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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, April 2, 2006

Network 'newbies' jostle for audience

By GARY LEVIN
USA Today

Jonathan Tucker is Tommy Donnelly in NBC's "The Black Donnellys," about four brothers.

NBC

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Timothy Hutton and Dana Delany play a wealthy Manhattan couple whose son is abducted, in NBC's new serial thriller "Kidnapped."

NBC

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It's pilot season in Hollywood, when 100 new projects for next season compete for the affections of network programmers — and a slot on their fall schedules.

Unlike last year, when "Lost" sparked a wave of sci-fi-tinged mysteries ("Threshold," "Surface," "Invasion"), there are fewer obvious inspirations. But "Lost" and "24" have emboldened networks to take more risks with serialized story lines, flashbacks and high-stakes thrillers.

CBS, already well-stocked with procedural crime shows, has none in development. ABC, with several hit dramas, is most in need of comedies. Fox is targeting development around the "American Idol" calendar, seeking companions for returning hits such as "House," "24" and "Prison Break."

And NBC is looking for, well, just about everything: More offbeat comedies in the vein of "My Name Is Earl" and a few "forward-thinking dramas," says programming chief Kevin Reilly. "We're reaching a little more ambitiously."

Often, the emphasis is on strong characters as opposed to crime-solving plot twists. New CBS projects are "digging deeper into relationships, and exploring and exploiting what connects us to one another," says entertainment chief Nina Tassler. Her ABC counterpart, Steve McPherson, says viewers have "fallen in love with the McDreamys, Matt Foxes, Ty Penningtons" of the network. "That's our core audience driver, in whatever (genre) we're doing."

Perhaps one in every four of the 100 pilots being readied for fall will get the go-ahead come May, when broadcast networks announce their new schedules to advertisers.

Already picked up is NBC's "The Black Donnellys," from the team behind Oscar-winning "Crash," about four Irish brothers who turn from boys to mobsters in New York. CBS won a bidding war for "The Class," a comedy from "Friends" co-creator David Crane, so it has a strong shot. With an ensemble class led by Jason Ritter, it's about a third-grade class reunited after 20 years when one member proposes to another, changing the lives of others.

"There seemed to be a lot of focus on government and political themes," says Starcom Media's Tom Weeks. And though it's often the case, he says this year the networks found more "big-name" talent familiar to TV viewers: Matthew Perry, John Lithgow, Dylan McDermott, Calista Flockhart, Angie Harmon, David James Elliott, James Woods, Ted Danson, Blair Underwood and Kim Cattrall, among others, are featured in new pilots.

In scheduling adjustments, NBC airs NFL games on Sundays this fall, knocking out a night of programming, while ABC will get Mondays back, a possible new home for "Grey's Anatomy." CBS is likely to drop its Sunday movie.

A look at other trends:

  • Superheroes. CBS' "Ultra," based on a comic-book character, finds its heroine adapting to her special powers. And NBC has its own "Heroes," about regular folks who wake with superpowers and save mankind. CW has "Aquaman," based on the DC Comics series — but CW programming may not air in Hawai'i.

  • Conspiracy theories. NBC's "Kidnapped" — already picked up for next season — is, like "24," a "ticking clock" serial thriller starring Timothy Hutton and Dana Delany as a wealthy Manhattan couple whose teenage son is abducted. In ABC's "Twenty Questions," an intelligence analyst is drawn into a conspiracy when he witnesses the death of a Syrian diplomat, while the network's "Sixty Minute Man" has a suburban dad (Elliott from "Jag") who loses his memory in another plot.

  • Life after "Raymond." Ray Romano is still sitting it out, but "Everybody Loves Raymond" co-star Brad Garrett stars in Fox pilot "'Til Death," as a longsuffering married man who is neighbors with idealistic newlyweds; Patricia Heaton leads an untitled ABC sitcom as a recent widow; and Fred Willard is in "Play Nice," a CBS comedy about a family toy business from "Raymond" creator Phil Rosenthal.

  • Ready for prime-time players. NBC has two competing pilots centering on behind-the-scenes doings at a fictionalized version of "Saturday Night Live": "SNL"'s Tina Fey is behind one untitled comedy starring Fey, Rachel Dratch, Tracy Morgan and Alec Baldwin; "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," a top fall contender, is a drama about two hotshot producers (Perry of "Friends" and Wing's Bradley Whitford) battling to save their troubled late-night show against a "headstrong" network chief (Amanda Peet).

  • Small-town blues. CBS' apocalyptic drama "Jericho" (Skeet Ulrich, Gerald McRaney) centers on a Kansas town that weathers a nuclear holocaust. ABC has three series set in rural burgs, including "A House Divided," with McDermott, and "Secrets of a Small Town," a murder mystery that stars Harmon.

  • Wedding crashers. ABC comedy "A Day in the Life" spends an entire season on a single wedding day, as each episode captures the perspective of a participant. Fox's "The Wedding Album" is an anthology series about a "serial bachelor" who's an in-demand photographer and the couples he meets, while "The Worst Week of My Life" homes in on the bumpy road to the altar for a guy and his rich fiancee. And wedding parties bond new friends on NBC's "The Singles Table."