Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Upfronts Analysis | Sunday Nights

For true TV nerds, upfront week (the week that the major television networks present their fall schedules to advertisers) is one of the best weeks of the year because we get a look at all of the presents that are going to be under our proverbial TV trees come September. Here, then, we continue a night-by-night analysis of new offerings as well as of old favorites being shifted into new slots.

Note: Click through the hyperlinks for trailers on YouTube for each new show.

Sundays
Most Promising Newcomer
Bob's Burgers (Fox, 8:30)We’re going totally on spec with this pick because there are literally no clips to be found for Fox’s midseason animated comedy, Bob’s Burgers. All we know is that the voice cast is a veritable alt-comedy dream team with H. Jon Benjamin (Archer) in the title role and Eugene Mirman (Flight Of The Conchords, Aqua Teen Hunger Force) and Kristen Schaal (Flight Of The Conchords) also showing up in regular roles. Fox has also scheduled the show (which again will begin in 2011) between its animated stalwarts The Simpsons and Family Guy. This really could be good -- we'd just really like to see something to justify that belief. Honestly, though, we’re probably most excited for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Click on that link back there and you’ll see why.

Strangest Move
CBS moves CSI: Miami into its Sunday death slotWe’ve said in past posts in this series that CBS made by far the boldest moves of any network during upfront week but this one has us scratching our heads. Not that we’re fans of CSI: Miami by any stretch (although we do appreciate the David Caruso Internet cartoon meme) but it was routinely Monday night’s highest rated scripted drama and CBS has now shifted the show (itself a Jerry Bruckheimer produced drama) to the slot where Bruckheimer procedurals go to die (see Without A Trace and Cold Case). Maybe CBS is just trying to competitively program this spot or maybe they’re just getting tired of the CSI franchise (CSI: NY was itself banished to Friday nights). Either way, this is an odd move but one that could pay off if the reboot of Hawaii Five-O is able to become a breakout hit in CSI: Miami’s old Monday home.

Hour By Hour
7:00Football, newsmagazines, and family garbage run this hour. Fox has football overruns and its recap show, The OT while NBC counters with its incredibly overstuffed Football Night In America hybrid recap/preview show. Fox basically concedes the hour post-football season with repeats of The Simpsons and the putrid American Dad. CBS’s institution, 60 Minutes, competes (after football season ends) with its NBC knockoff, Dateline NBC, while ABC offers up crotch shots galore on the eleventy second season of America’s Funniest Home Videos.

8:00We’re watching football here but indulge us in a rant about NBC’s coverage on Sunday Night Football. Despite what anyone tries to tell you, Al Michaels is one of the worst play-by-play men on TV. I swear to God, if I have to hear him describe one more call as “dubious,” or listen to him tell us what college a player went to after they refer to it with some colloquialism, or endure one more dated reference (“Manning went down faster than Elizabeth Taylor on Richard Burton while they were shooting Cleopatra! I’m old.”) I’m going to effing snap. That and the incompetent producers from ABC’s incarnation of Monday Night Football get the opportunity to run this broadcast into the ground with their ham-handed Sprint product placement, reliance on a well-past-her-prime Faith Hill to sing the open, and narcissistic insistence on pimping their own names in the opening … it’s a testament to how much we love football that we put up with this garbage week after week. OK… rant over. The rest of this hour more or less amounts to a choice between Fox’s animation (the actually frequently still decent The Simpsons and the forgettable The Cleveland Show with Bob’s Burgers on the way in 2011) and reality show crap (ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, CBS’s The Amazing Race, and NBC’s post-football Minute To Win It).

9:00This night really blows. Yet another worthless hour. ABC has Desperate Housewives which we gave up on during year two, CBS has another faceless reality show called Undercover Boss, NBC still keeps trotting The Apprentice out there (post-football) for some inexplicable reason, and Fox has the overrated Seth MacFarlane hour with Family Guy and American Dad/The Cleveland Show. There are no winners here.

10:00Let’s get this preview over with because Sunday nights really aren’t worth our time. The Apprentice bleeds into this hour for NBC while CBS has inexplicably moved longtime hit CSI: Miami into this slot as we already discussed. ABC’s entry is the now unwatchable Brothers And Sisters. We’re gonna say it – Sunday night, once a final respite before the work week began, has become THE worst night of TV for the week.

What We're Watching/TiVoing
Sunday Night Football
The Simpsons
Bob's Burgers (2011)

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