Mike Hughes on TV

The season-finales are piling in now, with "Glee" as one of the first. That's Thursday; here's the story I sent to papers: 

By MIKE HUGHES

In the expanse of TV history, “Glee”
is still a newcomer. On Thursday, it concludes its fourth season;
that's only halfway to matching “Midwestern Hayride.”

Still, some young viewers sort of take
it for granted. Darren Criss, who plays Blaine, heard one teen refer
to “the pre-'Glee' era.”

This fourth season may end with fewer
shell-shocks than the previous ones. There's no graduation, no
national finals. This is merely the regionals, alongside personal
crises – Rachel's Broadway audition ... Blaine's possible proposal
to Kurt … Sue's joblessness … and Ryder's ongoing attempt to
learn the identity of his Internet love.

“This does reflect real life,” said
producer Dante Di Loreto. “People's lives move on.”

And new actors keep joining a show they
used to watch in their childhood homes. Consider:

– Blake Jenner recalls being nudged
by his brother to watch the show. “He was just like, 'You have to
watch this with me, because it's the best show ever and I can totally
see you on it.'”

– Chord Overstreet was in a bigger
family scene. “I have four sisters and they were all just like in a
trance in front of the TV and I walked in …. I was like, 'Well,
what's “Glee?”'”

By the second season, Overstreet was a
regular as Sam. Two years later, Jenner became Ryder after winning
the “Glee Project” reality show.

His arrival this season came at a time
of churn. “Glee” added Jacob Artist and Melissa Benoist as Jake
and Marley, while moving some main characters – Rachel, Kurt and
Santana – to New York. “The show has blossomed creatively this
year,” Di Loreto said, “being able to travel back and forth
between New York and (Ohio).”

It will have to keep doing that,
whenever the next graduation happens; key characters – Artie,Tina,
Brittany, more – are high school seniors.

They were all there at the start of
this “era,” when TV changed a tad. “This show touched a nerve
with a lot of people,” Di Loreto said. “It made it OK to be who
you are, to be an outsider.”

That included kids who are more
interested in music and dance than in sports. The actors relate to
that:

– “I actually grew up as a dancer,
so the arts have kind of always been big to me,” Artist said.

– “('Glee') was something to
identify with (as) a musical-theater nerd in high school,” Benoist
said.

She grew up watching musicals and
“Mickey Mouse Club” reruns with her grandmother, then was
enchanted by the “Chicago” movie. “I wanted every movie after
that to be a musical.”

But musicals on TV seemed unlikely …
until “Glee” showed anything is possible. It's a show, Di Loreto
said, “about hope, about finding your place in life. (It's) a
really optimistic world view.”

– “Glee” season-finale, 9 p.m.
Thursday

– Follows the “American Idol”
that announces the show's finalists

On the day after her despondent
departure from “American Idol,” Amber Holcomb was cheery again.

The tears were gone and a suitcase
crisis had been solved. She heads into the world with an abundance of
optimism and shoes.

“I see myself in magazine, on
billboards, on television, all that good stuff,” she told reporters
today (Friday).

Holcomb was in a year overloaded with
diva power. On Thursday, she learned that she is going and the others
– Candice Glover, Angie Miller and Kree Harrison – are staying.

She tried to keep smiling, but failed
when the “Gone” departure song began. “That always gets to me
…. My dad was crying and then it was, 'Oh my, I have to sing now.'”

By the next day, however, the
enthusiasm was back: “I want to be in movies, commercials,
runways.”

When asked, she offered quick
suggestions for the show:

– Have a second-chance season for
people who almost won. Such as? “Joshua (Ledet) …. I guess
Jennifer (Hudson) wouldn't do it; she's a big star …. Jessica
(Sanchez) …. Me.”

– Make categories more flexibile.
“Songs from 2013” is tough when you're four months into the year.

There was another crisis to deal with –
getting her stuff back home to Houston. “In all my spare time, I
get shoes,” Holcomb said. “Then wardrobe gives us shoes.”

The problem was averted, she said, when
Harrison loaned her a suitcase.

Now Holcomb can focus on performing in
the May 16 finale, the 40-city tour and beyond. “Expect great
things from me,” she said.

Many people find adventures to be great, as long as they're confined to movie theaters, TV sets or the bedroom. They do NOT want eating to be adventurous.

Then there's Anthony Bourdain, who makes everything -- including dinner time -- a grand adventure. His latest show has already been renewed for the fall, halfway through its first season. Here's the story I sent to papers; also, please check the previous blog on this weekend's Gordie Howe movie:

By MIKE HUGHES

Bizarre pleasures have passed before
Anthony Bourdain's eyes and into his stomach.

He's been to odd places, eaten odd
things. Yet, it's tough to top a recent surprise: Inside an
ice-fishing shack was a full French dinner, on fine china. “It was
very strange and very wonderful,” he said.

That's in a CNN series – just renewed
for next season – that follows the chef-author around the globe.
Previous hours ranged from Myanmar (formerly Burma) to Colombia; the
next one takes him to Quebec, including that fishing shack, for
French food … which is really how this all started.

Flash back 47 years, to when Bourdain
was 9. He was with his family aboard the Queen Mary and largely
disinterested … until he tried vichyssoise. For the rest of the
European vacation, he devoured French food with increasing glee. “It
was the type of experience that resonates,” he said.

This was a family – French roots on
his father's side, Russian-German on his mother's – with a passion
for worldly food and stories. “It was a house full of books,”
Bourdain recalled. “My parents read a lot; my dad would read me
'Wind in the Willows' or Robin Hood.”

There were movies – Mel Brooks and
Alec Guinness and such – that further stirred his mind. “Being a
little narcissistic, I could go escape and play and pretend
anything.”

Many people outgrow playfulness;
Bourdain didn't. A privileged education – private school, Vassar
College – was scuttled. “I was a thoroughly undisciplined young
man,” he once wrote, “blithely flunking or fading out of college
…. I spent most of my waking hours drinking, smoking pot and doing
my best to amuse, outrage, impress and penetrate anyone silly enough
to find me entertaining.”

Many people did; 6-foot-4, handsome and
witty, Bourdain had a busy social life. He only lasted two years at
Vassar, but he had found his place working summers in Cape Cod
kitchens; next came the Culinary Institute of America and then New
York restaurants.

The front of a restaurant may be
elegant, he said, but the back is something else. Kitchen people tend
to be blue-collar, independent “and sensualists”; they can be
rogues and rock 'n' rollers.

Their world was unknown … until he
described it in a New Yorker piece and a book.

Bourdain was confident he could write –
his mother was a New York Times copy editor – and could engage
people. “I knew I was an entertaining storyteller;” he said. “I
could make people laugh. But I thought this was a niche-market
book,” mostly aimed at chefs and New Yorkers.

Instead, “Kitchen Confidential”
(2000) became a best-seller. Publishers Weekly called it
“surprisingly beautiful” and New York magazine called it “utterly
riveting.” There have been 10 more books, and even a situation
comedy – Fox's “Kitchen Confidential” in 2005 – that had
Bradley Cooper, later proclaimed “the sexiest man alive,” playing
a chef designed after Bourdain.

Now Bourdain is a New York chef and a
TV traveler, eating everything without being judgmental (“I'm not a
food critic”) or gaining weight. “I don't snack; if I eat a big
meal, … it's the only one of the day.”

His first two series were on the Travel
Channel; then, Bourdain said, CNN contacted him. It was a logical
link: “After they've been in Libya and Iraq, they won't object if I
go to Colombia.”

The link has worked. For the time slot,
CNN says Bourdain has doubled its overall ratings and quadrubled its
audience ages 25-54. It has already renewed the show for a new season
begnning Sept.15, ranging from India to Sicily.

And yes, he sometimes stay home and
cooks for the family. His wife, .a jiu-jitsu fighter, eats virtually
no carbs; their daughter, 6, helps cook. “She loves standing on a
chair next to me, making omelets.” Chances are, those aren't times
when he tells his epic stories of the drug culture and the sex
revolution.

– “Anthony Bourdain: Parts
Unknown,” 9 p.m. ET Sundays, CNN, preceded by a rerun at 8

– May 5 has Colombia at 8 p.m. and
Quebec at 9; those two repeat at midnight and 3 a.m.; other reruns
include 11 p.m. Fridays and 9-11 p.m. Saturdays. Previous Bourdain
shows rerun on Travel Channel.

– Four new episodes remain this
season – Tangier, Libya, Peru and the Congo

I must admit that I've never completely understood hockey. I've never known why they let a big man stand in front of a small net, stopping the puck from getting by; that is, I feel, the reason scores are so low.

Still, I do understand "Mr. Hockey," the new cable movie about the astonishing year in which Gordie Howe first skated on a big-league team with his sons. Here's the story I sent to papers:

By MIKE HUGHES

On a slab of Texas ice, the Howes
resisted the limits of hockey and humankind.

A father and his two sons played
together, on a major-league team. Mark and Marty, still teen-agers,
seemed a little too young; Gordie, 45, seemed much too old.

The result? They won two straight World
Hockey Association championships; Gordie was named most valuable
player and continued for six more seasons;attitudes toward aging
changed a tad.

Now, 40 years later, that's a cable
movie. “I get to incorporate my two loves,” said Michael Shanks,
42. They are:

– Acting. Shanks – a star of the
three “Stargate” series – digs into the subtleties of a man who
kept a stoic exterior. “It's a great character to play …. You can
sort of mine the deep waters.”

– Hockey, which Shanks once obsessed
on. He is, after all, Canadian.

Shanks was born the year his home town
of Vancouver landed an expansion team in the National Hockey League.
He turned 3 during the first season (1973-74) that the Howes played
for the Houston Aeros in the almost-new WHL and remembers his dad
pointing to the old guy on the TV screen. “I was going, 'Why is he
still playing?'”

Howe was playing because the skills
were still there. In the NHL, he'd been scoring leader four times and
most valuable player six times, leading the Detroit Red Wings to four
Stanley Cup championships. He tried a front-office job, but didn't
like it; the film focuses on his first year playing with his sons.

As for Shanks, he did well as a
defensiveman in the junior hockey leagues, but wasn't drafted. One
teammate, Dave Payne, was and later coached the St. Louis Blues;
others kept trying. “I decided to take the safer route,” getting
business and communication degrees in college.

He graduated in 1994, spent two summers
as a Stratford Festival intern and then landed his key role. As
Daniel Jackson – a brainy Egyptologist who sometimes doubled as an
action hero – Shanks spanned three “Stargate” series, over a
decade.

The shows filmed in Canada; so does his
“Saving Hope,” which is starting its second season on CTV while
looking for a new U.S. network, after a year on NBC. Shanks is the
rare Canadian who can stay in his home country, yet build a U.S.
career. He also could skate for the “Stargate” hockey team.

Or he did, at least, until family life
became more important. He's been married to Lexa Doig – another
Canadian sci-fi star, via “Andromeda,” “V” and “Continuum”
– for a decade; they have a daughter, 8, and son, 7. “I hadn't
even played a pick-up game for five years,” he said.

Then came the chance to transform into
Gordie Howe. Shanks – a former defensiveman, unaccustomed to
scoring and cheers – transformed into a scoring champion. That was
done with four quick weeks of training ... and with any camera tricks
needed.

“The beauty of doing this,” he
said, “is when I start a scene, I know Gordie is going to score. My
shot might be off, but it says is the script that Gordie scores. He
will.”

– “Mr. Hockey: The Gordie Howe
Story”

– 9 p.m. Saturday, Hallmark Channel,
repeats at 1 a.m.

– Also 9 p.m. Sunday

This will be an interesting TV week for the odd and (especially) the funny. My previous blogs look at the return of "Warehouse 13" on Monday (April 29) and the debut of Amy Schumer's show on Tuesday. And on Thursday comes a grand comedy convergence -- Bob Newhart on "The Big Bang Theory." Here's the story I sent to papers:

By MIKE HUGHES

Yes, TV keeps changing – wildly,
weirdly – over the years.

But when Bob Newhart visits “The Big
Bang Theory” Thursday, we'll be reminded of a basic fact: Many
viewers still like multi-camera situation comedies.

“That's the way all shows were done,”
Newhart said. “They were all in front of a live audience.”

From “I Love Lucy” and “The
Honeymooners” to “Seinfeld” and “Friends,” sitcoms used
three or four cameras to film live. “You learn what's funny from an
audience,” Newhart, 83, said “That's how we found Larry, Darryl
and Darryl. The audience loved them right away.”

Then everything changed. Today, the
majority of sitcoms have one camera (movie-style) and no audience,
allowing bigger plots and more sight gags. Some, led by “Modern
Family,” do it splendidly.

BUT … all six CBS sitcoms have a
studio audience and thrive. During a key February week, “Big Bang,”
“Two and a Half Men” and “Mike & Molly” were Nos. 1, 3
and 9 in the Nielsen ratings.

“I've known Chuck Lorre (who produces
all three) and we had discussed” a guest role, Newhart said. He
told Lorre he wanted a character that could return in futuree
episodes. Professor Proton was born.

Proton, we're told, was a long-ago TV
personality, sort of like “Mr. Wizard.” Sheldon and Leonard both
watched him as kids; now they hire him to perform.

“Big Bang” is taped in a studio a
few miles from where Newhart's show was done, he said, with a similar
audience set-up . “That was an eerie feeling.”

For Newhart, this sitcom thing happened
by accident. Back in Chicago, he'd been, among other things, an inept
accountant. “Everyone left at 5 o'clock and I was still trying to
figure out why there was a $1.28 discrepancy. So I'd just reached
into my pocket and made up the difference.

Fortunately, he had alternatives. He
became an ad-writer; he also made comedy tapes that he mailed to a
radio station. That led to an album, three Grammys and a short-lived,
1961 TV variety show. A decade later, his sitcoms began.

No, he didn't quite fit Hollywood.
“Newhart was probably the most 'normal' star of a sitcom I have
ever directed,” Alan Rafkin wrote in an autobiography (“Cue the
Bunny on the Rainbow,” 1998, Syracuse University Press).

Of course, the show-business standards
for “normality” may be fairly low. Newhart agreed that he might
be the sanest man in Hollywood – “and I'm certifiable.”

His low-key approach worked, at a
company (MTM) known for smart sitcoms. “The show became a favorite
of writers,” Newhart said. “They wanted to write for a show that
respected the audience's intelligence.”

Four Newhart sitcoms totaled 16
seasons, with seven of those seasons in Nielsen's top 20.

The last one ended 20 years ago, when
Newhart was at an age (63) when some people retire. Instead, he's
done supporting roles – “Elf,” several “ER” episodes and
“Librarian” films and more … including this visit to TV's
top-rated comedy.

Newhart also continues do stand-up. He
recalled one recent gig that went well; on the two-hour drive with
his wife of 50 year, he was cheery. “On the way home, I said, 'Why
would anyone want to stop doing that?'”

– “The Big Bang Theory,” 8 p.m.
Thursdays, CBS

– The Bob Newhart episode is May 2