Tag Archives: miniseries

Life After The Slap

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As far as the internet is concerned, The Slap never existed. Where many shows, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones come to mind, engage viewers the entire year (including the off-season), The Slap has had little to no activity since its finale. On April 7th, five days after the season/series finale, its Twitter and Facebook posted the same thing. They each posted the same quote with a picture of the cast. The most recent news article is from April 4th, just two days after the finale. This seems like a surefire sign that the rumors of cancellation are true. If no one is talking about a show, there’s no reason to keep it on air.

The quote on the social media posts was, “At some point you’ve got to decide what kind of person you’re going to be.” The Slap had to decide what kind of show it wanted to be. It apparently chose to be a show that no one was really going to miss.

The End of The Slap

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The Slap finished this week with 3.13 million total viewers, a number mostly on par with the rest of the season. The episode seemed to wrap everything up nicely. The slapper received his punishment, the parents of the slapped child were taught a lesson and, in a time jump, they all learned to coexist. For a show called The Slap, it doesn’t seem like there is anywhere to go from here. Though one of the producers of the show was holding onto hope that there would be a season 2, it looks like that is not going to happen. According to tvseriesfinale.com, NBC has confirmed that Thursday’s episode was its last. The mediocre ratings could just not justify continuing with the show. Plus, with a Metacritic score of 62, it wasn’t exactly a critics’ darling that could score the network any prestigious awards.

The Slap has been through a lot of criticism in its 8 weeks. It’s hard not to argue the show’s wasted potential. With such a great cast, big names behind the scenes and the support of NBC, this show could have been a very interesting turn for the struggling network. Instead, it filled its episodes with wildly unlikable characters and became yet another one season wonder. In this day and age, it is always possible this show will find new life elsewhere (i.e. Netflix, Hulu) but I highly doubt it has that kind of dedicated fan following.

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 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.

The Dovekeepers – Publicity

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Publicity for the CBS miniseries The Dovekeepers has been ramped up in recent weeks.  The most prominent of the promotions campaign is that the 30 second ad has begun running on CBS in primetime.  CBS has also been releasing a number of promotional videos on it’s website as well as on YouTube, including set tours with each major cast member.  There have also been segment appearances on shows like Entertainment Tonight and print articles in TV Guide magazine and CBS Watch magazine.

The more interesting of the promotions has been the digital and social media campaign.  The Dovekeepers has been getting decent exposure on the CBS Television website, with features on the front page.  It also has a Facebook, and Twitter, on which they conducted an “Ask the Author” livetweeting session with author Alice Hoffman under the hashtag #TheDovekeepersAskAlice.  More unconventionally the show also has a Pinterest account, on which CBS is releasing the sketches for wardrobe, jewelry and set design as well as promotional stills.   Whether or not this promotion will boost the ratings for the broadcast is yet to be seen.  The Dovekeepers airs on CBS March 31 and April 1.

The Dovekeepers – The Production Team

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The creative minds behind The Dovekeepers are the dynamic husband and wife team Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. Both Downey and Burnett have done extensive work prior to this miniseries on their own terms. Roma Downey is an Emmy award-nominates actress with prominent roles in television shows like Touched By An Angel, and Burnett is one of the most prominent reality tv producers both in the US and internationally with hits such as Shark Tank, The Voice, and The Apprentice.

As much success they’ve had separately they are an even more dynamic team together.  Burnett and Downey were the creative minds between the epic miniseries The Bible, Burnett’s first scripted work, which has garnered more than 100 million views cumulatively.  In addition to The Dovekeepers, the pair has produced another 12-week miniseries, a sequel to The Bible titled AD: The BIble Continues to air on NBC starting Easter Sunday. Looking to the future, Burnett and Downey are also producing a big screen remake of Ben-Hur, another religious historical adaptation to add to their growing list.

The Dovekeepers – Introduction

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The Dovekeepers is an original four hour miniseries for CBS produced by husband and wife team Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. The gripping tale details the lives of three women, Shirah (Cote De Pablo), Yael (Rachel Broshanan) and Aziza (Kathryn Prescott) whose stories and lives are tightly wound together through the siege of Masada in 70 AD. The series was based on a novel by the same title by Alice Hoffman, which was originally released in 2011.  During the CBS winter TCA event producer Roma Downey said “At its heart, ‘Dovekeepers’ is a love story…there is tragedy, of course, but at its heartbeat, there is beauty and hope.” The series will air in a two night event March 31 and April 1 on CBS at 9pm following it’s juggernaut, NCIS.

Galavant – Post Two

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Galavant finished it’s eight episode four-week run with a whimper as it earned a 1.1/3 in the 18-49 demo according to Nielsen.  The show was up against no special programming, as it’s usual competitor, Sunday Night Football, finished its season the previous week.  Though the ratings leave something to be desired for ABC, the production team at Galavant seemed confident a renewal would come through.  They ended the season with a number of cliffhangers that left fans wanting more, but will leave the story very unfinished should the show not be picked up for a second season as TV Line predicts.

On the upside for Galavant, the soundtrack to the miniseries, written by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater, seems to be achieving moderate success, with a 4.3/5 rating on Amazon and a 4.5/5 on iTunes. The well known Menken seems to be the greatest draw to the series, with his musical style established in films like Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and Pocahontas.  Variety pointed out that should the soundtrack win any Emmy awards this season, Menken will be amongst the elite who possess an EGOT.