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Tuesday, May 15, 2007
ABC’s New Fall Schedule
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Cavemen are coming! The Cavemen are coming!
We predicted it in this space on Sunday, and now ABC has just confirmed it. In a very early morning press conference (seriously, where’s the Serf’s serf to toothpick her eyeballs open?) to announce the Fall 2007 schedule, ABC entertainment president Steve McPherson said that those Neanderthals we’ve all come to — choose one — love or loathe in the Geico commercials would star in a Tuesday night sitcom.
“Cavemen” will air at 8 p.m., leading into another new fairly-self-explanatorily-titled sitcom, “Carpoolers.” The good news here is that that means “According to Jim” has finally been put out of all our miseries (it’s also bye-bye to “George Lopez”). The pitch for “Cavemen” has been that the Stone Age trio finds themselves somehow plopped down in 2007 Atlanta. The show description juust handed out by ABC refers to them living in the “suburban South” (would that be Country Club of the South? Hmm….). I’m in the process of confirming it will still be based here; judging by McPherson’s comment, it sure sounds like they’re coming to Atlanta:
“If we were just going to do a sketch about cavemen, it wouldn’t work at all” said McPherson, adding that what made the sitcom appealing was the ability to “look at through this odd lens the idea of racial relations and minorities in America. It’s an opportunity to offend everyone but offend no one but the cavemen themselves.”
Offend everyone? Odd lens? Us? G’wan, you sweet talker.
In all, ABC announced 12 new shows (one of them’s reality, so that doesn’t really count) — eight of them to debut during the fall. As befits the network that has had such success with soapy dramas (“Desperate Housewives,” “Grey’s Anatomy”), eight are drama series and I’d say at least half of them qualify as soapy dramas. One of them, “Private Practice,” practically qualifies as “Grey’s Anatomy,” given that it’s the much talked-about spinoff that finds Dr. Addison Shepherd (Kate Walsh) relocating to L.A. It will air at 9 p.m. Wednesdays, smack in the middle of an all-new drama night on ABC.
At 8 p.m., it’s “Pushing Daisies,” about a guy who can bring people back to life. Quoth McPherson: “It’s a procedural, a love story, a forensic fairy tale, it’s romantic and comedic. And it’s closed-ended week-to week. You have to really see it to understand it.” No kidding. Much easier to understand is “Dirty Sexy Money” airing at 10 p.m. Wednesdays. It’s about a family with a lot of money, where people act sexy and play dirty. It stars Peter Krause (“Six Feet Under”), Donald Sutherland, Samaire Armstrong (“The O.C.,” “Entourage”) and many more.
The other big change comes at 10 p.m. Thursdays, when “Big Shots” gets the coveted post-“Grey’s Anatomy” time slot. It’s the story of four (male) friends “at the top of their game” business- and professional-wise, until they get all mixed up with women. It stars Michael Vartan (“Alias”), Dylan McDermott (“The Practice”), Joshua Malina (“The West Wing”) and according to McPherson, it more than fulfills ABC’s goal of finally coming up with a “male ensemble” show that’s “truthful about male relationships, with some comedy and dysfunction, that’s truthful about our lives.”
Translation: “Desperate Houseboys.” Why, it sounds exactly like “Cavemen” … NOT!
Here’s the other new ABC shows: Dramas: -“Women’s Murder Club” (10 p.m. Fridays): ABC’s attempt to launch a successful procedural, four female professionals join forces to solve crimes. Stars Angie Harmon. -“Cashmere Mafia” (premieres after “Dancing with the Stars” and “The Bachelor” conclude): From “Sex and the City” creator Darren Star, the story of four female friends, trying to balance their successful business and personal lives. Stars Lucy Liu, Bonnie Sommerville, and yes, it sounds a lot like “Lipstick Jungle” announced Monday by NBC. -“Eli Stone” (also later in the year): A lawyer suffers a brain aneurysm and after experiencing hallucinations, wonders if he has a higher calling in life. Higher than a lawyer? Impossible!
Comedies: -“Sam I Am” (9:30 p.m. Mondays): Christina Applegate stars as a woman who suffers amnesia, and in the process of rediscovering who she was, finds out she wasn’t very nice. -“Miss/Guided” (later in the year): Judy Greer stars in this Ashton Kutcher-produced sitcom about a grown woman who returns as gudiance counselor to the high school where she was once a geek — and discovers that life is still pretty much like high school.
Shows returning this fall: “Dancing with the Stars,” “The Bachelor,” “Boston Legal,” “Ugly Betty,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Men in Trees,” “20/20,” “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Brothers & Sisters.” ABC also announced that “Notes from the Underbelly” and the filmed-in-Atlanta “October Road” would return, after “Dancing with the Stars” and “The Bachelor” complete their fall runs.
Talk About Your Whack Jobs!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Michael Imperioli is scheduled to be on Letterman tonight (Tuesday), which brings us to a very important point: Did you watch “The Sopranos” when it aired Sunday night?
No? Well, then did you TiVo it, DVR it or otherwise record it so you could watch it a few hours later? Have you caught up with it on On Demand by now? Had a traveling minstrel troupe act out the key moments for you?
If you answered “No” to all of the above, too bad. I’ve given you a whole day to catch up on the most stunning plot twist since Uncle Junior turned out to have a brain as scrambled as a pan of leftover lasagna, nearly blew Tony to smithereens and then ran upstairs and hid in the closet:
Tony killed Christopher (played by Imperioli). Which we all kind of expected might happen, but maybe not so soon. And not in this way, with “Chrissy” obviously weakened by an auto accident, but clearly not about to expire in the driver’s seat of the SUV. Until Tony reached over and — well, how do I put this? — pinched his de facto son’s nose shut until he suffocated.
What? No garroting in a dark alley? No taking him out on a boat in the middle of the ocean and shooting his brains out like a man? Well, like a Big Pussy, anyway. Even crazy Ralphie got to go out in true, glorious gangland style, decapitated and cut up on a kitchen floor and then stuffed inside a bowling ball bag. Talk about your 8-10 Split, sigh….
So, what was up with this? Clearly, Christoper had been in Tony’s sights since this season’s first episode, when the former called the latter to wish him a belated “Happy Birthday” and was rewarded by being hung up on. So was Tony just waitiing for the right opportunity, and a roadside accident proved the perfect excuse? Or did something happen during that SUV ride that made him snap? And does this even qualify in the Mob Handbook as being wacked?
I have to admit that when Tony hightailed it out to Vegas later in Sunday’s episode and was seen dining alone, playing craps alone, being alone in his hotel room, I had a flashback — back to the beginning of last season, when Tony was in a coma (thanks to Uncle Lasagna Pan) and dreamed he was a mild mannered traveling salesman schlub named Kevin Finnerty. Finnerty also was often alone in hotel rooms, at dinner, at the bar, etc….
Is Tony really Finnerty? Nah, they wouldn’t do that to us after seven tumultuous, throw-out-all-the-TV-rules seasons. But is it possible he’s never going back to Jersey? That last scene, where he was out in the desert with his latest squeeze, throwing his arms up in the air and screaming “I did it!” sure got me thinking: A little earlier, in the casino, Tony had succumbed to a giggling fit, gasping “He’s dead.” At first I’d figured he was talking about Christopher. But maybe he meant Tony Soprano, whom he’d left behind for good …?
Not for nuthin’, it’s just a thought. As Dr. Melfi would say, “I’m more interested in hearing what YOU think.”
