Your Guide to Today's TV Show Nuttiness
The Canadians are invading! "Flashpoint's" Back in January...
Honestly, you need a guide to keep track of all the TV program stuff that has come down in, oh, the last five hours or so.
Hence, here's your guide.
Let's get straight to it:
"Primetime:" Let's start with this ABC mag, which will morph yet again into something that woulda caused howls years ago but now will barely raise eyebrows - so degraded has this once fine franchise (that's popped on and off the schedule so many times I've lost count) become. A new January edition entitled "Primetime: What Would You Do?" will actually stage FAKE STUFF, or in the presser's words, it "sets up everyday scenarios and then captures people's reaction...Often people speculate on how they might act in a difficult situation, but this series looks at how they actually do in the face of everyday dilemmas that test their character and values."
I dunno. This one makes me queasy.
"Kings" has a trailer that NBC has just posted, and you can go here to watch, or head on down south to the jump...where 'Zone has posted. (A Target ad accompanies, so beware cookies..) Does "Kings" - with the incomparable Ian McShane - have an airdate yet? Not sure but per reports, could get the post-"Super Bowl" catbird seat for launch. We'll see.
"Flashpoint's" back! On Fridays, Jan. 9 at 9. I liked this writers'-strike-inspired-Canadian-import when it arrived last summer on CBS, and then got kinda sick of its extremely violent and twisted storylines. What's happened to our neighbors to the north? Have they learned how to make American TV!!?
"Harper's Island" has a start-date. The CBS mid-season show (with the best and yet most incomprehensible trailer) will air as an "event" starting Thursday April 9 (at 10) and end July 2. "HI" is set on some island in Puget Sound, and it's not exactly an island you wanna hang with. Show starts with a wedding and then, murder. Someone is dispatched week, by week by week, until...Someone finally calls the cops. Just kidding, but honestly. Why don't they just LEAVE?
Ashton Kutcher is back! What is it with this guy? A game show factory must be churning in his brain at all times. And as proof, his new show, for CBS,"Game Show in My Head," will launch Jan. 3 on (get this) a Saturday. Saturdays, of course, have been the dead zone on network TV for a few years now, so this is a notable launch. Show's kinda like a "Candid Camera," in which people perform amazing tasks before "unsuspecting" people to win 50 Large. (I know no more.) Joe Rogan hosts. Kutcher cashes the checks from CBS.
"Eleventh Hour" just got an order for five more episodes, per Marc Berman of Mediaweek. This'll bring the show up to 18 and carry it through January, at least. Still...one wonders. Has it really held on to the "CSI" lead-in? Show averages only around 11 million viewers, which is a seven million plunge off of the "CSI" cliff.
"Cupid" finally lands in March. You remember "Cupid," right TV fans? It's the Bobby Cannavale dramedy produced by "V Mars" Rob Thomas, and it's about this Roman God, who's sent down to earth and has to get 100 couples together before he can return to Mt. Olympus. I know. I know. It sounds ghastly. But maybe it's not. Anyway, airdate is March 24, at 10 (a Tuesday.)
"Castle," with the fab Nathan Fillion as a novelist who suddenly finds that a serial murderer is copying the murders in his books. That'll go Mondays March 9 at 10...Also, that new Amber Tamblyn cop show got a slot too - "The Unusuals" will go Wednesdays, April 8 at 10.
"Caprica" gets a full series order. Yes! Big big news. This prequel to "Battlestar Gallactica" was supposed to be only a two-hour movie this winter and then maybe, maybe, maybe Sci Fi would decide whether to go to full series. They've decided; it just got a full 20 hour order and will launch next year. Don't yet have an exact date. "BG" fans who want to know more, please head on down to the jump, where I've posted the press release.
"Chicken Soup for the Soul:" And sports fans, this. We've all read the books, and now it's coming to the tube. Dick Clark Productions will do the honors. Not sure how this will be translated to the small screen (and doesn't Oprah already ladle out all the chicken soup we can handle?) And the press release didn't get into details. But it's comin.'
"Caprica:" Now we'll learn how it all began...
The "Kings" trailer...
And the Sci Fi press release...
NEW YORK, NY – December 2, 2008 - SCI FI Channel has greenlit production on the new original series Caprica, ordering 20 hours of the drama including the two-hour pilot, it
was announced today by Dave Howe, President, SCI FI. Caprica is the prequel to SCI FI’s
hit original series Battlestar Galactica and stars Eric Stoltz (Milk, Chicago Hope), Esai
Morales (Jericho, NYPD Blue), Paula Malcomson (Deadwood, ER) and Golden Globeâ nominee Polly Walker (Cane, Rome).
Set 50 years before Battlestar Galactica, Caprica follows two rival families – the
Graystones and the Adamas – as they grow, compete, and thrive in the vibrant world of the
12 Colonies, a society recognizably close to our own. Enmeshed in the burgeoning
technology of artificial intelligence and robotics that will eventually lead to the
creation of the Cylons, the two houses go toe-to-toe blending action with corporate
conspiracy and sexual politics. Caprica will deliver all of the passion, intrigue,
political backbiting and family conflict in television’s first science fiction family
saga. Production on the series is slated to begin summer ‘09 in Vancouver for a 2010
premiere. Jeffrey Reiner (Friday Night Lights) directed the pilot.
“Caprica will build on Battlestar Galactica’s acclaimed legacy of gripping drama and
extraordinary characters,” says Dave Howe in making the announcement. “It's the beginning
of a brand new epic saga that will appeal to both new viewers, totally unfamiliar with
the Battlestar franchise, as well as existing loyal and passionate Battlestar fans.”
“Ron, David and Remi have created an amazing series with thought-provoking storytelling
that deals with a world very similar to our own. It’s definitely not as dark as
Battlestar, but like that show, this series has smart, dimensional characters who grapple
with issues of love, sex and politics from a world in transition,” says Mark Stern,
Executive Vice President, Original Programming for SCI FI & Co-Head Original Content,
Universal Cable Productions.
As the series begins, a startling development is about to occur - the creation of the
first cybernetic life-form node or "Cylon" – the ability to marry artificial intelligence
with mechanical bodies. Joseph Adama (Esai Morales) – father of future Battlestar
commander William Adama (Sina Najafi) – a renowned civil liberties lawyer, becomes an
opponent of the experiments undertaken by the Graystones (Eric Stoltz), owners of a large
computer corporation that is spearheading the development of these living robots: the
Cylons.
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