Divine Intervention
What a difference a year makes. We're only a few days into the 2006, and already NBC is showing signs of coming back to life (at least creatively, that is).
As their first order of business in the new year, they took TV Boy's advice and re-established their Thursday night comedy block with My Name is Earl as its anchor. Earl is as unlike a typical NBC comedy as we've seen in a long time, and it's just the tonic that the network needs to re-establish its foothold on its most-important night. Ratings from week one are in, and the news so far is promising. Remember what I told you, NBC: patience is a virtue.
Then, with Earl firmly ensconced on Thursdays, they turned around and debuted this quirky little show called The Book of Daniel. For those of you who missed its debut last week, Daniel is the story of an imperfect Episcopalian priest named Daniel Webster (hence the title of this show) and his dysfunctional family: a wife who is very fond of martinis, a daughter who sells marijuana, a gay son who is only partially out of the closet, another son who believes himself to be God's gift to women, and... well, that's just for starters. Oh, and did I mention - one of the supporting characters is a young, long-haired dude by the name of Jesus Christ. Yes, that Jesus. Mr. Christ appears only to Daniel, usually riding shotgun while Daniel is out on the road. As you might imagine based on its description, conservative Christian groups are up in arms over this show, based solely on its description. I wonder if we'll ever see a day in which conservative Christian groups protest a television series or movie AFTER having seen it, rather than prejudging it? Yeah, right - and Best Buy is going to give me a FREE flat-panel plasma TV this afternoon.
Part Desperate Housewives, part Nothing Sacred, Daniel is an imperfect show that has a great deal of potential. Its first episode tried waaaay too hard to cram in waaaay too much information into the show, but hey, pilots are almost always over-stuffed with exposition; it's the nature of the beast. The show boasts a great cast, including Aidan Quinn as Daniel and Ellen Burstyn as Daniel's Bishop.
As is Earl, Daniel is another un-NBC-like show. And also as with Earl, Daniel is a very welcome and refreshing change from the formulaic fare to which NBC has subjected us, the viewers, over the past few years. It's been this formulaic fare that's landed the peacock in the Nielsen cellar, and if NBC hopes to break out of the television-ratings basement, then it needs to embrace and champion these non-formulaic types of new shows.
One week into the new year, and the verdict is: so far, so good, NBC. Keep up the good work.
An Early Goodbye?
Fox has pulled this Monday’s Arrested Development, and in its place scheduled a repeat of House.
This news is particularly disappointing in light of the fact that this Monday’s episode (one of the final few, by the way) was to have featured the highly-anticipated guest appearance by Justine Bateman (who, of course, is the sister of Arrested star Jason Bateman).
Is this the final curtain for Arrested on Fox? Sadly, it's looking that way. Showtime and ABC - we await your call.
As their first order of business in the new year, they took TV Boy's advice and re-established their Thursday night comedy block with My Name is Earl as its anchor. Earl is as unlike a typical NBC comedy as we've seen in a long time, and it's just the tonic that the network needs to re-establish its foothold on its most-important night. Ratings from week one are in, and the news so far is promising. Remember what I told you, NBC: patience is a virtue.
Then, with Earl firmly ensconced on Thursdays, they turned around and debuted this quirky little show called The Book of Daniel. For those of you who missed its debut last week, Daniel is the story of an imperfect Episcopalian priest named Daniel Webster (hence the title of this show) and his dysfunctional family: a wife who is very fond of martinis, a daughter who sells marijuana, a gay son who is only partially out of the closet, another son who believes himself to be God's gift to women, and... well, that's just for starters. Oh, and did I mention - one of the supporting characters is a young, long-haired dude by the name of Jesus Christ. Yes, that Jesus. Mr. Christ appears only to Daniel, usually riding shotgun while Daniel is out on the road. As you might imagine based on its description, conservative Christian groups are up in arms over this show, based solely on its description. I wonder if we'll ever see a day in which conservative Christian groups protest a television series or movie AFTER having seen it, rather than prejudging it? Yeah, right - and Best Buy is going to give me a FREE flat-panel plasma TV this afternoon.
Part Desperate Housewives, part Nothing Sacred, Daniel is an imperfect show that has a great deal of potential. Its first episode tried waaaay too hard to cram in waaaay too much information into the show, but hey, pilots are almost always over-stuffed with exposition; it's the nature of the beast. The show boasts a great cast, including Aidan Quinn as Daniel and Ellen Burstyn as Daniel's Bishop.
As is Earl, Daniel is another un-NBC-like show. And also as with Earl, Daniel is a very welcome and refreshing change from the formulaic fare to which NBC has subjected us, the viewers, over the past few years. It's been this formulaic fare that's landed the peacock in the Nielsen cellar, and if NBC hopes to break out of the television-ratings basement, then it needs to embrace and champion these non-formulaic types of new shows.
One week into the new year, and the verdict is: so far, so good, NBC. Keep up the good work.
An Early Goodbye?
Fox has pulled this Monday’s Arrested Development, and in its place scheduled a repeat of House.
This news is particularly disappointing in light of the fact that this Monday’s episode (one of the final few, by the way) was to have featured the highly-anticipated guest appearance by Justine Bateman (who, of course, is the sister of Arrested star Jason Bateman).
Is this the final curtain for Arrested on Fox? Sadly, it's looking that way. Showtime and ABC - we await your call.
posted by TV Boy at 2:30 PM
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