Dear ABC,

I’m not quite sure what to make of you. The past few years have been pretty alright. Almost to the point where I might be able to forgive you for canceling Better Off Ted, Samantha Who? and Pushing Daisies. I was just about to call you and suggest that maybe we give it another go but then you just had to go and remind me that you don’t care what I think.

You moved Cougar Town to mid-season.

Luckily you renewed Happy Endings and are positioning it comfortably after Modern Family on Wednesday. I guess it all balances out. But let’s talk about your new shows, shall we?

Good Christian Bitches Belles
First off, thanks changing the title. Really? What was wrong with Good Christian Bitches. It gave the title a nice kick, like a hot pepper in chili. Whatever though. It’s only a title. Based off this short little preview Kristin Chenoweth is the only thing this show has going for it. Did I mention how much I loved her in Pushing Daisies, that show you unfairly canceled? Also, are there any dudes in this show?

Suburgatory
Speaking of a show oddly full of blonde women, Suburgatory? I had trouble figuring out the proper way to pronounce that. I like that you are trying to be creative and make up words by mixing Suburbia and Purgatory. It’s cute. But wasn’t there any better ideas tossed around by your marketing department? Anyway, I like the incredible fake suburban mom and her clone/daughter from this clip.

Once Upon a Time
Now this show looks interesting. It’s a very high concept show (like Pushing Daisies was) so I would like to see where it goes. Although, honestly, it looks like something better suited for the SyFy network. I also couldn’t help but notice that it’s not on the schedule. Are you waiting to debut it mid-season (along with Cougar Town)? Mayhaps you’ll be able to see how Grimm is doing and avoid any mistakes that show runs in to. Don’t worry about direct competition. Grimm is on Friday nights and it will be canceled before Once Upon a Time airs its first episode.

Charlie’s Angels
I’m only mentioning this because it’s one of the most talked about shows. This could either be a mindless, fun action show or a show that gets bogged down by its cheese factor. Please don’t make this too corny.

Okay ABC. I don’t think any of your new shows sound fantastic, but I could be wrong. Please, prove me wrong.

I’ve already talked about NBC’s new shows. Now let’s talk about FOX. I haven’t paid much attention to the network since they canceled Arrested Development, but the FOX network has been a major influence on my writing. They have a couple new shows for the fall that look funny/interesting.

New Girl
Starring Zooey Deschanel. That’s enough to get me to check it out.

I Hate My Teenage Daughter
Okay, I happen to think this is a really funny premise for a sitcom plus I love the title. They better not change it. It’s about two single mothers whose daughters are complete bitches.

Alcatraz
And lastly the J.J. Abrams show about time travel. Not to be confused with Lost or Fringe. Alcatraz is about prison inmates who vanished a long time ago and now they’ve suddenly appeared for some reason.

Now let’s not mention ANY of the animated shows FOX has planned. They look horrible.

Edit: I removed the video because they were causing pop-up ads which I am strongly against.

A while back I wrote a post about the pilots NBC was considering picking up for the fall season. I constructed a list of shows NBC should order and shows they shouldn’t order. Now that NBC has announced its plans for the 2011-2012 television year, I can see if NBC took my advice to heart.

The table below includes shows that I talked about in my previous post and shows the NBC ended up ordering.

There were also seven other shows on my list that didn’t get picked up (three that should have, four that shouldn’t have). There are also other shows that NBC did pick up that just sound so compellingly mediocre that I haven’t given them much thought (Prime Suspects).

So what does this all mean? Not much. I like that NBC has stuffed their line-up with scripted television instead of reality TV shows. Remember when they stuck Jay Leno at the 10 o’clock hour fives days a week? That was five hours of television that would have been better filled with shows written by talented writers. A lot of writing goes in to TV shows. There’s probably somewhere around 5-10 people working on writing each show. And when reality TV takes up time on air, it just means those 5-10 writers are out there looking for a job.

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this but I hate reality television.

Anyway, Up All Night, which I originally dismissed, now seems like it could potentially be a good show with Christina Applegate and Will Arnett. It will probably be canceled within five episodes.

Grimm I have high hopes for because it comes from David Greenwalt (“Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “Angel”) and it’s filmed in my hometown of Portland, Oregon.

Awake I think will just confuse people, but I like the idea. They just need to pull it off.

Chelsea Handler has the only show that is based off of a book (unless you somehow count Grimm) with Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea.

And lastly, The Playboy Club seems like it’s better suited for Showtime or HBO where they could show a little skin. It’s probably going to be one of the more talked about shows since people want to compare it to Mad Men.

For V-day I was given a print of Bill Mudron‘s Doctor Who/Dr. Seuss mashup which I felt like sharing. Bill also has some other fantastic pop culture artwork on his site, so you should check it out.

This is a very exciting time of the year for me.

It’s pilot season.

Right now television networks are forking over millions of dollars to film a single episode of potential TV shows in hopes of finding something decent enough to air in the fall. NBC in particular has a lot to consider. With their recent change in management, NBC is trying to move up from being the third most popular network to being the first. Quite franking NBC hasn’t been the same since Friends went off the air. Their current line-up isn’t look too well either. The Cape, Undercovers, Chase, The Event and Perfect Couples are just a couple of shows that I look forward to continuing to not watch this fall (much like the rest of America is doing now). I’m estimating that NBC is going to have somewhere between nine-to-eleven hours of television that they will need to fill come September.

Entertainment Weekly’s website recent posted a list of the 21 pilots NBC has order and will consider adding to their schedule. I, being obsessed with the inner workings of television networks, would like to offer my two cents on which pilots NBC should pick up and which ones to not even touch with a thirty-nine and a half foot poll.

Pilots NBC Should Pick Up:

Playboy (Chad Hodge). Set in the 1960s, the drama takes a look at the lives of Playboy bunnies (drama, pilot).

Yes. It’s Mad Men meets something sexy. Plus the built in controversy will bring in free publicity.

Wonder Woman (David E. Kelley). A reboot of the superhero tale that’s a serious, non-campy take on the DC Comics character (drama, pilot).

With Smallville, The Cape, and No Ordinary Family (I’m betting) likely not returning next season, we’re going to be lacking in the “superhero” department. A modern spin on Wonder Woman could potentially be really good. If it is picked up, I doubt it will long. But I would like to see them attempt it.

I Hate that I Love You (Jhoni Marchinko). Focuses on a straight couple that introduces two of its lesbian friends to one another – which results in instant attraction and a pregnancy (comedy, pilot).

If The Kids Are Alright wins best picture, expect this to get picked up.

Are you there, Vodka? It’s me, Chelsea (Chelsea Handler, Tom Werner, Dottie Dartland Zicklin, Julie Larsen). Inspired by Handler’s best-selling memoir that will focus on the lives of a group of 20-somethings who live and work together with a very outspoken young woman (comedy, pilot).

I don’t care that this sounds exactly like Sex in the City. Chelsea Handler is hilarious and I’m willing to give this show a chance solely based on that. And the fact that this pilot is based of the book finally makes this post relivent for my book blog.

Brave New World (Peter Tolan, Michael Wimer). This single-camera workplace comedy follows a group of unusual characters at Pilgrim Village, a theme park that specializes in recreations of New England in 1647 (comedy, pilot).

Let’s be honest here, NBC is looking for something to fill the The Offce shaped hole in its lineup once viewers stop watching after Steve Carell leaves at the end of this season. They failed (FAILED, I tell you) with Outsourced, so this may have a better chance. Plus, if the theme park is set in 1647 there is the possibility to introduce pirate themed story lines!

Grimm (Jim Kouf, David Greenwalt). Dark but fantastical cop drama about a world in which characters inspired by Grimm’s Fairy Tales exist (drama, pilot).

High concept, but if done right it could pay off. Although according to wikipedia, in 2005 NBC was iterested in developing a show based off the comic Fables. The rights to that comic have since been bought by ABC.

REM (Kyle Killen). A procedural hybrid which follows the simultaneous and parallel lives of a detective who can not let go of any aspect of his fractured family after a horrible car accident (drama, pilot).

It’s Inception meets the last season of LOST.

Now this list of pilots has some really horrible ideas which brings me to…

Pilots NBC Should NOT Pick Up:

Smash (Steven Spielberg, Neil Meron, Craig Zadan, Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey, Theresa Rebeck). Follows a cross-section of characters who come together for the exhilarating ride of putting on a Broadway musical (drama, pilot).

Glee was a fluke. In the past musical TV shows have failed. Do you not remember Cop Rock? Viva Laughlin? Glee is a success because of the millions of teenages who tune in to listen to badly produced versions of Top 40 hits. It’s seriously Kidz Bop: The TV Show. Smash wont work because adults wont fall for the mass marketing that Glee uses.

17th Precinct (Ron Moore). World ruled by magic, not science (drama, pilot).

Have you seen CSI? It’s basically the same thing.

Lovelives (Chris Sheridan, Peter Chernin, Katherine Pope). A sophisticated multi-camera comedy about two couples and their challenges of love and infidelity (comedy, pilot).

The word that stands out here is ‘sophisticated’ but other than that this sounds pretty generic.

Ghost Angeles (Henry Alonzo Myers, Josh Schwartz) A young woman speaks to dead people who help her (comedy, pilot).

Get it? Ghost Angeles. It’s like Los Angeles but with Ghost instead of Los. I wonder if that was intentional. (Yes, it was. And TV shows based on wordplay should never be made.)

Bent (Ted Quill). Single-camera comedy about a recently divorced Type A single mom who tries hard not to fall for the sexy surfer dude contractor she hires to re-do her kitchen (comedy, pilot).

This storyline was explored on Desperate Housewives. At best it was a B-plot.

Untitled Emily Spivey project (Emily Spivey). A cast-contingent project about parenthood through the POV of an acerbic working mom (comedy, pilot).

Emily Spivey has been a writer for SNL for the past 8 years. Unless there is something I don’t know about this pilot, it sounds no different from the rest of the Modern Family knock-offs being produced.

My Life as an Experiment (Cathy Yuspa, Josh Goldsmith, Jack Black). A single-camera comedy about a magazine writer who immerses himself and his family in his unusual situations for his stories, which always reflect back on his marriage. It’s based on the book by (former EW writer!) A.J. Jacobs. (comedy, pilot).

Another author. This will probably be picked up because it’s had Jack Black’s name attached to it. Having said that, this doesn’t sound like something people would tune in to watch. How about they just make it a reality TV show and follow A.J. Jacobs around?

Okay, I think i’m done talking about TV for now. I’d be curious to see the pilot order list for FOX, CBS, and ABC so I could pass judgement upon them as well.

Source: Paraphrasing of these pilots was taken from EW’s site. I’m not sure if they got them from press releases or what.

Let’s talk about television for a bit, shall we? I know this isn’t a TV blog, it’s a book blog, but TV currently is having a major influence on my writing as of late. Not so much the quality of the writing, but the politics.

The first two weeks of the Fall 2010 season has been exciting. So far three TV shows have already been cancelled (Lone Star, My Generation, Huge). What’s next? My bets are on The Good Guys or Running Wilde (both on FOX, ’nuff said). I love both of these shows. You probably haven’t watched them which is why they’re going to get cancelled.

To bring this back around to writing, there was a time in my life where I considered pursuing a career in television writing. Maybe down the line I’ll give it a whirl like Jonathan Ames is doing with Bored To Death (Showtime). Right now though I’ll simply focus on writing about the politics of television.

Here are some TV related blogs/sites that you should check out if you are interested in the politics of television.

Brilliant But Cancelled
TV By The Numbers
TV Series Finale

Question: What are you watching on TV this season?

A few years ago Stephen King wrote a little book called The Colorado Kid. The book was the first big book published through Hard Case Crime imprint which specializes in re-publishing pulp fiction novels as well as new stories. The Colorado Kid is the story of two newspaper writers who are old enough to use the phrase “back in the day” tell innocent intern the story of The Colorado Kid, a body that washed up in 1980 and the mystery of how he came to be dead in Maine. While in the end readers may not get the answers to the questions they’ve been asking for whatever amount of pages, the main theme put forth is the search of answers when there are none to be found.

It was an incredibly cruel trick on Mr. Kings part.

Anyway, recently the Syfy channel has adapted The Colorado Kid into a TV series called Haven. Three episodes in and the story has differed slightly but the possibility of finally finding out what happened to The Colorado Kid is there. Haven focus on an FBI agent who takes a temporary leave of absence from the FBI to serve as a local police officer in the town of Haven, Maine where strange things are constantly happening. Please be careful not to confuse this show with Syfy’s other series Eureka about a street-smart cop who relocates to Eureka, Oregon to investigate all the strange things that are constantly happening.

Anyway.

In the first episode Audrey, the FBI agent, discovers an old newspaper article about The Colorado Kid and in the included picture is a person she believes to be her mother. It’s a bit of a stretch. Okay, it’s a huge stretch in my opinion. “Look, this women kind of looks like me and I was adopted. She’s probably my mother.” Really. That is the extent of the explanation we get from the show and what keeps her in Haven.

Another problem I have with the show is that all the episodes so far have followed the exact same format.

1) Weird thing happens.
2) Audrey accuses the most likely person responsible.
3) If the wrong person is accused, accused the next most likely person.
4) If Audrey is wrong yet again (and so far she has been), have it dawn on her that the person responsible is the person she least suspects.
5) Case solved!

Really, she made it in to the FBI with this type of deduction skills?

Is this show worth caring about? Probably not. I see a lot of potential in it. Haven could turn out to be really interesting if only is would drop this “monster of the week” format it’s following and take the time to build some solid mythology. They are only dropping hints right now as to what causes all these supernatural things to happen. It’s been made clear that there are characters who know something about what is going on, but it has not dawned on Audrey yet to ask them because she is too busy searching for this woman who she is convinced is her mother.

Anybody else have thoughts on this show so far?