(S01E01) I often get complaints from my registered nurse parents about the inaccuracy of hospital drama shows. Don't even get me started on how much my mother hates Grey's Anatomy. I came to Hawthorne with hesitation: can the show balance the drama with the medical cases? I was surprised how well the show balanced meetings, patients, and outlying drama.
Anyone else think that Jada Pinkett Smith deserves a better career than she's gotten? Her IMDB page screams regrettable movies that didn't showcase her acting skills. I loved watching her in Hawthorne and truly think she can handle Oscar-caliber roles.
There are many medical dramas among the new shows announced for the fall, and one of them is TNT's HawthoRNe, starring Jada Pinkett Smith (it also stars Alias' Michael Vartan). Here's the first two minutes of the pilot. The show debuts June 16 at 9 PM.
And for future reference, I'm going to write all of my sentences like HawthoRNe. IT miGHt tAKE somE tIMe, bUt we'Ll gET uSEd TO iT.
When the networks go into summer hibernation, it's time for the cable networks to come out and play. While they've been making inroads with fall and spring original programming, most cable networks stick to the summer frame where competition is light and they put up huge numbers that NBC would envy. TNT added a few shows to achieve a three-night schedule of original programming this summer, bringing it closer and closer to full network programming levels. And TNT knows a thing or two about massive ratings hits.
They're coupling smash hit The Closer at 9 PM ET with Raising the Bar at 10 on Mondays starting June 8. Bar launched huge and secured a renewal before everyone realized what a huge steaming pile of crap it was. So now it's got the cushiest timeslot on the network to try and win back all the viewers it pissed away. Let's hope they've improved the product and Felicityed Mark Paul-Gosselaar's hair.
TNT is furthering its investment in original drama by adding two new shows to its programming, increasing the number of original hour-long dramas they offer to seven. The first new show is The Line, a cop drama produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and starring Dylan McDermott. The second is a medical drama called Time Heals starring Jada Pinkett Smith.
This seems to me an example of a trickle-down effect. Due to the Internet and video-on-demand, reruns simply don't work anymore in keeping a network in business. Original drama worked so well for premium networks such as HBO and Showtime that standard cable stations such as AMC, TNT and several others took it upon themselves to do the same.
I guess Leverageis such a winner for the network that it can afford to add to its line-up. At this rate, there is going to be too much original television offered weekly for a human being to possibly keep up (if there isn't already), which is why video-on-demand was invented in the first place.
Out of the dozens and dozens of shows that go to pilot every season, we only see a handful. Some of them vanish forever and some might end up online in one way or another.
Below is a list of ten shows that didn't make the fall schedule on the networks this year. Some of them might show up midseason, but most won't. And just for a little added fun, I've included three shows that are completely made up. Can you tell which ones they are? I'll answer in the comments later tonight (and don't go looking online for the answer; that's no fun). The shows are listed after the jump. Some of them sound crazy, but hey, if you told me two years ago that those Geico cavemen commercials would be a series...
The Smiths are becoming entertainment moguls, aren't they? They already produce the CW comedy All of Us; now Will and Jada are pairing with a writer-producer team to create a medical drama for CBS. Just what we need, right? Well, this one has the potential to be a little different: the show will follow the doctors at the Centers of Disease Control as they battle viruses and other diseases that threaten to become pandemics (the pilot episode: bird flu... it's a natural!).
The writer-producer team that the Smiths are joining are Jan Nash and Jennifer Levin, who met while working on Without a Trace.
The CW has given script commitment to a comedy being developed by Kelly Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos. The comedy is loosely based on their experiences working on soap operas. Before hosting Live with Regis and Kelly, Ripa used to star with her husband on All My Children.
The CW already has a similarly-themed comedy, All of Us, created by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, about their real life experiences as husband-and-wife actors.
(S01E01) I often get complaints from my registered nurse parents about the inaccuracy of hospital drama shows. Don't even get me started on how much my mother hates Grey's Anatomy. I came to Hawthorne with hesitation: can the show balance the drama with the medical cases? I was surprised how well the show balanced meetings, patients, and outlying drama. 
TNT is furthering its investment in original drama by 
Out of the dozens and dozens of shows that go to pilot every season, we only 
The Smiths are becoming entertainment moguls, aren't they? They already produce the CW comedy All of Us; now Will and Jada are pairing with a writer-producer team 
The CW has given script commitment to a comedy being developed by Kelly Ripa and her husband, Mark Consuelos. The comedy is loosely based on their experiences working on soap operas. Before hosting Live with Regis and Kelly, Ripa used to star with her husband on All My Children.
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