Thursday, May 9, 2013

2013 pilot season episode 6: NBC

let's get real. i'm starting to get very tired at this point. tired of what? links. find them all in the intro to the last post which was the CW's.

Next up is NBC. NBC is in a weird place because their offices are literally a theme park. (universal studios, hollywood). Discovering the titles and assuming most of the rest on my own would prove to be a challenge when you consider that they basically charge people money to come to their offices and watch them work. so i did that. that's what i did. i paid money and i walked into universal studios, hollywood and when they started giving me actual correct information i earmuffed it and made sure to yell "LA LA LA LA" so nothing accidentally penetrated my earmuffs and also attract attention to myself so people would be like "why don't you want to know all about the NBC pilots?" and i would be all like "I ALREADY KNOW ALL I NEED TO KNOW FROM THE TITLES, TOURIST!" and then they're all like "cool do you have a blog?" and then BOOM. i'm famous. rocking double digit page-views all day long. eat your heart out huffington post.

I'm posting comedies and drama this morning because why break them up? if i post them together i only have to write one intro. and finally tomorrow is FOX if i can get around to it. those fox executives don't ride the bus, don't have a theme park, don't work in a pre-school and don't eat off the lot so i may have to do some actual sleuthing to get the inside edge on that one. wish me luck and enjoy.



NBC Comedy:
“About a Boy” – I kinda like the idea here. It’s exactly halfway there. About? Yes. oh please tell me what it’s about. A? ooooH an indefinite article. It’s not THE anything, it’s just A something. Cool. I’m listening. Boy? Boy? Is that it? you sure there’s not a second half of the word there? Maybe something more interesting than just a boy and also less common and also way awesomer? Suggestion? How about “About a boyTOS?” boom! Free notes for you, NBC. That’s TV. STACK THE EMMY’S OVER THERE BEHIND THAT PALET OF MONEY. Good Christ, I’m the best.

“Assistance” – this is a pretty high concept drama where it’s just Rod Farva (from Hollywood movie: Super Troopers) sits at his internet police scanner from home in spurberry and asks if they need assistance after they describe the crime they’re dealing with. They don’t. and he is foiled, time and time again by whatever exactly happened to that school bus.

“Brenda Forever” – a much awaited followup to EDTV where it’s just a 24 hour live-feed on this check Brenda. She doesn’t do much. She’s on the dole. She’s out from a government job on disability and pretty much confined to the sofa but she’s the VP of comedy development’s sister and when you go out on disability you only get 80% pay so this is just a charity pilot. Or it was until Cheetos execs saw the pilot and were all like “we’ll pay for that!” so now it’s going to go between Community and Go On and they’re bringing Dan Harmon back to run it.

“The Donor Party” – as an avid outdoorsman I find it patently offensive that they’d make a comedy about people dying in the snow and being eaten by their friends and family after being duped by some hornswaggler back in Colorado city and taking an ill-advised shortcut through the fucking pass named after them. That just sounds like a comedy of errors. Oh. I see. Bravo, NBC.

“Drop off” – I’ve been meaning to start this twitter feed in order to get a development deal with NBC as NBC is the only network that airs enough shit to have a show that is literally about shit. My twitter feed idea was just pictures, weights, and vivid descriptive details about the movement itself for my bowel evacuations, but it seems NBC was bright enough to invent a clear toilet and capture it all on video and then have a panel of judges rate the dooks. Seems legit. I’ll watch. But I still had the idea first.

“Girlfriend in a Coma” – god fucking damn I WISH this was a reality show and they were casting because I want my girlfriend to be in a coma so fucking bad I could cause blunt force trauma to her hea- wait. I think I’ve said too much and unfortunately my backspace, delete, insert and other keys that would allow me to destroy that potentially damning bit of evidence are broken. Dear police, forget what you just read.

“Holding Patterns” – interior design, I think, is the last pond not pissed in by the uric fucks in the world of comedy, so when I saw this I was initially upset, then really happy because there are so many jokes from that world that I’ve been missing out on my entire life! It’s like discovering I had a backup heart or a lovely singing voice: my life is just better because this is a thing and thank you NBC! Thank you brandon tartikoff!

“Joe & Joe & Jane” – I’ve totally seen this movie before. Jane’s all like “I need you, joe” and then these TWO guys are like simultaneously “OK, Jane! I’m yours!” and then they do it. and by do it I mean they play dumb to solve crimes. Dumb like a fox! Because they’re just playing dumb so the criminals underestimate them. Joe is a paranormal investigator and Joe doesn’t believe in ghosts and jane needs them both because Joe is strong and Joe is weak. Joe speaks Spanish and Joe speaks no Spanish. So they’re clearly the perfect team and Jane has LOTS of JOEks. (jokes with the punchline of “Joe!”) so this is clearly a midseason hit.

“Undateable” – Remember that Eunuch from the ABC drama played by Rowan Atkinson the guy who played Mr. Bean? Or was it sacha baron cohen? Hey I’ll bet they re-boot the bean movies with sacha baron cohen, that’d be hilarious. this show tho, is about that eunuch and how he ended up on that train in pre-ww2 belgium. It’s a pre-quel series and it’s rare that you’d have 2 related series on 2 competing networks but NBC is all like “We’ll do anything!” and ABC is all like “NBC? Don’t they lose to Univision? Shit. A pickup on NBC is like a cancellation anywhere else. Fuck it. “

“The Family Guide” – a history professor hilariously investigates his own family tree after being diagnosed with a rare heart disease that is genetic but also only curable from someone who is a direct descendant of patient 0. Also they’re all blind.

“Downtowners” – just your standard comedy about people who are too intimidated by their own genitals to talk about oral sex in any other way but hinting at it through seemingly meaningless but geographically accurate colloquialisms. Sounds brilliant.

“Mulany” – Megan Mullally gets her big shot to follow up her crushing performance on will & grace with her own spin on the Seinfeld comedy genre. Yes, it’s a show about nothing but this time Elaine is jerry and jerry is George and Kramer is Newman and they’re all women except one man. Peterman. Peterman is the only man. Megan Mullally. That name will single-handedly bring back must-see-tv. Mostly to decipher what the fuck I’m trying to describe this show as, but bring it back nonetheless.

“The Michael J Fox Show” – Because the first title was too close to “parks and rec” and “frank n sons” they just decided to call it what it was. the Michael J Fox show. wont be as hard to promote as “Frank and Rec”, so they’re doing themselves a couple favors, really.

“Mr. Robinson” – what if the graduate was about an older black male seducing a younger white female?  That’s right. Everyone who made it, approved it, promoted it, liked it, or watched it would be in jail or working at TMZ. But that was then. This is now. TMZ is legit and sure they post pervy pictures of underage girls as long as they’re famous (miley, kim kardashian’s sister to name 2) but they have a legitimate market share in this brave new world. So instead of Nabukov suing for copyright infringement, they turn Mrs. Robinson black and boom, they’re heroes.

“Sean Saves the World” – I think the super-hero genre is a bit played out, personally, but at least this one is broad enough so people may actually care. I mean, captain planet was a waste and he was a freako mutant that nobody could identify with, and that’s the only existing property where the stakes were as high as this one’s are. Plus it’ll really appeal to the extreme couponing world which is a murderous rage these days. talk about passionate fan base!

“Welcome to the Family” – Another companion show to be programmed along side “the family guide” where we follow the family members the blindfolk discover along the way and the genetic heart diseases they have that aren’t interesting enough to compel the blind family to stay and help even though they have an insane amount of money thanks to the accident that made them all blind (AMC 3D production of Iron Man 3. Did I mention: FUSION)

Drama

“The Night Shift” – this one along with super fun night is the 2nd medieval show this season and I don’t know why. I mean, how many jobs does sean connery need? Do we need a coming of age drama following the SHIFT between pagehood and knighthood? Um. YES we do! It’d be like downtown abbey when the young one married the help but it’s the whole series! Delicious. This comedy tastes great.

“Believe” – if you believe in life after love than you will LOVE cher’s return to television. I know a ton of people (mostly in my fan club) who have been marking off calendars for YEARS waiting for Cher to come back to TV… I’ve been waiting ever since she stopped doing Elvira for her concert documentary series. It’s like rihanna’s 777 except she can sing, is on time for stuff and feeds the people who she has trapped in a steel tube.

“The Blacklist” – WHOA WHOA WHOA! NBC GO HOME YOU’RE DRUNK! Sorry guys. I’m sorry. they don’t mean it. I mean, yes they said it but they’re from the south and their old so they don’t know how wrong that was to say. Yes we’re leaving. I’m so sorry. here let me buy you a round of drinks. Again. Super sorry. we’re gone.

“Bloodline” – NBC invented the modern medical drama with ER and launched Clooney into international fame and fortune. This show probably will do exactly the same thing for the world of Phlebotomy. Think about it. the drama of corroborating the patient’s identity, reading the little tiny bar codes and obtaining the proper vial(s), tying off that vein, having them make a fist WAY too close to their crotch, finding and poking that vein, switching vials without getting sprayed ALL THE WHILE having a really bitchy kind of alarmingly ghetto conversation with the other phlebotomists about their mutual ex-boyfriend’s criminal record? Brilliant.

“Hatfields & McCoys” – another tired old adaptation. Ugh. This one seems like a chore. We’ve all heard stories our entire lives about the legendary fueds between the Left and Right twix factories and seen so many plays, audio stories, books, graphic novels, poems, film and television based on it that I don’t think this is a smart idea. Yea. The hatfields cascade the chocolate onto the cookie and carmel and the mccoys drizzle it. big fucking deal. We’ve seen it and we’re tired of it! unless it gets some serious coke sponsorship (which would make it cool).

“Victor” – great. the one thing I go to bed every night wishing for was more Russians on television. PSYCH. I hate Russians. They charge for bbq sauce (or is that Wendy’s?). anyways, I’m out.

“Ironside” – it’d be really fucked up if instead of this being a historical recreation of a civil war battleship crew and the trials and tribulations associated with close quarters living and mind numbing racism set against the backdrop of the pre-antebellum south, it was an action show with the main character being in a wheelchair. If there’s one thing dramas don’t do enough of is appeal to differently abled audiences by placing a walking actor in a wheelchair and then naming the show the ONLY slur for people in wheelchairs, so I think that’d be really funny if that were the case, but it’s not, because like I said: civil war drama. I mean… a cop in a wheelchair? Why wouldn’t the criminals just go up one stair?

“The Secret Lives of Husbands and Wives” – this isn’t the first time they tried to adapt “everybody poops” (rem did a whole song about it), but it seems as if they’ve found their vehicle to get that book the first PEGOT prize (which is an EGOT plus a Pulitzer, which that book already has) in history with the 2nd leg of the journey: an emmy.  Which this surely will get as the Dr. Phil meets Cheaters drama follows the secret lives of husbands and wives as they: sit in the dark watching baseball, sit in the dark drinking beer, sit in the dark with the lights off and the chicks do stuff too, I’m sure, but I don’t know because it’s secret! Which leads me to the obvious: JJ Abrams is producing. He’s got a sweetheart deal with Disney and the concept of secrecy which they’ve copyrighted for him in perpetuity.

“The sixth gun” – this Allen Iverson starrer seems a bit off brand but when you consider the success of Friday Night Lights you’d probably be down with a pro sports, zombie, racial enlightenment drama and NBC is just the right network to pull it off! But why is it called the sixth gun and why is allen Iverson starring? This joke seems really inaccessible. What I was thinking was: “not the first gun. Not the second gun. Not the third gun. Not the fourth gun. Not the fifth gun. Practice.” I guess I could and SHOULD have made Robert Horry the star. Oh well, there’s always next year.

“Crisis” – full disclosure: back in high school I was a tv production nerd. Part of our gig was to go help the theater nerds record their dramatic monologues for art school applications. The best one I had seen came from our comedy sportz referee whom I also knew from his side gig as a DJ. Yes, he had a sixty minute live show on Saturdays where he spun electronic dance music and I TD’d it. His name? DJ Crisis, the show? Crisis Hour. Brilliant then, brilliant now. I’m glad to see NBC is bringing that to their national network for the fall. Hopefully they’ll add a couple spinning chairs and eva longoria will come on board to produce along with adam levine (who just signed a first look deal with NBC not for music for which he is known, but for tv: a thing that he is on and plays himself which is a great idea. Forget the droves of demonstratively talented folks beating down their door with the next SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL script, just sign this dude who sings like an angel and has sick abs.

“Wonderland” – seriously adam levine’s abs are sick. Sorry. that thought crept through to the next review. Wonderland is a strange one. Is it likely that the Wonders get back together after their tumultuous break up at the hands of Playtone records, have a second wind of musical success, change their name BACK to “THE ONEDERS” before realizing hilariously for a second time that it was a mistake, once again become the wonders and start a theme park in Erie, Pennsylvania celebrating the entire play-tone catalogue, more specifically the greatest hits of the wonders and one ride that is just a .gif of Tom Hanks laughing? No. that is not likely. Would that be entertaining stretched out over a hundred and fifty episodes? YUH. Great job, NBC!

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