Televisionary Rant: CW Fails to Amuse with "Hidden Palms" Promo Campaign

Remember a time when network promos made you want to watch a show? When they didn't just spoil everything in a single episode (thank you, ABC promo-meisters!) or just... confuse you?

I'm talking about the blink-and-you-missed it 15-second promos that CW has begun to air for its summer series, Hidden Palms, which kicks off on May 30th at 8 pm.

For those of you who haven't seen the mind boggling awfulness that are these promos, I urge you to check out the series' "grassroots" site at 08nova.com. Having seen the series, I can say that these promos fail to capture the tone, characters, or mystery in Hidden Palms. Instead, they confuse, irritate, and bore... all at the same time.

I'm all for mystery and intrigue. The more the better when you only have an eight-episode summer run to entice people with before disappearing off the schedule once the temperature starts to drop. But unlike the Oceanic site launched by ABC and Touchstone for Lost (which intrigued and bewildered at times), these videos wouldn't make me want to tune in.

The promo I happened to catch during last week's clip show episode of America's Next Top Model (which doesn't appear online) featured Sharon Lawrence brandishing a gun at a guy, who asks her where she got the gun. "I'm from Texas," she spits out as she draws the gun upwards. Plus, there are quick-cut reverses and cartoon sound effects! Hmmm.

For a series that features Taylor Handley, Amber Heard, Michael Cassidy, Ellary Porterfield, and Tessa Thompson in various states of undress, I don't know that I would have gone with Lawrence to sell this series in a promo spot that appeared to be a lead-in for a promo of The Pussycat Dolls Presents: The Search for the Next Doll. (Seriously, it was THAT fast.)

Or maybe the CW just doesn't want to spend any money promoting a summer series, even one as seductive a guilty pleasure as its own Hidden Palms.