Sunday nights did not work out as planned for ABC this past season. After things went horribly awry with 666 Park Avenue, the network turned to Red Widow, a remake of a Dutch series starring Radha Mitchell and Goran Visnjic. If I was smart, I would have bailed after the first episode, but instead I stuck around for all 8, which really didn’t give much of a payoff. I can’t say I’ll miss this going forward.
Tag / ABC
Post Mortem – Last Resort
ABC’s latest attempt to gain an early foothold on Thursday nights got off to a good start back in September, when over 9 million people watched the premiere of this tale of the USS Colorado and its crew as they try to navigate their way through the political fallout of their decision not to start a nuclear war with Pakistan.
What started off so well, though, quickly started to falter as the show shed viewers very quickly. While the pilot was one of the better of the fall season, the storyline was better served as a mini series rather than an ongoing series.
On November 16th, ABC announced that they would not be picking up the series for a full season. The timing gave the producers enough time to tweak the final episodes in order to bring the series to a conclusion. The last episode aired on January 24th and brought to an end the story of the USS Colorado.
Post Mortem – Zero Hour
ABC thought they had something special going on with Zero Hour, a conspiracy show seemingly modeled after The DaVinci Code, which featured the return of Anthony Edwards to his first television role since leaving ER in 2002. What they got instead was a hot mess, which aired three episodes before being pulled off the air. The conspiracy revolved around Edwards’ wife, played by Real World alum Jacinda Barrett, being kidnapped because Edwards character is the spitting image of a Nazi who owned a clock. If that sounds like the kind of thing that floats your boat, rumor has it that the remaining episodes will be burned off starting on June 15th.
Post Mortem – Body Of Proof
With tonight’s series finale of Body of Proof on tap, it seems like as good a place as any to kick off our annual look back at the shows I watched that came to an end this past season. Body of Proof debuted on ABC in March of 2011 and took the House formula and slapped a new, female coat of paint on it, with Dana Delaney in the driver’s seat. Rather than surround her with doctors to question her, she had police officers who didn’t trust her until they did.
To me, Body of Proof never really clicked. That’s not to say that it was a bad show, but it never had that transcendent moment where it became a really good show. The crew of the medical examiner’s office, including Delaney and Jeri Ryan, were not the real problem with the show. The police side of things were where the show needed some work, and that was addressed somewhat in this third season with the addition of Mark Valley. I fear that it was too little, too late, though.
ABC Upfronts
The big news from ABC was their no-brainer decision to pick up Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Avengers spin-off that will follow the further adventures of Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson and will tie in to the uber-successful Marvel film franchise. Beyond that, the only real change is an official scheduling change for most of their dramas, moving away from their traditional approach of having 22 or 24 episodes sprinkled out over 40 weeks and instead following the cable model of airing in 11 or 12 week blocks, with a “bridge” show or miniseries in between to avoid airing repeats.
Beyond that, nothing too exciting for the Alphabet network. After a dicey second season, Suburgatory finds itself on the bench waiting for midseason or a new comedy to die an early death. Outside of SHIELD, none of the new shows looks too exciting, although I reserve the right to change my mind between now and September.
Book 4 (of 52) – The Revolution Was Televised
The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers And Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever – Alan Sepinwall
Starting in the late 1990s, as cable networks started to look to provide more viewing options than reruns of Benson and The Rockford Files and struggling netlets looked to find an identity in order to challenge the big 4, television entered what can only be described as a golden age of quality programming. TV critic Alan Sepinwall looks at the 12 shows that blazed this new trail, garnering hundreds of Emmy nominations in their wake.
The main leader of this revolution was HBO, which aired 4 of the 12 series Sepinwall profiled. Whether it was the goings on in Emerald City in the prison drama Oz or the dirty dealings of the western Deadwood or the drug-fueled and gang-infested streets of Baltimore in The Wire or the family run New Jersey business on The Sopranos, HBO showed that their “It’s not TV, it’s HBO” promos were more than just a slogan.
Seeing the success that HBO had with their scripted dramas, other cable networks looked to change their fortunes by following the same path. FX was looking to reinvent itself and succeeded with The Shield. AMC broke through in a big way with two hits, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, the only two shows in the book that are still on the air. Even the channel formerly known as SciFi managed to find themselves a hit with the remake of Battlestar Galactica.
The one place it is much harder to be revolutionary is on network TV, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible. Against all odds, ABC took a germ of an idea from an outgoing network chief and somehow ended up with Lost. The WB, trying to find something to air besides “ethnic” sitcoms, turned to a re-imagined Buffy The Vampire Slayer. NBC also looked to the cineplex for inspiration and found themselves with Friday Night Lights. Not to be outdone, FOX managed to turn what could have become a tiring gimmick into the long running 24.
Sepinwall goes back and interviews most of the power-brokers behind the scenes of these revolutionary shows and provides an in-depth look at how they came to be and the struggles it took to get them on the air. If I wasn’t already reading Sepinwall’s reviews, I would certainly start after finishing this book.
Midseason Review – Thursdays
Thursday night is traditionally the busiest night of the week. Here’s our look back at my pre-season thoughts on what’s on the slate for this season.
7:00
The Big Bang Theory – Entering its 6th season, the show is at its ratings high point. They pick up right where last season left off, with Howard married and in space.
Ratings-wise, the show continues to grow, which is somewhat amazing for an older show. It continues to be consistently funny, despite what the haters might say.
30 Rock – Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin return for the 7th and final season. I will certainly look forward to these last 13 episodes.
The end is near for 30 Rock, and they seem to be bringing back most, if not all, of their stable of guest stars for final appearances. Last week saw appearances from Chris Parnell’s Dr. Leo Spaceman, Will Arnett’s Devin Banks, Steve Buscemi’s Lenny Wosniak, and Chloë Grace Moretz as Kaylie Hooper.
Last Resort – Early reports are that this show had the best pilot of the season, but left some doubts as to how it could continue on on a week to week basis. I’m looking forward to seeing for myself.
An intriguing premise that just didn’t find any type of viewership. ABC gave them enough notice to have episode 13 provide some sort of an ending, which we will see next week.
7:30
Up All Night – Christina Applegate and Will Arnett return in the last minute renewal from last spring. The status quo gets shaken up a bit as Ava’s show was cancelled in last week’s season premiere, putting Applegate’s Reagan and Maya Rudolph’s Ava out of work.
NBC pulled the show off the air and is completely retooling the show, moving from a single camera show to a multi-camera show shot in front of a studio audience. Ratings have not been great, so this is a last ditch effort to keep the show on the air in some fashion.
8:00
Person Of Interest – The enigmatic hit returns for its second season. Michael Emerson was not given as much to do last season as one would have hoped following Lost, but his role did pick up somewhat towards the end of the year.
I do find myself more invested in this show as time goes on.
The Office – The producers had previously announced that this season would be the show’s last. With original EP Greg Daniels returning to bring the show to its conclusion. Last week’s season premiere introduced some new, younger employees that might cause Jim and Pam to re-evaluate their lot in life.
One of the behind the scenes deals that allowed the show to return for one final season was extra time off for John Krasinski and Ed Helms to accomodate their movie shooting schedules, which has led to some silly plots, especially for Helms’ Andy.
Grey’s Anatomy – The 9th season opens a few months after the plane crash that closed out last season. There will be some cast shakeups, as Chyler Leigh is gone and Eric Dane is leaving. While not as good as it once was (and what show is after 9 years), it is still an entertaining way to pass an hour.
A new team of interns included Tina Majorino, who I have enjoyed since her time on Veronica Mars.
Midseason Review – Tuesdays
We continue our look back at my expectations for the fall television season, and today we are focusing on Tuesdays.
7:00
Raising Hope – The quirky Fox drama returns for its third season with more of the same hilarity.
Nothing new to report on the Raising Hope front. You know what you are going to get: no more, no less.
7:30
Ben and Kate – The premiere episode wasn’t bad, and I was pretty impressed with Dakota Johnson as Kate, but I could feel Nat Faxon’s Ben starting to grate during the first half hour. I’m not sure how much more of him I am willing to take.
As it turns out, I wasn’t willing to take any more, since I never went back to watch any subsequent episodes.
8:00
Go On – Matthew Perry’s latest attempt to escape the shadow of Chandler Bing has aired three episodes already and it isn’t bad. Perry plays a sports radio host who joins a support group after his wife died.
Like most of Perry’s post-Friends output, a lot of the heavy lifting is left to his charm. There are flashes of something here, though, and if the writers can figure out how to consistently offer something beyond Perry’s innate likability, they will be on to something.
New Girl – Zooey Deschanel returns in one of last season’s break out comedy hits. The show got stronger as the season went on and the writers found their footing, and I’m looking forward to its return.
New Girl continues to impress, and has even started to find interesting things to do with Winston this year.
Happy Endings – This went from a late season replacement to one of the most consistently funny comedies on TV last season. The ensemble group plays well off of each other and the writers bring the funny every week.
Still funny, but it seems that hardly anyone is watching. With ABC burning off episodes by airing them on both Tuesdays and Sundays, I fear we may be looking at the unhappy end of Happy Endings.
Midseason Review – Sundays
With the advent of winter premieres and with February sweeps around the corner, it’s time to revisit my thoughts from the beginning of the season and look ahead at what’s to come for Sunday nights.
7:00
Once Upon A Time – ABC found themselves a winner last year with this series about fairy tale characters who have been forced to live in the real world thanks to the evil Queen. Last season ended with the characters remembering their true selves, which promises a new status quo for season 2.
Snow White and Prince Charming were split apart for most of the first half of the season, but were reunited in the midseason finale. Now that the evil Queen’s eviler mother has come to Storybrook, it might allow Regina to be softened somewhat.
8:00
The Good Wife – Thanks to the great DVR crash of 2012, I missed the last few episodes of last season. While never flashy, this show is always solid. The big problem in the fall will be catching the entire episode when football runs long.
For the most part, The Good Wife continued to be its strong self, but it did have a slight misstep with the story surrounding Kalinda and her ex. Fortunately, following fan backlash, that storyline was wrapped up quickly, hopefully to never be seen or heard from again.
Revenge – ABC’s other breakout hit of last season moves from Wednesday to Sunday as Emily VanCamp continues her secret rampage through the Hamptonites that ruined her father’s life. This was a surprisingly good soap that delivered the goods last season.
The second season of Revenge has been more of the same, but seems to be lacking some of the excitement of the first season due to familiarity. I am enjoying the show, but I can see myself burning out on it at some point.
Dexter – Speaking of shaking up the status quo, last season ended with Jennifer Carpenter’s Deb walking in on Dexter mid-murder. To make things more interesting, former Chuck star Yvonne Strahovski joins the crew at Miami Metro.
Dexter wrapped up its season in December with another shocker, Dexter under suspicion for being the Bay Harbor Butcher and Deb murdering LaGuerta to cover his tracks.
End Of The Road
ABC announced today that they will not be ordering any further episodes of their two freshman dramas, Last Resort and 666 Park Avenue. I’ve been enjoying both, but the ratings have not been stellar. ABC is planning on airing the remaining episodes from the original order of 13, so I will keep watching until the end.