Roger Catlin | TV Eye

Missing My Network Debut

In addition to their incessant ads, networks have been plugging their fall lineups in little “special” half hour shows added to their regular prime time. It’s a bad time of year, when they’ve run out of reruns or new reality shows to plug in before the fall shows come, so why not put a half hour of pure promotion on the schedule?

The one for Fox the other day was hosted by Wayne Brady from Las Vegas, where amid the show plugs he made sure to mention he both his one man show there and his hosting of “Don’t Forget the Lyrics!” (is there any hype Wayne Brady can’t do?).

I’d been waiting for the NBC one hosted by Greg Grunberg because it was shot last July at a rooftop party NBC was hosting for the TV Critics Association. He interviewed the stars in the foreground and there we were in the background, cruising food stations and looking for celebs to interview (Hasselhoff, alas, took off early).

While I didn’t see my own mug making it to national television, I did recognize a few of my colleagues back there, oblivious to the cameras. None seemed to mind being in effect visual backdrop for further network promotion.

It’s not so very different from what the summer press tour is about anyway – the networks are trying to sell us on their shows. The difference is that we’re a little more critical about them than Grunberg, a second tier star of “Heroes,” whose superpoer seems to be loving every new NBC show.

Final Party Report: Summer Press Tour

The TV critics press tour ended last week, amid a traffic jam of limos at the Beverly Hilton dropping off talent for the ABC All Stars Party. By then I was just about partied out.

I was interested in watching the stream of limos, and the hotel’s effort to keep them moving, because I happened to be there waiting for the shuttle to take me to the airport and I had my doubts that my blue van would ever find its way to pick me up amid all the glitzy hubbub.

Well, it didn’t, it turned out. The driver parked on the other side of the hotel and it was only by chance that I dashed over there and happened to see it. Then I had to wheel my bags back through the lobby and past the entrance fo the party without knocking over paparazzi, autograph hounds or other lingering starwatchers. It was difficult.

Difficult too was trying to put together this list of parties after so long. It was like doing homework. Then I made a big start on it last night only to have the computer freeze. But you don't want to hear about any of that. Here's the report, finally, after the jump.

'Simpsons' Part II

Because of the demand to see ''The Simpsons Movie'' among writers at the TV critics press tour, a group of ''Simpsons'' nerds as fervent as you'll ever see, I buttonholed producer Al Jean at the Fox network party at the Santa Monica Pier and asked, after all the talk of the movie, and the general championing  of the show for 18 seasons, couldn't there have been at least a screening for TV critics during press tour?

''I would love to have had a screening for TV critics,'' said Jean, who spoke like a man whose film promotion had gotten away from him.

He said he liked the finished product, which they had been tweaking until the final seconds, and now full attention of his fellow producers could be shifted on the TV show.

Not that they’d been neglecting it. Producers had been working fulltime on both the past couple of years. They know now that with what may be an increased number of fans gained from the movie, they’ve got to put on a strong season when it returns this fall. Without the movie, Jean says he can how have a semblance of family life as well.

Amid all the promotion for the film, he was a little miffed at the oral history of the series presented in the new Vanity Fair. ''How can you have a history without talking to me or Matt [Groening]?'' he asked.

Jean also disputed several things in the story, particularly the notion that Groening and James L. Brooks don’t get along, and the reliance of the story on people who hadn’t worked on the ''Simpsons'' for a decade, and only worked there briefly when they did.

'Family Guy:' The Anti-'Simpsons'

How can one Fox cartoon be so insightful and funny only to make room for one that is as relentlessly unfunny and crude as ''Family Guy''?

Yeah, it’s a hit, brought back from the dead because of DVD sales of the first season (There’s a lot of 14 year old boys around, and those who never outgrew the era).

Things haven’t improved much on the show, judging from a table read of their 100th show during press tour. Meant to be he served up as entertainment over lunch one day, it was instead a surprising display at how unfunny and scatological a show can be.

The script ''Stewie Kills Lois'' wasn’t so much pushing the envelope as pushing the ecch.

The act in the title of the episode may be the sweetest thing that happens compared to the ''jokes'' about abortion or cancer that figure into it.

Seth MacFarlane, who created the show and still keeps most of the voices for himself, still sounds as if he's acting out at his Kent private school, trying to get a rise out of the headmaster while he cracks his buddies up.

Hey, the script works for many; they got howls for the same reading at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal, where, MacFarlane says, ''you had like 2,000 drunk people in their 20s who were just, you know, laughing at stage directions.''

A number of my fellow critics were so doubled up in laughs at the lunch reading, they threatened their digestion process.

And MacFarlane liked the response from critics too. ''There are things that you guys laughed at that we thought, well -- we were kind of led to believe maybe you'd be horrified by,'' he says. ''And other things that I was surprised that, you know, maybe that did offend you.''

And despite its hot button and, I found, tasteless topics, MacFarlane says it had already been deeply cut for use on TV. What exactly, he was asked, had been cut?

Oh, I think the abortion one was about eight times as long. Some of this stuff, actually, you will only see on the DVD. There's some stuff that was, you know, judiciously edited with our approval. And some stuff -- for example, the swearing you'll only see on the DVD. Since that's become such a big part of "Family Guy," there are – occasionally if we bleep something for TV, we'll let it slide on the DVD.

MacFarlane says he and the writers try to balance the shock with more high-quality entertainment. ''You know, we do a lot of poop jokes, but at the same time, we use a 45-piece orchestra every week with a full string section. And, you know, we don't try to shock for shock's sake. If something is just shocking and not funny, then we'll cut it out. And we have these table reads every week, which we do for each episode, in which we have a very good cross section of artists and people from the outside and writers, and, you know, the studio network is there. And no one is shy about gasping in horror if we have crossed the line, and so it's a very good barometer.''

Well, somebody finally asks, what shocks or offends you?

''I don’t know,'' McFarlane answers. ''The Bush administration, I guess.''

Back to the Stone Age

Networks send out advance copies of the pilots of new shows marked “not for review” and indeed lots of work is done on the pilots, completed in the spring, before they’re shown in the fall.

But they wouldn’t be sending them out if they didn’t want to kickstart a little buzz. The only problem is that some shows inevitably get buzz so negative you have to wonder whether the show will ever make it on the air.

''Cavemen” stood out from the dozens of new shows announced for the fall because, like, say, “The Bionic Woman,” it was based on source material people seemed to know: those droll and very funny Geico ads in which a bunch of California raised cavemen (you can tell by their linen sportscoats, sunglasses and what they order in restaurants) get a bit indignant at ads that say something’s so simple “even a caveman can do it.”

They’ve had enough of those stereotypes and getting petulant about it is about as much humor as you’re going to get out of a 30-second spot.

But can you turn a 30-second ad into a 30-minute sitcom? Hey, it worked for the California Raisins, didn’t it? (No, actually it didn’t).

The problem with the pilot for ABC’s “Cavemen,” though, is that its attempted humor was entirely based on if they were a minority group, that weren’t expected to behave at parties, known for sexual prowess, had some athletic skills, used the M word out of Cro-Mags the way some used the N-word.

It was like “Amos & Andy” in that a show about oppressed minorities played entirely by non-minorities; the jokes would be about minorities, but minorities couldn’t even get a job on it.

So, as you might expect, the press tour panel on “Cavemen,” in which eight white man faced reporters might have had some spark to it.

The Endless Laughs of Local News

If people didn't count on it for actual information, local news would be a rich source of nightly comedy.

Certainly its tones have been expertly picked up through the years on ''Saturday Night Live'' most consistent bit, ''Weekend Update,'' to the entirety of ''The Daily Show.''

Secondary characters in beloved sitcoms are often the pompous newsmen, from Ted Baxter in ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' to Kent Brockman in ''The Simpsons.''

Will Ferrell mined some of the comedy gold, too, in ''Anchorman: The Ron Burgandy Story.''

And this year, there’s no shortage of fun at the expense of local news.

The first couple come in reality shows. ''Making News Texas Style'' the most entertaining show they may have ever had on at the TV Guide Channel, where the life of a news team in smalltown Texas is examined for its considerable entertainment value.

Another new reality show on local news is also set in Texas. ''Anchorwoman,'' which starts Aug. 21 on Fox, examines what happens when a bikini model is recruited to the reporting team in order to goose local numbers. (She’s smarter than you think, the local producers say).

Then there is ''Back to You,'' a kind of can't miss sitcom from Fox starring Kelsey Grammer and Partrica Heaton as co-anchors in Pittsburgh – with Fred Willard part of the cast.

Living Up to Their Original Name

At least a couple of new fall ABC shows underwent some name changes.

The one we all know about is the one with Christina Applegate as an amnesia victim that was announced as ''Sam I Am.''

Seems the Seuss people didn’t have much of a sense of humor on that one.

''Eventually, we were told to come up with something that they could actually put out there,'' says producer Donald Todd. ''For a while, it was 'Samantha Be Good,' and that was, like, a day. I think that was literally like three emails came by, and then I saw it on the Internet. But we had really liked the title 'Samantha Who?' at least as much as 'Sam I Am' because it reflected the journey of the character.

Less seriously, he adds, "The one that we originally wanted, 'Samantha Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,' with that, I guess the legal department was -- I don't read my emails. We tried 'Green Eggs and Sam.'

The other ABC show that changed its name is the perfectly awful male-bonding thing called ''Big Shots.''

In it, Christopher Titus, Joshua Molina, Michael Vartan and Dylan McDermott are four pals who are successful but treat woman pretty badly when they’re not talking about them badly.

As for its title, creator Jon Harmon Feldman says, " 'Big Shots' was the truest to the original title of the show, which was called 'Big Dicks.' Obviously, we couldn't call it 'Big Dicks.' "

''Although,'' Titus added, ''they cast it that way.''

''We were all called Richard at that point,'' Vartan said.

''There there was sort of a natural evolution of different titles,'' Feldman said. ''But 'Big Shots,' I think, honored sort of the original title.''

“Big Shots” starts Sept. 27; “Samantha Who?” starts Oct. 15. Both are on ABC.

Brenneman's Back

For Amy Brenneman, the Glasonbury native who starred in ''Judging Amy'' for years, the offer to join this fall's "Grey’s Anatomy'' spin off, ''Private Practice,'' came just at the right time.

''They canceled 'Judging Amy,' and about two weeks later, I gave birth to my son,'' she told reporters in one of the last sessions at press tour.

''So really, TV was not the first thing on my mind. And I was tired,'' she says of her six seasons on the legal show set in Hartford. ''I was tired.'

'
Brenneman has been doing some film and theater roles, but as for TV, ''I really thought, you know, it's going to have to be the perfect fit for me because I had such a great thing going. So it's just going to have to be at a really high caliber and also,frankly, fit with the lifestyle of having two small children.''

For that reason, she says, "I passed on some stuff where I would have been the series lead.'' She did not elaborate.

But Brenneman also said she didn’t see very much of a range of parts offered to women anyway. '' As a woman, you are left with being a wifey for the guy,'' she says, ''And I was like, I don't want to do that.''

The difference in the scripts by Shonda Rimes, who’s writing both ''Grey’s'' and ''Private Practice'' this season, is that ''she tells these stories in a true mosaic fashion.''

And she's able to writes them so that each character usually has a dramatic scene to do, and yet the load is shared by the ensemble, Brenneman says.

“Private Practice” starts Sept. 26 on ABC.

Kyle XY vs. John from Cincinnati

''Kyle XY'' creator Julie Plec says she’s never seen ''John from Cincinnati.''

But, she told reporters on the final day of press tour Thursday, ''I'm actually sort of sad that I haven't seen it because I read a review that sort of led with it saying it's like the R-rated 'Kyle XY' or something.''

''I've heard that the idea of that character, who is sort of an outsider coming in with a different perspective on the way people relate to each other and the way the world works,'' Plec says.

That’s how ''Kyle XY,'' which runs on ABC Family works. The mystious young man Kyle suddenly appeared among some people and began to change them Likewise, the young man who is lead character of ''John from Cincinnati'' mysteriously appeared and began to heal others in a similar way.

''The creator of that show is so magnificent,'' Plec says, referring to David Milch. ''It's actually really interesting to know that that same idea can operate on two very different creative planes.''

But she’s not sure when she can get around to making firsthand comparisons herself. ''My TiVo is backlogged for about the last six months.''

Chip off the Old Kelsey Grammer

Spencer Grammer, featured in the ABC Family hit ''Greek'' says she didn’t get direct encouragement to get into the TV business from her father, Kelsey Grammer (starring in his own show this fall, the Fox comedy ''Back to You'').

''It's a really tough business, I think, particularly for women,'' Grammer says of TV acting. ''There's a lot of pressure on how you look and how much you need to weigh. And you're always sort of a sexual object. And my dad wasn't really about me being like that.''

But, she adds, ''of course he encouraged me to follow what I love and what my dreams are and for me to be happy. And so this is what I wanted to do, so I guess I'm happy.''