When We Return …

Some observers of this spring's supposedly scaled-back upfronts are beginning to get the idea that much of this "scaled back" business is nonsense—a ruse to appease shareholders, maybe, or an excuse to avoid screening footage of new shows. True, ABC's upfront was spare and efficient; any plying of advertisers with booze and treats was shielded from public view. But NBC still ordered up alcohol by the hogshead and called in enough actors to warrant a red carpet at its Monday event. Yesterday, forgoing the traditional route of staging a presentation and then hosting a lavish party, the CW instead threw a lavish party with a presentation as its centerpiece.

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The venue was a tent at Lincoln Center, where ABC used to have its shindig. Though it was far too dark in there, you could still see the talent lounging behind barriers, not unlike giant pandas at the National Zoo with cages built of velvet rope. For entertainment, we had the bombastic simpering of Maroon 5, a group I could only assume my fellow partygoers to be fans of, as they were not actively jeering. The CW's celebrities trod a green carpet, of course. The network was very canny, when it formed two years ago, about selecting a signature color that connoted youth and freshness and recognizing the marketing possibilities of environmentalism. Thus: green cocktail napkins for your Ketel One and soda, unwieldy green chopsticks for the sushi, green wigs on the pretty heads of the modelesque women who had donned gauzy outfits to serve as hostesses or usherettes or geishas or whatever.

Continuing the tradition of female executives taking a spin through virtual reality at these things, network head Dawn Ostroff first appeared in triplicate, as a hologram—a corny literalization of the CW's "3-D" pitch to clients: "demographics, desirable, destination." Really, this is just three ways of saying the same thing—young women turn to the network to watch shows that young women want to watch—but repetition is the key to advertising. The real Ostroff, pleased to step forward after the mirages dissolved, then read the opening line on her prompter: "I know these green-apple martinis are good. ... But if you're seeing three of me right now, you're in trouble." Ostroff next trumpeted the fabulous buzz surrounding the teen-soap hype bomb Gossip Girl because, well, she couldn't very well have crowed about its meager ratings. She called Gossip Girl "OMG TV," then introduced three new shows promising more of the same, a reminder that the CW has carved out a brand identity as the network that should make you die a little on the inside every time you catch your daughter watching it, and vice versa.

• The remake of Aaron Spelling's Beverly Hills, 90210 sells itself, doesn't it? This time around, the Brenda Walsh figure hails from Kansas City, and her father is the new principal of West Beverly High, and one senses that she won't make so much of a fuss about losing her V-card. There will be a grandma and her feistiness. There will a hot young lit teacher and his stubble. There will be appearances by veterans of ye olde Bev 9, though Ostroff—who promises sponsors "dual entry for moms who were fans of the original series"—is only ready to announce Jennie Garth. The tagline is unimprovable, parody-proof, deathless, a zenith of soap-opera-of-manners epigrammitizing: "If you wanna live in the ZIP, you gotta live by the code."
• Somewhat less memorably, Surviving the Filthy Rich calls itself "a new series about the things that money can buy and about all the things it can't." Your heroine is a young college graduate who, having accrued much debt in New Haven, ventures to Palm Beach—don't you love it?—to attend to the educational and moral development of two orphans. "I puke cuter than that outfit you're wearing," the mean one says to her new tutor. "I think you just tased our new tutor," the nice one says to the mean one. "I give this show four weeks," I thought to myself.
• Stylista, billed as The Devil Wears Prada meets a reality show, finds an Elle editor named Anne Slowey vamping and camping. "I only take iced lattes with a small straw," says she, molta maligna. Contestants will design layouts for accessories pages, plan a birthday party for Slowey's supercilious niece, and then, one hopes, enroll in an LSAT prep course.

In closing, Ostroff again mentioned the three D's, and the DJ put on the new Madonna single, and 50-year-old men began dancing to it. Those who took this as a sign to get out of there went out into the light, where the green-wigged women dispensed green lollipops, joking to each other about fellating them.

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Troy Patterson is Slate's television critic.

Photograph of television set © 1999-2008 Getty Images.

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