BuzzFeed: "How To Get Away With Murder Doesn’t Quite Get Away With Its Framing Device"

The Shonda Rhimes-executive produced legal thriller might be pushing some boundaries, but its over-reliance on a wonky narrative device is leaving something to be desired. Warning: Contains spoilers if you are not up to date on the show.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "How To Get Away With Murder Doesn’t Quite Get Away With Its Framing Device," in which I examine the Shonda Rhimes-executive produced thriller and look at the way in which the show constructs its framing device... and falls short as a result.

There are many things for which How to Get Away With Murder — from creator Peter Nowalk and executive producer Shonda Rhimes — ought to be celebrated. ABC’s new legal thriller, which has aired two episodes to date, follows the Rhimes-ian ideals of its forebears, resulting in a show that is thoroughly modern and diverse, brimming with complicated characters who are inherently flawed and yet innately watchable.

Likewise, the show has already challenged several conventions of television, potentially depicting the first broadcast use of analingus (surely, this hasn’t happened on network television before) and positioning a middle-aged black woman front and center while reveling in its depictions of her sexuality. In the pilot episode, Viola Davis’ Annalise Keating is shown receiving oral sex from a man who is most definitely not her husband. It’s a brave and bold start, intended to shock, and it announces that Annalise is not going to be powerful but desexualized, nor is she going to be the one merely doling out pleasure to someone else. The show’s second episode followed up by having Annalise beg her cop boyfriend for help only to go home and engage in sex with her husband — whom she now suspects of murdering one of his students — only to roll over, a single tear falling from her left eye.

It’s a telling moment about Annalise’s complexity and further jumpstarts the sexual politics on display within the show, and it’s a milestone in terms of representation that it’s Davis who is so far engaged in these bedroom gymnastics; it’s rare to find a dark-skinned black woman on television who is presented as a sexual being in a positive or even neutral way.

But despite the impressive themes at work within How to Get Away With Murder, there are two narratives within the show that continue to jostle, rather unsuccessfully, against once another, even this early on in the series’ run. There’s the overarching narrative, one in which Annalise has put together a team of young law students — including Alfred Enoch’s naïve Wes, Aja Naomi King’s ambitious Michaela, Matt McGorry’s slimy Asher, Karla Souza’s timid Laurel, and Jack Falahee’s sly Connor — and has them assist her with a case of the week, Good Wife-style. In the second episode, they were tasked with undermining the prosecution’s case against Annalise’s client, an eccentric Colin Sweeney-esque millionaire (Steven Weber) who may have murdered his wife. The students flounder, they figure things out, they learn, and they end up helping Annalise. It’s a pretty precise formula, one that has worked for The Good Wife and countless other legal procedural dramas.

Then there’s the other narrative at play here, one that is set several months in the future and which finds the aforementioned law students attempting to — you guessed it! — get away with murder, in this case the murder of Annalise’s possibly-no-good husband Sam (Tom Verica), revealed to be the body at the end of the pilot. The students conspire, using information gleaned from Annalise’s law class — whose nickname is the title of the show — in order to seemingly cover up a killing committed by… Well, it’s not entirely clear just yet whodunnit or why. Or even if Sam is an innocent victim or something more.

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BuzzFeed: "Lost Changed My Life In More Ways Than I Can Count"

“Guys, where are we?”

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Lost Changed My Life In More Ways Than I Can Count," in which I revisit the 10th anniversary of Lost's premiere and look at how my life has changed in the time since the show first began.

I saw the pilot episode of Lost a few months before it premiered on ABC exactly 10 years ago today — on Sept. 22, 2004.

I was working in television development at the time, and a box of pilots — they may have even been on VHS tapes — had just arrived from a talent agency. My co-workers and I gathered in a tiny, cramped office to sort through the 30–40 screeners, most with titles and premises now forgotten, to find our copy of Lost. Damon Lindelof was an unknown name to us then, but we were addicted to Alias, the trippy espionage drama from Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams, who had also won our hearts with the wistful Felicity.

Twitter and social media as we now know them did not yet exist and, while we had followed the development of the super-expensive pilot in the Hollywood trades (when people still read printed trade publications), we knew nothing of the plot beyond the seemingly simple strangers-survive-a-plane-crash premise. We had no idea just what was in store for us as we dimmed the lights and hit “play.”

The 90-minute pilot was full of scares, surprises, and even a few laughs (that wonky polar bear!), and, most importantly, it introduced mysteries that had us immediately talking and questioning. And it’s the latter that became a trademark effect of the show, one that would be closely associated with Lost until its finale in 2010 and well beyond, and one that was instrumental in helping to cement the show’s massive success. (Almost 20 million people tuned in to the pilot when it aired.) What was this island? What was a crazed polar bear doing in the jungle? What was going to happen to these survivors and, to borrow the words of rocker Charlie (Dominic Monaghan), “Where are we?”

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BuzzFeed: "Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces Makes You See Fire Walk With Me In A Different Way"

David Lynch unveiled nearly 90 minutes of deleted and extended scenes to his 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me at a Los Angeles theater last night. It was intense and weird.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces Makes You See Fire Walk With Me In A Different Way," in which I look at the so-called Missing Pieces from Twin Peaks — the deleted scenes from David Lynch's Fire Walk with Me — unveiled by Lynch last night at the world premiere in Los Angeles.

WARNING: The following contains information about the identity of Laura Palmer’s killer. If, by some chance, you are reading this and haven’t finished the more than two decades-old series, stop reading before you are spoiled.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, David Lynch’s follow-up prequel to cult classic television series Twin Peaks, has always been an odd beast. It recounts the final seven days of the life of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), whose inexplicable and brutal murder is the impetus for the short-lived drama that riveted viewers when it aired between 1990 and 1991. It is also about the similarly brutal murder of Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley), a woman killed a year before Laura in a similarly ritualistic manner whose death puts FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) on alert, following the disappearance of one of his colleagues investigating her murder.

One would expect that the film is a strict prequel, but it is not: Fire Walk With Me plays with time in a unique and nonlinear fashion, making it both prequel and sequel in an odd, contradictory sense. Like Twin Peaks, it is both dreamy and nightmarish, making the conflation of time make sense slightly more. There are visions and sigils, haunted rings and groves of trees, whirring ceiling fans and rustling curtains. The film itself is cryptic and strange, embracing a full-tilt Lynchian mode that the director successfully curtailed in the ethereal Mulholland Drive. Fire Walk With Me is about dreams, desire, and death. It is about answers and more questions. And it is also an unflinching look at the horrors of incest.

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BuzzFeed: "Twin Peaks Is 24 Years Old And It Still Haunts Your Dreams"

David Lynch and Mark Frost’s grand opus celebrates nearly a quarter century of influencing television. Damn fine show.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Twin Peaks Is 24 Years Old And It Still Haunts Your Dreams," in which I (very briefly) explore just why Twin Peaks continues to hold a special allure nearly a quarter century after it first premiered.

Nearly 25 years after it first premiered on ABC, Twin Peaks — the brainchild of David Lynch and Mark Frost — continues to exert an inescapable gravitational pull on the imaginations of viewers and on the television landscape as a whole. Yes, there is still the totemic power of such influential series such as The Wire, or Six Feet Under, or The Sopranos, but Twin Peaks remains a powerful shorthand for ethereal, riveting mystery, and for good reason.

Nominally about the investigation into the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), the serialized drama was responsible for creating the nightmares of many as it delved into both the seedy underbelly of a seemingly idyllic town in the Pacific Northwest and into a haunting dream world where giants and dwarves roamed the halls of the Great Northern Hotel, perfect cherry pie could be had at the local greasy spoon, and murder most foul could rip a town in two. The show itself embraced the somnambulist visuals of its co-creator, infusing the whodunnit with a lyrical, somber, and, at times, terrifying feel. (You all know which moments I mean: A tableau of lovelorn teenagers singing a song segues into a nightmarish encounter. A skipping record signals doom. Red curtains part to reveal horrors.)

For those of us who experienced the show as it aired, tuning in each week to gather more clues about Laura’s killer and marvel at the deductive reasoning skills of the show’s resident Sherlock, FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), it’s almost impossible to describe the strange appeal that Twin Peaks had and the hunger to solve the murder in the days before Twitter, Television Without Pity message boards, or social media at all. It was a true watercooler show in the days when such things as watercooler conversation still existed. It caused many a sleepless night as you pondered just what the dwarf meant, or whether Laura’s lookalike cousin Maddy Ferguson (also played by Lee) was connected somehow to the specifics of her death.

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BuzzFeed: "53 Possible Ways Season 3 Of Scandal Could End"

Shonda Rhimes’ political thriller always leaves you guessing, but entertainment editorial director Jace Lacob and staff writer Emily Orley take a stab as to what might happen by the end of the third season. Let the wild speculation begin!

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "53 Possible Ways Season 3 Of Scandal Could End," in which Emily Orley and I come up with, yes, 53 ways that this season of Scandal could end, from the possible to the highly absurd.

1. Maya’s bomb explodes on the campaign trail, leaving the fates of several characters — including Fitz — unclear as the show goes on its summer hiatus. CLIFF-HANGER!

2. Fitz is killed when the bomb goes off, widowing Mellie in the process. Olivia is understandably distraught, as her actions lead to Maya being able to plant the bomb.

3. Fitz is killed when the bomb goes off and Cyrus runs in his spot on the Republican ticket. He becomes the first openly gay man to win the presidency.

4. Adnan turns on Maya and traps her in a room with the bomb. Adnan becomes a member of Olivia Pope & Associates and Harrison’s girlfriend.

5. Andrew nobly saves Fitz from death, but is himself killed in the process. This gives Mellie even more reason to hate her husband and to feel like he has “taken everything” from her.

6. Fitz is killed when the bomb goes off. Because Sally is the sitting vice president, she ascends to the Oval Office as Fitz’s successor. Olivia is distraught and vows to get Sally kicked out of office.

7. Realizing that she failed to stop Maya when she had the chance, Quinn sacrifices herself to stop Maya’s plot and is killed in the process. Charlie kills Maya in an act of vengeance and ends up joining Olivia Pope & Associates.

8. Maya plants a bomb in the White House. Fitz, Andrew, and Mellie are taken to the secret bunker in the basement, but since Olivia already used her clearance to get down there once, she is left upstairs and thrown against the wall in the bomb blast. Everything goes black.

9. Charlie dies saving Quinn from the blast. Quinn rejoins OPA, though her passion for Olivia’s mission has been tempered from her time with B613 and with Charlie. She wants nothing to do with Huck.

10. Quinn attempts to sacrifice herself in order to stop Maya’s plot, but Huck saves her at the last moment.

11. Feeling betrayed, Charlie attempts to kill Quinn when he realizes that she has been plotting against him and B613. She is saved by Huck.

12. Charlie attempts to kill Huck, believing him responsible for Quinn’s loyalty issues. Quinn kills Charlie in order to save Huck.

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BuzzFeed: "How Scandal Turned Into An Exploration Of Free Will"

Season 3 of Shonda Rhimes’ additive ABC drama offers not only a pulse-pounding thrill ride each week, but also a canny exploration of self-determination. Spoilers ahead, if you’re not caught up.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "How Scandal Turned Into An Exploration Of Free Will," in which I take a look at the third season of Shonda Rhimes' addictive ABC thriller.

Scandal’s seven-episode first season, which aired in early 2012, gave very little indication of just where this riveting drama would go by its third and current season. At first glance, it appeared to be a legal drama centering on Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and her team of misfit lawyers, a group of very damaged people lured into the arena by Olivia’s gritty strength and forged into self-made gladiators. Their elite crisis management firm operated in Washington, meaning that the show’s title came into play fairly quickly via a slew of high-profile cases.

Olivia had ties to the fictional Grant Administration, and in particular to the POTUS, Fitz (Tony Goldwyn), for whom Olivia had worked and with whom she’s been having an extra-marital affair. Oval Office intrigue, horrific murders, and tales of jaw-dropping corruption soon followed as Scandal quickly became the sort of show that in years prior would have been referred to as a “watercooler drama,” a series that exerts a gravitational pull on the viewer so strong that they need to dissect every moment with their co-workers the following day. But thanks to the prevalence of social media in 2013, the Shonda Rhimes-created Scandal became that show for a new generation of obsessive viewers who took to Twitter and Facebook instantly to analyze the latest twist in television’s most serpentine drama.

Season 3 of Scandal, which wraps up the first half of its run on Dec. 12, has amped up the stakes in a show that already required Dramamine for those who found the rollercoaster plots moving at too high a velocity. While prying into the marriage between Fitz and his Lady MacBeth-esque First Lady, Mellie (Bellamy Young), and the complex dynamics between Fitz and Olivia, the show had wisely avoided giving away too much of Olivia’s tragic backstory. She was, after all, a gladiator. Donned in her white hat — sometimes quite literally — she stormed into the ring and took no prisoners. Olivia Pope was a blood-soaked warrior, unafraid of getting her hands dirty. But, ultimately, she was just as damaged as those she saved. In exploring her complicated backstory, Scandal has once again revealed new facets of Olivia’s character, one that refuses to be pigeonholed in the category of Strong Black Woman. Her father, Eli Pope (Joe Morton), oversees B613, a deadly black ops division of the nation’s intelligence forces whose very ruthlessness has smashed up the psyches of several characters, including Huck (Guillermo Díaz), Jake (Scott Foley), Quinn (Katie Lowes), and even Fitz himself. While on a covert operation for the Navy, the future POTUS was given an order by “Command” to shoot down an American passenger jet carrying 300-plus people aboard, including, it was believed for a while, Olivia’s own mother.

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BuzzFeed: "9 Reasons Why Trophy Wife Is Amazing"

ABC’s quirky blended family comedy — the one that isn’t Modern Family — has quickly become a bright spot in an otherwise largely dull season of television.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest, feature, "9 Reasons Why Trophy Wife Is Amazing," in which I offer nine reasons why you should be watching ABC's stellar comedy Trophy Wife, which airs Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m.

Make no mistake: You should be watching ABC’s Trophy Wife. Created by Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins, this witty show — which was picked up last week for a full season of 22 episodes — might just be the best new comedy of the 2013-14 season. It’s a perfectly sweet-tart confection that focuses on a sprawling Los Angeles family connected by marriage, divorce, and remarriage.

Meet Pete (Bradley Whitford), a lawyer who’s lousy at picking spouses, a concept quickly summed up in the opening title sequence. His first ex-wife is prickly doctor Diane (Marcia Gay Harden); his second ex-wife is spacey oddball Jackie (Michaela Watkins); and his current wife, the titular character, is Kate (Malin Akerman), a former party girl who has found herself the step-mother to three kids, a detour to her life route that she has taken in her stride.

Trophy Wife could be a predictable, comedy-by-the-numbers affair; instead, it’s anything but. It’s a refreshingly charming and mercilessly funny look at modern families that are far more complicated than one might expect. The result is a wickedly funny comedy that ought to be at the top of your DVR season pass.

1. The ensemble cast is fantastic. Seriously.

Trophy Wife gives us a family that is full of rivalries, vendettas, and a lot of love. It might not look like your family or mine, but what the show explores — with humor and heart — is how families support and take care of each other, even when they’re out for blood. It helps that the entire ensemble, led by Akerman, Harden, Watkins, andWhitford and including their sprawling brood of offspring, is at the top of their game, whether it’s Albert Tsai’s scene-stealer Bert, Ryan Scott Lee’s perpetually sunny Warren (witness his Ellen DeGeneres costume in last week’s “Halloween” episode), or Bailee Madison’s twitchy Hillary. Not to mention Natalie Morales’ Meg, Kate’s best friend, who carts a tornado in her wake.

This is an ensemble that seems to have been together for a while, acutely aware of one another’s rhythms and beats, rather than a cast that has filmed only a handful of episodes. The point is that it’s impossible not to fall in love with them.

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BuzzFeed: "What’s Wrong With ABC’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

The Marvel espionage drama bares a lot of similarities to the early run of Fox’s now-departed Fringe — and not necessarily in good ways.

At BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "What’s Wrong With ABC’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.?” in which I ponder just what's wrong with ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and why the show is failing to deliver on the promise of its concept.

After what I thought was an enjoyable pilot episode (save for that unfortunate opening sequence), I’ve found the subsequent episodes of ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the television spinoff from Marvel’s cinematic universe, to be rather lackluster.

That shouldn’t be the case, particularly given the participation of the Whedons behind the scenes and the fact that the show’s writers have an entire universe of pre-existing Marvel material from which to draw inspiration. Yet, for the most part, these first few episodes have bordered on being depressingly dull, static installments that haven’t advanced the character development or loaded in an overarching plot or mythology that could amp up the tension a bit.

Tuesday’s episode (“Eye Spy”) was a step in the right direction, centering on a cybernetically enhanced former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent coerced into committing high-stakes crimes for her unseen puppet master. But the plot itself reminded me a little too much of Fox’s Fringe, another series about a makeshift team investigating rogue scientists and the seemingly inexplicable and mysterious occurrences unfolding in an otherwise grounded world. Everything about this episode — from the red masked couriers in the opening sequence to the tease of a larger pattern of illicit scientific behavior — screamed Fringe, in fact. (Interestingly, former Fringe writer Monica Owusu-Breen is on the writing staff for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..)

But, like Fringe before it, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is plagued with some of the same issues the Fox drama faced in its early episodes. Despite the fact that we’re only four episodes into the show, there hasn’t been enough character development at work; the agents are largely still the same archetypes they were when the series began, and the audience has little knowledge of them besides for their names. (I still can’t keep Fitz and Simmons straight, which is saying something, especially since they’re different genders.)

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BuzzFeed: "Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Is Just As Awesome As You Suspected"

Marvel’s cinematic universe gets a television tie-in as the Joss Whedon-led spinoff — the pilot episode of which ABC screened for critics earlier this week — launches on September 24.

Over at BuzzFeed, you can read my latest feature, "Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Is Just As Awesome As You Suspected," in which I offer my first impressions of ABC's pilot for Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D..

Agent Coulson lives!

Well, sort of, anyway, if the sensational pilot episode of ABC’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — a bit of a mouthful, not to mention a clutch of extra periods — is any indication. While Marvel’s studio bosses are keeping mum about the truth behind the revelation that Clark Gregg’s Coulson, who was last seen on the receiving end of a vengeful Asgardian god’s pointy stick in The Avengers, firmly under wraps, longtime fans of Marvel Comics can pretty much figure out what’s going on here. (Cough, LMD, cough.)

But that’s really more than okay, because the Agent Coulson plot is just one of several at play within Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., created by Joss Whedon (who directs the pilot episode), Jed Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen. It masterfully blends together the high stakes action, quivering emotion, and deft humor we’ve come to expect from Joss and Co. The latter element is perhaps the most significant, because the show doesn’t live in the shadows all of the time; while there is more than enough death and destruction within the pilot episode, there is also a lot of genuinely funny beats and some snappy banter to satisfy any Whedon fan craving that delicate interplay of serious, soulful, and sarcastic.

However, the pilot for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which revolves around the team’s mission to track down the mystery man played by former Angel mainstay J. August Richards, does feature its share of tough moral dilemmas. Perhaps most wisely, it also depicts the high-flying adventures of this motley group as exciting and bracing. It does, however, skirt the issue of whether a powerful espionage agency — so far above the common man that it floats in the sky aboard a helicarrier — engaged in tracking down unregistered “supers” are truly “the good guys.”

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The Daily Beast: "2013 TV Upfronts Wrap-Up: Bring On the New Television Shows"

The broadcast network upfront presentations are over. Jace Lacob on the 51 new scripted shows heading to television next season. What will you watch?

At The Daily Beast, you can read my final upfronts post, "2013 TV Upfronts Wrap-Up: Bring On the New Television Shows," in which I wrap up our broadcast network upfronts coverage and take a look at the 51 new scripted series heading to ABC Television Network, CBS, NBC, FOX, and The CW for the 2013-14 season.

The upfront presentations are (finally) over.

Now that the dust has settled, it's easier to get a larger picture of what's going on for next season. The numbers: 51 scripted series have been ordered by the broadcast networks for the 2013–14 season. There are 29 new dramas for next season and 22 comedies. Thirty-one shows will launch in the fall, and 20 are being held for a later date, should some of the fall offerings fail to enflame the public's imagination. On the network level, ABC picked up 12 new scripted series; CBS ordered eight; NBC issued series pickups to 14, while Fox did the same for 12 scripted series. The CW claimed five new scripted shows.

ABC picked up a slew of pilots, including a Rebel Wilson sitcom Super Fun Night, and issued a series order to The Avengers spinoff series, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. CBS ordered several pilots, including a Sarah Michelle Gellar–Robin Williams comedy from David E. Kelley, Josh Holloway–led cyberprocedural Intelligence, and Hostages, a political conspiracy thriller starring Toni Collette, among others. NBC ordered a bunch of pilots, including J.J. Abrams’s supernatural drama Believe (which will feature Twin Peaks's Kyle MacLachlan), an adaptation of Nick Hornby's About a Boy, and global conspiracy thriller Crisis, from creator Rand Ravich, to name a few.

Elsewhere, Fox ordered a handful of pilots, including: J.J. Abrams’s futuristic police drama Almost Human; Sleepy Hollow, a modern-day update of Washington Irving's classic thriller; cop drama Gang Related, starring Lost’s Terry O'Quinn and RZA; and legal drama Rake, a remake of an Australian drama which will star Greg Kinnear. The CW ordered a remake of 1970s British science-fiction drama The Tomorrow People, a period drama following Mary Queen of Scots called Reign, and an interspecies sci-fi/romance drama called Star-Crossed, along with a spinoff of The Vampire Diaries and an adaptation of The 100.

The odds are not in these new shows' favor, however: many of these new shows will fail, and some—the networks hope, anyway—may succeed to see a second season (or longer, if they're truly lucky).

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The Daily Beast: "ABC Announces 2013-14 Schedule: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Gets Tuesday Berth, Super Fun Night Gets Modern Family Lead-In"

I examine ABC's primetime schedule for 2013-14, which includes Joss Whedon's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., a Once Upon a Time spin-off, and Kyle Killen's Mind Games. Plus, read what Paul Lee had to say about the cancellation of Happy Endings and why Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is perfect for Tuesdays at 8 p.m.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest upfronts update, "ABC Announces 2013-14 Schedule: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Gets Tuesday Berth, Super Fun Night Gets Modern Family Lead-In," in which I report on ABC's fall 2013 primetime schedule, sum up Paul Lee's remarks to reporters this morning, and issue some quick reactions to the scheduling announcements.

ABC took the wraps off of its 2013-14 schedule on Tuesday morning, following speculation about where the network would slot its highly anticipated television series spin-off of feature film franchise The Avengers, entitled Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Yes, there are a lot of periods there for one title.) Elsewhere, ABC announced that Rebel Wilson's sitcom Super Fun Night would get the plum post-Modern Family timeslot on Wednesdays and its upcoming spin-off of Sunday evening's successful fantasy drama Once Upon a Time, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, would be heading to Thursdays. And comedy The Neighbors, which received an eleventh hour reprieve, is now headed to Fridays.

The biggest news, however, was that Dancing With the Stars would be reduced to just one night a week.

The announcements were made by ABC Entertainment Group President Paul Lee, ahead of Tuesday's official upfront presentation at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. “We are taking some big swings with groundbreaking shows this season, and staying close to our roots with smart and sophisticated storytelling," said Lee in a statement. "ABC is known for its combination of innovation and stability, and our new schedule reflects that. We’re bringing back the shows that viewers have embraced and enhancing the lineup with a slate of exciting new series."

Among the new shows heading to ABC's lineup next season: Back in the Game, Betrayal, The Goldbergs, Killer Women, Lucky 7, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Mind Games, Mixology, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Resurrection, Super Fun Night, Trophy Wife and new alternative series The Quest.

Speaking to the press ahead of Tuesday's upfront presentation, Lee said that he sees ABC as having a "smart, strong, sophisticated brand," and that the network is "starting to add some other pieces this year," including things like Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. "Our job is to be hugely inclusive. It’s a big, broad network that does overdeliver on upscale audiences… It's a smart, emotional brand."

As for the difficult decision behind cancelling comedy Happy Endings, one of Lee's personal favorites, Lee was honest about the challenges. "I do think Happy Endings is absolutely on brand… It was just too narrow. It was a very hard decision. I loved that show and found it hard to make that decision.”

Lee said that they are striving to bringing a lot of innovation to scheduling next season. "Originals are being run in batches of 12 [episodes] with a gap," explained Lee. Limited run series are being built to air in that gap in between clusters of original episodes. Reality entry The Quest will run between the two halves of Once Upon a Time.

In fact, ABC is looking to make "quality launches throughout the season away from the clutter of the fall. Resurrection is an extraordinary piece of filmmaking... I’ve left that to midseason so it could flourish away from that slugfest of September. Mind Games is also for midseason [and features] an extraordinary performance from Steve Zahn." The same will hold for Tricia Helfer-led Killer Women, a character-driven procedural that Lee described as "very romantic, very tough, irresistible."

As for the other limited run series that will bridge the halves of ABC's original dramas, Lee wouldn't comment beyond Betrayal and Resurrection (and reality entry The Quest) for now: "We’ll be announcing them a little later."

Midseason will also see the return of Suburgatory and the launch of new comedy Mixology. Lee touted the latter, which is set at a Manhattan bar: "The whole season takes place in one night. We won’t know who goes home with whom until the end of the season."

All in all, said Lee, the 2013-14 season is looking like "a pretty strong season for us."

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The Daily Beast: "TV Upfronts 2013: Bring On the New Shows!"

With the broadcast networks' upfront presentations less than a week away, I look at what new television shows the broadcast networks have ordered for the 2013-14 season.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Bring On the New Shows!" in which I start to round up what new television shows the broadcast networks have ordered so far for the 2013-14 season. (It will continue to be updated with each new series order over the next week.)

It's that time of year again! I take a look at the new series that are coming to television next season, as the broadcast network upfront presentations get underway next week.

The orders started coming in late Thursday night. Fox has so far ordered four comedies and four dramas, including: J.J. Abrams' futuristic police drama Almost Human; Sleepy Hollow, a modern day update of Washington Irving's classic thriller; cop drama Gang Related, which will star Lost's Terry O'Quinn and RZA; and legal drama Rake, a remake of an Australian drama which will star Greg Kinnear.

Keep checking this space for the latest updates as the broadcasters prepare to unveil several dozen new shows for the 2013-14 season.

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The Daily Beast: "TV Upfronts 2013: NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, and The CW By the Numbers"

Is your favorite show safe? I take a look at what’s on tap for the broadcast networks for the 2013-14 season, which shows are coming back, and which ones have gotten the axe.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature,
"TV Upfronts 2013: NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, and The CW By the Numbers," in which I offer a running total (which will be updated throughout the next week) at all the broadcast network shows that have been renewed, ordered, and cancelled as we move into upfront presentations week for the broadcast networks.

Every May, advertisers and members of the press descend on New York City as the broadcast networks host their annual upfront presentations, where they will unveil their fall schedules, trot out talent, and announce which shows will be coming back next season and which ones won’t.

The Daily Beast will be reporting on every move being made by ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and The CW as they prepare to launch their 2013-2014 schedules. As the week wears on, The Daily Beast will continue to update its gallery of new shows as the individual networks present their schedules and programming and report on what the networks’ top executives are saying.

This year’s crop of pilots was heavy on literary adaptations, period dramas, foreign formats (particularly of British, Spanish, and Israeli series), and remakes of movies (About a Boy! Beverly Hills Cop! Bad Teacher!) and old television shows (Ironside! The Tomorrow People!). Plus, there was not one, but two takes on Alice in Wonderland, proving that fairy tales are again a hot commodity this year. Will Joss Whedon’s white-hot Avengers television spinoff, Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D., make it to the airwaves? Will NBC take a chance on J.J. Abrams’ supernatural drama Believe, which revolves around a girl with unique abilities and the man who is assigned to protect her at all costs? Or will it be yet another year of doctors, lawyers, and cops?

Below you’ll find a guide to the week’s schedule of upfront presentations:

Monday, May 13: NBC
Monday, May 13: Fox
Tuesday, May 14: ABC
Wednesday, May 15: CBS
Thursday, May 16: The CW

In the meantime, here’s a scorecard—broken down by network—to help you keep track of which of the 100-plus network pilots have been picked up to series, which current shows will be returning next season, and which shows are now six feet under. (As renewals and cancelations come in, we will continue to update this list throughout the week or so.)


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The Daily Beast: "Revenge: What Went Wrong with ABC’s Once-Daring Thriller?"

Last year, Revenge was a thrill-a-minute vengeance fantasy but now, in its second season, it’s a convoluted mess. My take on the show’s head-scratching fall from grace.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Revenge: What Went Wrong with ABC’s Once-Daring Thriller?" In it, I ponder just what went wrong with ABC's Revenge that caused its shocking second-season drop in quality.

What a difference a year makes, particularly in the life of a serialized television narrative.

At this time last year, ABC’s Revenge—Mike Kelley’s modern-day retelling of Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, set among the Hamptons polo set—was a dazzling vengeance fantasy, reveling in its dark nature and the even darker journey of Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp), a woman scorned who was out for payback against the wealthy clan who destroyed her life and shattered her family.

It functioned on several levels and tapped into the zeitgeist of 2012; it could be seen (as I had written) as “not only winking noir … [but also as] a retribution fantasy for the 99 percent,” as Emily looked to take down the conspirators who ruined her life and set up her father (James Tupper) as a fall guy for a terrorist-funded financial scheme that resulted in the downing of a passenger plane. Her vast fortune—acquired from a tech mogul, Nolan Ross (Gabriel Mann), whom her father had helped when he was starting out—was used in service of her holy mission of vengeance.

And each week, Revenge found Emily immolating her sense of morality as she concocted yet another grandiose revenge scheme, caring little about the collateral damage she was causing around her. She was entrancing, as I wrote last year: “Emily—criminal mastermind, computer hacker, cat burglar, and willing arsonist, not to mention a ronin in Giuseppe Zanotti stilettos—recalls Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander as much as she does Dumas’s Edmond Dantès.”

Where did that character disappear to? Season 2 of Revenge has seemed, in comparison to its deftly (and magnificently) plotted first season, a convoluted mess. Rather than further the central conceit—Emily’s quest for revenge against the Grayson clan, headed by femme fatale Victoria (Madeleine Stowe) and robber baron Conrad (Henry Czerny)—the show has meandered into all manner of narrative trouble: plots about a broader conspiracy, psychotic mothers, vengeance buddies (see: Barry Sloane’s Aiden), computer programs, kidnapped sisters, waterfront shakedowns, lazy double-crossings, and a ruthless terrorist organization called The Initiative, whose operative (Wendy Crewson) appears to do little besides be chauffeured around New York all day long.

In the first season, Stowe’s Victoria provided a menacing nemesis for Emily, but her role has been usurped by The Initiative, which is more evil and ruthless than even Victoria. But that’s a problem: by making Victoria the puppet of people even worse than her, it’s taken away much of her power. Additionally, Crewson’s Helen Crowley proved to be not half as interesting, complex, or scary as Victoria Grayson. The balance of power didn’t just shift in Season 2, it fell right off the scales.

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The Daily Beast: "Zero Hour: Is This the Dumbest Show Ever to Air on TV?"

ABC tries to get back in the Lost game with the ridiculous Zero Hour. My take on the show, launching Thursday, that just might be the dumbest ever on television.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my review of the first episode of ABC's overhyped adventure drama "Zero Hour" (entitled ""Zero Hour: Is This the Dumbest Show Ever to Air on TV?"), in which I call the Anthony Edwards-led drama "nothing more than stale schlock, an hour full of zeroes.

Ever since Lost went off the air—and, actually, before—the broadcast networks have desperately searched for a show that could tempt viewers eager to get, well, lost in the complexity, mythology, and mystery of the Damon Lindelof/Carlton Cuse drama.

Zero Hour is not that show.

The ABC drama, which begins Thursday night at 10 p.m., recalls fiascos like FlashForward more than Lost. Created by former Prison Break writer Paul Scheuring, Zero Hour is no valentine to television, offering up a ludicrous mash-up of overtly familiar tropes: doomsday devices, the birth of the Anti-Christ, secret societies, and a witch’s cauldron of yawn-inducing fare. Did I mention that there are also goose-stepping Nazis, clocks embedded with treasure maps, demon spawn, and enough nonsense to make The Da Vinci Code seem downright plausible?

The plot—and I use that term lightly—revolves around Hank (Anthony Edwards), the shlubby editor of a paranormal magazine (called Modern Skeptic, no less) whose wife, clock seller Laila (Jacinda Barrett), is kidnapped by a ruthless assassin on the FBI’s most wanted list as part of a conspiracy that involves the end of the world.

There’s also the appearance of 12 mystical clocks, constructed during the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and the Rosicrucians, a secret Catholic mystical sect said to be guarding some sort of device with the power to bring about “zero hour” for the planet. Hank sets out on a world-spanning mission (funded by whom?), heading for the Artic circle after discovering a diamond whose flaw is actually a map to something called “New Bartholomew” in an effort to find Laila and the man who took her.

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The Daily Beast: "Why Is No One Watching ABC’s Critically Acclaimed Drama Nashville?"

Nashville is one of the fall season’s few critical sensations. So why is no one watching? I explore the reasons why ABC’s country music drama isn’t a ratings success—yet.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Why Is No One Watching ABC’s Critically Acclaimed Drama Nashville?" in which I offer praise of ABC's Nashville, and ponder why more viewers aren't watching this fantastic drama.

The fall television season has been largely disappointing. Few new shows have captured the passion or imagination of viewers, and the war of comedies on the broadcast networks—with no less than three separate comedy blocks on Tuesday nights!—has turned out to be little more than a minor skirmish.

So it’s all the more disheartening that one of the few bright spots on the fall schedule, ABC’s Nashville—which was picked up for a full season earlier this week—seems to be suffering as much hardship as a heroine in a country song.

Despite overwhelming critical praise—a Metacritic score of 84, signifying “universal acclaim”—and glowing reviews, Nashville launched with an audience of 8.9 million viewers and a 2.8 rating among adults 18–49, numbers that dipped in subsequent weeks. (The Nov. 7 broadcast, however, showed an 11 percent uptick, which brought the show back to hovering around the 2.0 mark.)

The show, from Thelma & Louise writer Callie Khouri and starring Friday Night Lights’ Connie Britton and Heroes’ Hayden Panettiere, revolves around the often cutthroat musical and political scenes of Nashville, Tenn., centering on a troika of talented women during the ebb and flow of their country music careers. Britton’s Rayna James was the reigning queen of country, but she has discovered that consumers’ tastes have changed, and her stardom long ago stopped burning white-hot. Panettiere’s brash young upstart Juliette Barnes is the latest pop sensation, but she yearns for legitimacy and creative freedom. And then there’s Clare Bowen’s naive songwriter Scarlett O’Connor, who is plucked from obscurity when she duets one night with her fellow Bluebird Café waiter Gunnar Scott (Sam Palladio).

Under the watchful eye of Khoury and her writing staff, Nashville is more than just a Glee clone in cowboy boots. The show skillfully explores the cost of living in the public eye, the lengths one has to go to in order to hold onto precarious financial success, the often incestuous Gordian knot of relationships in the country music capital, and the bitter pang of love lost. One subplot has Panettiere’s Juliette dealing with her junkie mother, a meth addict who careens from caterwauling to begging for forgiveness. Indeed, while Britton as always impresses with a lithe naturalism, Panettiere’s performance is surprisingly one of many reasons to watch. She infuses Juliette with a rare sympathetic streak despite her awful behavior, whether she’s trying to steal Rayna’s bandleader (and ex-boyfriend) Deacon Claybourne (Charles Esten) or a bottle of nail polish from a pharmacy. Her caustic exterior and slutty ways belie a wounded soul in need of salvation.

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The Daily Beast: "Nashville: 5 Facts About Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio’s Stunning Duet"

Can’t get that song out of your head? Jace Lacob offers five facts about the stunning duet, a cover of The Civil Wars’ “If I Didn’t Know Better,” in ABC’s Nashville pilot.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Nashville: 5 Facts About Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio’s Stunning Duet," in which I offer up five facts about the gorgeous duet in the pilot episode of ABC's Nashville last night.

If you watched Wednesday night’s premiere of Nashville—or caught the series opener on iTunes or elsewhere—you know that you don’t need to be a country-music fan in order to appreciate the soapy and seductive Callie Khouri–created drama, which revolves around the battle for dominance between a country-music veteran (Friday Night Lights’ Connie Britton) and a young upstart (Hayden Panettiere).

While the two musical adversaries all but threw daggers at each other in the series opener, Nashsville is not just about the Grand Ole Opry but a canny exploration of gender and age politics in the music industry as well as a mayoral race, romance, and workplace-related drama. It’s also, not surprisingly, also about music, which concerned me as I am far from being a country-music fan.

Britton and Panettiere, however, make the cold war between Rayna Jaymes and Juliette Barnes palpably hot, anchoring the show with their nuanced performances of a woman heading toward the end of her career and another happily stealing away the spotlight. But for all of their quips and sobbing jags, the true clincher in the pilot episode was the breathtaking song—performed by Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio—that came at the episode’s end, one that pointed toward the season’s overall narrative, one that links the ambitions and high-wattage dreams of Britton’s Rayna, Panettiere’s Juliette, and Bowen’s Scarlett.

If you’ve found the episode’s final minutes and that song to be absolutely spellbinding (truly one of the first unforgettable moments of the new season), here are five facts about the song from the end of Nashville’s pilot:

1. While Clare Bowen’s Scarlett O’Connor—a star-struck waitress at Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Café and the niece of Rayna’s bandleader, Deacon Claybourne (Charles Esten)—claims to have written the lyrics as a piece of poetry in her notebook, it is actually a cover of a song by The Civil Wars that Bowen and Palladio perform. The song in question: “If I Didn’t Know Better,” which appears on The Civil Wars’ 2009 live album, Live at Eddie’s Attic.

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The Daily Beast: "Why Comedy Writers Love HBO's Game of Thrones"

Game of Thrones is beloved by viewers and critics alike. But the Emmy-nominated HBO fantasy drama is also a surprising favorite in the writers’ rooms of TV comedies around Hollywood. I talk to sitcom writers about why they’re obsessed with the sex-and-magic-laden drama, and how the show informs their own narratives.

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Why Comedy Writers Love HBO's Game of Thrones," in which I talk to writers from Parks and Recreation, Modern Family, and Community about why they love HBO's Game of Thrones, nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Drama.

Fox’s upcoming sitcom The Mindy Project, created by and starring Mindy Kaling, deconstructs the romantic comedy fantasies of its lead character, an ob-gyn whose disappointment in the dating world stems from her obsessive viewing of Nora Ephron films.

At the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour in July, Kaling was candid about the role that When Harry Met Sally and other rom-coms would play on the show, but also revealed the show might feature shoutouts to HBO’s Game of Thrones, which is nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Drama.

“My writing staff, they are just obsessed with Game of Thrones,” Kaling said. “The show could just have Game of Thrones references: dragons, stealing eggs of dragon babies… You might see a lot—more than your average show—of Game of Thrones references.”

Yet the writers of The Mindy Project are not the only scribes who have fallen under the spell of the ferocious Game of Thrones, which depicts the struggle for control of the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.

“It’s a violent, strange show with lots of sex in it,” Kaling went on to say.

Writers’ rooms—where the plots of television shows are “broken,” in industry parlance—often revolve around discussions of other shows, particularly ones that have a significant hold on the cultural conversation, whether it be Breaking Bad, Mad Men, or Homeland.

“A comedy writers’ room is like a really great dinner party with the smartest and funniest people you’ve ever met,” Parks and Recreation co-executive producer Alexandra Rushfield wrote in an email. Their typical conversations? “The presidential campaign. Whatever articles or books people are reading. Taking wagers on crazy statistics, like how much all the casts in the world combined might weigh. General heckling of co-workers.”

And TV shows such as Game of Thrones that viewers can debate endlessly. Modern Family executive producer Danny Zuker likened Game of Thrones to Lost in terms of the volume of discussion and passionate debate that the show engenders. It’s certainly immersive: five massive novels, two seasons of television, maps, online forums, family trees. Game of Thrones is a show that provokes—or even forces—viewer evaluation, deconstruction, and discussion.

“Many writers that I know are into it,” said Zuker over lunch on the Fox lot. “The setting of the world probably appeals to that nerd that is in most writers… I never played Dungeons & Dragons, but I get why the most disaffected kids who are intelligent and creative did, because in that world you could be powerful…. I basically just described comedy writers.”

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The Daily Beast: "Fall TV 2012 Preview: 7 Shows to Watch, 7 Shows to Skip"

The fall television season is here! But which shows should you be watching and which should you skip? I'm glad you asked.

Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Fall TV 2012 Preview: 7 Shows to Watch, 7 Shows to Skip," in which I offer my take on the upcoming fall season, with seven shows you should be watching (from ABC's Nashville to PBS' Call the Midwife) and those you should be snubbing (Partners, The Neighbors).

The fall television season is once again upon us, and overall the results are pretty depressing: there’s a decided lack of originality to much of the broadcast networks’ new offerings, as if they were somehow injured by the lack of interest in last year’s riskier programs.

In fact, there is a whole lot of formulaic fare coming to your televisions, and a ton of new (mostly awful) comedies this year. But fret not: it’s not all doom and gloom, as there are at least a few promising new shows on the horizon, from the Connie Britton-led country music drama Nashville to the sweet charms of offbeat comedy Ben & Kate.

Once again, the broadcasters have opted to hold back many of the more interesting new shows until midseason, which means we’ll have to wait until January for the launch of Kevin Williamson’s serial killer thriller The Following against James Purefoy in a murderous game, and Bryan Fuller’s television adaptation of Hannibal, which finds a young FBI agent (Hugh Dancy) meeting the cannibalistic psychopath Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) for the first time. Which isn’t to say that midseason is entirely promising either: the winter will also find ABC offering us the truly terrible Dane Cook comedy (and I use that word loosely), Next Caller.

In the meantime, however, while we’re waiting for the rise of the serial killers on the broadcast nets, here’s a look at the best and worst of the new fall television season.

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The Daily Beast: "TiVo’s Top 20 Shows Watched Before Bed: Jimmy Fallon, Lost Girl, and More"

Just what are you watching before bed? Do you tune in to watch a 10 p.m. drama? A late-night talk show? Or reality television?

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "TiVo’s Top 20 Shows Watched Before Bed: Jimmy Fallon, Lost Girl, and More," in which I examine data obtained from TiVo about the top 20 shows that people watch before they go to bed, from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Revenge to Chopped and NCIS: LA.

It’s no secret that many Americans turn on the television as part of a nighttime ritual before bed. But what is surprising is just what they’re watching before their heads hit their respective pillows.

According to data provided by TiVo to The Daily Beast, the top program watched at bedtime was NBC’s Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, while TBS’s Conan was the most-watched cable show before bed.

“Perhaps it’s not surprising that many late-night talk shows are watched before bed,” Tara Maitra, TiVo’s general manager of content and media sales, said in a statement. “But we found it interesting that many people are also tuning into light-hearted reality shows before falling asleep.”

In fact, 22 percent of shows watched at bedtime are reality shows, with Bravo and HGTV appearing most often with 11 percent of cable programs represented (though Food Network’s Chopped crops up in the top 20), while the most-watched non-news or reality show watched at bedtime is Syfy’s Canadian import Lost Girl. Despite the fact that it went off the air in 2007, The King of Queens—now airing repeats in syndication—scored an impressive high spot at No. 23.

The top 10 recorded, rather than live, programs watched before bed included Glee, Modern Family, NCIS: Los Angeles, Smash, The Mentalist, Revenge, America’s Got Talent, American Idol, and Cougar Town. (Wait, Cougar Town?!?)

A few caveats first. The data provided by TiVo came from a sample group of 47,000 opt-in households who are TiVo or DVR subscribers and were generated by the last program—both live and recorded—that they watched after 10 p.m. on weeknights (Monday through Thursday). Multiple-day viewership was factored in as well, which is why late-night talk shows like Late Night and The Tonight Show ranked so highly here, as they air throughout the week. Finally, the percentage listed is indicative of the percentage of viewers (TiVo boxes) out of all boxes that watched at least one show during the four days of ratings analysis, including both recorded and live programs. (All times are ET/PT.)

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