Stories

It’s handy to have a superstar neighbor

Being nice to your neighbors is always important, we’re told.
But it’s especially important if your neighbor is Hollywood’s all-time box-office champion. That sort of explains why Harrison Ford has a supporting role (ahown here)n in “Shrinking,” the witty new Apple TV+ show.
“Harrison’s my neighbor and so I knew him a little bit …. He’s a good dude,” Bill Lawrence told the Television Critics Association, sounding fairly casual about living near Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / January 19, 2023

Stories

An old/new idea: a TV anthology

In the olden days, primetime TV wasn’t into binges or serials or tangled story lines.
Often, it had anthology series. Some had hosts – Ronald Reagan, Rod Sterling, Loretta Young, Alfred Hitchcock, Old Ranger – and some didn’t; most had stories that were quick and self-contained.
Now comes a nod to the past. “Accused” (shown here) debuts after football Sunday on Fox, then settles into its spot at 9 p.m. Tuesdays. Each hour offers a separate courtroom trial, with ample flashbacks.
“An anthology, to me, is the perfect antidote to … ‘bingeing,’” producer Howard Gordon said. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / January 18, 2023

Stories

“Weird, shrunk-in-dryer kid” became a star

PASADENA — On the way to becoming a TV star and producer, Melissa Rauch (show here) was strongly impacted by laundry appliances – twice.
Really. These days, she stars in the revived “Night Court” (8 p.m. Tuesdays, NBC, starting Jan. 17), a show she and her husband willed into existence, in the midst of a pandemic and a baby boom.
But long before that, there were times when she scrambled for comedy gigs. “There were stand-up nights in a laundromat,” she recalled. “People would be doing their laundry next to you.”
And much earlier, Rauch found herself being mocked for her height, or lack thereof. Her mother’s suggestion was to have fun with it; they concocted a story: “I would tell people that I was playing hide-and-seek in the dryer and someone accidentally turned it on.” It was a clever notion that, alas, backfired: “Now I was the weird kid who shrunk in the dryer.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / January 16, 2023

Stories

Basketball bounced him toward “Will Trent” stardom

These days, Ramon Rodriguez’s world is all about crimesolving.
On “Will Trent” (shown here), at 10 p.m. Tuesdays on ABC, he stars as a cop with many minuses – dyslexia, rough childhood, stern surface – and one great plus: He seems to see everything, listen to everyone.
“I wanted him to be a believable, multi-faceted man,” novelist Karin Slaughter said. Many readers “really love him and think he’s sexy, … because he listens to women.”
But for years, Rodriguez’s life had nothing to do with this. “I didn’t want to be an actor …. Basketball was my biggest passion,” he told the Television Critics Association. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / January 12, 2023

Stories

A surgeon’s life takes a witchly turn

Rowan Mayfair has a mixed life – empty at home, busy at work.
She’s a gifted neurosurgeon, navigating a hospital filled with male egos. She doesn’t need any complications, but now there’s one more: She’s a witch who can inadvertently kill with her mind.
All of that happened in the opener of “Mayfair Witches” (shown here with Alexandra Daddario), available on AMC+. The second episode (10 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15, on AMC and AMC+) takes it from there.
Lots of TV characters seem to find they are witches or werewolves or such. Most are young, their lives in flux anyway; author Anne Rice changed that when she created Rowan. “She’s been a good girl for her whole life,” said Esta Spalding, co-creator of the eight-week series. But then she finds “that other side of her, which is powerful and potentially destructive.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / January 11, 2023

Stories

From “Trek” to “Grease,” Paramount+ mines its past

If you want to start a big-time streaming service, here’s a tip: It helps to have a movie studio.
That’s what Disney+ and HBO Max do. They have treasure hunts through the Disney and Warner vaults, finding films to re-make, revise or re-imagine. And lately, Paramount+ has done the same.
Once a modest streamer called CBS All Access, it has been renamed and re-vitalized, jumping from four million subscribers (four years ago) to closer to 50 million. At Television Critics Association sessions, it offered ambitious plans, many of them linked to past Paramount hits.
“Star Trek” has been a key. Paramount+ has launched two large series (“Discovery” and “Strange New Worlds” ), an intimate one (“Picard”), an animated one (“Lower Decks”) and “Short Treks.” Now the “Next Generation” cast is re-uniting on Feb. 16, for what will be the final “Picard” season – maybe. “There is still enormous potential for narrative, in what we’ve been doing,” said star Patrick Stewart, 82, (shown here with Levar Burton). “And there are doors left open.
Meanwhile, other shows are also being mined. There’s: Read more…

By Mike Hughes / January 10, 2023

Stories

“Alert” idea began with parental panic

For a TV writer/producer, this was a familiar moment.
Someone called, John Eisendrath said, and “wanted to pitch me an idea for a show. Usually, … I brace for a polite way of saying, ‘Thank you, but it’s a terrible idea.’”
Except, this one didn’t seem terrible at all. Now “Alert” (show here with Scott Caan and Dania Ramirez) has a two-night debut on Fox – 8 p.m. ET Sunday, Jan. 8 (after football) and 9 p.m. Monday (after the season’s second “Fantasy Island”). Read more…

By Mike Hughes / January 3, 2023

Stories

A real-life, cowboy-style judge? Reba portrays her

This sounds like a piece of Old West fiction.
A circuit judge travels empty stretches of Nevada. In county seats where the Earps once lived, she’s quick with her gavel and her voice; she also packs a pistol.
But this is true and it’s nowadays. Judge Kim Wanker has been nicknamed The Hammer; now Reba McEntire (shown here) stars in a vibrant cable movie (8 p.m. Jan. 7 and 10:03 p.m. Jan. 8) with that name.
“She is quite the character,” McEntire said of the real judge. “She’s amazing. She’s strong. Little, bitty gal. But what she does and how she stands up to people who have done other people wrong; she makes it all fair.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / December 29, 2022

Stories

It’s get-tough time for TV reality shows

Wednesdays, it seems, have become TV’s designated tough days.
This fall, “Survivor” and “Amazing Race” had ordinary folks facing extraordinary challenges. Now come two more shows; they overlap on Jan. 4, then share the night:
— CBS’ “Tough as Nails” is 9-11 p.m. the first week, then 10 p.m.. Regular folks – a carpenter, welder, firefighter, construction worker, etc. — face demanding, blue-collar tasks.
— Fox’s “Special Forces: The World’s Toughest Test”is 8-10 p..m. the first week, then 9 p.m. “It is actual Special Forces training, without votes, alliances or eliminations,” Dwight Howard (shown here, second from right) said in a Television Critics Association press conference. “You just have to survive.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / December 27, 2022

Stories

Dionne Warwick: decades of soaring pop songs

Dionne Warwick’s voice floats through large chunks of pop-music history.
She’s had about a dozen top-10 hits, spanning 23 years … plus 40-some other singles on the charts. She’s sung everywhere, done everything. But that’s just the start, Dave Wooley said.
“Dionne (shown here) is a genius,” said Wooley, writer and co-director of “Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over,” which debuts at 9 p.m.ET New Year’s Day on CNN. “And I don’t just mean a music genius.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / December 23, 2022