Movie Box Review

Showing posts with label alcatraz. Show all posts

THE SKED'S MONDAY NETWORK SCORECARD

10:21 AM | Labels: alcatraz, bachelor, castle, dixie, hawaii, Monday, network scorecard, next top model, smash, The Sked, The Voice, TV ratings

SMASHWatch is grinning this morning, but should it be?

NBC: Airing against repeats on both of the other networks, SMASH was up a big 0.4 to 2.7, a healthy number for any 10PM drama these days. So... yay? Maybe, but the show itself continues to get markedly worse, moving with near-rocket speed from "potential Emmy contender" to "disappointing" to just plain "not good." Smash, very sadly, is becoming a collection of unbelievable characters, unmotivated bitchfest scenes and bad, on-the-nose dialogue, with increasingly painful plot developments (was it just me, or did last night's final sequence suggest the writers had been watching "On the Street Where You Live" from My Fair Lady on Autorepeat?). But I digress: the rating was, no question about it, very good. Apart from the ABC/CBS repeats, it helped that lead-in THE VOICE was also up 0.7 from last week, confirming its new place as the big bad reality show of the season.

FOX: 2 hours of ALCATRAZ matched its series low at 1.8, coming in below not just the new programming on NBC and ABC, but the repeat sitcoms on CBS. (If anyone can make sense of the mythology on this show, congratulations. Although Parminder Nagra will never have a better job, since for half the season she's been collecting a paycheck for lying comatose in an infirmary bed.)

ABC: THE BACHELOR, airing the last episode before its season finale, continued at a very steady 2.5 (every episode this year has scored within a 0.3 ratings window), and was followed by a CASTLE rerun.

CBS: An all-repeat night. Notably, all the sitcoms were down 20-30% from their January repeats in the pre-Voice era. HAWAII 5-0 won the 10PM rerun battle with Castle, although both were far behind Smash.

CW: A frankly weird night of repeat numbers. AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL was just 0.1 below the original airing of the same episode last week (and dead even with last Monday's new episode of GOSSIP GIRL), and the repeat HART OF DIXIE was only 0.1 behind last week's new episode.

Tonight, FOX debuts its 4-sitcom line-up, with RAISING HOPE moving to 8PM, I HATE MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER returning at 8:30PM, and the season premiere of BREAKING IN following a very good episode of NEW GIRL at 9:30PM. CBS is the only network in repeats, although ABC will toss a rerun of BODY OF PROOF on at 10PM.

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The Sked: MONDAY RATINGS March 5

9:04 AM | Labels: alcatraz, Monday, smash, The Sked, The Voice, TV ratings

With the February sweep over, we enter the treacherous March/April period, where more than half the time periods on the broadcast networks have repeat episodes on any given week.  Having originals is a distinct advantage in this time, and NBC was ready with an all-new Monday.  The Voice surged back, and Smash had a very promising outing.

  
               Nightly Primetime Average 
Monday         NBC     CBS     ABC     FOX

05.2012     4.8     1.8     2.1     1.9    THIS WEEK 
27.2012     4.4     3.2     2.4     4.5    LAST WEEK 
07.2011     2.1     2.4     2.8     3.9    LAST YEAR

NBC had a very good night by offering all originals against many repeats on the other networks. The Voice rebounded to a 6.1 rating (5.8 in the 8:00 hour and 6.3 in the 9:00 hour). And the good news continued at 10:00 pm with Smash turning in a 2.7 rating, almost matching its second week rating, taking full advantage of its Voice lead-in and the repeat competition on ABC and CBS (Hawaii Five-O at a 1.5 and Castle at a 1.4). Last year on this night: The Event 8-10 pm (2.0) and Harry's Law (2.3).

NBC Mon High Low 1.30 2.06 2.13 2.20 2.27 3.05

The Voice      6.7  6.0       6.7  6.0  6.0  5.4  6.1*
Smash          3.8  2.3       3.8  2.8  2.3  2.3  2.7*
The Sing-Off   1.9  1.3  -- 
Who's Still St 1.7  1.5  1.7 
Fear Factor    3.5  2.3  1.5R 
Playboy Club   1.6  1.2  
Rock Center    1.6  0.7  0.8

CBS went into repeat mode on the first Monday after the February sweep, and viewers were just not interested in catching up on episodes they might have missed earlier. Last year on this night: How I Met Your Mother (2.0), Mad Love (2.7), Two and a Half Men (3.0), Mike & Molly (2.7) and Hawaii Five-O (2.1).

CBS Mon        High Low  1.30 2.06 2.13 2.20 2.27 3.05

How I Met Your 4.9  3.4  2.5R 4.0  3.4  3.8  3.6  2.0R

2 Broke Girls  7.1  3.8  2.7R 4.3  3.8  4.0  3.8  2.1R

2.5 Men       10.7  3.6  3.0R 4.3  3.9  4.2  3.6  2.1R

Mike & Molly   4.8  2.9  2.3R 3.4  3.4  3.4  2.9  1.8R
Hawaii Five-O  3.4  2.5  1.7R 2.7  2.7  2.9  2.5  1.5R

The Bachelor was an original episode ("The Women Tell All" edition) and it rated the same as the previous several weeks, not gaining any advantage by CBS being in repeats. Last year on this night, ABC averaged a 2.8 rating: The Bachelor (3.5) and Castle (1.5).

ABC Mon        High Low  1.30 2.06 2.13 2.20 2.27 3.05
Dancing Stars  4.0  2.8  --   --
You Deserve It 1.7  0.8  --   --
The Bachelor   2.7  2.4  2.6  2.6  2.5  2.5  2.6  2.5* 
Castle         3.2  2.0  1.4R 2.0  2.0  2.1  2.1  1.4R

FOX tried to spark some interest in Alcatraz with a two-hour block of original episodes, but no momentum was built. The first hour averaged a 1.9 rating and the 9 pm episode scored a 1.8, matching a series low for the struggling drama from JJ Abrams' Bad Robot shingle. Last year on this night, FOX averaged a first-place 3.9 rating House (5.2) and Chicago Code (2.6).

FOX Mon High Low 1.30 2.06 2.13 2.20 2.27 3.05

Terra Nova     3.1  2.1  --   --
House          3.9  2.4  2.9  2.5  2.4  2.4  --   --
Alcatraz       3.3  1.8  2.8  2.3  1.9  1.8  --   1.8 

###

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THE SKED: FOX "Touches" Its Spring Schedule

10:49 PM | Labels: alcatraz, american idol, bones, House, midseason, The Sked, Touch

FOX made a couple of fairly last-minute changes to its midseason plans today. The new TOUCH, created by Tim Kring and starring Kiefer Sutherland, won't move to Sutherland's old 24 Monday 9PM timeslot after all; instead, starting March 22, Touch will air Thursdays at 9PM, keeping the AMERICAN IDOL lead-in it had for the successful "preview" airing of its pilot last month.

Because of this change, when BONES returns from Emily Deschanel's pregnancy leave, it moves to 8PM Mondays starting April 2 (with the final episodes of HOUSE airing at 9PM), losing its own cushy Thursday berth.

Why the change? The obvious conclusion is that FOX felt, having seen several episodes, that Touch wasn't going to be the self-starter it originally hoped the show would be, and with House a diminishingly effective lead-in, and THE VOICE a surprisingly strong competitor, FOX feared Touch would go the way of ALCATRAZ on Mondays. This way, they're giving their high-profile new show its best shot. (And if the show's quality doesn't improve from its pilot, it may need all the help it can get.)

All this is bad news for Bones, of course, which has to open up a tough night instead of getting the benefit of the network's strongest possible lead-in. But Bones has worked in several different time-slots throughout its run and has a loyal audience that seeks it out, and no doubt the network is OK with the ratings being lower in its new situation (as long as the numbers don't completely collapse).

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THE SKED'S MONDAY NETWORK SCORECARD

11:22 AM | Labels: 2 1/2 Men, 2 broke girls, alcatraz, bachelor, castle, gossip, Hart of Dixie, House, How I Met Your Mother, Monday, network scorecard, smash, The Sked, The Voice, TV ratings

So much for SMASH being a hit.

NBC: Leaving the numbers aside for a moment, on a dramatic level SMASH after 3 episodes is starting to lose its practically-cable sheen, and look a lot more like a high-class ABC soap. The post-pilot episodes haven't even been as good as a typical Parenthood or The Good Wife, much less Mad Men. And those numbers continue to crumble: last night's 2.3 was down 40% from the premiere, and as Mitch Metcalf's analysis shows, the drop in the show's 2d half-hour suggests the ratings aren't done falling. It's only fair to say that if Smash could just stabilize where it is, that would still be a very good number for NBC, on a level with The Office, still the network's highest-rated scripted show. And as The Sked has noted, the series appeals to the upscale viewers that advertisers covet. But... coming in 2d place to Hawaii 5-0 (and not that far ahead of Castle in 3d place) is hardly where NBC wanted Smash to be. On the very important plus side for the the network, though, THE VOICE is holding beautifully, down less than 15% over 3 weeks, and enabling NBC to keep airing those promos asserting domination over once-untouchable American Idol.

FOX: The Monday lineup is nearing bottom but may not have gotten there yet. HOUSE and ALCATRAZ were both slightly down from last week, and Alcatraz had its 2d consecutive week below the lowest number Terra Nova ever had.

CBS: HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, 2 BROKE GIRLS and 2 1/2 MEN all recovered some of last week's losses, but each continues to run below its level from the first time facing The Voice . MIKE & MOLLY and HAWAII 5-0 were steady, albeit at or just above season lows.

ABC: THE BACHELOR and CASTLE were steady, 0.1 above their respective season lows.

CW: GOSSIP GIRL and HART OF DIXIE both held with last week at 0.5 and 0.6 respectively.

Fans of COUGAR TOWN could be in for a rough night if its rating drops further from last week's blah debut. THE RIVER also needs to hit some smoother water. FOX airs the "midseason finale" of GLEE (next Tuesday there's a 2-hour Idol, then the network launches its 4-sitcom experiment). Everything continues to be new as February sweeps continue, except that CW is burdening RINGER with the terrible lead-in of a HART OF DIXIE rerun.

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THE SKED'S MONDAY NETWORK SCORECARD

9:42 AM | Labels: 2 1/2 Men, 2 broke girls, alcatraz, bachelor, castle, gossip, hart, hawaii, House, How I Met Your Mother, Mike and Molly, Monday, network scorecard, smash, The Sked, The Voice, TV ratings

NBC can't put away that Alka-Seltzer just yet.

NBC: THE VOICE, down only around 10% from last week's huge rating, is in great shape at 8PM, and those 2 strong hours pretty much guarantee NBC Monday wins the rest of the season. So far so good. But nightly wins aside, an enormous amount of NBC's stature and even its identity has been wagered this season on SMASH, and that part of the night is still unsettled. Last night, Smash's 2.8 was down about 25% from last week, and as Mitch Metcalf details, that number went down sharply at the half-hour mark. Right now the show can still fairly be called a hit, winning its hour against CBS and ABC. But its margin of victory was a shrinking 0.2 (and really it only won the 10-10:30PM half-hour), so the show needs to stabilize quickly. As I noted in my Pilot + 1 review, creatively the 2d episode started to show some dramatic strain, and NBC will hope those are rectified before more viewers depart.

FOX: The Voice is killing ALCATRAZ, which fell by almost half an additional ratings point to another season low. (Terra Nova fans, stop grinning.) The show has dropped 40% from its premiere rating. HOUSE also fell to a new season low, but by a slimmer 0.1, and besides, the series is now officially a lame duck, so its troubles are more short-term.

ABC: THE BACHELOR and CASTLE continue to hold their own against the NBC competition, with Bachelor down only 0.1 from last week and Castle (with a much-hyped 2-part Bourne-type spy plot) dead even.

CBS: What the hell happened to HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, 2 BROKE GIRLS and 2 1/2 MEN last night? All of them had steep falls to new season lows, down 0.6, 0.6 and 0.5 from last week even though competition from The Voice was lower this week. (And so much for any Grammys halo effect.) Any and all theories are welcome. MIKE & MOLLY and HAWAII 5-0 were down a more modest 0.1 each, although that still marked a new season low for each of them.

CW: GOSSIP GIRL, on the downswing of its illustrious career, was down 0.1 to a 0.5, beaten by stablemate HART OF DIXIE, which was even at 0.6.

Tonight ABC finally brings back COUGAR TOWN, with LAST MAN STANDING as the least compatible possible lead-in for that show this side of Man Up! After that, the network will hope that THE RIVER doesn't collapse further from its unimpressive debut.

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THE SKED'S MONDAY NETWORK SCORECARD

9:55 AM | Labels: 2 1/2 Men, 2 broke girls, alcatraz, bachelor, castle, gossip, hart, hawaii, House, How I Met Your Mother, Mike and Molly, Monday, network scorecard, smash, The Sked, The Voice, TV ratings

For one night, at least, all NBC's dreams came true.

NBC: THE VOICE blew away its competition, especially in the 9-10PM hour. Its 6.6 rating over 2 hours was naturally way down from Sunday night, where it had the most-watched telecast of all time as its lead-in, but for NBC it was manna from heaven. Of course, last season Voice faltered somewhat as its run went on, so we'll see how its numbers hold up over time--still, an exceptional start. SMASH and its 3.8 were also an easy winner at 10PM. As Mitch Metcalf has noted, though (see his half-hour by half-hour breakdown of the numbers here), the drop over the course of the hour may be something to be concerned about--by 10:30PM, the show had lost 55% of The Voice's 9:30PM rating. Next week, we'll find out how frontloaded all of these numbers were by months of expensive hype. For now, though, the marketing people at NBC can exult in a job superbly well done.

CBS: The Eye was tearing in the face of NBC's sudden juggernaut. Every show on its Monday line-up was either at (2 1/2 MEN, MIKE & MOLLY, HAWAII 5-0) or 0.1 above (HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, 2 BROKE GIRLS) its season low. That still left the network firmly in 2d place in every half-hour... but 2d place isn't 1st place.

FOX: HOUSE and ALCATRAZ both plummeted to season lows (Alcatraz was down a particularly ugly 0.6 from last week, leaving it at a very mediocre 2.2), landing in 4th place for the night.

ABC: Somewhat surprisingly--considering the nature of NBC's new shows--the female-skewing networks held up best against the onslaught. THE BACHELOR was even with last week, and CASTLE was down only 0.1 from its last original (although that tied its season low).

CW: Its young audience was largely unaffected by the sea change at NBC: GOSSIP GIRL was down only 0.1 from its hyped 100th episode last week, and HART OF DIXIE was even.

Tonight, ABC will attempt to generate some of its own hoopla with the 2-hour premiere of "found footage" supernatural thriller THE RIVER, another series Executive Produced by Steven Spielberg. No major events on the other networks, but this being sweeps, there are fresh episodes everywhere.

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THE SKED'S MONDAY NETWORK SCORECARD

10:44 AM | Labels: alcatraz, bachelor, fear factor, gossip girl, Hart of Dixie, House, Monday, The Sked

It was the last Monday before things get interesting.

FOX: The network won the night, although the 2.8 for HOUSE and especially the 2.7 for ALCATRAZ were far from impressive, considering that CBS was in repeats and NBC will be ramping up the competition level enormously next week. February will tell the tale on both shows. (Creatively, Alcatraz is spreading around plenty of breadcrumbs about its mythology, but mostly it's still just an intriguing procedural with very little interest in character development.)

CW: GOSSIP GIRL's 100th episode, which as promised did indeed (seem to) conclude with a major--albeit illogical--revelation, could only muster a 0.1 increase from last week, and carried HART OF DIXIE up by the same amount.

ABC: THE BACHELOR was down slightly from last week, but still up from the other episodes of this cycle; a repeat CASTLE lost to a repeat HAWAII 5-0 at 10PM.

NBC: Next Monday (and the Monday after that) will be the most important nights of NBC's entire season. Last night, not so much. With a last-minute FEAR FACTOR rerun rushed onto the schedule (the reason involved donkey semen, and I only wish I were kidding), the network was in last place (excluding CW) for the entire evening.

CBS: All repeats, and still a strong 2d place for the night, including wins at 9PM and 10PM.

CBS is all rerun again tonight, and aside from their respective reality shows, so are ABC and NBC. FOX, though, has an all-new lineup, including the hyped Michael Jackson episode of GLEE, and on CW, RINGER returns with new episodes for the first time in 2 months.

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THE SKED'S MONDAY NETWORK SCORECARD

10:41 AM | Labels: alcatraz, bachelor, castle, gossip, Monday, network scorecard, rockers, The Sked, TV ratings

America is willing to follow FOX behind bars.

FOX: The 2-hour launch of ALCATRAZ went very well, with a solid 3.3 that held throughout the broadcast. That put the network squarely in 2d place for the night behind CBS's blockbuster line-up. If the show can manage not to collapse the way Terra Nova did, FOX will be quite happy with the result. (A renewable Alcatraz may also mean the end of at least one of Terra Nova or House, both of which are precariously on the bubble right now.)

NBC: The nation's love affair with Betty White continues, as her 90TH BIRTHDAY SPECIAL and a preview of her reality show OFF THEIR ROCKERS did a 2.7 and 2.6, respectively. That was good enough for 3d place, which for NBC on Mondays is a win. Having a decent lead-in for once even helped ROCK CENTER, which hit a series high 1.3, although that still left it mired far behind its competition in the hour.

ABC: THE BACHELOR, yet another reality franchise showing its age, was at a 2.4, 4th place in its 2 hours (although admittedly that was facing stronger competition than usual). CASTLE held even, closer to its season low than its high.

CBS: The other networks can throw whatever they like at the Monday night line-up, and CBS just laughs: all its shows were within 0.2 of their last few numbers, and the network won every half-hour of the night. The only remaining Monday question of the season is whether NBC's mega-hyped new line-up can put a dent in CBS when it premieres... when is it? Oh right, the night after the Super Bowl. I forget.

CW: GOSSIP GIRL, which used to have a crisp self-mocking wit that made it a guilty pleasure, continues its decline, both creatively (Blair gets religion?) and in the ratings, tying its 0.6 series low. The latest in a seemingly endless series of HART OF DIXIE repeats (but not really--new episodes return next week) barely registered.

Tonight FOX airs new episodes of GLEE, NEW GIRL and RAISING HOPE, CW brings back 90210, and on cable, USA starts the winter part of its WHITE COLLAR season. But the bigger event is the return of JUSTIFIED on FX, coming off a superb Season 2 but this time without spectacular villain Margo Martindale.

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THE SKED'S PILOT + 1 REVIEW: "Alcatraz"

4:04 AM | Labels: 20th century fox, abrams, action, alcatraz, crime, drama, Monday, The Sked, tv reviews

Previously... On ALCATRAZ: San Francisco cop Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones), whose partner was recently killed, finds herself embroiled in a mysterious case in which an Alcatraz inmate from 40 years ago, apparently long dead, has turned up not having aged a day and committing new murders. Rebecca learns that all the Alcatraz prisoners who were supposedly transferred to San Quentin when the prison closed in 1963 actually vanished, and now they're popping up, on violent missions no one can understand. By the end of the hour, she's joined the top-secret Federal task force investigating the crimes headed by enigmatic Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill), himself a former Alcatraz guard. Also on the team are scientist Lucy (Parminder Nagra) and multi-tasking geek Alcatraz historian/comic book author Diego (Jorge Garcia). Also: Rebecca learns that her own grandfather was the back-from-the-dead Alcatraz prisoner who was involved in her partner's death.

Episode 2: The first hour of Monday's 2-hour premiere was the original pilot, with the second hour the initial regular episode. Somewhere during the process of producing the season's episodes, Executive Producer Elizabeth Sarnoff, a writer on uber-producer JJ Abrams's Lost who co-created the series with Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt, and who served as showrunner, was removed for the traditional "creative differences." It's not clear when or whether that change will be reflected in the tone or content of the show.

Episode 2, written by producer Alison Balian and directed by another Lost veteran, Jack Bender, demonstrated the limitations of the show's concept. The series is, not unlike Abrams's CBS series Person Of Interest, trying to meld a procedural with a continuing (and in this case somehow supernatural or sci-fi) storyline. But the nature of the concept, in which every week's criminal comes from the same pool of former Alcatraz prisoners, allows for a limited amount of variety. And the fact that the show is going to be very tight-fisted with its mythology (in this hour, there was no new information until a big reveal about Nagra's character in the last 30 seconds) means that there's very little to chew over.

Like most procedurals, Alcatraz so far has little appetite for characterization: Rebecca is gritty and determined, Emerson Hauser is aloof and clearly knows more than he'll admit, Diego is humorously neurotic and brilliant. We'll see if the episode's news about Lucy means some additional insight into her, but more likely any knowledge will be hoarded and parsed out along many episodes, since Rebecca and Diego don't yet know what we do about her. The individual episodes are professionally executed but not particularly interesting (this hour involved a sniper with OCD who killed people because his mother had chosen to live with his teen sister but not him), and since the criminals don't seem to know themselves how they were transported from the 1960s or who sent them, there's little to glean from them.

Alcatraz has an intriguing concept, but so far it's mostly unmemorable. The show will need to find something to engage viewers if it hopes to sentence them to a long sentence in front of the set.

ORIGINAL VERDICT: If Nothing Else Is On...

PILOT + 1: A Weak Timeslot Gives It Some Time

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THE SKED PILOT REPORT: PREMIERING TONIGHT - "Alcatraz"

11:19 AM | Labels: abrams, action, alcatraz, crime, drama, FOX, midseason, Monday, neill, scifi, The Sked, TV pilot reviews

Disclaimer: Network pilots now in circulation are not necessarily in the form that will air in the Fall. Pilots are often reedited and rescored, and in some cases even recast or reshot. So these critiques shouldn't be taken as full TV pilot reviews, but rather as a guide to the general style and content of the new shows coming your way.

ALCATRAZ - Midseason Monday 9PM on FOX: If Nothing Else Is On...

In this season of paired projects (Grimm and Once Upon A Time, The Playboy Club and Pan Am), it makes sense that we have two series produced by JJ Abrams: CBS's fall Person Of Interest and FOX's midseason ALCATRAZ. Of the two, Alcatraz has by far the more potential, but it's a ragged piece of work that'll need quite a bit of improvement before it hits the air.

Alcatraz posits the idea that in 1963, when the Bay Area maximum-security prison was shut down, the inmates were not transferred to other facilities--instead, they vanished off the face of the earth. The mass disappearance was kept secret by the government, and only now, almost 50 years later, the criminals are beginning to reappear, not having aged a day and on mysterious missions to kill contemporary people for reasons even they don't understand. Spooky! And worthy of the co-creator of Lost (Alcatraz is written by Elizabeth Sarnoff, a Lost producer, along with Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt, both junior writers on Kyle XY). So far so good.

Alcatraz loses its grip when it tries to build a series structure around the premise. For the millionth time, we're back in the storyline where a gritty local detective (Sarah Jones as Rebecca Madsen) starts investigating the murder committed by one of the reemerged convicts, and despite being warned off by mysterious federal agent Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill), she doggedly pursues the crime, until she proves herself instrumental in tracking the killer down and by the end of the pilot, she's been added to the task force. Naturally there's a quirky expert (Jorge Garcia--hi, Hurley!) and a intense techie (Parminder Nagra), and naturally there are vague hints that Rebecca and her uncle (Robert Forster) may have more connection to what's really going on than they realize. It's all terribly routine, and the rudimentary dialogue doesn't add anything to the pilot's by-the-numbers plotting, not to mention the problem of balancing between the time spent with our heroes and with the guest star villain, who's part time traveler and part cipher.

The casting is also lacking. Jones is very pretty, but not exactly ideal as an up-from-the-streets cop, while Neill's done this kind of untrustworthy authority figure countless times, most recently in Happy Town and Daybreakers. Garcia has earned a giant amount of audience goodwill, but they might as well have called his character (a professor who creates his own Alcatraz-themed comic books) Hurley and be done with it. Nagra, who was a solid part of the latter-year ER ensemble, gets little to do. In the pilot, none of them mesh into much of an ensemble, and the direction by Danny Cannon, a CBS procedural veteran, has a minimum of visual panache.

Alcatraz won't air until 2012, when House will move to 8PM on Mondays and the show will take the medical drama's slot, so there's plenty of time for some heavy polishing. Few new series have as original and enticing a premise as this one; now they just need to find a format and style that will keep the show from feeling like hard time.

Read more about TV's new shows at THE SKED PILOT REPORT.

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THE SKED: FOX Midseason

2:11 PM | Labels: alcatraz, american idol, bob's burgers, breaking in, FOX, napoleon, the finder, The Sked, Touch

FOX has announced the specifics of its midseason schedule, with no surprises (you don't need surprises when you're cruising in 1st place, with your unstoppable biggest gun on the way). Below are the shows and dates:

Mondays 9PM (1/16-3/12): ALCATRAZ, launching with a 2-hour debut

Mondays 9PM (starting 3/19): TOUCH - This will have a special "preview" airing of its pilot at 9PM Wed January 25 after American Idol, then launch 2 months later for real, also with a 2-hour debut

Tuesdays (starting 3/6): 8PM - NEW GIRL reruns

8:30PM - BREAKING IN

Wednesdays (starting 1/18): AMERICAN IDOL kicks off (during Jan-Feb, there will also be some episodes of MOBBED on this night in various slots)

Thursdays (starting 1/19): 8PM - AMERICAN IDOL

9PM - THE FINDER (actually kicks off a week earlier, after BONES)

Fridays 9PM: FRINGE returns 1/13

Sundays 7PM: BOB'S BURGERS returns 1/29, moving to 8:30PM on 3/11

Sundays 8:30PM (1/29-3/4): NAPOLEON DYNAMITE

BONES, GLEE and (if we're unlucky) I HATE MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER will also return later in the Spring on unspecified dates.

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The Sked: PROMO WATCH -- Through Wednesday October 19

9:04 AM | Labels: alcatraz, allen gregory, grimm, marketing, on-air, promo watch, promotion, The Sked, tracking

NBC is really turning on the heat to launch Grimm in its tough Friday night time period next week. Over the last week, NBC has given 170 promo seconds to Grimm in our sampled shows, including a robust 55 seconds in the hour of programming sampled last night. This is a serious commitment to a show with two strikes against it (a narrow program genre and time period with relatively few viewers), but the network is giving it every shot.

Rules of Engagement has quietly moved up the CBS priority list. Receiving 40 seconds of time last night in CSI, the comedy now has 95 seconds of time over the past week in our sampling of shows, moving it up to third place. Unforgettable and Person of Interest remain

Once Upon a Time has been allocated 150 promo seconds over the past week in our sampled ABC programs, including another 20 seconds in top-rated Modern Family last night.

Allen Gregory is now the #1 FOX priority, although at a relatively low level of 75 promo seconds (remember that the baseball coverage offers limited promotion time within the telecasts).  Also, last night in Game 1 of the World Series FOX ran promos for the midseason mystery drama Alcatraz, a campaign that will intensify throughout the late fall.

To make the chart easier to read at a glance, there is now a "Cliffs Notes" version below that just lists the top four priorities for each network, making it easier to compare each network to the other. For greater detail, the chart at the bottom lists all shows each network has promoted in the last week in case you are interested in finding a particular series.

ON-AIR PROMOTION PRIORITIES
TOP FOUR SHOWS EACH NETWORK
Over the Last Seven Days
(# of promo-seconds)
Dates sampled: October 13 & 16-19, 2011

ABC
Once Upon a Time   150
Revenge            135
Man Up!            125
CBS
Unforgettable      110
Person of Interest 105
Rules Engagement   95
Big Bang Theory    85
NBC
Grimm              170
Up All Night       115
Prime Suspect      60
L&O: SVU           60
FOX
Allen Gregory      75
Bones              70
Terra Nova         70
The X Factor       50
Pan Am             95

ON-AIR PROMOTION PRIORITIES
Over the Last Seven Days
ALL SHOWS PROMOTED
(# of promo-seconds)
Dates sampled: October 13 & 16-19, 2011

ABC
Once Upon a Time   150
Revenge            135
Man Up!            125
Pan Am             95
Desperate Hswvs    65
Happy Endings      60
Castle             45
Grey's Anatomy     35
Suburgatory        30
Extreme Mak. Home  30
Dancing...Stars    25
Last Man Standing  25
  The Middle         20
Modern Family      15
  20/20              15
The Chew           05
CBS
Unforgettable      110
Person of Interest 105
Rules Engagement   95
Big Bang Theory    85
A Gifted Man       45
The Mentalist      45
CSI: Miami         45
Good Wife          40
Amazing Race       40
Survivor           40
NCIS: LA           40
  Hawaii Five-O      40
Late Show          40
NCIS               35
Blue Bloods        30
  CSI                25
Criminal Minds     25
Two Half Men       20
The Talk           20
CBS News           20
2 Broke Girls      20
NFL on CBS         20
Mike & Molly       10
CSI: New York      10
How I Met Mother   10
NBC
Grimm              170
Up All Night       115
Prime Suspect      60
L&O: SVU           60
Whitney            50
Rock Center        45
Biggest Loser      45
Harry's Law        40
  The Office         30
Parenthood         30
Leno/Fallon        30
Chuck              25
Sunday Night FB    15
FOX
Allen Gregory      75
Bones              70
Terra Nova         70
The X Factor       50
MLB Postseason     40
  House              35
Kitchen Nightmares 20
  Glee              20
  Alcatraz           20
  The Simpsons       15
Fringe             10
NFL on FOX         10

Programs Sampled
Wed Oct 19 2011: Modern Family, Happy Endings, CSI, Up All Night, L&O: SVU (10:30-11), World Series Game 1 (8:30-9:30)

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THE SKED: SHOWBUZZDAILY’S FALL 2011/12 MONDAY TV SCHEDULE

11:18 AM | Labels: 90210, alcatraz, broke, castle, chelsea vodka, dancing, gossip, half men, hawaii, housewives, molly, mother, parenthood, ratings, schedule, television, up all night, voice

Welcome to ShowbuzzDaily's coverage of the upcoming TV schedules for the 2011/12 TV season! Above you see our guide to what to expect on Monday nights this Fall: the numbers are our projected Adults 18-49 ratings for each show; the capitalized titles are the new shows; and italics are for shows changing their time slots. Here’s our analysis of what will really be going on behind the numbers:

Although CBS will leave its schedule fairly stable, with just one new show (the sitcom TWO BROKE GIRLS with Kat Dennings), they face the biggest challenge of the night: keeping 2 ½ MEN a hit without Charlie Sheen. We think the loss of Sheen is going to lower their rating at 9PM, but that the show will still perform strongly for them, and they should continue to hold steady for the night.

NBC’s Monday was a disaster this past season, with THE EVENT, THE CAPE and LAW & ORDER: LOS ANGELES all failing, CHUCK barely surviving, and HARRY’S LAW only doing well enough to justify a move to a new home with the sparser, older audiences on Fridays. We think they’ll completely redo the night, leading off with their new hit reality show THE VOICE, and then trying to build on that lead-in with 2 new sitcoms that have great buzz: UP ALL NIGHT with Christina Applegate, Maya Rudolph and Will Arnett, and ARE YOU THERE VODKA? IT’S ME CHELSEA, starring Laura Prepon and based on the bestselling Chelsea Handler book. With a strong, female-oriented backbone on the night, we think they’ll move PARENTHOOD over from Tuesday, where it’s been critically acclaimed but ratings challenged. All these moves should give them a significantly higher rating for the night than they had this year.

FOX will make a big change on Mondays by following HOUSE with the new ALCATRAZ, from JJ Abrams (LOST, FRINGE) and featuring LOST alums both in its cast (Jorge Garcia aka Hurley) and its writing staff. It’s a crime drama with a supernatural tinge, and those can be risky, garnering limited—although enthusiastic--audiences. But we think ALCATRAZ has a shot of catching the wider crowds that previously showed up for LOST and HEROES.

ABC, which generally wins the night with its combo of DANCING WITH THE STARS and CASTLE, has no reason to make any changes, and The CW will stick with its brand-name shows 90210 and GOSSIP GIRL, which hits their audience of Women 18-34.

Be sure to follow ShowbuzzDaily all through Upfront week: we'll cover the actual network schedules as soon as they're announced, with our own brand of instant expert analysis... and stay tuned for reviews of the shows you'll be watching (or not) in the fall!

WANT MORE? Click on any link below to read predictions for another night:

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