Stories

Music on TV? It thrives at pledge time

Music, once a prime part of television, has been nudged to the fringe.
Mostly, it shows up in award shows, in competitions, in the final minutes of latenight talk shows. And it fills PBS pledge drives.
That’s where we are now. Stations are stuffing this pledge period with the songs of Billy Joel, Kenny Rogers, the Rolling Stones and more, from a Pink Floyd cover band to, as usual, Celtic Woman.
And in a change-of-pace (shown here with Jenn Colella), they have Broadway’s Lerner-and-Loewe songs, given a fresh twist. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / February 27, 2022

Stories

True stories focus on uberwrought young geniuses

TV sems to savor two kinds of real-life stories – true crime and true tech. Now come the tales of:
–Uber and Travis Kalanick. “Super Pumped” (shown here), 10 p.m. Sundays on Showtime, starts Feb. 27.
— Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. First was an HBO documentary movie; next is “The Dropout,” a Hulu mini-series Thursdays, starting March 3.
Each depicts a hard-charging person, creating a billion-dollar business; still, there’s a key difference. “Travis isn’t a con man, said “Super Pumped” producer Beth Schacter. His idea worked. “We all walk around with Uber in our pocket; we don’t walk around with Theranos.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / February 24, 2022

Stories

After a delay, FX is ready to surge

As TV reaches a state of sheer excess, one key player has been fairly quiet … until now.
That’s FX, now preparing for a surge on its own channels and on the Hulu and Disney+ streamers. “Our output hasn’t progressed as quickly as we planned,” said John Landgraf, the FX chairman.
Now it’s ready to fly. Returning to FX are “Snowfall” (shown here) on Feb. 23, “Better Things” on Feb. 28, “Atlanta” on March 15 and “Mayans M.C” on April 19 … followed by three new series – the animated “Little Demon,” the non-fiction “Welcome to Wrexham” and, this summer, the long-delayed “The Old Man.”
Beyond that, Landgraf told the Television Critics Association about 17 other projects. A couple (“Dave” and “Fargo”) are returning shows from the cable networks (FX and FXX); most, however, will skip cable and go directly to the streamers. They range from an “Alien” prequel series to some large mini-series – one on Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” another a “Shogun” reboot he calls “in terms of scale and scope, the most ambitious production in the history of FX.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / February 20, 2022

Stories

Lincoln: a towering subject for History mini-series

Abraham Lincoln was a towering enigma, a sturdy pillar of conflicts and contrasts.
He was a sad man who made people laugh, a rough-hewn rail-splitter who preferred to be inside with a book. He lost four political races … then won the presidency and changed the nation.
“There’s nothing bigger … than the Moby Dick of American history, which is Abraham Lincoln,” said historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose Lincoln documentary debuts on President’s Day weekend (8 p.m. Feb. 20-22) on the History Channel. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / February 16, 2022

Stories

From “Saul” to “Eve,” these networks aim high

Right now, all those networks – streaming and cable – are trying to get our time and our money. They bring opposite attitudes, with:
— The shotgun approach. Paramount+ wants “something for everyone,” said Tanya Giles, its chief programming officer. The same could be said of Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and more.
— And the laser approach. “We’re not trying to be all things to all people,” said Dan McDermott, president of AMC Entertainment.
His line-up includes basic cable networks (AMC, IFC, Sundance, BBC America) plus streamers – AMC+, Acorn, Sundance Now, Shudder. Shows range from the stylish drama of “Better Call Saul” (shown here) to the light British mysteries of Acorn to the horrors of Shudder … but they also avoid a lot. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / February 13, 2022

Stories

Nat Geo gives Disney+ a surge of nature epics

Two potent forces – Covid and Disney – could have blunted the National Geographic Channel.
Or not. Courteney Monroe, president of National Geographic Content, told the Television Critics Association that her projects are bigger and busier than ever. She announced a flurry of them — some global (including a new version of the 2010 “Great Migrations,” shown here) and one stretching for a decade.
All of those will go straight to the Disney+ streaming service, skipping the linear outlets — National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo Wild. But Monroe insisted that neither channel will be trimmed back “and shows from the linear channels will find their forever homes on Disney+.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / February 9, 2022

Stories

Super Bowl Sunday? Here’s a guide

For sports fans, TV viewers and other humans, this will be too much – WAY too much – of a good thing.
It will be Super Bowl Sunday AND the Olympics. NBC will have quarterbacks, speedskaters, rappers (including Kendrick Lamar, shown here), linebackers, gospel singers, ice dancers, a country star and commercials. Lots of commercials.
It will also have hours of people talking about football … at the same time that a sister channel (the USA Network) ranges from the dazzle of freestyle skiing to the non-dazzle of curling.
It’s a busy blur for viewers … and a busier one for Mike Tirico, who anchors the Olympic in Beijing and does play-by-play of the Super Bowl in Inglewood, Cal. Here’s a guide to the day (Feb.13); times are ET and, except where noted, shows are on NBC Read more…

By Mike Hughes / February 7, 2022

Stories

His super analysis goes back decades

On his final day as a football player, Cris Collinsworth displayed his skill as an analyst.
That’s what he’ll be doing on Super Bowl Sunday. When his old team, the Cincinnati Bengals, faces the Los Angeles Rams (6:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 13), he’ll be in the NBC booth with Mike Tirico.
But in the Bengals’ previous Super Bowl, on Jan. 22, 1989, he was a receiver. His team had just gone ahead of the 49ers 16-13, with three minutes and 20 seconds left. As Bengals coach Sam Wyche recalled it in “Super Bowl Sunday: The Day America Stops” (Addax Publishing, 2000), Collinsworth (shown here in his playing days) “came over and elbowed me and said we may have left too much time.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / February 5, 2022

Stories

Jeans? They’re eternal and everywhere

Strange things have happened to bluejeans, it seems.
They were supposed to be practical; then they were fashionable. They were supposed to be cheap; then they weren’t. They were supposed to be a niche item; then they were everywhere (shown here).
That left filmmaker Anna Lee Strachan with a logical question: “Why is everyone in the world walking around in the same pair of pants?”
So she created “Riveted: The History of Jeans,” which debuts at 9 p.m. Monday (Feb. 7), to open PBS’ “American Experience” season. It tells of changes that kept surprising people. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / February 1, 2022

Stories

After changes and scrambles, “Sanditon” returns

Even before “Sanditon” reached America two years ago, PBS had a dilemma.
Like virtually everything on “Masterpiece Theatre,” this was a global project, with a British network paying more and getting it first. And that network had already decided not to do a second season.
“We knew that (it) had been canceled before it even aired on ‘Masterpiece,’” Susanne Simpsons, the “Masterpiece” producer, said in a Television Critics Association virtual press conference.
The new season (shown here) finally returns March 20, but she was taking a chance: If there never was a second year, characters would have been left hanging; viewers would have been bitter. Since this is based on a novel that Jane Austen had barely started before her death in 1817, they couldn’t check a book to see how it ends. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / January 30, 2022