Tag Archives: CBS

Life in Pieces – Post #2

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How will Life in Pieces fare against its competition?

How will Life in Pieces fare against its competition?

When CBS’s new single-camera comedy, Life in Pieces, makes its debut next Monday at 8:30/7:30c, it will certainly be facing some stiff competition. NBC, FOX, and ABC will all be airing well-established shows in their 8pm time slot, two of which will be season premieres.

Two of Life in Pieces’ competitors will be competition-reality juggernauts. The 21st season of Dancing with the Stars will be entering its second week of competition on ABC this Monday. The season premiere of Dancing with the Stars this past Monday brought in a total of 13.3 viewers and 2.1 rating for adults 18-29. On NBC, the premiere of The Voice’s ninth season is sure to draw some key demo viewers away from CBS. In their last fall season premiere, they raked in 12.95 million viewers and a 3.9 rating for adults 18-29. Additionally, FOX will be premiering season two of Gotham, which is a favorite among younger viewers.

Despite tough competition, Life in Pieces has a major advantage in its lead in, The Big Bang Theory, whose last season premiere pulled in 18.8 million viewers.

Grandfathered Blog #2

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Grandfathered – Blog #2

As Grandfathered prepares for its premiere on Tuesday September 29th, Fox must consider this show’s competition for the upcoming season. Unfortunately, Grandfathered will be directly competing against the CW show, The Flash. The Flash is known for being one of the first Superhero TV show hits in recent years. This along with Jane the Virgin helped boost ratings on CW Network last year. This show and network are targets younger viewers in their teenage years, so Grandfathered might lose some younger viewership to this program.

Also, Grandfathered will be competing against NCIS, which has long-standing viewers that tend to be older. NCIS, draws in a solid following, but their viewers could be becoming bored with their average content and might look to some new programming like Grandfathered. Completely different genres, but hopefully Grandfathered can steal some of this viewership.

ABC will also be premiering a new show at this time, The Muppets. The Muppets, always a fan favorite might cause some shifting in this Tuesday night lineup and it will be interesting to see what age demographic ABC will be targeting.

Limitless- Post #2

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Initial reviews of CBS’s new action thriller, Limitless, remain somewhat skeptical.  One of the first published reviews from tv.com called the show “smooth and genuinely exciting” as well as “well- executed”.  However, they also reported the show to lack “substance” in the story.  Overall, the review deemed Limitless as visually appealing and enticing. [1]

Entertainment Weekly recently sat down with Limitless show director, Marc Webb.  Webb also directed both of The Amazing- Spidermans and revealed how the Executive Producer of both Spiderman and Limitless, Alex Kurtzman, referred him to the script.  Although, it is interesting how little involvement the director of Limitless, Neil Burger, had in the television adaptation.  Webb noted that him and Burger only “emailed once or twice”. [2]

Despite this, support from the film’s star, Bradley Cooper, executive producer, as well as the involvement of a successful director in the genre, Limitless seems to have all the right ingredients for a popular premiere next week.

 

Limitless – Post #1

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Based on the popular film, Limitless is now being adapted into a television series.

The show takes place in a time period after the film ends where, now Senator, Edward Morra (Bradley Cooper) gives the brain enhancing drug, NZT, to Brian Finch (Jake McDorman) and acts as his mentor on how to utilize it.  As Brian takes the drug and begins to realize his power potential, the FBI does as well, using him to solve their more complex cases.  Limitless also stars Dexter’s Jennifer Carpenter and CSI:NY’s Hill Harper. Bradley Cooper is Executive Producer of the show as well [1]

Limitless premieres on Tuesday, September 22 at 10PM on CBS.

Limitless is set to compete against a new episode of Best Time Ever With Neil Patrick Harris on NBC.  Although, NCIS: New Orleans is scheduled to lead into Limitless.  This could be beneficial for Limitless because it may obtain the NCIS audience, enhancing Limitless’ ratings. [2]

 

Life in Pieces – Post #1

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The cast of the new CBS sitcom, Life in Pieces

CBS’s newest sitcom, Life in Pieces, is set to debut Monday, September 21st at 8:30PM immediately following CBS’s most successful show, The Big Bang Theory. The family sitcom, created by Justin Adler, appears to be CBS’s answer to the popular ABC sitcom, Modern Family.

The series follows the multi-generational Short family and chronicles their life experiences through intertwining stories told from the perspective of each family member. The show will be shot in a single-camera format without a live audience which is a big departure from CBS’s usual sitcom formula.

The cast is lead by actor James Brolin and Academy Award winning actress Dianne West, who portray John and Joan Short, respectively. The series also follows their three adult children portrayed by Colin Hanks (Fargo), Betsey Brandt (Breaking Bad), and Thomas Sadoski (The Newsroom) as well as their various partners and children.

It will be interesting to see if CBS’s format change will pay off for them in the end. Placing Life in Pieces after The Big Bang Theory seems to indicate that CBS has high hopes for Life In Pieces.

The Odd Couple: What the Critics Are Saying…

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Well, after a less than triumphant return from its NCAA imposed hiatus, CBS has yet to announce whether The Odd Couple will make it on to the Fall 2015 schedule. Apart from losing three million viewers from before and after the hiatus, The Odd Couple has received overwhelmingly mixed reviews, leaning towards the negative side. In order to take a closer look at the reviews for The Odd Couple, I have consulted the online review aggregator, MetaCritic (http://www.metacritic.com/tv/the-odd-couple-2015).

According to MetaCritic, The Odd Couple has received 20 mixed reviews, 5 negative reviews and 1 positive review. Based upon the reviews of 26 professional print critics, MetaCritic has given The Odd Couple a score of 42. Here are some highlights from the critics:

Newsday’s Diane Werts best shared my sentiments, writing “Their [Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon’s] Odd Couple feels like the kind of time-filling time killer that’s chasing viewers to other options.”

Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Jenson wrote, “There is a kind of bad show that might be the saddest kind of bad show. It’s the show that strands talented actors known for being funny on a sitcom that isn’t funny at all.” This confirms a number of the reviews which seem to feel that The Odd Couple has all of the elements of a successful series, but they all fail to come together in the end.

TV Guide’s Matt Roush, also felt that the show is an example of mediocrity, “There’s not a lot to love in this strained, often deafening update of the Neil Simon perennial.”

Therefore, coupled with the critics’ reaction and the low ratings, it looks like CBS should replace The Odd Couple with something that has more originality and substance, as well as the potential to become another 10 year-wonder like How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men.

Is This the Beginning of the End for The Odd Couple?

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Well, after a hiatus for the NCAA Basketball tournament, The Odd Couple did not have a triumphant return to the CBS Thursday night line-up. Despite its lead-in from the hit comedy, The Big Bang Theory, the Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon vehicle, has hit a major speed-bump. As TV Media Insights succinctly put it, “While no one expects any show to hold the “Big Bang” lead-in, slippage of this magnitude is too severe. Five-week household overnight track for “The Odd Couple”: 8.1/13 – 7.1/11 – 7.6/12 – 6.6/11 – 5.8/10.” (http://www.tvmediainsights.com/tv-ratings/cbs-tops-thursday-recent-entry-odd-couple-slipping/). Therefore, without some major adjustments, The Odd Couple may find itself off of the CBS fall schedule. The drop in audience does not surprise me, because on a night with such unique comedies on CBS, The Odd Couple, interrupts the Thursday night CBS comedy flow. Compared to The Big Bang Theory and Mom, The Odd Couple appears to be derivative, very formulaic and more importantly, mediocre. Nostalgia is big on TV now, we see that with revivals of shows, such as Hawaii Five-O and Girl Meets World and even Hot In Cleveland taps into this, through its cast, featuring four sitcom veterans. However, this version of The Odd Couple, is lacking the magic spark that gives viewers that warm fuzzy feeling that they first had when watching the original 1970s version, coupled with that feeling of satisfaction of watching something modern and contemporary. I would not be surprised if The Odd Couple is missing from the CBS 2015-2016 schedule.

The Dovekeepers Premieres

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The Dovekeepers premiered on Tuesday night at 9 pm after a substantial publicity push throughout the day.  The show premiered after the CBS juggernaut, NCIS, whose 18-49 rating was at a season low of 2.1/7 and 16.3 million total viewers. The Dovekeepers did not hold on to a significant portion of that audience, beginning it’s 2 night run with a 1.0/3 in the 18-49 demographic and 8.99 million total viewers.  The show won both the time slots it occupied, both 9 and 10pm, and came in second in overall viewers for the night after NCIS.  Though it overtook it’s closest time slot competitor, NBC’s Undateable, by 4 million viewers, it did have a weak performance in the 18-49.  It’s 1.0 rating was one of the weakest of the night, only slimly beating a rerun of Chicago PD and the series premiere of Weird Loners.

Hopefully the second night, whose content was arguably stronger than the first, will carry the respectable audience the first night garnered and can finish out strong.

The Odd Couple 2.0: A Look Back at its First Revival

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As The Odd Couple continues its hiatus because of the NCAA Basketball tournament airing on CBS, I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a look back at the history of the show. Particularly, at the fact that this new version of The Odd Couple is not the show’s first TV revival. In anticipation of the series’ return back in February, USA Today ran a great article on the program’s history (http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2015/02/25/odd-couple-tv-film-broadway/23980183/). While the critics were not too enthusiastic about this new CBS version of the show, the ratings have not been dismal. However, turning the clock back to October 29, 1982, when the first revival of the show premiered on its original network, ABC, this new African-American version was panned by critics, even reused scripts from the original series and was canceled after a run of just eighteen episodes. What is more, the failures of The Odd Couple adaptations are not just limited to the small screen. According to IDBD.com, in 1985, Neil Simon (the creator of The Odd Couple) updated his original play, this time with an all-female cast, featuring popular television personalities Rita Moreno and Sally Struthers as Olive Madison and Florence Ungar. The show flopped and ran for only eight months, compared to the original 1965 production, which was huge hit and ran for nearly two and one-half years (http://ibdb.com/production.php?id=4375). Therefore, given the track record of The Odd Couple derivatives, it will be interesting to see whether or not the show finds its way onto the CBS Fall 2015 schedule.

The Dovekeepers Publicity and Cross Promotion

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In another interesting move publicity-wise for The Dovekeepers, star Diego Boneta has released a music video for his new song Warrior, which is featured on the soundtrack of The Dovekeepers.  The singer-actor is calling this video his “comeback to music” on JustJared, and said of his Dovekeepers experience “I am very grateful to [executive producers] Mark Burnett and Roma Downey for supporting both of my acting and musical career. Working with Mark and Roma has been one of the greatest experiences in my entire career.”

The video can be found on Diego Boneta’s YouTube account.

The miniseries has also been keeping up their activity on social media sites, encouraging fans to tweet #AskTheDovekeepers for a Q&A video with stars Diego Boneta and Cote De Pablo for CBS.com.  With only one week until the premiere of the series, I would expect these efforts to continue to increase as we get closer and closer to the March 31 premiere.