Oh, I have no idea what I think of this but it is odd enough to tell other people to watch it:

Oddly amusing? Racially offensive? Both?

Oh, hell, what the @#$% was happening at CNN yesterday? Was is opposite day or something? Did someone accidentally read the Bizarro world wire report?

This is one of those “I need to see The Daily Show cover this” moments…

So I was watching MSNBC’s Road to the White House and they were covering the John Edwards endorsement of Barack Obama. When they cut to the live feed of the announcement, Obama was on stage but still hadn’t begun speaking and I swore I heard the Darren Hayes single “On the Verge of Something Wonderful” playing before they switched the speakers to the mic:

This is incredibly minor, but it was something that certainly grabbed my attention because it’s a pretty recent single and one from an openly gay singer. Overall, the emotion of the song is pretty apt for the campaign but, still — if that was the song playing — it came with that same “I can’t believe I’m hearing this in a political campaign.” feeling that Fleetwood Mac gave me in 1992.

Then again, maybe it was another song…

CBS’ fall schedule is here:

• CBS has two British adaptations, Worst Week — an adaptation of The Worst Week of My Life, a show I always meant to check out due to the presence of Coupling’s Sarah Alexander and The Eleventh Hour, which I’m completely unfamiliar with. Worst Week comes from Matt Tarses, which sounds promising while Eleventh Hour has Jerry Bruckheheimer producing which already has me dozing off.
• So, let’s see… two seasons ago CBS tried bridging the cap between supernatural thriller (would it be apt to call it a procedural?) Ghost Whisperer and unconventional-focus crime procedural NUMB3RS with the suburban crime procedural Close to Home. Last season they tried a supernatural procedural Moonlight. With procedurals not working, this year they’re trying a romantic dramedy. It’ll be interesting to see if this works.
• Am I the only one who thinks The Mentalist — about a fake psychic who admits to the scam and becomes an investigator, kinda sound like “Derren Brown joins the police force”? Not that Brown was ever a fake psychic (not that I know of) but he is someone keenly aware of their techniques.
• CBS’ other new comedy, Project Gary stars Jay Mohr and Paula Marshall. I’ll try not to get attached to this one.
• Overall, this is still a very low-key fall but I’ll probably be checking out more of CBS’ upcoming shows than I normally would. Worst Week sounds interesting by pedigree, The Mentalist has me in concept.
• Also, nothing interesting happened to any of CBS’ returning shows, schedule-wise.

Here’s a promo (and my first glimpse of) the US adaptation of Life on Mars.

Uhm, yikes, I’m trying to stay optimistic but at times the comedy comes off as so broad, here, that I’d think this started as a Will Ferrel film pitch. And the guy playing Sam seems to lack the subtlety of John Simm., who could play some of the show’s melodrama with subtlety.

And I hope they don’t play on the “mystery” too much. The ending to the UK series was amazing — I can’t help but tear up just thinking about it — and I’d hate to see this version have to play a “will they top the original?” game.

And it’s pretty boring, too:

So. Um. Yeah. While the new 90210 has me excited, its companion show, Surviving the Filthy Rich sounds like the show 90210 would have been without the guidance of Rob Thomas. And my initial reaction to Stylista is “Tyra Banks is trying to do a fashion-themed reality show in her image.” — well, that and “Why do I feel a sense of disdain when I hear (Stylista judge) Anne Slowey’s name? Was she particularly odious on an America’s Next Top Model I saw?”

I am surprised at the network’s Monday and Tuesday blocks — why not split up the Gossip Girl/One Tree Hill combo and make them tentpoles for their new series? I mean, at least act like they deserve to be made into tentpoles and maybe the press will cover them like bigger hits than they really are.

Later today: CBS’ schedule…

I’ve been thinking about Jer’s comment about the fall ABC schedule, particularly where he asks:

is Grey’s Anatomy really going to be an appropriate lead in for this (Life on Mars)? Really? From what I’ve read about the British version it doesn’t seem like the audience overlap would be a “sure thing” between those shows.

While they’re not obvious until you look at the show from the “Will it be a good lead-out for Grey’s Anatomy?” perspective, the two shows have a few parallels (though, to be honest, most of my understanding of Grey’s come from watching fans discuss it):

• Workplace relationships: A big part of the original Life on Mars was how Sam slowly came to respect the Manchester force and vice-versa, despite their very different outlooks on the world. Bonding at the pub was a part of every episode and the contrast between the sensitive and empathetic Sam and the short tempered and chauvinistic Gene Hunt (and how they learn to respect each other) could duplicate the way Grey’s was partly about how the characters’ relationships made the medical story of the week more compelling.
• Sam’s history: Plenty of Life on Mars episodes dealt with Sam meeting up with his past, getting to find out what people like his parents and his mentor were like thirty years earlier. Those emotional stories could work for Grey’s audience.
• Annie and Maya: Throughout the series’ run there was a love triangle between Annie, a young female officer (at a time when women didn’t get into positions of major responsibility) who, like Sam, used her brains and a sense of empathy in solving crime and Maya, Sam’s modern girlfriend who, admittedly, never got really fleshed out beyond being a personification of the modern era — his relationship to Annie was partly a struggle between his ties to 2006 and 1973, a quietly emotional story arc.
• Annie: While many Life on Mars viewers disliked Annie (to my surprise) she also functioned as a look at the emerging role of women in male-dominated occupations. I suspect this could give Life on Mars some appeal to Grey’s viewers.
• The story of the week: While Grey’s hooked audiences with its tearjerker-of-the-week stories about patients facing tough decisions and stressful times of their lives, Mars did often have an emotional hook to its police stories. Some of that was because Sam Tyler was a man who could emotionally relate to the victims he was trying to help and who had a strong sense of justice — giving many episodes the kind of emotional hook Grey’s would sometimes have.

I’m not saying these are aspects that can be played up to capture Grey’s audience, these are elements that could work as they were in the original series (though an increased number of episodes would mean those elements would be more apparent). Many of the trappings of Life on Mars are very masculine, especially in contrast to Grey’s, but the more I think of it the more I see common traits.

So the Project for Excellence in Journalism released a study contesting some Daily Show fans’ claim that they get their news from Jon Stewart. Much like Stewart has done in the past, the study points out that if Daily Show viewers got their news from The Daily Show they wouldn’t enjoy the jokes.

That’s very true, but in all this talk about where people get their news and this worrying that Daily Show viewers don’t get it from a sufficiently-reliable source (as opposed to the great in-depth reporting we get from the major media nowadays) there’s one factor I don’t see acknowledged in the least:

For a good number of people their primary source of news is their internet browser’s home page.

You can find a little “news” section on most “portal” websites — usually using Associated Press content — amid all the other features, there’ll be an area where various news headlines are listed, with the option to click on one for the full story.

It doesn’t matter that very few people click on the link to read the full story — that’s how they get most of their news, by reading it in a little headline (and is that any less legitimate a source of news than those stupid tickers that news programs often run?) that’s how they hear about what’s going on.

Now, for those who say they get their news from Jon Stewart, I’d say tuning in to The Daily Show is their version of clicking on the story. Stewart is the one they trust to give them the story behind the headline, expecting the full AP story to not give much more depth than what’s already found in the headline.

I’ve been working on a post on how unexcited I am about this year’s upfronts, which I’ve been known to call my Super Bowl. A lot of that is due to the Writers’ Strike, some of that is undoubtedly because of how the strike shortened the pilot season, but a part of me also wonders how much is a matter of the studios working to make sure their “Those greedy writers will cost the rest of you your livelihood!” warnings came true. Either way, this year lacks all the mystery the upfront season does. There are usually a number of bubbling-under names with projects and odd projects that have getting buzz for months — will that Bionic Woman update from the Battlestar Galactica producer get picked up? What about that new Adrian Pasdar/Ali Larter superhero drama?

This year. Nothing.

In some ways, ABC’s fall 2008 schedule emphasizes that the network is in a period of stability. On the other hand, the most exciting thing about the alphabet network in September/October is that is the return of some of last season’s more promising freshmen (Pushing Daisies especially, but also Eli Stone and, to a lesser degree, Dirty Sexy Money) and that Life on Mars adaptation that’s was expected last year.

Here’s what the schedule looks like:

The schedule is almost the same as what debuted in the fall, with a few small changes:

1. Boston Legal gets The Bachelor’s current time slot (where shows like What about Brian? and October Road failed to find the audience they didn’t get the first time around) for what’s expected to be its final season. The renewal came with budget cuts, which’ll mean cast changes (Saffron Burrows already signed on a new show) but Boston Legal’s audience is certainly used to cast changes (does David E. Kelley just put everyone not named Shatner, Bergin or Spader on three-month contracts? It certainly feels like it.)
2. Lawyer dramedy Eli Stone gets Boston Legal’s old slot — can it get a Dancing with the Stars boost?
3. On of my reactions to last year’s schedule was to wonder if ABC were taking a big risk not anchoring Wednesdays with an established series. Turns out that wasn’t such a bad idea since that entire line-up performed well (until the strike) and is coming back.
4. Life on Mars gets the seemingly-desirable post-Grey’s Anatomy time slot. Grey’s is supposed to be a great lead-in but (and some of this may be due to ABC’s unwillingness to leave a promising show like Men in Trees in the time slot any longer than they’re willing to leave obvious bombs like Big Shots). Will one of the few pilots with buzz be the first show to benefit from Grey’s?
5. Friday night goes to the reliable domesitc reality shows, Wife Swap and Supernanny. I could see them working as the new TGIF lineup — they’re both predictable and nonthreatening shows that are easy to follow.

There’s also plenty kept in storage for midseason, which isn’t surprising — ABC does like to fill the gaps between Dancing with the Stars seasons with new series. Most of them are returning shows — Lost, the unflushable According to Jim and a taken-from-NBC final season of Scrubs. One new scripted series is in reserve — an animated series from Mike Judge, which sounds like something to watch for.

After watching last week’s Gossip Girl and its end-of-episode revelation, I wondered if the series had already reached its shark-jumping moment. And it turns out I wasn’t the only one to react that way.

Previously, we thought Serena’s realized that she didn’t like the person she was when she slept with Nate, her best friend’s boyfriend… but now that’s been overshadowed by a darker and more dramatic turning point — a turning point that completely overshadows Serena’s tryst with Nate. For her to want to become a different person because she found betraying Blair too easy helped made the Blair/Serena friendship one of the more complicated female relationships on television (usually on TV it’s finding the right man who motivates a bad girl to reform her wicked ways, until recently the right man was the test of her reformation, not her motivation).

And, more importantly, throwing all that depth out won’t mean much more than a cheap shock:

…the whole thing [will be] forgotten a few weeks later when so-and-so sleeps with the hot history teacher. It’s unrealistic, it’s an obvious ratings ploy, and it’s upsetting to dedicated viewers like myself

Gossip Girl was for a while the best show I never expected to totally fall for. It was the kind of show I used to totally love — something that looks like utter trash on the surface but reveals surprising amounts of depth. Lately, it’s just been trash that forgot it had hidden depths.