Still hanging in there: Dennis Franz at the ABC Upfront party
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In other words, here's their detailed plan for success: ABC will become a television network that televises television shows. By these criteria, ABC's is the one new schedule unveiled this week we can call, from the get-go, an unqualified success. It contains new television shows. Lots of them. Three new comedies and four new dramas — plus two more dramas to be introduced after "Monday Night Football" ends. And that's not counting midseason replacements.
Actually, if you decode the network-speak, there is a strategy, sort of, behind ABC's complete schedule overhaul. By "broad," it means middle-of-the-road, safe programming, designed to stop the Nielsen bleeding. By "family," it means "inoffensive to as many people as possible." By "smart," of course, it means not too smart. Adventurous shows like "The Job" (now officially canceled) need no longer apply.
Instead, we're getting John Ritter as an overprotective dad in "Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter." We're getting Bonnie Hunt as a harried mom and talk-show host on "Life with Bonnie." ("Bonnie Hunt is a star, pure and simple," Lyne said. Right. Bonnie Hunt is a delightful comic actress — but she's also the woman they cast in "Project Greenlight" because they couldn't get Marg Helgenberger.) We're getting "Less Than Perfect," an office comedy about — oh, I don't know, an office. We're getting more bland comedy from Damon Wayans, George Lopez and Jim Belushi. We're getting a series version of the miniseries "Dinotopia," an effects-driven treat for the kids and possibly the worst-written miniseries since the invention of language. Every weeknight, from 8 to 9 Eastern, will be "ABC Happy Hour," a time when — and executives used this image over and over again — you can come home from a hard day's work, plop on the couch and veg out in front of some pleasant TV.
In other words, it's back to the TV-as-anesthetic model at ABC this season. It's good news if you've lamented the lack of wholesome family-hour TV, as long as you don't mind being bored. This is not TV that swings for the fences. It's TV that hopes to get Nielsen families to fall asleep on the couch at 8:30 and with any luck stay snoozing there until 11. It's scared TV. It's three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust TV. ABC is not looking to impress the critics or start watercooler sensations. It just wants to finish in a respectable third place.
How safe is ABC's schedule this fall? The network signed up "Law and Order" producer Dick Wolf to create a new version of "Dragnet." The deal was just struck, so all ABC had to show was an interview with Wolf, who noted that "the DNA of 'Dragnet' is woven into the DNA of 'Law and Order.'" Exactly. So if Wolf's already essentially been remaking "Dragnet" for 13 years already, what's the point in doing it again here? I mean, we really such unadventurous sheep that we want to watch two "Law and Orders" every week? After all... what? There are? Three? Really? Oh. Never mind.
There were likewise no new clips of "Dinotopia"; instead the network promised to pick up where the $85 million special left off, with its digitally-animated sauropods who talk, read and play ping-pong. Will the series, which presumably can't afford to spend $14 million an hour, be able to match up in effects? Or will it matter? If there's one thing that "Baby Bob" taught us, it's this: writing, shmiting — make something talk that's not supposed to talk, and the world will dump money on your front lawn.
It was up to the non-scripted shows to deliver the biggest spark at the upfront. "The Bachelor" returns next fall, and Alex and Amanda were on hand to show the crowd of advertisers that they were still deeply in like (at least as long as they have an audience). And ABC announced that Jimmy Kimmel, of Comedy Central's "The Man Show" would get a talk show following "Nightline," thus canceling "Politically Incorrect." To his credit, Kimmel came out and did a routine, the upshot of which was that he had no idea why the hell ABC hired him either. "This is the plan to resurrect the network?," he laughed. "'Dragnet' and me?"
The rest of the drama lineup had at least some interest. "Miracles," in which Skeet Ulrich investigates paranormal occurrences, had a spooky, "Sixth Sense"-y feel to it, but you have to wonder if anyone at ABC saw the same concept bomb as "Mysterious Ways" on NBC. "Meds," conceived as "M*A*S*H" at an HMO hospital, seems to have a snarky edge — but isn't "Scrubs" already doing the same thing? "That Was Then," in which a 30-year-old travels back in time to high school to fix his screwed-up life, has the same premise — lock, stock and high-concept — as The WB's above-mentioned "Do Over."
Lastly, "Push, Nevada," an "interactive mystery" from Ben Affleck's production company, is the wild card. The concept was tough to explain, even to a room of media professionals, but it amounts to this: an accountant gets wrapped up in a mystery in a small Nevada town, and the course of the series reveals clues to a puzzle. Solve it, and you win a cash prize. The clips were intriguing: it could either be "Twin Peaks" or a bad B-movie. But, hey, look at it this way. Any of the other shows I've described so far could stink as well. But nobody's going to pay you to watch them.
Tomorrow: CBS