Gawker: defamer, cheap shots at studio 60

Shows You Probably Haven't Watched Go Down In Network Slaughter

Mark — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 12:39:25 EDT

In what Var has dubbed Bloody Monday, but which we will counterdub Mercy-Killing Monday to emphasize the networks' compassionate desire to euthanize a handful of shows languishing in a Nielsen coma from which they are unlikely to ever awaken, Fox's The Wedding Bells, ABC's Six Degrees, The CW's 7th Heaven, and NBC's The Black Donnellys have all entered different phases of the always complex cancellation process. This morning, heavy-handed Donelleys creator Paul Haggis is using his pair of stolen Oscars to wipe away the tears he's shedding over the loss of his primetime baby, his pain compounded by Var's swift kick to the gut during this moment of vulnerability:

Despite a solid "Deal or No Deal" lead-in, last week's seg sank to third place in the 10 p.m. hour, losing even to the season finale of "What About Brian."

And thus is written The Black Donnellys' bitter epitaph: It couldn't even beat What About Brian. Unfortunately, Studio 60 fans can take no solace in Donnellys' speedy yanking from Studio's rightful, post-Heroes timeslot, which will go to The Real Wedding Crashers, a choice that is sure to sap Aaron Sorkin's will to elevate the medium as he joylessly completes the episodes that will fill out the Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: The Complete First and Last Season DVD.

'Bells' stop ringing after seven episodes [CNN.com]
Networks clean house [Var]

The Hollywood Foreign Press Crushes Aaron Sorkin's Golden Globes Dreams

Mark — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 12:36:44 EST

We hate to return so quickly to the Golden Globes nominations, but since we made a point of spotlighting Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip creator Aaron Sorkin's hope that a Globe nod would elevate his Little Serious-Minded Sketch Comedy Drama That Could from a "critical hit" into the type of hit that people actually watch, we thought it relevant to note that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association decided not to sprinkle its magic Nielsen dust on the series, granting a single nomination recognizing Sarah Paulson's performance as the proud Krazee Khristian who so glows with talent that her cast members can only gaze upon her through welding masks. We trust that Sorkin will handle this disappointment maturely, refraining from the petty impulse to have Matthew Perry and Brad Whitford hold forth at length about the meaninglessness of awards shows on a future episode, lambasting the "back-slapping, junket-whore buffet monkeys who wouldn't know quality programming if a DVD screener lodged itself next to the empty heads lodged in their asses" for abandoning his show in its hour of need.

[Photo; Getty Images]

Previously: Will The Golden Globes Pretend To Like 'Studio 60'? [Defamer]

Trade Round-Up: Sad Penguins

Mark — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 14:28:27 EST

Like nearly all seemingly feel-good Hollywood stories, March of the Penguins's triumphant run is ending in legal ugliness, with the doc's director of photography suing for a director credit on the film. [Variety]
Jason Lee will star in and produce Krater, a comedy about a late 70s/early 80s rock band who hires a lead singer with "secret Broadway ambitions" a description that we will decode as "is secretly gay." [THR]
Getting a whiff of the awards buzz on Letters from Iwo Jima, Warner Bros. pushes director Clint Eastwood in front of as many media members as possible, politely urges him not to confuse people by talking about the other World War II movie he recently did for another studio that everyone's already forgotten about. [Variety]
The Reporter calls 2006 the "Year of the Apology." Serial apologizers Mel Gibson and Michael Richards figure prominently. [THR]
With Studio 60 getting the week off, made-for-TV holiday flick A Year Without a Santa Claus ably filled in as NBC's designated Monday night ratings momentum-stopper, even though the movie completely ignored the lessons we learned about the sham that is Christmas on S60's uplifting holiday special. [Variety]

Don't Worry, We Don't Discriminate: All The Blonde Ones Look Alike As Well

Mark — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 17:31:25 EST

The Slug blog thinks it sees evidence of creeping Jordan McDeere-ism in fledgling network abomination The CW's hiring practices, throwing together this side-by-side-by-side to illustrate how current programming VP Gayle Hirsch and drama development VP Joanna Klein (or some combination thereof) resemble Studio 60's maverick NBS executive (who herself is supposedly based on ABC/NBC exec Jamie Tarses). Personally, we don't see it, even though we've always maintained that all brunette TV executives look alike (especially on Headshot Day), but we'll allow that we might be thrown off by both CW employees' impressive ability to muster more complex facial expressions in these liberally airbrushed photos than Amanda Peet has in five episodes' worth of appearances on her show.

Is The CW Imitating "Studio 60"? [The Slug]

NBC Cares What You Think About Their Low-Rated Dramas

Mark — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 19:57:12 EDT

We continue this afternoon's exhaustive coverage of disappointing, expensive television dramas with this brief report about an online survey regarding Studio 60 a reader was asked to take after self-identifying as a disgruntled viewer of NBC's programming, an interesting window into how the network tests a show that recently built an entire episode about the evils of focus group testing:

I wrote some nasty emails to NBC about the quality of their TV dramas, and they signed me up for near-weekly TV Viewing surveys, yay! The last one I received seems to indicate that NBC/Universal is *really* sweating Studio 60, if their survey questions are any indication. They ask you to rate the show. Then they have you type a paragraph justifying your rating. Then they actually put promo-pics of the 12 main characters and have you rate what you think of each one of them...on the next page they ask you why you gave certain actors certain ratings. They *then* ask about interactions between certain characters and what you thought of those. I may be an unemployed English major, but even I can see the writing on the wall here.

It's probably for the best that the online queries seem limited to the kinds of generic ones ("Do you find the relationship between Matt and Harriet completely unbelievable, moderately unbelievable, or somewhat unbelievable? Please give reasons for your answer.") that assist a network in compiling the "helpful" notes they pass along to the producers, as the type of questions Aaron Sorkin is really interested in ("Is television a vast, culture-eroding wasteland that could be saved by sketches demonstrating fundamentalist Christians' hostility to science? If yes, nod smugly; if no, please reveal the location of the Sunday School that taught you God made the earth in six days, then took a nap.") might seem even more offputting than when posed in one-hour, dramatic form.

Complete, Gratuitously Negative 'Studio 60' Coverage [Defamer]

Dick Wolf: Anybody Who Says They Know Something Is On Drugs

Mark — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 13:54:41 EDT

With a background in advertising and roughly sixty-eight versions of his Law & Order franchise currently on the air, cops-and-lawyers-procedural brandmaster Dick Wolf is uniquely qualified to declare that anyone who thinks they know how commerce, emerging platforms, and traditional programming will intersect in the future is quite obviously hitting the pipe. Reports the WSJ:

The Wall Street Journal: We see producers trying to come up with ideas that will play well on mobile phones or the Web. Are these ventures worthwhile?
Mr. Wolf: I'm feeling that maybe I'm totally out of touch. I've been pitched Webisodes. I've been pitched everything. ... C'mon. Please, you think ringtones are going to be a major revenue stream for studios or networks? ... Unfortunately, the business model is irreparably broken, and people are going to have to figure out something new. ... I'm 59 years old. I don't think the world is going to come crashing down in five to six years, but I guarantee you, if anyone tells you what the television business is going to look like a decade out, they are on drugs.

One need to look no further than the still-evolving example of NBC president Kevin Reilly's apparently misplaced trust in West Wing hitmaker Aaron Sorkin to stir the Peacock from its fourth-place funk to see how easily desperate television executives can misinterpret this Wolf Corollary ("Anyone who says they know something is on drugs") to the Goldman Principle ("Nobody knows anything"), misguidedly thinking that "anyone who has a history of using drugs can tell you how to save your network."

'Law & Order' Boss Dick Wolf Ponders The Future of TV Ads (Doink, Doink) [WSJ.com]