Lee Goldberg

The Invaders Have Been Defeated

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It looks as though all three of the "aliens invading" series launched this season have died. CBS cancelled THRESHOLD at midseason, ABC has reportedly cancelled INVASION, and the buzz is that NBC is scrapping SURFACE.

If ABC cancels COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF (which is likely), then none of their new dramas from last fall will have survived. But not all the news is bad for ABC’s 2005-2006 dramas… the network has reportedly renewed WHAT ABOUT BRIAN, the mid-season show from JJ Abrams. 

ABC’s new dramas for next fall include TRAVELER (about college students framed for a terrorist plot),  BROTHERS AND SISTERS (a new Calista Flockhart show), and MEN IN TREES (about a lady shrink who moves to Alaska).

And 7th HEAVEN may not be in TV heaven just yet…the rumor is that the entire cast is returning for 13 more episodes on the CW, which pay 20th Century Fox a $20 million penalty for failing to honor the WB’s  full season pick-up of REBA, a sitcom that skews too old and rural for the new network.

Deadwood Dead?

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Variety reports that HBO has let their contractual options lapse on the cast of DEADWOOD, which begins airing its third season in a few weeks. This decision frees the cast to pursue jobs elsewhere,  which strongly suggests that HBO has lost interest in a fourth season of the show before the third season has even aired.

HBO insisted that conversations about future
cycles of "Deadwood" are ongoing, and Milch told the Boston Globe in
the April 30 issue that he had always planned to exit the series after
the fourth season; he has been reported as saying that he’d envisioned
each season as a year, and the actual Deadwood camp was destroyed at
the end of four.

"If a series is successful, the commercial
interest is in keeping it on, even after the creative interest is in
ending it," Milch told the Globe. "With ‘Deadwood,’ my intention is to
end at the end of the fourth season. I can’t speak for anyone else, but
that’s where I’m getting off the bus."

Meanwhile, Milch is busy developing his HBO "surf noir" series with author Kem Nunn. I’ll be sad to see DEADWOOD go…it’s one of my favorite shows.

Manuscript from Hell

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Novelist PJ Parrish agreed to read a manuscript as a favor to a friend of a friend. The book is awful and there are a few things she’d like to say to the author:

Get out, now, buddy. Get out of any notion that you could possibly ever
succeed as a writer. Because you are tone-deaf to dialog, blind to
characterization, and utterly and completely unable to tell a basic
linear-plot story. Worse, you didn’t bother to learn a damn thing about
the craft that goes into fiction writing before you tried. You had the brass balls to think you could shortcut all that.

God, this just rots my socks, this whole idea that anyone can just
write a novel these days. I have had it with professionals who write
and think that just because their printer spat out 200 double-spaced
pages of typing, they have made the leap to professional writer.

But instead of saying that, she simply told the author she was too busy to read his manuscript after all. I’ve done that, too.

It’s even trickier when you’re asked to blurb a book… and you start reading and discover, for whatever reason, that you just don’t like it.  That’s happened to me a few times over the years.  In that situation, I politely decline to offer a blurb, saying something like "this book just wasn’t my kind of thing" or something else vague and non-judgemental.  Only a handful of authors whose work I read and declined to blurb have pressed me for specifics. And when they do, I give them the reasons I didn’t like their book — but I resent being put in such an awkward position (ie trying to be honest without hurting their feelings) simply because I did them a favor. It’s a no-win situation for me and they should know that.

“BJ Hooker”

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Variety reports that the life of singer/songwriter Billy Joel is being turned into BIG SHOT,  an hour-long episodic drama series for Showtime.  The first season will take place in the 1970s, tracking his career and his first marriage to his then-business manager Elizabeth Weber. The series will incorporate his songs and it’s promised that storylines will deal frankly with his subsequent marriages, car accidents, and alcohol abuse. 

This could be the beginning of a franchise for Showtime. If BIG SHOT works, you can count on seeing the series I WRITE THE SONGS (the Barry Manilow story) and SONG SUNG BLUE (the Neil Diamond story) real soon.

Pilot Pick-Ups

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TV Tracker, Variety and Nikki Finke are reporting several drama series pick-ups.

NBC has ordered HEROES (about ordinary people who have super powers), RAINES (Jeff Goldblum as a cop who speaks to the dead) and FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, based on the movie…

The buzzword at ABC next season is "intertwined." They’ve greenlighted JJ Abram’s SIX DEGREES (about the intertwined lives of several New Yorkers), NINE (about several people whose lives are intertwined after spending 52 hours as hostages in a bank hold-up) and DAYBREAK (about a cop falsely accused of murder who races against time to clear his name and prevent another killing…presumably, he will also become intertwined).

Stargate SG1-3

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TV Squad pointed me to this Multichannel News article about the business behind STARGATE SG-1, which is shooting it’s 200th episode…and is the springboard for a LAW & ORDER/CSI/STAR TREK-esque franchise for MGM and SciFi Channel. Already, the studio is planning a second spin-off series (in addition to STARGATE ATLANTIS) and a feature film. What nobody mentions in the article (or anywhere else) is how much of STARGATE’s enormous revenue is going to Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the writer/producers/creators behind the original 1994 movie that inspired the TV series.

Cherry Picking the Truth

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Reporter Nikki Finke nails the Los Angeles Times for not revealing key facts in their recent story about Cindy Garvey’s claim against studio chief Ron Meyer, who allegedly hired now-imprisoned celebrity private eye Anthony Pellicano to intimidate her into withdrawing claims of abuse.

Specifically, I have discovered that the newspaper chose not to publish
that Garvey has accused four ex-boyfriends of domestic violence against
her. In each case, her allegations of domestic violence took place
after the men had broken off their romantic relationships with her; her
charges were dismissed or recanted or not pursued by her or authorities.

Finke’s detailed investigation is pretty incendiary stuff. It will be interesting to see how, or even if, the Times responds.

TV Deja Vu…again

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Don’t the program execs at ABC talk to one another about their shows?

On BOSTON LEGAL, one of the female lawyers is falling in love with a client who is dying.  At the same time, over on GREY’S ANATOMY, one of the female doctors is falling in love with a patient who is dying.

On BOSTON LEGAL, one of the lawyers is seduced into bed by her ex-husband…0nly to find out the jerk is still married. At the same time, over on DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, one of the housewives is seduced into bed by her ex-husband…only to find out the jerk is still married.

This is the End

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Mark Evanier links to two TV critics and their lists of the Top Five Series finales of all time.  For me, the best would include MARY TYLER MOORE, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, NEWHART, THE FUGITIVE,  LARRY SANDERS,  M*A*S*H, THE PAPER CHASE and CHEERS.

My list of the worst finales would include SEINFELD, MAGNUM PI, MIAMI VICE,  FRIENDS, ST. ELSEWHERE, QUANTUM LEAP, NYPD BLUE and the two that MAGNUM PI had (the original,  which ended with Magnum getting killed… and the second,  after they talked Selleck into doing one more season, which  ended with Magnum getting married).

I’m a big TV geek, and a sucker for finales, but I’m not sure they are a good idea. Sure, you get a ratings pop, and they give audiences a chance to say goodbye to characters they love.  But I think one reason the majority of "final episodes" are mediocre at best is because most TV series, by their very nature, are intentionally conceived to be open-ended and run forever. How do you conclude something that was never designed to be concluded?

It’s one thing for Dr. Richard Kimble to finally be proved innocent, or for the castaways on LOST to finally discover what-the-hell-is-going-on. THE FUGITIVE and LOST are series built on ongoing quests for absolution and answers.  But do we really need to tie things up for private eyes, doctors, and homicide cops who we watch because we enjoy seeing them do their jobs?

In many ways, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND had the best finale of all — just another great episode.