Showrunner Musical Chairs

Fox announced yesterday that Lie To Me will be returning for a second season and it has a new showrunner: Shawn Ryan. Ryan's resume is short but sweet: FX's former gritty and ultra violent cop drama The Shield and CBS' slick and more mainstream The Unit.

The two shows are polar opposites, which is not something you see much of - usually a writer/producer has a certain set style that they stick with but Ryan's two shows don't have much in common. Obviously The Unit leans more towards the usual CBS fare, which tends to be geared towards middle-agers while The Shield was more in your face, fast paced ala 18-39 crowd. David Mamet was The Unit's other showrunner, but the show doesn't really match his super talk-laden playwrite style either, so who know's where The Unit gets it's style from.

I'm interested in seeing if Ryan pushes Lie To Me into dirtier territory or not. Keeping in mind that it's on Fox, which means either an 8pm or 9pm slot, he can't start cursing and slaughtering like in The Shield. Remember, though, that FX and Fox is the same parent company so they may permit him some leeway that CBS may not.

Ryan has another project with CBS for the 2009 season called Confessions Of A Contractor based on a book about an LA contractor working with wealthy clients and falling in love. The deal is for a put pilot (that means the network will have to pay heavy penalties if the pilot is not picked up) but is cast-contingent (meaning the network has a say in casting). In January the network announced that, because they couldn't find a lead actor for the series, it was being pushed to mid-season.

Another showrunner shuffle occurred last week at CBS: Executive producers Ed Yeager and Ric Swartzlander will be leaving CBS family laugher Gary Unmarried. The show is about to wrap up it's first season with consistantly so-so ratings and there's no word if there'll even be a second season yet. "Creative differences" was the reason given.

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Worst Product Placement Ever And Worst-Timed Name Drop Ever: Gary Unmarried

Quite an unfortunate episode of Gary Unmarried this evening. If you were bored enough to be tuned into the CBS series this evening you were treated to two unfortunate scenes. One was the absolute worst product placement I think I have ever seen and the other was the most unfortunate timing of a name drop of all time.


The first, the product placement fiasco begins with Gary and his friend (not even worth imdb'ing his name) walk in the living room, proudly carrying KFC buckets and bags, The Colonel's smiling face emblazoned in perfect line with camera. I thought that was pretty bad, like most product placements. I tend to ignore them, an easy thing to do, but wow, did the writers make sure you couldn't ignore this placement.

Friend: This is not KFC.
Gary: Uh, yes it is. It's the, uh, the, uh, new grilled chicken. You'll like it.
Friend: But it's so tender (canned laughing). You can taste all the herbs and spices (lot's of canned laughing). You think it's like 5 herbs and 6 spices? (hahah)
Gary: I dunno, just eat it, ok.
Friend: What if it's like 10 herbs and 1 amazing spice (the laugh machine should be a break neck pace by now)
Gary: I hope this conversation never ends (laughing).
end unfortunate product placement scene.

Fresh off that amazing scene, after a few commercials, comes a scene in a hotel room where they repeatedly joke about having tickets to see Danny Gans. The joke consists of three characters and multiple lines taking up about 30 seconds. It's even mercilessly brought up again towards the end of the episode when someone mistakes Danny Gans for Sigfried & Roy. The two jokes themselves were pretty lame in the first place and crossed the line into unfortunate territory because Danny Gans died Tuesday the day before this episode aired. Ouch.

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