Posts Tagged ‘ CBS ’

The Best Damn Private Eye on Television

December 14, 2010
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The Best Damn Private Eye on Television

By Kevin Burton Smith No, CBS’ The Good Wife is not a private-eye show. One of the 2009-10 television season’s most acclaimed new dramas, it’s really more of a legal thriller, closer in format to, say, LA Law. Created by husband-and-wife-team Michelle and Robert King, The Good Wife stars Julianna Margulies (formerly of ER) as Alicia Florric, the feisty, principled wife of Peter, a prominent state’s attorney (Chris Noth), and the mother of two, who stands by her man when he’s arrested and sent to the slammer amidst charges of corruption and a sex scandal. Humiliated, middle-aged, and the focus of unwanted media scrutiny, Alicia has the steely resolve to take the high road as she throws herself back into the workforce as a single mom/junior defense attorney at a high-priced Chicago law firm; her determination is almost inspiring. And it’s that dramatic and unexpected moral underpinning that helps raise this show high above most TV legal potboilers. The real charm of the show, though, lies in its twisty, turny tumble of hidden agendas, lies, and conspiracies. Just when you have a character, a plot, a motive pinned down, the writers yank the rug out. Everyone, it seems, has something

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CBS’s ‘$#*! My Dad Says’ Nicely Transcends Gimmick Origin

September 30, 2010
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CBS’s ‘$#*! My Dad Says’ Nicely Transcends Gimmick Origin

Sure, the new CBS sitcom $#*! My Dad Says is based on a very thin gimmick: a snarky but funny and very popular Twitter feed by previously unknown writer Justin Halpern. And sure, William Shatner plays a parody of his recent TV persona, as the weird blowhard named in the show’s title. And sure, sitcoms populated with quirky characters are a dime a dozen. But Shatner is a really talented comic actor, and he and the producers have given the show and its main characters a good deal more depth than one might have any right to expect. The concept turns out to have some potential for interesting situations reminiscent of real-life problems most people encounter. The story is laid out in a simple and direct manner in the pilot, but festooned with plenty of comical one-liners. A young, unemployed man and his cantankerous, hard-nosed father attempt to reconnect after years apart because of a divorce. The son barely knows the father, but he shows up on his doorstep anyway because he has nowhere else to go, having been laid off from his job. He is in fact rather afraid of the old man, for good reason, as the latter

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Broadcast Audience Aging Faster Than Population

August 20, 2010
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If you don’t watch ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox, you’re in luck: you’re aging more slowly than those who do. At least, that’s the gist of this poorly worded AP headline: “Broadcast audience aging faster than population.” We knew the cable networks embraced the youth culture, but who knew they could actually help one maintain that youthful shine longer.

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Penn: Send Journalists to Prison; Maher: Let’s Talk Later

March 29, 2010
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Penn: Send Journalists to Prison; Maher: Let’s Talk Later

A bit of video is circulating the ‘net in which America Hating Leftist and Dictator Apologist Extraordinaire Sean Penn expresses his desire to see critics of Venezuelan Communist Dictator Hugo Chavez go “to prison” for expressing their views. Here’s the entire exchange from the March 5th, 2010 “Real Time with Bill Maher:” Sean: “Everyday this elected leader is called a … a dictator here, and we just accept it and accept it. And this is Main Stream Media who should … truly there should be a bar by which they … one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.” Bill: “I … I gotta move … to the panel cause I … we’ve … uh … we’re hoping … Sean: “Sorry” Bill: “No, No, No. Someday we’ll have you back, and we’ll ask you in more depth if he’s a dictator or not.” ‘If’ he’s a dictator, Mr. Maher? Did you miss  the bit about shredding the Constitution’s First Amendment and throwing journalists in prison for dissenting from Sean Penn’s worldview?  Maybe it’s a bit much to expect one Ignorant Leftist to confront another Ignorant Leftist on the niceties of Freedom of Speech. Instead Maher shifts subjects, giving Penn

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CBS Brings Mixed Martial Arts to Major Network TV

February 28, 2008
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CBS Brings Mixed Martial Arts to Major Network TV

‘Big Four’ network brings original programming to Saturday nights, chasing MMA’s upscale, young audience.  

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‘Dexter’ Comes to CBS

February 15, 2008
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‘Dexter’ Comes to CBS

This Sunday night at 10 p.m EST, CBS attempts to bolster its writers-strike-depleted primetime lineup by bringing over a program from pay cable, Showtime’s Dexter. For those not familiar with the show, Dexter is a limited series based on the first in a series of novels about a Miami police forensic consultant whose expertise happens to be based in great part on the fact that he is a serial killer.

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Pale “Moonlight”

October 4, 2007
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Pale “Moonlight”

Like Pushing Daisies (analyzed earlier on this site), the new CBS drama series Moonlight explores fairly heady ideas about what makes us human, specifically the relationship between flesh and spirit. Unlike the cheerful Daisies, Moonlight, created by movie producer Joel Silver, is another of the many dark dramas so common on TV today. Mick St. John (Alex O’Loughlin) is a moralistic vampire who doesn’t prey on "innocents" but instead kills only evil people whom he thinks deserve to die (so he says). Mick despises vampires who kill humans indiscriminately, and he helps people by working as a private investigator, using his heightened senses to solve the crimes. The possibility of redemption is a strong impulse throughout the pilot episode, as Mick  is torn between his will to live and his desire to live right. That’s a good and interesting theme to consider. Unfortunately, the scriptwriting, performances, and visual presentation are at a low level of sophistication, sticking to the modern comic-book/graphic-novel approach and never striking much contact with the real world. That makes it difficult for the viewer to experience the show as much more than an intellectual exercise—and comic books are hardly the best way to exercise the intellect.

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CBS’ “Cane”—Just Depicting Ethnic Strife, or Fomenting It?

September 26, 2007
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CBS’ “Cane”—Just Depicting Ethnic Strife, or Fomenting It?

The new CBS TV series Cane is something of a return to the 1980s primetime soap opera style of Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, and the like: a wealthy family imperiled by external enemies that would destroy their business, and wracked by internal rifts as those who share the family financial interests jockey for power.

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FCC Authority over Indecency Challenged—but Govt. Agency Is Right for Once

September 11, 2007
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FCC Authority over Indecency Challenged—but Govt. Agency Is Right for Once

When it comes to regulation of communications, usually the FCC and the Congress have it all wrong. They want to regulate speech but let indecency have a free pass. That is the exact opposite of their Constitutional mandate. Here is the truth about the matter. The federal government has no constitutional authority to regulate speech. Period. If somebody wants to say something Congress or the Executive or Judicial branch doesn’t like, that’s just too bad. The states have much broader authority to regulate speech, though even they are not allowed to suppress political speech. But there is one aspect the Congress does have the authority to regulate, and that is indecency. The Supreme Court’s extension of the word "speech" to include nonverbal expression notwithstanding, the Congress definitely does have the authority to regulate the broadcast of indecent materials. This is the one area where Congress can and should step in.

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More Progress on “Jericho” TV Program Return

June 6, 2007
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More Progress on “Jericho” TV Program Return

As we noted two weeks ago, CBS television has been contemplating resurrecting the series Jericho through some means or another, so as to give loyal viewers a satisfactory ending to the long-from narrative. The network cancelled the show this spring after one season, and loyal viewers inundated the network with dismayed complaints and requests that the net do something to provide them with some resolution of the program’s story line. CBS announced that they would do something of the sort, but provided no details at the time. CBS now appears to be planning to give the show’s viewers much more than anyone might have hoped. The Los Angeles Times reports:

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CSI Gets Religion Big-Time

October 20, 2006
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CSI Gets Religion Big-Time

Religion is all over the place on network TV series now. Many programs just can’t seem to resist bringing it up, and the treatments are typically fairly sympathetic though by no means without nuance or sophistication. For example: following up on last week’s interesting comment at the end of the program, in which CSI team leader Gil Grissom suggests a sense of moral decline in America (see my article of last week on that episode), last night’s episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation moved thoroughly into spiritual and religious territory. The story concerns the investigation into the death of a woman found crucified in the sanctuary of a Catholic church, having been beaten previously and strangled by a rosary. Much suspicion is directed toward a Catholic priest and an automobile dealer, both of whom have known the woman since high school. The priest, it turns out, was having an affair with the woman. The church holds some very unhappy secrets, you see. But the episode is no slam at the church—it is instead a fairly sophisticated look at how flawed human beings try to live out their relationship with God, and how those who don’t have such a relationship get

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"Culture is the expression of the guiding philosophy of the day."—Murray Rothbard
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