics Magazine, wrote in an e-mail. But "the bottom line is that we still care about Jack Bauer."
Meanwhile, with apologies to my mother-in-law, "24's" audience is getting noticeably grayer, typically a sign that a show is losing its purchase on the windy crags of pop culture. According to Brad Adgate, senior vice president at the New York ad firm Horizon Media, the median age is 47.4 so far this season, compared with 45.1 last year and 42 in the 2003-04 season.
Those born with resistance to "24's" charms have noted that in the second and third seasons the show benefited from following "American Idol." Now, though, its scheduling is cutting the other way: In recent weeks the show's Monday lead-in was "Drive," a new cross-country caper that bombed and got yanked last week. (The network hastily replaced it with reruns of "House.")
"We had every hope that 'Drive' would be a good companion to '24' and successor to 'Prison Break.' We were wrong," Fox Entertainment President Peter Liguori told me, adding quickly that he nevertheless believed "24" would bounce back stronger next year.
But Gordon said he and his writing staff were wondering if something else was afoot besides the normal cycles of storytelling and network scheduling.
Could it be that the vague but gnawing post-9/11 fears that helped turn "24" into a hit are ebbing — the nightmares that envisioned great cities laid low by chemical weapons spilled into the water supply, say, or suitcase nukes wielded by shadowy assailants?
"It's something we talked about at the beginning of the season," Gordon said. "9/11 is becoming, quietly, a memory; the memory is starting to fade…. I do think that people are looking at the world differently, with less fear."
If so, that's probably good for America. And alas, that's probably bad for "24." Real-life political tension does wonders for creators of thriller fare. Look how kind the Cold War was to Ludlum and Tom Clancy.
Even so, Gordon sounds optimistic that "24" can recover from its annus horribilis and deliver the goods next season, no matter what changes are ultimately in store for the ever-suffering Jack Bauer.
"Certain tropes of the show will remain the same," Gordon said. "It'll keep its contract with the audience. We'll keep the adrenaline going."
