Super Bowl ad: Conan deleted
I know that Conan will be just fine -- is fine already, what with his tens of millions of dollars for leaving NBC and the outpouring of fan love and sympathy and an inevitable perch on another network. But still, I felt a pang for him last night, watching the Jay-Dave-Oprah Super Bowl commercial for "The Late Show." The ad seemed to completely erase the whole Leno-O'Brien mess, to turn back (and turn forward) the time machine to the days of the Dave-Jay late night contest.
There's no question in my mind that the ad served Jay Leno a lot more than David Letterman, whose CBS show sponsored and put the ad together (see this New York Times piece for details on the shoot). Again, it negated the massive 10 p.m. "Jay Leno Show" debacle, as if the big late-night controversy has never stopped being a duel between Oprah's two big children, Leno and Letterman. It showed Leno as a good sport, willing to sit there while Letterman mocked him.
And the ad implied that Letterman doesn't truly feel defensive of Conan O'Brien -- that Letterman's expressions of sympathy for O'Brien during the past few months were just part of some big promotional game. Obviously, Letterman has to contend with Leno again; he has to be a realist and deal with the fact that Leno may once again clobber him in the 11:35 p.m. ratings. He needs to regroup, as much as Leno and O'Brien need to regroup. He has to show himself moving forward, and not staking his future in an NBC failure. He has to get his show's logo out there on the viral circuit. But still, his ad turned me off.
You?
'Lost' returns, bends minds
These “Lost” writers, they are TV magicians of the first order.
Tonight, once again, we were their willing little playthings as they brought us yet another step closer to the great mystery of the island, then pulled us back two steps to keep us awake and guessing. Oh yeah, and they essentially broke time in two, pulling our brains in opposite directions by asking us to follow closely while two very different fates played out simultaneously. The plane crashed, and the plane didn’t crash -- both. Time passing became times passing.
The first two hours of the final, sixth season of “Lost” were filled with emotional wallops, cheeky in-jokes, Fake Locke revelations, Real Locke memories, death, rebirth, and a little tacky “Indiana Jones” temple shtick for good measure. If the episode is any indication, we’re heading into a wildly entertaining and endlessly engaging season that will find “Lost” doing exactly what more TV shows ought to be doing -- going out on top.
The night’s emotional peak came early on, right after the bomb’s white-out, when Sawyer rescued Juliet from a giant pile of metal that looked like some kind of giant found-art sculpture. But it was a feint; Juliet quickly died in his arms. Reviving Juliet only to kill her off felt manipulative, just the writers’ opportunity to milk a few tears and let Josh Holloway do some seriously felt acting (which he certainly did). But I thought that seeing the pair together and in love again was a valuable inclusion -- it helped us feel their break more powerfully last night, and therefore understand Sawyer’s rage toward Jack. Certainly, the Jack-Sawyer tension will be important in the coming weeks. I don’t think Jack caused Juliet's death, but Losties will need to debate that one thoroughly.
We learned that Fake Locke, aka the Man in Black, is also the Smoke Monster. Fake Locke, looking very “Heart of Darkness,” seemed more evil and cold-hearted than ever, beating and killing a bunch of people and sneering in contempt at the Real Locke. Indeed, Fake Locke seemed particularly nasty juxtaposed with the scenes of the more compassionate Real Locke, who consoled Jack in the airport after his father’s body was lost. “They didn’t lose your father,” Real Locke said. “They just lost his body.” It was a healing gesture, which Jack returned by offering surgery to help Locke out of his wheelchair. “Nothing is irreversible” were Jack's kind words.
It's not clear whether the people in either reality will learn about the alternate reality, although Juliet's dying message -- "It worked" -- may ultimately help lead to the connection. I think the "Lost" writers could actually pull that off, allowing the characters to know that they're in two places at once.
It’s also not clear whether the alternate world in which the plane crash does not occur (and in which we saw Boone as well as -- I think -- the Incredibly Exploding Artz) will be a happy place. Yes, Jack and Real Locke had their lovely moment, and Kate just may escape prison, and Jack saved Charlie, and Hurley is living in a bizarro state where, as he said, “Nothing bad ever happens to me, I’m the luckiest guy alive.” But this is “Lost,” and not Shangri-La. Right?
Senate coverage ratings win for Boston stations
The Massachusetts Senate race won big ratings for Boston TV stations on Jan. 19. Election coverage gave most stations a ratings boost during primetime and the numbers rivaled some of their network programs. WBZ-TV (Channel 4)'s 9 p.m. coverage that night, for example, tied in ratings with its Sunday airing of 60 Minutes.
WCVB-TV Channel 5's 8 p.m. election coverage drew 234,000 total viewers, then 339,000 viewers at 9 p.m. and then 324,000 people at 10 p.m. WBZ's 9 p.m. news coverage had 280,000 folks and WHDH-TV (Channel 7) had 186,00 viewers on election day at 10 p.m. Below is a list of most watched Boston programs in primetime for the week of Jan. 18-24.
1. WFXT-FOX NFC Championship (Jan. 24) 1.07 million total viewers
2. WFXT-FOX American Idol (Wed.) 668,000
3. WFXT-FOX American Idol (Tues.) 661,000
4. WBZ-CBS Two and A Half Men 409,000
4. WBZ-CBS Criminal Minds 406,000
6. WBZ-CBS Big Bang Theory 391,000
7. WFXT-FOX 24 385,000
8. WCVB-ABC Senate race coverage 9 p.m. 339,000
9. WBZ-CBS How I Met Your Mother 336,000
10. WCVB-ABC Senate race coverage, 10 p.m. 324,000
11. WBZ-CBS NCIS 308,000
12. WFXT-FOX NFC Postgame 286,000
13. WBZ-CBS NCIS LA 280,000
14. WBZ-CBS Accidentally on Purpose 268,000
15. WBZ-CBS WBZ News Special 9 p.m. 251,000
15. WBZ-CBS 60 Minutes 250,000
source: Nielsen Media Research
compiled By Johnny Diaz, Globe Staff, jodiaz@globe.com
Bye bye "Betty"
After dismal ratings this season, ABC has cancelled "Ugly Betty." The last show will air in mid-April. The first season of "Ugly Betty" in 2006 was a hit, with an average of 11 million viewers per episode. But in the current fourth season -- during which ABC moved the show from Thursdays to Fridays and then, recently, to Wednesdays -- the show has dropped to an average of 5.3 million. In its current Wednesday at 10 slot, the show lost about 40 percent of its "Cougar Town" lead-in.
"We’ve mutually come to the difficult decision to make this 'Ugly Betty'’s final season, and are announcing now as we want to allow the show ample time to write a satisfying conclusion," executive producer Silvio Horta and ABC Entertainment Group president Stephen McPherson said in a joint statement. "We are extremely proud of this groundbreaking series, and felt it was important to give the fans a proper farewell."
Are you grieving? How should "Betty" end?
Ayla on 'The Early Show'
It's a Brown family entertainment media extravaganza! Scott Brown, our senator-elect, is scheduled to appear via satellite on "The Jay Leno Show" on Thursday night on the segment called "Ten @ Ten."
And this morning his daughter Ayla, former "American Idol" contestant, appeared on CBS's "The Early Show" to promote her new (and VERY well-timed!) CD release. Here's a clip of Ayla talking about the comments her father made during his acceptance speech last week, about her being single. Since then, she says, she has been deluged with date offers. Also, asked about whether she'll follow her father into politics, she says, "I leave politics to my dad. He is amazing at that. Myself, I'm just focusing on basketball right now, finishing up my senior year and graduating. ... Politics -- I don't think so."
Press Tour Notes: "Damages"
"Damages" returns for its third season tonight at 10 p.m. on FX. The cast and creators held a lively panel in Pasadena. Here are a few excerpts about what to expect from Glenn Close's whipsmart legal eagle Patty Hewes and the deadly serious new castmembers played by the normally comic actors Martin Short and Lily Tomlin.
(On the panel were executive producers Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler, Daniel Zelman and actors Tate Donovan, Rose Byrne, and Glenn Close. Short and Tomlin appeared via satellite from New York and Key West, respectively.)
On whether this season's seemingly Bernie Madoff-inspired plotline was the only one considered:
Zelman said they considered several stories, including that of "60 Minutes" subject Marc Dreier and alleged Ponzi schemer Allen Stanford. "We were really drawn to all of these stories, and we’re using elements of all these stories in the story that we’re telling, although coming through the front door it’s sort of more around the Madoff scenario."
On the hiring of Tomlin and Short:
Todd Kessler said, essentially, that he and the other producers were fans. "And one of the things that we try to strive for on 'Damages' is that nothing is as it seems. And starting in the first season, when we cast Ted Danson as Arthur Frobisher, it continues to just amaze us to work with actors and performers who aren’t always given the opportunities to do something other than what they’re primarily known for."
Tomlin will play the matriarch of the Tobin family, that Hewes is going after and Short plays the family’s attorney Leonard Winstone. (Short joked that Carrot Top was next on the list).
Tomlin, on why she signed up:
"It’s the only show I’ve ever run home to see, no matter what. If I were working on another show even, I’d say, 'I have to get out of here,'" said Tomlin. "And when I’d see Glenn anyplace at an event or anything, I would just jump all over her, and I’d say, 'You’ve got to tell us. What’s going to happen? Why can’t you be on every night? Why can’t you be on all year? Why do I have to wait now?' When the first season was over, I just about went nuts."
Short, on tackling a serious role:
"I wouldn’t say I’ve done an endless amount of serious roles," said Short. "But I think of myself as a character actor, and you play characters in a sincere fashion. So even if you’re playing [over-the-top wedding planner] Franck from 'Father of the Bride,' if you’re trying to be funny as that character, you won’t be. But if you sincerely play him as this eccentric person who exists in the world, then you’re basically acting the character, who happens to be an unusual character. So I don’t really look at it as a differentiation between comedy and serious. It, to me, is just what the role is, what it requires, how you can most effectively give the author what he had hoped to achieve."
On when Patty and Ellen might cross paths and what will happen: "They do start the season apart," said Zelman. "But there’s always a sort of a gravity pulling them together because of everything that they’ve been through. And, you know, this season we are interested in exploring more of the psychology of what that gravity is and what they mean to each other beyond sort of the experiences that we’ve seen in the first two seasons."
Zelman said that the show will delve more into the characters' families and psychologies and what that might mean for the magnetism between them.
"When we meet her, she’s actually very different again this season from the last two seasons in that they’re actually quite separate when we first start," said Byrne of the dynamic duo. "[Rose] hasn’t spoken to [Patty] for six months... in the one scene we have is the kind of overriding sort of theme that we discussed, is that Patty doesn’t get under her skin anymore. But yeah, the complexity of their relationship is definitely something that we still kind of end up exploring throughout the season."
Close, on when she caught the acting bug:
"When I was about seven," she said. "I grew up watching very little television, and we had puppets and we had a wonderful landscape to run around on and we were always pretending, and it just seemed the natural thing to do. I wanted to run away when I was little and knock on Walt Disney’s door because it was the time of the great classic movies that he was making, and it was something that I just always wanted to do. And it wasn’t about being a star, ever. It was about just pretending to be other people and enjoying that process."
2003 Globe profile of late night's O'Brien: Understanding Conan
Conan O'Brien's troubles with NBC did not begin in the past few weeks. When I interviewed O'Brien in the summer of 2003 for a profile in the Aug. 31, 2003 Boston Globe magazine, there was an edge in his voice as he described how he was nearly canceled by the network when he first went on the air in 1993, and how NBC insisted back then that his contract be subject to renewal every three months, and how he was generally forced to "crawl through a year-and-half-long spanking machine.'' He also made an amusing and revealing comparison of himself to the characters in Clint Eastwood westerns that may describe how O'Brien feels at this very moment. -- Don Aucoin
All over Manhattan, New Yorkers are wearily rising from their desks and preparing to head home as the clock ticks past 5:30 on a sweltering summer afternoon. Inside Studio 6A at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, taping of the 1,768th Late Night With Conan O'Brien is just getting underway.
The host is rising from his desk -- all 6 feet 4 inches of him -- to greet Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, and Drew Barrymore. As the stars of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle sashay onto the stage, O'Brien is at full throttle himself. This is a guy who seems able, night after night, to pump out extra adrenaline and pluck comedy out of thin air. First, to the tune of "Let's Get It On," he dances with the three women as they remove his tie and start to unbutton his shirt. He musses his own hair to heighten the effect. "I think there's an interview in here somewhere; I just don't know where the hell it is," he confesses. Finally seated (with Liu wearing Conan's tie), the actresses all start talking at once, so O'Brien plays off the chaos (and draws big laughs from his mostly young audience of 200) by pretending to be a frazzled, notebook-wielding policeman interviewing the trio as witnesses to an accident.
When they, for no evident reason, start singing a song about "my pretty pony," O'Brien counters with a lusty rendition of the theme song to a kitschy 1980s sitcom, Charles in Charge. As they cut to a commercial, O'Brien is dancing atop his desk, again to "Let's Get It On," while taking off his shirt. It is all inexplicably but irresistibly funny.
A half-hour after the taping ends, O'Brien is still revved up, still looking for a place to put his energy. He moves restlessly about his ninth-floor office, plucking the strings of an unplugged electric guitar while a New York City symphony of honks and sirens drifts up from the street. "Tonight I thought we had a pretty hot show," he says. "I think we gave people something that was really fun. But let's see what we've got tomorrow, you know?"
FULL ENTRYIdol rocks Boston ratings
The return of "American Idol" struck a high note with its season debut Jan. 12 - the show, which airs on Fox25, drew a whopping 914,000 total viewers in Boston. Other high ranking shows of note for the week of Jan. 12-17 - NBC's airing of the Golden Globes ranked 9th for the week, attracting 421,000 folks to WHDH. CBS's AFC broadcast of the NY playoffs game Sunday scored 889,000 viewers for WBZ while Saturday's game was caught by 583,000 local viewers.
For Boston's Tuesday night election coverage:
WCVB's 6 p.m. newscast had 191,000 households, followed by WBZ with 124,000; WHDH with 81,000 and Fox25 with 20,000. (measurement in total viewers was not immediately available.)
On cable, Fox News Channel's 6 p.m. airing of "Special Report with Bret Baier" had 106,000 total viewers in Boston, followed by CNN's "Situation Room" with 28,000 and MSNBC's "Ed Show" with 8,000 viewers.
Below is a list of the primetime programs:
1. WFXT-Fox25 American Idol (Tues.) 914,000 total viewers
2. WBZ-CBS AFC (Sunday) 889,000
3. WFXT-Fox25 American Idol (Wed.) 673,000
4. WBZ-CBS AFC Playoffs (Sat.) 583,000
5. WBZ-CBS NCIS 561,000
6. WBZ-CBS 60 Minutes 541,000
7. WBZ-CBS Big Bang Theory 502,000
8. WBZ-CBS Two and A Half Men 491,000
9. WHDH-NBC Golden Globes Awards 421,000
10. WFXT-FOX 24 390,000
11. WBZ-CBS NCIS LA 379,000
12. WBZ-CBS How I Met Your Mother 369,000
13. WBZ-CBS Criminal Minds 363,000
14. WBZ-CBS The Good Wife 311,000
15. WCVB_ABC Grey's Anatomy 305,000
source: The Nielsen Company
compiled by Johnny Diaz, Globe Staff
The deal is done
Early this morning, after two weeks of negotiations, Conan O'Brien and NBC have finally signed a deal that will bring Conan's "Tonight Show" to an end after seven-plus months on the air. An NBC spokewoman confirmed the deal, which will cost NBC some $40 million. Conan will get $32 million, and the rest will go toward severance packages for his staff.
The deal will also require Conan not to disparage NBC or give media interviews for a period of time. Plus, he will lose some of his intellectual property (is Triumph "intellectual"!) and signature bits. His last show will be on Friday (Leno will return to his old "Tonight Show" post on March 1) and he is not allowed to move to another network before September 1. Among his final guests: Tom Hanks and Will Ferrell.
"In the end, Conan was appreciative of the steps NBC made to take care of his staff and crew, and decided to supplement the severance they were getting out of his own pocket," Conan's manager, Gavin Polone, told the Wrap. "Now he just wants to get back on the air as quickly as possible."
Hey, that's a lot of money! But not as much as it might have cost NBC to buy out Jay Leno. Amazing. Did you think this was all a big hoax to get people interested in NBC again?! Are you glad to see the battle over, or were you enjoying all the acrimony? Tell me your thoughts.
REVIEW: The Golden Globes
Looks like James Cameron’s “Avatar” is following in the footsteps of the director’s “Titanic,” as both a box office monster and a major-awards darling. Tonight at the Golden Globes, the sci-fi blockbuster solidified its Oscar momentum with two major statues, for best director and best dramatic film.
But “Avatar” – or “A-va-dah,” as Arnold Schwarzenegger called it – was the closest thing to a trend in the movie categories. The other awards were divided up among a range of films, including Robert Downey Jr. for “Sherlock Holmes,” Jeff Bridges for “Crazy Heart,” Sandra Bullock for “The Blind Side,” and “The Hangover” for best comedy.
On the TV side, cable continued to dominate. While Julianna Margulies’ won for CBS’s “The Good Wife,” Alec Baldwin won for NBC’s “30 Rock,” and Fox’s “Glee” took home best musical, all the other awards went to non-network shows and movies including “Mad Men,” “Dexter,” and “Grey Gardens.” (The full list of winners is here.)
But the Globes ceremony is ultimately about the party and not the prizes, and tonight's party was easy to take. Without an excess of ceremonial pomp, and with a fast flow of awards presentations, the Globes continues to be the least self-important of
Ricky Gervais, the Globes’ first host in 15 years, was a comfortable, irreverent presence. Was his comedy brilliant? Far from it. His material was consistently lazy — about not being nominated, about stars who’ve had plastic surgery, about Angelina Jolie’s passion for adoption, about penis size. But his informality was infectious, as he so clearly loved being tacky for a dolled-up Hollywood crowd, plugging his own DVDs and TV shows with an in-your-face lack of subtlety.
The only Gervais bit that caused
But the heart of an awards show isn’t the host so much as the passion and authenticity of its acceptance speeches. And tonight at the Globes, there was a good amount of heart, beginning with Mo’Nique from “Precious.”
If the Globe-winning actors are auditioning for Oscar voters with their acceptance speeches, Mo’Nique got the part and we’ll surely be seeing her next month. Her win wasn’t a huge surprise, but that didn’t detract from the honest thrill of her moment. I love it when an actor at the podium is clearly moved, but grounded enough to deliver genuine appreciation — with none of the hyperventilating and false modesty that Drew Barrymore succumbed to when accepting for “
‘‘I am in the midst of my dream,” Mo’Nique said, and you had to believe her.
Wonderfully, Meryl Streep also had an honest moment on stage accepting for ‘‘Julie & Julia.’’ Just when you think Streep might become jaded or flip about her cache of awards and nominations, she began musing anxiously and emotionally about her mother’s philosophical lack of ‘‘patience for gloom and doom,’’ noting, ‘‘I’m not like that.’’ She was gracious and personal, and she managed to slip in a plug for
Other strong acceptances included Jeff Bridges, who remembered his father’s passion for the movie industry, and Robert Downey Jr., who, with irony, non-thanked a number people including Joel Silver, for restarting his career a dozen or so times. About the Hollywood Foreign Press Association,
The most overdue moment? Michael C. Hall finally, finally, finally won an award for his amazing work on Showtime’s ‘‘Dexter.’’ The justice of his win was made more poignant by the large black cap on his head during his gracious acceptance speech, an unmissable reminder that he’s fighting Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Hall’s win, alongside wins by John Lithgow for ‘‘Dexter’’ and Toni Collette’s for ‘‘United States of Tara,’’ made the night a Showtime show of strength.
NBC references peppered the night, although there were fewer than expected. In his monologue, Gervais said, ‘‘Let’s get on with it before NBC replaces me with Jay Leno.’’ And Julianna Margulies, accepting for ‘‘The Good Wife,’’ thanked CBS executives ‘‘for believing in the 10 o’clock drama,’’ a knock at her former ‘‘ER’’ network for the Leno-at-10 experiment.
And what of the preshow?
Somehow, those
‘‘We’re not M&Ms,’’ Sofia Vergara said about the rain. ‘‘We’re not gonna die.’’ So strong!
As always, the red carpet was like a parade of bridesmaids and groomsmen, but there were a few exceptions to the monotony. A giddy Julia Roberts, crowded under umbrellas with Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, said to NBC’s Billy Bush, ‘‘You guys are in the toilet right now!’’ Later, Tina Fey of NBC’s ‘‘30 Rock’’ told Bush about the rain, ‘‘It’s just God crying for NBC.’’ And extolling her passion for champagne, Mariah Carey let it all hang out — all of it.
TCA Winter 2010 Press Tour: Gervais on Golden Globes
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant appeared on a panel to promote their upcoming HBO series. The pay-cable net is doing an animated version of their popular podcasts with Karl Pilkington, "The Ricky Gervais Show." But with just a few days to go before tonight's big show, the critics couldn't help but ask a few questions about the Golden Globes, which Gervais is hosting.
On his apparently calm demeanor given the upcoming event: "I’m pretty calm because I’ve got very low standards. I don’t really care what happens. They are not really going to invite me back. So I might as well."
On which celebrities he plans to roast: "Anyone who isn’t concentrating will get it, so they’d better listen. They’d better not talk when I’m on. They can talk when everyone else is on, but they’d better not talk when I’m on. Then they will get my attention, and then they are in trouble."
On who he might actually be looking forward to meeting: "I’m in awe of all of them, joking aside. I think that it’s a room of really talented people we both admire. You’ve got creators of our favorite shows. Myself and Stephen, America is our mecca for TV, comedy and drama. Our favorite comedy things, everything from Laurel and Hardy, Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, through to things like 'Arrested Development' and 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' In terms of drama, 'The Sopranos,' 'The Wire,' 'Dexter,' 'Damages.' They’re all in that room. So it doesn’t mean they’re not going to get a roasting, but it means that I admire them secretly.
We'll have more from this amusing panel when "The Ricky Gervais Show" debuts Feb. 19.
Flashback to 2004
This very interesting and revealing clip from a 2004 episode of "The Tonight Show" is posted at Funny or Die, and it's definitely worth a gander if you've been following the late-night mess. It's a segment with Jay Leno telling his audience about the deal that would eventually lead to Conan O'Brien taking over his "Tonight Show" seat. Leno talks about how the only person who could do "The Tonight Show" into his 60s was Johnny Carson, and he describes talking to Jerry Seinfeld about going out on top, which was Seinfeld's motivation for taking his sitcom off the air when it was still a ratings megahit.
And Jay talks very directly about avoiding another ugly situation like the one he went through with David Letterman, "When I took this show over, boy there was a lot of animosity between me and Dave and who's going to get it, and quite frankly a lot of good friendships were permanently damaged," he says. "And I don't want to see anybody ever have go through that again. You know, this show is like a dynasty. You hold it and then you hand it off to the next person. I don't want to see all the fighting, and who's better and nasty things back and forth in the press, so right now, here it is -- Conan it's yours! See you in five years, buddy!"
Does this make Leno look bad? Kind of. But it also serves as a reminder that making major career commitments years in advance is a very tricky business -- especially in the world of TV, which is in daily flux more than any other medium. Ratings change, audiences change, culture changes, minds change. Best to take things one season at a time.
Leno gets "Tonight Show," Conan out?
TMZ is reporting that "Jay Leno has made a new deal with NBC, which gives him 'The Tonight Show' from 11:35-12:35." And TMZ has proved to be right a number of times in recent months, so the story may be true. Meanwhile, People is reporting that Conan O'Brien will likely finish up "The Tonight Show" a week from tomorrow." Conan does not plan on doing any more new shows after next week," a source tells the magazine. Remember, both articles are based on information provided by anonymous sources; nothing official has emerged yet, and in fact and an NBC spokesperson is saying the TMZ report is untrue.
Stay tuned, folks.
Also of interest: NBC has announced its post-"Jay Leno Show," post-Olympics, midseason schedule. Here's a link -- the list includes game shows, reality shows, and "Dateline" -- but the exciting tidbit is that "Friday Night Lights" will be back (on Fridays at 8) beginning April 30. The drama was originally scheduled to return this summer.
Late night: Kimmel gets twisted
Last night, Jimmy Kimmel hosted his entire ABC show doing an impression of Jay Leno, saying "I'm taking over all the shows in late night." He had a gray wig on, and a prosthetic chin, and he talked in Leno's squeaky, lispy voice. He mocked Leno's banter with his bandleader, and Leno's audience handshake-handtouch thing, and Leno's bad jokes.
It was sick, and it was great. Of the many NBC-Leno-Conan jokes that have been flying around late night in the past week, Kimmel's was the most ... interesting and original. It was schlub genius. The hour was by turns flat, hysterical, dumb, and uncomfortable, and the longer the gag stretched on, and the longer Kimmel stayed committed to being the Faux Jay, the more it felt a little like a piece of network performance art. It wasn't Ali G, but it was warped and oddly meta. Watching guest Elisha Cuthbert treat Faux Jay like a real late-night host served as a weird commentary on the faux-ness of all late-night celebrity interviews.
Chevy Chase also appeared, coming out in a Conan O'Brien wig to play along. He wasn't as funny as he wanted to be, and soon he was himself again, answering questions including a few about his own failed late-night talk show. About the NBC mess, he said to Faux Jay: "I think Conan got a bad, bad, bad, deal. ... Conan's going to stay there, I think they're going to drop -- uh, I think you're finished." I'm not a big Chevy fan, but I hope he's right.
A pair of clips:
TCA Winter 2010 Press Tour: ABC Comedy Pick-Ups, Jamie Oliver, and "DWTS"
-The three Wednesday comedies "The Middle," "Modern Family," and "Cougar Town" got the good news from ABC entertainment president Stephen McPherson that they were receiving second season pick-ups.
-Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver will star in new reality series starting March 26 called "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution." The show is loosely based on a couple of series' he did in the U.K. which saw Oliver spearheading a grass-roots efforts to improve the school lunches in communities there.
-"Dancing With the Stars" returns March 22. McPherson says they will pare back the cast for the tenth edition. "We did feel that we had too many contestants last time. So we are cutting it back to 11 or 12," McPherson said.
-ABC is planning a "Bachelor" spin-off for the summer called, wait for it, "Bachelor Pad." No premiere date as of yet.
Quote of the Day:
"I was like, “Don’t people have GPS’s? I think we can find those people.” -McPherson on his original, less than enthusiastic response to "Lost."
"Idol": Oh, Boston, you're my home
The “American Idol” season premiere was notable for three reasons. 1.) It was set in Boston, where a series of lone dreamers stood singing to both a panel of judges and the unforthcoming stare of the Custom House Tower in the background. 2.) It was the start of the first season of “American Idol” without our crazy love bucket Paula Abdul and her emotional overspill, a fact that was duly noted a few moments into the two-hour episode.
And 3.) Not a single word was uttered about the fact that Simon Cowell, the show’s biggest asset, the one judge that everyone actually listens to, the Brit whose tart personality has almost single-handedly made “American Idol” into such a massive TV and music phenomenon, is leaving the show at the end of the season. The information was conspicuous in its absence, and you can bet it will go unmentioned once again tonight, during the two-hour Atlanta auditions. Surely “Idol” is going to continue to underplay its own impending doom throughout this season.
Otherwise, “Idol” returned to Fox with more of its brisk, familiar audition material. Even Boston turned out to be a showcase for a few stunt players and poor deluded souls who think they can sing, as the night was peppered with painful performances including one that inspired Cowell to imply he wanted to jump out the window. An anime lover from Walpole screeching Janis Joplin, a waitress from Billerica mangling Mariah Carey, a bouncy accountant from Somerville twisting up Natasha Bedingfield -- they all got tossed out of the room with a little less self-esteem.
But there were success stories, as always, with Cowell, Randy Jackson, Kara DioGuardi, and elfin guest judge Victoria Beckham continually reaching for new language to express just how wowed they were. (Ellen DeGeneres will begin her stint as a regular judge next month.) And many of the good singers who got through to Hollywood came equipped with the kind of poignant backstories that “Idol” so loves to tell in order to counteract the repetitiveness of the competition.
Maddy Curtis from Virginia, a 16-year-old with major dimples and a major voice, is the devoted sister of brothers with Down syndrome. Katie Stevens from Connecticut, another knockout 16-year-old singer, shared her tears about her grandmother’s Alzheimer’s disease. And Justin Williams, 27, from Utah, described his journey through cancer before blowing away the judges with “Feeling Good” and the lyrics, “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life.” Ryan Seacrest walked us through these dramas with his usual, seemingly endless enthusiasm.
Ultimately, though, as last night once again proved, the unsung heroes of the many, many weeks of “Idol” auditions are the editors. Until the show moves to Hollywood and live segments begin to dominate, these episodes are pieced together with remarkable and tireless invention. They are filled with perky little sequences that mesh together different auditions, and they deliver all kinds of comic and tragic miniatures. The editing, like the judges panel, has an abundance of personality.
Your thoughts? Favorites?
Contributors
