TVSquad

(S01E01) We're friends here, aren't we? So, I can be honest with you. I mean, some of you have been utterly, brutally honest with me to the point I cry into my pillow at nights. The least you can let me do is allow some truthiness spill over to you. Okay? Okay.

I went in blind to the premiere of Kath & Kim. Not blind in the sense that I didn't know who the stars were. My late 20s and early 30s were spent watching Molly Shannon on Saturday Night Live and I had knowledge of Selma Blair's work over the last few years. What I'm talking about is that I knew nothing about this NBC comedy or the Australian hit it was based on. The upside to this was that I was coming into the show like any other viewer. The downside was that I was coming into the show like any other viewer.

I probably should have come in a little more knowledgeable.

If you've been watching NBC's Olympic coverage, you must have seen all of the promotion they have been doing for their fall season. New shows My Own Worst Enemy, Crusoe, Knight Rider, Kath & Kim, and America's Toughest Jobs have all had plenty of play. As have the returning Chuck and Life. Given that the latest Olympiad is closing in on becoming the most watched television event of all time, you might think those promo spots were pretty valuable.

Apparently, not so much. The Hollywood Reporter runs down the record for the network promoting new shows during past games. In 2004, the Athens games led to one show, Joey, making it beyond its first season. Likewise for the Sydney games in 2000, which brought us Ed, and nothing else. Things were a little better in 1996 from Atlanta. Profiler, The Pretender, and Suddenly Susan all lasted another four years. Not a stellar track record and it leaves you thinking that those precious spots might have served the network better pitching more beer. It has the makings of a good poll though. After the jump, place your vote for the one new show that will make it out of season one.

Today was the very last day of the press tour here in Beverly Hills. It was "TCA Day," with members of the association (including me) going to the Warner Brothers lot to visit the sets of ER, Pushing Daisies, and Chuck, where we spoke to cast members and producers (Oh, we went to the set of America's Best Dance Crew, but let's just forget I mentioned that one). Then we bused it over to the Fox lot, where Joss Whedon showed us around the set of Dollhouse, and the entire cast of King of the Hill gave a table read of their 250th episode. All this fun will be in upcoming posts later this summer.

Despite some of the griping you may have seen from me, it's been lots of fun. It's just a very tiring experience. Case in point: On Monday, NBC decided to close out the press conference portion of the tour by having us sit through ten panels, five of them after lunch. Here's a wrap-up post that goes over some of what went on yesterday that I haven't already covered.

Virgin America, the newest start-up airline in these United States, has inked a deal with Sundance Channel to create a customer in-flight channel for it's passengers.

The new channel, Sundance Channel for Virgin America (catchy, ain't it?) will feature a collection of the cable network's feature films and documentaries as well as original programming such as Iconoclasts and Kath and Kim. In addition, Sunny Virgin (which I think is a much better name for the in-flight network) will air original episodes of the new documentary series Nimrod Nation three weeks before they air on the cable network. Nation, which will focus on the town of Watersmeet, Michigan and their obsession with their high school basketball team (the Nimrods) will air on the in-flight channel on November 1st, while it will air on the Sundance Channel on November 26th.

This morning's Very Short List has a story about the Australian TV comedy Kath & Kim. The producers who oversaw the transformation of the UK Office into the stateside Dunder-Mifflin team are busy recreating Kath & Kim for American audiences.

The Aussie half-hour is a faux reality show about suburban mom Kath and her self-involved, lay-about adult daughter Kim. The show's been called "Absolutely Fabulous without the fabulous." The Sundance Channel will be playing a 90-minute Kath & Kim made-for-TV movie on December 24th and plans to air the Aussie version's third season. The American take is set to debut in 2007. If The Office's translation is any indication, this could be good news for comedy fans. Anyone other there familiar with the show? Personally, I'm happy to get behind any series that smacks of Ab Fab.