Monday 11/15/10 Final Broadcast Ratings

Dancing with the Stars (91 minutes)
- 20.679 million viewers
- 13.1/20 HH
- 4.0/10 A18-49

The Middle (R, 9:31pm, 30 minutes)
- 9.608 million viewers
- 6.2/10 HH
- 2.2/6 A18-49

Castle (59 minutes)
- 9.976 million viewers
- 6.4/11 HH
- 2.5/7 A18-49

How I Met Your Mother
- 8.868 million viewers
- 5.4/8 HH
- 3.6/10 A18-49

Rules of Engagement
- 7.918 million viewers
- 4.9/7 HH
- 2.9/7 A18-49

Two and a Half Men (31 minutes)
- 14.253 million viewers
- 8.6/13 HH
- 4.5/11 A18-49

Mike & Molly
- 12.148 million viewers
- 7.5/12 HH
- 3.7/9 A18-49

Hawaii Five-0 (59 minutes)
- 10.342 million viewers
- 6.5/11 HH
- 2.8/8 A18-49

Chuck
- 5.427 million viewers
- 3.3/5 HH
- 1.8/5 A18-49

The Event
- 5.637 million viewers
- 3.5/5 HH
- 1.7/4 A18-49

Chase
- 4.565 million viewers
- 3.0/5 HH
- 1.2/3 A18-49

House (61 minutes, 97% coverage FOX normally 98%... though lately... anyone have info?)
- 10.765 million viewers
- 6.2/9 HH
- 4.0/11 A18-49

Lie to Me (59 minutes, 97% coverage)
- 5.943 million viewers
- 3.5/5 HH
- 1.9/5 A18-49

90210
- 1.758 million viewers
- 1.2/2 HH
- 0.9/2 A18-49
- 1.1/3 A18-34
- 1.6/5 W18-34

Gossip Girl
- 1.694 million viewers
- 1.2/2 HH
- 0.9/2 A18-49
- 1.3/4 A18-34
- 2.2/6 W18-34

Sunday 11/14/10 Final Cable Ratings

Paranormal State (9pm)
- 1.026 million viewers
- 0.7/1 HH
- 0.5/1 A18-49

Paranormal State (9:30pm)
- 1.088 million viewers
- 0.7/1 HH
- 0.5/1 A18-49

The Walking Dead (10pm)
- 5.074 million viewers
- 2.9/5 HH
- 2.5/7 A18-49

Real Housewives of Atlanta (10pm)
- 2.776 million viewers
- 1.8/3 HH
- 1.5/4 A18-49

Good Luck Charlie (8pm)
- 3.869 million viewers
- 2.4/4 HH
- 0.5/1 A18-49
- 3.8/12 T12-17
- 5.0/16 K2-11

Shake It Up
- 4.092 million viewers
- 2.5/4 HH
- 0.6/1 A18-49
- 4.0/12 T12-17
- 5.3/17 K2-11

Sonny With a Chance
- 3.717 million viewers
- 2.3/4 HH
- 0.5/1 A18-49
- 3.5/10 T12-17
- 4.9/18 K2-11

Kendra (10pm)
- 1.924 million viewers
- 1.3/2 HH
- 1.0/3 A18-49

Married to Rock
- 1.026 million viewers
- 0.7/1 HH
- 0.6/1 A18-49

The Next Iron Chef (9pm)
- 2.094 million viewers
- 1.3/2 HH
- 0.8/2 A18-49

Boardwalk Empire (9:02pm, 51 minutes)
- 2.984 million viewers
- 1.7/3 HH
- 1.2/3 A18-49

Bored to Death (10:02pm, 24 minutes)
- 0.818 million viewers
- 0.5/1 HH
- 0.4/1 A18-49

Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Roads (9pm)
- 1.917 million viewers
- 1.2/2 HH
- 0.5/1 A18-49

Dexter (9:01pm, 53 minutes)
- 1.939 million viewers
- 1.1/2 HH
- 0.9/2 A18-49

19 Kids and Counting
- 2.142 million viewers
- 1.3/2 HH
- 0.7/2 A18-49

Sarah Palin's Alaska
- 4.957 million viewers
- 3.0/4 HH
- 1.2/3 A18-49

What the Sell (10pm)
- 2.142 million viewers
- 1.4/2 HH
- 0.5/1 A18-49

What the Sell (10:30pm)
- 1.722 million viewers
- 1.1/2 HH
- 0.4/1 A18-49

Fantasia For Real (9pm)
- 0.606 million viewers
- 0.4/1 HH
- 0.3/1 A18-49

Football Wives (9:30pm)
- 0.554 million viewers
- 0.4/1 HH
- 0.3/1 A18-49

Trimming The Fat (CW Edition)

I am and have in the past been a fan (at times vocal) of shows with mild-to-disastrous ratings.

See, for instance, Veronica Mars (still miss you, Ronnie!)

Of course, when we have personal attachment to shows, we make excuses for why a network should renew / order additional episodes. Upscale incomes. Highly concentrated demographics. Change the timeslot and give this great show a chance to find an audience... it's too damn good to cancel, dammit!

But take your Fan Hat off for a moment. I know, it's hard. But your hair looks fine. Trust me. Let's talk brass tacks.

I was going to extend this post to all networks, but decided that, hey, maybe I'll get to blogging more often if I separate things out a bit. So, for now, we're just talking CW.

This development year was the first in two that failed to produce a "hit" premiere - let alone a "hit" series. For a limited shelf space, limited budget, niche-appeal network like CW with rapidly aging shows and a finicky audience... this is disastrous.

In 2008, CW gave us 90210 2.0 which may have rapidly sunk post-premiere, but for a CW show that premiere attracted eyeballs. Almost 5 million of the (same day). In 2009, The Vampire Diaries' premiere also almost attracted 5 million viewers. Unlike 90210, Vampire Diaries has actually held onto a sizable-enough portion of that audience to be considered CW's lone viable television program (though, unlike True Blood, it failed to see big season-to-season gains... too bad, though).

In a "perfect" world with an infinite budget both for production and marketing and without any personal attachments coming into the mix... The Vampire Diaries is the only show that would survive a real "trimming the fat."

Of course, we, and the CW, don't live in that supposedly "perfect" world.

You can make W18-34 arguments for Gossip Girl (GG, despite having about half the overall audience as TVD, does have basically the same W18-34 audience as TVD... and, according to an article I recently read, GG is tied with The Office for the highest concentration of "upscale" A18-34 viewers). That's two hours of programming.

Supernatural has done respectable business on Fridays and I suspect it will remain there next year. The question is: how does it do without the Smallville lead-in next year? There is also a back-end argument to be made for Supernatural as it's syndicated on TNT (I don't have per episode figures) and the show does well on DVD (genre shows tend to overperform at DVD compared to their audience size). That's three hours.

America's Next Top Model? It's long in the tooth. It's been showing its age since Cycle 10 and this is, what, Cycle 15? The ratings weren't reinvigorated by the "actually a high fashion prize with better designers and photographers" change this cycle. Which I have to imagine added to the cost of the show. Still, this show isn't going anywhere for a while. And ANTM has syndication value. That's four hours.

That's still six hours to program. There are (flimsy) arguments to be made for more seasons of both 90210 and One Tree Hill. But CW isn't a network that can afford to reprogram 6 hours. Reprogramming 4 is still quite a stretch.

Do Hellcats or Nikita fit in?

Probably not. And here's why: Life Unexpected was canceled.

I feel like the experiment of a second season of LUX should tell CW what to do about its two freshmen, Hellcats and Nikita. Neither of them had huge series premieres even by "CW standards" (ah, love that phrase). Hellcats with 3 million, Nikita with 3.6 million. And now they're both lucky to hit 2/3 of those numbers. Nikita's W18-34, behind CW's number one show, are actually the worst on the network (some times, even LUX has higher W18-34). Now, I'm not putting the possibility of either show suddenly catching fire totally out of question. I mean, it's always possible. But is it probable? No. CW hoped LUX would catch fire in its extended break, and it didn't.

Gossip Girl "blew up" thanks to anticipation built during the Writers Strike hiatus, a bold new marketing campaign, a timeslot change, limited competition thanks to the strike, and (JMHO) stellar content in the initial 13 episode order. Then it grew more after the summer... and it was never as popular again as it was at the top of its second season.

Don't expect miracles for either Hellcats or Nikita. Especially because none of those things that helped Gossip Girl "explode" seem to be in the cards (he said without haven't watched any of Hellcats beyond the pilot presentation, and having watched two episodes of Nikita... but I haven't gotten any indication that either are the Best TV Show I'm Not Watching, so...)

The lesson from LUX, then, seems to be that when you don't have enough of an audience to slowly trickle off through several seasons... cut your losses and don't go beyond one season.

Even Hellcats. It rebounded in W18-34 last week... but only to a 1.7 (which is under 90210's season three levels). LUX was pulling 1.7s out of One Tree Hill last season. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (not that anyone has accused Dawn Ostroff of being sane...)

But CW doesn't even live in a world perfect enough that it can program 4 new hours of TV next fall (yet another reason why this fall was disastrous: a complete lack of midseason replacement backup... we've yet to hear how CW is planning to fill Tuesdays at 9pm after LUX runs out of episodes).

So there may be a season two of Hellcats (and, hell, there may even be a season two of Nikita... which will not be indicative of Nikita itself, it will be indicative of the sorry state CW finds itself in). Don't expect much more.

In short... it seems that the CW is in such terrible shape that there is literally too much fat to trim at this point.

Here's an idea for CW, though. Take a page from the first season of Gossip Girl and from the first season of Glee: run a show's initial order out over the course of the fall (and, if you must, January). Take it off the air. Let anticipation build. Have the studio release a Season One, Part One DVD. Bring the show back in late March / early April and run the back order continuously through sweeps. Alternatively, program like the first season of Heroes (a marketing success story), in 3 chunks, and make damn sure the story has the requisite cliffhangers.

There are risks, of course. Does absence make the heart grow fonder? Or do viewers forget? CW isn't programming broad-appeal shows; it's clearly programming niche shows that tend to have a higher concentration of hardcore, passionate fans, if you give those viewers material that makes them care, their hearts grow fonder, though there's plenty of evidence that it's not always the case (just from last year on ABC: Flashforward and V... of course, the ratings for both were on downward spirals before their hiatus). When you program to a niche hoping for passion, sometimes (rarely / not often) you get a show like Glee where there is a large enough core of passionate fans that the show actually is considered a big hit (remember, the first season's fall airings were not anywhere near the current ratings levels... though between you and me, Dear Reader, I think Glee hit its ratings peak in the first two episodes of this season).

I'm not suggesting CW will find something that hits like Glee. But if you can craft a show that people will anticipate and miss and want to watch... what's another little marketing push?

Think of it, if you will, as more like a cable network than a broadcast network. You can be sure that ABC Family is going to be pushing the return of Pretty Little Liars for its midseason return. And I know there's a difference between airing over the summer and airing in the winter against broadcast competition. But I expect PLL will have no trouble viewership (and I actually expect an uptick).

Of course, the material has to be there (with the casting, and the production, and the direction), and even after all of that, the network still has to pick up the damn show (there's no guarantee that happens as almost every season has a couple of "I can't believe they didn't pick this up!!!" pilots). This year, it wasn't.

An optimist or CW apologist might say "But Travis! You just pointed out a reason to give Hellcats and Nikita a season season order so that anticipation can build! They have to try!" Well... unlike LUX, both of these shows will run full seasons before a pickup has to be made, while LUX "only" had the initial order of 13. There was no opportunity for a schedule break for LUX. There is still plenty of opportunity, in the next 6 months, to see what happens with Hellcats and Nikita. As above, I just don't see it in the cards because the pieces that would need to be in place for a surge just aren't.

Take the Fan Hat off. Run your fingers through your hair and feel the cold breeze.

PS - It was interesting to look at the first seasons of Heroes/Gossip Girl/Glee, each with extended breaks and new marketing pushes for the relaunch... their second seasons premiered to the biggest numbers the show would ever get and then quickly suffered (from a combination of overhype and sophomore slump). Yet another reason why I think that "Audition" and "Britney/Brittany" will be Glee's highest-ever rated episodes.

Will Schuester Needs To Get His $#*! Together

Brief followup on Glee, which I stopped blogging about episode-to-episode, um, around the same time I stopped blogging nightly TV reactions. Sorry!

Glee has a problem this season and seems to be continuing all the bad habits it picked up in the second half of season one. PROBLEM. But, y'know, it was still a crowd pleaser.

The problem Glee is having this season it, once the Rocky Horror episode has aired, 2 of 5 episodes built around / spurring from Will's insecurities and the Will/Emma relationship.

Remember "Sectionals" and how AWESOME the ending with the Will/Emma kiss was as the kids built from the bridge to the final chorus of "My Life Would Suck Without You"? Then in April when the back nine began... boom! Reset button! They were so cute together, they just got together, how could you break them up!?

Whatever. Yes. They are cute together. But that's not interesting. I don't mind relationship drama. In fact, it's the bread and butter of many TV writers.

I will repeat something I noted early in the first season and utterly stand by. This show is about the kids and when the focus shifts to the adults for anything more than a runner that provides some Sue Sylvester one-liners, it fails. They are my least favorite episodes.
- Acafellas
- Mash-Up
- Home (great music, though!)
- Britney/Brittany (4 of the 5 Britney performances were anesthesia-addled dream sequences and the 1 "real" performance was marred by Will's awkward presence on stage)
- The Rocky Horror Glee Show

The one exception to this was "Dream On" which was just awesome. So, y'know, it CAN be done! But the exception proves the rule.

Maybe it's just me. I don't know. But the show is so much better when the plot is spurred by something stupid / selfish / diva-ish Rachel has done, when the kids are issued a competition assignment to the kids, or, well, the finales.

Anyway, you'll see on Tuesday. I'm a huge RHPS fan. There are plenty of winks and shoutouts and it's faithful in parts, but... the story is complete weaksauce. And, from a gay male POV, I appreciate the scene where Matthew Morrison gets shirtless in a private rehearsal with Emma because he's taking over the role of Rocky. BUT IT MAKES NO SENSE. Why would he need to rehearse a scene where HE DOES NOTHING AND SHE SINGS AND SEDUCES HIM? And, if you know the show and extrapolate it out in the plot (not that they go there) would mean, at that point, Rachel/Will happening ON STAGE IN FRONT OF A LIVE AUDIENCE. And it's all about Will/Emma/Carl (Karl?) The kids are pawns.

There's a kernel of a great "message" episode in there if the Finn/Sam plotline about body image were expanded on. But instead we get a ridiculously big production mess, which is sadly more typical than not of the Ryan Murphy written/directed episodes.

And, yes, as above, I know couples need drama. And I have no doubt that the show is driving towards Will/Emma getting back together with Stamos being nothing but the catalyst for both working their issues out and finally being ready for each other. But at this point... I don't want Will with Emma. Because he SUCKS. Grow up. Let the kids have their time to shine and stop letting your issues, which you need to work through, affect them.

Anyway. I hope you find a way to enjoy The Rocky Horror Glee Show. I did not.

The DVR vs Ratings

I started writing this blog post about the 10pm hour, and our barometer for success at 10pm needed an adjustment.

The reason? It was the DVR, of course. With DVRs in about 40% of American households (and always growing), the way viewers are watching television is increasingly time delayed. Yes, you've been reading sentences like that since 2002, but now we're really noticing it. And it's why there's so much rumbling on ratings boards and forums about the 10pm problem. You can really forget Live+7 data (which, as our friends at TVbytheNumbers.com have tried to hammer home... really doesn't mean much of anything when Live data is the closest approximation we have to C3 ratings).

The problem shows up in comparing Live ratings with Live plus Same Day.

The problem at 10pm stems from the fact that humans need sleep. If only there were a cure!

No. But if something airs later and gets recorded, there is less time to watch it before the "Same Day" cutoff that allows the viewing to be counted on Live+SD ratings. I've even seen it in critics' writeups of the day's programming... apologies, I couldn't get to the 10pm show, I was still catching up on 8pm and 9pm shows. In addition, the time you spend watching your recordings of earlier shows - or the day before's shows, or shows from over the weekend you've saved up, or whatever - you aren't watching the 10pm shows live.

So we're seeing ABC, CBS, and NBC struggle to even crack a 3.0 at 10pm (okay, really, that's just CBS... ABC and NBC are often struggling to crack 2.0) in Live+SD ratings.

You don't have to just take me at my word. There's empirical evidence (I'm just looking at overall rating points, not percentages).

During premiere week, Glee added the most A18-49 from Same Day DVR: 1.6 points! It went from a 4.0 Live to a 5.6 Live+SD. Modern Family added 1.5, going from 3.6 to 5.1. There were several other big gainers (Big Bang Theory: 1.5; House: 1.3; The Office: 1.3; Grey's Anatomy: 1.3; How I Met Your Mother: 1.1; Survivor: 1.1)

The biggest Live to Live+SD bump at 10pm?

Private Practice. It added 0.5, going from 2.7 to 3.2. There were a couple 0.4 adders, like Hawaii Five-0 going from 3.5 to 3.9.

And, through three weeks, Private Practice's weekly 0.5 gain (it has repeated that figure each week) is still the biggest of any 10pm show.

This is not to say that EVERY 8pm or 9pm show gains more than 0.5 from Same Day DVR viewing. Far from it. But the line between shows that scrape by and real "hits" (by current ratings standards, not those of yesteryear), to me, seems like it's less about Live viewing than it is about Same Day DVR viewing. People seek those shows out, whether the networks are being compensated for that or not (and I suspect that those shows with the biggest overall DVR numbers will also prove to be the same shows that top viewing in other platforms).

If people aren't DVRing 10pm shows... well, that's why the ratings rarely top a 3.0. Maybe it's the shows themselves. 10pm has seen many huge TV hits... before the DVR came along. But the truth of today, for scripted shows (live sporting events escape this rule, as do certain reality shows like DWTS), is that you cannot be a big hit without a sizable DVR component. Though there definitely is a different between a show like Private Practice with a 2.7 Live and 0.5 DVR and Chuck with a 1.5 Live and 0.5 DVR (both during premiere week).

Let's move out of 10pm. Because, in really looking at the data... it's not really limited to 10pm, even if my initial hypothesis was only looking there.

Take NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles. Both hits, both will be around for a while. NCIS clearly the bigger hit, right? Want to know the difference between the two? Hint: it's not Live ratings. NCIS just has about 0.5 more Same Day DVR rating points every week than NCIS:LA.

How I Met Your Mother vs Rules of Engagement tells the same story. RoE actually beat HIMYM in premiere week in Live ratings. But HIMYM, as above, added 1.1 in DVR playback. RoE only added 0.5 points.

Let's not even look at shows leading into each other.

Take Chuck and Undercovers. Week one, Chuck did 1.5 Live and added 0.5 in playback. Undercovers did 1.8 and added 0.3. Guess where they were in week 3? Chuck was 1.4 Live, and added that same 0.5. Undercovers had sunk to a 1.4... and added a mere 0.1 in playback. We all know the writing is on the wall for Undercovers, but the DVR rejection is the real issue. People who, thanks to marketing, programmed their DVRs to record it... decided to cancel that recording option or opted to not set a season pass.

It's why, I believe, it's harder and harder for new shows to hit it out of the park. People have their habits, the shows they record, and it takes a LOT to get them to add something.

The three shows canceled so far this season (Lone Star, My Generation, Outlaw)? Their premieres only got a 0.1 boost from Same Day playback.

So, no. We don't just need a new barometer of success at 10pm as I initially thought. We need a new barometer of success overall (and, really, a new standard or measurement). Because Live viewing is only going to sink lower and lower as DVR's penetration steadily increases and the difference between shows that stick around and those that leave becomes DVR playback.

Quick Emmy reaction

Well, let's see what I can remember from this post I was going to make of quick Emmy reactions. Thanks, Firefox, for eating my homework as it were.

I didn't watch the telecast, so these are just reactions to the winners. And, first, a note about the nominees. I think I said it before, but this was a really good year for Emmy nominees. Plenty of new blood and getting rid of the old guard. Now, it'll never be "perfect," and everyone's definitely of "perfect" is different so, y'know, there'll always be snubs. But by and large, and with the glaring exception of Community ("Modern Warfare," I contend, is truly the funniest episode of television that aired last season), I felt this was a standout year for Emmy nominations.

Highlights:
- Jane Lynch's win for Supporting Actress in a Comedy... do I even need to quality this?
- Eric Stonestreet's win for Supporting Actor in a Comedy... a surprise when the expectation was that three nominees from the same show meant they'd split the vote and all lose. Eric's affable Cameron is a delight. Fizbo rules!
- Jim Parsons's overdue win for Lead Actor in a Comedy... he so should've won last year
- Archie Panjabi's win for Supporting Actress in a Drama... she's really the reason I tune into the show, which too often veers toward dull as dishwater (Baranski can be a hoot and a half, but Panjabi is the true scene stealer). Truth be told, I'd have been happy with any of this season's nominees winning, but I like it when a fresh face gets recognized so quickly
- Aaron Paul's win for Supporting Actor in a Drama... the show is more than Bryan Cranston's Walter White and hopefully in two years - Breaking Bad won't be eligible for next year's Emmys - Anna Gunn will at least receive a nomination after this year's snub for her excellent and challenging work. But Aaron Paul is truly fantastic, the heart of the show
- Kyra Sedgwick's win for Lead Actress in a Drama... overdue, perhaps, but she submitted a great episode, and even though she's been nominated every year (Hugh Laurie, perhaps next year will be your year with Bryan Cranston out of contention) and it's nice to get a new winner after back-to-back Glenn Close wins, not to mention a welcome surprise when everyone expected one-note, wooden Julianna Margulies to win
- Modern Family's win for Best Comedy Series... indisputably the funniest and most consistent of the nominees

Lowlights:
- Mad Men's threepeat win for Best Drama Series. Season three was by far the most uneven and, yeah, I'll say it, worst season of the show. For it to win when shows like Dexter and Breaking Bad put forth their best seasons yet (IMHO) is just wrong.
- Edie Falco's win for Lead Actress in a Comedy. I just don't "get" Nurse Jackie, I suppose. Of course, she's a really good actress (the category, after all, isn't "Funniest Lead Actress," it's "Best Lead Actress") and two seasons of the show were eligible so I understand the win, but it's a shrug for me. An expected shrug.

Fall TV Viewing Schedule

All that said... here is my personal network TV fall viewing schedule, in case you are curious.

* denotes shows that I need a week or two to satisfy my curiosity / figure out if I'm going to put in the investment... including some returning shows that might get the boot
# denotes my "must watch night of airing" shows

MONDAY

8pm:
- How I Met Your Mother
- Chuck#

9pm:
- Lone Star#
- Gossip Girl
- The Event*#

10pm:
- Hawaii Five-0*

TUESDAY

8pm:
- Glee#
- No Ordinary Family

9pm:
- Life Unexpected
- Raising Hope*

9:30pm:
- Running Wilde*

10pm:
- The Good Wife

WEDNESDAY

8pm:
- America's Next Top Model* (necessary explanation: I haven't watched in several cycles, but the prospect of the winner being on the cover Italian Vogue should, hopefully mean the model contestants — and the competition — will all be of a higher quality... so, yeah, I'm curious)

9pm:
- Modern Family#

9:30pm:
- Cougar Town

THURSDAY

8pm:
- The Vampire Diaries#
- The Big Bang Theory
- Community (hulu)
- Bones (hulu)
- My Generation* (hulu)

8:30pm:
- 30 Rock#

9pm:
- Fringe#
- Nikita
- The Office (hulu)
- Grey's Anatomy* (we'll see if the show can recover from a bad season in the wake of its electrifying finale)

FRIDAY

9pm:
- Supernatural (would've been a # but Friday, so I've got the whole weekend)

SUNDAY

8pm:
- The Amazing Race#
- The Simpsons

9pm:
- Family Guy
- Desperate Housewives*

9:30pm:
- American Dad

10pm:
- Brothers & Sisters*

There are surely a number of cable conflicts (damn you, Project Runway, for having an entertaining season and potentially screwing up Thursdays at 9pm for me) and I'm sure that I'll have to chop off several shows as the season continues because, even now, I'm holding onto a few shows that I'm not really die-hard about any longer (cough, well-past-their-prime ABC soaps, cough).

Other News Shows I Will Be Watching

I think part of the reason I haven't been blogging much or posting reviews about upcoming shows — besides needing to put a lot more time into my writing and professional life — is because I just wasn't that impressed by what's out there. I'd rather have 100 new shows like The Event that at least get a rise out of me — even if it's an infuriated "I want to love you, why aren't you better!?" reaction — than the myriad of mediocrity the networks are putting forward this fall season.

Time is an incredibly limited resource, I'm starting to realize. Which means that I can't any longer justify forcing my DVR to record shows that are TV to fold laundry by. Which means I'm cutting down on the TV shows I'm already moderately invested in and new shows really have to give me a reason to tune in on a weekly basis. I realize that my TV viewing patterns are not like that of most of America. I either commit to a show fully and make it an appointment or I don't bother at all.

For instance, while I think Dana Delany nails the lead character in Body of Proof... the show is just another character-led procedural. And one with only one character who, in the pilot, rises about stock. I can't be bothered. Sorry!

Also, I've discovered that I hate writing middling reviews. It's just unpleasant. Again, I'd rather feel passionately disappointed enough in something to write a scathing review than to be able to sum my feelings up as "shrug!" Believe it or not, I'm rooting for every single thing I watch (or read) to be executed well. Even flawed premises can be made into interesting or at least palatable shows with the right approach, the right casting, etc.

So, here are the other new shows I'll be sampling this fall season, beyond Lone Star and The Event (which, per my previous post, has exactly one episode to tell me WTF the show actually is because the pilot didn't tell me what I'd be watching).

NO ORDINARY FAMILY

I'm a geek. I love superheroes. Are the powers the most original things this show has going for it? Certainly not. I wish the powers were more creative and fantastic and less on the nose in certain metaphors. But I like the blue sky feeling to it, a welcome change versus the incredibly dark Heroes. Some scenes play so light it borders on sitcom... but that's okay when I'm smiling along. Also? The casting. The casting is just awesome. I'm not sure how Michael Chiklis — doing a complete 180 from The Shield's Vic Mackey and relishing it — is still pulling off being married to a 30-something and having teenage kids, but he's doing it. Plus Julie Benz, Autumn Reeser, AND Romany Malco? Good stuff. There are, um, two kids that I don't really give a crap about yet. Maybe that'll change.

NIKITA

The pilot adds in a necessary opening shot and voiceover monologue from the titular Nikita, which was utterly necessary because otherwise we wouldn't have seen her until a few minutes in. And she carries the show that, though uneven, has its moments. There are moments of ridiculousness (if I'm remembering the hotel sequence correctly, there are several moments where I was like... um... what? Worst spies ever). It's definitely not a revolutionary spy show (and I still can't believe no one during the process didn't fix Nikita's boyfriend's name, Danny... who gets killed and that's why she wants to take SD-6 down... oh, wait, that was a different show...) but, in a sense, it is. Because all the spy shows on TV right now are light and fluffy (Chuck and Burn Notice certainly have dark moments, but they are both comedic... and Covert Affairs and Undercovers are decidedly lighter in tone). Nikita is dark and dangerous and no one really questions the morality of killing someone dead BECAUSE THEY ARE TRAINED SPIES AND ASSASSINS. Anyway. It feels different, which is odd, but that's just the state of TV right now. I still think Division's assassin school feels too frat/sorority house (OMG bitchy mean girl showing her claws in an attempt to keep the new girl off her man) and think it lives and breathes in a different show than Nikita herself does, regardless of the final twist at the end of the pilot that tries to bridge the gap... but the fact remains that during the pilot the two plot threads feel, at best, loosely connected. If they manage to blend in tone... okay, fine. If not, the disjointed feeling will continue and that will make me sad.

HAWAII FIVE-O

Okay, this is less because of what the show is (just another procedural, believe me, once they got to series there was no way to continue the level of action the pilot had) and more of how the show looks. I'm going to record week two, anyway. Because I'm insanely curious. In the pilot, every frame looks like a freaking postcard and I'm hoping it stays as... pretty. I have complaints about O'Laughlin's woodenness, but as a lot of the emotional / character stuff I liked in the script was excised in favor EXPLOSIONS WOOOO!!! he is basically playing Captain Cardboard and that's all the role demands. Scott Caan chews the scenery at times, but in a very welcome way at times. I didn't get a ton off of either Jin or Boomer (two more reasons to tune in, certainly), but they're swept up in the "putting the team together" plot and aren't featured as heavily as they're sure to be in future episodes. So, while I don't think this is appointment viewing for me, it will be the exception to prove my new rule about what I deign to watch. Because... shiny.

Mondays at 9pm, Lone Star vs The Event

Was happy to be reminded last Tuesday at the Paley Center how much I enjoyed FOX's Lone Star pilot going into Saturday's Comic-Con premiere of NBC's The Event pilot, two new dramas that are undoubtedly going to be hyped to high heaven by their respective networks and two dramas that, on concept alone, really pull at my internal TV viewer's dichotomy. One the one hand... a challenging character soap. On the other hand, a twisty, plot-driven conspiracy drama with genre underpinings.

WHY OH WHY WERE THESE SHOWS BEING SCHEDULED AGAINST ONE ANOTHER!?

That is what I screamed initially.

And then I saw both pilots. Okay, I read both pilots, too, so I knew what each was about beyond its logline, but it really is the viewing experience that solidified things in my mind.

Lone Star has me as a captive viewer. The Event still has to tell me what the hell it is (and I've seen the entire pilot!) before I make any decisions, but my gut reactions is "I do not trust this show."

Maybe I'm feeling burned from the Lost finale (not that The Event was ever anywhere close to Lost) that, despite what I've blogged here, has not improved with age. I stand by my opinion that the issues with the finale are due to problems in the entire final season and not the finale itself, but... it's all mixed together and fermented at bit.

Maybe I'm feeling burned by Heroes, which was also a far better pilot than The Event, and after burning out its plot through the first season and then refusing to introduce new interesting characters or make the old characters more interesting suffered abysmally.

The thing is... The Event does not have any interesting characters. None. I'm not saying that every character must break from archetypes or bend the rules in some special, unexpected way. I'm saying that The Event is populated by stock characters who we do not really get to know beyond their occupation or their love lives.

Someone will argue against me here and say "What about Laura Innes' character?" To which I will say "What do you really know about her?" That she was a captive at the secret Alaskan prison facility? Fine. That's what she is. WHO IS SHE? If anyone has seen the first section of the intoxicatingly fun 70-minute Phantom Menace review, you know what I'm saying.

Lost started off with pretty generic archetypes, didn't it? A heroic doctor, a drug addict musician, redneck ruffian, the non-English speaking Koreans, a father and son and their dog, an Iraqi war veteran, a pampered princess, etc. But guess what? At the end of that pilot, even in those incredibly odd circumstances, you knew how those characters reacted to things. How they might act in any given circumstance. Who they were... even if you didn't really know everything about them. Jack was always going to put the burden of leadership and saving others on himself. Kate was always going to be coy and adventure-prone, Charlie was always going to be scrappy, underestimated, and charming. And y'know the lesson from Lost? The show lost itself when it stopped being predominantly about character and started being predominantly about mythology. Everyone will pinpoint a different moment in time when that happened, but it did.

You don't know crap about anyone in The Event. And I find that to be a real issue considering that even at the end of the pilot, you still have no idea what "the event" is. Yeah, some weird shit happens. There's bound to curiosity about it. And I have little doubt that, despite the piddling lead-in that Chuck will be, The Event will premiere to very good ratings. And that'll probably continue for a few weeks. But it's unsustainable without character.

That's not the only problem I have with the series, but it's the major one. Beyond that, just looking at the pilot, we're given 4 point of view characters... all of whom are male. That's a problem. There's an overused flashback device that, one hopes, is in the pilot only and not in the rest of the series because, with 80% of the pilot a flashback to one time or another, the tension of the present is constantly cut when it needs to be sustained. Speaking of those flashbacks... they aren't cohesive enough. We get "11 days ago," "8 days ago," "7 days ago," "13 months ago." Sometimes not even bothering to check back in with the present as we slide to different points in time with nothing by a chyron to tell us when or where we are. It's disorienting and it's flawed because it means there isn't enough in the present to keep us interested.

Which is shocking because, on a pure plot level, the "present" is about a guy trying to hijack an airplane in Miami... because his soon-to-be-father-in-law is the pilot and is being coerced into crashing the plane into the President of the United States' Miami retreat, presumably to kill the President. And it all goes back to character. It may be cool in the moment, and it's certainly filmed and edited and scored well enough to put you on the edge of your seat (despite mostly the flacid flashbacks)... but it's flat. It's meaningless. It's manipulative in the worst sort of way because it doesn't give you anything but twists and turns that lead nowhere (at least in the pilot). I saw it described on Twitter as "all sizzle and no steak" and I think that's a completely apt analogy. But I suspect a lot of people, for a while, will be perfectly fine with sizzle. It should get a male-skewing audience, as these things are wont to do. I, myself, am committed to watch episode two to see if the show will be so bold as to, y'know, tell me what the hell the series is.

Lone Star is the complete opposite of The Event. In almost every conceivable way. First of all, it has a far bigger lead-in than The Event in House (though I suspect for the first week or two, the more superficially exciting and flashy show, The Event, will out-rate Lone Star). Lone Star's audience will likely be female-skewing. It's a soap opera, make no mistake. It's also rather slowly paced, though it certainly builds as the pilot goes on, trying to hook you far more on its emotion and its character than on its plotting.

And, on a character front, where The Event is all sizzle... Lone Star is steak. It is all about character or, more accurately, one character: Robert/Bob Allen, played by James Wolk.

Bob is an intriguing character, existing as the network version of someone who is not quite Don Draper (Mad Men), Walter White (Breaking Bad), or Bill Henrickson (Big Love) but has elements of all. He's a con man. He's married. And he has another life elsewhere in Texas where he has a girlfriend. And he claims to love both women and wants to go straight and have a real life (or, as it were, lives).

That's all you really need to know about him, isn't it? Knowing that he wants to go straight tells you what his actions will be, even if they are within the context of a con artist who is cheating on his wife (who started as one of his marks).

And the real kicker is that, by the end of the pilot, somehow, you fall in love with Bob as a viewer. It's very hard not to and the pilot is designed, music and all, to make sure that you so. You may think "there's no way I would!" I challenge you to watch the pilot. If, halfway through, at the end an interestingly edited hotel sequence where Bob is propositioned by a woman he met on a flight from one life to another, you aren't puddy in James Wolk's hands... well, by all means, this show is not for you. And I don't mean that in a bad way. This show is not for everyone. Again. Soap opera. Con artist. Extramarital affairs. I'm not going to berate you into loving the show or tell you that you're stupid if you don't (cough, Mad Men fanatics, cough). But it's definitely not like anything we've had the pleasure of seeing on network TV in some time.

Truly, that hotel sequence made my hair stand on end... both times I watched the pilot, even though at the Paley Center screening I knew it was coming and what was happening. That's that good writing, directing, acting, and editing. It's all you can ask for. Until you get to series and wonder if that kind of powerfully moving thing can be replicated on a weekly basis.

The truth is, there are flaws in Lone Star that, I hope, will be rectified in future episodes. As compelling a character as I found Bob, I need to know more about the women in his life, about Cat Thatcher (Adrienne Palicki) and Lindsay (Eloise Mumford). We don't spend a lot of time with them and I want to know what makes them tick beyond "Cat is the daughter of a wealthy oil magnate" and "Lindsay is a small town girl."

We get a bit more about the other characters surrounding Bob, mostly the characters in his life with Houston. Cat's father, Clint (Jon Voight), is a self-made man who puts family above all doesn't tolerate betrayal. It's implied he has his own brother (or perhaps brother-in-law?), "Uncle Roy," murdered. Cat's older brother, Tram (Mark Deklin), is an MBA, a consummate businessman, and sees Bob as a threat. Drew, Cat's younger brother, has a bit of a Don Quixote complex (at least that's how I read him) and is a ladies' man. I'd actually forgotten just how charming Bryce Johnson was in the role, and the Paley screening reminded me. In a show with a very serious, dramatic tone, Drew is a breath of fresh, comedic, enthusiastic air (his "Windfarm. Sweet." towards the end of the pilot is unfairly charming given that it's all of two words).

And then there's Bob's father, John, played by David Keith. A life-long con artist who brought his son along for the ride (and the getaway) all his life. It's the only life he knows, the only life he wants... and he wants his son with him. So when his son starts wavering and talking about "having something real," there are problems. Though I admit that I am a little sick of hearing the "It's a house of cards, son, you don't get to live in it" line in promos for the show that've aired during So You Think You Can Dance.

While, on a surface level, Lone Star is about a con man trying to go straight (even while cheating on his wife with another girl... so, yeah, there are still flaws and shades of gray in Bob), so it plays with redemption and aspirational themes... it's about family. Bob and his father, on the grift and on the run for 20+ years. Bob and the Thatchers. Bob and Lindsay and others in the town of Midland. Despite all the other trappings and their complexities, that's something easy to understand and easy to get into. And you know that everything that happens in the show is going to be generated by the characters. By what these people want, what their goals are. That's what we mean by "character-driven." There are those who have seen the pilot and been intrigued, then asked "okay, I like it, but how long can they keep it up?" Wouldn't it be fun to find out? Isn't that half the fun of watching shows like Breaking Bad, where we ask just how long the dance can keep going? Besides, even if Bob were to succeed in going straight and the "con artist" plot that runs through the pilot played out, he'd still have two love lives to balance. Anyway, I think it's a valid, but easily brushed aside, concern.

Is The Event about family, too? Yes. A lot of TV shows are about the odd families we make with those around us, be they Scooby gangs or CSI teams. But everything in The Event is driven by, well, "the event" that is mysterious and eludes us even in the pilot. It's all external. It's "plot-driven." Which isn't a bad thing, necessarily.

But it has an expiration date on being intriguing without character. Remember Flashforward. Big premiere. Quick decline.

My fingers are crossed for Lone Star's success, if for no other reason than it will encourage development of more daring (for broadcast networks) character pieces to go along with the eternal glut of crime procedurals.

TV Thoughts Omnibus Post

Attempting to grab this afternoon to update here on the ol' blog with some scattered TV thoughts. So many things to talk about, so little time (apparently / lately).

I've wanted to comment on Breaking Bad for a while. I caught up on the third season just before the finale and was able to watch the finale along with the rest of America (or, at least, the small subsection that watches this show). What an outstanding show this series has become. Initially, for me it was a dark, disturbing hour of TV that primarily showcased Bryan Cranston and Vince Gilligan. Last season, Aaron Paul really came into his own as Jesse, and this season it was Anna Gunn (annoyingly overlooked by the Emmys in a year where, shockingly, the usually same old same old awards show did a ton of thing "right"). There really aren't enough words to describe how subversive Breaking Bad has become. I don't know how many seasons it has left in its run, but the progression of the first three has catapulted it to the upper echelon of TV dramas. Ever. It plays so expertly on audience expectations and on TV conventions. I suppose if I were to try and get a simple handle on why I love it so, it would be this: the hero wears a black hat. It's a wonderfully modern show with a slew of visual references to classic Westerns. And Walter White, our (extremely anti-)hero, wears a black hat. I just think it's sort of genius. Now if they could only figure out what to do with Walter Jr...

Speaking of the Emmys... it's hard to truly be mad about the exclusion of Community when so much of the old guard, especially in the comedy categories, departed and made way for the buzzier shiny new toys that are Glee and Modern Family. Still, a nomination for the "Modern Warfare" paintball episode was deserved. Community is the lesser watched show of the three new comedies. It took longer to find its groove than Modern Family did (which seemed to have its groove from the start), and was never the pop culture sensation that Glee is (my opinion on Glee, of course, is that it never found its groove in the back 9 episodes... solid music numbers and performances, but incredibly uneven storytelling that I really hope can get smoothed out next season). There will always be Emmy snubs (um... no Michelle Forbes for True Blood?!) but, hey, Kyle and Connie got their nominations, Entourage washed out, and there was plenty of new blood in the various major categories so tons to be happy about. Now we can only pray that when the awards come around, 30 Rock's streak comes to an end thanks to the deserving freshmen and Mad Men does not win for its subpar (by its own high standards) third season. Per the above Breaking Bad comments... just comparing those third seasons, it's quite clear which is the better show.

Summer TV abounds this year. I find myself watching an uncomfortable amount of reality television, while the scripted TV I'm watching is essentially a game of "what's on USA or HBO tonight?" Also Futurama (the two-episode premiere felt off to me, but the iPhone/Twitter parody with Mom was a return to form... I still feel like the sex joke quotient has been needlessly raised for cable TV while the pacing isn't what it was... waiting for an episode where the gang goes on a delivery and shenanigans ensue).

After slumbering its way through the first few episodes, the Real Housewives of New Jersey finally kicked things up this week with, perhaps, the most ridiculously entertaining hour of stupidity ever televised. The sequence with Jacqueline in her car playing games on her iPhone while Danielle's energist (this is a job?) tries to work with J? Awesome. So self-aware.

I enjoyed Tuesday night's premiere of Covert Affairs, though I have to say the sister felt entirely superfluous. Much as I loved Anne Dudek as Cutthroat Bitch on House... the role could've been excised. I found Christopher Gorham's blind CIA analyst (who manages to be something of a womanizer and an excellent asset) an interesting twist on a role that could've played as "typical spy fare" as some of the other roles. For instance, Piper Perabo's Annie Walker (am I the only one who sees a lot of Jennifer Garner in Piper?) I'm just not sure what makes the character special. Yet. But it was a breezy enough hour(-plus) to sit through that I'll keep recording it.

Top Chef is slowly improving after a truly lackluster first couple episodes. I've been over Kenny from the start, though. Anyone who talks about being the "Alpha male" presence just needs to be ignored. Waiting for anyone besides Kenny and Angelo to really make an impact, consistently, in the kitchen. We were spoiled last season with the Voltagglio Bros, Jen, and Kevin!

I am on the fence about the new So You Think You Can Dance format this season. I was initially on board with the idea of the All Stars, but the first week of performances (also the show's first week airing live performance shows rather than pre-taped and edited) was wonky. Glad the All Stars now stand by their partners during critiques, and very pleased that the show decided midway through to start pairing the contestants with each other again. Some of the judges' choices on who to drop baffled me (particularly losing Cristina - not the best ballroom specialist the show has ever had, but one of the better ballroom dancers when in other genres of dance - in lieu of Melinda) and the season because very gender unbalanced, resulting in the "landmark" male partnering that is now both necessary and commonplace on the show. I'm still scratching my head over why the show chose to fix something that wasn't really broken (the sixth season suffered for being too close on the heels of the fifth... not because of the format), but, hey, the judges are self-aggrandizing enough about it for everyone. As it did everyone who follows SYTYCD, the Alex Wong injury hit hard. Both for him as a dancer - we here at TY pray he recovers speedily and fully, it's a horrid injury - and for the show. As Nigel implied last night when predicting Kent as the season's victor... "now that Alex is gone" will forever be an asterisk on this season. And what can be said about Kent Boyd? Quite a casting find.

I've tweeted thoughts on many of this season's pilots. I intend to eventually post reviews. Eventually. And maybe just of shows I feel strongly about one way or the other (initially just the positives I think). A few intriguing new series, but overall an underwhelming crop for the fall, I'm afraid. I will definitely be adding Lone Star, No Ordinary Family, My Generation, and Nikita to my viewing schedule. I've yet to see The Event, and I didn't love the script but it made me want to know what happens next (possibly because I have no idea what actually happened in the pilot, as there are mysteries presented but no indication of explanations...) but I can see adding that. Not a strong season for comedy, though the further I get away from my screening of Running Wilde, the fonder I am of it. I don't think it was particularly gut-busting, but there's just something about Will Arnett and Keri Russell... I was also planning on watching Love Bites, but it's no longer on the fall schedule. We'll see what happens with it, but my fingers are crossed!

More to come, I'm sure, as True Blood ramps up, Comic Con happens next weekend (per my tweets, not really feeling con this year), and more...

Pilot Script Review - FOX Pilots

You know the drill. Reviews in brief, and though I've seen screeners on two of them (Lonestar, Ride Along) thoughts on those will (hopefully) not bleed into these reviewlets.

FOX.

Unseen, Fox picked up the right shows. That's pretty much all there is to say. With the possible exception of Pleading Guilty (a script that really didn't seem to know what it was within the complex relationship-y, crime procedural, lawyer/cop/PI amalgam it had going on) not getting a pickup. But, hey, FOX has the good fortune of having success on its side and not having as many holes to fill this fall as it usually does (though, let's all be thankful there's no second go at a Fall season of SYTYCD... not that I dislike the show, but it was too much, it's a summer show, leave it for the summer).

POSITIVE

Lonestar - Though I still think it needs a new title as neither Lonestar nor Midland (its prior title) are as engaging and unique as the script itself. I actually read two versions of this script, a longer, earlier version, and a pre-production draft that had been culled down. Some wise cuts were made, some good additions made. Lonestar is about a man named Bob Allen. A charming man. A fast talker. Successful. A con artist. Son of a con artist. A con artist who married one of the marks in a long con to get access to a Texas oil company and wipe them out. A con artist who fell in love with that woman... and also fell in love with a mark in a small suburban section of Texas. The two women provide him with different things... and both of them are real. And real is something this son of a con artist has never known, and something he desperately wants. Goddammit this story is so engaging and, at times, challenging, that it's hard to believe it's on network TV. It reads more like an AMC show and I hope that continues into the series. But, hey, Fox said to the world last season with Glee "dare to be different" and Lonestar is definitely that. There are little moments in this script that say everything with a simple visual and it's just... it's nice to read in a network script because I don't feel like I'm being hit over the head with it. The key moment I'm thinking about comes late in the script when Bob, having been handed the keys to the oil kingdom, confronts his father and says that he wants out. He'll give his father (have I mentioned the father is a con artist yet?) money, lots of money, to let him just have this one real thing. Bob leaves after an argument and John reaches across the table at the diner and stabs into Bob's stack of pancakes. It says everything about what John plans to do (and without the anvil-y dialogue of an earlier draft where John tells his son that "when they offer you money, that's when you have them" and so, with Bob offering John money... well, we'll see how it all develops).

RIDE ALONG - Shawn Ryan doing what Shawn Ryan does: crafting an intense, complex police show. Ride Along, like Lonestar, really uses its setting as a character. In Ride Along, that setting is Chicago. The reason it's called "Ride Along?" Not because there's a reporter in the car. We're in the car. We're never in the precinct. Not your usual cop show. The case of the week in the pilot is pretty complex, to the point of perhaps being too complicated because with the amount going on in addition to the primary case... it's a lot to keep your mind on. But it all works (for me). The only thing that doesn't work for me are the damn voiceovers the begin each act (and conclude some of them) from various characters. Yes, it's used to dramatic effect when one is cut off (due to circumstances I won't spoil), but... well, if you've been following me on Twitter, you know that I've had more than my fill with voiceover (with some exceptions, yes). The only other drawback to Shawn Ryan doing what Shawn Ryan does is that you're so laser focused on the intensity of the plots and characters... there's not much time for other emotions.

NEUTRAL

Terra Nova - Read a draft from last summer. 100+ years in the future, we've frakked the planet up something fierce, overpopulated, overpopulated, overdeveloped, and we've apparently been able to invent time travel, but not interstellar travel, so the solution posed is to go back in time 154 million years and... well, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe that was the only distance they could go back? It's something that's going to need to be seen. As is, the human villain is way too mustache-twirling for me, but there's a lot that works. I like the main family (who are part of the 10th trip to the past, so it's not like they're the first people to cross over/back and having to figure everything out, build shelters, etc). There's a big world being set up... here's hoping for payoff.

Pleading Guilty - Again, this script was kind of an amalgam. Too many things at once. I read the Hart Hanson draft and it was too quirky by half. Felt more like a USA show with a bigger cast than USA shows usually have. It wasn't offensively bad, it just made me feel like Kara Dioguardi, constantly trying to figure out what box Siobhan was supposed to be in and failing. But it also wasn't so far removed from things I've seen/read before so it didn't have that new car smell.

NEGATIVE

Breakout Kings - Not my cup of tea. I don't need my characters to all be likable. But I have to give a shit about them and enjoy their company enough to invite them into my home each week. And, really, the USMS can't find any profilers who aren't racist, lecherous, thieving convicts (and offering to lower the number of years they have left in prison for every mark they bring in)? I know for a fact that they can. And even if they couldn't... the special skills of the people brought together amounted to little more than making my stomach turn. The plot itself played out twistingly enough... but at the same time felt, well, played out by pilot's end. No need for a return visit.

Worthy - Oh, boy. Bad time to be writing about Arizona politics. Even if there weren't the big illegal immigration fracas going on... this was just a shitty, shitty read. Like, start to finish. Thankfully, with it not getting picked up, we've all been spared innumerable puns on the title. Worthy, BTW, was the surname of the lead character, a Representative running for governor against the incumbent after the incumbent was caught in a Larry Craig airport restroom sting. Also, there's a Mexican mob boss who I kept picturing as Paula Deen with an axe to grind for some reason (hey, *I* didn't write the description or the dialogue). I just take issue with scripts that attempt politics and then fail to really do anything with it other than have caricatures parade around limousines and press conferences and back room deals while being bafflingly terrible at their jobs.

Summertime

... and the livin' is easy...

With last night's Idol finale (and whatever other programming was on), the regular 2009-'10 season is a thing of the past.

I have little to no interest in the ratings of summer repeats and the schedule is full of them. I will continue to post final ratings for broadcast series in originals (i.e. So You Think You Can Dance), and for cable, but will not be posting final ratings for reruns.

In the meantime, continue to check here for pilot script reviewlets (I only have CBS's busted pilots to get through), for full pilot screener reviews throughout the summer, and for other TV thoughts (planning a little season in review post, mostly focused on the new series and the canceled/ended series). I also have some thoughts on Idol (I truly believe the reports of its demise to be unfounded, but I'm open to being proved wrong) to get to.

Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen: The Lost Finale

Yeah, yeah, I'm not the first - or last - person to reference the M*A*S*H finale title with regards to the Lost finale. Funny how much it fits though, now having seen the finale. There are more thoughts than I can adequately express in a single post without rambling on, but first...

Lost, it turns out, was a great television show. It wasn't perfect. Far from it. But it was something magical. And we're not likely to see anything remotely like it, that's allowed to come to completion (if not with full explanation) on its own terms ever, ever again in a visual medium. And, unlike certain other finales for science-fiction character dramas that ended with a rumination on faith... this finale, for all the series' failings, was eminently satisfying and one that, in time, will be more and more cherished, and the flaws that were more inherent to the rest of the series than to the finale itself will matter less. My opinion has already improved drastically overnight.

So, WTF am I talking about re flaws? I still have a lot of issues with the "sideways" universe. I think that we spent too much time there in season six for what it wound up being - a love letter, way to remind us of (many of, not all of) the characters we loved throughout the series, and to give each and every one of them a happy ending in one way or anything. We could have spent time on the Island getting more "satisfying" or detailed answers to things that, it seemed at the time, mattered. Or at the very least dealing with that infuriating Temple plotline in a different way.

Granted, it would've been way too quick/sloppy/convenient for the "sideways" universe to be tied into the Island universe in just the finale, but didn't it seem throughout the season that's what was supposed to happen? Expect the unexpected... as it was the Island lives and memories - and deaths - that tied back into the "sideways" universe. Until the very end with Christian Shephard's explanation, I had thought, maybe, the "sideways" universe was based on Hurley's new "rules" as Island protector, but all the mythology stuff kind of fell by the wayside (something I really don't know if I want to tackle here).

But this was a show, ultimately, about faith. Not about an H-bomb creating a parallel timeline with odd little differences that made all the difference. Funny how the premiere and finale of the season season kind of say it all about Lost, as a whole: "Man of Science, Man of Faith" and "Live Together, Die Alone." The show asked us to believe and, even if the characters did die alone as some/many certainly did, they lived together... and they found a way to continue to exist together.

Yeah, it's a little saccharine/schmaltz, but you'll forget that in a year and you'll just be happy for the characters.

You'll wonder about the lives of Lapidus, Miles, Richard (who was not in the church or any sideways flash, so is he still immortal?), Kate, Sawyer, and Claire off the Island. You'll think about Desmond returning home to Penny. You'll think of all the years Hurley and Ben, a most unwitting duo, will spend as Island protectors. That's plenty to hold onto in the "real" world of the Island universe.

So, more about the finale. I was kind of shocked at how funny it was. Hurley, of course, got some jokes in. The laughability of the name "Christian Shephard" was, at long last, mentioned. Sun and Jin had a great laugh at an unawakened Juliet's... not expense, but at her something. Also Ben getting hit in the face one last time was brilliant (especially after the montage in the recap... ROFLMAO).

And, good lord, but there was emotion, even putting aside the "sideways" universe machinations.

And the final final moments, Jack in the bamboo forest closing his eyes after seeing the plane fly away overhead... poetry. Symmetry. Perhaps on the nose / the obvious choice, but whatever.

Okay. I can't resist. I can't talk about the finale without talking about the failing of the mythology. Which, in ways, wasn't a failing intrinsically, but in how it was built up for our characters and in our minds as viewers. All of which, in a cruel way, is appropriate in a show about the human condition, fate and coincidence, faith and believe and free will and... anyway. Themes. We all know Lost had them.

Jacob was kind of a douche, wasn't he? And, yes, it was Mother's fault. And, no, the discovery of all / any of this doesn't improve "Across the Sea" for me (I have not come around on that episode, don't think I ever will... it introduces the magic glowy cave, which was necessary for The End to happen, but... ugh, bile). The reason no one could leave the Island? Jacob said so, and it's because, though immortal-ish (somehow, even though we didn't really get a full sense of why unless that, too, was one of his "rules") he was human. And he was brought up to hate and fear humanity. He was flawed, while we, for seasons, were led to believe he was something more than human. He wasn't.

So, with Jacob dead, this whole season... his rules were still in place until the next protector was chosen (unless all his candidates died). So Smokey still couldn't leave. Then Jack became the Protector at the end of "What They Died For." But things don't really seem to change. Smokey is still invulnerable to bullets (even if he doesn't become Smokey in this episode) until Desmond turns the light out in the glowy cave / catacomb / drain / whatever (seriously, could've used some more detail / build up on that, since there's clearly much more info to get, what with the construction inside and the skeletons and the... UGH, DAMN YOU LOST). I thought we might get to see Jack's "rules" for the Island and what difference they made, but that doesn't play a part.

I still don't understand why Smokey was "locked" in Locke's body this whole season. We were told that. But there is no explanation. And then, once the light goes out, he doesn't transform into the monster. And he's vulnerable to, y'know, everything. From punches to bullets to cliff-falls. Don't fully understand that. But, like many things in Lost dealing with mythology... that's the way it is. It's confusing. It's not explained. But if we see it... we are asked to believe it. It is always better to show rather than tell. And by showing that Smokey was vulnerable after the lights go out... we understand it. We don't NEED to be told it. Which is what pisses me off about him being trapped in Locke's body. We were TOLD that and it was just confusing.

But it also wasn't part of the finale.

Neither, really, were Lost's most infuriatingly open-ended questions... which in my mind revolve entirely around the Dharma Initiative and the Others. Around season two and season three, before the endgame was really in place, when the writers came up with cool shit without any knowledge of when they'd have to explain themselves. Sure there's mythology stuff from later seasons that went unresolved, too. And that's annoying. But it's not a problem in and of the finale itself. So while I have residual feelings about the series' mysteries... I don't fault the finale for it.

Because y'know what got resolved in the finale?

The character stuff. It did. It really did.

And Lost was a show about people trapped on a really fucking weird island. It was a show about people. And it ended as a show about people.

I went into the finale dreading it. For all those things it didn't answer... I woke today and didn't care as much as I had when I went to sleep. And I'm not saying that's how you have to feel or how you are supposed to feel. But it's how I feel. It was time to let Lost go.

Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen.

Posting to Resume Soon

I've finished the FOX drama scripts, so will be posting a review laundry list of those. Not, in fact, sure that I'll be doing full reviews for anything at this point, since screeners are coming in and I'd prefer to do full reviews of those. Speaking of, I received a bunch of ABC screeners (some picked up comedies, some picked up dramas, some busted dramas) and will be posting reviews for those soon... in the meantime, check out my Twitter feed for brief thoughts.

I'll also be posting some thoughts on the announced line-ups for fall at some point, though may wait until TCAs (when schedules change) and to have seen more screeners to really weigh in with my two cents.

Pilot Script Review - ABC Pilots

As I tweeted, I've been trying to speed through the reading of the remaining pilot scripts and, while fuller reviews are coming, I'm going to try and go, net by net (as I finish each net's scripts - thankfully I've already done CW!), and say what I liked, what I'm neutral about for any number of reasons, and what I didn't like. I'll give some brief explanation, but, again, a fuller review is forthcoming (likely over the summer when I'm not so pressed for time). I've tried as hard as I can to not let any casting knowledge bleed into my head while reading or forming an opinion, though in ABC's case there was definitely one piece of casting I was unable to block out (and it definitely helped my read because I could hear the actress's voice loud and clear in the dialogue). Groups will be listed in alphabetical order, not by preference.

Also. With one exception (Boston's Finest) the scripts I read were earlier drafts (I read the final shooting draft of Boston's Finest). Things are subject to change even before filming began so nothing said here in my script reviewlets necessarily means anything when it comes to what gets picked up to series. Because, y'know, what really matters is what shows up and what plays on screen.

One overall positive thing: ABC is returning to a 5 act structure after years in the land of 6 act. As a writer, it makes me thrilled because it means one less major twist / act break to deal with and more time to play out character moments instead of burning through story and a breakneck speed to get to the next climactic act break. For the viewer... one less commercial pod (though the commercial pods will likely be longer now). I say it's a win.


POSITIVE
- Body of Proof (fka Body of Evidence) - Here's the one I couldn't block out the casting. I heard Dana Delany in my head as Dr. Megan Hunt. And, in my head, SHE NAILED IT. Body of Proof exists somewhere between House, as Delany's character is brilliant and quite the ball buster (and there's a spit-take inducing joke about ball cutters in the script that I pray plays), and Bones, as Delany's character works with dead bodies to identify the how/why of murder victims.
- Cutthroat - Great pilot script. The lead character, Nina, goes through quite an awakening. But it's a pilot that does A LOT. And you know how wary I get about those kinds of pilots when it comes to a series. I suspect this will be a really good pilot that won't make it to series in lieu of something crappier and more mundane and will leave all who see the screener scratching their heads.
- No Ordinary Family - I heart superheroes. I heart genre material. And while this pilot is going to be heavily rewritten from the version I read (which was Greg Berlanti & Jon Feldman) as Marc Guggenheim took over for Feldman and, certainly, did a ton of rewriting when ABC had Feldman focus on True Blue... I enjoyed it. It's a light, 8pm, family show. Is it The Incredibles but live action? Not even close (I REALLY heart The Incredibles). But it's definitely a show that I would tune into every week, regardless of the sillier / campier moments. The pervasive voiceover throughout from both Jim and Stephanie (the recently empowered married couple) has GOT to be cut down, though.

NEUTRAL
- 187 Detroit - It's a good cop show set in a town I think hasn't seen a cop show in recent TV memory. But the faux documentary thing? So played. Such a gimmick and nothing really interesting is done with it except having a character get pissed at the existence of the documentary camera crew. But... good, gritty cop show. A bit like Southland.
- Edgar Floats - This is the kind of show ABC loves to pick up and critics heap praise on and then audiences ignore. So I'm steeling myself with a neutral opinion of the script because... it fits into the Eli Stone / Pushing Daisies-ish template with its incredibly quirky and silly tone. Honestly, I was surprised that Bryan Fuller hadn't written it. We'll see how it comes out on screen. Could be awesome. Could be a disaster. And even if it's awesome, again, history shows that it's the kind of thing audiences won't stomach for long.
- Generation Y - Another faux documentary, this time along the lines of "Seven Up" following a set of high schoolers in 2000 and then again, seeing what's changed, in 2010. At least it's doing something different with the faux documentary thing (though I'm not sure how I feel about the voice of the filmmaker pushing characters along). This is a multi-character serial show and, as such, I am more lenient on it than on a pure procedural simply because it takes time to build this number of characters into unique individuals and fully flesh people out. Often it takes a number of episodes (both Brothers & Sisters and Parenthood took a few to really sort their characters out). Already I'm worried about a Parenthood-ish plot (woman a guy slept with 10 years ago wants to introduce him to his son that he never knew she gave birth to). But I'm already really on board with the Kenneth character, one of the most instantly pitiable and likable characters I've read this season.
- Matadors - Easily ABC's better legal show, from a script POV. Romeo & Juliet in the world of two big Chicago lawyer families (one the State's Attorney, the other a high profile defense attorney). Which could play REALLY arch and campy on screen. Just saying. Also the title, while explained in the pilot, doesn't reach out and grab you and say "lawyer show," does it?
- True Blue - Very dark and dreary in tone, but it fully delivers on what it promises: a primetime soap opera set around a group of friends in the San Francisco PD (and one who used to be and then became the DA). And, oh my, is there a ton of soap going on. The police / procedural side isn't horrible, but the pilot is saddled with solving the murder of one of the members of this group of friends (and thus bringing them all back together after years of drifting... yeah, can you see how it might get dreary?)

NEGATIVE
- Boston's Finest - At times misogynistic (how many times does the mysterious man really have to save our imperiled female detective in one pilot), but most of the time awash in a sea of cliché. Pass.
- Off the Map - A medical show from Shonda Rhimes' production company. How shocking. I *loved* the pilot for Inside the Box last year, so it's not like without Shonda actually doing the writing, I'd write it off, but this... oh, wow, it's kind of a mess. It's too similar to early Grey's Anatomy in the archetypal set-ups of the main characters with the selling point / hook / key difference being the location of the doctors and hospital - miles from civilization in a South American jungle. It's just not enough to grab me, as the characters never really got beyond shades of early Meredith (and at times Lexie) Grey, Cristina Yang, Alex Karev, and Derek Shepherd. Also, if I ever read the verb "medicals" (as in "he medicals the patient") or the gerund "medicalling" again it'll be too soon.
- The Whole Truth - The weaker (by far) of ABC's lawyer shows. Teaser: the crime has happened! And our defense attorney is one the case! But so is the DA! Which side will win? Act one follows the DA. Act two the defense team (skipping back a little in time and playing it all out, rather than running both POVs concurrently). Then everything else plays out. I couldn't tell you if there was a single character in this pilot, because none made any impression on me. If I cared for only one of the leads (either the defense or the DA), that would be a problem because I'd be actively rooting for them. But I didn't care for either. They had no personal investment and there were no stakes... except the curiosity of whether the person accused of a murder was guilty. I'd prefer to care for both sides (the attorneys, as well as accused and victim), but I cared for no one and nothing. And for a show called "The Whole Truth," it certainly didn't get at even a half truth. The case may be over, but for whatever reason, neither side of the aisle actually figured out what happened, as we are shown the true culprit in the final moments.

Weekend!

I'm going to be away from the computer this weekend, but I'm bringing some scripts with me to try and cut down on the pile!

A little tease (um, because I'm not done with the script yet... about 15 pages to go) on HAWAII 5-0, which if you believe Nikki Finke's PRIMETIME PILOT PANIC word-of-mouth polling from about 7 people across the various networks, studios, agencies, etc all trying to push their clients' and favorite projects' buzz, has come in fantastic.

The script is AMAZING.

The original series is WAY before my time and I've never seen an episode of it. I don't know (and, frankly, don't care) how close it is to the original. I mean, it is a remake.

Doesn't change the fact that GOD DAMN this script knows drama and conflict and theme and...

Anyway, I'm excited. By a CBS procedural script.

Of course, we all know that my ability to judge these is poor at best since they aren't traditionally my cup of tea. What with my really liking the Washington Field script last season and it turning into the campiest piece of camp that ever camped when the screener came out. But Hawaii 5-0 has something on WF in that it spends the first 9 pages making us really, really, really give a flying f*** about the lead character. While also blowing up tanks and helicopters in South Korea and giving us a universal theme to sink our teeth into.

Anyway... there's your tease. Seeya in another life, bruthas.

Pilot Script Review - Betwixt

BETWIXT
Network: CW
Written By: Elizabeth Chandler
Draft Date: N/A
Pages: 61

If you know anything about me, you know that my interest is always piqued when there's something supernatural afoot in a TV show. Just so we're clear.

There are some interesting character turns and cliffhangers presented at the end of the draft of the pilot I read, as well as love triangle set up. So I see the series... and I'm incredibly interested in seeing what happens next on Betwixt, though I'm not sure how long that interest will remain. The pilot is one of those things that seems to do too much and give too much away and progress the plot too quickly. That kind of thing can be AWESOME for a pilot and can lead to a really lame series that spins its wheels too much, can lead to an AWESOME first season and then the story feels played and burnt out... or the writers can rise above and keep the series going strong. Or the pilot can come in incredibly confusing / long / in need of cuts and fixes.

But, also to be clear, I far prefer an overly ambitious pilot script to something with no aspirations.

It seems that Betwixt has been designed to lead out of The Vampire Diaries (a series that, if you'll recall, I was incredibly harsh on in its pilot stages - both script and screener - but have absolutely fallen in love with as the show took off after a bumpy first couple of episodes). You've got the mystical element. You've got a sense of history / show mythology that promises to go much deeper. You've got high school characters and love triangles a plenty to see what actually works between the cast. You've got some dark flair (actually, Betwixt is a lot darker on its surface than Vampire Diaries, with a lead character making some pretty dark choices by episode's end).

Sorry, let me highlight something. Betwixt is about fairies, though the term is introduced and quickly swapped for "changeling" (which are fairies / fey who replaced human children at a young age). I fear this will present a giant marketing challenge to the CW. It's just not as simple to sell as a show about vampires (to paraphrase Buffy, "Vampires are real, a lot of them live in Mystic Falls").

Anyway. Marketing hurdles aside... there's a show here. The script started a bit rough for me (and, again, it's likely an earlier draft than the shooting version, so plenty of opportunity for improvement / smoothing out here as well as for other projects). After a dark, tension-building tease, we flit between what will become our three lead characters - Nix (who is a guy, BTW), Celine, and Morgan (le Fay, get it! Hah!) It's very staccato and we aren't really attached to any single one of them yet. But we should be intrigued because they have powers. Powers that confuse and scare them. This is important to know because the next 10 pages until a bus crash, action-y Act One climax are pure teen soap (an element that gets a little lost in the back half of the script as the action ramps up) with these three and various people in their lives. There are also two adult-ish (because they aren't teens but they aren't parents, so, adult-ish) characters in "Moth" and "Bleek." Guess which one is evil. Seriously. Guess.

I mean, it's good, evocative naming, but that the plot asks us to be mislead... didn't quite work for me. Just because of a name.

The pilot deals with the fallout from the bus crash, but not in a Veronica Mars season mystery sense. These kids need answers. And they're going to get them. As are we. Lots of answers and mythology and backstory. Again... I felt the script, at times, leaned too heavily on explaining things outright here and now. It gets a little bogged down in the exposition and giving names and classifications to various elements of the mythology (dust! cutters! fairies! powers! guides! fairies' weaknesses!) It's a lot to take in on the page, though we'll see how it plays coming out of an actor's mouth. I suspect that quite a bit of it will have to be cut down either in revisions or in the editing bay.

There are some specific things in the script I wish weren't there. For instance, I'm REALLY tired or hearing or reading the line "if I/they wanted you dead, you'd already be dead." It was on Tuesday night's episode of V and I rolled my eyes at the "wow, that's an overused line" and then it showed up in this script, so... yeah. Please change it! Also, we really need to find new ways to describe people "going over to the dark side" because "going over to the dark side" is also overused.

I'm also not 100% certain what the intended tone of the show is. The characters don't have enough fun so I wonder just how campy it's all going to come across.

But I will be curious to see how it comes out.

Pilot Script Review - Hellcats

HELLCATS (fka CHEER)
Network: CW
Written By: Kevin Murphy
Draft Date: January 12, 2010
Pages: 58

I'm not going to spend much time on this review, as there's really very little to review. Remember when all those Grey's Anatomy "in the world of ____" scripts were coming out a few years ago? Well, this is the first of the Glee rehashes. The title Cheer made a lot of sense, as it's ostensibly Glee in the world of collegiate cheerleading. And you can also see why it had to be changed. Too close for comfort.

The actual content of Hellcats is close enough on the surface to Glee, with several helpings of Bring It On (a film that is name checked when Marty, the ex-gymnast brainy girl who needs help renewing her scholarship or she'll get kicked out of college and thus is trying out for cheerleading despite making a habit of mocking the cheerleaders with her townie friend during their practices, rents the movie prior to her tryout... and, SHOCK!, is brought on the team because her infusion of cheerleading and dance moves makes the cheer coach excited). Honestly, why not just do a TV branded version of Bring It On? Yes, yes, I know, they come out with direct-to-DVD sequels every year or so.

Back to the Glee comparisons. Let's checklist this stuff, shall we? There are some direct parallels.
- team: McKinley High Glee Club / Lancer cheer squad
- a visit to see the big future competition: Vocal Adrenaline / Southern Christian cheer squad
- former champion in club when it was a strong program and is now back as coach: Will Schuester / Vanessa somethingorother
- other coach in school conniving to get funds sent back their way: Sue Sylvester / Red somethingorother (and, no, Red doesn't come close in the script to standing out the way Sue does... despite elements of carbon copying, Hellcats doesn't have the tone and zingers of Glee... and certainly not the musical performances)
- member of team working to various degrees with other coach to hurt the performance of the team: Quinn, Santana, and Brittany / Alice (who is injured and Marty replaces her)
- authority figure who tells coach that if they don't win at ____ level of competition, the club is over: Principal Figgins / Bill somethingorother, the head of athletics
- lovable outcasts: Rachel, Artie, Kurt, Mercedes, Tina / Marty (kinda?)
- budding romance between lead female and lead male jock type: Rachel & Finn / Marty & Luis
- shower scene with lead male jock type: yes (for Will to discover Finn's voice) / yes (for Luis to surreptitiously give Marty his towel when her clothing has been stolen from the locker room)

Um... yeah... so... who's suing who? Well, I guess Kevin Murphy got away with it when he crappily ripped off Cupid and made it into Valentine... though this is far closer to Glee than Valentine was to Cupid.

There are some things that are different. As above... no musical performances in Hellcats. Though there are cheer sequences (so, basically, we get dance montages instead). There are no Sue Sylvester zingers, but, well, Jane Lynch is incomparable so there was never going to be anything close.

Oh! And let's not forget the speed with with the Hellcats have to prove themselves. While Glee took 14 episodes (if you include the pilot) to get us through the first round of competition (but only the qualifying round that makes sure that sometime in the future they will have to face their true competition), Hellcats accomplishes that by the end of the pilot because the qualifying round is just one week away from the start of the action. And, oh boy, does it feel rushed. So much so that there is absolutely no room for aftermath... the final page of the script has a disembodied announcer telling us that Lancer has received a great score from the judges and qualified to fight another day mere seconds after the Hellcats complete their routine.

Pass. For the love of god, CW, pass on this project.

Pilot Script Review - Nikita

In an effort to decrease the length (and thus, hopefully, increase the frequency) of these script reviews, I'm not going to be writing the reviews as I go along and then editing after I'm done.

NIKITA
Network: CW
Written By: Craig Silverstein
Draft Date: January 8, 2010
Pages: 61

First, let me say that while I may have seen bits of the original La Femme Nikita series, I've never seen a full episode. I also haven't seen the movie. In an effort to see where this reboot differentiates from those two incarnations, I used Wikipedia (oh, substitute for actual research, I love you).

I liked Nikita, but I didn't love it the way I loved Nomads. Nikita is simply more standard spyfare, and more standard CW-fare. Meaning I'm much more certain of its pickup than I am of un-CW Nomads.

Nikita is sexy. It's actiony. It's got a TON of characters to the point that the pilot feels sprawling (but not in a bad way). It's got pathos.

But I didn't love it. Why? Well, just because something has the above doesn't mean I have to like it let alone love it... but the reason reason?

I loved Alias. And Nikita feels like Alias-light.

The key difference between CW's Nikita and the ones that came before? The Nikita in the CW version has gone rogue. She is out to take down Division (oh, ominous and nondescriptive names for government agencies... I missed you). You see... Division is now corrupt because it takes it orders from corrupt / unscrupulous bankers. Gotta have financiers to run the place... I do love how bankers are the villain du jour.

Unlike Sydney Bristow, she's not taking Division down from within with the help of the CIA (as far as we know, anyway) giving us one and a half seasons of double agent tension. Nikita's basically doing it herself. And not from within... since they know she's rogue.

LIKE Sydney Bristow, Nikita has gone rogue because Division killed her boyfriend Daniel when she got too close / told him about what she does (okay, it's been a couple days since I read the script, I know we don't see her tell him, but I think it's implied elsewhere that's why he had to die). I mean... come on. Many names in the English language. Doesn't even need to be an English name. WHY CHOOSE DANIEL? For those who don't recall, Sydney's fiance was named Daniel and SD-6 killed him when it got wind that Sydney had told him what she really did.

So... Alias-light. My opinion? Alias is one of the most perfectly crafted pilots ever. You can't touch it. Ever. And Nikita doesn't come close (even though, again, it's not bad... I did like it).

We're also introduced to a new recruit in Division whose story plays more like the "traditional" Nikita backstory of a girl involved in a bank robbery, but that plot seemed tangential for much of the pilot (though I am interested to see where it's going given the twist that I won't reveal).

My hope is that CW doesn't see Nikita and Nomads and say "well, we can only have one spy show." Though it's in the realm of probability.

Pilot Script Review - Untitled Wyoming Project

UNTITLED WYOMING PROJECT
Network: CW
Written By: Daniel Palladino & Amy Sherman-Palladino
Draft Date: January 12, 2010
Pages: 67

Blissfully, this 67 page script, like so many Gilmore Girls scripts before it, did not read like a 67 pages script.

UWP is about a family and about a town. You'd think Amy Sherman Palladino would be the person to write a show like that. I liked about half of the seasons of Gilmore Girls, so it's not that I don't like her distinct style Amy Sherman-Palladino. And I can definitely see, sometime in the future, caring about these characters as time passes.

But in the pilot? It's really hard. Mostly because of one character / sideplot in particular, but the "isn't this town populated by quirky characters?" thing just bothered me. Been there, seen that.

Things start off poorly when the first 3 pages of the script are flashes between the present and various times in the past of some man whose face we don't see until page 4 (even though we're following him for 3 pages). It's exposition, it's not done in a fantastic or even acceptable way... if I were the executive on the show, I'd say cut it and start at page 4 (and then the script would be a totally manageable network draft of 64 pages!)

The show is about the Thorpe family and their ranch in a town in Wyoming. Gideon, the man in the expository flashbacks, is a ranch hand and something of a horse whisperer, thanks to his deceased father. Oh, Gideon is only 22, but he's the oldest in his family of 5 siblings. Empthy! I should be feeling it! And I do. I also feel empathy for Dinah, the 16 year old and oldest sister, who spends a lot more time being a parent (even during school hours) than being a teenager. That's a story I'm interested in. The other 2 siblings, Maggie and Bird (both female, FYI), who live in the town (no, I don't recall what the town's name is... I'm not sure if it was mentioned) are young and plot devices. The final sibling and Gideon's only brother, Dakin, returns to town by the end of the script from Stanford University and OMG CONFLICT finally occurs. Seriously. Finally. It takes until page 50+ for there to really be conflict in this script.

And that's a problem. There's plenty of opportunity for conflict. For instance, Gideon is sleeping with the wife of a rich man, who Gideon knows. That's an acceptable, soap-y seed laid for later in series should it come to that.

But that man also wants to buy some of the Thorpe's land. And the sale of the ranch becomes a point of contention in the pilot. So here's a question... when Gideon goes to the family accountant, why does said accountant tell him that there's cash flow now and for the foreseeable future, and he'll warn Gideon if it gets to the point that they're in dire straits?

MISH-MASH. WISHY-WASHY!

Anyway. So, with the exception of Dakin coming way too late for my tastes and once he does being confused about what happened because so much internal family conflict happened so fast... I like the Thorpe family. I'd watch a show about them and their struggles. I'm not saying it's the most original thing ever, but there's definitely SOMETHING there.

And then there's 21 year old Lucy. Lucy December. She comes to town on page 20. And has over a page of crazy-person-talking-to-herself monologue.

She is, instantly, the the most intolerable person on the planet and I don't wish to spend a single minute with her, let alone allow her to suck away screentime from the Thorpe family. But we're subjected to her, and all of her self-aware Little House on the Prairie references, for a good deal of the script. She hates New York City, where she was born and has lived all her life, and has come out to help her grandmother, who just had a stroke. Only it turns out her grandmother is fully functional, and had not returned any of Lucy's phone calls about coming out to Wyoming because she wanted nothing to do with Lucy or the rest of the family. We're supposed to care about Lucy because two townies who own a clothing store take advantage of her (and we do smile when Gideon, crossing paths for the first time with Lucy, simply tells the women to give Lucy her money back). Sadly, their paths cross again and again until Lucy is attending the family dinner when Dakin comes home (even if there were some confusing time jumps and day count references that hopefully get resolved in script revisions).

I would be happier if their paths crossed with Lucy underhoof of Gideon's white horse.

Maybe an actress will be able to pull it off... I don't know. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.