May 14, 2008 2:14

MTV Is Invading My Hood

Still time to stock up before the drunk hipsters attack! / Photo by s o d a p o p reprinted under Creative Commons license.

So it turns out that I live in the 21st coolest place in the world. At least by one measure: Season 21[!] of The Real World will be taping this summer in my home borough of Brooklyn.

This is part of a larger wave of media gentrification of Brooklyn, which goes back to Miranda's decamping for an outer-borough brownstone on Sex and the City, and continues with its status as the home of cute outsiders with artist parents on Gossip Girl. [Update: And let's not forget The Huxtables!] "My 'hood" is probably an exaggeration, though the network says it hasn't picked a neighborhood yet. I live in lovely but way-not-cool Park Slope, the sedate home of bespectacled publishing types, breeders with two kids, or, in my case, both. My guess is the show lands in hipster paradise Williamsburg. But if they want my house, they can have it for a mere $50,000 a month. (Hey, we have TiVo! And it's convenient to Brooklyn Superhero Supply!)

But seriously—season freaking 21? I was going to make a joke about the first Real World cast members starting to collect Social Security, but then came across an actual fact that somehow made me feel even older. Kevin Powell, 42—the writer/activist from TRW's first season—is currently running for Congress. In Brooklyn. Where it all happens.

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May 14, 2008 12:26

Corporate Press Release Theater: Turner to Debut Slew of New Shows, Unless It Doesn't

Turner Entertainment Networks (known to you as TNT, TBS and truTV [formerly known to you as Court TV]) piggybacked on the broadcast upfronts with their own announcement today. I'm only one man, and a lazy one at that, so I didn't attend, but the networks announced a number of shows. Theoretically. Most of the announcements concerned series in development (many of which were already announced), which means they may or may not make air, so in the meantime you can peruse the list after the jump and dream.

While this may be mainly a clever gambit for attention by Turner, in the context of this week's upfront overall, it may just be another sign of TV's future, namely: the big networks get smaller and everything else gets bigger. The difference between network and cable—and ultimately, online—will become more and more academic, both culturally and economically. If TNT, for instance, is really offering new scripted programming Monday through Wednesday by 2010, it becomes something that much closer to a sixth (or seventh, or eighth...) major network. To the extent that any network will be major by 2010.

In the meantime, the document dump of Turner's new shows, actual or hypothetical, follows forthwith:

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May 14, 2008 11:02

Over Eggs and Bacon, CBS Serves Up Meat and Potatoes

Leave it to CBS to maintain some sort of tradition in this strike-and-ratings-collapse-disrupted upfront. For years the network has had a ritual of revealing its schedule to reporters over a buffet breakfast at its Midtown headquarters. Even though the Eye is—in this year's trendy spirit of austerity—canceling its Tavern on the Green after-party, it kept up its morning ritual, over a breakfast spread with so many pork products it could have been catered by Krusty the Clown. Mmmmmmmmbacon.

CBS will have something like a traditional upfront at Carnegie Hall this afternoon too, with a presentation to advertisers—albeit shorter than in past years—and actual trailers from actual pilots of several actual new shows. (CBS CEO Les Moonves and programming chief Nina Tassler took a moment to pooh-pooh the contention at some networks—cough! ABC! cough!—that there just wasn't time for pilots this year, though they did note that they cut back and did some shorter "presentations" instead of full pilots.)

And the shows they'll preview at Carnegie will also be traditional by CBS standards: a couple of sitcoms and three procedurals of one type or another. It's a clear repudiation of last year's detour into riskier serial programs (e.g., Viva Laughlin and the just-cancelled Moonlight), which can't bode well for the serial, risky Swingtown—though a PR rep pulled me aside to aver that, contrary to Tuned In's view, the show is not a summer burn-off victim. Noted.

After the jump, CBS's release on its new schedule and shows. I'll post some brief impressions of the clips at some point after today's presentation.

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May 14, 2008 10:24

The CW, CWickly

The cast of 90210 (sans the "Beverly Hills"). / Frank Ockenfels/ The CW

I had to bail on The CW's schedule presentation after ABC's last night, but having heard that there were no clips of the 90210 remake—the main thing I would have wanted to see—I don't feel quite so bad. But here's the roundup of the network's news in brief:

* Along with 90210, the network debuts Surviving the Filthy Rich—about a tutor to two wild rich girls—which is an ungainly title, but apparently tested better than the title of the book, How To Teach Filthy Rich Girls, that the series is based on. (Basing a series on a book, of course, worked well for Gossip Girl. Who says reading is dead?) Also: Stylista, a reality show about a competition to land a job at Elle magazine.

* Probably the most interesting move the network is making is the one we have the least information about. The CW is farming out its entire (low-rated) Sunday night to an independent contractor. (Not Halliburton or Blackwater.) But what shows they'll be airing is still TBD.

* Aliens in America, sadly, is gone; Reaper is back, in midseason. For the rest of the fall schedule, click on the jump for the network's full announcement.

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May 14, 2008 10:02

The Morning After: Three for Three

David A., Archuletting a Billy Joel tearjerker in the Final Three. / F. Micelotta / Fox / Getty

My American Idol reviews are now up at time.com. My prediction this week—Syesha—is not exactly rocket science, but even though I don't think she deserves to win the thing (she's looking at a nice Broadway career), I still feel bad for her given the way the judges felt compelled to put the fix in on her last night. There was too much of the invisible hand of the producers in the judges' comments last night, too much of a "Must... tell... voters... to eject... Syesha" compulsion. If anything, her one hope tonight is sympathy votes from viewers who don't like having their vote dictated to them. Call it the West Virginia effect.

That said, the bigger question this week is: who gains most from her exit? Does Syesha's base gravitate more to David A. or David C. as their second choice? My guess is David A. if anyone, although she's sufficiently different from both that it may just be a wash.

In any case, the final (assuming Syesha doesn't pull it out in a shocker) won't be the foregone conclusion last year's was, so that'll be better from a sheer entertainment standpoint. I think either Cook or Archuleta could win this on a good night. But who would gain more from winning? Who wants it more? (OK, Archuleta's father wants it most of all. I mean besides him.) And does anyone want to make the case for a Mercado upset?

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May 14, 2008 7:56

ABC Upfront: TV Defeats Television

ABC's upfront at Lincoln Center begins with a video, interspersed with scenes from ABC shows, of people riding unicycles with cellphone symbols inscribed on the wheels, riding a surfboard into a computer logo, juggling little black balls with iPods on them. The (apparent) message: television may be fading away, but TV shows are not.

This is quickly becoming a theme of this upfront. Before the show started, a colleague asked me if I thought that TV was dying out. To which I gave my usual answer: the networks will probably get smaller, the screens may be different, the shows may be different lengths, but I'm not too worried about the future of People Watching Stories on Screens. I mean, what? are we going to start reading?

Maybe we need to start distinguishing "TV"—the content—from "television," the medium and the device that it is (or was) chiefly delivered on.

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