30% More Unpredictable

What the folks from "The Office" did on their summer vacation

via What's Alan Watching?

Teeth on the Dial - TV Talk

I feel like I'm reiterating half the stuff I just read in author Warren Ellis's "Bad Signal" regular email.

NBC has replaced head of programming Kevin Reilly with Ben Silverman, whose production company Reveille is responsible for "The Office" (U.S.) and "Ugly Betty". While the shows Reilly championed were critical hits, he was unable to deliver on ratings. With NBC in 4th place among the overall ratings for a second year, and no significant buzz among the new shows NBC announced for the fall (none of those shows is going to get NBC out of the basement ratings-wise), someone had to pay. I'm sure it came at a price too, as Kevin Reilly just re-signed a contract a few months ago, and NBC would have had to pay out to get him out. Look for some shake-ups to continue, as perhaps the entire NBC 2007-2008 line-up could radically change. Warren Ellis suggests that Kevin Reilly (who received a nice package on the way out) may find his way to HBO, which recently deposed of their head programmer "alleged girlfriend-puncher Chris Albrect".

NBC's pushing to get Heroes an Emmy nomination for Best Drama by playing down the super-powered aspects of the show, choosing to focus on the stories, being told such as Peter and Nathan relationship. T.V. shows with sci-fi elements typically get the shaft and ignored by the Emmy awards: can I get agreement from fans of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "X-Files", and "Battlestar Gallactica"?
Source: Newsarama.com - Hiding their powers from the Emmy powers that be

It's been confirmed that the next (4th) season of Battlestar Galactica will be the last. Here's hoping they can solve"the flabbiness that crept into the middle of their seasons" and bring home a solid closing. The final season with 22 episodes will likely start early in the new year.

Jenna Fischer (Pam on "The Office) is recovering from her broken back after taking a bad fall a few weeks ago. She's getting better, and in addition to cards and flowers, received cupcakes from Zach Braff, who was also at the party where she tumbled. Yay Jenna, yay Zach, yay cupcakes.

Funny story: a story that 'George Clooney addicted to "Dancing with the Stars"' is making the rounds as legitimate. But the source is "Ocean's Thirteen co-star Don Cheadle. Cheadle, as well as Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Clooney himself, are reknown for playing jokes on each other, or as Trev and I refer to it, "taking the piss out of one another". It's a British term of endearment. Like bullocks. And Manchester.

Clooney is hooked on the show and watched it continuously on the set of movie sequel Ocean's Thirteen, his co-stars Brad Pitt and Don Cheadle have revealed. Pitt tells Access Hollywood, "I was shocked to find that George watches 'Dancing With the Stars.'" Cheadle adds, "He wants to compete, in fact! He feels it all rapidly going away. He's looking for a way to resurrect - hence the plastic surgery, which is really not a bad job. "You really can't tell... not on film, anyways."

You know what "Grey's Anatomy" creator Shonda Rhimes likes more than emotionally unstable interns? Spelling Bees. She is addicted to Spelling Bees and their pint sized pugilists. You can read her live-blog play by play of yesterday's National Spelling Bee on A List of Things Thrown 5 Minutes Ago. Look for the "by Shonda" indicators. A Canadian made it to the finals but there was no joy in Mudville:

Championship Round:

Evan is on his game – calm, mellow and self-assured. Go Evan! I can’t help but root against Nate who seems like a sweet kid and just as self-assured – he’s just not my Evan who I feel I’ve watched grow up here on this stage.

These final rounds are not that exciting. Why? Because there’s a commercial break every five seconds. I love commercials. I believe in commercials. I just want to see my Bee without so many breaks. I want to see the sweat on the brows of Evan and Nate. Also, it’s delaying the airing of Grey’s Anatomy. And I like Grey’s Anatomy.

10:04 pm: I dig Evan’s ears. He’s got the kind of face that is going to grow into those ears and be fantastic. He spells “yosenabe” like it’s nothing, no thang but a chicken wing, and keeps on moving. I’m so impressed.

Ach! Nate went down on coryza! I was barely paying attention cause he was so confident! He went down!

Now, Evan must get the next word right in order to win. The word is “serrefine” which is a word I instinctively spelled wrong. But Evan gets it right and-EVAN GETS IT RIGHT!I CALLED THE WINNER OF THE BEE CORRECTLY FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE!!!

Shonda Rhimes

And closing with a quote from Warren Ellis. Again.

Sometimes I wonder how many people realise their favourite American tv actors are Canadian.

Pepperpot: Chatting with you over morning coffee

Good Scot? No, Great Scot.

Scarlett Johansson, whose screen credits include "Lost in Translation" and "In Good Company," will star as Mary, Queen of Scots, in an upcoming historical film epic.


You'd think Spidey would just send it out for dry-cleaning.

The latest "Comic Companys Hate Women" debate has started due to this statuette of Mary Jane Watson (from Spider-Man) that is being released. It's based on the comic book version of MJ, who is Mrs. Spider-Man, in the very "sexy" act of washing her husband's uniform. There are so many things wrong with this statue it makes my head hurt: the thong, the physically impossible anatomy, the ripped jeans with plumber butt, the pearl necklace, or the fact that Spidey doesn't wash his own longjohns. Take any of that.

I wonder if this is how Alfred the butler washed the Bat-suit.

There was an episode of How I Met Your Mother where Barney is showing off his "relationship-proof" apartment. This statuette would be in it, right between the Stormtrooper armor and the tastefully lit bookshelf full of porn.

Right in the Facebook

I'm not necessarily surprised that my work seems to have blocked access to Facebook. I doubt it's based on actual user stats, but due to the publicity generated by the Ontario Government and other corporations blocking the site based on its affect on productivity. What is amusing is the backlash the Edge 102.1 Facebook contest is generating. The idea is whoever starts a group on FB that generates the most traffic wins $7000. The funny bit is that people have been starting groups like "Help (name) win $7000 from Edge 102". Some of these groups are up to 800 people, but Facebook has been shutting down many of these groups. Why? Because it counts as solicitation. This morning I heard that some folks are complaining to Edge 102 and Facebook. Suck it up people. It's a contest. Now you have to go out and make an actual group with an actual purpose, rather than the internet equivalent to pan-handling.

"Sorry, what was the question?"

What a sweet and wonderful closing to this season of "The Office". Best closing scene ever. How much do we love Jenna Fischer? Jenna acted the hell out of that under-stated yet pivotal scene, with her convincing herself that she and Jim had missed their shot, and then that interuption. Her reaction was the very definition of the word "beaming". It's the same look that I've seen on my friends' faces when they tell me they're getting married or having a baby. That's the look of radiant happiness, and she nailed it.

Shame that on the night of some of her best work, Jenna Fischer is recovering from fracturing her back. Jenna was out celebrating The Office's renewal for fall, and one mistep in her high heels sent her tumbling down some marble steps. Her rep said that while she broke four bones, nothing scary or near the spine was broken, and that Jenna would be healed up before filming starts on the next season. Get better soon Jenna! And watch the steps when you go pick up your Emmy!

Other favourite moments were:

• Jim's medal from the "Office Olympic" episode re-appears.



• The Schrute-bucks and Dwight's one day reign of terror.



• Pam stepping it up to be Dwight's right-hand woman (which no doubt irked Angela).



• And every moment between Michael and Jan's new twins.



• Creed's "blog".
  


• And before I forget, Ryan gets the job! The MBA grad with no actual sales experience gets the top sales manager job! You don't think that happens in the real world?

Ain't no love for "Scrubs"

On the flip side, "Scrubs" ended on a down note for me. Apparently the writers and creator-producer Bill Lawrence disagree on whether J.D. and Elliott belong together, with the writers for it and Bill Lawrence says that story ran it's course. I agree with Bill, because that ending to the season just left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm glad they have 18 final episodes to clean up the mess and allow J.D. to man up and get with his baby's mama (Elizabeth Banks, who I adore even though the role isn't fully capitalizing on her comedic skills).

I love the crap out of "Scrubs", and even I'm losing patience with J.D., who shows he hasn't learned a damn thing. The past season has seen great work from the actors, but some lousy plotting. "Scrubs" has slipped down from my #1 TV comedy spot, as it is now bring up the rear behind "The Office" and "How I Met Your Mother". If "30 Rock" comes strong next season, it's going to slip further. I've got faith that the "Scrubs" can turn it around in the home stretch, now that a firm end is in sight.

Interesting trivia: a few episodes back, Carla (Judy Reyes) asked Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) if he ever saw ghosts. He denied it, and then we see him reacting to the ghost of Jill Tracey (Nicole Sullivan) following him around. It was cute, but didn't make much sense because their was no real reason why her death would haunt him. According to th podcast commentary, it was supposed to be Ben (Brendan Fraser) who haunted Dr. Cox, as he did during one of the best episodes of the series, but a scheduling conflict prevented it. No disrespect to the wonderful Nicole Sullivan, but that gag would worked so much better with Brendan's character based on the history of Cox and Ben. I can picture it, with Ben popping up with his camera to take Perry's photo. I wonder if they'd re-do it for the DVD? Probably not.

NBC banking on more Heroes for the new season

This week is when the TV networks announce their Fall TV line-ups and we learn whether some shows are cancelled or not. First up is NBC. ABC is on Tuesday, CBS on Wednesday, with CW and Fox on Thursday.

The NBC Line-up

NBC is pushing "Quality over Quantity", taking chances on critically acclaimed but low viewership shows. This would be a very different schedule if NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly hadn't had his contract renewed, as he seems more willing to take the gamble on investing in shows that aren't breakout hits, a strategy that worked for "The Office". You can see some changes already in the conventional TV landscape (22 episodes, Sept - May season) with increased episode counts for several shows, and an effort to run Heroes uninterrupted.

NBC highlights:

More Heroes to come

Heroes got an early renewal order this year, but this week had some interesting details. We’ll get a full season with 24 episodes, plus a sort of spin-off “Heroes: Origins”. “Origins” will be 6 episodes, introducing new characters not seen yet, and at the end of the run the viewers will vote on which character they’d like to see join “Heroes”. This is an interesting move, allowing the producers to test out characters without adding onto the somewhat already crowded storylines of “Heroes”. “Origins” will air continuously for 6 weeks, either during the mid-season break or after the second season of “Heroes” ends. The plan is that we get 30 episodes of Heroes-related material uninterrupted.

Law & Order returns: Chung-Chung.

In a surprise move, all 3 “Law & Order” shows will continue. “Law & Order Special Victims Unit” was coming back for sure, but the other two were on the bubble with poor ratings this season. NBC is bringing back the original "Law & Order" for an 18th season, with "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" shipped off to the USA Network for its first-run episodes with encore airings on NBC. In order to bring back "L&O" for an 18th season, and save "Criminal Intent" from cancellation, Producer Dick Wolf was forced to cut production costs.

No word on the likely cast changes, but expectations are that Criminal Intent would like only focus on either Detective Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) or Detective Logan (Chris Noth) rather than the current alternating teams. Fred Thompson, who plays District Attorney Branch, will likely leave "Law & Order", as speculation is that he will seek the Republican Presidential nomination.

Law & Order: Classic won’t return until mid-season (January 2008). This means that Law and Order: Classic will be two seasons away from tying and three seasons away from breaking the Gunsmoke record for longest-running prime-time program

Additional notes:

• The Thursday night comedies remain, with NBC ordering 30 half-hours of the hit series “The Office,” including five hour-long episodes, and also have increased the season order for "My Name Is Earl" to 25 episodes.
• "E.R." will return, but producers will look at the numbers in October to determine whether it’s the last year or not. There was an initial ratings surge this season, but then a drop off in the past few months.
• "Scrubs" returns with a final season, shortened to 18 episodes. This shortened season was likely the only way the show was coming back on NBC, as Zach Braff’s new contract is prohibitively expensive (some put it at about $300,000 per episode, making him the highest paid actor currently on air). I'm glad to see one of my favourite shows getting to close up shop properly, rather than getting the rug yanked out from under them.
• "Friday Night Lights" was renewed with a full 22 episode order. The bad news is it is moving to Fridays at 10, when most football fans are at the very games the show depicts.
• "Studio 60" is dead dead dead. Ditto for "Crossing Jordan".
• Jerry Seinfeld, returns to the network to create and star in 20 unique live-action comedy “minisodes” inspired by his experiences creating the upcoming DreamWorks animated feature film "Bee Movie".
• Five new dramas. I won't make any predictions, as I never would have guessed "Studio 60" would bomb and "Heroes" would take off:
• "Lipstick Jungle", about three high-powered professional women "making it big in the Big Apple". Based on the novel by Candace Bushnell.
• "Bionic Woman" a remake of the 70s series from some of the creative types behind "Battlestar Galactica".
• "Journeyman" sort of Quantum Leap meets The Time Traveller's Wife.
• "Chuck", a "comedic spy thriller" about a computer geek thrust into the spy world, from Josh Schwartz ("The O.C.) It's sort of like if they spun-off Marshall from "Alias" into his own show. Bonus: Adam Baldwin (Jane from Serenity/Firefly) as Chuck's protector. I'll give this one a shot.
• "Life" where a detective returns to the police force after serving a prison sentence for a crime he didn't commit.
• Only one new comedy: "The I.T. Crowd" about two I.T. workers in a large corporation. You won't see any new comedies launched in September at this point, as this is only a 6 episode mid-season replacement. Quite a change from the "Give Any Stand-Up Comic A Show" era of the 1990's.
  
  What’s Alan Watching notes on the NBC upfronts.

With notes from What’s Alan Watching, TV_Tattle.com and ALOTT5MA