Jeremy Piven, Entourage
Where do the winners go after accepting their Emmys? Backstage to the (overly air-conditioned, brrrr) press room! Here is your minute-by-minute guide to who said what about their most memorable night.
8:06: Show's just starting, and we're watching it back here like the rest of ya. Host Conan O'Brien's pretaped opening says it all: NBC (and The Office) gets second billing in a funny bit that leads off instead with rival ABC's Lost.
8:18: Alan Alda wins, giving The West Wing its 26th Emmy ev
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Question: I have to say congratulations to Stargate SG-1 for reaching 200 episodes, a milestone for any show. But my question now is: In a world of Internet, downloads and increased competition, will any other shows reach that 200-show mark? I mean, does Grey's Anatomy have the staying power of Stargate? Even though I love both shows, I don't believe it does.
Answer: Before anyone criticizes Geoff, this question came in before Stargate's cancellation was confirmed. It's even more timely now, don't you think? It's an excellent question, and one that really got me thinking, because there are so many considerations at play. For a regular series to hit 200 episodes, that usually means it must stay on the air for 9 to 10 seasons, depending on the number of episodes ordered per year. Given today's more cluttered TV environment, I have to think it may be even more likely for certain sorts of shows to hit the 200-episode mark. If they've broken through and become a franchise, the networks will
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Leslie Hope, Runaway
Leslie Hope and Elisha Cuthbert were two of the first actors I interviewed for TVGuide.com, back in 2002, during the debut season of a little-show-that-could called 24. Coincidentally, I was slated to talk with each of the "Bauer women" again this week, but one of them "politely passed" at the last minute. The actress I now like a bit more is Ms. Hope, who called me from the set of Runaway, a CW drama debuting Sept. 25, and concerning a family that assumes a new id
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Daily Show's Jon Stewart is a fan of puzzlemaster Will Shortz (inset).
What's an eight-letter word for a star-studded new documentary? Wordplay, going into wide release this Friday, offers a compelling look at Will Shortz, editor of the New York Times' venerable grid, and the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Along the way, such famous faces as former President Bill Clinton, Daily Show host Jon Stewart, filmmaker
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Question: What happened to your minute-by-minute diary of the upfronts?
Answer: You're thinking of the Press Tour Diaries. That's in July. But had I blogged Fox's upfront on Thursday, it probably would've looked something like this:
4:00 pm: Could this East Side venue be more out of the way?
4:15 pm: Or crowded?
4:20 pm: Or hot?
4:35 pm: Someone kill me.
4:40 pm: Brad Garrett calls Paula Abdul crazy and Ryan Seacrest gay.
4:50 pm: Make it stop.
5:05 pm: I want to die. Now.
5:15 pm: Am I in hell?
5:17 pm: Sports executives make terrible comedians.
5:25 pm: Maybe the roof will collapse and we can all go home.
5:26 pm: Wow, Spike Feresten is not funny.
5:45 pm: Look! The ad executive behind me is putting a plastic bag over his head!
5:50 pm: Oooh, a
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Reunion, Love Monkey and Commander in Chief
Reunion. Threshold. E-Ring. Invasion. Emily's Reasons Why Not. Love Monkey. Commander in Chief. Heist.
What do these shows have in common? They all debuted at some point during this soon-to-wrap TV season, yet each saw their run either cut surprisingly short or handicapped by irregular scheduling. Was 2005-06 the worst year ever to sample a new show? Were the networks especially hasty in deciding the fate of freshman series? TVGuide.com consulted a panel of experts with unique points of view to examine this strange little season gone by.
Are New Shows Getting Short Shrift?Jeff Bader, executive vice president of ABC entertainment programming and scheduling, dismisses the suggestion that prime time is a crueler-than-ever proving ground for new series. "
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Big LoveThere comes a point in every new series, one hopes, where it moves from showing potential to actually getting interesting, when you click over from merely being intrigued to feeling something (good or bad) for the characters. I think Big Love hit that mark this week, as we began to see these people fleshed out: Margene as a basically lovable but naive kid, Barbara as a caring person with a bit of a guilty side, and Nicki as a loathsome spendthrift whom I've hated from Day 1. Seeing her prepare for poor little Wayne's party (which was, of course, all about her, not the kid), certainly didn't make me like her any more. (Saddest moment: Wayne asking Barbara if his mother invited any children to his party. Well, that and Rhonda remembering what it was like
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Now that the games are over and the February sweeps are about to wrap, it seems clear that the relatively lackluster ratings for NBC's Winter Olympics can be chalked up to a simple fact: TV is better than it was four years ago.
It wasn't that we didn't get hooked on the Olympics this year. Turns out we were more hooked on TV itself. Hooked on American Idol, to be sure. But also hooked on 24, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, House, Desperate H
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Miles finally met Laura and Rich in Surface's finale.
Talk about making a splash: Surface, NBC's freshman sea-creature feature, signed off last Monday with a finale filled with lots of tidal waves and slithery beasties — if not satisfying answers about what exactly is going on. TVGuide.com had the pleasure of picking the brain of series cocreator Josh Pate by hitting him with some burning questions (including, yes, "Will Surface be back in the fall?")
TVGuide.com: Was it always the plan to have all the principals finally unite in the first-season finale?Josh Pate: Yes. Yes it was. We always wanted to 'cross the streams.'" At first NBC gave us a full pickup, and then they gave us this weird 15 [episode] order, so where the finale fell was changed around, but we always wanted the characters
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Miles finally met Laura and Rich in Surface's finale.
Talk about making a splash: Surface, NBC's freshman sea-creature feature, signed off last Monday with a finale filled with lots of tidal waves and slithery beasties — if not satisfying answers about what exactly is going on. TVGuide.com had the pleasure of picking the brain of series cocreator Josh Pate by hitting him with some burning questions (including, yes, "Will Surface be back in the fall?")
TVGuide.com: Was it always the plan to have all the principals finally unite in the first-season finale?Josh Pate: Yes. Yes it was. We always wanted to 'cross the streams.'" At first NBC gave us a full pickup, and then they gave us this weird 15 [episode] order, so where the finale fell was changed around, but we always wanted the characters
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