Category: Television

BACK ON THE BEAT
NBC ordering eight new episodes of ’80s cop show Hunter, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The network scored strong ratings earlier this month with a TV movie reuniting stars Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer.

SPY GAMES
Ethan Hawke signing up for a guest gig on ABC’s Alias. He’ll play an undercover agent who needs rescuing–but may be a traitor. The episode is slated for January.

‘The Osbournes’ Enters Second Season

NEW YORK (AP) – “The Osbournes” becomes a reality show in the bleakest sense this season, as Ozzy and the kids cope with matriarch Sharon Osbourne’s colon cancer.
Yet as the second batch of episodes begins this evening, MTV also is trying to maintain the wackiness that made the series the network’s biggest hit.
The heavy-metal rocker, his wife and two of their three children are very different people than they were when they opened their home to us a year ago ó and opened the floodgates to a slew of copycats.
They still spew plenty of profanities for the censors to bleep out. And Ozzy still shuffles around the house rambling incoherently about that tricky remote control.
But the Osbournes are no longer just a cuddly dysfunctional family: They’re a multimedia empire, with everything from books to bobblehead dolls.
The change is obvious in the first episode, which airs at 10:30 p.m. EST.
Ozzy and Sharon fly to Washington for the annual White House Correspondents’ dinner, where they’re the guests of Fox News Channel’s Greta van Susteren. (Ozzy even gets a shout-out from President Bush).
Back home, 17-year-old son Jack turns the hose on fans who lurk on the Osbournes’ front lawn, longing for a peek at the now-famous family and their ever-growing menagerie of dogs and cats.
And daughter Kelly, 18, rehearses for the MTV Movie Awards, where she’ll perform her cover of Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach,” the first single off her new album, which also comes out Tuesday.
“Things are kind of like so good right now,” Sharon says as the episode ends, adding prophetically: “Everything is really great for us, that I think something’s going to come and like, you know, knock us on the chin.”
That something comes at the start of episode two: Sharon’s diagnosis of colon cancer.
The 50-year-old is characteristically practical in discussing the disease, and even invites MTV’s cameras along for her first chemotherapy treatment. But the show’s tone ó and the rest of the family ó change irrevocably.
Ozzy alternates between boozing heavily and practicing yoga backstage during the Ozzfest tour, which Sharon invented. After a series of phone calls, he eventually collapses emotionally.
“I’m worried about him,” Sharon says. “I don’t know how he’s going to last.”
Ozzy admits, “My heart was breaking every night on stage.”
But then the action goes back to Jack, surfing in Malibu with guys from the rock band Incubus and fracturing his elbow when he tries to show off by leaping from a pier.
The juxtaposition may seem awkward, but the show’s producers have little choice but to document everything that happens in these people’s lives if they’re going to create authentic reality television.
“The heart and soul will continue to be this extraordinary family set in ordinary situations,” said Lois Curren, MTV executive vice president of series and movie development, who helped plan “The Osbournes” from the beginning.
“It’s all about their incredible love and respect for each other and protection for each other, and also the fact that they deal with situations so bravely and yet so magnificently absurdly,” Curren said. “It’s still a comedy.”
Twenty episodes are planned for the second season, which is still being shot. Ten will air now, with the other 10 scheduled for 2003.
Despite the Osbournes’ ubiquity, the world won’t grow tired of them, says University of Florida professor James B. Twitchell, whose books on modern pop phenomena include “Carnival Culture.” He admits he’s as “addicted as anyone.”
“This is not normal shame TV,” he said. “Most of the modern reality TV is watching people do things that are shameful. This isn’t. This is not a dysfunctional family. … This is a family that has had to make its own way.”
Twitchell compared “The Osbournes” to “An American Family,” the 1973 PBS series that chronicled the daily activities of the Loud family.
“People kept saying, ‘Well, we’re going to get enough of this.’ Some people like myself never got enough.
“There’s a lot more to go because there’s a lot more in this family,” he said of the Osbournes. “We’re getting an incredible dose of them but they’re as interesting in the 15th episode as they are in the first.”

CLUED IN
Clueless star Alicia Silverstone making her TV debut in Sex and the City producer Darren Star’s upcoming pilot for NBC. She’ll play a new matrimonial attorney who doubles as a high-end matchmaker even though her own love life is less than perfect.

THE TRUTH ABOUT JANEANE
Janeane Garofalo developing Slice o’ Life, an ABC sitcom set at a prestigious newsmagazine show. Garofalo would star as a mid-30s woman in New York who produces the hokey feature pieces that air at the end of the newsmagazine.

D’OH!
Bart Simpson will try to divorce his parents in honor of The Simpsons’ 300th episode, set to air next February. Also, the entire Simpsons cast will appear for a group interview on Bravo’s Inside the Actor’s Studio, which is slated to air the same night as the 300th episode.

Victoria’s Secret to Keep Heating Up the Networks

NEW YORK (Reuters) – It is the kind of ratings battle that could only take place on American television: the finale of “The Bachelor” versus the second annual televised “Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show” — or, to put it another way, true love versus skimpy underwear.
In some households there may be a battle for the remote. At network CBS, it was a fight to find a time slot when it realized that rival ABC was presenting the last chapter of “The Bachelor” from 9 to 11 p.m. on Wednesday when it had planned to reveal Victoria’s risque secrets starting at 10 p.m.
The Viacom Inc. -owned network, which has come under fire from women’s groups and family values proponents, yanked the program from its 10 p.m. slot and in favor of the 8 p.m. slot, prime-time for mom, dad and the kids to watch TV.
That idea didn’t last long and the program now struts down the runway at 9 p.m. competing against the start of “The Bachelor” and NBC’s “The West Wing,” which contains neither nudity nor much romance, mostly just politics. NBC is owned by General Electric Co.
Victoria’s Secret, a unit of Columbus, Ohio-based Limited Brands Inc., has spent $7 million to produce the show, operating on the theory that audiences can never tire of gorgeous women stalking around in high heels and scanty lingerie.
The show was taped last Thursday in New York City’s 69th Regiment Armory before a crowd of celebrities, investors and paparazzi, and it reaped immediate attention after anti-fur protesters jumped on the runway to heckle Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who has a contract with a mink company.
Amid the confusion, some observers wondered if the interruption was actually a planned part of the production but Chief Marketing Officer Ed Razek rebuffed the suggestion, saying that part will not be shown.
DENIGRATING?
Last year, the first time the show was televised, it drew 12.4 million viewers to Walt Disney Co.’s ABC network. It also drew the ire of some feminist and media watchdog groups, who considered the material either denigrating to women or too risque for network TV. The Federal Communication Commission received hundreds of complaints.
But Razek said the show meets broadcast standards.
“The level of exposure is controlled by standards and practices at the network. It’s not something that we do, it’s CBS’ domain. And I really thought last year’s show was very modest, particularly the show that got on TV.”
He added that this year’s show was just as restrained.
“There was no nudity, no bare breasts, nothing to have a significant concern about.”
The TV special is hosted by German model Heidi Klum and singer Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray, and will feature musical performances by Destiny’s Child, Marc Anthony and Phil Collins. Victoria’s Secret has also promised red carpet interviews, model profiles and behind-the-scenes segments.
The most extravagant ensemble of the night on the show was the $10 million “Star of Victoria” bra and panty ensemble that features a 60-carat pear shaped diamond at the center of the bra. A rose and leaf pattern of rubies, emeralds and diamonds covers the rest of the bra and embellishes the waist of the panty, for a total weight of 168 carats.
With 2001 sales of $3.3 billion, the brand’s message of over-the-top glamour and femininity has certainly taken hold. Victoria’s Secret has grown to more than 1,000 lingerie stores, and the catalog has a circulation of 375 million, far exceeding the population of the United States.
Sharen Turney, chief executive of Victoria’s Secret’s direct selling arm, said the company plans to keep televising the show annually, and it is also in talks with CBS about possibly doing a swimwear show around February.
She said the company’s $7 million investment comes back five-fold in marketing value. That’s especially important as the company heads into the holiday season, a crucial selling period that specialty retailers are approaching with caution in the current economy.
Victoria’s Secret does 35 percent of its business in the fourth quarter, which includes the holidays.

Sabrina Lloyd Heads to ‘Ed’
HOLLYWOOD (Variety) – “Sports Night” veteran Sabrina Lloyd is moving to Stuckeyville.
Lloyd is joining the cast of NBC’s “Ed” for a four-episode arc that’s slated to begin airing in mid-January. She’ll play a woman who convinces Ed (Tom Cavanagh) to hire her as a lawyer at his bowling alley practice.
“She’s charming and persistent, and Ed just finally gives in,” said executive producer Rob Burnett.
Lloyd is contracted to appear in six episodes, but there’s a chance the role could be extended.
Burnett wouldn’t say whether Lloyd will end up romantically involved with Ed.
“Every woman on the show is a potential love interest for Ed,” he said.
Lloyd played Natalie Hurley on “Sports Night,” the critically worshipped but short-lived half-hour from “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin. She later appeared on ABC’s “Madigan Men.” Other credits include Fox’s “Sliders” and the feature “Father Hood.”
“Ed,” which airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m., is in its third season. Last week’s non-wedding wedding episode, with guest star Kelly Ripa, attracted 12.6 million viewers — the series’ best performance in more than a year.

CHEST A MINUTE, MARGE!

MARGE Simpson is getting breast implants just in time for American Thanksgiving.
In an upcoming episode of “The Simpsons” called “Large Marge,” Bart’s blue-haired mother is mistakenly given a breast augmentation when she goes into the hospital for liposuction on her stomach.
In the episode, scheduled to air Sunday, Nov. 24, it’s revealed that the implants were actually meant for a younger patient, who turns out to be one of Mayor Quimby’s escorts.
Marge decides to go under the knife for the liposuction when she gets jealous of all the younger women she mistakenly thinks her husband Homer is drooling over when he sees them on the street.
At first Marge wants the implants removed, but later decides she likes them because of all the attention she gets.
She soon becomes a fashion model and ends up flashing her breasts at the residents of Springfield – giving an eyeful to a crowd including Krusty the Clown, Sideshow Bob and Police Chief Wiggum.
Marge’s enhancement is one of the few known instances of a breast job on an animated prime-time show – but not the first one on “The Simpsons.”
Several years ago, Krusty the Clown tried to have plastic surgery to change his identity, but ended getting a breast enlargement by mistake.
When he looks exactly the same after his plastic surgery, his doctor argues and says, “Plus I did your breasts,” to which Krusty answers: “Does anyone hear me complaining about the breasts?”
Marge’s new chest puts her on a list of celebs who are either rumored to have gotten or admit to cashing in on a new pair of surgically enhanced breasts, including Pam Anderson (who’s since had them downsized), Demi Moore and Melanie Griffith.
Amanda Marsh, last season’s winner of “The Bachelor,” admitted on the show that her ample bosom was the result of a pair of breast implants
And it’s rumored that pop-tart Britney Spears has gotten implants – a charge she has denied.
This is the 14th season of “The Simpsons,” which will celebrate its 300th episode in February.

THE SOPRANOS Will Take a Shorter Break This Time
According to creator David Chase, THE SOPRANOS will take a shorter break between seasons after the fourth one concludes than it did between the third and the fourth (16 months). Chase says that his writing staff is already working on the fifth (and possibly final) season. Filming on new episodes will then begin in March and the season will begin in the early fall of next year. Chase said he expects all remaining characters to be back next year as well – providing no one else gets whacked this season.