Archive: Summer TV Press Tour 2007
Flatbed Funny
ABC's new "Carpoolers" is a comedy about a group of guys who carpool to work. Naturally the actors are going to spend a certain amount of time in a car in this series. And one TV critic wondered whether they would have to "do a lot more with your face...
By Maura McCarthy | August 3, 2007; 03:09 PM ET | Comments (8)
Mulling Mandy
After Mandy Patinkin announced he had walked off the CBS series "Criminal Minds" in the early days of Summer Press Tour 2007, TV critics dove enthusiastically into the "Wither Goeth Mandy" mystery, asking any actor or producer who'd ever come within spitting distance of Patinkin what he is like in...
By Maura McCarthy | August 3, 2007; 11:31 AM ET | Comments (0)
Devilish Product Placement
CW's new dramedy "Reaper" is widely regarded by critics to be one of the best new series of the coming TV season. It's about a slacker guy whose parents sell his soul to the devil and the devil comes to collect on his 21st birthday. Only Satan doesn't want to...
By Maura McCarthy | August 3, 2007; 08:45 AM ET | Comments (1)
Vampire Sleuthing
David Greenwalt of "Angel" fame, is an executive producer on CBS's new vampire detective drama "Moonlight." Is it any wonder, critics asked him, to compare and contrast the two vampire dramas? Greenwalt was not originally attached to the new CBS project. "My agent said in May, 'You've got to read...
By Maura McCarthy | August 2, 2007; 02:36 PM ET | Comments (0)
Who You Callin' a Musical?
In CBS's new series "Viva Laughlin," characters will break into song. They'll dance on the top of blackjack tables at casinos. But don't you dare call "Viva Laughlin" a musical, the cast and executive producer Bob Lowry warned TV critics. "Viva Laughlin" is based on "Viva Blackpool." You know "Viva...
By Maura McCarthy | August 2, 2007; 11:42 AM ET | Comments (1)
You Had Me at Katrina
TV critics wanted to like Fox's new "K-ville" if only because it's shot entirely on location in New Orleans. But they were put off by what one of the producers called the "over-the-top action sequences" in the pilot episode. One critic told the exec producers "I looked at this and,...
By Maura McCarthy | August 1, 2007; 02:04 PM ET | Comments (3)
Verisimilitude, Hollywood Style
Fox's "New Amsterdam" stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as a New York homicide detective who's been living in Manhattan for the last 400 years -- you can just imagine how cheap his rent is -- after being made immortal when a spell was put on him by a Native American chick whose...
By Maura McCarthy | August 1, 2007; 10:09 AM ET | Comments (0)
Say What?
D.W Moffett was added to the cast of CW's new "Born Free"-Meets-"The OC" drama "Running Wild," playing a NYC vet who packs up his family -- second-wife and good looking/deeply dysfunctional teens -- and moves to South Africa because he's tired of neutering dogs for a living and wants to...
By Maura McCarthy | July 31, 2007; 12:40 PM ET | Comments (0)
Biggest Head-Scratcher
TV critics were perplexed by a lot they saw and heard at Summer TV Press Tour 2007. How, for instance, does a guy who gets sacked from his job running programming at the No. 4-rated network wind up getting hired to run programming at the No. 1-rated network? How, to...
By Maura McCarthy | July 31, 2007; 08:50 AM ET | Comments (0)
'Big Shots'
ABC's new ensemble dramedy series "Big Shots" - the very last Q&A session of Summer TV Press Tour 2007 . Also the very best Q&A session of the tour. "Big Shots" stars Michael Vartan, Christopher Titus, Joshua Malina and Dylan McDermott as very successful CEO-ish types who are all in...
By Lisa de Moraes | July 27, 2007; 07:37 AM ET | Comments (0)
Lindsay, Paris and Dirty, Sexy, Money
Toward the end of the Press Tour Q&A session about ABC's new drama series "Dirty Sexy Money," Samaire Armstrong -- who plays a poor little rich girl whose acting career is mostly purchased by her gazillionaire dad - was asked what were her thoughts on the latest DUI arrest of...
By Lisa de Moraes | July 26, 2007; 08:13 AM ET | Comments (2)
Boreanaz's Funny 'Bones'
During a Summer TV Press Tour Q&A session for Fox's returning drama series "Bones," star Emily Deschanel, who plays Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan, was asked if she reads Kathy Reichs's books on which the show about a forensic anthropologist are based. Deschanel said she had read them, and that the...
By Lisa de Moraes | July 23, 2007; 07:24 AM ET | Comments (0)
The Walrus is Paulie
After ducking the press for weeks, David Chase showed up at the TV Critics Association's annual trophy show and made not one but two cracks about his non-ending to HBO's "The Sopranos." Critics have been navel-gazing since the "Sopranos" final episode cut to black leaving them, and viewers, wondering whether...
By Lisa de Moraes | July 22, 2007; 03:57 AM ET | Comments (0)
'Price' May be Right for Carey
Drew Carey confirmed he's in talks to replace Bob Barker as the face of "The Price is Right." Carey came to Summer TV Press Tour 2007 to plug his upcoming primetime reality series/game show "The Power of 10" which, despite the fact Carey insisted "it's not an audition for 'Price,'...
By Lisa de Moraes | July 19, 2007; 11:00 PM ET | Comments (0)
Third-Wave Feminism
Joseph McGinty Nichol -- aka McG -- is back at the press tour, this time to plug his new NBC dramedy, "Chuck." "Chuck" is about a guy who works in the Nerd Herd at a Buy More store. Long story short -- Chuck accidentally downloads a gillion government top secrets...
By Lisa de Moraes | July 18, 2007; 07:17 AM ET | Comments (0)
Dearly Departed
NBC's first day at Summer TV Press Tour 2007 to tout its new and returning shows for fall involved a surprising amount of talk about subjects having to do with neither. Toward the end of the Q&A session for NBC's new "Life" - watch it for Damian Lewis alone -...
By Lisa de Moraes | July 17, 2007; 07:56 AM ET | Comments (0)
Tim Gunn Dresses Down Congress
Congresswomen and senators are an embarrassment sartorially, says Tim Gunn, Bravo network's fashion god and star of its reality hit "Project Runway" and soon "Tim Gunn's Guide to Style." "I was on Capitol Hill a few months ago advocating for the Design Piracy Prohibition Act, and I can't tell...
By Lisa de Moraes | July 16, 2007; 02:01 AM ET | Comments (2)
The Smell of Burning Bridge
It's not often The Reporters Who Cover Television get a chance to ask what it's like to work at NBC of a TV series writer who really doesn't care whether he/she ever works again for NBC. This rare treat was afforded TRWCT during a BBC America Q&A session at Summer...
By Maura McCarthy | July 14, 2007; 08:29 AM ET | Comments (1)
Women and the Cable Nets That Love Them
*It's Everything's Better on Cable time at Summer TV Press Tour 2007! Today's Theme: Cable has the richest roles for actresses -- ever! "This seems to be maybe the richest time for actresses on television -- any theories as to why that is?" one critic asked the cast and crew...
By Maura McCarthy | July 13, 2007; 07:39 AM ET | Comments (1)
Jane Austen's 'Re-dos and Ratings'
In "You've Got Mail," Tom Hanks told Meg Ryan she struck him as the kind of person who read Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" every year like he meant it to sting. Jane Austen Fanatics took it personally. (JAF's are only slightly less weirdsmobile than Scary Sci Fi People who...
By Maura McCarthy | July 12, 2007; 06:46 AM ET | Comments (7)
Thinking Too Hard at PBS
PBS days at a press tour are always mentally taxing. You have to use those parts of your brain you don't have to use when covering any of the other networks -- which is to say most of your brain. During a Q&A session with science writer Tim Ferris about...
By Maura McCarthy | July 11, 2007; 08:34 AM ET | Comments (2)
