hugh jackman

Well, it looks like rejiggering the format of the Oscar telecast paid off; ratings for the 81st annual back-patting orgy were up 13% from last year's record-low ratings. Maybe it was the "faster-paced" ceremony, or maybe it was just that there were some intriguing storylines (Slumdog, Heath Ledger, what kind of nutty stuff would Mickey Rourke have said if he won... that kind of stuff). Or it could have been a matter of more people being at home to watch because, uh, they don't have the money to do anything else. But at least the ratings are back to being semi-respectable.

One interesting aspect to these ratings numbers, though, was brought up by Newsday's Neil Best: the total number of female viewers for the Super Bowl (38.3 million) surpassed the entire audience for the Oscars (36.3 million). So, despite the conventional wisdom, it looks like the "Super Bowl for women" is actually... the Super Bowl.

At the very least, the ratings will probably earn Hugh Jackman and producers Bill Condon and Laurence Mark a return engagement. Now if they can just get this thing under three hours, they're all set.

It was the best of Oscar it was the worst of Oscar. It wasn't the best show I've ever seen, but was it the worst Oscars ever as one friend emailed me? I think there were features that worked and features that tanked. There could have been more star power -- where were Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Jim Carrey, Sandra Bullock, Christian Bale, Tyler Perry (he had the biggest box office opening last week!), etc.? Forget about stars from the '70s...

Anyway, I had predicted that the Oscars would stink. Well, I was wrong, or half-wrong. Separate from whether you agreed with the winners -- I did by and large -- or you didn't, what about the broadcast? I think if you had seen all the nominees (or at least the Best Picture noms), you probably had a rooting interest and were amused by most of the show. However, the other half was pretty bad. After the jump, what worked versus what did not.

It's the age-old question that comes up just about every year, but after last night's marathon Oscar ceremony, I need to ask it again: Is it about time for the Academy to award most of the technical prizes (for editing, art, costumes, makeup, visual effects, etc.) either another day or before the televised ceremony starts?

The reason why I ask is because of the way the producers formatted the show this year. They did a nice job of grouping those technical awards together, threading them through the life cycle of a film's production. Believe me, it helped; instead of dragging out new presenters for each and every category, one set usually presented a few at a times (poor Will Smith was out there presenting the post-production awards almost as long as host Hugh Jackman was on stage). But somewhere around 10:30, I was still looking at the clock and trying to count how many categories were left.

Ricky Gervais won't be hosting the Oscars tonight, but he'll be doing the next best thing. It looks like Gervais will be writing some of the jokes to be used by host Hugh Jackman and company. If so, then I draw a few conclusions from this:

Tonight's jokes will be swipes at Hollywood and probably the entertainment industry in general. As one can tell from The Office and Extras (and even the BBC article itself), Gervais excels at self-deprecating humor. They will be nasty, but nasty in a funny and cute way that industry insiders and the audience will enjoy. He could even recycle jokes from Extras.

Also, tonight's jokes will be extremely funny if Jackman can deliver them in a Gervais-like style. Hopefully he'll practice them beforehand. I wonder if Stephen Merchant was involved with the joke-writing as well?

If this works out, perhaps he'll accept that offer to host the event next year? Fingers crossed.

Do you remember what film won the Oscar for Best Picture last year? (No Country for Old Men). What about Best Actor and Actress? (Daniel Day-Lewis and Marion Cotillard). If you didn't remember, don't feel bad. You're probably like most people. Most of us weren't watching in 2008. Even though they were celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Academy Awards, it was the lowest rated and least watched telecast ever.

As I perused the Academy Award nominations yesterday, I couldn't help but think that this year's broadcast is going to have a hard time drawing a huge TV audience. And considering that the only thing you can usually count on with the Oscars is that they'll run over three hours long, the show will probably leave something to be desired, too.

In fact, here's six reasons the Oscars -- which will be broadcast live on February 22 on ABC -- will probably stink.

At the very least, this sounds more promising than an awards show hosted by reality TV stars.

Hugh Jackman, probably the only Tony Award-winner to be named People's "Sexiest Man Alive," will host this year's Academy Awards ceremony. Yep, it's an odd pick. The last few Oscar night hosts have been comedians (Jon Stewart, Ellen DeGeneres, Chris Rock), but something tells me this broadcast will be the funniest in years.

Why? Because Hugh Jackman likes to sing. And dance. And he usually looks pretty silly when he does those things at the same time, like in that episode of Viva Laughlin.

She's an experienced host, an Oscar-winner, a Broadway star. But is Whoopi Goldberg hosting the 62nd Tony Awards the answer for the struggling annual broadcast? The Tony Awards, which honors the best in Broadway theater is considered one of the four major entertainment awards, along with the Oscar, Emmy and Grammy. But the Tonys have been losing viewership year after year despite the stars lured onto the broadcast. After having no single host the past two years, CBS has tapped Whoopi to be the emcee for the June 15 live broadcast from Radio City Music Hall in hopes that she'll make a difference in the Nielsens. The last single host was Hugh Jackman in 2005.

While this is Whoopi's first turn as Tony host, she is well regarded for her four stints as Oscar hostess. At the most recent Oscars, when Whoopi was left out of the host-highlight clip package of years gone by, she was ticked off and talked about it the morning after on The View. Perhaps doing the Tonys will be her way of sticking to the Oscars?
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Before Viva Laughlin (one of the worst shows to premiere on television in the past five years) debuted, no one would have believed a show like Cop Rock ever existed. Cops and crooks suddenly breaking into song and/or dance about robberies, shootings, drug deals, and murder? Sure, why not!

It came from Steven Bochco and ran on ABC in 1990. Check out the video after the jump. It's the classic scene you saw on Hill Street Blues all the time, the cops getting their morning rundown on what's going on. Then the captain suddenly starts singing "Let's Be Careful Out There." There's a cameo by another Bochco star at the end. I'm still wondering why the cops don't look at the guy singing and say "um, shouldn't we call the police psychologist?"

Well, that was fast. After an avalanche of scathing reviews (including mine) and extremely low ratings, CBS has canceled the musical mystery drama Viva Laughlin after two episodes. According to the story on Variety's web site, the show will be replaced in its Sunday 8 PM timeslot by The Amazing Race starting November 4 (a CSI rerun will air in that slot next week). No word yet on if the remaining episodes will be shown on CBS' web site, or anywhere else for that matter.

I imagine what happened is that CBS took a look at the low ratings for the show's Thursday premiere (8.8 million viewers) and the even lower ratings for the first regular Sunday showing (a 1.2 rating and 3 share in th 18-49 demo, according to Variety), saw that the quality of the remaining episodes were not going to improve, and decided to bail out. Those are the two factors that usually lead to such quick cancellations, especially to shows that were as heavily-promoted as Laughlin was.

In the world of TV, one of the riskiest things a creative team can do is shoot for the "quirky" factor. It's an all-or-nothing deal: either it works, where everything clicks and the audience embraces the show, or nothing works, and the show explodes in a big awful mess over the poor suckers who decided to tune in and watch. At the beginning of the 2007-08 season, we have two shows who went for the quirk: Pushing Daisies and Viva Laughlin. And as it turns out, one show works and the other show is a disaster. Considering Daisies is one of the most praised new shows of the season, we all know where we're going with this.

It was back to school after the Jericho presentation with a look at CBS Interactive/CBS Audience Network Presentation and Q&A.

Remember what I said about how attending the cable and PBS portion of TCA is like taking all those science and humanity classes during your first two years of college -- and the network portion of TCA is like all the fun courses in your major?

Well, today, CBS threw us a few calculus lessons.

CBS probably has one of the more interesting schedules of the fall, just for the fact that they are making a concerted effort to try something different. They could have rolled out yet another procedural (CSI: LA?), and who could really blame them. Those shows have performed extremely well for the network over the past few years.

Instead, in what is a definite gamble, the network will be bringing out some decidedly alternative programming. There is a musical drama about the casino business in Laughlin, a vampire detective, a drama about a Cuban family and their rum making business, and some swinging couples getting their freak on in the 70's. The kind of fare that would probably cause Horatio to tilt his head to the side and remove his sunglasses. Will it work? Time will tell, but we've seen three of them and have a rundown after the jump.

CBS is on a good run, being the most watched network for the last five years, but they have taken a bit of heat for the formulaic way they have gone about doing it. Not arguing with success, the whole family of CSIs, and their crime based cousins, will be back, but the network is trying to branch out with some edgier programming. Most notably, Swingtown, Viva Laughlin, and Moonlight.

Returning: The Amazing Race, Cold Case, 60 Minutes, How I Met Your Mother, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Two and a Half Men, Rules of Engagement, CSI: Miami, NCIS, The Unit, Criminal Minds, CSI: NY, Survivor, CSI, Shark, Without A Trace, Ghost Whisperer, Numb3rs, 48 Hours Mystery.

New: Viva Laughlin, Swingtown, Moonlight, Cane, Big Bang Theory, Power of 10, Kid Nation

Out: King of Queens, Jericho, The Class, Close To Home

Moving: Without A Trace moves back to Thursday at 10. Shark heads to Sunday at 10.

We're in the middle of pilot season right now, and of the approximately 9000 different shows all fighting to be part of this fall's network schedule (as long as they aren't put up against American Idol), a handful have shown promise, some even more than was expected. Here's the buzz:

Dirty Sexy Money is at the top of the list. The ABC drama stars Peter Krause, Donald Sutherland, and William Baldwin and is about a lawyer who defends rich New Yorkers. It also has a title that catches your attention. Marlowe, the new modern take on the Raymond Chandler hero on ABC, is getting better than expected reviews. Other shows that look like winners: FOX's Action News, with Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton, ABC's Football Wives, and an untitled CBS drama starring Jimmy Smits.

Viva Laughlin, a musical produced by Hugh Jackman and based on the British series Blackpool, is also getting good early buzz, but I don't know. A weekly musical drama? Hmmm...

It's that time of the year. People are being cast in pilots left and right and some interesting stuff has been announced. At ABC, Christopher Titus (Titus) has landed one of the lead roles in an untitled project from Warner Bros. The show focuses on CEOs and also stars Dylan McDermott (The Practice) and Michael Vartan (Alias). McDermott and Vartan as CEOs is an easy sell. But Christopher Titus, Senior VP Harvard graduate? That's different, and something I look forward to checking out.

Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix) is set to star in ABC's Suspect. The show is a procedural that will solve crimes by tracking suspects through a lineup. She's joined by Eric Palladino (ER) and Kathleen Munroe (Beautiful People). The ABC track record for procedurals is less than impressive, but the addition of Guy Ritchie (Snatch) as director is intriguing enough to give this one a look.