Hot on the heels of FOX, its parent company's midseason schedule announcement, FX today released their upcoming schedule after the ball drops for 2010.
For the most part, the basic cable network's upcoming slate of originals is what everyone expected, save for one fairly big surprise.
If you're like me, when you hear the name Martha Stewart you think of football. Now those two things are coming together in a new contest.
Martha and NBC have teamed up for Martha's Sunday Night Football Sweepstakes, a contest where, if you win the grand prize, you get a trip to New York City, a stay in a hotel, $100 in spending money, and you get to attend a live taping of Martha Stewart or Football Night in America. Runner up prizes include Martha's new book Dinner at Home and autographed footballs.
If you don't count Hank -- and I'm trying to erase the two episodes I saw from my memory banks -- ABC has had a pretty good year launching new comedies. In fact, if you go back to the spring, you can add Better Off Ted to Cougar Town, The Middle and Modern Family.
Why then would ABC be giving Nicole Richie a new sitcom? I just don't see where she's worthy of a show, let alone that she has the star appeal or talent to carry a situation comedy.
Perhaps ABC has some take on The Simple Life star that I'm missing. She's cute, yes. She's not a complete airhead judging by what I've seen of her on talk shows. But, really, aren't there better actresses -- stars -- who are more viable for a new comedy series? Stars will more talent than celebrity to their credit.
(S02E09) "She's the female equivalent of roulette and you like the view." - Foster
There's always a potential for screw-ups when networks start airing episodes out of the producers intended order (see NBC and their goofs with Detective Crosetti's death in season three of Homicide), but Lie to Me seems to have avoided that sort of miscalculation despite FOX's shuffling of the season order. That is, until "Fold Equity" aired last night. Originally set to air during Fox's Simpsons week (catch the Sideshow Bob reference?), "Fold Equity" didn't drop the ball on anything as major as a character's death, but more than once during the hour it felt as though we were taking some giant steps backward.
If you've ever watched The Soup or Community, you know what a (hot) genius Joel McHale is. But while his scruffy mug tends to get all of the credit for the funny that The Soup constantly brings, I've got to give it up for the video editors on staff for this one.
Now that Jon and Kate is off the air, TLC is scrambling to figure out what mildly offensive reality concept it's going to use to win over America once again. Instead of coming up with an entirely new concept (because, let's face it: ideas are hard), The Soup posits that TLC is just going to combine all of their already successful shows into one.
TLC has decided to build their success on little people, tattoos, pageant kids, cake shows and folks who have way too many babies, so let's just cut the crap and give the people what they want. In this case, the people want Fertile Little Tattooed Pageant Parents Who Enjoy Baking.
So, in last night's episode of Heroes, one of the original cast members was killed off. In slow motion! Fans might think that there's a chance he could come back because characters come back on this show all the time, but producer Tim Kring says that this is final.
And now it looks like it might not be the only permanent death on the show.
Where has the time gone? Is it really 20 years that Peter Bergman's played Jack Abbott on The Young and the Restless? Amazing, but true. Not only has Bergman been tearing it up as Jack for two decades, he's pretty much eradicated the memory of his tenure on All My Children where he was nice guy, Dr. Cliff Warner. Say what you will about Jack, he's not a nice guy. He can have his good moments, but this character is too complicated, too selfish, too diabolical ever to be confused with a noble man like Cliff.
Which is what has made Peter Bergman's time on Y&R so remarkable! The character had been so sharply defined by Terry Lester that it was going to be tough for any actor to take over the part.
I don't know how many people will miss TNT's Raising The Bar. It was one of those shows that you never really heard people talking about - fans or critics - even though it had a pretty high-profile cast, including Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Jane Kaczmarek. The 2008 premiere actually grabbed over 7.7 million viewers, but that number dropped 50% for the second season premiere, so the writing was on the wall.
TNT has canceled the legal drama. There are still a few episodes that haven't aired yet and they will probably be shown sometime in early 2010.
From the creator of Home Movies comes a new animated show on Fox. Bob's Burgers will be about a guy (Bob) who runs a burger grill at an East Coast seaside town with his "tightly wound wife and three unhelpful kids".
Fox is obviously returning to form with another animated family comedy, as if their entire Sunday night line-up weren't enough. I yearn for animated shows that dare to be a little different like South Park, Futurama and The Venture Bros.
However, the show involves hamburgers and as a hamburger fan I may give it a shot. It is a bit of a concern that Fox is overdoing it with the animated shows. Perhaps Cartoon Network and Fox should just switch names and be done with it.
Also, based on the photo doesn't the main character look a little like Luigi from the Mario Brothers? Will he have a thick Italian accent as well?