'Prison Break' takes the show on the road

Intermingled with panels on new shows, FOX presented some discussion of certain current shows, including the hot drama “Prison Break” and the summer reality hit “So You Think You Can Dance.” Longtime victims’ advocate and crime-show host John Walsh showed up to discuss “America’s Most Wanted,” and a producer and three stars from FX’s “Nip/Tuck” came by as well.

You can read my entries straight through, or click on your favorite show titles to get that update first.

• ‘Prison Break’ takes the show on the road
• ‘Dance’ fever on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’
• John Walsh is still hunting ‘America’s Most Wanted’
• Guest stars can’t wait to cut up with ‘Nip/Tuck’
• Tossing them back with the TV drinking game

• July 26, 2006 | 7 a.m. PT

FOX has 'Idol,' and they know it

FOX has arrived, and other than PBS, they’re the final network scheduled to present to the TV critics’ summer press tour. They’ve differentiated themselves from the others in numerous ways — providing tall lit tables around the breakfast buffet, hanging plasma screens in the presentation room, spicing up the beverage selection with A&W products and orange-pineapple Cactus Cooler. And for some reason there are small fountains encased in glass at the end of the breakfast table. “Sprinklers in boxes!” said one of my colleagues.

FOX’s pages are perhaps the most casually dressed to date. Gone are the suits and ties of NBC’s pages, these folks are clad in khakis and white polo shirts. They either work at FOX or are planning on going golfing right after this.

First I’ll tackle the network president’s presentation along with panels about the new shows FOX presented. Tomorrow I’ll look at some of the returning favorites. You can read straight through or click on the links that interest you the most.

• We got ‘Idol,’ yes we do, we got ‘Idol,’ how ‘bout you?
• Young hostage negotiators in love on ‘Standoff’
• Will ‘Everybody Love’ Raymond’s brother ‘Til Death’?
• Victor Garber goes on the hunt for ‘Justice’
• ‘Happy Hour’: Best watched with a buzz on

• July 25, 2006 | 7 a.m. PT

What 'Deal or No Deal' is looking for

In addition to its slate of new shows, NBC offered a few panels updating critics on some of its current successes. Fans of “Deal or No Deal” can read on to get tips on how to make it on the show (and a sort-of explanation of how the banker’s offer is determined). “Law & Order” creator Dick Wolf was here with a cast member from each of his three shows. And a star-studded if wacky panel that included Brandy, Regis Philbin, and “The Hoff” himself, David Hasselhoff, showed up to discuss “America’s Got Talent.”

You can read my entries straight through, or use the links provided to skip to your favorite shows.

• ‘Law & Order:’ That other series that’s not ‘CSI’
• ‘America’s Got Talent,” with Reege, Brandy and the Hoff
• Howie Mandel is ready to make a ‘Deal or No Deal”

• July 24, 2006 | 7 a.m. PT

NBC: Two 'SNL' shows on one network?

As each network comes here to the TV Critics’ Association press tour to present, they bring in their own varied amount of logo paraphernalia and their own style of signage.

When I left for dinner Thursday night, I thought that NBC was falling down on the job. But when I returned later that night, I was all but blinded by colorful neon peacocks everywhere — outside the building, in front of the room where lunch is served, in the entry to the ballroom.

And perhaps the peacock is once again fitting, after some embarrassing ratings years, NBC has one of the most talked-about new shows for the fall in “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” and most of its other new offerings look downright respectable. (MSNBC, as you probably know, is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC.)

You can read the column straight through from the first link, or use the links below to jump to the topics that interest you.

• NBC takes a risk with ‘Nobody’s Watching’
• The fall’s most-talked-about new show: ‘Studio 60’
• That other “Saturday Night Live’ show: Tina Fey’s ’30 Rock’
• Looking for a few good ‘Heroes’
• Turning on the ‘Friday Night Lights’
• ‘Kidnapped’: Not to be confused with ‘Vanished’
• John Lithgow, Jeffrey Tambor team up for ‘Twenty Good Years’

• July 21, 2006 | 7 a.m. PT

Visiting the sets of 'The Shield' and 'Grey's Anatomy'

When I was a kid, I took a writing class at our suburban library, taught by a local children’s author. I don’t remember much of what we did in the class, but I’ll always remember one thing the teacher said. Being a writer, she said, was carte blanche to go anywhere; for example, to gather research for a book or article, a writer might sit in an emergency room for 24 hours straight, observing what went on.

I have yet to do that, but being a writer today took me to a similar place: A Hollywood studio, where I and the other critics at the TV Critics’ Association summer press tour visited the hospital set of “Grey’s Anatomy” and the police set of “The Shield.” Both were places I never thought I’d be, and both were fascinating.

You can read about my TV studio visits by starting here and reading all the way through, or by jumping to each individually:

• You have the right to remain silent on the set of "The Shield"
• To the "Grey's Anatomy" set, STAT, with a McDreamy martini

• July 20, 2006 | 7 a.m. PT

ABC, day two: Killing trees, taking names

Wednesday is day two of the ABC presentation, and the network offered up panels from its four remaining new shows — hitting us with the comedies in the morning, and the dramas in the afternoon.

I’ve committed the journalist’s cardinal sin and not brought enough paper. I ripped through the brand-new notebook I brought and am coming up on the last pages of the only legal pad in the hotel gift shop. I have now been reduced to scribbling notes on the back of BBC press releases. Thank you, my British friends, for only using one side of the page, leaving the other blank for my use. Perhaps the trees do not thank you, but I do.

Click on the topics you’re interested in to go directly there, or start with the first topic and mosey on through.

• The show formerly known as ‘Let’s Rob Mick Jagger’
• Oh, baby: ‘Notes from the Underbelly’ finds pregnancy funny
• Anne Heche heads north to Alaska for ‘Men in Trees’
• Sally Field acquires a few more ‘Brothers and Sisters’

• July 19, 2006 | 6 a.m. PT

ABC, day one: Hunks, babes and a drinking game

Here at the TV Critics’ Association summer press tour, today was officially the first day of the ABC presentations. Unofficially, it was Hunks and Babes Day. Taye Diggs, Vanessa Williams, Salma Hayek and other actors who really, really look good dropped by to discuss their new shows. Jimmy Kimmel also showed up to grill burgers made from his own recipe, and I’m pretty sure his secret ingredient is too much soy sauce.

I’ve also started developing a press tour drinking game, a.k.a. Catchphrase Bingo. This will likely be added to throughout the remaining week. When I hear the following oft-repeated phrases, I feel a desire to slug one back, even if “one” is just a shot of Diet Coke.

Drink when:

• A critic asks if there are too many serial dramas
• An actor says he/she moved from movies to TV because “I follow the writing”
• A new show is compared to “Lost” (I may be guilty of this myself)
• An exec claims their network is an underdog but no one believes it
• A critic admits he/she hasn’t watched the pilot of the show
• Someone asks about an actor’s hair

Click on any of the topics below to jump directly to them, or click on the first and keep reading straight through.

• ‘Lost’ tackles the rerun problem;  ‘Desperate Housewives’ ‘creative collapse’
• ‘Six Degrees’ of J.J. Abrams
• Ted Danson meets Bob Newhart on ‘Help Me Help You’
• The worst or best title of the fall is ‘Ugly Betty’
• ‘Day Break,’ a.k.a. ‘Groundhog Day’ with guns
• Here comes the bride on her ‘Big Day’
• Banking on ‘The Nine’

• July 18, 2006 | 6 a.m. PT

CW is new network with new, old shows

What’s a CW?  Country western? A computer programming language? Online roleplaying game? An abbreviation for Colonial Williamsburg? That guy who sang “Convoy” and “Wolf Creek Pass”?

Well, maybe, but now it’s also the network born out of the ruins of UPN and The WB. Taking the “C” from CBS and the “W” from Warner Brothers, the show cherry-picked the top shows from both networks for its new venture.  The CW hosted its first-ever press tour day this Monday, and I attended all the panels. Here’s the scoop on new and surviving shows.

Use the links below to skip right to the information about the shows in which you’re interested.

• CW in general: ‘Everwood,’ ‘7th Heaven,’ ‘One Tree Hill’ and more
• ‘Runaway,’ a.k.a. ‘The Fugitive: Family Edition’
• ‘The Game’ hopes to score with “Girlfriends” fans
• ‘Everybody Hates Chris,’ ‘All of Us,’ ‘Girlfriends’
• Hanging with the ‘Gilmore Girls’
• ‘Veronica Mars’ stays in orbit

• July 17, 2006 | 6 a.m. PT

Warning: Possible spoilers for the new 'CSI' season ahead

Sunday at the TV Critics' Association press conference in Pasadena, CBS wrapped up its presentations. Saturday focused on new shows; Sunday on old standbys and some familiar faces on new ventures. Use these links to skip right to the topics in which you're interested.

Sunday:

• K-K-K-Katie: Couric packs the house
• Munching mini-burgers with Rachael Ray
• Digging up dirt on 'CSI'

Saturday:

• Leaving fans hanging with canceled serialized dramas. (Ahem—“Reunion”—ahem.)
• James Woods, Jeri Ryan’s shoes, and jumping the “Shark.”
• Your ‘Amazing Race’ questions answered (well, some of them)
• Still ‘Young,’ still ‘Restless’
• ‘Class’ is in session, and damaged jeans get an A from Jason Ritter
• ‘Jericho,’ when the walls came a-tumblin’ down. Also, ‘Skeet’ is fun to say.
• ‘Smith,’ and main characters don’t all have to be Ned Flanders

• July 16, 2006 | 2 p.m. PT

Live from L.A.

Welcome to this special version of Test Pattern, coming to you live on location from the TV Critics’ Association summer press tour in Pasadena. Over the next two weeks, I’ll be attempting to update both this Weblog and original-recipe Test Pattern, in which we’ll continue our hunt for the year’s best and worst commercials.

Here at press tour, commonly referred to by participants as the Death March with Cocktails, critics from all around the U.S. and Canada gather and each network shows up for a day or more, offering up network executives as well as writers and stars from its new (and sometimes old) shows. I’m a press-tour newbie, so what’s old hat to many critics will be new and possibly exciting to me. Like the fact that I just barely avoided colliding with “Young and the Restless” star Peter Bergman, whom I’ve known as Jack Abbott on that soap since the late 1980s. (In person he looks even tanner than on TV, if that’s possible. And his co-star Tracey E. Bregman (Lauren Fenmore) looks even tinier.

I'll be offering up the choicest tidbits and some erratic sidebars about the panels I attend. Sometimes there's real television news that comes out of these sessions, but other times we leave the ballroom saying to each other "Did you SEE Jeri Ryan's shoes?" Or maybe that's just me.

Only interested in certain shows or topics? I'll provide a handy table of topics each day so you can jump to your favorite. Here's CBS' day one:

• Leaving fans hanging with canceled serialized dramas. (Ahem -- "Reunion" -- ahem.)
• James Woods, Jeri Ryan's shoes, and jumping the "Shark."
• Your 'Amazing Race' questions answered (well, some of them)
• Still 'Young,' still 'Restless'
• 'Class' is in session, and damaged jeans get an A from Jason Ritter
• 'Jericho,' when the walls came a-tumblin' down. Also, 'Skeet' is fun to say.
• 'Smith,' and main characters don't all have to be Ned Flanders

Serialized dramas: The reality shows of this year, a.k.a. "some of us are still mad about 'Reunion,' "
In her panel, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler proudly proclaimed that "network TV has reclaimed the water cooler," bragging that the cast of one of CBS's new shows, "Smith," is the kind of "cast you'd see in a feature film." (Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen are among those players, the show revolves around Liotta's criminal gang and their heists as well as his private life; Madsen plays his wife, who has a few secrets of her own.)

Critics got in a few questions about schedule changes and the like, but the unquestioned topic of the hour was network TV's rush to copy the success of serialized shows such as "24" and "Lost," churning out more and more shows that your average viewer needs to be tuned in from the beginning to be able to follow. CBS's "Jericho," in which a small Kansas town is apparently cut off from the world by nuclear explosions, is one of those shows.

Questioners wanted to know if Tassler felt the networks were loading up too much on this kind of show, requiring too much of a commitment from viewers, and essentially, if it would backfire. Regular readers of regular Test Pattern know I was a big booster of FOX's "Reunion," and tried to ferret out plot details when that show was canceled well before its murderer was revealed. Critics wanted to know if the networks weren't afraid of turning off viewers by getting them hooked on a show and then never satisfying their need to know what happened. Tassler kept repeating that the good shows would make it, that they'd find audiences. Someone asked if she was saying that the "Reunion" fans really didn't care who the murderer was, and she backtracked a bit, saying she was "sure it was important to them," but basically that "the show would still be on the air if people cared." I cared, Nina! As did many  MSNBC.com readers, who even wrote in with their own theories as to who killed Sam.

Nothing was essentially answered to critics' full satisfaction in the Tassler session, but one thing is clear to me: Serialized drama is the reality show of this season. It's popular, some have done quite well, and now we're seeing everyone trying it, and there's bound to be a bit of a downside. I wish Tassler had talked more about ways in which the networks can keep viewer goodwill -- there are numerous ways to do it. If unaired episodes exist of a serial, release them as downloads. Sell them as extras on the DVD. Devote part of your Web site to letting the show's writer talk about what would have happened and why. That, to me, is the way to keep fans happy, even if you can't keep the show they liked on the air.

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