God Help Me: I'm Looking Forward To A Chevy Chase Project

The Least Exclusive Ever Called Exclusive

Over on the CBR front page:


Now, let's check the time-stamp in the story:

11:07 AM PST

That's 2:07 PM EST.

Now, let's check the time-stamp in the Willingham interview over on Newsarama:

1:21 PM EST

That's 10:21 AM PST.

So, not only was it NOT an exclusive interview, but it was posted as being exclusive after an interview with Willingham was already published on a competitor's site.

Jay Leno Weekdays @ 10pm?

According to the NY Times, Jay Leno will be seen at 10pm Eastern & Pacific every weeknight starting in 2009.

Ugh.

This basically means 5 less TV shows (scripted or "reality) a season. This means less slots for shows like LIFE, JOURNEY MAN and MY OWN WORST ENEMY to via for. I doubt that it means less derivative product (it won't automatically shrink the Law & Order franchise, for instance).

Less original product and less jobs.

Verily, this doth suck.

ABC Cancels Three Primetime Shows

ABC has announced, for all intents and purposes, that they have canceled Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone.

Both Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money were hurt by the WGA strike shortening their initial seasons. Dirty Sexy Money has had a very lackluster second season that couldn't seem to capture any of what it had going for it last year. Pushing Daisies started off slow this season but seemed to be hitting its creative stride in the most recent episodes. One of the problems for PD appears to have been an effects-heavy budget.


It is quite possible that, without the WGA strike, Eli Stone may have never gotten a shot at airing on ABC. It's break came from the fact that the networks had no remaining new episodes of the shows they originally intended for their line-up. Still, it might have gotten a chance as a summer program to see if it could find an audience.

I can't comment on the quality of Eli Stone, as I never wound up watching it. But, until Nikki Finke's editorializing, I heard only good things about the show and I have no doubt that Marc Guggenheim was putting together an excellent show.

Middleman Done?

IO9 has been checking up on the status of MIDDLEMAN and received the following response from Javier Grillo-Marxuach:

I don't think ABC Family is ready to throw in the towel just yet. They love, and — more importantly — own The Middleman. But I think it's fair to say that they aren't going to order any new episodes in the immediate future. Right now, we are all focused on closing a deal for a DVD set that will please the fans with a lot of bonus material, bring new viewers to the show, and secure the show's legacy and longevity. As was the case with shows like Firefly, and Family Guy, the sales of the DVD will truly be the barometer for the future of The Middleman.

I'll be buying the DVD set. Maybe even a few as gifts if I get myself a day job to replace the one that laid me off recently. Darn this economy...keeping me from supporting a good TV show as much as I want...

The Undying Tyler Perry Story

From the Philadelphia Tribune:

Reportedly, Perry’s attorney, Matt Johnson, said that the four were fired because of poor work performance. Griffin, Moore, Brown-Jackson and Ferrell had worked on more than 100 episodes of Perry’s series, now syndicated on FOX. The three remaining writers were asked to stay on, and two did.

“Up to that point, we wrote 100 episodes of ‘House of Payne,’ said Ferrell, who was fired on his 3 year-old son’s birthday. “The show won three Image Awards last year — one, for the best comedy on television, and we just had a ‘table read’ in Atlanta with Tyler Perry and the actors. We got a standing ovation on the scripts we wrote, and his exact words were, ‘These are golden!’ This was just a week ago. So that was just totally ridiculous and absurd that it was because of our work.

“And logically, it doesn’t make sense. You wouldn’t hire people and let them write 100 episodes for you … TBS was so pleased with the show that they gave him another 26 episodes. So he brings us back to write the rest of the 126 episodes. We wrote 16 of them, and then all of a sudden he’s not pleased with our work? That just doesn’t make sense.”

...

“The day after he fired us, they called the Writer’s Guild and wanted to go union,” Ferrell disclosed. “He fired us Monday, and wanted to go union Tuesday morning. So basically, he’s just throwing it in our face(s) saying, ‘OK. You guys brought this to me — trying to make me go union. So I’m going to go union so I can avoid all the flack, but I’m going to fire you, so you won’t receive any of the benefits from it.’”

Yeah, Perry and his lawyer seem to be doing a piss-poor job of making this go away.