Ellen Gray in Hollywoodtag:blogs.phillynews.com,2012:/dailynews/ellengray//22007-07-27T05:42:46ZEllen Gray is the Daily News' TV critic. She's blogging from the Television Critics Association's summer meetings in Beverly Hills. Look for her columns in the Daily News Monday through Thursday. She can be reached at graye@phillynews.com.Movable Type 3.35WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOODtag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.56462007-07-27T05:30:05Z2007-07-27T05:42:46ZNathan Fillion and Dana Delany aren't the only new neighbors on ABC's "Desperate Housewives." Look for a gay couple to move onto Wisteria Lane this season. "Housewives" creator Marc Cherry, holding forth at an ABC party on The Very Last...Ellen Gray
Nathan Fillion and Dana Delany aren't the only new neighbors on ABC's "Desperate Housewives."
Look for a gay couple to move onto Wisteria Lane this season.
"Housewives" creator Marc Cherry, holding forth at an ABC party on The Very Last Night of the 2007 Summer Press Tour, sprinkled this tidbit like a few flakes of fish food on the surface of an aquarium, and several of us quickly rose to grab it.
Seems Teri Hatcher's character, Susan, while trying to bend over backward to be politically correct, is going to have problems with one of the new neighbors.
Hatcher, arriving a few minutes later, overheard me asking Cherry about the couple and expressed surprise.
Cherry hadn't yet told her. And no, she didn't seem to mind hearing it from us.
In fact, as he continued to talk -- and spill a few more plot points -- Hatcher looked as if she were enjoying herself, describing the experience of hearing Cherry crediting her with the original idea for last season's very small wedding as being like "therapy."
'PRACTICE' AND THE IMPERFECTtag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.56432007-07-26T23:06:22Z2007-07-26T23:37:27ZEarlier in the Television Critics Association's summer meetings -- months ago, as one reporter puts it -- NBC entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman told us he'd had conversations about bringing Isaiah Washington to NBC even before he knew that Washington's contract...Ellen Gray
blog, you should know that she's seen them.
Rhimes claims to read all the comments on the blog (which she last posted to on May 17), even when they run into the "tens of thousands," and also claims she has no problem with those who disagree with her creative choices.
Me, I'm just annoyed that she's spun off Walsh, whose character, Addison, was one of my two favorites on "Grey's." (If Chandra Wilson's Dr. Bailey disappears, I'm outta there.)
Some of you, though, might not be so happy about, say, the George and Izzie thing.
"I'm not saying that George and Izzie is the love story of the century," Rhimes says, hinting that it might even be a mistake.
But mistakes continue to interest Rhimes, at least dramatically.
Which means that, for better or worse, viewers of "Grey's Anatomy" -- and now, "Private Practice" -- should expect her characters to continue making the kind of decisions that have so-called sensible people throwing remote controls at the screen.]]>
GOING FISHING WITH 'MEN IN TREES'tag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.56412007-07-26T22:11:46Z2007-07-26T22:57:40ZSomeone's just asked the entire cast of ABC's "Men in Trees" what they've learned about relationships this past year. Which, if you're a nosy person who occasionally peruses the Tattle column, you might consider a tricky question to pose to...Ellen Gray
Someone's just asked the entire cast of ABC's "Men in Trees" what they've learned about relationships this past year.
Which, if you're a nosy person who occasionally peruses the Tattle column, you might consider a tricky question to pose to "Trees" stars Anne Heche and James Tupper, whose own relationship last season may or may not have been linked to the end of their respective marriages.
Fortunately, at least for those of us who aren't necessarily interested in the actors' personal lives, Heche and Tupper are unfazed and unforthcoming, Heche expounding on learning about finding a family, Tupper saying, "I now know that if a guy gets in trouble, he gets to go fishing."
I think they were talking about their characters. If so, good for them.
Now, on to those of you who love Heche and Tupper for the people they play, I can tell you that you're eventually going to get to see those five episodes from this season that never aired -- meaning next season should be 27 episodes long -- but that before they premiere, there'll be a brand-new episode on Oct. 12 that's meant to reintroduce the show, which disappeared from the schedule in February before recently returning in reruns.
This episode will take place immediately after the last episode that aired and will deal with a larger event in the lives of the people of Elmo, Alaska, according to jenny Bicks, who claims she hadn't been discouraged by the show's unexpectedly long hiatus because ABC had already promised the show would be back this season.
"We have a very rabid fan base," Bicks adds. (Those of us who've had to field the e-mails, may consider this understatement.)
"I think people need to find us again...we're hopeful that we'll get some new people" to watch, she says.
All this is a far cry from the session a year ago when reporters devoted much of their time to questions about Elvis, the raccoon who menaced Marin (Heche) in the pilot episode and who was in some scenes actually played by a dog (because, if I remember correctly, raccoons aren't good on stairs).
Someone finally asks how Elvis is doing.
Bicks claims to be glad we asked.
"I got in a lot of trouble for that raccoon. Raccoons are not indigenous to Alaska. Now this would probably" have come to light sooner or later, but the attention paid to the raccoon early on got Bicks' shortcomings as a naturalist some added attention.
"He and the dog are still not getting along very well," Bicks adds. "Elvis will be back," but not before she figures out a way to explain his presence to viewers.
Oh, and by the way, speaking of animals that menaced Marin: "Skunks also are not indigenous...you learn."
FOR 'CARPOOLERS,' LIFE IN THE FAST LANEtag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.56132007-07-26T00:06:58Z2007-07-26T00:12:59ZAs the session for ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money" gets under way, the cast of "Carpoolers" is out in the ballroom lobby, taking pictures of their own pictures, which are plastered on a hotel pillar. You're taking pictures of yourselves? I...Ellen Gray
As the session for ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money" gets under way, the cast of "Carpoolers" is out in the ballroom lobby, taking pictures of their own pictures, which are plastered on a hotel pillar.
You're taking pictures of yourselves? I ask star Fred Goss (who, if you're lucky, you remember from the brilliant-but-canceled "Sons & Daughters").
"We have our own pillar!" he replies.
MORE CAVEMEN HERE THAN WE'D REALIZEDtag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.56112007-07-25T22:51:22Z2007-07-25T23:16:54ZI'm not sure how much I should burden you with ABC's session for "Cavemen," given that most of the people reading this haven't seen the original pilot -- and won't, at least until about eight episodes in, by which point...Ellen Gray
I'm not sure how much I should burden you with ABC's session for "Cavemen," given that most of the people reading this haven't seen the original pilot -- and won't, at least until about eight episodes in, by which point the show might be long gone.
Or such an enormous hit that it can afford to swallow the cost of an unaired disaster.
Sure, I've made "Cavemen," and my fear of it, a running joke in the column -- you do read the column, right? -- but there's so much unfunny about the show, which expands a pretty decent Geico commercial into a broad commentary about racial and ethnic stereotyping.
Actually, it's mostly racial stereotyping: Even the clip ABC showed to torture us -- some of which came from the commercials, some from the pilot that's being replaced -- focused on the following stereotypes of "Cavemen": athletic prowess, sexual prowess, dancing ability.
One of the characters even break-dances.
I know, I know. You're thinking Scottish people everywhere will be highly offended. Highlands-ly offended, even.
I really thought I'd lost my own ability to be offended, since it hadn't happened since this morning, when we learned ABC was holding back on us on some "Lost" announcements they wanted to hold for Comic-Con tomorrow in San Diego. (More on that in Thursday's column.) But facing a panel of eight white men who were attempting to justify jokes that seemed to be aimed pretty squarely at a group none of them belonged to, I found myself, well, sputtering.
With three actors and five executive producers on stage, there was a lot of talk about how this show wasn't going to be nearly as bad as many of us obviously think it's going to be. The word "acclimation" was tossed around -- again, by guys whose idea of acclimation may be, well, theoretical.
And then they were asked to describe some future episodes, and executive producer Mike Schiff stepped in it, outlining an upcoming storyline in which one of the characters would take a job and would be really, really lazy.
The heads of several people sitting behind me exploded just then, and I'm afraid I don't remember a thing after that.
'JUST FOR LAUGHS,' WE HARDLY KNEW YEtag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.56102007-07-25T21:02:08Z2007-07-25T21:07:24ZABC press release of the day, regarding the show "Just for Laughs," which premieres on the network Aug. 7, with Episode 101. "In the release issued just a little earlier, 'Episode 101' was erroneously listed as the season finale. Attached...Ellen Gray
ABC press release of the day, regarding the show "Just for Laughs," which premieres on the network Aug. 7, with Episode 101.
"In the release issued just a little earlier, 'Episode 101' was erroneously listed as the season finale. Attached is revised copy. Thank you."
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT'S DUEtag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.56082007-07-25T18:30:58Z2007-07-25T18:58:10Z"Pushing Daisies" director/executive producer Barry Sonnenfeld, who's not exactly an unknown (you may recall his work as a director in "Men in Black" and "Addams Family Values"), is mildly miffed that some critics have apparently likened the pilot to the...Ellen Gray
"Pushing Daisies" director/executive producer Barry Sonnenfeld, who's not exactly an unknown (you may recall his work as a director in "Men in Black" and "Addams Family Values"), is mildly miffed that some critics have apparently likened the pilot to the work of another director, Tim Burton. Some, he says, have gone so far as to call it "Burtonesque," "which makes me really thrilled, since my name is Sonnenfeld."
I'm pretty sure I've been telling people it reminds me of "Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events." Which, it turns out, Sonnenfeld also produced.
HARRY POTTER AND THE FALL TV SEASONtag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.56072007-07-25T18:13:39Z2007-07-25T18:27:57ZIf you're currently listening to "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" on CD -- or have listened to any of the other Potter books -- you already know the voice of Jim Dale, who's also the narrator of ABC's "Pushing...Ellen Gray
If you're currently listening to "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" on CD -- or have listened to any of the other Potter books -- you already know the voice of Jim Dale, who's also the narrator of ABC's "Pushing Daisies."
"I thought it would be a genius idea if we would be lucky enough to get him to do this," said executive producer Dan Jinks who's listened to all the "Harry Potter" books because he's too busy to read and thought Dale's voice would be perfect for the fairy tale created by Bryan Fuller ("Dead Like Me," "Heroes," "Wonderfalls").
PUTTING THE 'TOUR' BACK IN PRESS TOURtag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.55982007-07-25T02:03:56Z2007-07-25T04:15:46ZThe blog's been resting, but the critics have not, as a bunch of us did lightning visits to studios from Hollywood to Burbank, meeting with the casts of TNT's "The Closer," NBC's "Heroes," CBS' "Two and a Half Men" and...Ellen Gray
TMZ.com, which is about to become a TV show but today was just a very busy place, thanks to Lindsay Lohan's latest misadventure.
You may know Masi Oka -- the Hiro of "Heroes" -- as a high-IQ actor playing a character who can manipulate time, but until you've seen him walking backward through stage sets full of wires and other hazards, while warning those walking behind him to "no flash photography, please ... if you have a photographic memory, that's fantastic -- you can be on our show," you ain't seen nothing.
Oka, who claims he chose Brown University because it was the one college he visited where the guide faced visitors (hey, I've heard stupider reasons), kept up a steady stream of chatter, some informative, some more imaginative.
Example: As we entered what appeared to be an Irish pub (located on the street in Hollywood's Sunset Gower Studios that used to be Philadelphia in "American Dreams"), Oka suggested that one of next season's quests would be "to save 'The Black Donnellys.'"
Oka wasn't the only cast member present: Though no one, including them, would explain it, I'm taking it as a good sign that Milo Ventimiglia and Adrian Pasdar, whose characters were last seen zooming into space and presumably exploding, were nevertheless there, along with cast members whose characters are still assumed to be among the living.
Other nuggets:
-- At least one reporter wasn't shy about opening up all the drawers in the desk Kyra Sedgwick's character, Brenda, occupies on "The Closer," looking for the one where she keeps the sugar. And once the drawer had been left open, no one else seemed shy about checking out Brenda's stash, which included a Ding Dong, M&Ms and some Ghirardelli chocolate squares. "It looks like it was left for us to find," sniffed one reporter, apparently forgetting that six months ago, someone accidentally left a report out on the "24" set that discussed the torture death of Jack Bauer's brother. Not that we gave it away (or even fully understood it) at the time. Still, you might want to clean your house before TV critics come over.
-- "Closer" co-star Corey Reynolds, who talked during a recent visit to Philadelphia about his longing to play the Green Lantern, showed me one of the props on is desk -- an envelope bearing a Green Lantern stamp. Also on his desk: a picture of him with his fiancee, Tara Schemansky, and another of four very cute pit bulls put there by a crew member to commemorate Reynolds' run-in with a not very friendly pit bull that charged him and Schemansky on their first day in their new house in Los Feliz and which eventually was shot to death by police after pepper spray couldn't stop it. (Reynolds has two dogs of his own, one a shih-tzu, and still feels bad. "I'm a dog lover...[but] the police told me this was the most vicious animal they'd ever seen.")
-- Melanie Lynskey, who left "Two and a Half Men," where she'd played Rose, for Fox's "Drive," only to see it unceremoniously canceled, will return in the show's 100th episode, to be filmed next month, said show creator Chuck Lorre. "For now, it's a recurring character," he said. "I hope it's as often as we can make it. We love her."
-- Charlie Sheen's comment on Lohan's latest DUI arrest: "it's not that complicated to hire a car."
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LAST WORDS: JUST KIDDINGtag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.55882007-07-23T22:02:49Z2007-07-23T22:56:35Z"Gilmore Girls" creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, here to talk about her new Fox sitcom, "The Return of Jezebel James," gets "the inevitable question" and the answer is no. As in, no, she didn't watch the finale of the show she didn't...Ellen Gray
"Gilmore Girls" creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, here to talk about her new Fox sitcom, "The Return of Jezebel James," gets "the inevitable question" and the answer is no.
As in, no, she didn't watch the finale of the show she didn't get to finish herself.
"I didn't watch it," she says. "I think I just got very drunk that night and sat in a corner...It wasn't going to be my ending."
As to what her ending might have contained -- the two words she's long said she planned to end the series with -- she hasn't lost her sense of humor.
"It was, 'You're adopted,' " Sherman-Palladino says jokingly.
As for the real ending, "I'll save it" just in case, since she and star Lauren Graham have "talked about maybe, sometime in the future [doing]...a little song and dance" that would revisit Lorelai and Rory Gilmore.
MARGULIES AND THAT MISSING 'O'tag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.55872007-07-23T19:12:48Z2007-07-23T19:30:45ZJulianna Marguilies returns to regular series TV next season for the first time since she left "ER" in 2000. The star of Fox's "Canterbury Law" didn't come easily. Margulies says that when she first got the pilot script for the...Ellen Gray
Julianna Marguilies returns to regular series TV next season for the first time since she left "ER" in 2000.
The star of Fox's "Canterbury Law" didn't come easily.
Margulies says that when she first got the pilot script for the series, in which she plays a defense attorney with major personal problems, "the 'O' was missing" from Fox on the cover page and she took that to mean the project was with the network's cable sibling, FX.
"So I was ... excited" because she was eager to do a cable series, she says. "Twelve, 13 episodes a year -- I was a shoo-in."
On the other hand, "22 episodes a year [the standard network season] is brutal for everyone," says Margulies, who thought "very long and hard and I kept saying no."
Then Fox chairman Peter Liguori moved in.
"He to me out for a few martinis and we had a great dinner and I said, 'I'm in,'" says Marguiles.
TERMINATING THE CONTROVERSY?tag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.55842007-07-23T17:44:09Z2007-07-23T18:02:45ZLast season, there were reports that NBC had backed away from making Zach -- Claire the cheerleader's buddy -- on "Heroes," gay, and speculation that managers for actor Thomas Dekker, who's no longer on the show, had insisted the character...Ellen Gray
here.]]>
NO ARNOLD FOR 'SARAH CONNOR'tag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.55832007-07-23T17:36:11Z2007-07-23T17:43:45ZDon't expect to see Arnold "Terminator" Schwarzenegger on Fox's "Terminator" movie franchise spinoff, "The Sarah Connor Chronicles." "The reality is, as governor, he's incredibly busy. As a star, he's incredibly expensive," says consulting producer James Middleton, who's also overseeing the...Ellen Gray
Don't expect to see Arnold "Terminator" Schwarzenegger on Fox's "Terminator" movie franchise spinoff, "The Sarah Connor Chronicles."
"The reality is, as governor, he's incredibly busy. As a star, he's incredibly expensive," says consulting producer James Middleton, who's also overseeing the development of "Terminator 4."
TIPTOEING AROUND TRAGEDYtag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.55782007-07-22T22:17:30Z2007-07-22T22:44:14ZIf the wedding on the season finale of Fox's "Bones" seemed just a little sudden, producers tell us that's because we missed the episode where Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) was working up to his proposal to Angela (Michaela Conlin), asking a...Ellen Gray
If the wedding on the season finale of Fox's "Bones" seemed just a little sudden, producers tell us that's because we missed the episode where Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) was working up to his proposal to Angela (Michaela Conlin), asking a number of people for advice, including David Boreanaz's Agent Seeley Booth.
That bit of romance got the ax when Fox yanked an episode dealing with a killing on a college campus in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre. (We'll apparently see a revamped version of that episode sometime next season.)
Fox continues to feel the repercussions of Virginia Tech, with changes planned to a piece of its "Terminator" spinoff for midseason, currently titled "The Sarah Connor Chronicles," that involves violence in a high school.
"Those scenes were shot before Virginia Tech," said Fox entertainment chairman Peter Liguori.
Thanks to a seemingly endless supply of school-based tragedies, this is a dance that networks engage in so often that I wondered aloud -- with a microphone in front of my face -- whether there might not come a time when writers simply stopped writing such scenes.
And before anyone at the Parents Television Council sends me a fan letter, let me add that I don't necessarily think they should stop -- but I do wonder why someone in what's first and foremost a business hasn't decided that scenes like the one in "Sarah Connor" might be more trouble than they're worth.
Liguori, who's the kind of guy who can use "dramatalurgical" in a sentence without sounding too terribly silly, made a pretty strong argument for the scene's importance in the original pilot, to the point where I now wonder why they're changing it, Virginia Tech or no.
And then he admitted that none of that really matters: "Frankly, I think creative questions are answered on an ad hoc basis, not on a broad one, and we need to respect our audience. And
fortunately, we're working with showrunners that are doing that in this instance."
'24' PUTS A CHERRY ON TOPtag:blogs.phillynews.com,2007:/dailynews/ellengray//2.55772007-07-22T16:37:58Z2007-07-22T17:00:59ZCherry Jones will be playing the president of the United States when Fox's "24" returns next winter for "Day 7." "Applause to Joel [Surnow] and Bob [Cochran] and Howard [Gordon} for consistently reaching," says Fox entertainment chairman Peter Liguori, who...Ellen Gray
Cherry Jones will be playing the president of the United States when Fox's "24" returns next winter for "Day 7."
"Applause to Joel [Surnow] and Bob [Cochran] and Howard [Gordon} for consistently reaching," says Fox entertainment chairman Peter Liguori, who doesn't want to say much about how "24's" going to use Jones, or what it might mean politically given that, as one reporter put it, Surnow has described himself as "a right-wing nut."
(Actually, I believe he said "right-wing nut job," and that he was joking.)
Women presidents are all the rage in Hollywood right now -- from the ABC-canceled "Commander in Chief" to Sci Fi's "Battlestar Galactica" -- but considering the way "24's" handled past presidents, Hillary Clinton shouldn't necessarily see Jones' casting as a good sign.
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