Fall TV Season Preview Volume 1

Face it, the summer TV season was horrid. The only thing I watched with any regularity, as my readers know, was "On The Lot", and that got tiring enough that I stopped blogging the last two weeks of the show (for the record, I was happy Will won it and disgusted by the obvious taping of his meeting with Spielberg. You just know all three finalists had a piece in the can for whoever won.).
Now we're still three weeks away from the start of the new season so what can I do? I've heard some of the hype about some of the shows and hereby offer my predictions on the fate of a few before they even hit the air:
"Kid Nation" (CBS): This one has already been getting a lot of bad press and I admit I have qualms about this show myself. A reality show about kids setting up their own society in an old west ghost town, it has caught flack about possibly violating child labor laws and lack of adult supervision. I'm sure the adult supervision was there medically speaking and CBS may have indeed violated no state laws in New Mexico, where it was filmed. My problem is with exploiting children for the purpose of entertaining us. The difference between this show and a regular sitcom or drama is in this case, the kids aren't paid (reality show cast members aren't paid). I don't plan to watch this show, I hope it fails and I hope the kids who participated don't suffer any permanent scars.
"Cavemen" (ABC): Based on the Geico commercial characters. I saw about ten minutes of the pilot episode. I think it'll be one of the first cancellations.
"Bionic Woman" (NBC): A revamping of the 70's show, it is apparently tops in name recognition among viewers. Still, I think this will go down the tubes, as one superhero show like "Heroes" will be enough for viewers.
"Back To You" (Fox): Fox has high hopes for this show, featuring the return of Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton to series TV. I have high hopes for it too. I'm putting it down as a potential hit.
"Viva Laughlin" (CBS): A musical, yes a musical drama. I don't think that has been attempted since Steven Bochco tried it on a cop show about 15 years ago. Hopefully it will be another 15 years after this one tanks.
"Dirty Sexy Money" (ABC): Peter Krause of "Six Feet Under" stars as an attorney representing a spoiled rich Hilton-type family. I hate the title, but I hope it succeeds just because I like Krause!
"Kane" (CBS): This one hasn't been hyped a lot. Jimmy Smits stars as the patriarch of a Hispanic family. If this is written well, it could be a surprise hit with the rapidly growing Hispanic population.
"Pushing Daisies" (ABC): This is getting great buzz from the critics. It touches on the supernatural, romantic comedy and detective show all in one. Think along the lines of "Moonlighting". I am definitely giving this one a shot and it could be the breakout hit of the year.
That's Volume 1 of my pre-season predictions. Volume 2 coming soon.

Coming Down To The Wire

After taking last week off, I return to another week of "On The Lot" reviews. The show is coming down to the wire and my early favorite to win the competition, Zach, was booted off tonight. I was surprised when he was in the bottom two last week and disheartened that he was voted off this week.

My new favorite to win it is Will Bigham. His effort this week certainly helps his chances of making it to the final. All four directors had to make a film with the same general premise of a man waking up in a dress and not knowing how it happened. Will chose to make the man the boss at a company filled with yes men. Will did more with dialogue this week than he ever has and it worked. It was funny, the acting was good and the story was also very good. Of all the directors remaining, I really think Will has the best commercial potential.

On the other hand there was Sam's effort. Sam really should have gone home a couple weeks ago and I think (I hope) he sealed his fate this week with a predictable by the book plot of a sexist boss getting his comeuppance from his female office staff. It dragged horribly and wasn't particularly funny either.

Adam is the other favorite to win it all. His movie was the most inventive with the men in dresses turning out to be dolls that children are playing with. Great special effects, the payoff was very funny. My only problem with it was the acting. The Barbie and Ken type characters were great, but the GI Joe star and his Russian nemesis were only so-so and they were the ones driving the action. So I was kind of weirded out by the time we got to the payoff and thus wasn't as exhilerated by the film as the judges were.

Jason was last up and his film about a nerd's revenge at one of his high school tormenters was funny at first. The sight gags of a man in a ballerina outfit dancing and later kissing his next door neighbor were laugh out loud funny. When I found out the reason for it all, I became less interested. And the finale of the bomb going off made the whole thing a little too cartoonish to me.

For the third straight week, I've got to pick Sam as the one going home, but the way the past two weeks have gone, it sure isn't a safe bet!

Deep Thoughts Happen In A Blink

Just before my recent trip to Maryland, I came across the non-fiction paperback "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. This was easily the most fascinating book I've read all year. In fact, if you're still reading this after my first two sentences, then you have an idea of what the book is about!

"Blink" is one of the few books I've read that deals with psychology and doesn't get so caught up in scientific terms that the reader gets lost. In short, "Blink" is about snap judgements- how we make them, why we make them, how they can be our best friends or our worst enemies.

Gladwell does a great job telling us stories about rapid cognition- from how one can instinctively tell something is wrong, even when we can't articulate why to how we can, unfortunately, give the benefit of the doubt to people strictly on the basis of looks to why most big business CEO's are tall.

Throughout the book, Gladwell introduces us to an assortment of psychologists whose studies make for fascinating reading. There's the researcher who can put a couple together for fifteen minutes and tell with over 90% accuracy which ones will still be married in fifteen years. There are the two scientists who have studied facial expressions to such a degree they can look at silent film for less than a minute and describe the people they see to a remarkable degree of accuracy.

If there is a shortfall in the book, it is that Gladwell underdelivers on the implied promise of telling us how we can improve our own rapid cognition, writing more in generalities than specifics. That aside, "Blink" has much to offer and I heartily recommend it. It also spurred me to buy Gladwell's first book, "The Tipping Point", which I will doubtless review in another couple of weeks.