When We Return …
Fox, reliably flashy even in a subdued year, put on a full-scale upfront presentation at the New York City Center on Thursday. It was relatively brief, yes—certainly shorter than its notorious 2006 debacle, which the Wall Street Journal likened, in a headline, to "a 24-hour ordeal"—but there was a stageful of stars, a dollop of actual news, and a spot of entertainment: the narcissistic writhing of the hoofers of So You Think You Can Dance? "We're the populist network," said Fox Entertainment Chairman Peter Liguori. "The audience always comes first." Now, this might even be true, but it's surely good gamesmanship, standing as it does in contrast to the grinningly craven claim Les Moonves had made for CBS the day before: "Advertising is our first and foremost priority."
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StumbleUponLiguori also said, "We're the rebel innovators," backing up the boast by announcing the advent of a new scheme called "remote-free TV." The network will debut two flashy new shows in the coming year—J.J. Abrams' sci-fi thriller Fringe (FBI babe, team of father-son tech geniuses, gruesomely weird science) and Joss Whedon's brainwashing action drama Dollhouse (Beyond the Valley of the Manchurian Stepford Wives)—and those will air with "half the commercial breaks." The ad buyers I talked to were highly intrigued by this experiment and somewhat skeptical of it, torn between, "Hey, whatever works!" and "Huh?!?"
Feelings about the new comedies were less complicated. Do Not Disturb, set in a hotel with a sassy manager, an anorexic hostess, and of course an imbecile bellhop, looked unambiguously bad. Outnumbered, a life-with-kids comedy, looked like a smarter, cuter version of the kind of show ABC fails at regularly. The Family Guy spinoff The Cleveland Show looked exactly the bag of sporadically awesome postmodern rudeness everyone had expected while the animated teachers'-lounge comedy Sit Down, Shut Up failed to live up to everyone's impossibly high expectations for a new show by Arrested Development's Mitchell Hurwitz. Also, some of us think that the reality show Secret Millionaire—Oprah's Big Give meets Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed—will make a zillion dollars quite ostentatiously.
Fox again held its party in a tent at Wollman Rink in Central Park, and it was again off the hook—people dancing on tables by 8:30 p.m. and all of that—but also offered chances for reflection. After all, the value of such parties, as one media buyer charmingly slurred to me, was that "the programming gets socialized." The ad people chat about the clips they loved and hated and contrast the networks' strategies, and by the time everyone gets to the office on Monday, opinions have been synthesized and wisdom conventionalized.
Glancing at the laden buffet tables, I wondered whether it had been wise to eat sushi at the CW party the night before. (Can the fledgling network really afford such a bounty of truly fresh fish?) I also wondered what scandals the Fox party would yield this year. Would they build Fox's party-hearty brand image? And would they wreck any careers? By the time I left at 10 p.m., I'd heard 10 or 12 people independently mention the young woman who, some years ago, defecated in her white pants on Fox's dance floor. Amazing: She will never again work in the industry and yet is now essential to its legend.
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Remarks from the Fray:
I can't defend its artistic merits. I can't even begin to pretend that it adds to the social discourse. But, Lord help me, I find the show hilarious.
Sure, it's low humor. Very low. Pee jokes. Fart jokes. Booby jokes. Low, low jokes. But...low jokes done well.
And the cast? Well, say what you want to about Charlie Sheen in real life, he's fun as the douchebag straight man. Jon Cryer is an adept physical comedian. Never have humiliating injuries been funnier. Holland Taylor has always been able to play a strong woman and still be funny. Now, she gets to play the funny, strong mother from hell.
I've been a fan of Melanie Lynskey since she starred in Heavenly Creatures (check it out if you're a Peter Jackson fan). Her line reading are always unexpected, yet on the mark. Conchata Ferrell is a brilliant actress who manages to make a throw-way roll into something three-dimensional. And Angus T. Jones play one of the most realistic boys I've ever seen on TV.
So, is this great TV? It's not edgy in the modern sense. It's not one of the comedies of squirm (Arrested Development, The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm). And, as much as I like comedies of squirm, I don't want to see one on a Monday night. Mondays are hard. Most of us work because we have to. Going back to work after the weekend is hard. On Monday night, lots of us want to decompress. Squirmy comedies don't let that happen. They add pressure, and they seldom have any kind of satisfying resolution that would let the pressure off.
But Two and Half Men? There's something about laughing at really dumb shit - it's just relaxing. Kids get this. I think a lot of people do. Maybe that's why it's still a top 20 show after five seasons.
--DeaH
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(5/16)