Thursday, July 28, 2011

News & Notes: CHAOS Off the Air, Kudos for Shows, What's Wrong with Morning Joe?

A CBS spokesperson confirmed to me today that CHAOS, the CIA comedy-drama, has not been renewed for a second season.  That's a disappointment since the show was both interesting and funny.  In my opinion, the network did not give it a fair chance.  They placed it on Saturday nights at 8 p.m. when virtually no one is watching TV, particularly during the summer.

ABC's Rookie Blue has turned out to be a pretty good show.  Despite my initial review, I now find that there is good character development and semi-believable plot lines - for a cop drama.  Though it doesn't compare to some of the greats, the writing is solid and the stories involve interesting issues.  I will say that it strains credibility that so many of the cops in the precinct are involved with each other personally.

More kudos for Necessary Roughness on USA.  What a great show and a breath of fresh air.  No dead bodies.  Great writing.  And multi-dimensional characters in the very entertaining sports arena - not a single lawyer or cop among them.

The recent change of executive producers at Morning Joe on MSNBC seems to have led to a new dynamic on the set, and not a good one.  While host Joe Scarborough  has always been the dominant talker, there has been even less air time for co-hosts Mika Brzezinsky and Willie Geist.  Mike Barnicle seems also to have been relegated to a lesser role.  During today's extremely loud and boisterous debate (really a shouting match) about the budget battle in Washington, Lawrence O'Donnell, Grover Norquist and Scarborough dominated. Brzezinksy was silent and Geist was nowhere to be found.  Later, Scarborough asked Brzezinsky if something was wrong.  She started to give an answer, but decided against it.  What's up here? Is Joe taking a larger role with the consent of new EP Alex Korson?  I tried to get an answer from Korson today, but he didn't respond to my e-mail or phone call.  Thoughts?

No comments:

Post a Comment