CBS is rebroadcasting this week's episode of Jericho, in which the townsfolk ready for an acid-rain storm, on Saturday at 9 pm/ET.... Paying visits to Sesame Street in the coming weeks: Grammy winner John Legend sings with Hoots (Oct. 2), Shirley Jones plays Mother Goose (Oct. 5), Jamie Foxx meets Jamie Fox (Oct. 6), Amy Sedaris plays Snow White (Oct. 12) and Matt Lauer gets glib in an interview with the Cookie Monster (Oct. 16).... ESPN is shutting down its overly, overly promoted, and yet undersubscribed, mobile service.
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Question: Which are the top five new shows you would recommend this fall? From the previews I have read, I am most looking forward to The Nine, Heroes, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Jericho and Ugly Betty. Six Degrees sounded intriguing to me when I read the premise, but critics have bashed it, so I'm uncertain. Although it does have J.J. Abrams involved, so I'm hoping.
Answer: I'll give you a top six: my three favorite new dramas and my three favorite new comedies (the latter is almost by default because there are so few of merit). Dramas, in no particular order: The Nine, Studio 60, Friday Night Lights. Comedies, in no particular order: 30 Rock, The Class, Ugly Betty. There are a handful of shows I'll be tracking that fall on a second tier, but I can tell you that Heroes and Jericho will not likely be among them. (I know that because I write this particular column on the Internet, I'm supposed to gush on and on about any show with an element of fantasy — call it the Comic-Con factor —
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Question: I think it's really interesting how Psych became such a hit on USA. The same with Saved's success on TNT (although I find the show a dull Rescue Me knockoff). Some channels (both cable and network) have found certain formulas that really work, and then stick with that brand. Psych, for instance, fits seamlessly into the USA brand by being a cross between The Dead Zone and Monk. In fact, I want to further compliment USA on the best ad campaign I have seen in years. I actually stop fast-forwarding on my DVR to watch those hilarious USA ads featuring their wonderful array of characters. My wife and I love them! But my question goes back to the failure earlier this year of Love Monkey (also a wonderful show) on the stodgy, serious CBS network. CBS puts on this wonderful, sweet and quirky show and it fails; so they go back to their dull formula with the ridiculous The Unit, and it's a ratings smash. Do you feel that networks and cable channels (after a scenario like this for CBS) ...
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Question: Which fall pilots would you deem worthy of my time?
Answer: I finished watching the last of the pilots over the weekend and I have fantastic news: For the first time in recent memory, the good fall shows easily outnumber the bad ones — at least based on the pilots I saw. As Desperate Housewives taught us, the second and third episodes tell us much more about a show's creative bones than a season premiere. With that said, here are the fall offerings that have the most FauxVo potential.
* Vanished (Fox) and Kidnapped (NBC): Among the things these two thrillers share in common: They both&
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Question: I have a comment on a topic that I've never seen you address, and I could be the only one who feels this way. With so many new shows in the fall, it's really hard sometimes to keep them all straight, and the names of the shows often make this more difficult. They're not very distinctive! Last season, there were three sci-fi shows premiering, and they all had one-word names: Invasion, Threshold and Surface. I could never keep straight which one was on which network, and even though I had read your reviews and knew that you endorsed one especially, I could never remember which one. For this coming fall I've counted eight new series with one-word titles, and none of them are very distinguishable (Vanished, Standoff, Justice, Smith, Jericho, Shark, Traveler, Kidnapped). Just a note to the networks: If I need a visual aid to remember which shows I want to check out, I'm not likely to watch — unless they become hits and the name is repeated enough to remind me. Not a very good ...
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BJ and Tyler, The Amazing Race
Question: I read the CBS upfront news about moving Amazing Race to Sundays at 8 pm/ET. I don't care that they moved the night — again — but why Sunday night? It will be constantly overrun by football games that go long. People who record the show will get to see half of 60 Minutes and miss the end of Race, and I'm afraid it'll begin to lose its audience. This doesn't seem like a good move to me, but maybe I'm worrying prematurely. It is only May, after all. What are your initial thoughts about the new time slot?
Answer: My biggest concern isn't the football overruns, which have been a factor in CBS' Sunday lineup for years. People are used to this and should be able to adjust accordingly — as in: set extra time on the VCR or manually set the DVR, or (here's a thought) watch it live. The biggest hurdle is that Race will be going head-to-head against another powerful reality series already established in the time period, ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which, like Race, is quite
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Brad Garrett, 'Til Death
After attending the networks' upfront presentations all week, the Biz has this analysis of the coming season. (Click here for next fall's grid and new-show descriptions.)
CWYou've got to wonder what went wrong in CW's new-series development process if the network had to bring back 7th Heaven — even though the show lost a reported $16 million for WB this past season.
But the decision to have CW's inaugural schedule made up of established shows from WB and UPN may end up being a blessing. Many of the shows have small but rabid followings, and promoting new shows on a new network will be tough. The fans of shows like One Tree Hill and Veronica Mars will track them down on their own. Viewers in the 18-to-34-year-old demographic that CW targets don't watch networks, they watch shows. (According to recent survey, only one in four 1
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Angie Harmon, Secrets of a Small Town
It's that time of year again: Network executives are spending these lovely spring days in dark screening rooms, searching for next fall's big hit. As we approach the mid-May unveiling of the new 2006-07 prime-time schedules, the Biz is here to provide you with an early glimpse of which drama pilots are heating up. We'll report on the sitcoms next week.
ABC: Secrets of a Small Town — a drama starring Angie Harmon about a small town whose residents have plenty of skeletons in the closet — is believed to have the inside track for the Sunday-night slot after Desperate Housewives. (It's now a given that the network will move the superhot Grey's Anatomy to another night where it can help launch a new show.) Also hot are Six Degrees — another ensemble soap about six strangers whose lives intertwine in New York — and Traveler, about three graduate students involved in a national-security emergency.
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Question: When are there going to be more episodes of PBS' Mystery! series? Please be specific. Thank you.
Answer: I'll be as specific as PBS allows. What follows are the national airdates; I can't guarantee these shows will air on these dates in your particular market. But here goes: Mystery! returns April 30 with a new series of two two-hour mysteries, titled Jericho, starring Robert Lindsay as a Scotland Yard inspector in the 1950s. June and July will be filled with Miss Marple mysteries starring Geraldine McEwan. Titles include Sleeping Murder, By the Pricking of My Thumbs (which also features Agatha Christie sleuths Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, played by Anthony Andrews and Greta Scacchi), The Moving Finger and The Sittaford Mystery. On July 30 there's a two-hour movie titled Inspector Lewis (a follow-up to the classic Inspector Morse mysteries, featuring the late Morse's surviving crime-solving partner, played by Kevin Whately). And in September, there will be four new Inspector
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Dennis Miller, Joe Mantegna and Lauren Tom have joined Bonnie Hunt's untitled ABC comedy about a divorcée detective.... CBS has picked up You've Reached the Elliotts, Chris Elliott's semiautobiographical comedy about a man juggling a so-so showbiz career and his home life.... John Terry (Jack's dad on Lost) is the latest addition to ABC's Secrets of a Small Town.... Ashley Scott (who was so nasty to Jessica Alba in Into the Blue) has come aboard CBS' Jericho.... Richard Coyle (BBC's Coupling) will play Cryptic Man on CBS' superhero drama, Ultra.
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