Ben Silverman Out At NBC

Quite a surprise to wake up to this morning: co-chairman of NBC Entertainment Studios and Universal Media Studios Ben Silverman is leaving. The surprise is due to the fact that, not only are we quickly approaching the fall season, but just two weeks ago his employment contract had been extended.

When I first heard about Silverman's departure, I have to admit that a smile came to my face. Since a young age, I've always felt like NBC was my channel. Like your mom or grandma who refers to her favorite soap opera as "my story", throughout my life I felt like I had become invested in the network. That's loyalty only a true TV junkie could possibly understand, of course, but hey, that's why I'm writing a TV blog for absolutely no money and you are not.

Anyway, the majority of my favorite shows were on the network and many of the shows shaped my hopes and aspirations as I grew up. My life long fascination with New York City was constantly egged on watching shows like Law & Order, Mad About You and Seinfeld. The dazzling skyline after the evening news and shots of Rockefeller Center didn't hurt, either.

When Silverman first took position at the network, I was pretty hesitant. NBC was pretty down at the time, already in final place, and losing big time. What I knew of Silverman didn't give me much hope. He had produced one of my favorite shows, The Office, but also complete crap like Date My Mom and The Biggest Loser.

I also thought it odd that they would hire someone with so much potential for conflict of interest, considering he would still profit from both his current Reveille shows already on the network and even new ones sold after his move. Trumping even that: not long after taking his place at the company, stories circulated about frat-boy behavior, caged tigers, and lot's of party-hopping.

Here we are at the end of his reign now and I am a bit conflicted. Should I celebrate? He was the guy that made the ridiculous decision to cancel both Medium and My Name Is Earl and then make it publicly known that he did so because, according to The LA Times "neither the fans nor the advertisers had waged a campaign to save them the way viewers and the Subway restaurant chain did for Chuck."

Well, yeah, you know, people didn't wage a campaign to save the shows because no one knew they were on the verge of being canceled. I mean, you know, most networks don't cancel a highly rated show like Medium for no reason, therefore the fans, even devoted TV geeks who try to stay "in the know" such as myself, would never have imagined that we would be obligated to campaign around every single show they want to return, especially if it is one of the highest rated and most consistent shows on a dying network.

But then there's also the fact that, without Silverman, Friday Night Lights, easily one of the most brilliant shows to ever grace network television, probably wouldn't not have made it past it's first season. Because of the deal Silverman worked out with DirecTV, we are guaranteed new Friday Night Lights up through it's fifth season.

So there ya go. It's hard to know what to feel. He made some terrible decisions, acted like an ass, but also created some quality TV. His tenure was not all good or all bad. Not sure if it was even more bad than good or vice versa.

Anyway, we're not gonna go into all the politics and power shifts involved in his departure. If you're interested in that side of things, I would suggest reading the Hitfix article about the situation - they lay it all out in an easy to understand way.

Update: While rinsing and shampooing this very morning, I thought of another point I wanted to bring up about Silverman's reign: the majority of "new" scripted programming on NBC hasn't actually been "new". In his time at the network we've been treated to really terrible remakes (Bionic Woman, Knight Rider), imports (Merlin, The Listener), or remakes of imports (Kath & Kim). There's even been a remake of an import remake (Parks & Recreation).

Just kidding about that last one. While the whole mock documentary thing was over long before it debuted, Parks & Recreation definately got better towards the end of the season. At first we kinda passed it off as The Office (US Version) part two, but it kinda grew into it's own eventually.

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The Battle For Sunday

Networks are waging war on Sunday evenings and my poor DVR is caught in the middle. I expect this sort of thing in the Fall premiere season, but not summer. Unless you've got multiple DVR's or one of the good cable systems that provide 4 way DVR tuners, you, like me, see certain nights like a crazy frustrating puzzle.

So, we can record two things at once and cable networks tend to broadcast their shows at multiple times. Keeping in mind there's certain shows we are completely obsessed with and want to watch live (or as close to live as possible to avoid commercials) and trying to juggle all the back up knowledge ala "well, Food Network always runs a minute over but HBO shows end 7 or so minutes early" and blah blah blah.

So here's what's on this Sunday evening and how I'm planning to fill my two tuners. Numbers in BOLD are the showings I'll set my DVR for:

Army Wives - Lifetime 10pm, 11pm, 12am
Expedition Africa - History 10pm, 2am
In Plain Sight - USA 10pm, 1am
Law & Order: Criminal Intent - USA 9pm, 12am
Merlin (2 episodes) - NBC 8pm, 9pm
The Next Food Network Star - Food Network 9pm, 12am
True Blood - HBO 9pm, 11pm
The Best Thing I Ever Ate - Food Network 10pm, 1am

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A Quick Farewell To The Unusuals

It's the end of the line, folks. This evening marks the series finale of ABC's quirkiest cop show in recent memory, The Unusuals.

The show debuted in April to somewhat promising numbers on the middling side and the network tried moving it around a bit, seeing if a certain lead-in could help, what time slot was best. There were even rumors that network execs really liked the show and wanted to bring it back for a second shot next year...But it hasn't worked out.

Sometime last year, when I heard there was a new Amber Tamblyn pilot floating around I was pretty excited. When word came it would be appearing in April and would not only have Tamblyn but also Harold Perrineau and Adam Goldberg (as partners, no less!), I couldn't wait.

I'll admit, when the pilot premiered and the voice-over of a police dispatcher made some terrible joke in the first 5 seconds of the show I lost a bit of the wind in my sails. After watching the pilot I thought to myself "Definite potential...Let's just hope they figure out what works and what doesn't fast enough to save the show."

And guess what: they did. Pretty quickly the producers, directors, actors, et al, smoothed out the edges, streamlined some things, made the show more enjoyable. Unfortunately by the time they had worked out whatever needed to be worked out, it was too late. The audience had disappeared or the network had given up, depends on who you talk to.

Truthfully, I never really thought ABC was a good fit for the show. The network does quirky femme-centric drama really well. Non-disgusting reality TV, they know what they're doing. Interesting sitcoms...Well, they're kind of trying.

Since day one, I always kinda wondered if The Unusuals may have done better had the pilot script been seen, tweaked and given the go-ahead by a cable network. A certain cable network. One known for quirky cop/law enforcement-esque shows. A cable network that really likes strong characters.

I imagine that, had this come about the show would have looked radically different yet still hold what, in the end, charmed us about the series.

Someone behind the scenes at the show Twittered a quick note a couple weeks ago about talks to move the series to a cable network but I haven't heard a peep about it since, so I doubt that will come to pass.

Let's take a moment of silence for The Unusuals. It brought back the quirky cop to a world full of overly dramatic and often disgusting procedurals. It also portrayed New York City and the weirdos that make up the common man more realistic than most shows, especially scripted, unless you count the fact that one of the cops lived in an old diner. Does anyone really believe commercial real estate is cheaper than residential in NYC? Yeah, residential rents are astronomical but commercial even more so. But I digress. A moment of silence, please.

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Fox Premiere Dates For Fall 2009

Fox's Fall 2009 premiere schedule is out as of today. Since they already announced days and time slots during their upfront presentations, there's really no surprises here, just helpful hints as to when to set your DVR.

As always, I left off reality shows and all times are Eastern Standard/Western. Subtract an hour or two if you're in Central or Mountain Time.

Many folks are looking forward to the return of Glee. I watched the first few minutes of the pilot but thought it was a bit cliche with sort of bad writing...But perhaps I was just in a bad mood because everyone seemed to love it. I have it saved on my DVR so I'll give it a second chance. I do have to say, though, that airing the pilot after American Idol this Spring was a pretty ingenius move by Fox - it really built up alot of excitement for their Fall season. I suppose, thought, that if the series had bombed it would have looked like a giant mistake.

I'm looking forward to the return of Fringe and many a sci-fi geek out there is clamoring for the second shot at Dollhouse. I'm also looking forward to Lie To Me, which according to the twitters of the shows producers and writers, seems like it will have an exciting season.

The one thing I did notice was the fact that, of scripted programming, there's only three new shows for the fall season with most new pilots not making it to the schedule until 2010.







Wed, Sept. 16
9:00 - GLEE

Thurs, Sept. 17
8:00 - BONES
9:00 - FRINGE

Fri, Sept. 18
8:00 - BROTHERS
8:30 - ‘TIL DEATH
9:00 - DOLLHOUSE

Mon, Sept. 21
8:00 - HOUSE (2-Hour Premiere)

Sun, Sept. 27
8:00 - THE SIMPSONS
8:30 - THE CLEVELAND SHOW
9:00 - FAMILY GUY
9:30 - AMERICAN DAD

Mon, Sept. 28
9:00 - LIE TO ME

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ITV Kills Primeval

ITV has killed-off sci-fi hit Primeval after three seasons for an undisclosed reason. The timing to me, seems rather odd.

Just a few weeks ago Warner Bros. purchased the screen rights to the series for a possible movie. There was also talk of international versions being created, especially a U.S. one.

The show seemed to be doing well with international syndication, appearing in 32 countries outside the UK, including airing on two networks, both Sci Fi and BBC America, here in the states. Both seasons 1 and 2 have been released on DVD worldwide with season 3 having just been released for Region 2 this month and region 1 coming in September.

On top of all this, there were also 13 published books (8 teen-oriented novels and 5 activity books) with two more on the way and a line of toys.

Worst of all: Season 3 ended on a cliff hanger!

Just seems like an odd time to end the show. A link to the whole store is below, though if you're outside of the UK and season 3 has not ended for you, beware of spoilers:

Total Sci-fi Online

Finally, I'd like to make note that I am very proud of myself for not using cliche puns such as "ITV sends Primeval the way of the dinosaur" or "Primeval goes extinct." Someone should give me a pat on the back for that.

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Monk Returns August 7th

According to E! online's summer schedule, the final season of Monk is slated to premiere August 7th. I have no idea where they got this update as they seem to be to the only ones that have posted it.

USA started airing teaser ads stating that this was to be the final season a month or more ago but they all simply stated "This Summer". Well, glad to hear there's a date. I'm pretty bummed, though, at the thought of no Monk holiday special this year.

And while we're on the topic of USA...

Psych is also set to premiere that evening.

The new season of Burn Notice started off with a bang last Thursday. I've been a big fan of the show since day one and I'm glad to see the quality has stuck around for season 3. Ratings were rather fantastic for USA execs, as well, with a reported 6 million viewers. Nice.

Of those 6 million, over 5 million of them stuck around to catch the series premiere of Royal Pains. I think the show deserved the good reviews and ratings it received. I thought also paired up with Burn Notice well. Get your flash bang explosions and guns excitement followed by medical MacGuyver-ism and rich folks.

My favorite part of the show was when the girlfriend of collapsed rich kid actually asked the doc if he was MacGuyver after telling her what he would need to save the kids life. I like when shows reference classic TV shows and really dislike when television seem to take place in a world devoid of television. One of the reasons I loved Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip was hearing about the history of TV writers and the TV comedy business.

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TBS Not Saving Earl

No official word that talks have broken down or why but according to Ethan Suplee's Twitter feed TBS is not going to save My Name Is Earl after all.

"TBS isn't TheBestStation for reviving Earl. Good news is I'm now available to play Shia Laboof's better looking brother in Transformers 3."

Too bad. I really thought it would make a good fit. If Fox knew what was good for it, they'd pick it up.

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Wash Post Takes On NBC

The title makes it sound more dramatic, but there's a good piece in today's Washington Post TV Column about NBC and it's sister cable network USA.

I was actually thinking yesterday that if NBC Universal heads were smart they'd transplant the USA team to NBC and boot the current NBC execs. Then I realized that I like USA and don't want those execs to go anywhere. Keep the quality where it is and left NBC fend for itself. They dug their own hole so why should USA suffer.

Here's the article.

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