Test Pilot: Viva Laughlin

CBS: "Swingtown" (midseason?). And can "Babylon Fields" be resurrected? I need Titus Pullo in my life every week.

NBC: "Journeyman" (because Vorenus will do, if Pullo's not around), "The IT Crowd"

Fox: "The Return of Jezebel James". Because it sounds like its protagonist is a porn star who likes alliteration. And I've loved Parker Posey ever since she graced a college Genetics textbook as an example of a widow's peak (a recessive trait, if I remember correctly).

ABC: "Pushing Daisies", because Bryan Fuller rules. And "Cavemen", because there's so much potential for snark in any review. Here's my attempt:

The bad news for CBS is its new comedy series "Caveman" isn't nearly as funny as the Geico commercials that inspired it.

The good news? I just saved a bundle on my car insurance.

Oops, meant to say Cavemen is on ABC. Although most of the people who watch CBS were actually around when cavemen walked the earth, so that could have worked.

@Jim: Swingtown is the single 2007-08 network show I want to see the most. Of course, CBS didn't send the pilot! Probably because the show is for midseason (ditto for The IT Crowd), although reportedly some of the affiliates are also nervous the show may just give the CBS audience a collective stroke.

That's too bad. I'm not liking this trend of networks saving their best shows for midseason. I know they're afraid of shows getting lost in the fall shuffle, but by midseason most people are already set in their weekly viewing patterns. Maybe I'm just bitter about Knights of Prosperity and Andy Barker, PI. But if you want to avoid the fall rush, why not jump-start a series in the summer when there's nothing else on, like Fox did with the first season of The OC?

@Jim: Mixed bag. The Office was midseason too, and I don't know if it would have been kept around had it started in the fall. (When instead NBC had the good sense to launch Joey!)

It may sound out of left field, but honestly: "K-Ville"

Simply put, I like Anthony Anderson, both as a comedic actor and as a serious one (if you missed his take on Suge Knight on The Shield, go buy the DVDs today), and am genuinely wondering how well he can pull off a recurring main role.

That, and I have absolutely no faith in the Sci-Fi based shows for this season. The exception is "Pushing Daisies", but as it will be canceled in a month and I'll have to buy the DVDs to see the unaired episodes, I see little point in getting excited now.

So, its unfortunate that you dont have the ABC screeners. I am in the process of watching them now and they seem the best of the bunch.

CBS, however, I do not have...so its good to see what you think of those.

I have watched most of the NBC screeners, except for Life...

I would love to know what you think of Chuck, which I loved and Bionic Woman, which I did not like, unfortunately.

So far, on ABC, Dirty Sexy Money rules...Cavemen sucks actually more than I expected, as did Carpoolers. Sam I am was surprisingly funny...and I thought Big Shots had potential, but some bad acting could hurt it.

Also, I liked Journeyman on NBC.

@Wayne: Just quickly about Chuck. I gave it a cursory watch, and I don't mean this necessarily as a bad thing, but didn't it strike you as something that might have been made as a syndicated or cable comedy-action show in the 90s? The sort of thin, far-fetched premise, good humor, etc. I'm thinking, like, She Spies. (Which I liked, so again, this is not meant as an insult.)

Actually, I might argue that, judging by the new NBC pilots, the line between an NBC show and a Sci Fi or USA network show has disappeared.

@James: Hmmm, possibly. I will say it has some similarities to a Monk or some such show on those networks, but that actually seems the trend not only on NBC, but ABC as well.

I am just finishing up Eli Stone at the moment. That, plus Pushing Daisies, also seems to lean in that direction. On NBC, that also seems the case with Bionic Woman (minus the humor) and Journeyman (which, again, I liked).

So, yeah, that line has blurred, but give Chuck another watch. I think its genuinely funny, has a pretty good premise so far, and the acting actually seems good as well. The comedic lines dont feel cheesy or forced in, as they do in Big Shots (which I still say may have potential, but has some problems.)

We really need to hear about Bionic Woman, James. For a reboot of a former franchise, it sounds like they've done an awesome job.

I also want to hear your thoughts about Life - I loved Damian Lewis from his work on Band of Brothers (honestly one of the best acting performances in HBO's history, and that's saying something), and think the show looks like a House-styled detective show.

And, of course, I want to hear about Pushing Daisies. Sounds just quirky enough to lure me into permanent obsessive fandom.

@Jim - I AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY! One of these days, a major network is going to realize "You know, if I just saved some of these "critically acclaimed-low audience" type shows for summer, I would dominate television for 3-4 months of the year." And don't tell me the audiences wouldn't be there - people love their television, and the reason audience share is down in the summers is because NOTHING NEW (or poor quality reality TV) is on. Look at USA - they've dominated the summer months by programming their original series there (Monk, Psych, the highly underappreciated 4400 and Dead Zone).

James - has any enterprising executive at a struggling network (Dawn Ostroff at CW? Currrently ratings challenged NBC?) considered going after the summer aggressively? I mean, if you know you're making quality shows (Veronica Mars, Friday Night Lights) that aren't getting watched during the year, why NOT use those shows to aggressively capture the less competitive summer months? I mean, there are MORE movies to market then (ad dollars), right? And a third of the year is a third of the year....sure the summer does not feature a sweeps period, but if your network dominates the summer, you gotta believe advertisers would start to take notice...

Plus, shows aired in the summer are just as eligible for Emmy nominations - which in turn drive viewer's opinions about perceived "quality" of the network and make them more willing to tune into to new shows on that network in general (i.e. I am impressed by Lost and Grey's Anatomy on ABC and their critical acclaim, and am thus more willing to give a chance to a show like Pushing Daisies - with its quirky premise - because it is on a network I feel creates quality television).

The CW putting Veronica Mars in the less competitive summer months might allow viewers (and Emmy voters) to see the Emmy-quality work of Kristen Bell, Enrico Colantoni, and the writers/directors. Ditto Friday Night Lights for NBC (thankfully back, but on life support in a Friday slot).

@chaddogg: as you hint at, not only does summer not have a sweeps period, it's not part of the official season, which means that your successes there don't count whatsoever (toward being the number-whatever network in name-your-desirable-demographic here). Yes, eyeballs are eyeballs, and maybe one could eventually persuade advertisers of that, but you'd have to decide to be the network that invests millions of dollars to effect a change that may or may not take. And the net audience is in fact smaller in summer, despite the cable hits and their (cable-sized) audiences. Yeah, maybe you could change that too. But are you going to be the guy who shells out all the dough to try to change those habits, or the guy who sits back and lets the competition try (and hopefully fail) for free?

So, a third of a year is a third of a year. Do you just spend 50% more on progamming to fill it? Or which other third of the year do you leave fallow to compensate?

Remember, it was just a couple seasons ago (post-O.C.) that Fox unveiled a "year-round strategy" that involved a full-fledged summer season. That lasted one year. Now, you might argue that a crop of shows better than Method and Red would have made a difference, but to Fox and their competitors, it was lesson learned.

But see, James, that's what I don't understand.

Okay, I'm a company looking to advertise - for sake of argument let's say a movie studio/distributor. Why would I base any advertising decisions on what network "won" 2/3 of the year? Wouldn't I be most interested in the network's numbers for the WHOLE year? And as a movie studio, wouldn't I be in PARTICULAR interested in what network "wins" the summer third of the year, since that's when my big movies/blockbusters are coming out?

I guess I just don't understand the TV market dynamic, but it seems to me that sellers (TV networks) are driving the market (i.e. deciding that you "win" as a network for 8 months of work as opposed to 12). I think the advertisers who place ad-buys year round should drive how television is assessed as a mechanism for delivering advertisements effectively. That would/should mean:

- Year round assessment of ratings
- Need to be competitive in all months
- Programming that would attract audiences at all times of the year for my ads.

I mean, imagine if Time magazine based its ad rates/circulation numbers on its sales from October-May, and all its competitors did the same thing. Why would any print advertisers put up with that? I guess I just see the advertisers as delinquent in not forcing a more "year-round" approach.

As for how to approach the summer, I guess I'd counter your argument by saying that right now, it seems networks are spending 7/8 or more of their budget from October-May, leaving 1/8 of the budget to program during May-October. While they used to be able to rely on reruns to both recoup costs and bring in decent (albeit lower) ratings during the summer months, the advent of TiVo, DVDs and video online on demand has weakened the power of reruns to be ratings retainers. To me, you should be splitting your budget into thirds, one for each third of the year.

Or, at least fill an hour a night during the summer, Sunday-Thursday, with original programming. To me, NBC would be the perfect network to do this - they have some successful (albeit tiresome) game shows (Deal or No Deal, 1-vs.-100) it could play somewhat year round in that 8-9 slot (perhaps alternating with its newsmagazines and Dateline: To Catch a Predator specials). During the summer, it could air original shows Sunday-Thursday at 9 (think Black Donnelly's for those that loved it, or Andy Barker P.I., etc., or Friday Night Lights if ratings continue to struggle during the year), and then do whatever it wants at 10 (i.e. whatever it's doing now.)

You're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-10 shows for the summer, to compete where no one else is competing during the biggest advertising months for movie studios when the weather in many parts of the country gets too hot to be outside of air conditioning anyways. You're telling me NBC (or any other network than Fox, who is run by dimwits given the cancellation of Arrested Development) couldn't make that work and "win" the summer? I mean, NBC could just buy Monk, 4400, Psych, and Dead Zone from USA and there is the start of the summer schedule....

@chaddogg,

In a sense you're preaching to the choir, as I'd like to see more quality summer TV and agree the ad structure can be irrational and slow to change. Just a few things:

* Keep in mind a lot of your tentpole "summer" movies are launching during or just after May sweeps. And almost all are launched by July 4. But point taken that money spends just as well in the summer.

* As I recall, Monk ran on ABC in the summer in, what was it, 2002? (Don't recall the reason, but was it a Touchstone production?) It did fine, but nothing spectacular. Point being that one can "win" an lightly contested night, but the calculation is, is the prize worth the expenditure?

And here I get off because I'm going to venture beyond my depth, but the current thinking is summer is worth more investment than it used to get, but not as much as the other seasons.

One more thing: it's not as if the networks aren't airing original programming in the summer. There are far fewer reruns on the air now. But as you allude to, it's largely cheaper reality or unscripted programming. FNL would still cost $2M an episode (or whatever) if aired in the summer--and my fear, as a fan of the show, is that it would get killed then. I mean Deal or No Deal doesn't suck any worse in the summer than any time of the year, yet even its ratings are lower.

So if you want to get a tune-in for top-shelf scripted shows in summer, you have to create the expectation, and habit, of watching them in the summer, and I'm not sure you can do that without a full slate of expensive programming. (The recent big summer hits have been self-starting watercooler shows like Survivor and American Idol. The OC did just fine for Fox, but it was not that huge.) And if your competitors are not doing the same, then you're still not creating the same expectation of quality programming that you have in the fall. Whereas if they do the same, suddenly, summer is no longer low-hanging fruit.

And one last "one more thing": Keep in mind that what you suggest (i.e., airing shows like Black Donnellys or Andy Barker that struggled in the regular season), the networks are doing now. Look at Studio 60. But because of that, summer gets labeled as "summer burnoff theater." To really make this plan work, you've got to launch the big buzzworthy shows you announce at upfronts--e.g., put Bionic Woman on the air now. If you save summer for what you anticipate will be your "challenging, critically acclaimed" shows, I again worry it becomes a ghetto where they go to die. I'm going to try to shut up now.

Just one more thought, though, on why a network might want to enter the fray alone for the summer months: launching a "watercooler" show.

Accepting that (for the foreseeable future, anyways) the fall-winter-spring is the focus of the TV calendar year, a smart (or smarter) network could aggressively attack the summer by ordering smaller runs (13 episodes?) of shows that are perhaps a little daring. In the void that is current summer scripted television, there is lower expectations and thus lower damage if a risky/daring show fails to pan out.

Put if one DOES pan out/explode into a phenomenon (think of something like 24, which no one thought was going to do well post 9/11, but became a major water cooler show - and yes I know it did not air in the summer, but hear me out), the network can quickly order new episodes for a mid-regular season (January or February) relaunch. Summer becomes the minor leagues of the other seasons - competition occurs with slightly lower (but still profit/advertising seeking) stakes, but if a show leaps out, it gets promoted to the big leagues.

24 might be the example of the kind of self-starter show that could take off in the summer, I guess--something that will generate buzz by having a hook or gimmick (remember how big a deal the real-time format was?) and thus really seems sui generis. Really, in that sense a show like 24 is exactly like a reality show: it's the out-of-the-box premise that does 90% of the work of selling it.

That would probably be more successful than having summer be the place where you launch your "indie movies" like FNL. And frankly, I don't have a problem with ceding those shows to cable in the summer. I'd rather have had Rescue Me debut in the summer on FX than on Fox, where it might have been just have good (if you could surmount the content issues) but would be canceled by now.

A) Chadogg is way cooler than I am.

B) In terms of requests, any of those "immortal/undead/vampire/eieio" cop shows would be great. It's my not-so-secret weakness, and the immortal/undead/vampire genre just hasn't been the same since Highlander, Forever Knight, and Brimstone had their last fling in the (metaphorical) sun.

And the one I really want to see (Blood Ties) is only playing Lifetime, darn it.

@pop/girl

CBS sent only a trailer of Moonlight. (Always an outstanding sign!) The Fox upfront trailer of New Amsterdam left me completely unmotivated to watch it, but I'll rouse myself at some point.

pop/girl - you are far too kind....

http://www.wcsc.com/home/7631946.html

Viva Laughlin, where drama is accented by iconic music;

Executive produced by Tony and Emmy Award winner Hugh Jackman ("The Boy from Oz," "X-Men"), VIVA LAUGHLIN is a mystery drama with music about eternal optimist and freewheeling businessman Ripley Holden, whose sole ambition is to run a casino in Laughlin, Nev. Occasionally using upbeat contemporary songs to accentuate the drama and humor and advance the story, the series is based on the hit BBC show "Viva Blackpool." Ripley (Lloyd Owen, "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles") is the ultimate gambler with an infectious personality who is on the brink of making a killing… just as soon as he opens his casino that's nowhere near completion. When his financing suddenly falls through, the fearless and tenacious Ripley approaches his enemy — dashing, sarcastic, wealthy casino owner Nicky Fontana (Hugh Jackman) for help.

Though the odds are stacked against him, Ripley doesn't miss a beat, even when he becomes embroiled in a murder investigation after the body of his ex-business partner is found at his club. At home, Ripley uses his dry wit to adjust to the demands of his family: his gorgeous wife, Natalie (Madchen Amick, "ER"), wants more attention; his teenage daughter, Cheyenne (Ellen Woglom, "The O.C."), wants his approval; and his son, Jack (Carter Jenkins, "Surface"), wants to help him at work.

All of this adversity would defeat a lesser man, but for the outgoing and passionate Ripley there's no such thing as bad news, only deals to be struck and wagers to be won in the intoxicating neon glow of Laughlin, where the cards are on the table, romance is in the air and lively music is on the stage. Eric Winter ("Wildfire") and D.B. Woodside ("24") also star. Directed by Gabriele Muccino ("The Pursuit of Happyness"). Golden Globe Award nominee Hugh Jackman, John Palermo ("X-Men: The Last Stand"), Bob Lowry ("Huff"), Paul Telegdy and Peter Bowker ("Viva Blackpool") are executive producers for BBC Worldwide Productions, Seed Productions, CBS Paramount Network Television in association with Sony Pictures Television.

http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=1&article=36529

Nine signs up with Sony

Nine Network in Australia has signed a five-year output deal with Sony Pictures Television International, giving the network access to shows such as Hugh Jackman's Viva Laughlin until 2012.

Jeff Browne, executive director of Nine, said the deal was the network's most significant in terms of securing

"It complements the fact that Nine is producing more quality Australian content than any other network, and this week sees the launch of Sea Patrol starring Lisa McCune, the biggest budget new Australian drama," he said.

The network said the combined strength of its local and overseas programming commitments is what will ensure its "long-term success and future."

The new deal includes the ABC series Cashmere Mafia, following four female execs balancing personal and professional lives in New York; legal drama Damages, starring Glenn Close; another female-led legal drama, Canterbury's Law; and Viva Laughlin, which follows a man trying to set up a five-star casino in Nevada, starring Jackman and Melanie Griffith.

Nine's director of programming, Michael Healy, said these shows are currently creating a lot of "buzz" in the industry. "They are young and sexy, character-driven dramas that will no doubt attract additional younger demographics for the network," he said.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/programming/a73434/living-goes-for-us-viva-blackpool-remake.html

Living goes for US 'Viva Blackpool' remake
Thursday, August 23 2007, 15:09 BST

By Neil Wilkes, Editor

Living has acquired the rights to Viva Laughlin, the US remake of BBC Three's Viva Blackpool.

Starring Hugh Jackman and Melanie Griffiths, the series - launching October on CBS - is described as "part drama, part thriller and part musical" and follows eternal optimist Ripley Holden (Monarch of the Glen's Lloyd Owen) as he attempts to open a Las Vegas casino.

Classic songs - from Elvis' 'Viva Las Vegas' to Blondie's 'One Way Or Another' - are interspersed throughout the scenes, each time performed by the cast members themselves.

"Living viewers expect something unique from our channel," said Amy Barham, head of acquisitions at Virgin Media TV, who negotiated the deal with SPTI. "Viva Laughlin is a show that really pushes boundaries and exceeds expectations. There is quite simply nothing like it in the marketplace and this is a huge part of its appeal as well as its incredible cast and strong narrative."

The show - Living's first pick-up from this year's LA Screenings - will air on the channel in 2008.

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http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=1&article=37191

Living gets Lauglin

The US remake of BBC3's musical drama Blackpool will air on UK cabsat channel Living, the Virgin Media TV flagship channel today confirmed.

Sony Pictures TV International (SPTI) has handed Living the exclusive UK rights to Viva Laughlin, starring Lloyd Owen (Monarch of the Glen), Melanie Griffiths (Working Girl), Madchen Amick (Twin Peaks) and Hugh Jackman (X-Men).

Viva Laughlin, an adaptation of the UK drama Blackpool by Bob Lowry (The Black Donnellys) and Sony Pictures TV, launches on CBS in the US this October and will air on Living in 2008.

The US version of the musical drama is about a small-town Donald Trump wannabe, whose dream is to transform his small-town casino in Laughlin, Nevada, into his own mini Las Vegas.

"Viva Laughlin is a show that really pushes boundaries and exceeds expectations. There is quite simply nothing like it in the marketplace and this is a huge part of its appeal," said Amy Barham, head of acquisitions at Virgin Media TV.

The show is currently scheduled for 20.00 on Sunday nights on CBS, up against Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on ABC, football on NBC, The Simpsons on Fox and another UK adaptation, Life is Wild, on The CW.

23 Aug 2007
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