E6 PRIME-TIME FRIDAY
Originality? Screens like old times
New scripted dramas starring familiar faces set to challenge CBS
by Lisa de Moraes
Remember Friday nights on broadcast TV when it was a real night of original scripted program- ming?
“Dallas”? “L.A. Law”? “Full House”? “The X-Files”? You are so old. Which, ironically, makes you the
target audience on Fridays this fall as broadcasters, who have already thrown in the towel on Saturdays, struggle to take back Friday nights. For decades, Friday was a viable night for the broadcast TV net- works, and shows such as those mentioned above prospered. But over the years, broadcasters let the night slip away; it has become one of their least-watched nights of the week. And, for the past several years, Saturday evening has been the boneyard where “Ugly Betty” and “Dollhouse” were sent to die; the repository of cheap, non- scripted fare, such as “America’s Next Top Model” reruns, “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” and “Wife
Swap”; and the home of such newsmagazines as “Dateline” and “20/20.” Now there’s an increasing real-
ization among execs that if they don’t take Friday seriously, it will become another Saturday, and an- other opportunity to make money will have slipped away. CBS, the one network that has clung to the notion of scripted se- ries on Fridays all these years, has profited from older-skewing dra- mas. They have starred the likes of Jennifer (“ ‘Love’ to My Friends”) Hewitt as the bosom-heaving dead people talker-to in “Ghost Whis- perer” and Rob (“Remember Him From ‘Northern Exposure’ ”) Mor- row as a detective with a braniac brother who solves his crimes for him in “Numb3rs.” Imitation being the sincerest form of television, the other broad- casters worked like little beavers to concoct some superbly CBS-ish shows for Friday nights this fall. They’ve come up with big-tent shows, in which each episode has a beginning, a middle and an end, as God intended. (No intertwined story lines from week to week, or “Lost”-esque sideways-universe head-scratchers, thanks.) Shows that are not looking for the next hot bit of on-air talent but that in- stead star good-looking people you’ve known for a long time, and enjoy looking at, doing heroic,
CLAIRE FOLGER/ABC
FEEL-GOOD FRIDAY: Coming to your TV screen, clockwise from above: Dana Delany as a medical examiner in “Body of Proof,” Will Estes and Tom Selleck as cops in “Blue Bloods,” Jimmy Smits as a hard-gambling lawyer in “Outlaw,” and Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks as ne’er-do-well detectives in “The Good Guys.”
chest-thumpy things that make you feel good at the end of the week.
CBS saw it coming and, for this fall, created The Mother of All CBS Friday dramas: “Blue Bloods.” It stars Tom Selleck — previ- ously known as Vietnam vet Thomas Magnum, Monica’s older ophthalmologist boyfriend Dr. Richard Burke, and 12-stepping Paradise, Mass., police chief Jesse Stone.
Shows don’t get much more CBS-on-Friday than “Blue Bloods,” a procedural crime drama with dashes of serialization, starring
Selleck as Frank Reagan, the New York police chief and cop-family patriarch. In true CBS fashion, he’s surrounded by hot younger family members, including Donnie Wahl- berg, who have been thrown in to make Selleck look heroic and to bring in whatever younger viewers they can persuade to watch CBS. NBC’s homage to CBS, “Outlaw,”
stars Jimmy Smits as a playboy gambler Cyrus Garza, who abrupt- ly decides to quit the U.S. Supreme Court, where he had always ad- hered to a strict interpretation of the law, because he has just real- ized the system is flawed. And,
BILL MATLOCK/FOX
also, there’s that quarter-of-a-mil- lion-dollar gambling debt. Garza returns to private practice to hero- ically represent “the little guy” and, along the way, he’s going to make plenty of powerful people mightily unhappy. What could be more chest- thumpy?
Also, Smits is surrounded by
younger actors who will pretend to be his legal team, including an Ivy League grad looking to make a name for himself (Jesse Bradford) and a bisexual bad-girl private eye (Carly Pope). If that’s not a CBS drama troll- ing for younger viewers, we don’t know what is. “Outlaw” is produced by Henry
Kissinger’s son, David, and a slew of others including — sitting down? — Conan O’Brien, a guy who knows a lot about quitting abruptly after realizing the system he believed in is flawed, and then going out and finding ways to make life a perfect hell for some powerful people. ABC’s CBS show is “Body of
BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at STRATHMORE
Mahler’s Seventh Symphony SAT, SEP 25
Marin Alsop opens a season celebrating Gustav Mahler with his grand Symphony No. 7 plus his arrangement of Bach’s orchestral Suite. Presenting Sponsor: DLA Piper
Proof.” It stars Dana Delany — the onetime “China Beach” willful head nurse Colleen McMurphy and “Desperate Housewives” resi- dent nut job Katherine Mayfair. This time, Delany is a brilliant neurosurgeon who is at the top of her game, at the expense of her family. A car accident abruptly ends her career — but she rises like a phoenix to become a very hot, high-heeled medical examiner who is trying to rebuild relation- ships with her family members. Fox has no new scripted pro-
grams for Friday this fall, but it’s no coincidence it has scheduled perhaps its most retro show, Brad- ley Whitford’s one-hour cop dram- edy, “Good Guys,” on the night. Don’t expect any of these Friday shows to become a monster hit. Hits are not the objective on Fri- day nights. Friday night is about shelf space, on which to launch a
Now there’s an increasing realization among execs that if they don’t take Friday seriously,
it will become another Saturday, and another opportunity to make money will have slipped away.
series into The Great Content Food Chain. Here’s how it works: Each of those new shows is produced by the same company that owns the network. They’ll be sold interna- tionally. Domestically, the Holy Grail is to reach 100 episodes, which will make them a hot prop- erty for syndication. Who knows: One of them might even turn up in reruns to USA or TNT a few months from now. May the most CBS show win.
demoraesl@washpost.com
BD
KLMNO the new season} fall tv preview
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2010
HEATHER WINES/CBS
WILL HART/NBC
Stefan Jackiw Mendelssohn’s
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Marin Alsop conducts Dvorˇák’s “New World” Symphony and Stefan Jackiw performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.
Presenting Sponsor: M&T Bank Marin Alsop
Gotta Dance! THU, OCT 7 Maestro Jack Everly and the BSO SuperPops explore the vast spectrum of movement and music as dancers perform ballroom, tango, ballet and more. Presenting Sponsor: Constellation Energy
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Photo of Karl Miller by Clinton Brandhagen
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