lifetime-related stories
Posted Jun 30th 2009 2:04PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, Commercials, Reality-Free
My wife was watching a Lifetime movie that I've already forgotten the title of the other day. What I can't forget, however, is that during every single commercial break of this two-hour movie there were at least two different commercials for various feminine hygiene products. I understand that the Lifetime demographic is the right audience for these ads but at the same time don't you think there's a limit to how often a woman wants to think about her most intimate area's cleanliness while watching a movie?
The women I know actually have quite a wide variety of interests beyond yeast infections and Vagisil. In fact, those things almost never come up in conversation. I don't even think Lifetime should stop airing the commercials, because I'm told it's important stuff, but let's throw some variety in there, too. If Spike TV was airing condom commercials twice a break in the middle of the day I'd think they were obsessing a little bit too. You care. That's sweet. We get it, now how about reminding me of what really matters. McDonald's has "Hugo" size drinks for a dollar!
Posted Jun 24th 2009 11:54AM by Mike Moody
Filed under: Interviews, Celebrities, Reality-Free
Sigourney Weaver is earning strong Emmy buzz for her lead performance in Lifetime's
Prayers for Bobby. In her first TV movie, the three-time Oscar nominee plays a religiously conservative mother who refuses to accept her gay son.
The film, based on a true story, examines Mary Griffith's (Weaver) transformation from intolerant mother to gay-rights crusader after her son Bobby commits suicide. Weaver says she was drawn to
Prayers for Bobby because, like the book of the same name, it has the potential to start important conversations about tolerance and acceptance in homes everywhere.
Continue reading Sigourney Weaver: The TV Squad Interview
Posted Jun 11th 2009 12:28PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, Web, Reality-Free
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?
Posted Jun 2nd 2009 4:27PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Industry, Programming, TV Squad Polls, Reality-Free
Breaking News: Bravo is changing their slogan. For the past several years the tag line has been "Watch What Happens," but
the network is giving an overhaul to its brand and now the new slogan will be "By Bravo." That's going to take some getting used to, if you're the type of person who watches Bravo and has to get used to things.
Here are some other slogan ideas Bravo could have used.
Posted May 28th 2009 9:37AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Casting, Pushing Daisies, Reality-Free
I know it's only May and hardly the time to start thinking of egg nog and holly and Ebenezer Scrooge or any of the other Christmas standbys, but forgive me if I let out a whoop of happiness about the news that
Kristin Chenoweth will star in The Twelve Men of Christmas TV movie. The romantic comedy is slated to be part of the Fa La La La La Lifetime lineup (try saying that three times fast!), and while another holiday film doesn't usually make me gleeful, this one does.
Kristin Chenoweth is a gem. I'm still bereft that we'll probably never see her Olive Snook again because
Pushing Daisies is gone unless there's a movie, and I was tiffed that the David E. Kelly NBC pilot
Legally Mad was not picked up only because La Chenoweth was in it.
Continue reading Christmas with Kristin Chenoweth
Posted May 19th 2009 2:25PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Pickups and Renewals, Upfronts, Reality-Free
It was inevitable. Ever since Rosie O'Donnell grew a second head and spit venom at Elisabeth Hasselbeck,
The View has been on the radar. Even without current host Rosie O'Donnell, there's been buzz with new co-host Whoopi Goldberg. Hasselbeck keeps causing trouble on the set with her lone conservative voice, Whoopi is outspoken in her own right, Joy Behar is a lunatic and even Barbara Walters has been known to snag a headline or two. Of course Lifetime wants a piece of that buzz. And to get it they're grabbing ... uh ... Sherri Shepherd?
Doesn't Sherri Shepherd think she'll fall off the edge of the earth if she goes too far? I thought she was still there because they didn't want to have to rebuild the table with one fewer chair. Huh, I guess I was wrong.
Lifetime picked up Sherri Shepherd's sitcom Sherri for 12-episodes.
Continue reading The View's Sherri Shepherd is getting a Lifetime show
Posted Apr 2nd 2009 12:29PM by Michael Pascua
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Programming, Pickups and Renewals
No more waiting for the next season of
Project Runway. After all of the legal disputes, NBC Universal, The Weinstein Company, and Lifetime have finally
resolved their disputes. Part of the deal involves having five years of
Project Runway on Lifetime. That could mean between five and ten seasons (two seasons a year? That may be much), depending on how much Lifetime wants to milk their new ratings cow.
Lifetime has released a statement saying that the show will debut in the summer. If we follow the trend of last season, I'm assuming that I will start sometime in July and end in October.
Continue reading Project Runway season six is a go
Posted Feb 25th 2009 11:02AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
There are two significant things to take from the news that
Army Wives will return for a fourth season. One, the predominantly female viewership of Lifetime has embraced the series about the lives of Army personnel and their families on the Fort Marshall post in Charleston, South Carolina; and two, scripted dramas are on the rise all across the cable networks. It also means that this finely acted, well-written and well produced show is going to be around for the next couple of years at least.
Continue reading Lifetime drafts Army Wives for season four
Posted Oct 24th 2008 5:11PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Industry, Programming, Project Runway, Reality-Free
Kelly told you recently about
NBC's legal attempt to block Project Runway from going to their Bravo channel over to Lifetime (Lifetime paid $150 million to air the show for the next five years). Now it looks like NBC is
looking for contestants for a show that sounds very similar to
Project Runway...and they're using Craigslist to find people to be on the show.
The new Bravo show is going to be called
Fashion House. The ad says that the winner will win "a large cash prize" and that the winner can use the show to "serve as the launching pad to catapult your fashion career into high gear."
Catapult your fashion career into high gear? What a horrible sentence.
Continue reading Does NBC have a Project Runway replacement in the works?
Posted Oct 16th 2008 8:20AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Project Runway
It wasn't a fierce season for
Project Runway. No
Cristian Soriano to spice things up. No Wendy Pepper either, speaking of spicy. That said, as the show wrapped up and three designers presented their collections at Fashion Week, the competitive juices were flowing and I was definitely into it. Maybe not as much as previous years, but the
Project Runway formula still worked. And most significantly, the final three were all women. As Tim Gunn pointed out, it was the year of the woman on
Project Runway.
All in all, the finale wasn't exactly up to the level of previous seasons. The personalities weren't as dramatic or defined. There was no Jeffrey to hate. No pregnant Laura to root for. And no Jay or Santino to giggle over. It's interesting that even Tim Gunn, before this season aired, had said that this group wasn't as distinctive as some other seasons. As usual, Tim was right.
Continue reading It was the "Year of the Woman" on Project Runway
Posted Sep 29th 2008 2:03PM by Kelly Woo
Filed under: Industry, Project Runway
Heidi and Tim, hold on before you pack your bags.
Variety reports that a judge has blocked
Project Runway's network move from Bravo to Lifetime, putting the sixth season's January debut in limbo. The fifth season is currently airing on Bravo.
To recap: Lifetime signed a five-year, $150 million deal to steal away the hit reality series with its production house, The Weinstein Company. NBC Universal (which owns Bravo) filed suit, claiming that it had the right to match any offer made by another network.
Continue reading Project Runway on Lifetime auf'd?
Posted Sep 15th 2008 7:25AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Army Wives
(S02E13) There was a lot of action is this penultimate episode of
Army Wives. After the ripples created by all these stones in the water, I expect that next week's season finale will be a humdinger, although I don't think the finale can equal the punch of last year's suicide bomber at the Hump Bar.
It's clear that the writers like to keep us on our toes, surprising us, and I don't mind the unexpected. But the twist in tonight's show really came out of left field. I'll be frank; it was bad. I won't talk about it further until after the jump, but suffice to say I felt very manipulated, and not in a good way.
The Trevor/Roxy drug story has been building and it's definitely coming to a realistic boil. I feel for Roxy. She's doing her best to keep it together and Trevor has been like another person since returning from Iraq, guilt ridden and injured.
Continue reading Army Wives: Safe Havens
Posted Sep 12th 2008 12:03PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Celebrities, Early Looks, Reality-Free
Once upon a time, Hollywood made movies like Lifetime's
Coco Chanel all the time. They were called women's pictures and gave the biggest stars of the times amazing roles, Bette Davis in
Now, Voyager, Greer Garson in
Mrs. Miniver, Rosiland Russell in
Sister Kenny. Watching this excellent TV movie starring Shirley MacLaine as the older Coco and newcomer Barbora Bobulova as young Coco, I was enthralled and entertained.
You won't find a better TV movie on HBO or CBS or Hallmark Channel or anywhere else on the dial -- Lifetime set the bar high with this expansive biopic and then delivered the goods. Forget your idea of what a Lifetime movie is --
Coco Chanel is no victim of the week. If the intent was re-branding Lifetime movies with this effort, the cable net has hit it out of the park.
Continue reading Coco Chanel - An early look
Posted Sep 8th 2008 9:41AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Army Wives
(S02E12) There were too many story lines in this episode, too many threads pulled from the fabric. It felt like they were setting up the show for the end of the season and building suspense. For that reason, it felt very disjointed to me.
Claudia Joy's parents, Randall and Charlotte -- nicely played by Len Cariou and Marsha Mason -- have settled in the Holden's house as they deal with their marital/financial issues. The kind of money problems most families are facing in this country right now are not like this, so it's hard to relate. It's also hard to buy that his gambling has never impacted on Claudia's life before. Her hero worship has blinded her to his flaws, but how can you keep money troubles that secret?
Continue reading Army Wives: Great Expectations
Posted Aug 21st 2008 1:03PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Pickups and Renewals
Not to be confused with
Cashmere Mafia or
Legally Blonde or
Sweet Charity, Lifetime has a new reality series in the works with the catchy title of
Blonde Charity Mafia. It's a docu-reality series, so they say.
Lifetime has ordered six half-hour episodes of Blonde Charity Mafia, following the lives of three young society women in Washington, D.C
. who are famous for their work on political and philanthropic fundraisers in the nation's capital. If this sounds something like the Bravo
Real Houswives franchise --
Real Housewives of Orange County, Real Housewives of New York and
Real Housewives of Atlanta -- it's all intentional.
The
Blonde Charity Mafia mavens may not be married ladies, but the very rich, society swirl sounds very much like the well-heeled women on Bravo.
Continue reading Lifetime says yes to high society reality show
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