The Fall of Broadcast Television 2011: The Belated and Retooled Conclusion a.k.a. The Fallies

TWO DAYS LATER...

Hello and welcome my friends, to the last-minute, nonexistent awards show blog entry that I've decided shall take the place of a staid, uninteresting all-network, analytical look at this fall's primetime network television schedule!

YES! It's the first annual "Entertainment on Jeff's Terms" FALLY AWARDS!

Today, I will be recognizing the most intriguing (and in one special case; most horrifying) new series set to hit your screens this September-ish!

The following "awards" will be presented first by network, in order of the network's overall standing on television; followed by a special award for utter lack of excellence in television achievement; and then "THE BIG TWO" (nobody calls them that...yet), OVERALL MOST PROMISING NEW SERIES - COMEDY and OVERALL MOST PROMISING NEW SERIES - DRAMA!

...and now here to present the first--erm--well, ALL of the awards today, ladies and gentlemen...IT'S ME, JEFF HEATHERLY!

[APPLAUSE]

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MOST PROMISING NEW SERIES - THE CW: RINGER

Now, let's just be brutally honest right from the off. As you may have seen, The CW's new offerings are short in supply and tentatively possibly good at best. Having given myself the past two days to really let everything I've seen simmer in my head, I'm starting to see more potential in Ringer than at first glance. In my CW-specific entry, I compared it to The Fugitive and the more I thought about that, the more excited I got. There aren't many (if any) shows like that around anymore; what with the lone protagonist, mournfully shambling across the country, running from some pursuing force, setting things right that once went wrong and hoping each time that their next leap will be the leap home. ...Wait, what was I talking about?--Right. Ringer. Point is, if it lives up to that tradition, I could see myself enjoying many-a-Tuesday night with our former Slayer.

AIRING TUESDAYS AT 9/8c ON THE CW THIS FALL!

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MOST PROMISING NEW SERIES - NBC: (tie) THE PLAYBOY CLUB and FREE AGENTS

Before I begin, let me sincerely apologize for the music. Clearly, between last week and now, NBC has lost the online rights to pretty much every licensed song in these trailers--save for "Car Wash"--and I truly hope it didn't affect your enjoyment. (Honestly, it almost did for me...especially those godawful Sinatra and Tina Turner sound-alikes in the Playboy Club trailer.) With that out of the way, let me also qualify these selections as actually being the SECOND most promising shows on NBC this season (as you'll see coming up later)...but this is no slight to them. Since doing my network-by-network entries, I've been giving both these shows a lot more thought.

I've had a pretty strong inner debate in the battle of Playboy vs. ABC's Pan Am, and the fact is Hef keeps winning. A much more engaging cast, a greater sense of whimsy, thoroughly more eye-popping visuals (STILETTO HEEL IN THE EYE!)...it just looks a hell of a lot more fun. Like I said in my ABC entry, from a purely...Emmy-grabbing perspective, Pan Am's probably got the bunnies beat...but I'm in the mood to have a good time this season, and I think this one will provide.

Speaking of which, Free Agents. This go-round with the trailer, my mind wandered to another great NBC sitcom that flourished--for the most part--outside of the Thursday night line-up: NewsRadio. The two shows have taken a very similar--and very welcome--tack by having our romantic leads get the first secret sexual tryst out of the way right out of the gate, leaving the will they/won't they drama out of the equation and giving the writers room to focus on the non-stop funny. Come on, America. Hank Azaria has deserved his shot for A LONG TIME. Let's give it to him right here, right now. (SUGGESTIVE!)

THE PLAYBOY CLUB AIRING MONDAYS AT 10/9c ON NBC THIS FALL!

FREE AGENTS AIRING WEDNESDAYS AT 8:30/7:30c ON NBC THIS FALL!

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MOST PROMISING NEW SERIES - ABC: APARTMENT 23

Oh, rest assured, readers; I am as shocked as you are right now. This call literally came down the moment before I typed the title of the show up there. I was fully prepared to give the push to Once Upon A Time (which, once again, is more likely the better/more successful of the two "fairy tales are real" series this year), but then I just realized...GOD, I want to see this more. Seriously, if I could pick one of these two shows to premiere tonight...it's this. I just keep thinking about all the potential shenanigans our fictionalized version of The Beek is going to get into; my inexplicable swooning for Krysten Ritter despite never having seen a single thing she's been in; laughing...really, just laughing. I'm in a pretty dark place in my life right now personally, and this year, I want to enjoy myself. I want to be engaged by something. Make me laugh, you former untrustworthy bitch, you.

AIRING MIDSEASON ON ABC!

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MOST PROMISING NEW SERIES - FOX: ALCATRAZ

Don't you just love that "Oh, snap! Shit's about to get REAL!" feeling? Over the past decade or so, no one has provided that feeling better than J.J. Abrams and the folks at Bad Robot Productions, and Alcatraz looks primed to carry on that tradition. Watching the trailer this time around, I found myself--more than anything--tremendously happy to see familiar faces like Jorge (HURLEY!) Garcia and Dr. Alan Grant/Merlin himself Sam Neill (who's gotten depressingly jowly over the years) on my screen. Let's be honest with ourselves. Out of all the former cast of Lost, nobody came away with more public goodwill than TV's Hugo Reyes, and in a Fall where it seems familiarity is a big selling point for a lot of shows, I can't deny smiling biggest at the sight of our favorite cursed lottery winner. Pop in cinema's most beloved paleontologist and BOOM!--We've got a show.

AIRING MONDAYS AT 9/8c MIDSEASON ON FOX!

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MOST PROMISING NEW SERIES - CBS: PERSON OF INTEREST

(Hello again, J.J.) Jesus and Ben Linus are going to fuck some people up...and it's going to be ridiculously entertaining. In (roughly) the week since I first watched this trailer, the first viral marketing campaign for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises (co-written by Person creator/co-executive producer Jonathan Nolan) has begun. Late last week, we all got our first look at Tom Hardy as Bane in next summer's final chapter of this particular Batman universe. Somehow--as minutely related as it is--it got me even more excited about this show. Seriously, to combine two of geekdom's most formidable figures (Abrams and The Nolans) is tantamount to the legendary (and fictional) creation of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Two great tastes that taste great together, indeed.

AIRING THURSDAYS AT 9/8c ON CBS THIS FALL!

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Before I get to our next award, I just want to take a moment to apologize for what I'm about to unleash upon you yet again. There are some pieces of "entertainment" that are so startlingly awful; so impossibly horrendous; so incredibly inexplicable in their mere existence that it forces one to ask a very powerful question: HOW DID THIS GET MADE? Five months ago, beloved comedian and Human Giant alum Paul Scheer established a podcast that set out to ask that very question about some of the most reviled and embattled films of all-time. However, this isn't a movie. This is a television show, so allow me to shamelessly (and respectfully) take Mr. Scheer's name and the title of his fantastic podcast and present you with the following...

THE UNAUTHORIZED PAUL SCHEER "HOW DID THIS GET MADE?" AWARD FOR TELEVISED AWFUL: WORK IT

I just have to say it again. Go to hell, ABC. The only bright side to Work It (which is the part where you ask "There's a bright side?") is that months from now if--by some act of utter Satanic evil--this trash actually makes it to air, you can use it to gauge who's really essential in your life. If you meet a single person who has the slightest interest in this show and/or enjoys it--and this is only because murder is illegal--you can feel secure knowing you'll never want to interact with that theoretical moron of such impeccably malignant taste ever again...and that's always a nice feeling. Certainty is nice, isn't it? Oh, and once again, go to hell, ABC.

AIRING HOPEFULLY NEVER (OR--GOD HELP US--MIDSEASON) ON ABC!

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...and now, if you survived that, here's your reward! It's time for the two biggest awards of the entry...

OVERALL MOST PROMISING NEW SERIES - COMEDY: SUBURGATORY

After a nearly decade-long slump, ABC has really struck gold in comedy lately. With greatness like Cougar Town and inexplicably popular/award-winning fare like Modern Family and The Middle, they've finally--(with the exception of the preceding Fally Award winner)--made a massive leap away from their reputation as the network that gave According to Jim airtime for an impressively terrible EIGHT SEASONS. Suburgatory, with its great cast and crew, looks to be another feather in the Disney-owned network's comedy cap. Oh, and before anyone decides to get snarky about it--OF COURSE, they scored points with me for Tessa Altman's visual and stylistic resemblance to my beloved Emma Stone. (No shame in my game.)

AIRING WEDNESDAYS AT 8:30/7:30c ON ABC THIS FALL!

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OVERALL MOST PROMISING NEW SERIES - DRAMA: AWAKE

That was the third time I've watched that trailer since I covered NBC last week. There has yet to have been a single viewing of it upon which I haven't (1) started to tear up pretty immediately and (2) not immediately followed watching it by shaking my fists in the air and audibly yelling "WHY?! WHY ARE YOU NOT ON MY TV RIGHT NOW?!". I reiterate what I initially said about this: that this isn't airing until midseason is absolutely ASTONISHING to me. I haven't been so passionate that a show be given a chance to succeed in...longer than I can even remember. This show's presence is nothing short of ESSENTIAL to my 2011-2012 television season, and honestly, I can't fathom how anyone could possibly disagree. Over the last week, I have seriously contemplated organizing some sort of campaign to preemptively save it from even the remotest possibility of cancellation or even to get its premiere moved up to the late Fall. Bar-none, this will be THE BEST NEW SHOW OF THE SEASON. This is the one time...THE ONE TIME...I truly need NBC to not fuck up. Another reiteration: THIS IS YOUR LOST, NBC. THIS WILL SAVE YOU. PLEASE LET IT.

AIRING MIDSEASON (OR--FINGERS CROSSED--SOONER) ON NBC!

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...and that concludes the first annual "Entertainment on Jeff's Terms" Fally Awards! I hope you've enjoyed this special second look at the season's most promising new network series, and please TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT THESE SHOWS.

ESPECIALLY AWAKE.

I shall return soon with more rantings, ravings, and ramblings.

Until then, this was only acceptable in 1980, ABC. You fucked up. BIG TIME.

I'M WOLVERIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNEEEEEE!!!!!

The Fall of Broadcast Television 2011: FOX

Welcome back, kids!

My in-depth look at the 2011 network upfronts continues today with this year's new selections from the former butt of many-a-Simpsons joke and current envy of almost all other networks, FOX!

Before I get to it, though, a quick reminder of what's coming up as the week progresses here at "Entertainment on Jeff's Terms":

• ABC, tomorrow (May 20)
• CBS/(maybe) The CW, Saturday (May 21)
• a comprehensive recap of the entire Fall schedule slate, Sunday (May 22)

We good?--Alright, let's get going. (Once again, new shows will be in ALL CAPS, and schedule changes will be denoted by italics.)

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MONDAY:

(pre-Midseason)

8-9pm - TERRA NOVA

9-10pm - House

(post-Midseason)

8-9pm - House

9-10pm - ALCATRAZ

TERRA NOVA: Perhaps the biggest financial gamble of the fall is this family sci-fi/drama from ELEVEN(!) executive producers that include Steven Spielberg, David Fury (best known for his work on Angel and Lost), Brannon Braga (who's been involved in pretty much every televised Star Trek production since The Next Generation), and Jon Cassar (the most-recurring director on FOX's former smash 24). With that hefty list of names comes a hefty budget: $16 Million on the pilot alone; and to take a look at that trailer, it comes as no surprise. Originally slated to premiere this month in a cushy post-American Idol timeslot--where it would have flourished, because let's face it; anything you put there will--this ambitious series moved its debut to September to allow for some finishing touches on its numerous CGI effects. The big question now: will it have been worth it? Its Fall follow-up, House has taken a pretty sizable hit in the ratings over the past two seasons; so much so that it was very nearly put to rest a few weeks ago (at which point, it almost went to NBC--how about that?). Will the viewers help balance out costs, and more pertinently, should they?--Well, let's see. We've got a fairly attractive cast of basically unknowns, time travel, CGI dinosaurs, guns, Stephen Lang pretty much reprising his role from Avatar...I mean...it's got some enticing facets for a pretty wide array of viewers...but does it do anything for me?--Well...

MY VERDICT: ...not really. A big budget doesn't always mean big rewards are a sure thing, and it also doesn't make up for a pretty uninteresting premise (beyond the initial burst of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey goodness). I'll certainly watch the pilot--because let's face it; it pretty much demands that we all do--but if there isn't anything to wow me once hour 1 is up...yeesh.

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ALCATRAZ: There are many of us for whom the words "From Executive Producer J.J. Abrams" are an immediate signal that shit is about to get REAL. Call me a little gun-shy after the blandness--sexy though it was--of his return to the spy game with last year's NBC flop Undercovers, but I might need a little more convincing on this one. To be fair, it just might be able to do it, because it's got the trappings of every great Bad Robot production that came before it: mysterious possibly (let's face it--definitely) supernatural elements that set the plot in motion, an amazing cast (SAM NEILL! HURLEY! HEY, WAS THAT MARTIN FREEMAN?--I'M NOT SURE BUT I'M STILL GOING TO TYPE IN CAPS ABOUT IT!), and even with just this trailer, LAYERS UPON LAYERS of questions to be answered. Plus, with the recent shocker renewal of his cult favorite Fringe, it seems J.J. and Co. may have shifted their loyalties away from ABC in favor of today's network du jour. In short, my friends...

MY VERDICT: ...I'll certainly give it a shot. I'm willing to believe Undercovers (like Six Degrees before it) was just a rare misstep for the folks at Bad Robot; and with Super 8 looking to be a true classic-in-the-making this summer, this could be the thing that makes me forget that time Jean-Ralphio from Parks and Recreation played Marshall Flinkman for a season on NBC. Wow me, J.J. Wow me good. (SUGGESTIVE!)

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TUESDAY:

8-9pm - Glee

9-9:30pm - NEW GIRL

9:30-10pm - Raising Hope

NEW GIRL: Get out your Smiths mixtapes, kids! Zooey Deschanel's on the TV! ...Okay, now that I got that out of my system, I have to admit; that was INCREDIBLY charming. Because for all the snide comments we've ALL made about everyone's favorite hipster darling, I've been eagerly awaiting the moment when she would bust out of her quiet, mousy, jazz-crooning shell and give me something unexpected again. Casting her as--basically--an unemployed Liz Lemon in her late '20s definitely fits that bill. Admittedly, it's in the middle of a pretty worn premise with a cast of co-stars who I would swear in court are the entire male portion of the cast of ABC's inexplicably just-renewed Happy Endings (Damon Wayans, Jr., for certain) and what appears to be the exact same set to boot, but somehow that totally just worked for me. Hey, I freely admit it could stagnate immediately, but for now (believe it or not)...

MY VERDICT: ...I'm in. Let's see where this goes.

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WEDNESDAY:

(pre-Midseason)

8-9:30pm - THE X FACTOR*

9:30-10pm - I HATE MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER

(post-Midseason)

8-9:30pm - American Idol

9:30-10pm - I Hate My Teenage Daughter

*I won't be covering The X Factor because (1) I certainly won't be watching it and (2) we all know EXACTLY what we're getting into with that, so what's the point?

I HATE MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER: ...Yikes. Here's the thing. I'm only 24 and I already pretty heartily despise the under-18 set. I don't need painful pseudo-comical misadventures with, albeit, a pretty likable cast to remind me of that every week. The fact of the matter is though, this show will be HUGE; and it'll be 100% a matter of timeslot. If you put something after American Idol (or in this case, the new but exactly the same The X Factor), it WILL be a hit. Past examples include House, Raising Hope, and (God help us) Glee. Now, I'll try to be fair. There is a slim chance that I'd off-handedly give this a shot, and once again, it's all about cast. Jamie Pressly spent four years on My Name Is Earl proving herself a great undiscovered comedic talent and came away with an Emmy for her troubles. This Katie Finneran lady...I've never heard of her, but she was responsible for the vast majority of genuine laughs I got from this trailer. She seems to have the broad comic timing of a slightly less off-putting Ana Gasteyer, and I dig that. So, where do I stand?

MY VERDICT: I certainly won't make a big point of seeking it out, but I can see where this show could be enjoyable. Maybe I'll stumble on it out of boredom one day on Hulu and get a few chuckles, but other than that, we're good right here.

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THURSDAY:

(pre-Midseason)

8-9pm - The X Factor

9-10pm - Bones

(post-Midseason)

8-9pm - American Idol

9-10pm - THE FINDER (with Bones returning in late Spring)

THE FINDER: So, let me just get this out of the way. I've never seen a single episode of Bones and I REALLY don't care for Geoff Stults...so right there, for me, this show already has a pretty big handicap to overcome. From what I understand though, its got another hurdle to jump in a pretty fair number of Bones fans who have been so vocally uninterested in this show, The A.V. Club has taken to referring to it as "the spinoff NO ONE asked for". I mean, I know I've got my "verdict" to give a few sentences from now, but I'll go ahead and tell you: there's very little chance I'll be watching this show. Not that it doesn't look charming (it does) and not that I don't love me some Michael Clarke Duncan (because let's face it; we all do), but I just have no stakes in this show at all. If you do, God bless, but for me...

MY VERDICT: ...no thanks. No thanks.

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FRIDAY:

8-9pm - Kitchen Nightmares

9-10pm - Fringe

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SATURDAY:

8-8:30pm - Cops

8:30-9pm - Cops

9-10pm - Encores/America's Most Wanted specials

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SUNDAY:

(pre-Midseason)

7-7:30pm - The OT (Fox's NFL post-game show)

7:30-8pm - The Cleveland Show

8-8:30pm - The Simpsons

8:30-9pm - ALLEN GREGORY

9-9:30pm - Family Guy

9:30-10pm - American Dad!

(post-Midseason)

7-7:30pm - Animated Encores

7:30-8pm - The Cleveland Show

8pm-8:30pm - The Simpsons

8:30-9pm - NAPOLEON DYNAMITE

9pm-9:30pm - Family Guy

9:30-10pm - Bob's Burgers

ALLEN GREGORY: I can definitely see where people might disagree, but that TOTALLY worked for me. I dig the animation style. I dig the sense of humor. I dig the cast (Jonah Hill, Will Forte, Leslie Mann, etc.)...but once again, I can completely see where people would be turned off by this. The fact is Jonah Hill is--to more and more people, it seems--the poor man's pre-Green Hornet-physique Seth Rogen; he's a tad overexposed and has his fingers in a lot of proverbial pies right now. I don't mind him, and I think his voice suits this character very well. To be fair, he DID co-create this show, so he knew what he was doing, but still, I dig it. I won't deny it; there's a pretty decent chance this will be another Sit Down, Shut Up, where a few promising names and a humorous trailer belied what was a pretty damned unfunny show, but for right now, come September...

MY VERDICT: ...I'm in...or I should say, I'm certainly more in for this than what you're about to see next.

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NAPOLEON DYNAMITE: I have a pretty unique relationship with Napoleon Dynamite (the 2004 film). When I first saw ads for it during the 2004 MTV Movie Awards, I knew I'd love it. It was just the right amount of indie weird for my tastes. It took until late October of that year for it to finally show up at a SINGLE theatre in my local area, and I had a memorable Saturday night laughing my ass off at the citizens of Preston, Idaho. (The milk scene at the 4-H event still slays me.) The following week, I returned to school RAVING about this unique and hilarious film I'd seen the weekend before, only for people to scoff and dismiss me. (I had yet to have developed a reputation--not to incorrectly toot my own horn--as a tastemaker.) Three months later, the movie hit DVD, and after Christmas Break...FUCK. I walked into a sea of "Vote for Pedro" t-shirts and a cacophony of people indignantly scoffing, "GOSH! IDIOT! EAT THE FOOD!". ...It was a shitty time. I stand by my story to this day that I was the first person in my high school to see the film, and moreover, I'd still be willing to bet that over half of the people wearing those shirts and yelling those quotes had NEVER FUCKING SEEN IT. Over the years, my sour grapes at that whole experience have weakened my relationship with the film, and only very recently have I found myself watching re-airings of it on Comedy Central with the same kind of delight I had that fateful October night in 2004. ALL OF THAT BEING SAID...I've known there was an animated series in the works for about two years now, and to be fair, it doesn't look all that bad...BUT(!), I--like a lot of people out there--just don't see the point of all this. It will have been EIGHT YEARS since the film's release by the time this show hits the airwaves. Near as I can tell--in that time--it's either been forgotten or lost a lot of goodwill from people who started to see through the bullshit, like I did all those years ago. Granted, it's still feels slightly less unnecessary than the oft-threatened TBS animated series based on Joe Dirt, but it all still feels very wrong somehow.

MY VERDICT: I--like a lot of people out there--will watch the pilot out of pure morbid curiosity, and you know, I won't dispute that I might end up enjoying it...but still...wow. Just fucking wow.

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FINAL THOUGHTS:

I won't lie to you, folks. I haven't really had a big stake in the FOX Network's output in some time now. There are no shows I watch regularly on it (not even DVRed), and what we've just seen doesn't look like it's really going to challenge that. In the interest of fairness however, let's break it down by genre.

In terms of live-action comedy, I'm giving the edge to New Girl. I've spent the past few years--particularly after realizing how much I fucking despised 500 Days of Summer--like a lot of people, on the Zooey Deschanel Hate Train. It's been a pretty sad experience, considering I'd enjoyed her for many years in things like Almost Famous, Big Trouble, and Elf, but I did and still do see exactly where we were/are all coming from. She basically fell into the trap of being the female Michael Cera for a while and I really believe this could be her Scott Pilgrim; the thing that breaks her from that stigma and gets her back in the good graces of the more stodgy of my fellow nerds. It certainly looks better than I Hate My Teenage Daughter, that's for damned sure.

On the animated front, I want to give the advantage to Allen Gregory but I know--despite all our hand-wringing--that Napoleon Dynamite is going to attract a far bigger audience than any of us think it will/should. The t-shirts may be gone, but I think morbid curiosity, coupled with a generation who often completely miss the point are going to make it a mainstay of FOX's Sunday night line-up...for a while at least. I'll keep my fingers crossed that Allen wins the day, though.

Lastly, we come to drama. I stand by my prediction that Terra Nova has the potential to take a very notable (and expensive) shit in the ratings. I actually quite enjoy being proven wrong, but it just seems too cut-and-dried/procedural--CGI dinosaurs notwithstanding--to keep the audiences coming, especially with that timeslot. Once again, The Finder means nothing to me, so it comes down to Alcatraz. It'll have a steep ratings battle on its hands too, but J.J. Abrams and the folks at Bad Robot have surprised us all before, and I look forward to them pulling it off again.

...and one final note. The cancellation--save for a few alleged "quarterly specials"--of America's Most Wanted saddens me deeply. When a show has made such a commendable difference to our society, has ZERO competition in the ratings, and has been a consistent mainstay of your network since (pretty much) its very inception, there is no logic in cutting it loose; ESPECIALLY when you have NOTHING to put in its place. Bad form, FOX. Bad fucking form.

...and that'll do it for today, kids. I made a point of starting this last night, so my brain isn't quite as fried as it was yesterday. I want to thank those of you who've sent me your comments; they are greatly appreciated. Keep 'em coming and please, TELL YOUR FRIENDS!

Join me tomorrow as I tackle the plentiful (and plenty-awful) Fall output from the folks over at ABC.

Until then, this one tastes like the cow got into an onion patch.

GOODBYE! HAVE A GOO' TIME!