What’s New On Tube? – Pilot Season ’08-’09 (Part 2)

Okay, what else we got? These are the last of my picks …

3. The Cleveland Show (Fox – Spring 2009) – Okay, what’s Family Guy going to do without Cleveland? I guess the real question is, what will Cleveland be doing? I’m glad you asked. Now that his wife Loretta is out of the picture, Mr. Brown seems poised to move back to his hometown in Stool Bend, VA with Cleveland Jr. in this spin-off. It looks like he’s starting a new life with his high school sweetheart and her two kids - but will there be more tomfoolery, pop culture skewering and freakish flashbacks a la Family Guy? And maybe a family of bears living next door? You bet your sweet patootie! For an early promo clip, go here.

4. My Own Worst Enemy (NBC – Fall 2008) – It’s categorized as a drama, but this could just as easily be the description for a sitcom: a suburban working dad and an efficient and deadly spy learn that they are the same person, due to a scorching case of multiple personality disorder. Jinkies! Being plugged into a Monday schedule with Chuck and Heroes as its compatriots, I’m assuming that there will be a good deal of tongue-in-cheek as well. And having Christian Slater in the starring role doesn’t hurt for exposure…

5. The Eleventh Hour (CBS – Fall 2008) – Another British remake (you know my mixed feelings about the upcoming Life On Mars remake), this time helmed by the king of CSI (and a slew of cheesy action movies – let’s not forget Armageddon here, folks), Jerry Bruckheimer. The premise: a special science adviser to the U.S. government is sent to save people from the worst abuses of science, with the aid of his spunky female sidekick! Much like my premonitions of the Mars remake, they need to tread carefully or take a bad turn into Hokey-ville. But with CSI as a lead-in, it has a better chance of survival than many.

Worth Mentioning:

90210 (CW – Fall 2008) – Yes, a spin-off of the cult primetime soap. I was more excited while Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars, not Matchbox 20) was attached, but with Freaks & Geeks producers on board, maybe it’ll still be okay. Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling are on board, with more original cast members looking to sign up.

Knight Rider (NBC – Fall 2008) – Is this really worth mentioning? Not entirely sure, but the TV movie did so well last year that it warranted a new series. Everything old is new again – but will The Hoff be able to take time away from his German tour to help out?

Kath & Kim (NBC – Fall 2008) – A sitcom featuring Molly Shannon & Selma Blair.

The Goode Family (ABC – Late Fall 2008) – Mike Judge (Beavis & Butthead, Office Space, King of the Hill) brings us the animated tale of this do-gooder family. Their attempts to “Go green!” and do the right thing end up in hilarious misadventures – or so the description says. Sounds good, but outside of Fox primetime cartoons don’t tend to survive for too long - remember Father of the Pride or God, The Devil and Bob? I didn’t think so…).

See you in a couple of days for a Friday The 13th soundtrack...

What's New On Tube? - Pilot Season '08-'09 (Part 1)

Pilot season! Duck Season! Whatever it is, it’s time to start making some new TV for the fall – and pickings are slim, kids. The writers’ strike stalled production on scripts for fall pilots, so the networks only had a handful of projects to choose from. Of those, they picked the safety route – big names at the helm or very recognizable actors were key. Here’s a sampling of what’s to come, starting in the fall and spring of the ’08-’09 season:

1. Dollhouse (Fox – Early 2009) – So Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku walk into a restaurant… Yes, this project started out like the beginning to some bad joke – Whedon (the man who brought us Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly) and Dushku (who played bad-girl Faith in both Buffy and Angel) went out for lunch and ended up with both a show idea and its leading lady. Check, please!
The Dollhouse is a top-secret facility where Echo (Dushku) is one of the “Actives” – people who are blank slates, constantly reprogrammed with new memories for their missions. Since these missions benefit the whims of the uber-rich, an Active could be someone’s escort one week while being an assassin the next. But problems arise when Echo begins to retain memories from previous missions – life as a secret agent marionette just can’t be simple, can it?
The show also features genre vets Amy Acker (Angel) and Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica) as other players in the Dollhouse, as well as producers from previous Whedon projects – so this show is turning into quite the powerhouse. But with Fox’s previous (mis)treatment of Whedon vehicles, fans are already petitioning the network to save the show from cancellation – I’d say that might be going overboard, but I was pissed when Firefly got canned, too!

2. Fringe (Fox – Fall 2008) – Another big-name project, this time from J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias). We follow two FBI agents, Olivia Dunham (relative newcomer Anna Tory, The Secret Life Of Us) and Peter Bishop (Dawson Creek's Joshua Jackson), as they explore the spread of unexplained phenomenon - of the dangerous variety, of course!
Hmmm – two FBI agents checking out spooky happenings in “fringe science” from astral projection to reanimation… Didn’t Fox start out with a show like that? Mulder and Scully ring any bells? Still, the show has a good premise and is in excellent hands. Plus, Fox hasn’t ALWAYS been so horrible to new shows –maybe they can use the same energy and cojones they use for picking exciting new shows and direct that towards actually maintaining and promoting Fringe and Dollhouse. I have a comment ready about unicorns flying out of my butt in mind, but I’m trying to remain optimistic here.

That's all for now, to be continued next time - when we'll preview something from Jerry Bruckheimer and a Family Guy spinoff. See you then…

Do I Smell A Stinker?: Life On Mars Redux

This is the big week for TV networks - upfronts, when the fall schedules are announced. With ABC making nearly no changes to their schedule in a bid for stability, any new shows added to that list should be an undoubted masterpiece, right? Well, the only new scripted show to be picked up by the alphabet net is Life On Mars, a remake of the hit BBC time travel drama. The basic plot point of both versions is that the lead character (a police detective) is in an accident in the present, and wakes up to find himself trapped in the 70’s. Sounds okay so far? Wait for it…

The history behind the project: David E. Kelley has been working to get this project to TV for the better part of the last two years – the original pilot episode was shot last summer. For those of you who don’t know Kelley’s body of work, he came to fame at the helm of Ally McBeal and has worked on a variety of TV shows including The Practice and its current spin-off Boston Legal. In all of his shows so far, there have been some charming characters and witty dialogue – but no ringing endorsements to his ability to helm a sci-fi cop show. Well, now that the show has been picked up – Kelley is severing ties with the program. So what brilliant team is taking the reigns? Since the abysmal October Road has been canceled, the out-of-work producers from that show have been handed this gift. And here I thought Road was helmed by a room full of retarded chimps. Who knew?

“Can they really be that bad?”, you ask: Did you ever SEE October Road? I watched the first episode because I always had a thing for Laura Prepon, the feisty redhead from That 70’s Show. But around halfway through the pilot, after dry-heaving a bit from the throwaway dialogue and terrible acting, I had seen enough to know that my Tivo must have had a bellyache just trying to record the show. I deleted it and tried to forget. But now these guys are trying to wreck something I might actually watch. Dang!

Can LOM be salvaged?: I started digging into the pasts of the new showrunners, hoping that the October debacle could be forgiven. It looks like Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec have been working together for a while, and they've actually worked on some sci-fi tinged dramas such as Alias and Early Edition. Not bad. Ohhhh, but they also worked on the MTV-music-video-meets-cop-show Fastlane, which featured the acting “talents” of Tiffani Thiessen and Bill Bellamy. Granted, this FOX program was one of my guilty pleasures, but the cheese factor of that coupled with October Road? Yikes.

The final part of this unholy trinity is Scott Rosenberg, who seems to have been involved with a lot more movie projects than TV. I again saw a glimmer of hope when I read the title High Fidelity on his writing credits list – classic. So what could ruin that? Oh, there it is – Kangaroo Jack. Yeeeech.

The other bad omen for Mars is the apparent disinterest of the American audience for time-travel dramas. Within the last two seasons, ABC had its own failure with Day Break, while NBC suffered a similar fate with Journeyman (and we won't question the fact that the lovely but possibly-cursed Moon Bloodgood was on both shows). But still, I keep a glimmer of hope alive – I am a sci-fi dork, after all. And what I’ve seen of the original UK version was great, so if this new take on the mythology can at least partially live up to that, it may make it. Add the casting of a sci-fi vet like Colm Meaney and the possibility of some decent scripts and it could actually be good. Make me proud, chimp-men, make me proud…