ABC

Fall Preview 2014: ABC

Fall Preview: ABC

Last year, ABC’s went through a big shuffle, blowing up Tuesdays in the hope of capitalizing on Disney’s Marvel movie universe. This time around, ABC keeps a very similar lineup only switching up some new shows while generally standing pat.

Sundays feature the usual cocktail of dramas for ABC, with Once Upon A Time, Resurrection, and Revenge (all return 9/28) returning to their regular slots of 8 and 9 and 10pm respectively. Mondays also feature their usual lineup of Dancing With The Stars (9/15) leading into Castle (9/29). While Dancing with the Stars received a cut in hours last year, the show maintains it’s 2 hour slot this year, preventing any further time related clawbacks for the veteran series.

Tuesdays, which was the alphabet’s trouble spot last year, still maintains the seemingly hodgepodge scheduling ABC gave it last year, but a slight shuffle makes the lineup start to make a little more sense. The night is still built around tentpole show Agents of SHIELD, which moves to 9 pm (9/23), allowing for both the lead in and lead out effect of last year’s most hyped show to positively affect the remainder of the night. The night begins with two new comedies in Selfie and Manhattan Love Story (both debut 9/30), and in a positive development, ABC finally stops pairing non-family comedies with Modern Family. Following Agents in the ABC’s Tuesday 10pm death slot (which killed three series last year) is Forever (9/22 – time slot premiere 9/23), a show that melds crime procedural, medical procedural, and vampires.

Wednesdays are still ABC’s comedy wheelhouse and the lineup resembles what ABC should have gone with last year. The Middle and The Goldbergs hold the 8pm hour firm leading into Modern Family at 9. It’s another year, and another lead out for ABC’s most watched comedy, as the show melds into urban family comedy Blackish at 9:30. Nashville survives another year to round out the lineup at 10 (all shows debut 9/24). The thing I like about this lineup is ABC finally figured out that it should just keep it’s family centric comedies together. At no point was the audience for Modern Family, The Middle, and Surburgatory ever really going to go for a show like Super Fun Night, Happy Endings, or Don’t Trust the B.

Thursdays see a slight shuffle with Grey’s Anatomy moving to 8pm while Scandal finds it’s home in the 9pm slot. New show How to Get Away with Murder premieres at 10. This is a very strong lineup, if only because it effectively counterprograms against the newly enhanced Thursday Night Football menace (more on that tomorrow) by focusing on three shows that will likely skew heavily female (all shows debut 9/25).

Fridays bring the usual mix of Shark Tank, 20/20 (both return 9/26) and the return of Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing (10/3), while adding quirky comedy Cristela (10/10) to the mix. ABC has found a surprisingly high amount of success with this hodgepodge lineup over the last couple of seasons and there isn’t much of a reason to change it. Saturdays meanwhile are the domain of College Football, a recurring trend that one can expect to see across over all four networks.

Tomorrow: CBS’s fall lineup features some interesting moves. Keep following us at Manhattan Digest for more.

Rising Star Doesn’t Quite Break Through

by Michael Tyminski

Rising Star: Sundays at 9 Eastern on ABC

We’re at a weird point in the life-cycle of the competition show. Many of the original mainstays of the genre (American Idol, Dancing with the Stars) are clearly on the decline of their life cycle. However, The Voice aside, it’s not like there’s a ton of new competition shows that are ready to plug those holes in the schedule (X-Factor flopped, The Sing Off works best as a limited format). The end result is a genre that seemed like it was slowly finding it’s way off of prime-time schedules. However, much like the miracle NBC found with The Voice, this time it’s ABC living on a prayer with it’s newest show: Sunday night’s Rising Star.

So how does Rising Star stand out from the numerous other singing show’s we’ve seen before? Well to begin with the audition process isn’t too far removed from The Voice’s: 90 seconds, blind to the judges, and it’s on the contestants to impress. Where Rising Star is different is that it factors America into these auditions: instead of one judge looking to put you on their team, 70 percent of voters need to like you in order to raise the wall and move on to the next stage. Having a disproportional weight (each judge can boost your total by about 10 percent) are the show’s three music experts: Brad Paisley, Kesha, and Ludacris.

So how does Rising Star play out? Well it’s main conceit is somewhat misleading, as it seems extremely difficult to make it to the 70 percent threshold without the support of at least two if not all three of the experts (one contestant squeezed by on the backs of two of three judges – Ludacris is by far the toughest of the three to please). However, the experts have the correct interplay with tons of prodding (especially by Brad in Ludacris’s decision) that It also seems to be busting out its gimmick chest a touch early, with surprise audience auditions being busted out in the very first episode.

Rising Star does ace a lot of the little graphical things, having an incredibly slick look. The video wall the contestants perform behind is visually impressive, and the show busts a staggering array of camera angles over the course of the two hour premiere. Additionally, Rising Star put a ton of variety in its’ acts, putting classic rockers, boy bands, country acts, conventional pop acts, and even opera behind it’s video wall.

Weirdly enough, despite having shown solid comedy chops on Tim and Eric Awesome Show, host Josh Groban struggles as the show’s host, often creating at least one awkward moment per segment. This, combined with an often off-kilter sense of the moment (Groban struggles when the situation calls for a more bombastic voice – oddly enough he would work much better in the experts’ chair I think) create a mildly disorienting experience that will make competition show fans pine for a Carson Daly/Ryan Seacrest type. Where there is hope for Groban is in the pre-recorded video segments, as he does seem like he has a genuine interest in the contestants work.

The Final Verdict: Rising Star is the sort of show that has some clear strengths (it’s pretty, it’s experts have the same sort of rapport that brought The Voice to prominence) and some clear weaknesses (Groban’s live hosting, the format doesn’t add anything to a played out genre). The end result is a show that seems fine as an off-season fill for Voice junkies but this show is doomed even if it goes up against the slumping Idol. Check it out if you really need a fix for singing shows over the summer, if not wait and see – this can be much better show if Groban ultimately becomes more comfortable in the host’s role.

Resurrection’s Inconsistency Could Prove Fatal

by Michael Tyminski

Resurrection: Sundays at 9 Eastern on ABC

One of the real downsides of the prevalence of procedural shows on the big four is that it tends to crowd out the remainder of the drama landscape. Even our shows with a more sci-fi and fantasy bent (Hannibal, Grimm, Almost Human) have been forced into this “case of the week” mold. As a result, we see very few high concept and family dramas (Parenthood being the only real family drama I can think of of late) on the network dial. ABC, as the network least likely to run procedurals on it’s schedule (most of their dramas tend to be more soapy) is bringing out a high concept take on this sub genre with its’ newest show: Resurrection.

Resurrection tells the tale of Arcadia, a small town in Missouri where an 8 year old boy mysteriously reappears after dying over 30 years ago. This sends the Langston family into upheaval, as Jacob’s parents must confront the surprise reappearance of their son. Their extended family is dealing with untold knowledge of the circumstances that led to the drowning accident that took both Jacob and his aunt. The government, meanwhile, is trying to figure out if Jacob is actually Jacob, and if so

Any show that builds around a core mystery needs to start asking more questions than one can easily can answer and Resurrection doesn’t hesitate when it comes to this task. In addition to the questions relating to the shows central conceit, the show makes it a priority to create as many new angles as possible, whether it’s a new mysterious figure whose only hinted at until the end of the episode, the bald man whom was at the river, or the new found shaking of the local pastor’s faith.

Resurrection’s acting feels hit or miss at points. While our premiere episode doesn’t help much in this matter by virtue by building around an overwhelming sense of confusion, the performances felt very inconsistent. For every moment that feels generally moving, one can find another moment that feels a little too muted out to register.

Visually, Resurrection hits enough of the right notes, whether it’s going to a brighter and more Polaroid like filter on flashbacks of happier days, while focusing on muted tones around the river. Even the show’s slower moments, like a moment where Jacob and Mrs. Langston walk into church in the middle of the pastor’s sermon is shot with a surprisingly high attention to detail.

The Final Verdict: Resurrection is a maddening show, in that you can see it’s potential, but at the same time know there’s a reasonable sized gap to realizing it. It’s tone and cinematography are excellent, but the writing and acting feel remarkably inconsistent. This is the sort of show I’d wait and see on: tonight’s episode was a serviceable beginning point, but you’re going to want to see signs of growth before you emotionally invest in it.

Mixology Is Funny But Uses A Bad Formula

by Michael Tyminski

Mixology: Wednesdays at 9:30 Eastern on ABC

Life is full of mysteries, and TV is no exception. These head-scratchers range from the mundane, like for example how Dads got all 17 of it’s episodes to air to the the more complex, like how MTV ran kicking and screaming from music and why the networks that tend to pride themselves on their scripted programming are predominantly launching reality TV. However, amid all these mysteries, one boggles more than most: How on earth does ABC consistently fail to find a suitable show to pair with one of the best lead-in’s on TV: Modern Family. In the last calendar year we’ve found at least two other shows in that spot, and it’s newest show Mixology also seems like a questionable fit in ABC’s Wednesday family comedy block.

Mixology, from the writers of The Hangover (I gleaned this information because it is literally the only thing ABC tells you about the show), tells the story of ten individuals over one night in a high end bar in Manhattan’s meat-packing district. These young, trendy, individuals are all out on the hunt for love (whether for the long term or just for the night), and Mixology focuses hard on this romantic angle (as opposed to building around a night out with the friends). The structure furthers this by focusing on two or three characters on the bar at a time.

As with most comedies, the first question I tend to gravitate towards is: Is it funny? Mixology is pretty successful on this level even if most of the best jokes are in our narrator’s snarky voice overs. These voice overs exist to set up fairly long expository flashback sequences. The sequences themselves are pretty funny in their own right (even if they don’t really reveal more than the one relevant character trait) often taking advantage of a more slapstick style than the bar scenes themselves.

Unfortunately, Mixology fails on it’s concept. The romance angles feel fairly empty, and while the whole show is structured and marketed on the concept of “who’s leaving the bar with who”, that is by far the least interesting part of the show. No matter how hard this show wants me to care about potential relationships, it makes the fatal mistake of leaning so hard on it’s jumbled serialization that it is going to be difficult to truly root for ships until it’s way too late.

Many of these flaws are a function of the shows jumbled format, which takes a cue from season four of Arrested Development. The show takes a jumbled cast of 10 strangers, and pairs them off, isolating its’ episodes main characters for long stretches of time. While a format of this ilk may work well for a show like Development, it’s much harder to achieve such a goal when the characters are completely new and particularly well fleshed out.

The Final Verdict: In an ideal version of Mixology I see a pretty funny sitcom about three buddies in a bar trying to get laid. Unfortunately, this series is not structurally sound (as the compression format opts to skip it’s downbeats in favor of long, but not particularly expository flashbacks), and the soapy elements are not particularly interesting. The end result is another in a long line of series that seems like a horrendous fit for the post Modern Family slot, as ABC has capped off it’s most family-friendly comedy block with what is probably the most vulgar big four show this side of Seth McFarlane. Normally, this would put a show in wait-and-see territory, but the structural issues are going to sink the entire season (or at least the first half of it), making this an easy skip, even if Wednesdays at 9:30 are not a particularly strong time slot right now.

Checking In On The Networks At Mid-season: ABC And CBS

by Michael Tyminski

With the Olympic break gutting away many premieres for the next two weeks (the one notable return I’ll discuss later this week), let’s take the opportunity to see how exactly the major networks (and cable) have been faring midway through the season.

ABC: It has to have been a fairly disappointing year overall for ABC after the wholesale changes they made over the summer (especially on Tuesday nights) only to see no real advancement in positioning relative to the other networks in addition to an alarmingly high number of new shows tanking with incredible speed.

What’s working: On the positive side, ABC’s Tuesday revamp seems to have taken some hold, with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D being the strongest non-NCIS show on Tuesdays. Similarly it’s lead outs The Goldbergs and (especially) Trophy Wife have attracted some critical acclaim, even if Trophy Wife is struggling in the ratings. Fridays, with their mix of Shark Tank and family comedies also seem to be a strong point for the network, seeing how reruns of Shark Tank have become the network’s go to emergency fill over the past year.

What’s not working: Outside of Tuesdays from 8-10, ABC’s newer shows have been an unmitigated disaster. Once Upon A Time In Wonderland was not only painfully cheesy but stuck in the Thursday at 8 death slot from the get go. The Assets tanked so horribly it got eaten by the Shark Tank in two episodes. Super Fun Night ended up being not only a bad fit despite having a bankable star and a Modern Family lead in, but also evident from minute one why CBS didn’t even bother to pick up the pilot.

The biggest hole for ABC, however has been that third hour on Tuesdays. If Thursday at 8 is known as the alphabet’s death slot, then Tuesdays at 10 have to be it’s stillborn slot, as not one but two new premieres (Lucky 7 and Killer Women) have died incredibly swift, painful deaths. A good chunk of this is likely related to the fact that the network continually insists on putting understated shows immediately behind two of the most cartoonish hours on television (I don’t see how anyone could buy Trophy Wife as a viable lead in for a grim slice-of-life drama like Lucky 7).

Overall Prognosis: It feels like ABC is swiftly becoming the new NBC, only without all the amusing backstage drama that makes mocking the peacock so much fun, with it’s often bizarre scheduling decisions and inability to use it’s anchors to promote it’s other shows. There are a lot of new shows being rolled out after the Olympics, so there is still one last chance to salvage what would otherwise be a rough year.

CBS: The realities of network TV have slowly been applying to CBS after a few years of ultimately ending up in their own orbit. For the first time in a decade, CBS actually seems fairly vulnerable, as it’s numbers are much more in line with the other major networks.

What’s working: Despite all the doom and gloom I mentioned in the opening paragraph, it’s important to remember that CBS still has two of the most venerable juggernauts on broadcast airwaves in NCIS and The Big Bang Theory. The network still has a fairly deep bench all around whether it’s on the comedy side (Mike and Molly), or the drama end (in a most dire scenario, the network could easily spackle with most of it’s Friday or Sunday dramas). The best move CBS has made actually hits next year: it’s acquisition of half of the Thursday Night Football package. This move gives the network eight weeks of fairly steady ratings and allows it to debut it’s comedy lineup right in the heart of November sweeps, where high ratings matter most.

What’s not working: Mondays at 10 have become have a gaping hole in the schedule for CBS. Much like ABC’s Tuesday anchors, it’s pretty clear that the network can’t find a good fit for the slot and is using it as a dumping ground for mediocre-to-poor shows like Hostages and Intelligence. This is a huge problem as Mondays are quickly becoming a bright spot for other networks (particularly NBC and Fox), so with the removal of Monday anchor How I Met Your Mother in march, CBS’s viewership could erode most drastically on that night.

Speaking of erosion, it’s a real problem CBS has to start worrying about in the future. I’ve mentioned numerous times how CBS’s line up is starting to really show it’s age (think about its’ core shows and most of them date back to the Bush administration with half of them being in his first term and Survivor actually launching while Clinton was still president). Unfortunately, the network cannot seem to find new anchors to replace it’s existing ones: The Crazy Ones is not pulling it’s weight and neither is Mom. With the likely removal of Two and A Half Men to go with the end of How I Met Your Mother, CBS will only have Big Bang to prop up it’s newer comedies and will have to rely on shows like 2 Broke Girls , Mike and Molly, and the still fairly untested The Millers to carry the ratings load.

Overall Prognosis: CBS still rules the roost, but it also still needs to find some shows to carry it through the future, as even its’ juggernauts slowly become fossils (Big Bang Theory is in season seven, NCIS in season twelve, CSI in season fourteen.). That being said, the network is still making the right moves to continue to buy more time, hoping the network can strike gold (particularly on the comedy side of the ledger) at least once more.

Next Time: Part two of this series comes next week. Later this week, I take some time to look forward to season two of Netflix’s House of Cards.

Killer Women Packs Heat, Slips On Own Soap

by Michael Tyminski

Killer Women: Tuesdays at 10 Eastern on ABC

Is there a more confounding night on TV than ABC’s Tuesdays? The night, which the network rebuilt from scratch last fall after being ABC’s prime reality real estate for the better part of a decade, has seemed to lack any real sense of continuity this season from moment one. A large part of this was due to following tent-pole Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D with two family comedies (The Goldbergs and Trophy Wife) as well as with a drama so mundane that it got axed after two episodes (Lucky 7). The reason I mention this odd scheduling decision is because it seems that we once again are going to see that jarring discord, with ABC now closing it’s Tuesdays with a soapy law procedural that seems like an awkward fit with the rest of the night.

Killer Women follows Texas Ranger Molly Parker (Tricia Helfer) as she navigates law enforcement as a woman in a male dominated field, including the political pitfalls and a rival police lieutanant (Vic Trevino). While there seems to be enough there for a meaty drama, this is ABC where no one can have both a career and a stable personal life, so marital troubles also poke through, with Molly wanting to divorce her husband Jake (Jeffrey Nordling) and driving her to an affair with a DEA agent (Marc Blucas).

The show is first and foremost a western-style police procedural and as a feminine Walker: Texas Ranger style show, it succeeds in spades. The show brings the action in droves, whether it’s the initial gunning down at the wedding, a car chase scene, or the climactic gun battle in a rodeo (though the fact that Parker has pulls out a semi automatic as her first gun is slightly disconcerting), making for some entertaining television. The camera work on many of these scenes is additionally top notch, whether using a tight angle to garner suspense in the open, a wider angle shot to show off the rolling fields of South Texas, or just a long shot of a sluiced open potential informant laid out in a prison shower.

When Killer Women goes into it’s soapier elements everything starts to fall apart. In particular, the subplot regarding Parker’s divorce starts to veer into Lifetime movie territory, with ex-husband Jason being portrayed as a complete creep with zero redeeming values. Similarly, Parker and Winston’s affair is portrayed equally awkwardly, with an odd mix of sex and careerism, only to finally produce a genuinely binding moment at the end of the pilot.

The pilot otherwise seemed myopic in other ways, such as a hyper focus on Parker that led to numerous silent video packages (we only move off of Parker twice: for the murder itself, and a scene where our shooter gets stabbed in the shower). While it’s standard issue for a show to put it’s central character in the spotlight, it seemed to background just about everyone except Winston down to being glorified extras who exist to question her thinking or credentials (our shooter of the week seems to have the second most screen time by a sizable margin).

The Final Verdict: When Killer Women is a cop show, it’s downright entertaining, particularly with the buddy cop dynamic that Molly Parker and Dan Winston provide. Unfortunately, the show falls apart when it becomes focused on Parker’s personal life, as those scenes tended to be either extremely boring or extremely melodramatic. The biggest surprise to me though, is how well this show could fit next to a show like S.H.I.E.L.D if the action side is played up. I’d wait and see on this show, since there’s enough potential for Killer Women to become a thrill ride, but it needs to avoid the soapy pitfalls and further develop a very thin supporting cast to work.

AMAs Live Blog Tonight at 8 Eastern!

by Michael Tyminski

The American Music Awards: Tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on ABC

Good afternoon everyone! I’m Mike Tyminski and it’s awards show night again, which means that I’m here with you to liveblog tonight’s American Music Awards ceremony on ABC! The show is set to have a bevy of performances tonight including Katy Perry handling the opener while Miley Cyrus is set to close out the show. The whole show is hosted by Pitbull, who will also be performing his newest hit “Timber” with Kesha.

On that note, I’ll be back at 8 eastern to begin live coverage.

7:55 PM: I’m back, and in five minutes Katy Perry will hit the stage to start off music’s equivalent to the Golden Globes. Unlike the Golden Globes however, the AMA’s are literally a popularity contest, as the awards are determined by a poll of the music buying populace.

In addition to Perry and Cyrus, among the numerous performers hitting the stage tonight are Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, Imagine Dragons, and Lady Gaga.

I’ll be running commercial break to commercial break, so update in between every segment for more news!

8:00 PM: We open with Katy Perry, as promised, singing her latest hit “Unconditionally” to a full blown Japanese motif. It felt truly hit and miss to me, as it seemed like there were some sound issues initially and a strobe light segment involving Perry and her umbrella came off on TV very unspectactularly. However, the full performance built itself pretty well, with strong visuals elsewhere, including a cool effect of raining cherry blossoms.

After the usual introduction, our host Pitbull entered, in true Pitbullian fashion, said a bunch of jibberish and repeating the same word over and over again. He welcomes to the show, sounding thankful to the American Dream, before bringing out four female dancers to shake their booty.

Following the short monologue, Taylor Swift emerges to give the award for best Pop/Rock male artist:

The Nominees are: Bruno Mars, Robin Thicke, and Justin Timberlake

The Winner Is: Justin Timberlake

(In a change from prior liveblogs, I’m skipping talking about speeches unless something notable happens since the producers have had a very quick trigger as of late).

8:26 PM: Our second segment leads off with yet another performance, this time by teen idols One Direction. This time around we get a fairly low key performance in which 1D is playing “Story of my Life” in front of a mob of wooden statues that are arranged to look like a million arms of a million fans. While this performance didn’t seem to elevate to the same level as the Perry performance at the start of the show, it still seemed considerably better than most of the performances we got out of this years Grammys.

The voice over announcer then kicks it over to Ariana Grande, who busts out a few bars of “The Way” before starting a new single, a pop ballad named “Tattooed Heart”. This seemed like a potentially star making performance for Grande, who belted out the song with a booming voice that those only familiar with “The Way” will not recognize. The music was the clear star of the performance as it was blocked out simply, with Grande performing in a sparkling red dress with the only visible backing being a small doo-wop ensemble deep in the background.

8:38 PM: Marc Anthony and Zoey Saldana are out to present the award for best Soul and R&B female. Anthony seemed almost comically wooden trying to read off the teleprompter, overforcing every remark.

The Nominees are: Ciara, Alicia Keys, Rihanna

And the winner is: Rihanna

From there the VO guy brings us to Imagine Dragons, who start with “Demons” on a cool dark set with a ton of smoke. Vocally this sounds way different from the album, being brought down in tone quite a bit from the album. We then a ton a large percussion break once the song slips into Radioactive, with every band member participating in the drum breakdown. Imagine Dragons acquitted themselves well on the spectacle and instruments, but vocally this performance was kind of a mess.

From there we get Kristin Bell and Chris Daughtry, out to present Best Country Album.

The Nominees Are: Luke Bryan, Crash My Party, Florida Georgia Line, Here’s To The Good Times, Taylor Swift, Red.

(Is it me or is one of these things not like the others?)

And the winner is: Taylor Swift, Red.

8:50 PM: In what screams odd couple pairing, Michael Bolton and A-Kon are here to present the award for favorite Rap/Hip-Hop album

The Nominees Are: Jay-Z Magna Carta Holy Grail, Kendrick Lamar Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis The Heist.

And the winner is: The Heist

From here they kicked it to Macklemore in Miami, who brings up MLK and the Trayvon Martin case, before asking people to fight against racism.

Naya Rivera and Maya Mitchell now come out to introduce Ke$ha and Pitbull, who are performing my fall earworm, Timber. In front of a clearly disco infused scene we get a surprisingly non-trashy Ke$ha, before Pitbull emerges from our disco ball. The sound issues continue from the opening performance (I feel like Ke$ha got cut off from one of her choruses), but are exacerbated by the backing track awkwardly flipping between having backing vocals and letting the performers cut loose. The camera angles themselves are pretty standard issue except for a cool shot through one of the lower dance pods out there. Overall not too shabby and still better than your average awards show in terms of performances.

9:07 PM: Dave Grohl and Joan Jett are out to present the award to the favorite alternative rock artist.

The Nominees Are: Imagine Dragons, The Lumineers, and Mumford and Sons

And the winner is: Imagine Dragons!

We then kick back to Pitbull who rushes and stumbles over the teleprompted lines before presenting the award for favorite Latin Music Artist.

The Nominees are: Marc Anthony, Prince Royce, Romeo Santos

And the winner is: Marc Anthony!

After Anthony’s quick speech, Heidi Klum emerges to introduce Justin Timberlake

Timberlake is here to perform a cool new arena rock sounding track titled “Drink You Away”, with a full backing group with horns, multiple guitars, and a backing choir intimately crowded together in the front of the stage. As is usual on these sorts of shows, Timberlake is a complete revelation, as the performance meshes together the catchy sing along song (with the catchy sing along stage presence) with a strong visual sense. Performance of the night so far, and tough to top.

9:21 PM: Kelly Osboune and Nicole Richie are out to present the award for best Pop/Rock album taking a second to bring up the history of the award.

And the nominees are: One Direction, Take me Home, Taylor Swift Red, Justin Timberlake The 20/20 Experience.

The winners are: One Direction, Take Me Home

The Ceremonies are out to introduce Florida Georgia Line and Nelly to perform their song “Cruise”.

Florida Georgia Line get the relative no-frills treatment, merely getting a video wall as opposed to the smoke, falling cherry blossoms and everything else we’ve seen so far tonight. “Cruise” eventually merges into Nelly’s “Ride”. Continuing a string of strong performances both Nelly and Florida-Georgia Line looked like they were having a blast in each other’s sandbox, with Nelly rocking some serious twang and the country duo enjoying playing backup on “Ride”.

Daisy Fuentes and new Bachelor Juan Pablo Galavis here to announce the winner for best new artist of the year

The nominees are: Phillip Phillips, Imagine Dragons, Ariana Grande, Florida Georgia Line and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

The Winner is: Ariana Grande

Grande gives the first notable speech having to rush through her speech, ultimately pulling a list out of her dress before thanking herparentsdanschneidernickelodeonthelabelandsixotherthingsinineseconds.

9:38 pm: Bill Maher is here to present Rihanna with the Icon Award. Maher brings up her particular relevance in the digital age, before a video package bringing up career highlights appears on the screen. The video package leads way to Rihanna’s performance which involves her walking onstage from a distance opening into “Diamond”. While Rihanna did an amazing job singing the song, the production elements felt off, as the entire performance started in complete darkness, but never progressed into the light show, instead giving off a more Adele-style vibe. This felt like a shame, as the Icon Award makes it seem like it’s her night but the production never kicked into high gear, instead forcing an understated vibe on the whole matter.

Rihanna walks over to Maher, before flipping it to Jay-Z, who gives a prerecorded statement. In a heartfelt moment, Rihanna’s mother, Donna Fenti emerges to present the Icon Award to Rihanna. Rihanna accepts graciously, giving an equally heartfelt speech, joking about her childhood voice and her eagerness to move from Barbados to the US and start her career. Rihanna was great here, it’s just a shame that the whole production felt off, from Bill Maher hosting the segment (because when I want heartwarming and reverential I want the guy who hosted Politically Incorrect and hasn’t moved from that tack in 20 years), to the understated production.

9:51 PM: Ciara and Paulina Gretzky are here to present the award for best Soul and R+B artist.

The nominees are: Miguel, Robin Thicke, and Justin Timberlake

And the winner is: (Sarcastic spoiler space)

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE!!!!!

Timberlake goes into standup mode, discussing how cute Rihanna’s mom is and the same confusion about how one can win awards for best Pop/Rock and best Soul/R+B artist in the same year with the same album.

Pitbull’s here, and he cuts it to live via satellite in Miami for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis performing “Can’t Hold Us”. Since it’s clearly looped in from their tour, i’m not gonna worry about the production value since that’s clearly out of the producer’s hands (unless the feed breaks). It is nice to see they got feature artist Ray Dalton out to sing the chorus live, since his rendition there is easily the catchiest thing about that song. It’s also very cool that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis use a full backing band, I think that’s something that more hip-hop artist should have more often. The final highlight of this rendition is Macklemore opting to crowd surf during the breakdown which like most of this performance, seemed super cool.

Voice-over guy is back to bring out Fall Out Boy, who are out to nominate the favorite Country Female Artist.

The nominees are: Taylor Swift, Amanda Lambert, Taylor Swift

The winner is: Taylor Swift! (It’s actually starting to bug me that they’re just nominating random top 40 people for genre awards — country, like rock these days is a niche and it’s kind of a backhanded slap in the face to the people who have to go through mid sized venues night after night to be the best in their genre only to end up getting passed over by something that’s in heavy rotation on Z-100, but that’s me).

10:06 PM: After showing a quick video on the “Queen of Cuba” Celia Cruz, we head over to Jennifer Lopez, who is here to perform a tribute to the Latin legend. The whole performance has a ballroom feel to it, but had the sort of big performance progression you tend to expect from awards shows, with multiple costume changes from a more classical dress to a colorful flowing carnival affair ending in a fairly skimpy sparkly piece that left little to the imagination. This is closer to what I expected from Rihanna’s centerpiece performance than the drab affair we ended up receiving.

Alicia Silverstone and Nathan Fillion are here to present the award for Single of the Year.

and the nominees are: Florida Georgia Line ft. Nelly “Cruise”, Robin Thicke ft. Pharell and T.I. “Blurred Lines”, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis ft. Wanz “Thrift Shop”.

And the winner is: “Cruise”

Sarah Silverman appears to present the award for best Soul and R+B album of the year, and takes a comical swipe at the notion of Timberlake and Thicke getting a ton of Soul and R+B nomintions.

The nominees are: Rihanna Like a Diamond, Robin Thicke Blurred Lines, and Justin Timberlake The 20/20 Experience.

And the winner is: Justin Timberlake, The 20/20 Experience.

Justin’s second award speech begins with him dropping what will likely be the line of the night: “Growing up in Memphis, Tennessee this is the first time I can say I’ve been racially profiled by a white woman”.

10:23 PM: We return to Jennifer Hudson introducing A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera performing “Say Something”. We get a similar layout and production to the Rihanna performance, however this time around the darkness laden, orchestra-heavy layout makes more sense, with “Say Something” being the sort of moderately depressing ballad that tends to thrive with the haunting performances those intimate visuals ultimately provide.

We then get a quick intro from voice-over guy who introduces Kendrick Lamar in short order. He’s performing “Swimming Pools” surrounded by laser lights and some colorful backing video. It was the sort of loose performance that made for a great come down from the ultra-depressing “Say Something”

Austin Mahone and Kendall Jenner are here to present the award for favorite Electronic/Dance music artist

And the Nominees are: Avicii, Daft Punk, Calvin Harris, and Zedd

And the winner is: Avicii!

The winner is: Avicii

10:34 PM: Jeremy Renner is here to introduce Lady Gaga who is performing her new single “Do What You Want” with R. Kelly. This performance doesn’t hesitate with the schmaltz, opening with a phone call to President R. Kelly that sounds straight out of “Trapped in the Closet”, before Gaga walks over to the office to burst into the song. As opposed to Lady Gaga’s opener at the VMA’s, this performance had the levity that Gaga had circa before Born this Way when she was running around in Meat Dresses for no good reason….and as I say that, the fun part screeches away when Gaga randomly veers into the dramatic in the last 15 seconds while negative headlines of her are displayed on the video screens.

Andrew McCutchen and Jaimie Alexander are out to announce the nominees for Country artist of the year. It’s moderately amazing to watch presenters stumble over heartfelt congratulations the way Jaimie did over congratulating McCutchen on his NL MVP award.

The nominees are: Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, and Hunter Hayes

And the winner is: Luke Bryan

10:48 PM: The cast of Shark Tank is out to announce the winner of favorite rock/pop group.

The nominees are: Imagine Dragons, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, and One Direction

The winner is: One Direction

Lady Antebellum, winners of favorite country group are out to nominate Luke Bryan. Bryan is performing “That’s My Kind of Night”. He gets the similar laser treatment we saw from Lamar, but flips between red and white, which is an awesome effect until the camera closes in on the drummer and you realize the camera can’t see through the light. As has become an awards show tradition, we get the obligatory Taylor Swift rocking out shot. I’m not a country music fan in the least, but Bryan seemed to be on his performance a-game and the energy was certainly appreciated to what’s been an up and down third hour.

Voice over guy then sends it to TLC, whom is performing “Waterfalls” with Li’l Mama in place of the late Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez. It’s interesting because they have a look that seemed closer to the late 90’s “No Scrubs” era but stuck to their first hit. Li’l Mama nails the rapping middle section for what is a nice throwback performance that hit all the right nostalgia notes. Visually it stuck mostly to some water oriented visuals, but it filled a nice void as the penultimate performance.

11:00 PM: 2 Chainz and Jaden Smith are here to introduce Miley Cyrus’ performance of Wrecking Ball. The opening is suitably weird with Cyrus rocking a two piece bathing suit looking dealie in front of a video screen with lip-synching cat floating through space progressing into explosions through the chorus.

Pitbull is back to announce the award for artist of the year

The nominees are: Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

And the winner is: Taylor Swift (for the third time!)

Following a brief awards speech, a wide angle of Pitbull is shown where he says the awards show equivalent of “Show’s over, go home!”

I’ll be back in a few minutes with some final thoughts.

Final Thoughts: The American Music Awards are to the Grammys what the Golden Globes are to the Oscars, but instead of getting the boozy dinner party where someone will eventually say something stupid, we got a fairly unmemorable show full of good, but not great performances. Luckily, they roped in Justin Timberlake by tossing him two awards and he provided the sort of jolt that only a star who knows he’s too big for this show can provide. Pitbull was kind of a mess as a host, as his style seemed to be the antithesis of everything you want in a host, something notable in the way that a faceless voice-over got the honor and privilege of playing the show’s traffic cop. Toss in some nonsensical category distinctions and the fact that the people think that Taylor Swift had three years of being the best and biggest pop star on earth and you can see why this show tends to fall behind the Grammys (for prestige) and the VMA’s (for big moments and train wreck potential) in the public consciousness.

I believe the next time I’ll be liveblogging an awards ceremony like this will be next year as award season kicks into gear with the Golden Globes. In the meantime I’ll have some reviews through the next couple of weeks followed by some opinion pieces as the entertainment machine slows down into it’s holiday dormancy.

Have a great week, a happy Thanksgiving, and I look forward to the next time we get to do this!

Fall Premieres Bring Mixed Results To The Big 4

by Michael Tyminski

With fall premieres winding down (we’re down to the CW’s Reign, NBC’s Dracula, and whatever FOX has saved for after baseball), let’s take a moment and see how the major networks fared in a fall where every network (even CBS had question marks).

So how did the major networks fare this fall? Well it was mixed to say the least with each network having some success on their schedule, but also with a number of unanswered question marks in the schedule remaining that way, this will become quite apparent as we break things down network by network.

ABC: ABC seemed to have one of the more ambitious strategies for the new fall season, blowing up it’s Dancing with the Stars and Extreme Makeover Tuesdays in order to pave the way for new scripted material. The anchor show on that night, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been a success, holding down the number three drama slot in the ratings. The rest of the night, however, has been an unmitigated disaster with the comedy hour struggling, and Lucky 7 registering so nonexistently on everyone’s radar that the show got the dubious honor of being the first show axed of the year (two episodes in, typically reserved for the Do No Harms of the world). I wonder if part of this is scheduling related, as it seems weird to pair up a show that will likely do well with males 18-49 with a two family comedies and a slice of life drama and expect audiences to stay from your massively hyped lead in. Elsewhere on the schedule, ABC has had a number of flops including Once Upon A Time in Wonderland (doing horribly in the ratings) and Super Fun Night.

CBS: The last remaining network juggernaut maintains that position for another year, and does so again on the back of it’s veteran series. However, it too struggled with it’s newer offerings (almost all of which were comedies this year). We Are Men also received a two-and-out, The Crazy Ones is bleeding viewers week to week, and Mom’s numbers have not been particularly successful. There has been one new success story for CBS, however, and it comes in the form of the Will Arnett vehicle The Millers, which takes full advantage of its’ Big Bang Theory lead in. While the Tiffany network seems in very strong shape in the short term, it can not be pleased with its’ long term picture.

FOX: Fox continues what seems to be a major trend across all four networks this year: success on the drama front, with serious questions on the comedy side of the schedule. While Sundays continue to chug along with the Animation Domination block, we can already see that Seth McFarlane’s cache is starting to run out of steam with the network. American Dad is being scuttled off to TBS, The Cleveland Show saw the cancellation ax last year, and his new offering Dads feels like an unmitigated disaster. Unfortunately, that poison has run all the way through Fox’s Tuesday comedy block, as freshman Brooklyn Nine-Nine and sophomore The Mindy Project both also have sagging ratings on Tuesdays (this is a shame, as I particularly like Brooklyn Nine-Nine and feel it got hurt by drawing Agents as direct competition). However, Fox has succeeded in shoring up its’ dramas, adding Sleepy Hollow as a success story as it has already been renewed for a second season (no back-order however in order to make room for The Following).

NBC: Last year, NBC looked for success by following a strong two prong strategy: using The Voice to set up successful dramas, and making it’s comedy as lifeless and watered down as possible in order to reboot the line-up. The drama prong, succeeded, while the comedy side ended with every new show getting canceled and the network relying on decidedly not generic Community and Parks and Recreation to hold the fort for another year. This year, they went back to the same well– with the same results. The Blacklist, which followed The Voice on Mondays scored the first back-order of the year while the comedy block is once again in shambles. Parks and Recreation, thrown to the wolves against the Big Bang Goliath is down in the ratings, while The Michael J. Fox show is the only other show averaging above a 1.0. The biggest hole however, is at 8:30, where Welcome to the Family failed to be welcomed into America’s homes and is effectively on death watch until NBC can pull Community (which has quickly turned into NBC’s Rules of Engagement as a show that solely gets renewed to plug holes) from the bench to stabilize ratings. Regardless, after the past two years, I wouldn’t be surprised to see NBC try something new next year, possibly swapping it’s comedy Thursday with it’s drama Wednesday to hold the fort, because this is not a sustainable business model for the peacock.

The CW: It seems weird that the network I have to most to say positively about is the CW. While this may in fact be because they do not have a single comedy on their fall schedule (did I mention this has been a particularly atrocious year for comedy?), I think it’s predominantly because they know what they’re aiming for and one of the stronger premieres of the season in The Tomorrow People. Their other big debut, Reign hits Thursday (i’ll be reviewing it here at Manhattan Digest, likely will be up Friday afternoon), so theoretically the CW gets an incomplete, but is already miles ahead of where they were last spring when they stuck us with Cult.

Once Upon A Time In Wonderland Is A Full Breakfast

by Michael Tyminski

Once Upon A Time In Wonderland: Thursdays at 8 Eastern on ABC

In the last decade or so, we’ve seen a move away from the traditional spin-off in favor of multiplication of trademark series. Whereas once Happy Days begat Mork and Mindy, Laverne and Shirley, Joanie Loves Chachi and about half of ABC’s sitcom lineup of the late 70’s, we now see the much lazier chain of Law and Order growing a homicide squad and a Special Victims Unit. CSI and NCIS (itself a spin-off of JAG) grew into new locations in far flung locales as Los Angeles, New York, and Miami. This sort of growth moves into fantasy land as ABC finds an hour to move the focus from fictional Storybrooke to the equally fictional Wonderland with it’s newest show: Once Upon A Time In Wonderland.

In the same way that Once Upon A Time focuses upon the mythos of Snow White, it’s sister show hones in to the story of Alice in Wonderland. Here, as in the Lewis Carroll book, Alice (Sophie Lowe) follows a rabbit hole down into a magical world. However, when she returns to her Victorian English roots, she is deemed insane and is about to forced into amnesia. However, before this can happen, her companions in Wonderland, The Knave of Hearts (Michael Socha) and the White Rabbit (John Lithgow) take her back down the rabbit hole to Wonderland.

The effects on this show are incredibly cheesy, worst of all is the poorly CG’d White Rabbit, and the equally weak CG segments. There are times where this cheesiness has an endearing effect (mostly during the fight scenes) where the cheap sets and clearly green-screened backgrounds give an almost classic Star Trek feel. However, the cheapness feels incredibly forced when you can’t splurge on some better animation (or animatronics) for what’s supposed to be one of the show’s central characters.

This cheesiness, of course, will ultimately permeate every minute of the show, mixing soap opera cliches (during the expedition), a shrink who sounds particularly creepy who has a Dr. Evil-esque look, and even the plotting itself (How do we get out of a marshmallow pond? Use a dragonfly to torch it!). This hamminess extends to it’s primary villains: The Red Queen (Emma Rigby — who gets the unfortunate task of trying to oversell the most nonsensical force choke ever) and Jafar (Naveen Andrews), however, much like in the fight scenes, this works to the show’s benefit, as there’s tons of room to overplay given the already fantastical settings.

If there is one clear strength to this show, it’s in the acting. John Lithgow in particular adds a very human and real element to his voice acting of the White Rabbit. Similarly, Sophie Lowe has a difficult task, having to alternate between naïve, confused, lovelorn, and fighting mad, but manages to mix all of these adeptly while having the harshest light shined on her as Alice.

The Final Verdict: Once Upon A Time in Wonderland is an incredibly cheesy, melodramatic affair that seems to hit and miss in equal portions. Probably more than any other show I’ve reviewed over the course of the previous year, your enjoyment of the show is going to be entirely subjective and based around how you perceive the hamminess that this show exudes– if you think it comes off kitschy and fun, you’ll like it more than if you find it hacky and cliché. For that reason alone, I think it’s worth checking out if you happen to like the source material or the sister series, but if not it’s probably worth avoiding.

Bored to Tears By Super Fun Night

by Michael Tyminski

Super Fun Night: Wednesdays at 9:30 Eastern On ABC

Super Fun Night has an interesting development history. The show was originally shopped to CBS last year, only for the network to pass on it, only for ABC to swoop in and pick up the series. While this would normally seem like the sort of sign that would doom a show, ABC has shown a surprisingly high amount of confidence in the show, giving it both plenty of hype and the strongest possible comedy lead-in one will find on the network: Modern Family.

Super Fun Night was predominantly conceived as a vehicle for Rebel Wilson (Bridesmaids, Pitch Perfect), who plays Kimmie Boubier, a shut-in junior attorney, whose weekend routines always involve her friends Marika (Lauren Ash) and Helen-Alice (Liza Lapira). The three typically take the introverted route, and don’t go out much until they feel compelled to do so to celebrate Kimmie’s promotion. At that point, as she meets Royce (Kevin Bishop), a British attorney. From there hijinks ensue as the three introverts are thrust into new social situations.

So, is this show worth the hype? In short: an unequivocal no. However, since the whole point of a review is for me to tell you why Super Fun Night is lacking, let me count the ways. First and foremost, this show is not funny. This is due to a reliance on banal jokes, hacky and physical comedy (oh my god, someone had an elevator door eat their clothing? I’ve NEVER seen that before!). When it doesn’t rely on those dated premises, it instead tries to rely on going to a well of awkwardness that falls flat at every turn.

On top of not being funny, the show seems to rely on a lot of clichés to fill out the plot, which fits the arc of every underdog story ever. This is made even worse by the fact that Kimmie’s rival, Kendall, is the one stuck behind the 8-ball. The closest analogy to this sort of awkward plotting comes from the world of professional wrestling whenever John Cena is forced to play the underdog while being the dominant champion. It doesn’t play well with WWE audiences and it doesn’t really play well here. I also wasn’t thrilled at the lack of a real B-plot, as a show built around a group of three friends didn’t really spend any time with Marika or Helen-Alice.

There are some positives that the show can build on. In particular, the one-upsmanship that occurred during the musical number at the end felt stronger than the rest of the show. Additionally, while the writing felt off, it seemed like the cast did the best it could with the material, with Kate Jenkinson in particular really standing out as Kendall Quinn, seeming to love every super-villainesque moment thrown her way.

The Final Verdict: It’s pretty clear why CBS ended up passing on Super Fun Night. This pilot felt half-baked and the writing seems sloppy, laser-focused on an A-Plot that felt very mundane. While normally with a sitcom it takes a few weeks to get into a groove, even a fully realized version of Night would be unappealing. Skip this one, Wednesday is a strong enough comedy night right now that you can find something funnier anywhere else on the dial.

ABC

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