US TV

An archive of articles about US television programmes and production.

US TV

The CW’s upfronts 2011

19 May 2011 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The CW Upfronts

Poor Alex Breckenridge – let down by pilot season again. The CW, which is largely ruled by reality shows, only has about thruppence ha’penny to rub together, so isn’t going to be picking up her pilot, Cooper and Stone. Shame.

Still, what have they picked up instead?

  • Hart of Dixie, in which Rachel Bilson gets used to being a doctor in a small town after she leaves the big city. Hang on, isn’t that Doc Hollywood?
  • Ringer, in which Sarah Michelle Gellar goes on the run by assuming the identity of her twin sister. Genius plan that one. Still, it does feature Ioan Gruffudd, Nestor Carbonell and Kristoffer Polaha, so might be worth a look
  • The Secret Circle, which comes from the author of The Vampire Diaries and sees Britt Robertson from Life Unexpected discover she’s a witch. Another good supporting cast – Thomas Dekker, Gale Harold, Ashley Crow and Natasha Henstridge – but if it’s anything like The Vampire Diaries, I might be out before this has even started.

Not sure they picked the right shows there. Details and trailers after the jump.

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US TV

CBS’s upfronts 2011

19 May 2011 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

CBS Upfronts

CBS is, of course, king of the US schedules. It can put on more or less any unfeasibly bad TV show (Rules of Engagement, Mike and Molly, Hawaii Five-0, CSI Miami) and it’ll do well. So this year, they’ve actually had to move some of their best-rated shows to Saturday and Sunday (an unheard of move), just to add a little variety to the midweek schedule.

What variety? Well, there’s just a few new shows to tempt your palette with:

  • 2 Broke Girls from the ‘writer’ of the Sex and the City movies, Michael Patrick King, in which two waitresses try to start up a business making cupcakes
  • Unforgettable, about a police detective who can remember every single detail about everything except who killed her sister
  • How To Be A Gentleman, about an etiquette columnist who becomes detached from modern life and is forced to put a modern sexy twist on things with the help of Kevin Dillon, Mary Lynn Rajskub and Rhys Darby
  • A Gifted Man, which stars Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Ehle and Julie Benz but is about a surgeon whose dead wife teaches him the meaning of life from beyond the grave.
  • Person of Interest from JJ Abrams, which gets ex CIA agent Jim Caviezel to team up with billionaire Michael Emerson from Lost to prevent violent crime before it happens.

Person of Interest looks good, and anything with Julie Benz in gets my vote (temporarily at least), but frankly that looks like a right bunch of clunkers to me. Still, what does CBS care, given all the shows it already has?

Unfortunately, in traditional CBS über-suck style, there are no videos for me to show you that work outside the US so enjoy the descriptions after the jump, UK readers; and have fun with the full vids US readers.

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US TV

ABC’s upfronts 2011

19 May 2011 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

ABC primetime

Now it’s ABC’s turn to show off its new programmes. Apparently, they’ve invented an entirely new day of the week, judging by the number of new shows they have coming up. However, in contrast to the last two years, where ABC’s comedy programming seems to have been its best line of attack, this year, drama appears to be the better option, with

  • Leslie Bibb of Iron Man and Popular fame in Good Christian Belles
  • Leslie Judd doing a Jason Bourne with Sean Bean in Missing
  • Robert Carlyle and Jennifer Morrison living in a world where fairy tales are real in Once Upon A Time
  • Christina Ricci doing for air stewardessing with Mad Men did for advertising in Pan Am
  • Madeleine Stowe exacting revenge in the Hamptons in the appropriately titled Revenge and
  • Nowhere Man‘s Bruce Greenwood mysteriously going missing while hunting for magic up the Amazon

Unfortunately, we also have a terrible-looking remake of Charlie’s Angels and another Shonda Rhimes bit of tatt, this time set in the world of politics, but you can’t win them all.

However, in the world of comedy, we have some truly, deeply offensive bits of rubbish. See if you can spot the worst offender – I’ll give you a clue: it’s the one in which men are so put upon and discriminated against, they have to dress up as women to get jobs.

I didn’t make that one up, by the way.

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News

Fox’s upfronts 2011

19 May 2011 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Fox Upfronts

A little bit later than I’d intended, let’s have a look at Fox’s forthcoming programmes in its Fall schedules. Well, what have we got this time round?

We have

  • A tatty looking Bones spin-off called The Finder, which features the least plausible English accent ever delivered by an English actor (Saffron Burrows) as well as Michael Clarke Duncan.
  • A weird thriller from JJ Abrams about a man who hasn’t aged a day since he left Alcatraz
  • Kiefer Sutherland teaming up with Heroes‘ Tim Kring to tell a story of a kid with strange powers in Touch
  • A horrifyingly nasty looking show with My Name is Earl‘s Jaime Pressly called I Hate My Teenage Daughter
  • A rather lovely, soon to be recast comedy with the equally lovely Zooey Deschanel called New Girl and
  • Steven Spielberg’s Terra Nova about a family that travels back to the time of the dinosaurs to save the human race

So that’s one good one then. Details and trailers (bar Touch) after the jump.

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