It has been announced that Michael Jackson's public funeral with be held next Tuesday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. CBS has revealed that they are going to cover it extensively, with The Early Show broadcasting live from the Staples Center on Monday and Tuesday and Katie Couric doing The CBS Evening News from there as well. No word yet on what ABC and NBC will be doing, though I assume they'll do similar coverage (not to mention the massive coverage we'll see on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News).
But how extensive should the coverage be? Should the news channels cover it all day long? Should the networks report live from the funeral? Should the funeral be televised live on all channels? Should there just be stories of it and no live coverage at all?
Leo G. Carroll did it in 1966. Lisa Bonet sort of did it in 1987. What am I talking about? Double duty. That is, playing the same role on two series which are running at the same time. There are probably quite a few other instances, but Leo was head man Mr. Waverly on both The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. for a year, and Lisa was Denise Huxtable in college (A Different World) and when she came home to visit the family in Brooklyn on The Cosby Show.
Generally speaking, CBS had a strong 2008, developing one bona fide hit drama -- The Mentalist -- even though shows like The Ex-List never found an audience or a critical plaudit. Ironically, I liked The Ex-List based on the screener I reviewed last summer, so go figure. Sometimes a preview can inform you about a show's potential and sometimes it's just the best it'll ever be.
CBS has shared previews for the new season and we've had a chance to take a look. There are star vehicles for Jenna Elfman, Alex O'Loughlin and Julianna Margulies, which would seem logical based on the success of Simon Baker as The Mentalist. CBS is counting on familiar, popular TV stars to win over audiences. Will the strategy work? It's probably too soon to tell.
A question for you Big Brother fans: is the reveal of the house a really big deal? I remember watching The Real World many years ago and it was always fun to see what the house looked like. But those were real (if changed) homes in various cities around the world. This isn't that exciting, but I wouldn't mind living here, I guess. Here are a few pics of the new house, and the rest of the pics are here. The show starts July 9.
a. NBC's code name for what excuses they'll use to explain why The Jay Leno Show isn't a hit (or why it is a hit or why it started out well and then died off)
b. a new Bravo reality show where contestants compete to see who gets their own 10PM show
c. a new PBS documentary about Leno and his massive car collection
Ray Romano was a guest on last night's Late Show with David Letterman, and he revealed he made a bet with his sons: if they could guess what the tagline for the Worldwide Pants logo at the end of each show would be, he'd give them $10,000. They haven't won yet, but they did supply Letterman will some new taglines for the show.
You think Bobby Cannavale has felt the sting when all those episodes of the failed second go-round of Cupid have been burned off by ABC this past few weeks? It's got to be a shot to the ego, even for an established, successful Emmy-winning actor. Well, here's some news that should puff him back up again. Cold Case is bringing Bobby Cannavale back for the new season.
Cannavale appeared last season on Cold Case as Detective Eddie Saccardo, an undercover narcotics cop -- think Serpico with a sense of humor -- who had a brief romantic fling with Lily. It was one of the only happy things in Detective Rush's life last season, so the return of Eddie could be just what the doctor ordered for Kathryn Morris's character.
I was never a big fan of Dharma & Greg (and by "never a big fan" I mean "I really disliked it"), but I'll give Jenna Elfman's new sitcom a shot. It's about a thirtysomething film critic who gets pregnant after a one-night stand. Family and parents groups, you can open your e-mail programs right now if you want to get your media campaign to get this show canceled underway early. Here's a sneak peek at the show.
I'm not sure how Andy Kindler came to be the guy who does out of the studio bits for The Late Show with David Letterman (other than being on a show Letterman's company produced, Everybody Loves Raymond), but he has done some great stuff. Last night he gave advice to new college graduates. His talk with Nick (don't call him Nicky) is particularly funny.
Maybe I'm just such a guy, but I love blooper and practical joke shows. When actors screw up and live news reports go horribly wrong. That's why I laughed so much at this clip from last night's Late Show with David Letterman. It's not the lame hidden camera jokes that Biff Henderson tries to play on people, it's that he can't get the name of the segment right. I find that funny (Biff is always funny anyway).
So there was still a "Fire David Letterman" rally last night outside the Ed Sullivan Theater. There were between 50 and 100 people there, some supporting Dave and some...well, not supporting him. Gawker and The Village Voice were there and documented what went down.
Dave didn't duck the protesters either. Here's his Top Ten list from last night. (And after the jump, a bonus: Lyle the intern!).
Just because CBS is changing where the new medical drama Three Rivers will be filmed, doesn't mean the show is in trouble. After all, a lot of shows are retooled once the pilot is filmed. However, they recently dumped the leading lady, Julia Ormond, too. To me this says that Three Rivers is shifting focus, and I don't mean by filming in a Pittsburgh hospital set that they're building in Los Angeles instead of the real thing in Pennsylvania.
It could well mean that CBS is thinking about making Three Rivers a star vehicle for Alex O'Loughlin. CBS has The Mentalist in mind for Three Rivers, with Alex becoming the next golden pin-up, just like Simon Baker. I mean, take a look at this publicity picture. That's a muscle shirt more than a surgical scrubs top. And don't get me wrong, Alex has the body to pull it off.
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brienreversed its ratings decline and managed to squeak by with a win over The Late Show with David Letterman this past Wednesday night. Apparently, he even blew Letterman away in the coveted 18-49 demo.
I've never understood the appeal of The Tonight Show, but NBC has pretty much built the ultimate juggernaut of late night talk shows with it that nobody can seem to topple. On the other hand, when Letterman first moved to CBS he dominated the late night ratings for the first few years. With that in mind, I still think Letterman can turn this into a win before his current contract expires in 2012. And even if he doesn't, he deserves to.
Of course, the big elephant in the room is Jay Leno's upcoming 10 PM talk show. With such a lead-in, Dave's show could take an additional hammering in the ratings. Only time will tell.
As TV fans, I think we all have our views of what each network is all about. CBS is all about police shows, NBC will try anything, FOX depends mostly on American Idol, etc. And now SideReel.com has made some very funny new network logos that are a bit more honest than the real ones.
They don't have one for The CW, though they do hint that the network might be too unimportant for one. But I'm sure we can come up with one, right?
Yesterday we had a..."discussion" about a joke that David Letterman made earlier this week about Sarah Palin's daughter and New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez. Last night, Letterman addressed the controversy that arose from the joke, and the video is below. As I suspected, he was not talking about the youngest Palin daughter, and he explains the joke and apologizes for it.
It has been announced that Michael Jackson's public funeral with be held next Tuesday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. CBS has revealed that they are going to cover it extensively, with The Early Show broadcasting live from the Staples Center on Monday and Tuesday and Katie Couric doing The CBS Evening News from there as well. No word yet on what ABC and NBC will be doing, though I assume they'll do similar coverage (not to mention the massive coverage we'll see on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News). 
Generally speaking, CBS had a strong 2008, developing one bona fide hit drama -- The Mentalist -- even though shows like The Ex-List never found an audience or a critical plaudit. Ironically, I liked The Ex-List based on the screener I reviewed last summer, so go figure. Sometimes a preview can inform you about a show's potential and sometimes it's just the best it'll ever be. 
a. NBC's code name for what excuses they'll use to explain why The Jay Leno Show isn't a hit (or why it is a hit or why it started out well and then died off)
Just because 
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien 
As TV fans, I think we all have our views of what each network is all about. CBS is all about police shows, NBC will try anything, FOX depends mostly on American Idol, etc. And now SideReel.com has made some very funny 
Seven greatest hand cannons in TV history
TV Squad previews NBC's new shows (part 1)
TV 101: How ESPN controls the world and what the other networks can learn from it
