BLOGS
May 2012 Archives
The upfronts are over. Time to start speculating about Glee's future again!
In what was truly a breath of fresh air after several weeks of upfronts madness, yesterday's USA Network presentation at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall -- the final event of the season -- didn't feature a single word from any executive. It's a long-standing tradition at the cabler to have their stars do the talking, which means a minimum amount of industry speak... and way more scripted banter. Since USA has acquired the syndication rights to Modern Family, the highlight of the evening was a digital short of series co-creator Steven Levitan standing in front of the Pritchett-Delgado house saying how excited he was to be part of the USA family, only to have Ed O'Neill, in character as Jay, come out and angrily demand, "Hey, get the fuck out of my driveway!" It was followed with the Modern Family framed-moment title song , where the casts of each USA original series held up a little frame until the final shot ended on the Modern Family theme final still. Another highlight, especially to WWE fans, was the announcement that in honor of Monday Night Raw's 1,000th episode, the series will now be expanded to three hours every week.
Grown adults should not chomp on gum during business meetings, or ride skateboards to their dates.
Let's all take a moment and breath a deep sigh of relief that last night's triple dose of Community won't be the last we see of the series outside of DVD viewing parties and its inevitable syndication run on Comedy Central. To the relief of many and the surprise of a few, NBC has renewed the series for one more 13-episode season, slated to air on Fridays in the fall. Naturally, we'd be happier with a full-season pick up, but an additional 286 minutes at Greendale is better than none at all.
Based solely on the trailers and descriptions and scant amount of additional footage we saw during this week's network upfront presentations, here are the new shows that have piqued our interested for next season. Though since Ringer actually topped our list at this time last year, we're going to hold off planning our viewing schedules until we've had a chance to screen the full pilots.
Looks like The CW is heading back to the '80s...
You've got to hand it to The CW: they know how to really keep an upfront moving. From kicking it off with a performance by Flo Rida to just jumping right in to a preview of their most interesting new series, Arrow, it flew by faster than any other network presentation this week. Sure, they spent time discussing social media and whatnot, but it was all broken up by on-stage appearances by the very beautiful people who are on their shows. And hey, most of their upcoming shows look watchable, if not legitimately entertaining, and since they're recycling a ton of their talent (and in some cases, characters), we feel like we know these programs already.
I liked every storyline in "Tableau Vivant" and thought it was a pretty funny episode. The only problem with it, really, is that last week's episode was maybe the best of the season and the fact that Arrested Development will forever be (in my heart) the king of the live art episode with "In God We Trust." Unless Phil reveals he's a never-nude, that's probably how it's going to stay. In any event, let's take a look at the best moments of the night.
Supernatural and Top Model are swapping nights. Is this because Tyra fired like everyone on her show?
CBS president Les Moonves got us all excited about a one-minute long upfront at the beginning of the network's presentation this afternoon, but it actually went on for over an hour. And considering they only have four new shows this fall, that meant a lot of padding. So they filled it with Mike & Molly stars Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy bantering about their recent fake wedding and the lack of gifts they've received from their fellow CBS stars (except Ted Danson, who sent them a pony); the Two Broke Girls trying to find a way to make money; LL Cool J rapping; and Eli Manning trying to crack jokes (which, as we learned on Saturday Night Live, is not something he can do). Still, despite the fact that this was the network that showed us the fewest clips, the ones we saw actually had more promise than the other three this week so far.