Roger Catlin | TV Eye

Courting Controversy at CBS

Once, network executives facing controversies would hide or downplay them during their press conferences with reporters at the summer press tour.

But facing a number of questions about Mandy Patinkin fleeing a popular show, a change at “NCIS” because of the demands of its star, an upcoming season about sexual swingers, or the use of kids in a reality show, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler Wednesday welcomed it all.

“I hope there are concerns about it, I really do,” Tassler said of suggestive scenes in the midseason series “Swingtown.”

Because even if CBS is scoring high numbers on evergreen procedural shows like “CSI,”  it now wants to “push the envelope” with "a mandate to experiment and try new things," she says.

It was controversy over the canceled “Jericho,” after all, that brought that show back to life with a seven-episode stint in the fall.

And the fairly well performing "Close to Home" was yanked anyway, to make way for a vampire saga, "Moonlight," with which the network hopes to create buzz.

“We wanted to try different things, we wanted to be daring,” Tassler says. “We wanted to do something create more noise.”

There wasn’t much she could spin about the departure of Patinkin from “Criminal Minds” which she ascribed to “personal issues” on his part.

Not “creative differences” as has been reported?

“ ‘Creative differences’ is a euphemism for ‘personal issues,’ ” Tassler said.

His departure will be written into the show and a new cast member will be hired, she says.

As for “NCIS” creator Donald Bellisario, whose departure was reportedly demanded by its star Mark Harmon, Tassler says the look of the show won’t change. “It’s part of the changes that happen on many of the shows,” she said.

Countering reports to the contrary, Tassler says the filming of the fall reality show “Kid Nation” did not violate New Mexico child labor laws, because they were not employees of CBS.

“Kid Nation” will be the first of the new shows to debut this fall on CBS, on Sept. 19, followed by “Survivor: China” on Sept 20.

Most of the shows will premiere the following week, starting with the 40th season premiere of “60 Minutes” Sept. 23, followed by “Cold Case” and “Shark.”

Sept. 24 brings “How I Met Your Mother,” in which more details are forthcoming in the third season about the mother. It premieres alongside the new comedy “The Big Bang Theory” and the fifth season start of “Two and a Half Men,” in which Angus T. Jones’ character Jake enters middle school in the fifth season. That night of premieres ends with the second season return of the comedy “Rules of Engagement,” followed by the sixth season start for “CSI: Miami,” a year in which David Caruso’s Lt. Horatio Caine discovers he has a son.

“NCIS” begins its fifth season, its first without creator Bellisario, on Sept. 25, before the third season premiere of “The Unit” and the new drama “Cane.”

“Criminal Minds” and “CSI: NY” premiere Sept. 26.

“CSI” and “Without a Trace” start up again Sept. 27; “Ghost Whisperer” and “Numb3rs” surround the new “Moonlight” on Sept. 28.

The musical drama “Viva Laughlin” doesn’t arrive until Oct. 18.

Final Party Report

I had the idea, when I booked my redeye back to Hartford from California that I’d have to tear myself away from the raging NBC party that would end the Winter Press Tour once and for all. The stars of the desperate network would be glittering, the dancefloor pounding and the drinks flowing as I began to sadly schlep my bulging suitcase of dirty laundry and transcripts away to the shuttle.

As it turned out, the party was done hours before I had to leave for LAX, the only stars left were Crabman from “My Name is Earl,” one or two of the background schlubs from “The Office” and Beau Bridges – and nobody could figure out why he was there until someone mentioned he’d be in “Apocalypse 10.5” (whoopee).

I ended up having my last drinks in L.A. at the airport bar, talking conspiracy theory with a guy from Grand Rapids and talking to a waitress who thought when we said Beatles we meant “Beetle Juice.” “Funny movie!” she said.

Ah, to be back with the people after two weeks of partying with the stars. I can barely remember the details of every network party. But I will try.

Messing with Moses

Toward the end of the press tour, 14 days in the same hotels, hearing more than 100 panel discussions on individual TV shows, reporters get a little punchy.

You could see it happening at the ABC session for “The Ten Commandments.”

The new version of the Bible story is from Robert Halmi Sr., better known for fantasy and computer-generated dragons. Now he’s using his computer generated or CGI imagery on parting the Red Sea.

But it was a little unclear about what he was doing with the plague of frogs.

“I had 1,000 frogs,” said Halmi. “So no CGI frogs.”

“The frogs were really real. I can attest to that,” says Padma Lakshmi, the actress (and wife of writer Salman Rushdie) who plays the fictional character Princess Bithia.

But asked about his “casts of thousands,” Halmi seemed to backpedal the frog story.

'I Spy' Redux?

Martin Landau returns to series TV in “The Evidence,” a new midseason drama from John Wells that reminds him a bit of a show from the 1960s – but not his own “Mission Impossible.”

“You know, I did ‘I Spy,’” Landau said. There’sno shore that hs the kind of rapport that these two young guys have. I mean, I mean, I hate to say, ‘it reminds me of’ but it has the quality of Culp and Cosby, and we haven’t seen that for a while.”

He’s talking of the interaction of Orlando Jones and Rob Estes as cops with the same kind of give and take Robert Culp and Bill Cosby had in “I Spy,” but the two younger actors don’t see it.

“I’ve never seen the show but I had it in mind,” Estes says.

But Jones says their pariing “was based on what a real friendship would look like between two cops in San Francisco and how that would manifest itself through the job of solving homicides.

“We removed the 1970s black/white ‘I Spy’ thinkg from it and tried to be as realistic as I think the modern world is – meaning, the No. 1 rapper si white and the No. 1 golfer is black. So I don’t know if race is really that important any more.”

“The Evidence” comes to ABC in March.

"Teachers" Strike

How much did things break down in the press tour session for “Teachers,” an NBC midseason comedy that will take over the slot of “The Office” after it ends in March?

Well, not only did loudmouth radio host Phil Hendrie hijack just about every answer when the rest of the cast weren’t talking over one another, so did the producer say he was heavily influenced by a British show of the same sensibility that happened to have the same title: “Teachers.”

But the worst part was when “Scrubs” creator Bill Lawrence secured a microphone to address the producers: “When you compared your show to ‘scrubs’ before is that because there’s going to be a lot o sick people in or..”’

Balfour's Burden

And then there was the suffering of the actor Eric Balfour in the session for “Conviction,” the Dick Wolf-prduced drama about young district attorneys in New York that is more character driven than his usual “Law & Order” series.

The only question poor Balfour got were about his facial hair ( "In researching your role, did you find that many prosecutors had your kind of facial hair?") and the kind of druggy roles he gets (“We’ve seen you in a lot of shows, playing some very different characters. But the one thing they all seem to have had in common was none of them was, like, the poster boy for abstinence.”)

“Am I the poster boy for non-abstinence?” he asked back.

For Balfour that’s just what’s coming to him. “I haven’t as of yet, gotten a script to play a priest,” he says. “I’m waiting patiently though.”

'West Wing' End: May 14

“The West Wing” will end its term May 14 at the close of its seventh season, NBC announced Sunday.

The official disclosure, coming after a day when the show's end was revealed, was part of a newsy final day of the nearly two-week TV Critics Association winter press tour Sunday at the Ritz Carlton Huntington Hotel.

NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly said the intent to end the highly honored show with a one hour episode preceded by an hour long retrospective was to “give the show the send off it truly deserves.”

The demise of the show which has won four consecutive Emmys as outstanding drama, is not because of the sudden death of actor John Spencer Dec. 16.

“That was a shocker to us all,” Reilly says. “The discussion of making this the final year was determined before that.

“It’s no secret that the ratings have been tough the last couple of seasons,” he says. “There’s a point where you want to send off show with dignity and some semblance of success.”

“The cast was just officially notified very recently,” he says. “I don’t think anybody was shocked by this.”

Calling Dr. Shepherd

The turns of Dr. Derek Shepherd on “Grey’s Anatomy” has been tough on actor Patrick Dempsey.

Following last season’s cliffhanger, he told reporters, “Old ladies at the airport would yell at me, ‘You are awful! How dare you do that to Meredith!"

“I was despised.”

But he has also been looked to for medical help, also in aeronautical settings.

'Development' Developments

From all the talk at press tour, you could get the idea that the hottest show around is the one that goes off the air for good next month.

More than one network has sung the praises of the Emmy-winning and critically acclaimed “Arrested Development.” But none seems ready yet to pick it up after Fox airs the final episodes Feb. 10.

“It is highly unlikely the show is coming back,” Fox entertainment president Peter Liguori said. “But no definitive final answer has been made on that.”

“It is regrettable that we could not find  the audience that that show deserved,” Ligouri says of the comedy created by Mitch Hurwitz. It is in fact a studio property. If there's interest at other networks, it's the studio's right and Mitch's right to move that on and put that up to bid.
There does seem to be interest.

“I love the show,” says Showtime entertainment chief Robert Greenblatt. “I always thought it was probably a better fit on a cable network than on a broadcast network,” he says. “And if only a small fraction of the loyal audience that’s on Fox came to Showtime, it would be one of our highest-rated shows.”

Still, he says “I think the show is only worth continuing if Mitch Hurwitz was at the helm running it. I think he’s the genius behind it, and he hasn’t yet come to that decision to continue the show.”

“If so, and all the stars align, nothing would make us happier than to have it,” Greenblatt says.

“I really love the show,” says ABC entertainment president Stephen McPherson. “We certainly would have interest if there was ever a possibility.”

But he added: “I don’t really forsee that happening. I think it’s a long shot.”

Angelica's 'Huff' Turn

Angelica Huston plays a psychotherapist attending the the Hank Azaria’s title character in “Huff” when the second season starts on Showtime.

That puts her character in the league with premium cable’s other reigning dramatic shrink, Lorraine Bracco’s Dr. Lorraine Melfi on “The Sopranos.”

“I’m here to challenge here,” Huston said with good cheer. “I love Lorraine. I love ‘The Sopranos.’ Lorraine and I are old friends. I think she’s great. We are different, though, in our parts.

The whole process in filming her four episodes was different than movies,she says. “I knew I was doing it like a week before I was in it,” she says. “So it was very minimal prepartion.”

The difference in shooting was clear when she did a cameo in a movie immediately after doing ‘Huff.’ There, she says, it was “two days to shoot a scene, and I think Hank and I did about seven in one day on ‘Huff.’”

Other guest in the second season of “Huff” include Swoosie Kurtz, Sharon Stone and Faith Prince.