My Secret Addiction

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Okay, I admit it. I can’t resist Frank Sinatra as private eye Tony Rome.  He made two movies about the Miami-based private eye,  TONY ROME and THE LADY IN CEMENT, and I love them both. They are based on books by Marvin Albert and owe, at least in the film versions, a large debt to John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels. Rome is an ex-cop who lives on a boat and barely scrapes out a living. I find it impossible to channel surf past either movie, even though I’ve seen them both a hundred times. The stories aren’t all that well-plotted, but there’s something about that Rat Pack take on the hard-boiled  detective that I find irresistable.  Now Hugo Montenegro’s soundtrack to LADY IN CEMENT is out on CD.  I bought it as fast as I could click. Like I said, it’s an addiction.  I’m even easy prey for Sinatra’s other cop movies — THE DETECTIVE, CONTRACT ON CHERRY STREET, and the awful SEVEN DEADLY SINS.  Is there any hope for me?

PS – They tried to turn TONY ROME into a TV series. Twentieth Century Fox did a short demo film/pilot that never aired called NICK QUARRY.  Jerry Goldsmith did the music, which is terrific and has been released as bonus material on his STRIPPER soundtrack  CD.

A sample of the NICK QUARRY theme is posted on the BuySoundtrax site, but you can listen to it here:

Download nickquarry33.ram

The WB Schedule

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The WB announced their schedule today. The highlights: Don Johnson returns to primetime as a lawyer in JUST LEGAL and director David Nutter continues his amazing winning streak — his pilot SUPERNATURAL made it on the sked. Out of 11 pilots he’s shot, 11 have sold. Midseason shows include BEDFORD DIARIES, a series about sex educators at a NY college, comes from HOMICIDE & ST. ELSEWHERE writer/producer Tom Fontana.

You can find the complete schedule, as reported by TVTracker, on the jump.

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Forgetable Finales

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There have been a lot of final episodes this season — NYPD BLUE, JAG, ENTERPRISE and EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND — and they have all shared several things in common: they were boring, bland, and truly anti-climactic. It was as if the writers were making a conscious effort not to tie things up in a meaningful and emotionally-resonant way. Or simply didn’t want to make the effort.  None of these finales came even close to matching the impact of the last episodes of  shows like THE FUGITIVE,  LARRY SANDERS,  MARY TYLER MOORE, MASH, CHEERS, NEWHART, STAR TREK: TNG,  ST. ELSEWHERE,  THE FUGITIVE, DALLAS, WHO’S THE BOSS,  THIRTYSOMETHING,  BUFFY, HOMICIDE, THE ODD COUPLE, or even FRIENDS.

Granted, there have been stinker finales before (MIAMI VICE, HILL STREET BLUES, MacGYVER, DESIGNING WOMEN, HAWAII FIVE -O, COSBY, MAGNUM PI, SEX AND THE CITY, SEINFELD, QUANTUM LEAP, MURPHY BROWN, NORTHERN EXPOSURE, etc), but at least they made an effort at leaving viewers with something special. 

If  the writer/producers aren’t going to bother doing something really terrific with their final episodes, then how about this: Don’t do one. 

Maybe we should go back to the way things used to be, when most shows didn’t do final episodes, even if they knew the ax was about to fall. 

GUNSMOKE never had one. Neither did BONANZA, STAR TREK, MURDER SHE
WROTE, MARRIED WITH CHILDREN, LOST IN SPACE, THE ROCKFORD FILES,
MAVERICK, THE BRADY BUNCH, MANNIX, I LOVE LUCY, to name a few. 

In a way, not doing a wrap-up episode makes sense. Most series are designed to be open-ended, to go on forever. Isn’t that how we really want to remember our TV characters, living on as we remember them best? 

Do we really need, when the time comes,  "Final Episodes" of  LAW AND ORDER, ER, ACCORDING TO JIM, CSI, GROUNDED FOR LIFE,  CROSSING JORDAN and TWO AND A HALF MEN?

Royalty Reality

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For all of you dreaming of becoming the next John Grisham or Alice Sebold with your first novel, here’s a jolt of reality:  UK author Amanda Mann posts the details of her latest royalty statement and it’s sobering. And the performance of her first two books is far more typical than you might think.  (Thanks to Lynn Viehl for the heads-up)

The ABC Schedule

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TVTracker reports that ABC has announced their fall schedule. BLIND JUSTICE and EYES are among the notable, though not surprising, cancellations. Hitmaker JJ Abrams two pilots, THE CATCH and PROS AND CONS failed to make the sked, despite the success of LOST and ALIAS. But the influence of LOST is certainly reflected on the new schedule. Like NBC’s new roster, there’s quite a few new "speculative" fiction shows on tap, including a reimagining of THE NIGHT STALKER (from X FILE’s alum Frank Spotnitz) and INVASION, a Shaun Cassidy-produced series about aliens who secretly arrive in the Everglades in the midst of a terrible storm and a Park Ranger’s efforts to unlock the mystery.  Other new series include COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, about the first female President, from writer-director Rod Lurie.

In addition to the new fall series,  Zap2it reports that ABC has picked up several series for midseason: Additional Series
Orders: CRUMBS, THE EVIDENCE, IN JUSTICE, LESS THAN PERFECT, THE MIRACLE
WORKERS, SONS & DAUGHTERS.

Both "The Evidence" and "In Justice" reflect ABC’s aspirations to land a
strictly procedural hit, the network’s equivalent of a "CSI" or "Law &
Order." In "The Evidence," an eclectic cast — featuring Orlando Jones, Martin
Landau and Nicky Katt — solves crimes by putting together an assortment of
evidence that the audience has already seen. "In Justice" follows a lawyer (Kyle
MacLachlan) and an investigator (Jason O’Mara) struggling to get innocent people
out of prison.

On the comedy side, Fred Savage ("The Wonder Years") is back in "Crumbs,"
about two estranged brothers forced to reunite to take care of their deranged
mother and run the family business. Things remain in the family on "Sons &
Daughters," a semi-improvised look at grown-up siblings, executive produced by
Lorne Michaels ("Saturday Night Live").

Following in the footsteps of this season’s alternative programming successes
like "Supernanny" and "Wife Swap" and the emergence of "Extreme Makeover: Home
Edition," ABC will also have "Miracle Workers," a reality show about doctors who
perform revolutionary procedures on regular people, ready for midseason.

The new schedule is on the jump.

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LitBlog Coop Controversy

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Publisher’s Marketplace reports that the Litblog Co-op (which includes our friends Sarah Weinman and Mark Sarvas) is generating controversy with their first "Read This" pick, Kate Atkinson’s novel CASE HISTORIES.

In initial"comments" posted by blog readers, at least a few express disappointment with what one co-op member acknowledges was the "biggest" of the five nominated books. Atkinson’s book, published here last fast fall, registered widely within
the mainstream reviewing circles to which the lit-bloggers want to offer an alternative. Our own Book Review Index has logged 18 full-length reviews from top newspapers–almost all quite enthusiastic.

As one poster remarks: "You say yourselves that the LBC’s purpose is to draw attention to ‘the best of contemporary fiction, authors and presses that are struggling to be noticed in a flooded marketplace.’
So how does this novel qualify? It seems like a middlebrow cop out." Another reader concurs with the sentiment: "Nothing against Kate Atkinson, but a Whitbread Award Book of the Year winner whose latest novel is being published by Little, Brown hardly seems to be a choice in keeping with the spirit of the LBC’s self-imposed mission."

My brother Tod Goldberg says it’s definitely the "in" book right now.

I’ve heard lots of good things about this book and may have already told more
important literary types at cocktail parties and readings that I’ve already read
it and simply adored it and was seriously considering sending the author a fan
letter, but the fact is I haven’t, though I intend to.

People on Tod’s blog are hotly debating the choice as well. The gist of the argument is, since the book is already generating a lot of attention, did it really need help from the Litblog Coop? Should the LitBlog Coop have gone further afield and picked a book that’s struggled for  attention? Author Lynn Viehl, for one, thinks so:

Now, I’m a little slow, and kinda confused, so maybe one of you nice
people will explain this to me. We’re supposed to be getting the skinny
on struggling writers, books and presses from the LBC, correct? Um, how is Kate Atkinson struggling, exactly?  Did she like blow all her Whitbread prize money?

Based on the backblog debates on the various blogs, it seems the LitBlog may have stumbled out of the gate with this choice, but the judges are defending their pick. Mark Sarvas says:

Remember, we never said "unknown" fiction … Worthy is the goal, and besides if
we’d have picked some obscure, experimental novel, we’d be pilloried for being
pedantic and elitist.  We only means you can’t please everyone and we’re not
even trying.  We’re confident that those who check out Case Histories
will be glad they did, and the ones who knew it already have future choices to
look to (including the other four summer nominations).

What do you think? Did The LitBlog undermine their own highly-publicized intentions with their first "Read This!" honoree?

Wasserman has Left the Building

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Mark Sarvas at The Elegant Variation talks about editor Steve Wasserman’s era at the LA Times Book Review…and where he went wrong.

The core problem with Steve Wasserman’s tenure as editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review was writ large in his answer to a question I put to him at the recent Los Angeles Festival of Books. I used the occasion of the "Celebrating the Book Review" panel to inquire about LATBR’s propensity for tedious reviews. Wasserman
responded that tedium was in the eye of the beholder, and the piece
that he’d been proudest of running was a "6,000 word essay on the
Spanish Civil War untethered to any existing book."It
is unlikely that most readers of the Book Review – a rapidly
diminishing pool, if my anecdotal evidence is any guide – shared his
delight.

The rest of Mark’s ruminations are worth reading…especially for any candidates up for Wasserman’s job.

Is Richard Wheeler Killing The Western?

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…well, Richard Wheeler thinks so.

So, here I am, writing stories that wreck the genre. Can anyone doubt
it? Soon after I published my first novels at Doubleday, its western
line expired. Soon after I published my novels at Walker and Company,
its western line died. Soon after I published my westerns with M. Evans
and Company, its western line faded away. Soon after I published my
novels with Fawcett and then Ballantine, their western lines croaked.
Soon after I published my sole novel with Bantam, its western line
(except for L’Amour) faded into the sunset. Soon after I published the
last of my novels with NAL, its western line began to wind down. I
understand that soon after my last Pinnacle novel is published, its
western line will be planted in a grave. That leaves only Forge, and
its line is fading fast.

He says he’s done it by writing what the readers don’t want.

My publishers have responded by plastering a cowboy with blazing
sixguns on the covers of many of my novels to conceal the heresies
within the covers, but it did little good. My loose literary ways
trumped the orthodoxies of the western genre, and eventually laid the
genre in its grave, though there is still some residual western fiction
showing up.

His lengthy essay on Ed Gorman’s blog will make you want to go out and read all of his westerns.

Temperance Brennan Comes to TV

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TVTracker reports that FOX has picked up a series version of Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan novels… in a way. The series is actually a blend of the books and the true story of Reichs herself who, like her heroine, as a forensic anthropologist. There have also been a few other creative tweaks made by writer/producer Hart Hanson.  Here’s the logline from TVTracker:

Network: FOX
Genre: Drama
Title: BONES
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Television
Commitment: Series Pick Up (13 Episodes)
Auspices: Hart Hanson
(EP, W-Pilot), Barry Josephson (EP N/W), Kathy Reichs (EP N/W), Greg Yaitanes
(D-Pilot)
Cast: Jonathan Adams, David Boreanaz, Michaela Conlin, Emily
Deschanel, Eric Millegan, TJ Thyne
Logline: When law enforcement calls upon Dr. Temperance Brennan and her team of scientists to assist with murder investigations, she often finds herself teamed with Special Agent Seeley Booth,  a former Army sniper whose mistrust of science and scientists leads them to clash both professionally and personally while solving the toughest cases in the
new one-hour drama BONES.

The NBC Schedule

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Here’s the new NBC schedule, as circulated by TVTracker.  CROSSING JORDAN continues to hang-on, against all odds, but you’ll notice  the schedule doesn’t include LAW AND ORDER: TRIAL BY JURY. Maybe three branded spin-offs is all viewers can handle. Other cancellations include MEDICAL INVESTIGATIONS (which started out hot but faded fast), LAX, THIRD WATCH, HAWAII and AMERICAN DREAMS. SCRUBS and FEAR FACTOR have been held back until midseason.  For more details on the new shows, check out Zap2it.

UPDATE: Dick Wolf isn’t very happy about L&O:TBJ getting the ax. He tells Variety that he’s
"extremely upset and disappointed."

"I
find the decision inexplicable, and frankly, inconceivable," Wolf said
Friday, working on the assumption that the fourth flavor of his
"L&O" brand was dead.

Peacock brass still weren’t saying anything about the show Sunday.

Wolf
said he was "enormously proud" of "TBJ," noting that the casting of
thesps such as Candice Bergen, Annabella Sciorra and Lorraine Bracco
made the skein "A-level television."

"It was a good show. It was the exact formula that made the brand so valuable," he said.

While
there’s no doubt "TBJ" was far from an instant hit, it’s worth noting
that all of the "L&O"-branded skeins have been relatively slow
starters.

The schedule follows on the jump.

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