I Feel Fine
The Daily Trade Round-Up / The TV Whore
June 11, 2008
Trade News | June 11, 2008 | Comments (82)
Welcome to Week One of the great moratorium. For the next month or so, I’m not going to talk about any law show, cop show or doctor show. And while I’m not sure I’ll be able to find much to talk about every week, I can’t say I much care. Because man alive, this feels fucking great. In fact, thanks to the moratorium, this may be the most positive Round Up I’ve ever written.
Take this for example — I dug on CBS’ “Cane” last fall, so I was admittedly bummed over its quick demise. Luckily, and unsurprisingly, it didn’t take Jimmy Smits long to land a new gig as he’ll be sprouting up on Showtime’s “Dexter” this fall, when we’re graced with Season Three. Smits is slated to play an assistant D.A. who is working with Dexter to find a murderer, and it sounds like it’ll be a decent-sized role given that he’s supposed to appear in all but two episodes. And yes, some asshole out there might try to argue that this is a violation of my moratorium, but if you want to argue that “Dexter” is really a procedural/cop show, you’ll be making the grandest of losing arguments. However, the moratorium totally applies to Billy Zane’s new show, Amber Tamblyn’s new show, and the show A&E greenlit starring Patrick Swayze, so let’s move on.
Speaking of Showtime, the network has made me oh so happy by picking up HBO’s discarded “Inside the NFL.” CBS Sports is teaming up with NFL Films to produce the show, which means the foursome of Dan Marino, Cris Carter, Cris Collinsworth and Bob Costas probably won’t be back as a group since three of them work with CBS competitors (as Marino is a CBS commenter, I suspect he will be part of the show, however). That’s a real bummer, and we’ll have to see who the new team is to find out how good this news truly is, although as long as the show still has the Harry Kalas-voiced recap clips, it’ll remain worth watching. And as it did on HBO, “Inside the NFL” will run Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. from the first week of the season through the Super Bowl.
Completing our trifecta of Showtime-related news, the cable network has given a 12-episode order to the Spielberg-produced “The United State of Tara.” The pilot of this half-hour comedy was written by Diablo Cody, who will stay on as a writer and executive producer. “Tara” stars the Toni Collette as a woman suffering from disassociative identity disorder (what the kids used to call multiple personality disorder). I don’t know much more about the show, except that it also features John Corbett as Collette’s husband, but I’ve got high-hopes for it, because Toni Collette just rocks.
“Dirt,” Courtney Cox’s tabloid magazine show over on FX, has been canceled.
…Eh.
In the good-casting news front, Ray Romano has signed Andre Braugher on for his TNT dramedy “Men of a Certain Age,” which will focus on three middle-aged friends. And Gary Cole has been cast in ABC’s “Good Behavior,” the Rob Thomas comedy also starring Catherine O’Hara about a family of criminals trying to make a straight go of things (a sort of “The Riches” Lite, I suppose).
In the “fuck you TBS” news front, this story was all over the interwebs last week, so you may have heard about it already. But if not, it seems that TBS has discovered a wonderful new way to force advertising on the viewers. Those fucking third-of-a-screen advertisements that many networks run during a show is apparently not satiating the network’s need, so take a gander at TBS’ attempted promotion method:
What. The. Fuck.
And I’ll leave you today with this gripping preview of perhaps the only way I could ever be excited about a John Travolta movie:
Seth Freilich is Pajiba’s television editor. If you’re looking for something to really occupy your TV time for the next couple of weeks, he highly recommends you get with the soccer program and watch yourself some Euro 2008.
Comments
Posted by: Cindy at June 11, 2008 8:49 AM
Toni Collette just rocks
Amen. I really want to catch this one. Since I don't have Showtime, I'll have to go the iTunes route, as with Dexter.
And as for the incomparable Andre Braugher; the idea of him setting foot onto a set with RR makes me want to cry. I refuse to further acknowledge such an abomination.