TV 90210

It's Philadelphia Inquirer TV critic Jonathan Storm at the Television Critics Association Press Tour, which began in earnest yesterday with presentations from PBS. One highlight was a show about the magic of sex among ducks.View image

And they say PBS is irrelevant.

The Press Tour is a semi-annual gathering of all the nation's newspaper TV critics, or at least the ones whose newspapers will pay to send them, combined with lots of Angelinos who make some money covering TV. From PBS, through 8 million cable networks and all the big broadcast boys, it goes on until July 27, and I'll be here, your eyes, ears and big, fat mouth.

So if you have any questions for anybody, leave them here, and I'll try to ask them for you and get back. I'll even ask Dawn Ostroff, the boss at the CW, if Veronica Mars is coming back, though I'm afraid we all know what she is going to say.

Tomorrow, FX will be presenting the stars of nip/tuck, and the new Glenn Close/Ted Danson legal thriller, Damages; National Geographic will look Inside the Human Body; Hallmark Channel has Dick Van Dyke and Ernest Borgnine (it's going for the over-80 demo), and HBO gets three hours in the afternoon.

Larry David will be there for Curb Your Enthusiasm, Jimmy (that's what all his friends like me call him) Gandolfini will be around, and those crazy Conchords from New Zealand will get grilled. The pay network will also be previewing its soft-core (or maybe more) new drama, Tell Me You Love Me, and if you want those kind of pictures, you'll have to go elsewhere. I draw the line at ducks.

I'm a blogin (that's a blog virgin) or at least I was until I started this post, so if I'm not doing it right, tell me, and maybe I'll try something different.

PBS is making me feel like a spring chicken.

Yesterday, promoting its four-part Pioneers of Television coming next winter, it dusted off Dick Cavett, Tim Conway, Betty White, Tony Orlando and Ed McMahon -- total age way older than the Liberty Bell. (On a sad note, Phyllis Diller, who'll be 90 next Tuesday, couldn't make it to the Beverly Hilton stage to talk to us because she was sick.)

Today, Carol Burnett, 74, turned up. She'll get her own American Masters profile Nov. 5. Somebody asked her about some of her favorite young stars.

Well, she started out with Meryl Streep and George Clooney, and then there was Dermot Mulrooney. And Johnny Depp. We still hadn't gotten under 40. Finally Anne Hathaway came to mind, and then: Lindsay Lohan.

"Lindsay Lohan's a big talent," Carol said. "My wishes go with her. I think she has a lot to offer, and I just pray that she'll be OK."

I think we all do.

No, that's not me after a particularly rockin' network party, but it's close, proving conclusively that we did evolve from something slightly less sophisticated than what we are today.

PBS's Nova will be looking into the issue in a two-hour special Nov. 13 as it returns to Dover PA (about 100 miles west of Philadelphia) to re-examine the famous science curriculum trial that took place there in 2004 when a bunch of people sued the school board, which was trying to include the idea that some smart guy (could it be God?) made everything at once, just the way it is today.

They were very excited to find that John E. Jones III, a conservative Bush appointee had been named to try the case. "Be careful what you wish for," said Jones yesterday. He gave the intelligent designers all the rope they needed, and then decided they were trying to inject their religious, not scientific, beliefs into the classroom.

The hero (or villain) of the piece, Bertha Spahr, who had been teaching science for 40 years,
(that's her on the left with Dover bio teacher Robert Eshbach) said she put off retirement to help the other science teachers, "all young enough to be my children, because I could not see them going on alone."

Jones agreed with one TV critic, who characterized the whole situation as "insane."

"It was a surreal experience that got odder," said he.

It has to be tough for the intelligent design crowd, since it's obvious that no intelligent designer would ever create such a bunch of nincompoops.

That's my prediction, not the final word. But HBO executives were extremely evasive yesterday when asked about the prospects for the two, two-hour Deadwood wrap-up movies that have been on the drawing boards for a year or so.

All the actors have scattered to the winds. More importantly, David Milch, the creator and executive producer, is "exhausted" from doing John From Cincinnati, and if that show is picked up, he'll be doing that, with no time for Deadwood.

When pressured, the suits put the Deadwood wrap-up odds at 50-50, but that seems optimistic.

As for Carnivale, for which I have also gotten inquiries: Dead, dead, dead, dead. No more Carnivale. Ever. Forget it. Move on.

Working for Bruce Springsteen

or working for David Chase

Little Miami Steve Van Zandt found one thing particularly amazing: "Just seeing New Jersey become fashionable twice in a lifetime."

Van Zandt was here today to flog a VH-1documentary series, Seven Ages of Rock, premiering in October.

Who cares about that? The big question: "What about the end of The Sopranos?"
Answer: "David Chase was never going to play that Hollywood game of fraudulent closure. ...I thought the ending was brillilant."

Besides putting NJ at the top of the culture, Little Miami said, both Chase and Springsteen are successful because they are "crazy, uncompromising and singular in their vision."

Who is this pretty thing?

I've got more platforms than SEPTA. You can rest your eyes and listen to telephone reports from the TCA Press Tour at http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/jonathan_storm/8456682.html

I'll be calling in most weekdays around noon.

Or you can read my chat with Daily News critic Ellen Gray: http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/chat/Live_From_TV_Land_Chat.html

We'll be on-line Tuesday at 11 a.m. EDT and again Friday.

These guys are all at the TCA today, and more wise, old critics showed up at The Disney Channel presentation than ever.

Boy, they're talented. Not the critics (oh, they're OK, too) but the young song and dancesters from High School Musical. You don't have to be 11 to appreciate them, either. The show truly is a delight for the whole family.

But if you are over 15, you might not have known that they're doing High School Musical 2. It premieres Aug. 17, when there will also be new episodes of a series that features this cutie pie:

Her name is either Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus, and she's only the youngest person ever to have had two No. 1 albums. She's 14 now, and she has way more money than you.

Most parents should know where their children are that night.

The High School Musical "kids" are a little older than Miley/Hannah, almost all in their 20s. But you don't see them passed out in the L.A. nightclubs with the usual run of young stars.

I asked them if Disney had put good behavior in the contract. Nope.
"This experience is so awesome," said Monique Coleman. "Why would you ruin that? You look in a child's face ... No one is telling us how to behave."

Grownups may recognize Monique from her turn on Dancing With the Stars. She didn't win, but she sure can dance, like all the rest of the Musical menagerie. And it seems they're pretty good at the dance of life, too.

Bill Mather asks if The Wire is coming back to HBO.

Well, maybe not with these guys

But, yes another season is in the offing. No formal start date, though there's talk of January. Stay tuned.

The series, about the tough side of Baltimore, is a flat-out gem. And now that The Sopranos is gone, arguably the best show on TV, or at least when it gets back there.

That's what a lot of critics said when The Full Tonsil Gospel Choir (actually it was the Victory Baptist Church Gospel Choir from L.A.) brought their performance to a close at BET's lunch today.

Not that the singers weren't great and filled with power. They had too much power so early in the day, with speakers turned up to the pain level, as BET tried to divert attention from the low-down music videos it so frequently telecasts.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and veteran rap legend Chuck D were there to promote a BET special, Hip-Hop Against America, coming this fall, in which various and sundry will debate the degrading influences of rap, but nobody mentioned that BET was one of the prime purveyors of over-sexed and violent videos.

Bravo announced a great on-line game today: TV Bigshot. Using shows from the five broadcast networks, players set the lineup for their own fictional net. With a budget of 300 million virtual dollars, they buy and sell shows for their lineup and can shift things weekly, earning points depending on the real-life raw ratings of the series, ratings growth and "buzz," determined by media coverage and awards.

At the end of the TV season in May, the player whose network has the most points wins $100,000. That's peanuts compared to real network bosses who get a couple of million even when their judgment stinks.

Besides, I'm joining the contest, so nobody else has a chance.

The site is www.TVBigshot.com

The game starts in September, but you can sign up now.

AMC threw a party tonight at the Friars Club in Beverly Hills, long-ago haunt of showbiz types, especially comedians. Jeff Goldblum's jazz band played to celebrate the cable network's Mad Men series, set on New York's Madison Ave. in 1960, the golden age of advertising (and of the Friars Club, too). It premieres Thursday at 10 p.m.

Pictures clutter the walls, and Groucho Marx appears more frequently than almost anybody else.

Groucho wasn't much of a club man. "Why would I want to join a club that would let me in?"
was one of his cracks. "I've got a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it," was another.

But he was big in the Friars. Like Groucho, lots of members enjoyed a good cigar, and the upstairs pool room still reeks of them. It has a floor of sand, which serves as a giant ashtray.

Some of the other critics and I played pool. I lost, but you can bet your life the experience was a complete winner.

Aud asks if there was a secret word to get into the pool room. She didn't ask about the duck that was standing guard:

It's all about the ducks, baby.

But it was easy getting by, and the secret word wasn't "swordfish." It was "land shark."

Nobody has guessed the identity of the mystery Shakespearean actress. Here's a hint:

Tom Hanks and I went to the Phillies-Dodger game tonight.

Of course, he's pretty much everywhere, and I didn't say we went together, after all.
Doylestown's Justin Guarini was brought in, in honor of the Phils, I suppose, to sing the National Anthem

pretty much confirming why you don't hear him around much anymore.

Pitcher J.D. Durbin entered the game with a 13.50 ERA, so high the Dodger Stadium scoreboard couldn't accommodate it, so it gave him a much nicer 3.50, and he pitched to that during the game, as well as picking up three hits, which was probably way more fun.

The Phils fell one shy of the team record, notching 26 hits. Chase Utley and Aaron Rowand both hit long balls, and I gave them the old "Outta Heeeeere" call, but in L.A., the right and left field fences are deeper, and they only got doubles.

Ryan Howard hit a normal home run and then an amazing 440-foot pop up, and a good time was had by all, even by long-time Phils catcher Greg Lieberthal, who now catches backup for the Dodgers, but was out there tonight, scored three hits and was named Dodger player of the game.

The ticket came from an old friend whose mother-in-law has season tix. What a thrill.

I'm not going to complain about high Zen prices anymore. A beer, a Louisiana hot sausage and some garlic fries (and why doesn't The Zen have good food like that?) set me back $24. Think I can put it on my expense account?

Sonya guessed the Shakepeare actress was Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron Howard's daughter, and she's right. Bryce is in an HBO Kenneth Branagh production of As You Like It, coming up next month.

Opie, Richie and all the people who are Ron raised his children far from showbiz on purpose, in Greenwich, Conn. Bryce went to swanky private schools there, and then to performance schools in New York and finally NYU.

I asked her if she went into show business just to rebel against her parent's wishes.

"Oh no," she said. "They were very encouraging of my ambition to be an actress. They just didn't want me raised around all the smarminess in show business."

There's only one thing wrong with Bryce. She's an Age-O-Meter, full-grown woman, daughter of Richie Cunningham, who is a lot younger than me. Oh, well. At least I get to talk to her.

CBS seems awfully well-organized behind Jericho. The network gave a bag of peanuts and a specially made T-shirt to all the critics today, with a big peanut on it saying "We did it! We saved Jericho!"

Did the network actually have a lot to do with promoting the idea that zillions of fans got together to resurrect the show? Did the network "cancel" it on purpose, so as to generate widespread interest for a second season? And then did it overstate the interest as a publicity stunt, to try to get more viewers for a mid-season show that the network was already ready to run?

Skeet Ulrich (Jake), Lennie James (Hawkins), Ashley Scott (Emily) and executive producer Carol Barbee regaled us with their thoughts this morning.

Ashley: When you get canceled, you kind of think that that's it.

Skeet: Sounded pretty definitive to me.

The show will come back "lean and mean," said Barbee, with accelerated story lines centered on Jake and Hawkins striving "to save the world." Currently scheduled for winter, it could make it onto the schedule as early as October if a skedded CBS show gets a quick demise. Sprague Grayden's Heather Lisiniski will be back for a least a few eps. Even Gerald McRaney's Mayor Green, who died so melodramatically in the final episode last spring, could return, in flashbacks.

They're going into production Monday, and the whole seven episodes that have been ordered will be in the can by the end of September, and then everybody goes off to the winds again. Nobody knows exactly what will happen if the show proves to be a success, and CBS wants to order more episodes.

Lennie: "It's a conversation we need to have. We don't know."

My personal opinion: Despite all this buzz, real and imagined, the actual viewing audience will not grow significantly, and those seven will be Jericho's last.

James would beg to differ: "All that passion. It kind of reminded us of who we make it for, and what it’s all about. People are tuning in, and it is a moment in their week, and it really matters to them. Czechoslavakia, Denmark, New Zealand, Russia: The Jericho Rangers are worldwide."

Somebody was making fun of me, saying that all I have is young girls in this blog.
Which is totally wrong. Groucho? Baseball? And there's a great item about Rita Moreno on one of my audio files: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/multimedia/8602847.html
And you can find all the audio files at http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/jonathan_storm/Jonathan_Storm_in_Hollywood.html
They are suitably silly, IMHO.
But now to address the young girl problem:

This *woman* is clearly on her way to becoming a mother. Actually, she already is the mother of two-year old Grace Elisabeth, and the child that's growing in this picture will be the second for the Hasselbecks. I surely hope some nice young liberal couple is out there working to keep things even.

Lizzie showed everybody her belly the other day on The View, and the website TMZ snapped up the video. But who cares about that? What you want to know is: Did producer Mark Burnett know from the get-go that Elisabeth, one of the stars of Survivor II (they need to start doing things like The Super Bowl, now that the next one, from China, this fall will be No. XV) would become the biggest post-Survivor star?

"The first time I saw on her video, she lit the screen up," said Burnett, who has come a step or two since then, too. "But anybody who tells you they can see future stars is either full of it or clairvoyant."

Of the more than 185 Survivor contestants so far, Burnett singled out this trio as originally radiating maximum star power: Richard Hatch, Jerri Manthey and Colby Donaldson. Hatch was jailed for tax evasion, Donaldson's made it all the way up to that TV pinncale, Rachel Ray, and you'll find Manthey, after a stint on The Surreal Life and a shot on the cover of Playboy, performing at some funky bar off Sunset.

I'm not a big fan of the TCA Awards, given out last night, because I think we critics give out awards daily in our reviews. And when everybody says "we" love this or hate that, there's always a bunch of "us" who hate this and love that.

So here are the winners (and the fancy, sort of nebulous, titles, "Individual Achievement in Drama" and so forth, have been shortened):

Best Dramatic Actor: Michael C. Hall Dexter
Best Comedy Actor: Alec Baldwin 30 Rock
Best News and Information Show: Planet Earth
Best Drama: The Sopranos
Heritage Award (for a show that's one of the best of all time): The Sopranos

I agreed with all of those picks, though Minnie Driver (The Riches) could have beaten Hall, and Mary Louise Parker or Elizabeth Perkins from Weeds, or Julia Louis-Dreyfus from The New Adventures of Old Christine could have beaten Baldwin, which is why, as long as they're going to have the awards, they should have separate ones for men and women.

Discovery's Planet Earth, which would have been one of about 20 shows better-suited than Heroes, to win Program of the Year, was also named Best Movie, Miniseries or Special. Spike Lee's HBO show, When the Levees Broke, or even AMC's Broken Trail, would have been better-suited for the prize.

ABC Family's Kyle XY won Best Children's Program, which was a mixed blessing. They'll take the prize, but the network and producers were pretty upset at having the show, aimed at teens and young adults, even considered as a children's program. The critics, in general, don't know that much about children's shows, and they are always scrambling around this award.

The Best New Program was Friday Night Lights, which is sort of interesting since it says that the new show Heroes was good enough to be Program of the Year, but FNL, apparently, was better. The Best New Program actually was The Nine, but everybody forgot about that.

Best Comedy, The Office, is a reasonable pick, but I like Weeds, 30 Rock or even Old Christine better. You can't argue with Mary Tyler Moore for Career Achievement Award; I don't think perennial nominee Bill Moyers will ever get it, and he should.

And, in the really big news, in the silly sort of high-school awards that the critics vote to give to themselves, can you guess which one I won?

Tomorrow, around noon EDT, I'll file an audio report on last night's awards show:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/jonathan_storm/Jonathan_Storm_in_Hollywood.html

The Terminator is b-a-a-a-ck, baby -- or it will be on Fox this winter in the form of the explosive (literally, there are more blasts than they have at the stone quarry) Sarah Connor Chronicles. Sarah must run around and save her son, John, so he can grow up to save the world.

Our old friend Ahhnohld is pretty busy being governor of Caleeefornia, plus, he's way too expensive, so there's a new Terminator in town, a girl. But there will be lots of big, bad robo-people, too, and one wonders if the new Sarah, Britisher Lena Headey, will be up to the fight.

"Show us your arms!" screamed the critics, and Ms. Headey, which you pronounce HeeeDeee, coyly declined.

Here's the original Sarah, the spectacular Linda Hamilton

And here's Lena

I think we're doomed. Or is there some special way out?

Those darn Eagles made a big mistake cutting Quarterback Jeff Garcia, such a vital component of last year's pretty-darn-successful team.

No, not because they could use him again this year, but because they screwed up It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the no-holds-barred laff-a-thon on cable's FX.

"We were all ready to go with Jeff, and then they cut him, just a couple of weeks before the scheduled shoot," says Rob McElhenney, first among equals as the producer and star of the show -- not counting Danny DeVito, who came along in the second season.

"We tried to get Donovan McNabb, but his agent never even called us back."

Sunny follows the misguided misdeeds of a group of slackers who are willing to violate any social norm that the network will allow, just to improve their standing in society. In the Garcia ep, they've all seen the movie Invicible and figure that like walk-on Vince Papale, they can make the team and get adulation and big money.

With Garcia gone, the guys thought maybe the Eagles organization would give them some help with their show.

Nope. "But at least they let us film in the parking lot," McElhenney said.

The cast palavered at a Fox cocktail party featuring Danny DeVito's Limoncello, a brand the diminutive actor established after showing up schnockered, supposedly under the influence of the Italian liqueur made from Sorrento lemons, on The View. I tasted it. There is no way to get drunk on the stuff. You would go into toxic sugar shock long before the alcohol could take over. Which doesn't mean it wasn't tasty.

Info, and a truly lame limoncello song:http://www.harbrew.com/limoncello.htm

The show's third season starts Sept. 13.

Have you noticed that every single solitary TV drama has a pressing need to take us into the men's room, where some poor schlub is usually trapped in the act by some aggressive character, usually female, and forced to listen to a diatribe?

The latest to go there won't even start until winter, on Fox. It's called Canterbury Law. Julianna Margulies plays an aggressive attorney, and she aggresses herself right into the can in a scene the producers and Fox are so proud of, they stuck it in their promotional clips.

So, grouchy as always, I asked in a disdainful tone why they always do that. You know, Storm shames the entire TV industry into slightly higher standards. Good luck.

Walon Green, who's worked on Hill Street Blues and Law & Order and a million other things had an answer that gave me new appreciation for life in the pissoir:

Well, the urinal is actually an ideal place to shoot something, because it's not a stall. It's not enclosed. It's open. It offers opportunities for different angles and good coverage, and there's also sound potential.

"Walon, you rock," said Julianna, as I quietly shrunk back into my shell.

Harold Perrineau, who plays Michael Dawson, and was given a pass off the island last year, will return next season to Lost!

This thunderously important nugget was painfully extracted from ABC Entertainment boss Steve McPherson a few moments ago after indignant TV critics, including me, peppered the exec with whines and threats.

The news was supposed to come tomorrow at Comic-Con, the huge comic, sci-fi, Fanboy, fantasy convention in San Diego. But we showed them. Don't mess with the pros, Steve.

Veteran cynics propose that there will be other, even better, Lost news at Comic-Con, and that the dogged critics were only thrown a tiny bone to shut them up. But when I get a nice bone, I'm happy to share it with all of you.

CBS has a cool idea that should appeal to the electronic crowd, of which you -- yes, actually, you! -- are a premium member.

CBS Eye-Lert each week will let you know just how long the late game runs on Sunday and when 60 Minutes, and then Cold Case and Shark (which moves to Sunday this fall) will start.

First, subscribers will get the news that the game will run late. Then, as the game progresses, the exact start time of the Sunday series will get beamed out. You can get it on e-mail, or cell phone text message (and maybe some other way that I'm too much of Luddite even to know about). Eventually, they hope to get the whole thing rigged into TiVo, so it will automatically record the shows properly. Sunday night TiVo has been a big problem at my house for years.

"CBS Eye-lert is literally a game-changer for our audience," said George Schweitzer, "so when the Jets run long, Cold Case viewers won't come up short." You can see why he's the president of the CBS Marketing Group. He probably works for the Jets, too. Who cares about them?

All you do is trade a little personal info for a subscription at cbseyelert.com

But don't go there yet. The whole thing's still being set up. Mark a reminder in your computer for a month from now.

It's Bonnie Somerville, one of the hot stars of ABC's Cashmere Mafia, which starts in November. You might remember her as Ross' girlfriend Mona, from Friends, or Laura Murphy from the last season of NYPD Blue.

She stars with Lucy Liu, Frances O'Connor and Miranda Otto as one of four powerful, stylish New York women in the show that comes from Sex and the City's Darren Starr and looks an awful lot like a drama version of that show. It even has the same costume designer, Patricia Field. She sure knows how to dress a pretty gal.

But there's hardly any cashmere in the pilot, a couple of coats, and Somerville's gray sweater, so I told the cast and producers that I was extremely disappointed.

"Which scene did you notice cashmere?" Somerville asked.

On you, of course, I replied.

Obviously impressed with my keen fashion sense (one of the producers asked me which one of the women's outfits I wanted, which I thought was a little mean), Bonnie blurted out: "Will you marry me? You'd probably buy me cashmere."

Actually, on my salary, she would be buying me cashmere.

Besides, I'm still holding out for Jennifer Garner. Here she is looking for a job to keep that sleazy Ben Affleck in poker chips. Once she realizes he's no good for her, I'd be happy to take her in, and her darling daughter, Violet, to raise her as my own.

And you shouldn't be surprised I know so much about fashion. My fellow critics voted me "Best Groomed."

Sookie's on board. Well, at least she's interested.

Melissa McCarthy, who played Lorelai Gilmore's best friend, has landed a role supporting star Christina Applegate in the new ABC sitcom Samantha Who? (formerly known as Sam I Am). It's not a bad sitcom, but, come on, it's not the Gilmore Girls feature film.

Amy Sherman-Palladino, who created Gilmore and has a Fox show coming in winter, said the other day she would consider doing a feature to continue, and perhaps wrap up, seven years of Gilmore Girls TV. And McCarthy just told me it might be fun to reconvene the Stars Hollow group and that she'd be happy to see the script.

So, come on, Amy, whaddya say?