• From the department of where are they now, QUEER AS FOLK’s Randy Harrison.
• First Look: A seductive look at LONE STAR (also known as our favorite new drama of the Fall)
• Least surprising news ever, John Lithgow and Betty White among the winners at the 2010 Creative Arts Emmys.
• No Ordinary Pilot, be one of the first 50,000 people to see ABC’s NO ORDINARY FAMILY (Code: Extraordinary)
• Somebody loves the chase, namely Jennifer Morrison who will follow up her HOUSE relationship with Chase (Jesse Spencer) with a guest spot on NBC’s CHASE.
Search Results for: pilot
Today’s TV Addict Top 5: Shows Julianna Margulies Has Apparently Never Seen!
“I think that is the first time network television has had an oral sex scene,” declared Julianna Margulies after reporters were shown clips from the upcoming season, including one which showed, um, how her alter ego on THE GOOD WIFE earned that name. When asked by a reporter if she’d researched that statement, the actress became a tad snippy, calling the poor chap “despicable.” Never fret, Julianna, we hear at thetvaddict.com have your back and prove as much by offering up five shows that have previously gone where you’re just now getting around to.
COUGAR TOWN
In the pilot, Jules son had the first of what would become many awkward encounters with his free-spirited mom when he comes home to find that she’s been… pleasuring a suitor.
Today’s TV Addict Top 5: Showrunner Jason Katims Previews PARENTHOOD Season 2
For the producers, going into this season, you have such a large cast. What are the bigger struggles dealing with all of them?
Jason Katims: Well, we’re planning on killing them off one episode at a time. [Laughs] I wanted to start with the very first episode, but Angela Bromstad [NBC Primetime President] wisely encouraged me to wait until sweeps episodes. [Laughs] No, it’s a really good question because writing for the show is an embarrassment of riches, and you could see it right here in front of you. It’s the most incredible cast, and every single person in this cast is a wonderful actor. Many of them could be in a show that is their own show and several of them have, so it’s a big challenge in writing the show. But it’s also, I think, what makes the show so wonderful. And one of the things I really love coming from FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS is that sort of the big ensemble show with a lot of balls in the air and a lot of stories going on. I think that it sort of gives us an opportunity to, as much as possible, challenge ourselves as writers to write toward everyone.
Last year you got this very ambitious show up and running, but it wasn’t really a hit. It didn’t really break through. When you’re approaching a second season, is there any pressure from the network to change the writing or change the concept or design of the show to broaden the appeal?
I think the first season of any show is discovering what the show is and finding the voice of the show, and I think there’s always a certain amount of time that it takes until you sort of figure that out. I think if you look at the episodes from as far as the way I see it, there’s a certain point around the middle of the season last year where I felt everybody, everything just like kicked into another gear. I felt like all the actors were really comfortable in their own skin and knew the voices of their characters. The writers were figuring out better how to write it, and I think we just found a really nice ?? a nice tone. And so, to me, it’s not about changing anything. It’s about hopefully continuing to allow these characters to evolve, putting the ball in the hands of these amazing actors, giving them meaty stuff to play together and letting them run with it.
Fall Preview ‘10: RAISING HOPE
You’ve seen the commercials. You’ve heard the hype. Now there’s only one thing you want to know: Which of the new fall shows are worth watching and which should be avoided at all costs? In this continuing series, we give you the scoop on some of the most highly-anticipated shows of the season, with today’s focus being RAISING HOPE. Also known as FOX’s latest attempt to launch a hit comedy that isn’t animated.
The Boilerplate: Since these pilot presentations may go through numerous rewrites and casting changes prior to premiere, this by no means should be considered an official review. Rather a preview of what one can expect come Fall.
The Elevator Pitch: One family and a baby.
Find Out Why We’re So Excited About *Another* Generic Procedural From CBS
Much like TNT, writer/producer Rina Mimoun knows drama. Which is why we’re so excited about the news [first reported my Deadline Hollywood’s Nellie Andreeva] that CBS has given the EVERWOOD, PRIVILEGED and GILMORE GIRLS alum a pilot commitment for EVERWOOD 2.0 an Untitled Medical Drama which will center on a father mother who reconnects with her teenage adult children when she moves to a small town and joins the family medical practice.
Today’s TV Addict Top 5: Alex O’Loughlin Talks HAWAII FIVE-0
As I’m sure you know, HAWAII FIVE-0 will be the third go-around with CBS. Would it be fair to say you feel more confident this time around?
Alex O’Loughlin: Yeah, I do. I don’t want to take anything away from the other shows I’ve done because I’ve worked with some incredible people and some wonderful showrunners. But the thing is there’s a reason things either work or don’t work in television. And I don’t know what the answer is. I just sort of keep blundering along to the next thing and hoping. That said, this has — the team behind this, I mean, the two men who are at the helm of this show (Peter and Alex) and the writing staff that we have, it just feels, everyone feels so capable. And having seen what they did with the pilot, there’s just something special about it. So I mean if this one doesn’t go, I’m completely bewildered and have no idea how television works at all.
Must Read TV: THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, THE BIG BANG THEORY, SHARK WEEK & More!
• If any dream will do, we vote for this TV crossover!
• From the department of sour grapes, BUFFY Alum claims Syfy pilot is suspiciously close to her Indie Film. Pilot creator responds!
• Another killer role, for DEXTER alum Courtney Ford.
• Zefron Who? Disney Channel casts its next big musical.
• For Your Consideration, THE BIG BANG THEORY’s Jim Parsons talk Emmy Odds.
• Hail to the Chief, O’Brien that is whose real life portrayer Colm Meaney just snagged a high profile role in AMC’s period drama pilot HELL ON WHEELS.
• Shark Week for Dummies, everything you need to know about Discovery Channel’s 23rd annual event.
TCA Press Tour Roundup: CBS Edition
FAT ABOUT YOU
Despite the fact that the entire MIKE & MOLLY pilot plays out like one giant fat joke (albeit a funny and heartwarming with the occasional pot gag thrown in for good measure!), co-creator Chuck Lorre wants to set the record straight: His new CBS series about two people (Melissa McCarthy and Billy Gradell) who meet in an Overeaters Anonymous meeting “is a show about people trying to make their lives better and find someone that they can have a committed relationship with.” Concurs co-creator Mark Roborts. “I didn’t set out to write a show about Overeaters Anonymous. I wanted to write a show about two people at the beginning of a relationship, and that was the part of it that intrigued me the most.”
Review: PLAIN JANE & HUGE
Touchy is the subject of one’s self image. We will at the same time glamorize the frail, shining figures of movie starlets as they grace the cover of a magazine as we trumpet the powers of inner beauty as a greater reflection of one’s character. For every show stalked with leggy, tanned twenty-somethings there’s likely to be a form of counterprogramming in a makeover/weight loss/reinvention program. Both types of shows have proven successful, but have yet to settle the dueling schools of thought: At what point (if such a place exists) along the inner vs. outer beauty spectrum, does true “beauty” shine?
PLAIN JANE, though it argues for the former, is strongly rooted in the latter, perhaps even unknowingly. The premiere opens to a montage of “Plain Janes” cribbed from bad Katherine Heigl movies and a Taylor Swift music video in which they play characters we are meant to suspend their obvious Hollywood beauty and accept them as “normal” looking. That no actual “normal” woman would be cast in either role and that this warped image of normality is a contributor to so many’s self-loathing is an irony completely lost on this show, which touts as its tagline: “Transforming you from the inside out.”
Hosted by fashionista and overall cheeky Brit, Louise Roe (who herself wouldn’t be out of place in a fashion spread), the show takes one girl each week in dire need of help and intervention and turns them around to conquer feats of fashion, hair, and dating. The premiere stars Cristen, a mousy music business worker who is madly in love with her friend of six years, but lacks the confidence to make a move. In comes Louise, who walks us and Cristen through a series of steps to transform our stringy-haired girl into a well-tressed woman. The process is a bizarre pastiche of transformative style programs and FEAR FACTOR challenges: In order to earn a shopping spree, Cristen is forced to overcome her immobilizing fear of snails by reaching inside a giant vase of the sluggers – in a later step, she is given a minor electric shock for incorrectly hitting on guys at a dog park.
Hair and makeup follow and by the end of the episode all has fallen (rather too conveniently) into place. I’d be interested to see a followup segment, months after Louise has left her, just to see if her tips have stuck – I’d expect them to, seeing how this poor girl seemed so intimidated by what fresh hell this Brit might incur next. Throughout the process Cristen can’t help but emphatically (though it appears insincerely) agree with everything Louise throws at her, hoping to not have to face another daunting challenge. Apparently, to transform a Plain Jane is to scare it out of her. Fine, but as a indistinguishable, trifling hour of fashion, hair, and bugs, it could use some sprucing up.
HUGE, a teen drama set at a weight-loss camp called Camp Victory, offers an interesting cross-section of the inner-vs.-outer beauty argument: Where does feeling confident and comfortable with your body intersect with being healthy? Based on the young-adult novel by Sasha Paley and helmed by MY SO-CALLED LIFE creator Winnie Holzman, it offers a strictly nonjudgmental viewpoint of understanding, acceptance, and support, staged against a less successful dramedy that features a winning turn by Hairspray’s Nikki Blonksy.
Blonksy plays Willamina (or Will, as she prefers to be called), a sarcastic, opinionated teen who is determined to gain weight during her stay, contingent in her belief that she is being made to hate herself for her weight, turning the the blame to societal obsession. She hoards a secret stash of junk food and begins dealing to her fellow campers, ensuing a fun scene where Will is perched inside a bathroom stall like a notorious dealer of contraband. She blithely tosses aside the remarks of stern camp director Dr. Rand (Gina Torres) and quickly befriends repeat camper Becca (Raven Goodwin) and makes merry torturing the thinner and radiant Amber (Hayley Hasselhoff, daughter of David).
Will’s attitude is of course a defense mechanism against her own unhappiness, her brazenness a form of liberation she needs to survive. In the opening scene of the pilot, she is reluctant to appear in her bathing suit, but after being harped on by Dr. Rand, she turns her insecurity into empowerment: she performs an aggressive, hyper-sexualized striptease, whipping her clothes off before the camp director with palpable defiance. Shortly after, she audibly regrets her actions, quickly crossing her arms to hide behind herself.
This is where HUGE succeeds: pinpointing those delicate moments when denial becomes acceptance, however painful or powerful they may be. It at times is in serious danger of playing it too close to an after school special (it handles a bulimia story line with almost too much righteousness and tears), though this seems to be more of an after effect of what is really an overwrought, conventional drama. Too often does the show turn to moody music, histrionics, and sullen glares across the screen; Will’s lines are notably zipless. It’s admirable how HUGE explores the relationship between weight acceptance and self esteem, but it would be better served by a punchier, less melodramatic delivery. Perhaps this is a future case for Louise Roe.
PLAIN JANE premieres Wednesday July 28 at 9PM on the CW, HUGE airs on ABC FAMILY on Mondays at 9PM
Is a contributing writer to The TV Addict. He has seen every episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER four times, has once referred to his DVR as his “best friend,” and has only seen the pilot episode of THE SOPRANOS — and has no intention to apologize for it. He lives in Austin, Texas. Email him at alekschan.thetvaddict@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter (@alekstvaddict). His name is pronounced like Alex.
Today’s TV Addict Top 5: TV Head-Scratchers!
DEGRASSI Takes Manhattan (and isn’t leaving!)
As much as we are enjoying this recent influx of DEGRASSI episodes courtesy of its new-and-improved Telenovela-style format, we can’t help but wonder if we’re the only TV Addicts not completely sold on this whole Vanderbilt Prep thing? Crazy abusive student body-aside, if we wanted to watch a show about spoiled wealthy New Yorker’s making really poor decision, isn’t that what GOSSIP GIRL is for?
Not WILDE About Guest Stars.
Despite our affection for everybody involved in FOX’s upcoming [and we should mention very funny] new Fall series RUNNING WILDE both in front of (Will Arnett, Keri Russell) and behind (Creator Mitchell Hurwitz) the camera, we find ourselves asking the slightly awkward albeit painfully obvious question: What are the proverbial powers that be at FOX are thinking? Sure, an ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT reunion that has David Cross joining the Will Arnett laugher for seven of the show’s first 13 episodes may make for a catchy headline, unfortunately, if there is one thing 3 ratings starved seasons of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT taught us it’s that online chatter doesn’t quite translate into viewers. Just ask Joss Whedon.