I apologize because it's taken a long while to write a new
blog post! I've just been so busy.
I'm going to take this time to complain about major
changes they make in shows, especially when the shows are
not doing well in the ratings or when they move to another
network. The most recent example is a show I used to
enjoy, "Unforgettable." It used to be on CBS, but for the
4th season, it's now on A&E. CBS never really treated
the
show well. They kept moving it around and bringing it back
at odd times of the year. For instance, in the second
season, it began in July, ran until September, and then
didn't air again until April. After finishing season 2
in May, they brought it back for season 3 in June! It was
very confusing.
After the first season, they moved the three top
characters (Carrie, Al, and Jo) from Queens homicide over to
Major Crimes in Manhattan. That was quite a drastic change.
Honestly, I didn't like it. Not that the other characters
were all that interesting, but I thought the move was
unrealistic, and I really didn't like the new characters
very much. I liked Elliot, but not the other new people.
Eventually, I did get used to them, too.
I really liked the 2nd and 3rd seasons, even though the
show was uneven. Now it's on A&E for the 4th
(and
probably last) season. They changed it again! Jo (Jane
Curtin) is gone, and that has kind of ruined the show. She
was one of the best parts of it because she was a very
oddball character, but likable. I've only watched the
first episode of the new season, but it was really bad.
First of all, they were all trying way too hard to make us
like them. Secondly, there was way too much "action"
(meaning, violence, especially shootings that went on
forever). Both of these things were the fault of the
writing. They brought in a new, younger, prettier ME to
replace Jo, and a new
young guy joined their team. My guess is that
they could no longer afford most of the cast members, so
that's why Jane is gone and we only get to see Dallas
Roberts (Elliot) 2 times. I think it's pretty obvious,
too, that they wanted to have some younger people on the
show to appeal to that younger demographic that they're all
craving.
I will admit that the second episode was better...so
maybe it will continue to improve and get back to being more the interesting
detective show that its fans know and love, and less like
"Hawaii Five-0." It's a shame that Elliot left at
the end.
The other thing I hated about the episode is that they
brought in Skeet Ulrich (one of my favorite actors, from "Jericho"
and "Law
& Order: L.A.") as Carrie's ex-husband, Eddie. I guess
they thought Skeet was too attractive, so they made him look
ugly. They had him slick back his hair and he just looked
horrible. His character, from what I gather, was supposed to
be kind of a
slob.
It didn't really work, though. I found him to be too
distracting from the plot.
Also, it's weird that Skeet was even playing the role
because at the end of season 3, her ex-husband shows up as
played by Michael Dempsey (who played Alan-Michael for a
while on "Guiding
Light"). No wonder I didn't remember seeing Skeet before
on the show!
But, anyway, I digress...they did this same thing to many
other shows I liked that were just fine and didn't need so
many changes. If they make changes, then they risk turning
off the viewers that are already watching the show. Look at
the Dana Delaney show, "Body of Proof" on ABC. That
one was great the first season, but in the second season
they completely changed most of the cast. Worse, they got
rid of her good looking detective buddy
(killed him off). Suddenly, the show was much more
about Delaney's character solving crimes than about being an
ME (which was completely unrealistic). It didn't last until
a third season.
They've done this many years. I remember years ago, I
loved the syndicated show "War of the Worlds" (1988).
They completely changed it in the s
econd
season. I mean, it was like a completely different show. It
was a much darker show, with more aliens. The main
character, Harrison (Jared Martin) was almost gone and some
other guy took over. Years later, I realized that the "some
other guy" was Adrian Paul, who was fantastic as the
"Highlander." But he was not the guy I had loved in
the first season, so I didn't like him. Also, though,
the show got very weird and dark.
Another good recent example is the show "Southland." Now,
on NBC, that show was very good. It was like a modern day
"Adam 12" in that it showed regular cops doing every day
police
work.
Then it got canceled on NBC (even though it got good ratings
- that was the year they made the brilliant decision
to replace all of their 10 pm dramas with Jay Leno! So they
canceled "ER", "Southland" and many other good shows), and
they moved it to TNT. TNT ruined it by making it not only
more of a soap opera, but by amping up the violence - the
shootings and car chases. Something that was unique became
like every other cop show out there. It was no longer
realistic. What a wast
e.
I know that TV producers and writers are under a lot of
pressure when the ratings are down, but making drastic
changes in the style of the show is always a bad idea.
Making drastic cast changes can backfire big time, too. When
will they learn?
Although it's been a busy few weeks, it's been fun.
Yesterday I had a brief chat on Twi
tter
with Thaoo Penghlis (known for "Days
of Our Lives," "General
Hospital" and the 1988 "Mission Impossible" series). He
has a recipe book out ("Seducing
Celebrities: One Meal at a Time") that I bought to
review, so I told him I bought it and asked him about
whether he had a recipe for making Greek olives because he
mentioned at the beginning of the book that his grandfather
made them, but I didn't see a recipe for them. He replied on
Twitter that they were a family secret but thanked me, and
when I mentioned that I enjoyed reading the part of the book
where he meets his parents in Honolulu (where I love), he
favorited my tweet. Also, he had mentioned a restaurant
called Michael's, but I said I don't think it exists here
any more. He replied about where it was located. So it was a
nice little back-and-forth. He's always been really
good about interacting with his fans. Long before there was
"social media", he used to have an active message board on
his web site and did live chats. I speak to a lot of TV
actors on the telephone, but it's still a treat to hear from
them on social media, particularly my favorite soap stars!
Speaking
of soap stars, I also recently interviewed Kristoff St. John
on the phone. That was awesome. I've been a fan of his for a
long time. I will be transcribing that later today for our
articles page. I have some other interviews to put up as
well that are kind of late. It's so hard to keep up with
everything.
Every weekend we put up our weekly
Primetime News and Schedule pages. This week's page
(which I'm putting up soon) is
here and next week's will be
here.
We have some contributors to our site that attend the
San
Diego Comic-Con every year to take
photos. We had never gotten around to applying for
press passes before because they got into quite a few press
events, anyway. This year we decided to apply. The deadline
was this past week. I had to make sure that we had all of
the information and emailed it in to SDCC. Hopefully
they'll be accepted and get invited to even more events, so
they can take more photos!
It's two weeks until Christmas, so there are lots of
holidays specials on TV. Which one is your favorite? It's
hard to pick just one. I do love the "Charlie Brown
Christmas." My favorite movies are "Miracle on 34th Street"
and "Scrooge" (the musical).

You can find my older blog posts at
http://www.tvmegs.com
Chronicles
- My personal blog, which is not about TV.
Leave a comment (put the blog date or I won't
know which one you're commenting on)
Free Guestbooks by Bravenet.com
Page updated 12/13/15