Slate Articles

The 2012 TV Upfronts

Troy Patterson — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:01:49 GMT

When I say that the Univision upfront was the best show that media buyers are likely to see to this week, I am including actual television programs among the competition. Tuesday at the New Amsterdam Theatre, near the start of its festive display of pan-American salesmanship, the Spanish-language titan marshaled impressive statistics and marched out network alumna Sofia Vergara to do some winsome shtick. It ended the presentation with a song-and-dance number. This is in itself no big deal; many a network will hire a multi-Grammy winner to croon its clients out of the door with a stripped-down number or bring on a house-made singing-contest winner to keep them alert. Univision raised the bar by delivering Shakira with eight back-up dancers, a full band, and indoor fireworks.

The 2012 TV Upfronts

Troy Patterson — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:06:26 GMT

In 2008, ABC began the fall season airing precisely one half-hour comedy, Samantha Who?, starring Christina Applegate as Doesn’t Matter. In 2009, ABC began the fall season airing four sitcoms. In 2010, a month before the networks announced their fall schedules, the New York Times’ Brian Stetler reported of “a renaissance…for the network TV sitcom, which not too long ago was pronounced terminally ill.” The piece relayed audience research determining that painful economic times called for belly-aching laughter; it forwarded the notion that 22-minute sitcoms were well-suited to online viewing; and it decided that the unfunny mid-00s were “merely an anemic period.” And now we have gone from drought to glut. Today at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, ABC announced that it will begin the fall season airing six sitcoms and expand to eight in November.

The 2012 TV Upfronts

Troy Patterson — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:51:24 GMT

Just as NBC shined a flattering light on the mass appeal of The Voice and the demographic attractions of Smash, Fox on Monday afternoon treated its newest singing competition and its noisiest buzz magnet as structural support in a launch pad for the fall season. At the Beacon Theatre, executives first patted advertisers on the back for supporting The X-Factor, then rewarded them with a glimpse of a newly hired judge, Britney Spears. You are wondering how Britney Spears looked? Well, considering that she is Britney Spears, a job that has historically involved no small measure of wear and tear, she looked fantastic in her clinging tank dress and trashy dye job. She demonstrated a pulse, an ability to form short sentences, et cetera. Her new colleague L.A. Reid looked upon Britney and Simon Cowell and Demi Lovato and declared: “This is the Rolls Royce of television right here.” I’ve always thought of Brit-Brit as something of a T-Top Camaro, but there you have it.

The 2012 TV Upfronts

Troy Patterson — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:21:59 GMT

Each of the seven years that this reporter has covered the upfronts—the weeklong showbiz ritual in which broadcast networks assemble advertisers in Manhattan and take $9 billion from them—has been “a rebuilding year” at NBC. But this was the first time in which NBC’s presentation—a slightly poky dog-and-pony show at Radio City Music Hall on Monday—actually made it possible to believe its corporate-speak. Though NBC is hardly in the best of health, it seems to have cleared some rubble and to be the beneficiary of the goodwill of media buyers (who are eager to see the network not implode) and the non-bad will of journalists (who are in danger of running out of colorful way to disparage NBC and in need of a new angle to work).

Scenes From a Marriage

Troy Patterson — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:00:00 GMT

In my fantasy life, I live in a small town in the Green Mountains, where I own a movie theater on Main Street and program double bills. I try to pair the films for thematic resonances—The Big Sleep precedes The Big Lebowski, David Lynch's terribly excellent Mulholland Drive twins with Brian De Palma's excellently terrible Femme Fatale, Norma Shearer and Kirsten Dunst each go pouf, that kind of thing. After watching the 90-minute series premiere of Common Law (USA, Fridays at 10 p.m. ET), I now plan to pander to dudes—and to dude-admirers—by screening it as an appetizer for Hot Fuzz, in which Simon Pegg and Nick Frost similarly explored the dynamics of bickering buddy-cop action-comedy.

The Mad Men Scorecard: Roger Makes His Move!

Aisha Harris — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:44:00 GMT

See all of Slate’s coverage of Mad Men, Season 5 here.

Watching the Hucksters Huck

Troy Patterson — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:50:34 GMT

The pitch for The Pitch (AMC, Mondays at 9 p.m.) is that it's a fast-paced ad-dude reality show from the network that hooked you on Mad Men and the creator of Undercover Boss. Its existence serves as evidence that the marketing of marketing has reached a pinnacle, a pointing tip. It is a show about making ads, and the agencies are inherently selling themselves all the time, so the whole show is advertising for advertising, broken up only by commercial breaks where the funniest ads are the most knowing about selling self-reference.

The Opposite of Porn

Troy Patterson — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:27:13 GMT

Every time that 7 Days of Sex (Lifetime, Thursdays at 10 p.m.) returns from commercial, it politely offers a familiar warning: "This program contains adult subject matter." There's some frisky talk, here, yes, and a few night-vision shots of lingerie-draped middle-aged bodies, but you should not interpret the notice as an enticement. This is a goofy docu-reality show about the sex lives of settled married couples. Real real housewives, it turns out, perform midlife mumblecore on taupe acrylic carpeting. At times, the show suggests a couples’ therapy session turned into a parlor game. At others, it proposes that all a marriage is a role-playing game. Though exhibitionistic—the empty tripods stationed around the subjects' homes are steel ornaments of budget sleaze—7 Days of Sex offers something like the opposite of pornography.

America’s Poetess of Neurotic Vanity

Troy Patterson — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:00:00 GMT

Related in Slate: A conversation with Armando Iannucci.

Ultra-Soft Porn

Troy Patterson — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:09:39 GMT

You may have heard some buzz about a forthcoming TV show that explores 21st century women—their carnal wants, their emotional needs—with uncommon frankness and rare subtlety. It advances the artistic vision of a feature-length film that debuted in 2010; its star is already an icon among a certain set; and the program, all in all, resets the bar for exploring sexuality and the friendship of girls on television. I refer, of course, to The Client List (Lifetime, Sundays at 10 p.m. ET), starring Jennifer Love Hewitt as the standout employee of a Texas massage parlor. It is adapted from a Lifetime movie of same title, Hewitt’s performance in which earned her a Golden Globe nomination. This is not a joke. I mean, they’re a joke, the Globes are, but the earlier performance earned the actress her greatest awards-season recognition since she received her 1999 Teen Choice trophy for “Choice Actress” in I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Slate Articles

The 2012 TV Upfronts

The 2012 TV Upfronts

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The 2012 TV Upfronts

The 2012 TV Upfronts

Scenes From a Marriage

The Mad Men Scorecard: Roger Makes His Move!

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Watching the Hucksters Huck

The Opposite of Porn

America’s Poetess of Neurotic Vanity

Ultra-Soft Porn