William And Mary News

W&M Faculty Approve New General Education Curriculum

Faculty Affirm, Strengthen the College's Liberal Arts Approach

(By Staff Writers, William & Mary website, December 12, 2013)

At their Dec. 12 meeting, the Faculty of Arts & Sciences voted in favor of new general education requirements for the undergraduate program at the College of William & Mary. The vote caps a year-long process of faculty deliberation and refinement following a Feb. 5, 2013 vote to adopt a new framework and guiding principles.

As mandated by the state of Virginia, the general education requirements comprise about one quarter of the 120 credits needed for the undergraduate degree. They are taken by all undergraduate students alongside the courses required for majors and elective courses that round out their academic program. The College's "gen ed" requirements were last reviewed and revised by the faculty in 1993. The other three quarters of the W&M curriculum -- requirements for individual majors and electives -- were not part of the faculty review.

Called the College Curriculum (COLL), the new general education curriculum systematically links all four undergraduate years at William & Mary from start to finish. Previously, students completed a checklist of general education requirements in no particular order. Many of those requirements were fulfilled before a student arrived at W&M by credits earned in secondary school or at another institution of higher education. The revised general education courses provide an improved sequence designed by W&M faculty to emphasize connections across the liberal arts.

The COLL curriculum will provide students a common W&M experience and a more integrated introduction to the liberal arts, said Kate Conley, Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. Each year draws on the foundational knowledge and skills gained in the previous year as students move into their majors and gain a wider liberal arts perspective on the world, she added.

"Our faculty have moved carefully, precisely, and boldly to design a liberal arts curriculum that's right for our time and looks to the future,” Conley said. “This curriculum ensures that each student leaves William & Mary able to think deeply and critically and to make new connections between various kinds of knowledge – the best kind of preparation for their future success. I congratulate the faculty on their fine work.”

Innovations in the new curriculum

By design, the new general education curriculum extends across all four undergraduate years, with each year building toward an integrated liberal arts education. The new curriculum emphasizes inquiry (how to frame questions, reason, create, solve problems) and writing and other forms of communication throughout all four years.

In the 1993 curriculum, courses originated in departments and programs and were designated as satisfying one of the GER content areas (1, 2a, 2b, 3, 4a, 4b, 4c, 5, 6, or 7). The new framework turns that around: COLL (Gen Ed) courses carry explicit learning expectations and can be cross-listed back to departments and programs.  Some courses are conceived in an entirely new way. COLL 200 courses, for example, are anchored in a "knowledge domain" (one of three defined areas of knowledge) and intentionally look outward to one or both of the other knowledge domains. Interdisciplinarity is thus built into the structure of the course itself.

For instance, a current general education course in 18^th-century American history, which now concentrates on primary historical sources, might be adapted into a new COLL 200 course by drawing in addition on geological, marine science, or epidemiological studies to explore how the environment affected the communities of Tidewater Virginia.  The history professor teaching the course would consult with his or her scientific peers on campus, and the history students would be introduced to different questions, materials, and methods drawing on those other disciplines.

Alongside the new curriculum are new and enhanced resources to provide a self-sustaining cycle of innovation and support for general education. A new Center for the Liberal Arts, for example, consists of rotating Faculty Fellows charged with helping to organize and infuse content, integration, and creativity throughout the general education curriculum. The first cohort of five Faculty Fellows will begin work in January 2014.

Each Faculty Fellow will design and teach a new COLL course, and they will help their faculty colleagues incorporate their research and scholarship into their own general education courses. The Fellows will also help to guide the current faculty advising system to support students, and help decide how best to formulate and provide academic support to students outside the classroom (e.g., the current Writing Resources Center and the proposed Quantitative Resources Center).

A quintessential William & Mary approach

The curriculum review was a result of the strategic planning process, which assessed William & Mary’s position as a leading liberal arts university. In 2010, Provost Michael R. Halleran charged the deans of Arts & Sciences, business and education to undertake a curriculum review that should “above all else focus on developing the most vibrant and exciting liberal arts education for our students, leveraging core values with our distinctive attributes."

That charge was followed with two years of research, design, and faculty conversations led by an appointed Curriculum Review Steering Committee. In Fall 2012 that group turned its proposed curriculum over to the elected Educational Policy Committee (EPC), which has oversight of the general education requirements. After convening various working groups to vet each part of the proposed curriculum, the EPC led the year-long discussion and refinement by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.  "The faculty steering committee that initiated our review could have tinkered around the edges and suggested minor revisions to our 20-year-old general curriculum," said Lu Ann Homza, A&S Dean for Educational Policy, whose portfolio includes the general education requirements. "Instead they proposed an entirely new framework with a uniquely William & Mary approach."

The framework is designed to be both robust and flexible, Homza said. It brings the liberal arts to the center of the overall curriculum and challenges faculty members to bring their best work to the general education courses taken by all undergraduate students.  "This is a game-changer," said Homza. "It's a very exciting time to be a faculty member at William & Mary."

Making the switch

Academic departments and programs already have been reviewing their course offerings in relation to the new curriculum, looking at possible changes in courses that already exist, new courses, and courses that will no longer be needed. That planning ramps up in Spring 2014 with more formal assessments conducted with the A&S Dean's Office. Simultaneously, Provost Halleran will join President Taylor Reveley in a full review of the proposed curriculum, including projected costs.  There will be some development and transition costs, Halleran said, as faculty design and implement the new courses, and some modest increased permanent costs in expanding the engaged learning model that characterizes a W&M education. Now that faculty have approved the new curriculum, the A&S Dean’s Office will conduct a formal assessment of temporary costs, associated costs such as increased faculty support and new, direct costs.

“From what I've seen so far, those costs appear to be reasonable and appropriate,” said Halleran, adding the College will support the new curriculum through a combination of resources, including reallocation of existing funds, budget priorities through W&M’s annual strategic planning process and private donations.  "Our plan is to pilot new COLL 100- and 200-level courses as early as Fall 2014," said John Griffin, Dean of Undergraduate Studies. "In Fall 2015 we expect to launch the new curriculum with that year's entering freshman class."
The curriculum will be implemented over four years, with current students graduating under the existing general education requirements, Griffin said. This, he added, allows for a manageable transition and an opportunity to secure new funding. 

The total number of credits required for a bachelor's degree remains unchanged (120), and the number of general education credits remains about one fourth of that total (~30). So once the new curriculum is fully launched, the credits per student will be comparable to the general education curriculum now in place. Pre-college credits (e.g., AP, IB) will still be accepted but will not replace COLL courses.  Transfer students will participate in many, but not all, of the new requirements. According to Griffin, "We want them to benefit from the new curriculum as much as possible, while still completing their degrees within the usual four years."

Adapting to contemporary realities

While substantial work remains on the implementation side, President Reveley congratulated the faculty for its hard and creative efforts so far.  “The passage of two decades between revisions of our general education requirements is quite a long time in today’s world,” Reveley said. “Much has changed since 1993 when our general education requirements were last revised. The international community has drawn much closer; interdisciplinary research, teaching and problem-solving have become much more essential; and there has been an explosive advance in many areas of knowledge. While our professors have been refreshing and tweaking their courses over the years, it was time to bring many of these ideas together in an integrated way.  Like other institutions, colleges and universities must take contemporary realities into account if they wish to remain relevant and excellent. Thus, leading colleges and universities revisit and revise their general education requirements with some frequency.”

http://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2013/story-123.php

The William & Mary Promise

(By Taylor Reveley, William & Mary website, 19 April 2013)

Dear William & Mary Community,

Today our Board of Visitors took steps vitally needed to help secure a future for the College worthy of our storied past. These steps are called “The William & Mary Promise.” They are sketched in the press release found here. You will find even more details and a video on our Promise website at www.wm.edu/promise. Please take a look at this information. 

Here, though, are the basic elements of the Promise. The new financial resources it generates will (1) help provide enough compensation to recruit and retain the outstanding faculty and staff essential if we are to educate our students with “public ivy” quality, (2) materially increase the College’s affordability for low- and middle-income undergraduates from Virginia, and (3) provide more seats for in-state undergraduates at William & Mary (we will enroll an additional 150 in-state students phased in over a four-year period, and they, when added to the additional 150 students we began phasing in with our fall 2011 class, will result in 300 additional students from Virginia – or an 8% increase in the size of the in-state student body as compared to its size in fall 2010). (4) The William & Mary Promise also guarantees that incoming in-state students will pay the exact same tuition for four years – no increases, and (5) it raises annual tuition at no more than the rate of inflation for in-state undergraduates enrolled before implementation of the Promise. (6) The Board of Visitors limited the increase in out-of-state undergraduate tuition for next year to the lowest percentage in over a decade to help William & Mary remain competitive for out-of-state students.

Let me provide some context for the BOV’s actions and explain why, in my judgment, they are essential. U.S. News most recently ranked the College 6^th in quality among all public universities. Counting both public and private schools, we ranked 33rd in quality among the leading national universities but only 112^th in financial resources. That’s a gap of 79 points. No other leading university has a gap approaching that magnitude and none ranked below 80^th in financial wherewithal. William & Mary offers an academic experience that is rich in talented people, steeped in student/faculty engagement, devoted to undergraduates as well as professional and graduate students, and funded on a shoe string. We do remarkably more with less. Up to a point, this is a virtue, but only up to a point. Our shoe string is worn and pulled taut.

William & Mary’s strategic plans hinge on the College’s continuing to offer one of the very best undergraduate educations in the world while remaining a university internationally recognized for academic excellence. This requires salaries sufficient to retain and attract marvelous faculty and staff and financial aid sufficient to meet the needs of our students. We have fallen behind in both regards. Faculty salaries are currently at the 14^th percentile of W&M’s peer institutions as identified by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). They are projected to be in the 9^th percentile by the 2015/16 academic year. Similarly, staff salaries at W&M seriously lag behind those paid by our SCHEV peers. This is flatly unacceptable. We must reverse the trend, while also increasing the amount of need-based aid we provide, focusing initially on in-state students. The Provost will shortly send a message explaining the steps we will take to raise salaries.

Funds are needed on many other scores as well. For instance, we should become more multi-disciplinary in our academic programs, because the issues our society faces are multi-disciplinary, and students need to learn to think in those terms and solve problems in those terms. We also need funds so the university can become more internationally engaged, because the world in all its dimensions is increasingly interconnected, our students seek international engagement, and we are well positioned to take advantage of our strengths in this arena.

Among all the things William & Mary must accomplish soon, however, by far the most important is to rebuild our financial foundation, taking into account the decline in state support that has occurred over a generation and the enormous demands that are now being made on very finite state resources. While William & Mary greatly appreciates any support the state provides us, we recognize that the College must largely fund itself going forward. This we can do by combining campus productivity gains with growing philanthropic support and more earned income from students who benefit from the extraordinary education William & Mary provides (coupled with need-based aid for those students who qualify for it).

In other words, we all have to do our part – faculty and staff through productivity gains on campus, alumni and friends through philanthropy, and students and parents through tuition. No group can stand on the sidelines expecting the others to carry the ball alone. It takes us all, pulling together, to build a sustainable financial foundation for William & Mary in this century. And it is crucial that faculty and staff, alumni and friends, as well as students and their families be confident they are not pulling alone.

This is why the actions taken by our Board of Visitors today are so vital. “The William & Mary Promise” embraces the reality that we are all in this together.  William & Mary is a treasure for the Commonwealth and for the country. It is an iconic national institution that was present at the creation of both the State of Virginia and the United States of America. The College is now well into its 320^th year. As the stewards of this great inheritance, it’s up to us to sustain William & Mary in our time.

Taylor Reveley

 

 

Board Of Visitors Adopts New Operating Model For William & Mary

(By Brian Whitson, William & Mary website, April 19, 2013)

William& Mary’s Board of Visitors today approved “The William & Mary Promise,” a new operating model that provides vitally needed resources to secure the future of Virginia’s distinctive “public ivy” while markedly enhancing affordability and access for Virginia students.  Highlights of the new model include:

• FOUR-YEAR TUITION GUARANTEE:  Provides Virginia families with financial predictability through a commitment to incoming in-state students that tuition will remain constant through all four years of undergraduate study.
• RELIEF FOR “MIDDLE-INCOME” FAMILIES:  Reduces the “net tuition” paid by middle-income families, as defined by the state’s Higher Education Advisory Committee.  More than 70% of Virginia households qualify as “middle income” under that definition and would pay the same or less to attend William & Mary under the new model.
• LESS DEBT FOR W&M GRADUATES:  Reduces by up to $8,000 the loan burden for middle-income in-state undergraduate students who have demonstrated financial need.
• TUITION CAPPED AT C.P.I. FOR RETURNING VIRGINIA STUDENTS:  For in-state undergraduate students enrolled at William & Mary before adoption of the new model, holds annual tuition increases to no greater than the rate of inflation (annual change in the Consumer Price Index, 1.8% next year).
• ADDITIONAL VIRGINIA STUDENTS:  Provides for 150 additional in-state students to be enrolled to William& Mary over the next four years, which combined with the recent commitment of 150 in-state students represents an 8% increase since 2010.
• ENSURING ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE:  Increases faculty compensation (based on merit) to the level recommended in the state’s new landmark higher education law (TJ21), keeps classes small and interactive, and increases average faculty engagement in instruction.
• SECURING A “PUBLIC IVY” FUTURE:  Ensures a sound financial future for the College through innovation, enhanced efficiency and productivity, greater philanthropic support, and increased tuition revenues.

 “William & Mary is a treasure for the Commonwealth and the country,” said President Taylor Reveley. “It is one of the greatest liberal arts universities in the world, rare for its genuine commitment to both research and teaching and for its abiding emphasis on undergraduate education of compelling quality. To sustain this treasure and enable it to move forward in this century, we must take action on many fronts.  Those of us on campus must keep seeking ways to provide superior results at less cost.  Our alumni and friends must help sustain William & Mary with increasing generosity through annual giving, endowment gifts, and funds for bricks and mortar. Our students and their families must help support more of the cost of the ‘hands on’ education that is the glory of the College. At the same time, we must become more affordable for Virginia low- and middle-income families and reduce student loan debt. With all of us doing our parts, William & Mary can continue to contribute magnificently to the Commonwealth and nation. Our new operating model is a vital step to that end.”

The Board of Visitors adopted the “William& Mary Promise” to fund expenditures in the university’s approved six-year plan and to address priorities identified in the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2011 (TJ21), which the General Assembly adopted unanimously two years ago. The plan takes into account that long-term declines in state support require a new financial model to meet the university’s essential needs. The plan will make the College more self-sufficient during uncertain economic times and will provide the stable funding necessary to offer one of the best undergraduate educations in the country and to be recognized internationally for academic excellence.  Resources generated by the plan will be used to retain and attract the outstanding faculty and staff necessary to deliver “public ivy” quality, enhance affordability for low- and middle-income Virginia students, and provide more opportunities for in-state students to attend William & Mary.

 “With the steep decline in public funding for higher education over the last generation, and the uncertainty of such funding in the future, it is time for bold and creative ideas to provide the kind of resources needed to sustain great institutions like William & Mary, while also improving affordability for students with financial need and predictability about tuition amounts for everyone,” said W&M Chancellor Robert M. Gates. “I am fully supportive of what is proposed and believe it places the College on much more solid footing for the future.”  Rector Jeffrey B. Trammell praised the collaboration and creativity that led to the William& Mary Promise.  “The board, administration and university community came together to craft and refine this new operating model. William & Mary is committed to providing the best undergraduate liberal arts education of any public university and securing a future worthy of our past,” Trammell said. “The William & Mary Promise is a visionary plan that increases affordability for lower- and middle-income Virginia families. It enables more Virginians to be educated at the College.  It allows us to retain and recruit the very best faculty and staff. And it provides an innovative, predictable tuition model for in-state students. The reinvention of our operating model allows us to enhance and sustain William & Mary's national preeminence and promises that the fourth century will be the best yet for our 320-year-old institution."

Todd Stottlemyer, chair of the Board’s Committee on Financial Affairs, said the new operating model is a promise to everyone associated with William & Mary.  “This is an innovative plan to preserve and strengthen the university’s long-term excellence,” Stottlemyer said. “In the face of growing competitive pressures and limited public funding, William& Mary will become more self-sufficient so it can continue to offer an outstanding educational experience as one of the leading institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth and nation.  Because of William & Mary’s strong position in the higher education marketplace, the College is able to implement a financial model that simultaneously lays a firm foundation for its future as a leading American university and enhances affordability for middle-income students from Virginia.”

Additional information on key features of the William & Mary Promise follows:

Four-year tuition guarantee:

-       Beginning this fall, entering Virginia students will know exactly what their tuition costs will be for all four years at William & Mary, and those costs will not rise from year to year. The Board’s action today sets tuition for classes entering in the fall of 2013, 2014 and 2015.  Virginia undergraduate students in each entering class will see a one-time step increase their freshman year: to $10,428 for the 2013-14 academic year, $12,428 for 2014-2015, and $13,978 for 2015-2016.  For each entering class, tuition will be frozen at that level for all four years. 

-       To put the new tuition model in perspective, the cumulative four-year cost of tuition for the class that enters in fall 2013 will be less than it would have been under the annual 7.1 percent increases that were the average at William & Mary over the past five years. 

-       The William & Mary Promise ensures that all Virginia students, regardless of income or financial aid eligibility, will continue to receive a “public ivy” education at William & Mary for less than it actually costs the College to provide that education.  Even after the step increases in tuition described above are fully implemented, William & Mary as a public university will still be subsidizing the education of all in-state students, even those whose family incomes and assets make them ineligible for any financial aid.  Under the William & Mary Promise, however, “middle-income” families will receive a larger share of this subsidy than under the current model. When the effects of increased financial aid are factored in, the "net tuition" paid by the majority of students who qualify for financial aid will be significantly lower.

-       The new tuition rates and four-year guarantee are for new in-state students only. Currently enrolled in-state students will see their tuition increase no greater than the rate of inflation (Consumer Price Index, or CPI), which means an increase of just 1.8 percent for the 2013-14 academic year – the lowest in-state increase for current students in more than a decade. Tuition increases for these returning students in fall 2014 and 2015 will also be based on increases in the CPI.

-       The guaranteed tuition plan will not apply to out-of-state undergraduates. But out-of-state students will have a 3% tuition increase for fall 2013, the lowest increase in 11 years. The College will continue to evaluate out-of-state tuition on an annual basis, considering total costs as well as tuition and fees.

Middle-income affordability and lower student debt:

-       Under the William & Mary Promise, students from middle-income families who qualify for need-based financial aid will pay no more “net tuition” (tuition less financial aid) than under the current model, and the vast majority will pay significantly less.  The new model will enable the College to increase the amount of need-based financial aid it provides to in-state students by 50 percent over the four-year period.   Most of the increased aid will be used to provide grants in lieu of loans, thereby reducing student debt.

-       Through the new financial aid, the William& Mary Promise will lower the average annual borrowing and four-year cumulative debt average for Virginia undergraduates with demonstrated need as determined by the financial aid office.  The plan will lower the maximum amount of loans included with an in-state financial aid package by 36% ($2,000 annually) for families with an income between $40,000 and $60,000, and by 18% ($1,000 annually) for all other families with demonstrated financial need. Students from Virginia families with a household income of less than $40,000 will continue to receive financial aid that covers 100% of their need with grants, and thus will incur no debt.

-       The definition of “middle income” used in the William & Mary Promise encompasses more than 71% of Virginia households and was supplied by the Commonwealth of Virginia pursuant to the new TJ21 legislation.  Adopted by the General Assembly in 2011, TJ21 stressed the need to improve middle-income affordability and directed a newly created Higher Education Advisory Committee to provide a definition of the target group.  The Committee has done so, defining “middle income” as extending to 400% of the federal “poverty” definition, or to roughly $100,000 in annual income for a family of four with two children.   

More spaces for Virginia undergraduates:

-       Overall in-state undergraduate enrollment will increase by an additional 150 students above current commitments, phased in over a four-year period. This is in addition to the 150 in-state slots William & Mary has been phasing in since 2010.

-       When completely phased in, W&M will have added an additional 300 spots for Virginia students compared to the 2010 enrollment when the expansion began—an increase of about 8%.

Academic excellence and financial soundness:

-       The William & Mary Promise is designed to achieve the objectives identified in the College’s six-year-plan, which was adopted last year after passage of the TJ21 legislation.  Each fall, public institutions of higher education in Virginia are required by TJ21 to submit updated six-year plans to designated state officials.  The plans identify critical needs and priorities as well as expenditures and planned resources.  William & Mary’s plan, first adopted by the Board of Visitors in September 2011, was informed by both the goals of the TJ21 legislation and the ongoing strategic planning effort that began in 2008.

-       A primary objective of the plan is to narrow the gap between quality and the resources the College has to sustain that quality.  According to U.S. News, the gap between William & Mary’s academic quality and the university’s financial resources is unparalleled:  W&M ranks 33^rd in the nation in quality and 112^th in resources.  No other university in the top 50 has a gap anywhere close to the 79-point difference of those two rankings, and this gap has been growing significantly over the last three years.

-       Retaining and attracting top faculty – the lifeblood of any great university, especially a “public ivy” – is exceptionally difficult when the resource gap becomes so wide.  W&M’s faculty salaries are currently at the 14^th percentile of the university’s peer institutions as identified by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), and are projected to decline to the 9^th percentile by 2015 under the existing operating model.  To put this in perspective, the TJ21 legislation enacted just two years ago reiterated the Commonwealth’s longstanding goal of having its colleges and universities provide faculty salaries at the 60^th percentile of their SCHEV-identified peers.  The William & Mary Promise will provide resources to help the College reverse the negative current trend and move, based on merit, toward the 60^th percentile recommended in the TJ21 law.

-       While the Governor and General Assembly in recent years commendably have halted and begun to reverse the decade-long state disinvestment in higher education documented by the Governor’s Commission on Higher Education Reform, Innovation and Investment, the uncertain economy and long-term fiscal constraints suggest that the pace of reinvestment by the Commonwealth will be limited.  The new operating model thus relies on a combination of sources within the College’s control – savings from even greater productivity, efficiency, and innovation, increased private philanthropy and higher net tuition revenues – to ensure that instructional quality is preserved and enhanced while extending affordable access to many more deserving Virginia students, especially those caught in the “middle class squeeze.”

http://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2013/promise.php

  

Kylie Comes To See Me, Sort Of

After more than 20 years of listening to Kylie Minogue’s albums, I’ve finally seen her in concert. It’s not that I’ve been passing on the chance until now- it’s just that she never toured the United States until 2009 and she’s never been anywhere close to this area until last weekend. When her second U.S. tour was announced this year, there were about a dozen U.S. venues such as New York City, Los Angeles, Orlando, Houston, LA, Atlanta and Fairfax, Virginia- about 8 miles from my house. How could I not go see her? I think the venue was picked simply to make me happy because I can’t figure out any other reason for her to appear there. Okay, maybe her shows require a certain type of auditorium because of the sets and that factored into things but still, eight miles from my house! So Saturday night found me at the Patriot Center at George Mason waiting for her to take the stage. I left work a little early and met John at my place around 5:30 and then we headed over a bit later, after talking poker and playing Angry Birds for a bit. Hey, the original plan was to meet our friend Trevor and his partner Matt for drinks or something but he blew us off, at least pre-show, so that he could go eat with other friends of his that were also going to the show.

John and I walked around the concourse for a bit and checked out the merchandise for sale but there was nothing either of us was eager to buy because A) it would be too embarrassing to walk out of the house wearing it and B) it was pretty pricey, like the $100 coffee table book or the $25 program. The crowd was pretty glamorous but there were a few straight people there- I saw at least nine of them, including me, John, Daniel (John’s brother) and Daniel’s fiancée. I wasn’t too sure about the security guard wearing red suede shoes though. I overheard one person saying to his friend “This crowd makes Cher’s audience look butch.” After going up to see Daniel and Hannah, we met up with Trevor after he texted me where he was sitting. John hadn’t seen Trevor for a decade or more so we chatted for a bit, particularly about music like Chicago, The Beautiful South and Huey Lewis- acts that Trevor liked back in college but now he was mostly into the Pet Shop Boys. When the show was about to start or at least until it sounded like the opening act, er… the DJ, was finishing up, we headed back to our seats. Fourth row up from the floor seats, with two empty seats just to our left so we had a great view, even with people standing up in front of us. The show was a spectacle, an event, a triumph, and it made me like the Aphrodite album even though I’d been kind of lukewarm to it prior to hearing the revamped, amplified versions of the songs they played at the show. Here’s the Washington Post’s review of the concert along with the setlist I texted myself throughout the show.

Australia’s Kylie Minogue Dazzles In Her Second Stateside Tour(By Megan Buerger, Washington Post, May 1, 2011)

It was a show of epic proportions. With Cirque du Soleil-style dancers, eight costume changes and a stage fit for a disco queen, Kylie Minogue’s Saturday night concert at the Patriot Center was an escape to another world. Another world, that is, where svelte Greek warriors wear feathers, the law of gravity is defied and calories (apparently) don’t exist. For her mythology-themed “Aphrodite — Les Folies” tour, Minogue pulled out all the stops. Given that the Australian starlet has been high on international pop charts for 20 years but has never quite won over the United States — this is her second stateside tour — the grandeur is entertaining, if a bit overdue.

And grand it was. The $25 million tour boasts three sprawling staircases, aerial acrobatics and a series of larger-than-life props including a Pegasus statue set among mighty Grecian columns. For Minogue, 42 and fit as ever, the stage was also a runway. Drawing as much attention as the special effects were her staggering Dolce & Gabbana custom gowns and elaborate headdresses. Opening with the title track from her 11th album, “Aphrodite” (2010), Minogue emerged from beneath the stage in a large shell a la Botticelli’s Venus. In keeping with the theatrical theme, she circled the stage in a chariot pulled by men in leather loincloths, sang a rock rendition of her U.S. hit “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” (2001) and, for the encore, layered her crew on a three-tiered cake stage for “All the Lovers” before sinking out of sight.

Minogue is proof that it pays to know your audience. A nod to her legion of gay fans, the evening was largely a homage to the male figure. Scantily clad dancers paraded the stage in gold armor while homoerotic images reminiscent of Abercrombie & Fitch ads flashed on video screens behind them. It takes a secure soul to throw caution to the wind and join this shimmying collective, but Minogue’s audience leapt aboard. The stadium was only half full, yet there wasn’t a still body in the house. It could be argued that the show was not particularly meaningful, and it wasn’t, but that was hardly the point. Where Minogue differs from American pop divas such as Lady Gaga and Madonna is that she takes herself less seriously. She, like her audience, was there to promote only one agenda: having a good time. Perhaps this explains her spirited gay following. Free from political statement or hidden message, Minogue is unapologetically true to herself.

Kylie Minoque- Aphrodite Tour
May 1, 2011 ($60.00- Patriot Center)

Songs From Album:

Carnival of the Animals intro (By Camille Saint-Saens)
1 Aphrodite Aphrodite
2 The One X
3 Wow X
4 Illusion Aphrodite
5 I Believe In You Ultimate Kylie
6 Cupid Boy Aphrodite
7 Spinning Around Light Years
8 Get Outta My Way Aphrodite
9 What Do I Have To Do Rhythm Of Love
10 Everything Is Beautiful Aphrodite
11 Slow Body Language
12 Confide In Me Kylie Minogue
13 Can't Get You Out Of My Head Fever
14 In My Arms X
15 Looking For An Angel & There Must Be An Angel (Eurthymics cover) Aphrodite

---- Band and dancers intro -------

16 Love At First Sight and Can't Beat This Feeling (Mashup) Fever
17 If You Don't Love Me (solo) Hits + (Prefab Sprouts cover)
18 Better The Devil You Know Rhythm Of Love
19 Come Into My World (snippet) Fever
20 Better Than Today Aphrodite
21 Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love) Aphrodite

Encore:
22 On A Night Like This Light Years
23 All The Lovers Aphrodite

Killing Off Television Characters

Needless to say, there are spoilers here.



Walking Dead’s Glen Mazzara On The Necessity Of Killing Off Good Characters
(By Glen Mazzara, Hollywood Reporter, 10 October 2013)

As far as I can tell, the first time a beloved television character was killed in a tragic way was on March 18, 1975. I still remember that awful news: "Lt. Col. Henry Blake's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors." Radar O'Reilly delivered that message to the crowded operating room of the 4077th M*A*S*H. It was met with stunned silence. Nothing could be done. Like Hawkeye and the others, we were forced to examine Henry's life in that light. Is that really the end of his story?  'Breaking Bad' Fans Place Walter White Obit in Albuquerque Paper [3]7Hollywood's 20 Masters of Horror: The Twisted Talents Raising the Most Hell Since then, there have been many shocking character deaths that continue to haunt us years later. Edith Bunker. Dr. Mark Greene. Bobby Simone. Joyce Summers. Curtis "Lemonhead" Lemansky. Stringer Bell. Ned Stark. Lane Pryce. Everyone at the Red Wedding.

Deciding to kill off a character is never easy. Writers rooms endlessly debate the pros and cons of each death. The first question usually is, "Is this going to feel like we're just doing it to do it?" Each writer weighs in: "We're losing a great character." "We're changing the dynamic of the show." "What if it doesn't work?" "We can't go back."  Characters like Breaking Bad's Walter White have to die because that's the fitting conclusion to the larger tale. Killing off a character in the middle of a series' run is a trickier matter. In my experience, it needs to generate story. It must open up more possibilities and gain opportunities that don't currently exist. It has to be right for the show in the long run. If a show kills off a major character just to add some juice to a particular episode, it'll feel like a cheap stunt.

I find that the debates over whether to kill off a character take weeks, if not months. Every alternative is explored. When the showrunner expresses his or her vision and gains consensus among the creative team, the writers go off and write the material. Once that's in the best possible shape, the actor needs to be informed.  Telling someone they are going to be out of work is hard. Telling them it's because they've done a good job getting people to care deeply about their character is hard to rationalize. Telling them it's best for the show can be insulting. Trust me, those calls suck.

Most actors are completely surprised at the news they're being killed off. It's as if they're in that M*A*S*H operating room, listening in stunned silence to the news of their own death. Most just ask a few questions then hang up. They usually call back five minutes later with many more questions. I imagine how a patient feels when their doctor delivers bad news. I tell them they need to be involved in the process and that their notes are welcomed. A lot of their work has been stripped away, and they must now begin arcing out a performance that gives their characters a sense of closure and that will hit audiences hard. That's a tremendous amount of work to just throw at someone. And, oh yeah, we don't know what'll happen to your career next, but you'll be OK.

Actors work so hard to land meaningful roles. They contribute their blood, sweat and tears to help a show succeed. It can seem capricious when they're killed off. It affects them on a profoundly personal level. It's frightening. Many TV shows claim to be a family. Killing off a character is asking that actor to leave their family and start over somewhere else.  Many actors immediately try to persuade you to change your mind. If the material's as good as it can be, you probably won't. But it's your job to talk them through it. To listen.  Nearly all actors I've worked with deliver their best work when they film their character's death. Their dedication and professionalism is inspiring.  A few actors have lashed out angrily. They went out kicking and screaming. They took it personally, as if I was killing them and not their character. They'll never agree that it was best for the show.  And then it airs.

If the episode is successful and people are profoundly moved, it's a testament to the writers, directors, crew and cast. People crying at home means everyone did their job well. You've made a real emotional connection with your audience. You've left them with something. You've made an impact.  A strong death scene will provoke strong emotions, one of which may be anger. Many viewers in 1975 wrote to CBS -- where M*A*S*H aired until its 1983 conclusion -- furious that a sitcom episode ended with such a tragic announcement. These days, we writers get blasted with angry, hateful tweets.  Whatever.  I tell stories. Not all of them have happy endings. Not everyone makes it home. Remember Henry Blake.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/walking-dead-showrunner-glen-mazzara-644452

NOV20

1 day

'Person Of Interest' Bosses Talk Major Death, Team Fallout And Reese Unhinged

(By Philiana Ng, Hollywood Reporter, 20 november 2013)

[Warning: Major spoilers ahead from Tuesday's episode, "The Crossing."]

]Person of Interest just bid farewell to a core member of the team.  Tuesday's episode, "The Crossing," was billed as the second part in a three-episode trilogy with the warning that one of the main players on the CBS drama would not be making it out alive. And boy, did they keep that promise, with Taraji P. Henson's Det. Carter suffering a fatal gunshot in the midst of Reese's battle against the powerful and corrupt organization, HR.  On Wednesday, executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Greg Plageman talked to The Hollywood Reporter [4] about the decision to kill off a central character, the unscripted Reese/Carter kiss and the likelihood of Henson returning.

Were you surprised by the reaction to last night's episode?

Greg Plageman: Yeah, we always knew there would be a certain amount of trauma inflicted on our audience in terms of the loss of one of our central characters. It's a bargain everyone makes. They all signed up for the show. We knew where we wanted to go. We wanted to be that kind of show, and we felt like this is a show that continuously moves forward. The overall arc of the show is something we were always excited about. In order for the stakes to feel real on the show and embrace that element of life, there had to be an element of loss. We seized the opportunity for the show to continually evolve in different places and for all our characters.

What prompted the decision to kill off a character who has been on the show since the very beginning?

Jonathan Nolan: It wasn't a question of any prompting, so much as our commitment at the beginning to keep shaking it up. We have no interest -- and I never had any interest -- in making a conventional TV procedural. There's nothing wrong with the word "procedural" -- our show is a procedural, or often there is a case of the week and a self-contained story that people can invest in a beginning, middle and end. But also, a bigger tectonic mythology that is moving and going places. When you come up with foes as formidable as those played by Robert John Burke (Simmons) and Clarke Peters (Quinn) over the course of three seasons, you don't want them to go down without a fight. We knew from the beginning that we had to punish ourselves and the audience by losing more and more castmembers.

We looked at the run of the HR story here and we felt it was time to bring it to the climax, so I sat down with Taraji earlier in the year and we talked through what we were cooking up. It was a bittersweet conversation, because we love working with her and vice versa. It's been a great creative collaboration. As sad as we were to see her go, I think we were all excited -- Taraji, us and the writers -- to get into a juicy piece of material, to tell a tragedy. I don't know why humans like stories that involve death and misfortune; these are the stories that we're drawn to again and again. Speaking for myself as an audience member, I love when a show can shock, so we've been building toward this now for the better part of a year. It's incredibly satisfying to collaborate with an actor toward this end. It's been a really cool experience.

When was that first conversation that you had for a character to die?

Nolan: From the beginning. When we cast all of these roles, we said, "Rent, don't buy in New York," because we wanted to tell a story with real stakes. In terms of specifics with Taraji, I sat down with her earlier in the year back in January or February. Or even longer than that. It's been in the works for a while.

What was the reasoning behind having Carter be the one to die? Were there other serious candidates?

Nolan: Yeah, absolutely, but we felt that Carter's connection to police corruption from the pilot onward -- this is one of the themes of our show, the enemy within -- from the very beginning, it was the story of her realizing that she's surrounded by people that she thought she knew but she didn't, and the real allies were the two weird vigilantes she's been chasing. For this story -- HR, police corruption -- it was a natural boiling point that would put her first and foremost into focus. And frankly, as writers, we've long said that Carter was the heart of the show, and your perverse impulse as a writer (laughs) is to do as much damage to the audience as possible. There's nothing more dastardly than -- if Carter's the heart of the show -- breaking that heart for the audience in the middle of the season.

How did you settle on how Carter died (by Simmons' gunshot)? Were there other alternatives?

Nolan: In terms of the episode itself, for the writers, we had dug in from the beginning in terms of going for maximum impact, giving the characters a real sense of victory and triumph but also coupling it to an inevitable sense that triumph never comes without loss. We always talked about this three-episode arc, one in which, on a more mechanical level, the audience has seen it all before, so the game you're playing with the audience is trying to keep it as fresh for them as possible, to keep them at the edge of their seats. One of the things Greg and I are proudest of this morning is the fact that the amount of people we're talking to and fan reaction -- being truly shocked at what happened, but also spending a significant amount of time in last night's episode believing that Fusco might die, that Reese might die, that Finch might die, that Bear the dog might die.

Plageman: Like that Jack London story, Bear will be the last one standing.

Carter's death came after she shared a nice moment with Reese, where they revealed their true feelings. Had she not died, had you thought about where their relationship might have gone?

Plageman: We've always felt the show could go there, but we always wanted it to be organic, and the most interesting thing that emerged in last night's episode was that the kiss was not scripted. We never wrote it in. However you would characterize the relationship between these two characters up to this point, platonic or something deeper, that was never in question. It was intended to be a scene in which Reese and Carter both understood that what they were undertaking was life-harrowing and that this may or may not be the last time they'd see each other. That was always in there. What was surprising to us was where they went with it. It wasn't in every take; there were takes where they didn't do it and there were takes where they did. When we heard about it on the set, everybody on the show was like, "Oh no," because we knew we might have to go there. You see it in Carter's eyes, an element of surprise and natural feedback that she gives in that moment that it did seem earned. When we took [that scene] out and watched it, we felt like we missed it. We felt it deepened the level of their relationship in a way that we felt had we not gone there it would kind of be chicken shit.

What are the chances that Taraji will be back, perhaps in flashback?

Nolan: Absolutely. It's been a pleasure to work with Taraji, and selfishly we are going to insist that she come back and hang out with us again. We'll be itching to get Taraji back into an episode of our show just as soon as we can. Also, we're excited to see what she does next. She's a magnificent actor.

Where does the next episode kick off?

Plageman: Officer Simmons' number comes up, and it's not a question of if he's going to get it, it's a question of which character is going to do it. It's a darker chapter, and it's one of the most powerful. This loss is going to be something that isn't going to be easily glossed over between our characters, particularly between Reese and Finch and the understanding of how the Machine works. It's something we want to explore in this episode and in a few others in terms of what the Machine is capable of. And in the second half of the season, we have an opportunity to tell a larger story about the Machine.

How does losing a core member of the team change how Reese and Co. go about things?

Nolan: Definitely there's some fallout. Half the fun of writing the arc is writing the episode after, in which the characters deal with it. If you get them into a comfortable place, you have to shake them out of that. How do you pick up the pieces and move on from this in this undertaking Finch has gotten them into, where they fight the inevitable? It's just a matter of how much they're willing to do and how much they're willing to sacrifice. They're going to have to find a new way to work with each other because Reese's concerns over what the f--- [they're] doing here if they can't even save their closest friend and ally.

Does guilt play into it at all?

Nolan: It's a good question. Harold Finch has dealt with this burden from the very first moment when he understood what these numbers meant. He experienced loss in his friend in Nathan Ingram (Brett Cullen), and that mantle is transferred to him. Now it becomes a point of conflict for Finch and Reese, who's his best friend now, how is he dealing with the fact that he didn't save Detective Carter?

Carter's death is the catalyst for the rest of the season and beyond?

Nolan: Absolutely. The problem with their enemies is that they don't sleep on it. They're still a huge threat. Reverberations and possibly puppies! (Laughs.) Circle of life.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/person-interest-eps-carters-death-658306

 

 

An Arch-Nemesis

A writer friend of mine posted something on her blog about the need for one’s arch-nemesis to reveal themselves.  I argued in a reply that she wouldn’t want that to happen.  It would be much better not to know.  What do you think?  Would you rather know someone is out to get you or be in the dark about it?

 

Why Do You Like Me?

(By Diane Vallere, Shoes Clues And Clothes website, 16 February 2010)

Chances are, if you're reading this, then there's something about me or my writing that you like (or you think I'm your arch-nemesis, in which case YOU HAVE TO TELL ME! Because I always thought it would be fun to have an arch-nemesis but seriously, you can't have one that wants to remain anonymous). Maybe we went to school together once. Maybe we worked together at some point or became friends along the way. Maybe we share writerly commiseration on a Yahoo group. Or maybe you're family.

No matter what the reason, you're here, and I'm here, so, like I said, I'm guessing you like me. What I'm curious about is Why. Is it because I'm driven? Afraid of department-store Santas? Sometimes rely on packing tape to secure the hem of my designer clothes?

Don't get me wrong. Give me five minutes and I could rattle off a hundred likeable things about me, but that's not how it works, right? You don't like me because I told you to, you found something about me that you related to and that's what it's all about. That elusive connection.

A writer makes up people and makes up their lives, and aside from plot and description and dialogue and voice, has to figure out a way to make readers connect with the characters. The hard thing is, the connection between the writer and the characters is innate. The writer created these people. Trust me, if you're spending time writing 2,000 words a day about make-believe folks, you darn well better like them. But this means you have blinders on. Liking your characters is a natural for you, so imagine how it feels when someone else tells you they just didn't connect with them?

There's an exercise that's suggested to writers who are trying to expose their characters quirks and flaws: list 20 things that are unique about that character. Inevitably, you'll stall out before you hit ten, and you really have to start thinking about details that shaped her (or him) that might never hit the page of your manuscript, but that help you figure out the kind of person she (or he) is. Did she play the drums in high school, or the trombone, or sing in the chorus? Was she a cheerleader or did she try out five different times and never make the squad? Does she like Elvis? How much? So much that she'll sit in an uncomfortable theater seat all night for a King film festival? And when did she start really liking Elvis?  Did her parents take her to one of his concerts when she was a kid, or did she date an impersonator during college?

These details expose the character's character. Make this same list about yourself. Think about those little known facts that make you who YOU are, that maybe nobody knows. They don't have to know the details. Those facts shaped who you are and made you the person that other people respond to. The rest of the world doesn't need to know those facts to see the person you are. That's how it is with writing. Only, the more pressing question is this: how do you get this interesting and endearing information across on the page without an information dump?

Here's the thing. I love my characters. I love Samantha Kidd. I love Mia Thomas and Lisa P. Grace and Pepper St. James. I don't know that much about Dena Martin and Brooks Foster but I can already tell I'm going to like them once we get down into their story. I spend enough time with these people that, in a weird way, they're like friends, only make-believe.

And because you like me, I want you to like my imaginary friends. It's only fair that we should all get along.

  

Richard’s Reply:

(19 February 2010)

Well, we did go to school together and I do like the fact that you are driven because it is hard to watch someone keep pushing along and not be motivated to do the same yourself.  If I was your arch-nemesis though, I’m not sure I should tell you that.  Consider this fact: when things go bad in life normally, you can chalk it up to the random whims of an impartial universe and figure stuff happens and hope the convergence of events never happens again.  If you have an arch-nemesis, you know that bad things don’t happen randomly.  Instead it is the evil machinations of one particular person who is out to get you.  All you have to do is keep an eye out for traps and situations created by the person.  The problem is that every thing that now happens to you could be an insidious plot by your arch-nemesis and you have to always be on guard.  Gone are the carefree days of mildly worrying about random circumstances occurring and it’s replaced by the massive stress of how your misdelivered mail could be part of huge conspiracy to kill, denounce or entrap you. 

Wouldn’t you rather not know that there is an arch-nemesis out there gunning for you?  Consider it a rare gift from an evil-doer who likes you for whatever reason and instead just worry about the low probability events in life.  The mailman accidentally put your mail in the wrong box, that just looks like the same car that was behind you yesterday as well and that dead body in the closest was the result of an unfortunate accident you had nothing to do with so please call the cops and report the dead guy like a good citizen would. 

As for your characters, I can’t say if I like them because I’ve never seen a sample of your writing.  I would have to like them based simply on them being some extension of you, which is usually the case with writing.  Even if they aren’t exactly like the writer, they have to come from the same place.  If you can’t imagine a particular world, you can’t describe the inhabitants of that world.  It has to exist somewhere in you, either as an extension of you or as a contrast to you and your values and morals.  That’s why die-hard Christians can’t rationally discussion evolution- because they can’t imagine themselves in that world.  It simply does not exist for them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go plan some “random” events.  Good night!
 

http://dianevallere.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-do-you-like-me.html  

 

These Are The Geekiest Colleges According To HerCampus' 2013 Ranking

(HerCampus survey, 09 October 2013)

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has been crowned the geekiest school in the country by HerCampus. What else would you expect from a school where students programmed a robot to separate an Oreo cookie?  But let's be clear, being named a "geekiest school" is definitely not an insult. For one, these are some of the most prestigious colleges in the country, and their geekier graduates will probably make more money than most of us.  Plus, we're big fans of the quirkier things students at these schools do, like turning a building into a giant Tetris game or creating one of the most luxurious beer pong tables we've ever seen. 

HerCampus, a website for women in college, utilized responses from their student experts at more than 200 colleges and universities nationwide for their rankings.  Check out the 10 geekiest colleges below and head over to HerCampus for more rankings.

10. Case Western Reserve University

9. Swarthmore College

8. The University of Chicago

7. Drexel University

6. Johns Hopkins University

5. Reed College

4. California Institute of Technology

3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2. College of William & Mary

1. Carnegie Mellon University

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/09/geekiest-colleges-2013-hercampus_n_4072457.html

Television Shows And Schedules 2014 & 2013

Fall 2014 TV Scorecard: Which Shows Are Returning? Which Aren't?

(By TV Guide News, 24 February 2014)

Will your favorite shows be back next year? Check out our breakdown below and check back often for the latest renewal/cancellation news.

RENEWED FOR 2014-2015 SEASON

American Dad (moving to TBS)
Arrow (CW)
The Blacklist (NBC)
Bob's Burgers (Fox)
Bones (Fox)
Family Guy (Fox)
Glee (Fox)
Masterchef Junior (Fox)
The Originals (CW)
The Simpsons (Fox)
Reign (CW)
Sleepy Hollow (Fox)
So You Think You Can Dance (Fox)
Supernatural (CW)
The Vampire Diaries (CW)

LOOKING GOOD
2 Broke Girls (CBS)
The Amazing Race  (CBS)
American Idol (Fox)
America's Next Top Model (CW)
The Bachelor (ABC)
The Bachelorette (ABC)
The Biggest Loser (NBC)
Blue Bloods (CBS)
The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox)
Castle (ABC)
Chicago Fire (NBC)
Chicago PD (NBC)
Community (NBC)
CSI (CBS)
The Crazy Ones (CBS)
Dancing With the Stars (ABC)
Criminal Minds (CBS)
The Goldbergs (ABC)
Elementary (CBS)
The Following (Fox)
The Good Wife (CBS)
Grey's Anatomy (ABC)
Grimm (NBC)
Hawaii Five-0 (CBS)
Kitchen Nightmares (Fox)
Last Man Standing (ABC)
Law & Order: SVU (NBC)
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC)
The Middle (ABC)
Mike & Molly (CBS)
The Millers (CBS)
The Mindy Project (Fox)
Modern Family (ABC)
NCIS (CBS)
NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS)
New Girl (Fox)
Once Upon a Time (ABC)
Parks and Recreation (NBC)
Parenthood (NBC)
Person of Interest (CBS)
Revenge (ABC)
Scandal (ABC)
Shark Tank (ABC)
Suburgatory (ABC)
Survivor (CBS)
Undercover Boss (CBS)
The Voice (NBC)

LOOKING NOT  SO GOOD

Almost Human (Fox)
Beauty and the Beast (CW)
Betrayal (ABC)
The Carrie Diaries (CW)
Dads (Fox)
Dracula (NBC)
Enlisted (Fox)
Hart of Dixie (CW)
Hostages (CBS)
Intelligence (CBS)
The Mentalist (CBS)
Mom (CBS)
Nashville (ABC)
The Neighbors (ABC)
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (ABC)
Raising Hope (Fox)
Rake (Fox)
Revolution (NBC)
Super Fun Night  (ABC)
The Tomorrow People (CW)
Trophy Wife (ABC)
Two and a Half Men (CBS)
Us & Them (Fox)

TOO SOON TO TELL/NOT YET PREMIERED

The 100 (CW)
About a Boy (NBC)
American Dream Builders (NBC)
Believe (NBC)
Crisis (NBC)
Friends with Better Lives (CBS)
Gang Related (Fox)
Growing Up Fisher (NBC)
Hannibal (NBC)
Mind Games (ABC)
Mixology (ABC)
Night Shift  (NBC)
Reckless (CBS)
Resurrection (ABC)
Star-Crossed (CW)
Surviving Jack (Fox)
Undateable (NBC)

CANCELED/ENDING

The Assets (ABC)
Back in the Game (ABC)
How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
Ironside (NBC)
Killer Women (ABC)
Lucky 7 (ABC)
The Michael J. Fox Show (NBC)
Nikita (CW)
Sean Saves the World (NBC)
We Are Men (CBS)
Welcome to the Family (NBC)
The X Factor (Fox)

 http://www.tvguide.com/News/Fall-TV-Schedule-1005618.aspx?et=watchlist-notification&lt=news

 

The 2013 Fall TV season is rolling in right now, way too early since I was enjoying the chance to catch up on several things that have slipped through the cracks in my pop culture focus.  I got into several web series (The Guild, Burning Love, Walking Dead- Cold Storage) some TV series that I never got to when I first heard of them (The League. Longmire) and a BBC series that got some love at Comic Con (Orphan Black). 

 

Now I have 30 new series vying for my attention and I still haven't gotten a chance to watch the final season of Burn Notice.  I didn't have enough time in the day to do everything I needed or wanted to do during the summer so imagine what it will be like now.  On the plus side though, The Walking Dead will soon be back and Agents Of SHIELD is now on.  Below is my TV grid- green means watching in real time or first priority on the VCR and yellow means I'll watch later, on-demand, or when the main show has a rerun or preemption. If you don't see a show listed here, that means I have no plans to watch it (i.e. Dads, Revenge, NCIS Los Angeles, The Originals, Dracula, The Neighbors- how did that get renewed?) 

 

 

 

 

Fall TV 2013: Reviews Of All The New Shows

(By Hank Stuever, Washington Post, 13 September 2013)

Masters of Sex

Sunday, Sept. 29, 10 p.m., Showtime

Liberally adapted from Thomas Maier’s thorough 2009 biography of the pioneering sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson, Showtime’s provocative new drama has no problems whatsoever grabbing attention and whatever else that wants to get grabbed. The setting is the prim American ’50s, where well-respected St. Louis gynecologist Masters (Michael Sheen) is secretly exploring the greater mysteries of human sexuality, mainly by convincing prostitutes to let him spy on them through peepholes while they do their work.

What Masters doesn’t know about women could (and eventually does) fill several books, but things get interesting when a new secretary at his hospital applies to be his research assistant. She is, of course, Virginia Johnson (played by Lizzy Caplan), a single mother with a forward-thinking sensibility about her own sex life. As a science project, “Masters of Sex” is an early success; Sheen seems to relish playing the uptight doctor who is beginning to understand the way his world restricts women (in and out of the bedroom) and Caplan is instantly perfect as the woman who will both teach and enchant him.

But none of that is happening too fast. “Masters of Sex” masters the restrained narrative equivalent of seduction and foreplay, building its story in a controlled and stylish (and, yes, frankly adult-oriented) manner. This TV season has failed to arouse me, but if there’s one show that might hit the right spot on the Sunday DVR queue, it’s this one. Grade: B+

Trophy Wife

Tuesday, Sept. 24, 9:30 p.m., ABC

Co-creator Sarah Haskins based this appealingly manic sitcom on her own experiences after marrying a man 20 years older who has kids from a previous marriage. Malin Ackerman stars as Kate, who has married Pete (“The West Wing’s” Bradley Whitford) and, a year later, is still trying to navigate her role as a stepmom to Pete’s four children from his previous marriages (yes, plural) to Diane (Marcia Gay Harden) and Jackie (“Enlightened’s” Michaela Watkins).

“Trophy Wife” is the only new sitcom that clears the double hurdles of cast chemistry and story pacing in the pilot episode. That’s mostly because the premise isn’t wielded like a frying pan to the head and the grown-ups in “Trophy Wife” are entertaining to watch and believably flawed; the kids are a common TV assortment of precociousness, but they’re also talented wiseacres. “Trophy Wife” is no “Modern Family,” but it’s as close as we’ll hope to see this season. (And, in the tradition of “Cougar Town,” the show has been given a title that is far less worthy of its aim.) Grade: B

Lucky 7

Tuesday, Sept. 24, 10 p.m., ABC

Based on the British drama “The Syndicate” and sent through the Hollywood tweaking machine, this drama is about eight employees at a Queens gas station whose lives change after they win the state lottery.

Each week the gang at Gold Star Gas N’ Shop pools its money to bet the same lottery numbers. Just as things are getting desperate for Matt (Matt Long) and his ex-con brother Nicky (Stephen Louis Grush), the winning numbers miraculously come through. The group has won $45 million to split, but there’s immediate upset, since one of the workers didn’t put his money in the pool. This is just the beginning of a sequence of mo’-money problems that will form “Lucky 7’s” overall story arc, as each winner faces her or his own crises and demons.

I’m immediately impressed with “Lucky 7’s” ensemble cast and how quickly the story drew me in and hinted at some further mysteries. Part of that has to do with my relief at watching any drama that isn’t a crime procedural, yet “Lucky 7” also has some moral rumination and complexity to it. It’s basically a caper disguised as a drama, and we could use a caper on prime-time TV. Grade: B

Ironside

Wednesday, Oct. 2, 10 p.m., NBC

A slick and even satisfying revamp of one of those crime shows my parents watched in the ’70s (what’s next — “The Streets of San Francisco”?), this time with Blair Underwood as shrewd New York police sergeant Robert Ironside, who heads up a team of detectives (including “Orange Is the New Black’s” Pablo Schreiber) assigned to crack tough cases and crack heads when necessary.  Everything’s changed since Raymond Burr, the original “Ironside,” rolled up in his wheelchair, even wheelchairs. Taking its cues from a generation that prizes the overcoming of adversity as a prevailing narrative, this “Ironside” preoccupies itself with emphasizing its main character’s strength, physicality and virility, a task the 49-year-old Underwood handles well. Sgt. Ironside’s key advantage is his handicapability; when a fellow detective asks how he spotted a clue no one else sees, Ironside says: “I’ve got a different view of the world down here.”

But “Ironside” is also interested in the ways its protagonist copes with and resents his confinement, retracing the events that paralyzed him from the waist down, as well as the ways his partner (“The Killing’s” Brent Sexton) blames himself for what happened that night. There’s an interesting psychological drama to explore here, if “Ironside’s” writers and its seasoned cast can resist the easy, repetitive lure of cop-show pro-forma.  Grade: B

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Tuesday, Sept. 17, 8:30 p.m., Fox

“Saturday Night Live” alum Andy Samberg stars as Jake Peralta, a smart but slacking detective who doesn’t have much use for rules or procedure; his un­or­tho­dox behavior is tolerated mainly because he solves cases. Jake’s world is upended slightly when a tough new captain (Andre Braugher) takes over the 99th precinct. The two men play well off one another, and a skilled supporting cast (Joe Lo Truglio, Terry Crews, Chelsea Peretti, Stephanie Beatriz) ensures that “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” doesn’t devolve into Samberg overload.  Long ago, actual police officers were purported to have said that the 1970s sitcom “Barney Miller” showed a far more accurate depiction of their lives than the cop dramas. No one will accuse “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” of too much authenticity, but it does have a confident breeziness in its banter that almost immediately locates a “Miller”-esque balance in the more absurd aspects of law enforcement. Grade: B-

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Tuesday, Sept. 24, 8 p.m., ABC

Co-created by geek idol Joss Whedon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”), this hyperactive series plucked from the Marvel comic-book canon is an epilogue to Whedon’s big-screen “Avengers” adaptation, in which the U.S. government grapples with the existence of mutant superheroes and aliens.  Clark Gregg reprises his role from the big-screen “Iron Man” and “Avengers” films as the newly resurrected Agent Coulson, who assembles an international team of agents who all work for the mysterious S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division, with all those annoying periods intact) whose mission is to . . . start a list, I guess? Jetting the globe in their tricked-out jet, the agents hunt for everyday people with superpowers, hoping to find them before a sinister group known as Rising Tide gets to them first.

“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” launches with a plucky, adventuresome and remarkably non-pretentious pilot episode, but if you haven’t been reading Marvel Comics lately (or at all — Stan Lee first dreamed up a S.H.I.E.L.D. story line in 1965), then the show can feel somewhat exclusionary and, frankly, a little too cornball and cutesy about its own geekiness. There’s an opportunity here to riff on the contemporary issue of government intrusion and Wikileaks paranoia, but, in its first episode at least, “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” seems more like a Comic-Con afterparty in which not enough people came dressed as superheroes. Grade: B-

The Crazy Ones

Thursday, Sept. 26, 9 p.m., CBS

From David E. Kelley (“Ally McBeal,” “Boston Legal”), “The Crazy Ones” heralds Robin Williams’s return to TV (where we first met him as Mork from Ork 36 years ago), but, more interestingly, it represents a tonal shift for CBS in terms of comedy that includes “We Are Men.”  Williams plays the hyperactive-but-brilliant founder of a successful of Chicago-based ad agency; Sarah Michelle Gellar plays his daughter, who tries to keep the agency solvent and sane. There’s a lot of energy to cram into a half-hour episode, not all of it coming from Williams; a real standout is the increasingly interesting James Wolk (Bob Benson from “Mad Men”). The first episode is uneven as the pieces and pace don’t quite cohere, but it leaves you wanting more. For my longer review, see Page 13. Grade: B-

Dracula

Friday, Oct. 25, 10 p.m., NBC

A tip of the top hat to NBC for taking on a period drama — a lavish and risky proposition even in the best of times. Loosely derived from Bram Stoker’s novel, this “Dracula” stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers (“The Tudors”) as a revivified Vlad the Impaler, brought back from ossified, subterranean exile by an unlikely ally to wage battle against an age-old Order of the Dragon that has ensconced itself in Victorian-era upper society.  Disguising himself as an American entrepreneur named Alexander Grayson, Dracula arrives on the London scene in 1896 and sets about undermining (and frequently snacking on) the ruling class, hoping to exact his revenge on the Order for what their forbears did to him centuries ago.  “Dracula” shows a lot of skill when it comes to launching a swift-paced series and weaving together several taut story lines and characters; at times it even finds an undiscovered sweet spot between “Downton Abbey” and Bela Lugosi. Rhys Meyers is an adequately creepy vampire and there is sex, style, mystery and ad­ven­ture all around. Only one crucial piece is missing: “Dracula” isn’t scary. Grade: B-

Derek

Available now for streaming on Netflix

Ricky Gervais writes, directs and stars in this tenderhearted ensemble mockumentary about an enthusiastic employee at the Broad Hill retirement home. The show is a risk for Gervais, who combs his hair over and juts his jaw into an underbite in order to play the title character; we are to understand that Derek is not quite right but none of the words for it seem apt. (Simple? Special? Mentally disabled? Autistic?)  It’s ingenious that “Derek” is less preoccupied with a diagnosis and more focused on the minuscule but meaningful ways that Derek interacts with his elderly charges. The only problem is an overall feeling of hesi­ta­tion — on Gervais’s part, but also on his audience’s. You’re so braced for something to snap, for the comedy to stray into no-no land, that it’s hard to relax and appreciate “Derek’s” emotional intent.

A strong supporting cast (including Kerry Godliman as the facility’s overworked manager and Karl Pilkington as the handyman) does what it can, but after a few episodes, “Derek” becomes less absorbing; it’s more of a character sketch than a fully realized story. Grade: C+

Mom

Monday, Sept. 23, 9:30 p.m., CBS

Chuck Lorre, CBS’s resident sitcom rainmaker, returns with “Mom,” in which Anna Faris plays Christy, a recovering alcoholic raising two children and working as a waitress at a fancy restaurant. At an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, she runs into her newly sober mother (Allison Janney) and the two attempt to repair their testy relationship. “Some mothers teach their daughters how to bake,” Christy tells her AA group. “Mine taught me how to beat a cavity search and still look like a lady.”

“Mom” has a dismissive, certainly blunt, Charlie Sheen-like snarkitude about relationships, dysfunction, drug use, promiscuity, teen sex, deadbeat dads and whatever else comes it way. Some examples: At the restaurant, the snooty chef (French Stewart) tells an employee to “Beat those egg whites gently, as if they were a small, annoying child.” At another moment, Christy’s young son Roscoe (Blake Garrett Rosenthal) excitedly discovers a video game where “If you hit the hooker enough times, she gives you your money back!” And when Christy’s teenage daughter (Sadie Calvano) swears she isn’t having sex, Christy replies: “Don’t lie to the woman who washes your sheets.”  Janney and Faris seem to have fun, even when the material in the pilot episode is a tad too seedy and even off-puttingly icy. If “Mom” could dial it down a notch, it would find a better balance between bawdy and snide. Grade: C+

Hostages

Monday, Sept. 23, 10 p.m., CBS

With its big red PREMISE ALERT flashing like crazy, CBS’s experimental new drama is this season’s most alluring act of derring-do; it’s also the show that’s hardest to swallow. Toni Collette stars as a top-notch surgeon who will perform a tricky life-saving operation on the U.S. president. But the night before the surgery, a group of masked men (led by a rogue FBI agent played by Dylan McDermott) breaks into her house and takes her family hostage. If she doesn’t agree to secretly assassinate the president, it’s curtains for her family.

Throughout the pilot, you’ll wonder why this couldn’t all be handled in a mediocre two-hour action movie, mainly so that Collette will be free to keep searching for work more befitting her talent. Is there really a series here? Yes, the producers assure us — the relationship between the hostages and their captors will evolve as facts emerge and conspiracies take over. “Hostages” is based on an Israeli series (just like “Homeland” was, with the same frantic baseline addiction to the terror milieu), and it exudes the kind of taut confidence that CBS likes in its dramas. It’s handsomely made and yet patently ridiculous. Grade: C+

The Millers

Thursday, Oct. 3, 8:30 p.m., CBS

Beau Bridges and Emmy nominee Margo Martindale (“The Americans”) star as Tom and Carol Miller, who, after 43 years of marital bickering, decide to split up once they learn of their son’s impending divorce. Carol moves in with the son, local TV reporter Nathan Miller (“Arrested Development’s” Will Arnett, in the latest of what appear to be his limitless chances at finding a sitcom gig), while Tom moves in with Nathan’s sister (“Glee’s” Jayma Mays) and her husband (“Veep’s” Nelson Franklin) and daughter.

“The Millers,” which was still undergoing some tweaking at press time, does have its bitterly funny scenes, leaning heavily on Martindale and Bridges. When they start going at it, there’s a glimmer of something mean and magic. But the show suffers from the same banal characteristics of most paint-by-numbers network sitcoms, right down to the predictable addition of Nathan’s BBF (“Black Best Friend”) played here by “Curb Your Enthusiasm’s” J.B. Smoove.  As it tries to find its way, “The Millers” has at least locked in on a central theme, or something like it: Divorce is just hilarious, if you include enough references to elderly flatulence. Grade: C+

Reign

Thursday, Oct. 17, 9 p.m., The CW

You guyyyyys: Instead of “Stairway to Heaven” as a prom theme, how about 16th-century France? (The dresses are sooo pretty! There’s a castle! The boys can all wear tight leather pants!)  And lo, once you get past the utter silliness of the idea, “Reign” is kind of a kick. Adelaide Kane stars as Mary, Teen Queen of Scots, who has been living a sheltered life in a country convent, betrothed to Prince Francis (Toby Regbo), the heir to the French throne. After a thwarted assassination attempt, the nuns decide Mary will be safer in the royal court. A coterie of childhood friends arrives from Scotland to keep her company and pretty soon “Reign” becomes a parade of interchangeable paper dolls and swoony romance pageantry, with plenty of inter-palace intrigue.

In a way, “Reign” is only trying to partake in the same fashionable fun that filmmaker Sofia Coppola had at Versailles with her 2006 take on “Marie Antoinette,” replete with contemporary pop songs; it’s not feloniously inaccurate and at least it’s not vampires. Someone is always trying to kill Mary, whom a younger, hotter Nostradamus (I mean, really) has ominously predicted will bring disaster to the palace power structure.  That thud you just heard was a history professor who passed out. Grade: C+

Sleepy Hollow

Monday, Sept. 16, 9 p.m., Fox

A minimally engaging update of Washington Irving’s 1820 horror story, in which American revolutionary soldier Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) wakes from an underground, 240-year coma/nap, emerging into daylight in modern-day New England, where it seems the fearsome Redcoat he beheaded in battle has also returned to exact a complicated revenge on the locals. It isn’t long before a bewildered Ichabod (hipster baby-name alert!) is arrested on suspicion of murder and then partners up with a dubious deputy (Nicole Beharie), who helps him hunt for the Headless Horseman.  Deliberate and thoughtful is not an option here. Rather than observe the ways a man from the 1770s might grapple with the realities of 2013, “Sleepy Hollow” seems mainly concerned with quickly launching a “Grimm”-like romp through folklore and episodic crime-solving. It’s layered with hints of unfolding conspiracies — time-travel and secret brotherhoods and what-not. It’s all done with a cold efficiency and a gloomy, disinterested tone. Grade: C

The Blacklist

Monday, Sept. 23, 10 p.m., NBC

A shaved-headed James Spader (“Boston Legal”) transforms into yet another of TV’s manipulative criminal masterminds who sits in confinement and yet, with a Lecter-like ingenuity and coyness, manages to unleash havoc for the poor agents who must defuse, decode and otherwise debase themselves in order to interpret the mastermind’s clues.  Spader plays Red Reddington, a traitorous U.S. agent who aided dozens of international criminals and terrorists. After decades on the most-wanted list, he surrenders to the FBI, offering to help them catch the remaining members of the list, but under certain conditions — among them that he will only work with a fresh-out-of-Quantico agent named Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone).  Her torment is only beginning as Reddington sends her in several different directions at once. Spader seems to relish the character’s oozy pretentiousness and obnoxiousness; the only actor who would enjoy it more, perhaps, is Kevin Spacey. The pilot episode is stylish and swiftly paced, but that’s all it is, and despite some intriguing plot twists, there’s not a lot of motivation to keep coming back. Grade: C

Hello Ladies

Sunday, Sept. 29, 10:30 p.m., HBO

A friend once told me it’s possible to become cool in L.A. simply by osmosis, but it’s not soaking in for poor Stuart (Stephen Merchant), a lonely British bachelor trying to find love (or just sex) in a town without pity. This eight-episode HBO series is more of a riff on the kind of awkward hubris and guaranteed humiliation that has become a defining feature of 21st-century situation comedy. Future television and movie historians will know us mainly by our enjoyment of stories about sad sacks who further their own misery by trying to impress those around them.

It’s a threadbare shtick, but Merchant, whose most notable work was done in collaboration with Ricky Gervais, has mastered it. Stuart is too unctuous and aggressive to gain the right sort of viewer empathy, but that burdensome feeling is balanced out a tad by Merchant’s co-stars (Christine Woods as his apartment tenant Jessica; and Nate Torrence as his friend Wade). We wincingly follow along as Stuart tries to get into exclusive clubs and then makes all the wrong moves on cruelly indifferent women. It’s as if “Entourage” had a nightmare. Grade: C

We Are Men

Monday, Sept. 30, 8:30 p.m., CBS

Taken lightly, “We Are Men” is a nimble little exercise in macho liberation, as four men who live at a furnished-apartment complex in Tarzana quell their emotional sorrows with carbohydrates and casual sex. Give it too much thought, however, and it’s easy to become astonished at the zealously regressive sense of humor displayed here, which leans much too heavily on the same-old “Mars/Venus”-style jokes about the gender gap.

After his fiancee leaves him at the altar, “Graduate”-style, Carter (Chris Smith) moves into the apartment complex, where, poolside, he befriends the quadruply-divorced Frank (Tony Shalhoub) as well as Stuart (Jerry O’Connell), an OB/GYN going through a bitter divorce and Gil (Kal Penn), whose wife kicked him out after she discovered him having an affair. The men take on the mission of re-acclimating Carter to the freedoms of manhood and, because it’s a pilot episode, the jokes are all delivered with the nuance of a car bomb. The cast is certainly talented enough to overcome “We Are Men’s” shortcomings, if the writing improves. Grade: C

Sean Saves the World

Thursday, Oct. 3, 9 p.m., NBC

“Will & Grace’s” Sean Hayes waltzes back onto NBC’s Thursday-night schedule fairly effortlessly in this new sitcom, in which he plays a gay single dad to a sullen teenage daughter (Sami Isler), with occasional meddling from his outspoken mother (Linda Lavin).  Hayes plays it all so dutifully that even his pratfalls have an on-point, pro-athlete precision to them, giving his show a very rote approach; it’s Lavin who seems more delighted to have the chance to nibble on the scenery a bit. “Reno 911’s” Thomas Lennon plays the new owner of the design firm where Sean works — one of those exposed-brick workplaces that approximates the feel and mood of what TV writers think office work must be like. They’ve even given him a standard-issue Black Best Friend at work (Echo Kellum). And, plucked from the ruins of “Smash,” Broadway actress Megan Hilty has been added to the cast since the initial pilot was screened by critics this summer.  Nothing about “Sean Saves the World” is off-putting, but not much about it is welcoming either. But when Hayes is going full blast, it’s nice to reconnect with some hints of the hilarity and snarky mania he made his own back in the late ’90s. Grade: C

Once Upon a Time in Wonderland

Thursday, Oct. 10, 8 p.m., ABC

ABC did not release a full pilot episode by press time of its new “Once Upon a Time” spinoff, in which Victorian-era teenager Alice (Sophie Lowe) must persuade her doctors at an insane asylum that she really did follow a talking rabbit down a hole, where she met and fell in love with a genie and got into all sorts of trouble. A 20-minute preview of “Wonderland” shown to critics looks to be similar in tone to the first show, but with more special-effects razzmatazz. Really, I think this is a way for Disney (ABC’s parent company) to remind us that it owns nearly every character there is. As Alice rushes around, you half-expect the Muppets and Darth Vader to make cameo appearances. No grade yet.

Witches of East End

Sunday, Oct. 6, 10 p.m., Lifetime

Julia Ormond stars as Joanna, a witch in a seaside town who is cursed to lose her daughters, Freya and Ingrid (Jenna Dewan-Tatum, Rachel Boston), over and over- giving birth to them again each time they die. She decides to break the curse by casting a spell over her girls so that they won’t dabble in witchcraft or know their true nature. Now they’re grown and fate has come calling on the night of Freya’s engagement party: Spells are cast, gloom and agony are foretold and, when Freya starts making out with her fiance’s brother, a vase of roses bursts into flames.  If that stirs you (and if your fingers need a break from typing all your erotic fan-fiction), then “Witches of East End” isn’t the worst you could do. The show has a sincerity about its silliness and light spookiness; for a moment there, it’s almost as if “True Blood” tried to conceive a demon baby with “Bunheads.” It didn’t turn out quite right, but that’s why we keep all those Mason jars in the basement. Grade: C

The Tomorrow People

Wednesday, Oct. 9, 9 p.m., The CW

Stephen (Robbie Amell) is one of those teenagers who goes to an urban school in The CW district where everyone looks like they’re 25 and even the ostracized kids are pretty. He’s on anti-psychosis meds to quell the voices he hears and he suffers from a weird sleepwalking problem where he wakes up in other people’s houses.  Turns out he’s been teleporting short distances and the voices are a group of specially gifted humans called the Tomorrow People, who make contact with Steven and tell him that his father was their last best hope for eluding the Ultras, who are trying to snuff out their kind. As he learns to use his powers of telekinesis, telepathy and teleportation, Steven has to decide if the Tomorrow People are what they seem, or if the Ultras (including his uncle, played by “Lost’s” Mark Pellegrino) are in fact the good guys. Sounds confusing, but it’s actually too simple — based on a British show, but derivative of sci-fi and superhuman dramas we’ve seen plenty of times before, up to and including the slo-mo “Matrix” bullets flying out of a gun. Grade: C

Enlisted

Friday, Nov. 8, 9:30 p.m., Fox

In the combined years the United States has spent fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ve never had the “M*A*S*H*”-like companion comedy (or even a “Gomer Pyle: USMC”-like companion comedy) on network TV that could sound a lighthearted bugle bleat to the drums of war.  “Enlisted” would seemingly like to be that show, but it gets off to a clumsy start that lacks just the right edge. Geoff Stults stars as Pete, an Army sergeant who is reassigned to rear-detachment base duty after a meltdown in Afghanistan. At the bases, he is reunited with his doofus brothers (Chris Lowell and Parker Young), a corporal and a private. Soon enough, the show feels like a series of yellowed “Beetle Bailey” comic strips found in an old footlocker, with enough sex jokes thrown in to remind you that it really is set in 2013. Grade: C-

The Goldbergs

Tuesday, Sept. 24, 9 p.m., ABC

In theory I love the idea: Creator Adam F. Goldberg delves into the actual home videos he shot as a child of his argumentative, suburban Jewish family in the mid-1980s and uses those tapes as the basis for this sitcom three decades later.  The result, unfortunately, is a dopey pilot episode that succumbs to the trap of portraying the ’80s only in obvious ways — bring out the pastel leg warmers and geometric Cosby sweaters — and it rapidly turns into a prolonged, nearly laughless sketch about domestic life in the Pac-Man era. If the old videos were so funny, why not just show them instead? Grade: D+

The Michael J. Fox Show

Thursday, Sept. 26, 9 p.m., NBC

Who wants to be the one to tell Michael J. Fox that his new show, which is built entirely around the nobility of his real-life travails and triumphs with Parkinson’s (the word “disease” seems to have been dropped from all references), just isn’t that entertaining? Here, the ’80s star of the small and silver screens leaps back into series comedy, playing a Manhattan TV reporter who went on hiatus to manage his illness.  Having recovered his confidence and grown bored out of his gourd as a stereotypical husband and stay-at-home dad to three children, Fox goes back to the local NBC affiliate for a ballyhooed return cooked up by his producer (“Treme’s” Wendell Pierce). The first episode is rife with cross-promotional NBC references, making it difficult to notice if there’s a show on or if it’s just ads. For more of my thoughts, see Page 13. Grade: D+

The Originals

Thursday, Oct. 3, 9 p.m., The CW

This spinoff from “The Vampire Diaries” follows Elijah’s brother Klaus (Joseph Morgan) — an “original” thousand-year-old vampire who also happens to be part werewolf — to his old stomping grounds in the French Quarter of New Orleans. (In all that time, no one has told Klaus that a self-respecting vampire would never call the town New Orleeenz.) Once there, he discovers his ancient frenemy Marcel (Charles Michael Davis) heads up a gang of party-hearty, night-and-day vampires while somehow keeping a mysterious control over the local witches.  The biting, the brooding, the smoldering — it all continues to press safe-but-slightly-naughty buttons for today’s paranormally obsessed teen market. Like “Vampire Diaries” (and so much else), “The Originals” lacks a sharp wit, preferring the heavy-velvet drapery of self-seriousness and pretend passion. You would think the kids have had their fill by now. Grade: D+

Betrayal

Sunday, Sept. 29, 10 p.m., ABC

A sleek but forgettable addition to ABC’s undying belief in the nighttime soap — rounding out a trio of one-word emotional pitfalls that include scandal (“Scandal”) and revenge (“Revenge”).  Adapted from a Dutch TV drama, “Betrayal” isn’t like ”Scandal” or “Revenge,” nor does it have “Nashville’s” heat-seeking instincts. A photographer named Sara (Hannah Ware) is ambivalent about her marriage to an ambitious Chicago prosecutor (Chris Johnson); she meets handsome stranger, Jack (Stuart Townsend), at a gallery show and tentatively begins an emotional, then physical, affair. Only too late does Sara discover that Jack is an attorney for his father-in-law (played by “American Horror Story” and “Six Feet Under’s” James Cromwell), a crime boss who is the target of an investigation headed by — you guessed it — Sara’s husband.  So far, there’s not much here you don’t see coming from many miles away, and there’s barely enough chemistry between Ware and Townsend to make things bubble. If “Betrayal” wants to stick around, it better have some real surprises in store. Grade: D-

Dads

Tuesday, Sept. 17, 8 p.m., Fox

Seth MacFarlane’s camp has coughed up this embarrassingly anachronistic attempt to have its way with the multi-camera, studio-audience sitcom format, in which Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi star as entrepreneurial game designers who have troubled relationships with their clingy, financially fraught fathers, played by Peter Riegert and Martin Mull.  The pilot episode has already been pummeled by some critics, mostly for its relentless attempts at the sort of racially and sexually frank humor that, for mainly intangible reasons, works better in MacFarlane’s animated shows (“Family Guy,” etc.) or his big-screen film “Ted.”  

Off-color and offensive humor is not a terrible strategy, as we all know — it worked out just fine for CBS’s “2 Broke Girls.” What’s galling is the utter absence of originality, spirit or even new jokes: When “Dads” wants to make fun of Asians, it dresses a character up as a Harajuku schoolgirl; when it wants to make fun of Latinas, well, here comes the sassy housekeeper; when it’s gays, Mull snaps “You go, girl.” The poor actors look like they’re serving mandatory sentences for the creators’ crimes of laziness. Grade: F

Back in the Game

Wednesday, Sept. 25, 8:30 p.m., ABC

Maggie Lawson plays Terry, a single mom who has moved in with her ill-tempered father, whose nickname is the Cannon (James Caan), a former baseball player who projected his athletic and personal failings on his daughter, giving her the TV version of feelings of inadequacy and resentment. When her son (Griffin Gluck) fails to make the baseball team, Terry, who harbors bad memories of how the Cannon forced her into sports, challenges the iron-fist rule of the alpha-dog coach (Ben Koldyke) by volunteering to coach a team of misfits, “Bad News Bears”-style.

Producers persist with this post-recessionary fixation on adult children who fall on hard times and move back in with a parent or two; it’s both the worst and funniest premise that marginally employed sitcom writers can currently conceive. And so far, it’s worked mainly as an indicator of quick cancellation. Grade: F

Super Fun Night

Wednesday, Oct. 2, 9:30 p.m., ABC

Australian comedy star Rebel Wilson (“Pitch Perfect”) bizarrely opts for an American accent in this comedy she writes and produces, in which three Manhattan women prefer to cocoon themselves on Fridays (a.k.a. “fun night”) with binge-eating and board games in their shared apartment. “We have indoor faces and bodies,” Kimmie Boubier (Wilson) tells Helen Alice (Liza Lapira) and Marika (Lauren Ash) at a particularly down moment. “Let’s just leave the going-out to the pretty and popular people.”

Once more we plunge into the unsettling, split-personality narrative of today’s post-feminist young women, whose theme song may as well be “You Are 27 Going on 12.” I get part of the act: they want to be seen as sexy and complicated girls (or “Girls”), until the precise moment they briefly reclaim their sense of maturity and pride as women. “Super Fun Night” reaches for the stylings of Mindy Kaling and Kristen Wiig, replaying over and over the lesson that self-assertiveness somehow erases humiliation.

Kimmie is both loser and winner, an attorney who just got a promotion and yet lives beneath a cloud of self-effacing humor and off-key “Wicked” ballads, which is more pathetic than evocative. To impress a handsome co-worker (Kevin Bishop), she pours her extra-full figure into a sausage-casing dress and drags her friends along to his nightclub party. The “struggle bus” crashes when a wardrobe malfunction leaves Kimmie nearly naked (Spanx and all), exposing her LED-lighted heart panties and bra, which blink out unanswered distress signals to Lucille Ball and Mary Tyler Moore about the sad state of comedy we’re in. Grade: F

Welcome to the Family

Thursday, Oct. 3, 8:30 p.m., NBC

My nominee for quickest and most punitive cancellation goes to this facile dramedy about two 40-something couples who must learn to get along because their teenage children — a boy who is a Stanford-bound valedictorian and a girl who is an unfortunate iteration of the clueless blonde stereotype — are suddenly expecting a baby and have decided to keep it.  Or perhaps they’re being forced to keep it, because they live in some parallel America in which Roe v. Wade has been fully reversed, thus reducing at least one obvious solution to the dilemma. (Which would, of course, cut the premise off right there; I understand that the point of the show is the pregnancy.) The truth is, these kids do live in a parallel America, the imaginary land of network television, which hasn’t found a way to talk frankly about abortion in the half-hour comedy format since, I don’t know, “Maude”?

I’m not at all opposed to the personal choices made by the characters in “Welcome to the Family,” I just wish they’d had the choice to make.  The foregone conclusion in the pilot is galling, especially in the scene where the teenagers’ combative fathers (“Glee’s” Mike O’Malley and “Desperate Housewives’s” Ricardo A. Chavira) are seen chasing after the girl, believing she’s about to get on a rollercoaster. The metaphor is quite blunt: Save the fetus at all costs! (And forget Stanford!)  That’s my editorial carp, but here’s my review: What a limp and unfunny show; it’s just more Thursday-night clutter. Grade: F

Almost Human

Monday, Nov. 4, 9 p.m., Fox

Another dull example of the manufacturing of sci-fi factory goods with the (increasingly devalued) J.J. Abrams label slapped on. Less a homage and more like a bad knockoff, “Almost Human” lifts elements of “Blade Runner,” “Minority Report,” “I, Robot” and “Robocop” for this police drama set in 2048, where a cop (Karl Urban, who played Dr. McCoy in Abrams’s updated “Star Trek” films) is forced to work with a synthetic partner (Michael Ealy), even though he doesn’t like or trust the new technology.  I hope that when “Almost Human” airs in November it will be slicker than the junky pilot episode shown to critics, but I’m afraid that it needs more than just a CGI juicing to get over the fact that it’s dull as a box of broken toys. Grade: F

 

Premiere dates for returning fall shows

“2 Broke Girls” (CBS at 9) Monday, Sept. 23

“The Amazing Race” (CBS at 8) Sunday, Sept. 29

“American Dad” (Fox at 9:30) Sunday, Sept. 29

“American Horror Story” (FX at 10) Wednesday, Oct. 9

“Arrow” (CW at 8) Wednesday, Oct. 9

“Awkward” (MTV at 10:30) Tuesday, Oct. 22

“Beauty and the Beast” (CW at 9) Monday, Oct. 7

“The Big Bang Theory” (CBS at 8) Thursday, Sept. 26

“The Biggest Loser” (NBC at 8) Tuesday, Oct. 8

“Blue Bloods” (CBS at 10) Friday, Sept. 27

“Bob’s Burgers” (Fox at 8:30) Sunday, Sept. 29

“Bones” (Fox at 8) Monday, Sept. 16

“The Carrie Diaries” (CW at 8) Friday, Oct. 25

“Castle” (ABC at 10) Monday, Sept. 23

“Chicago Fire” (NBC at 10): Tuesday, Sept. 24

“Covert Affairs” (USA at 10) Thursday, Oct. 17

“Criminal Minds” (CBS at 9) Wednesday, Sept. 25

“CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (CBS at 10): Wednesday, Sept. 25

“Dancing With the Stars” (ABC at 8) Monday, Sept. 16

“Eastbound & Down” (HBO at 9) Sunday, Sept. 29

“Elementary” (CBS at 10) Thursday, Sept. 26

“Family Guy” (Fox at 9): Sunday, Sept. 29

“Glee” (Fox at 9) Thursday, Sept. 26

“The Good Wife” (CBS at 9) Sunday, Sept. 29

“Grey’s Anatomy” (ABC at 9) Thursday, Sept. 26

“Grimm” (NBC at 9) Friday, Oct. 25

“Hart of Dixie” (CW at 8) Monday, Oct. 7

“Hawaii Five-0” (CBS at 9) Friday, Sept. 27

“Homeland” (Showtime at 10) Sunday, Sept. 29

“How I Met Your Mother” (CBS at 8) Monday, Sept. 23

“Key & Peele” (Comedy Central at 10:30) Wednesday, Sept. 18

“Last Man Standing” (ABC at 8) Friday, Sept. 20

“Law & Order: SVU” (NBC at 9) Wednesday, Sept. 25

“The Mentalist” (CBS at 10) Sunday, Sept. 29

“The Middle” (ABC at 8) Wednesday, Sept. 25

“The Mindy Project” (Fox at 9:30) Tuesday, Sept. 17

“Modern Family” (ABC at 9) Wednesday, Sept. 25

“Nashville” (ABC at 10) Wednesday, Sept. 25

“NCIS” (CBS at 8): Tuesday, Sept. 24

“NCIS: Los Angeles” (CBS at 9) Tuesday, Sept. 24

“The Neighbors” (ABC at 8:30) Friday, Sept. 20

“New Girl” (Fox at 9) Tuesday, Sept. 17

“Once Upon a Time” (ABC at 8) Sunday, Sept. 29

“Parenthood” (NBC at 10) Thursday, Sept. 26

“Parks and Recreation” (NBC at 8) Thursday, Sept. 26

“Person of Interest” (CBS at 10) Tuesday, Sept. 24

“Project Runway All Stars” (Lifetime at 9) Thursday, Oct. 24

“Raising Hope” (Fox at 9) Friday, Nov. 8

“Revenge” (ABC at 9) Sunday, Sept. 29

“Revolution” (NBC at 8) Wednesday, Sept. 25

“Scandal” (ABC at 10) Thursday, Oct. 3

“Shark Tank” (ABC at 9) Friday, Sept. 20

“The Simpsons”(Fox at 8) Sunday, Sept. 29

“South Park” (Comedy Central at 10) Wednesday, Sept. 25

“Survivor” (CBS at 8) Wednesday, Sept. 18

“Supernatural” (CW at 9): Tuesday, Oct. 8

“Treme” (HBO at 9) Sunday, Dec. 1

“Two and a Half Men” (CBS at 9:30) Thursday, Sept. 26

“Undercover Boss” (CBS at 8) Friday, Sept. 27

“The Vampire Diaries” (CW at 8) Thursday, Oct. 3

“The Voice” (NBC at 8) Monday, Sept. 23

“The Walking Dead” (AMC at 10) Sunday, Oct. 13

“White Collar” (USA at 9) Thursday, Oct. 17

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/fall-tv-2013-reviews-of-all-the-new-shows/2013/09/12/1d765e92-11bc-11e3-b4cb-fd7ce041d814_story.html

CBS, NBC, ABC Make Decisions On A Slew Of Shows: What’s Ordered And What's Gone?

(By Lisa de Moraes, WashingtonPost, May 11, 2013)
Careening toward Monday’s start of Broadcast Upfront Week 2013, the TV industry was atwitter about news that Fox would try to bring back “24” as a “limited series” (that’s Hollywood for “13 episodes”) and that NBC was mowing down virtually its entire comedy lineup (while also putting newsmag “Rock Center” and let’s-make-a-musical drama “Smash” out of our misery).  But ad execs, to whom the week of network dog-and-pony shows is geared, may be most eager to see the sizzle reel for CBS’s new David E. Kelley comedy series “Crazy Ones,” in which Robin Williams plays — a brilliant ad exec.   CBS also has ordered big-ticket drama, “Hostages,” from its go-to drama guy Jerry Bruckheimer, in which Toni Collette plays a brilliant Washington, D.C. surgeon selected to operate on POTUS, which gets complicated when her husband and kids are kidnapped.  This is not to be confused with NBC’s new drama, “Crisis,” in which POTUS’s son is kidnapped during a school field trip. Adding to that confusion, Dylan McDermott stars with Collette in “Hostages,” while Dermot Mulroney stars in “Crisis.”

 

Marg Helgenberger’s back on CBS, as part of the cast of the new drama “Intelligence,” about an agent at US Cyber Command who has a microchip implanted in his brain that allows him to access the entire electromagnetic spectrum.  Attempting to fill the big shoes left by “Rules of Engagement” is Rob Greenberg’s new “We are Men,” in which Chris Smith plays a young guy learning the ropes from the older guys he meets in a short-term rental complex — including Kal Penn, Tony Shalhoub and Jerry O’Connell.  And if “WaM” can’t fill the shoes, maybe Greg Garcia’s new “The Millers” can; its’ star Will Arnett plays a recently divorced guy whose life gets more complicated when his parents have marital problems.

Late Friday afternoon, CBS said goodbye to “Vegas,” “CSI: NY,” “Golden Boy” and the network’s inexplicably long-lived utility player “Rules of Engagement.”  Meanwhile, by Friday night, NBC comedies “Go On,” “Whitney,” “Up All Night,” “Guys With Kids,” “The New Normal,” and “1600 Penn” had been tossed in the tumbril to join “30 Rock,” “The Office” and “Animal Practice” in the NBC comedy graveyard. The only NBC comedies to escape the executioner were “Parks and Recreation” and “Community.”  NBC was said to have canceled almost all of its comedies because network suits were so happy with their new-comedy development. On Friday, NBC added to its new-comedy list a Bill Lawrence series about a slacker who takes in his new roomie’s “Undateable” pals, and a multi-ethnic rom-com “Welcome to the Family.”

On the drama side, NBC picked up an “Ironside” reboot starring Blair Underwood, a Dick Wolf cop drama called “Chicago PD,” and “Blacklist,” in which the world’s most wanted criminal turns himself in, starring James Spader.  At their presentation, ABC execs will celebrate the renewals of “Modern Family,” “Once Upon a Time,” “Revenge,” “Suburgatory,” “Scandal,” “Nashville,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Castle,” “The Neighbors,” “Last Man Standing” and “The Middle.” They won’t mention canceled “Malibu Country,” “Body of Proof,” “Happy Endings,” “How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life),” “Family Tools” and “Red Widow.”

They will instead direct advertisers’ attention to their new comedies: Adam Goldberg’s semi-autobiographical “The Goldbergs”; Rebel Wilson and her BFF’s in “Super Fun Night”; James Caan as a loudmouthed lout with a recently divorced daughter in “Back in the Game”; and Bradley Whitford as a guy on his third wife in “Trophy Wife,” and a Manhattan bar comedy called “Mixology.”  ABC execs also will tout the new dramas, including “Resurrection” about the town of Arcadia, Missouri in which deceased loved ones suddenly start to return. This project formerly was called “The Returned” and was set in a town called Aurora, until someone cut off the creators’ Stupid Pills.
Also on ABC’s new-drama roster: A “Once Upon a Time” spinoff set it Alice’s Wonderland; Joss Whedon’s horribly named “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D,” based on the Marvel comic books and “The Avengers” flick; “Mind Games,” about a con man (Christian Slater) and a bi-polar genius (Steve Zahn) who are brothers; “Lucky 7,” about gas station employees sharing a winning lottery tickets; “Betrayal” about a woman who cheats on prosecutor husband with another lawyer; and “Killer Woman” about the only female member of the Texas Rangers.  Fox on Friday was trying to seal deals to resuscitate “24” after killing star Kiefer Sutherland’s more recent action series, “Touch.” Fox’s lips have been sealed about the talks since word leaked out late in the week, but former exec producer David Fury tweeted late Thursday he would be “pulling double duty” on the “24” reboot and new FX drama “Tyrant,” adding, “Whoo & Hoo!”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/cbs-picks-up-robin-williams-comedy-scraps-rules-of-engagement-vegas-csi-ny-and-golden-boy/2013/05/10/650a8db8-b9ca-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads
 

Two Non-Surprises: Fox Orders Another Gordon Ramsay Show, CBS Renews ‘Criminal Minds’

(By Lisa de Moraes, WashingtonPost, May 11, 2013)

Which Broadcast TV Upfront walk-up announcement surprised you less:

* Fox has ordered yet another Gordon Ramsay cooking show.
* CBS has ordered another season of “Criminal Minds”?

Fox announced Friday it has picked up “Junior Masterchef,” a new culinary competition series for wanna-be chefs between the ages of eight and 13.  It was part of a deal in which Fox also ordered one more season of Ramsay’s “Hell’s Kitchen,” which will bring its total to 13 seasons – and two more of Ramsay’s “Masterchef,” which keeps that one on the network through at least a sixth season.  Fox is now in bed with Ramsay to the tune of five series:  “Masterchef,” “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Hotel Hell,” “Kitchen Nightmares,” and now “Junior.”

“Junior Masterchef” gives two budding cooks the opportunity to showcase their talent…blah, blah, blah, series of challenges and cook-offs, blah, blah, blah, Ramsay one of the judges. It’s based on a UK format.  Meanwhile, the on-camera gang at CBS’s “Criminal Minds” finally signed new two-year deals (the showrunner Erica Messer had signed a new deal before that) and next season will be “Criminal Minds’s” ninth.  It’s CBS’s 20^th series to be renewed for next year. 
 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/two-non-surprises-fox-orders-another-gordon-ramsay-show-cbs-renews-criminal-minds/2013/05/10/e1578eb4-b990-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

CBS Renews ‘Two And Half Men’; Angus T. Jones Won’t Be A Regular

(By Lisa de Moraes, WashingtonPost, Apr 26, 2013)

The same day CW announced it had picked up “Hart of Dixie,” ”Beauty and the Beast,” and a “Vampire Diaries” spinoff for next season, and NBC revealed it had greenlit a new season for “Parenthood,” “Revolution,” “Grimm,” “Chicago Fire,” and “Law & Order: SVU,” CBS said it had renewed “Two and a Half Men” for and 11th season.  Ashton Kutcher and Jon Cryer will be back as regulars. But Angus T. Jones, who nearly derailed his lucrative (a reported $300,000 per episode) “Men” career last November when he recorded a testimonial for a church urging us to stop watching the show and filling our heads ”with filth,” is not going to be a regular character on the show next season. He’ll be recurring — industry-speak for “some episodes but not all.” The actor is attending college, in real life.

This TV season, “Men” has played an important role in CBS’s effort to own comedy on Thursday nights, paired with “The Big Bang Theory.” Both are Chuck Lorre comedies.  “Men” joins the slew of series CBS had already picked up early for next season. They include comedies “2 Broke Girls,”  “Mike & Molly,” “How I Met Your Mother” and, of course, “The Big Bang Theory.”  Drama-wise, CBS has already greenlit next season on “The Good Wife,” “Blue Bloods,” Person of Interest,” “NCIS: Los Angeles,” “Elementary,” “Hawaii Five-O,” and “The Mentalist.”  The network’s newsmags “60 Minutes” and “48 Hours” are coming back, as are reality series “The Amazing Race,” “Survivor,” and “Undercover Boss.”

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/cbs-renews-two-and-half-men-angus-t-jones-wont-be-a-regular/2013/04/26/7fb11278-aeca-11e2-8bf6-e70cb6ae066e_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

 

 

NBC Renews ‘Parenthood,’ ‘Revolution,’ ‘Grimm,’ ‘Chicago Fire,’ ‘Law & Order: SVU’

(By Emily Yahr, WashingtonPost, Apr 26, 2013)

About three weeks before NBC releases its official fall schedule at the upfronts, the network has announced early pick-ups for five of its drama series: “Parenthood” and “Grimm,” along with newcomers “Revolution” and “Chicago Fire” and veteran “Law & Order: SVU.” All five shows received 22-episode orders.  Given that the viewers-plagued network has seen disappointments with new dramas such “Do No Harm” and “Deception,” as well as the re-tooled “Smash,” renewals for the two new drama series — which have done much better in the ratings — are not quite surprising. J.J. Abrams’ “Revolution,” about a post-apocolyptic world without power, is the top-rated drama series among all broadcast networks in 18-to-49-year-old category.  “Chicago Fire,” produced by “L&O” king Dick Wolf, has pleased NBC so much that the network is already contemplating a spin-off for next season. 

Meanwhile, critically-beloved but low-rated “Parenthood” was less than a sure thing, but has been given a 22-episode fifth season order for the first time since its second season — last year, it only produced 15.  In its second season, “Grimm” has been a solid performer for NBC on Friday nights, though it will get a chance to shine on Tuesdays starting next week, replacing the network’s latest reality flop, ”Ready for Love.”  And Wolf’s remaining “Law & Order” franchise, “SVU,” will march into its 15th season.  No word yet on the fate of NBC’s comedies currently on the bubble, including “Parks and Recreation,” “Community,” “Whitney, “Go On” and “The New Normal.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/nbc-renews-parenthood-revolution-grimm-chicago-fire-law-and-order-svu/2013/04/26/618ac1dc-aea1-11e2-8bf6-e70cb6ae066e_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads

 

Seth Meyers Will Move To NBC ‘Late Night’ As Jimmy Fallon’s Successor

(By Lisa de Moraes, Washington Post, May 13, 2013)

NBC has confirmed that “Saturday Night Live” long-timer Seth Meyers will take over as host of the network’s “Late Night” next year, when Jimmy Fallon takes “The Tonight Show” from Jay Leno.  NBC waited until Sunday afternoon — just a few hours before releasing its new prime-time schedule to the news media — to confirm months of speculation about Meyers. With the announcement, the network hoped Monday’s chatter would be about late-night TV — which NBC still dominates — rather than prime time, where the network has collapsed whenever Sunday football and “The Voice” take breathers.

In prime time, NBC has decided to give a James Spader action thriller the coveted post-”Voice” time slot. NBC also hopes that family comedies starring Sean Hayes, Mike O’Malley and Michael J. Fox can resuscitate its Thursday nights — and hopes Dracula and Blackbeard can revive its Fridays — but hasn’t made up its mind about keeping Donald Trump or Hannibal Lecter.Last Friday, NBC canceled virtually all its prime-time series in comedy — a genre in which the network was once considered the gold standard — as well as several big-ticket dramas, including “Smash,” and the newsmag “Rock Center.”

On Sunday afternoon, only “Parks and Recreation” and “Community” survived NBC’s comedy purge. Those shows were joined by just five returning dramas: “Grimm,” “Parenthood,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Revolution” and “Chicago Fire.”  NBC said Sunday that it will decide whether to pick up another season of “Hannibal” in the next few weeks — as well as whether to order more of Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice.” Neither program was on the prime-time slate that NBC unveiled Sunday.

As expected, “The Voice” is back, on Mondays and Tuesdays. It will be followed by “The Blacklist,” in which Spader stars as an ex-government agent who is one of the FBI’s most-wanted fugitives.  Dick Wolf’s sophomore “Chicago Fire” is being moved to Tuesdays at 10 to benefit from a “Voice” lead-in at 9; “The Voice” follows “The Biggest Loser.”  After NBC’s coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics, Tuesday’s “The Voice” shifts back to 8, so NBC can launch two comedies off of it: a reboot of the Hugh Grant flick “About a Boy” and “The Family Guide,” about a blind dad who finally gets a guide dog.  The network really needs to rebuild its comedy brand, NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt acknowledged in Sunday’s announcement.  On Wednesdays, imagine “Revolution” at 8, followed by “Law & Order: SVU” at 9, leading into a reboot of “Ironside,” starring Blair Underwood in the paralyzed-cop role made famous in the ’70s by Raymond Burr. NBC will attempt to broaden its Thursday comedy audience with a family slate that’s sure to make TV critics unhappy. That lineup includes “Welcome to the Family,” starring Mike O’Malley and Mary McCormack as parents of a high-schooler who gets pregnant by a Hispanic teen, which, NBC says, upsets the guy’s parents because “they now have Caucasians in the family.”  “Family” will be followed by Hayes’s new sitcom, “Sean Saves the World,” and then “The Michael J. Fox Show,” in which the former “Family Ties” star plays a news anchor who put his career on hold to spend more time with the family after receiving a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.

Friday is Genre Night at NBC next season, with “Grimm” airing at 9, followed by “Dracula,” starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, at 10 in the fall and, in spring, “Crossbones,” with John Malkovich as the infamous Blackbeard. The newsmagazine “Dateline” is the warm-up act, at 8.  On Saturday, NBC returns “Rerun Theatre.”  On Sunday, after football season, NBC has decided that it’s time for “big dramas again,” Greenblatt said in Sunday’s announcement.  Setting aside “Dateline” at 7 p.m. and a home-renovation reality competition show called “American Dream Builders” at 8, what Greenblatt means is that NBC will debut J.J. Abrams’s new “Believe” at 9, followed by the new “Crisis” at 10.  “Believe” is about a little orphan girl named Bo who has mastered levitation, telekinesis, forecasting and the ability to control nature. Her guardians, a.k.a. True Believers, want to safeguard her from harmful outsiders who would use her for personal gain — like the programming suits at HLN. Or Lifetime. 

 

Anyway, the True Believers decide to spring — from death row — a wrongfully convicted felon to take care of her. What could go wrong there?  “Crisis,” in which POTUS’s son is among those kidnapped during a school field trip, stars Dermot Mulroney. That is not to be confused with CBS’s new “Hostages,” whose cast includes Dylan McDermott — the show about a doctor who has to operate on POTUS, except that she gets distracted when her husband and kids get kidnapped.  In conclusion, Greenblatt said: “This is the most robust and highest-testing slate of new shows we have had in years.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/seth-meyers-will-move-to-nbc-late-night-as-jimmy-fallons-successor/2013/05/12/887df2c6-bb50-11e2-9b09-1638acc3942e_story.html?wpisrc=nl_lunchln