TheClass-related stories
Posted May 10th 2008 12:36PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Cancellations, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
Fox has made the call, and it's a big "see ya later" for Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton. But their loss is someone else's gain. The pilot for
the Jason Bateman directed comedy series The Inn has been picked up for a 13-week commitment, while Back to You has been axed. The Brad Garrett-Joely Fisher sitcom,
Til Death, meanwhile, has been given another year.
Bateman, who starred in
Arrested Development -- the Emmy-award winning comedy that the network dumped unceremoniously because of low ratings -- was behind the camera for
The Inn pilot. The show, which is about the haves and have-nots in a fancy, five-star New York City hotel, has a promising cast of funny folks including Niecy Nash (
Reno 911!), Jerry O'Connell (who looks like Jason's twin), and the really hilarious Jesse Tyler Ferguson (remember him on
The Class -- he was so funny!).
Continue reading The Inn is in, but Kelsey & Patty are dumped
Posted Jun 21st 2007 10:30AM by Richard Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming
Well, I posted information on the campaign to keep Traveler on the air, as well as the send-in project to get Katharine McPhee back into the good graces of American Idol next season, so why the hell not post information on a new petition. I mean, its summer . . . what else to I have to do anyway?
Today's campaign is to renew the CBS comedy The Class. According to the campaign's very plain and easy-to-read website most people have been mailing in erasers and/or Moroccan Chicken recipes to CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler and Executive VP of Programming Kelly Kahl. They have also been sending in packs of Skittles because of a line mentioned by one of the characters ('I ate so many Skittles I peed the rainbow').
Continue reading And today's campaign to save a show is for ... The Class
Posted Nov 16th 2006 12:01PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, CBS, OpEd, The Class, Pickups and Renewals
Despite mediocre ratings and equally mediocre reviews (
including mine), CBS has been happy enough with
The Class to order more episodes of the "half-hour comic-sudser," as
Variety so adroitly called it.
But the show is not getting the entire "back nine" just yet. According to that
Variety article, CBS is hoping the mid-season show
Rules of Engagement, starring David Spade and Patrick Warburton, will work well in the Monday comedy block where
The Class currently resides.
Another article,
on USAToday.com, says that newer episodes of the show will concentrate on fewer characers.
Continue reading CBS orders more episodes of The Class
Posted Sep 30th 2006 6:01PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming
At 8, ABC has college football, Ohio State at Iowa.- CBS has two repeats of The Class at 8, followed by a repeat of Jericho and a new 48 Hours.
- NBC has a new, two-hour Dateline at 8, followed by a repeat Law and Order: SVU.
- There's a new Cops on FOX at 8, followed by a repeat, then a new America's Most Wanted.
- CNN has Rumsfeld: Man of War at 8.
- Also at 8: Cartoon Network has a new Naruto, followed by new episodes of Zatch Bell, and Bobobo-Bo Bobo.
- At 9, TLC has two new eps of Flip That House, followed by a new Trading Spaces.
- At 10, HGTV has a new Design on a Dime.
- HBO has George Carlin: Life Is Worth Losing at 10.
- NBC has the season premiere of Saturday Night Live at 11:30, with Dane Cook and The Killers.
Posted Sep 18th 2006 8:36PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, CBS, Programming, OpEd, The Class
(S01E01) I'm not going to put a full review of
The Class's pilot
here, since I did one last week in an
"early look" post. But I'll just tell you one thing: hold on. Like I said in the early review, the pilot is underwhelming, mainly because trying to establish relationships between eight unrelated characters in the span of 22 minutes is next to impossible. But based on the second and thrid episodes, these relationships will get stronger (and they won't try to intermix all eight people for now; individual storylines will develop, which you can see happening in the pilot); I genuinely laughed out loud a number of times during the second and third episodes, which is the hallmark of a comedy I'll stick with.
Anwyay, if you want more info on the show, look at the early review. Full reviews will return starting with episode two.
Posted Sep 12th 2006 11:32AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, CBS, Programming, OpEd, The Class
When I previewed rough-cut pilot of
The Class (premieres Monday, Sept. 18 at 8 PM ET)
back in June, I had my doubts about whether the loose association of the characters in the show would be able to withstand the rigors of a long-term series. The finished pilot didn't change my mind. But CBS was nice enough to include the second episode on the same screener as the pilot, and I'll tell you this: the show has potential. It seems an especially good companion for
How I Met Your Mother, which it will preceed on Mondays, since both cater to the same late-20s crowd. But
The Class does so without the cutsiness that can sometimes seep into
HIMYM.
Continue reading The Class - an early look
Posted Sep 8th 2006 9:36AM by Brett Love
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, CBS, Programming, Web
The networks continue to try and find new and interesting ways to get the word out about their shows. Anna reported earlier on the
CBS/Tivo deal to give subscribers the first look at their new comedy
The Class. Now comes word that the Tiffany network will also
partner with Classmates.com to promote the show. Each of the characters will have their own page on the site and registered Classmates users will be able to interact with them, adding them as friends, and emailing the characters. The site will also have video clips from the show. No word yet on whether the Classmates Class will now try to open a popup window on every other page you visit on the internet.
The Class premieres on September 18th.
[via
LostRemote]
Posted Aug 25th 2006 10:47AM by Richard Keller
Filed under: CBS, Video, Podcasting
You're rushing through New York City's Grand Central Terminal, on your way to catch the 5:14 Metro North train to Mamaroneck. You only have a few minutes to spare. All of a sudden you catch something out of the corner of your eye: A Bluetooth-powered terminal. You step up to it and see the words 'free download'. It turns out to be a set of 30-second promos for upcoming shows on CBS that you can download to your cell phone. Not one to skip out on anything free, you download the promos, and skip gaily down to the train platform.
Continue reading Bluetooth and CBS get together to promote fall shows
Posted Aug 8th 2006 2:31PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, CBS, Talent, Industry, OpEd
Here is yet another example of why the pilot previews that we get from the networks should not be considered finished products: The cast of
The Class, a CBS show about a group of people who are brought back together twenty years after being third-grade classmates, is already making a casting change.
According to the
Hollywood Reporter, David Keith
will be brought in to play former pro football player Yonk Allen, who is married to one of the classmates, Nicole (played by
Joey's Andrea Anders). My guess is that they wanted to give Anders a middle-aged man that a 28-year-old woman might actually
want to marry, as Yonk was portrayed in the pilot as more of a balding, paunchy has-been (albeit with money from a desktop grill endorsement). Wonder if they're going to reshoot Yonk's scenes in the pilot or just make an unexplained switch in the first regular episode? I've seen shows do both.
Posted Jul 12th 2006 2:33PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, CBS, Industry, Programming, How I Met Your Mother
Of course, if you work on the new show The Class, the word "slightly" might not be appropriate here.
CBS was going to move How I Met Your Mother to Mondays at 8pm, and put the new show The Class (about a group of third grade kids who reunite when they're older) into the 8:30 slot, so it gets a good lead from HIMYM (I'm tired of typing that out all the time) and sandwiched between that show and Two and a Half Men. But now they've changed their minds. They're keeping HIMYM at 8:30, and putting The Class at 8, which means that a new show is going to have to lead off the night for CBS.
A risky move. They must really have confidence in The Class.
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