TV-Tastic EPIC FAIL: House Renewed! Lie To Me, Human Target, The Chicago Code, & Breaking In CANCELED!

When we’re wrong we admit it and this was the biggest case of FAIL that we have had since we started this blog.   A few weeks ago we not only predicted that FOX would lose House but we also predicted that out of these three shows, Lie To Me, Human Target, and The Chicago Code at least one would be saved despite mediocre ratings. Well, we were wrong on all counts, but it certainly is a qualified FAIL.

House Stays With FOX For Eighth Season

The New York Daily News has reported that Universal Media Studios the has come to terms with FOX Broadcasting over the price for the show and cast salaries.  Well, to be more accurate NYD reported that NBCUniversal had come to terms with FOX Broadcasting, which is completely inaccurate. Look, Mainstream Lazy-Press, stop calling it NBCUniversal because it sounds cool.  It’s NOT NBCUniversal.  It used to be NBCUniversal Television Studios and NBCUniversal Television Group is the parent company but that’s not who makes the decisions for UMS.  This is the equivalent of calling 20th Century Fox Television Studios, FOX Entertainment Group.

Rant over… moving along.

NOT NBCUniversal

With the deal finally getting sealed for House,  we’re not surprised about the cancellations. We predicted that House wasn’t going to be picked up because of all the deadlines that had gone by, the fact that Universal Media Studios (fka NBCUniversal Television Studio) and FOX could not come to terms on licensing fees and actors salaries and the fact that UMS really wanted this money and would have been glad to take it from NBC who is not only desperate for a scripted drama hit, but it also just had $200 million more dumped into its budget for programming by Comcast. So based on this and the fact that FOX has a lot of question marks this Fall for scripted-drama, we speculated that the loss of House would set off a tidal wave of changes in FOX’s programming decisions, including the ones we mentioned in the beginning of this piece.

So, yes, we failed, but consider the fact that all of those predictions were predicated on House going to NBC.  Regardless of the outcome, there’s certainly no denying the fact that the fate of House on FOX was the key factor in their recent programming decisions so the importance of House for FOX cannot be overstated.  It’s no coincidence that the day the announcement is made about House that FOX also announces that they are canceling five scripted shows (not surprisingly, Traffic Light was also canceled) and picking up a whole bunch of new pilots (story, here).

Canceled? Huh???

That being said, we were very surprised about the cancellation of Breaking In for a couple of reasons.  First, it’s a great show, and it has a strong cast (with the Christian Slater as the lead), put up decent numbers, had great exposure as the lead-out for American Idol and had a lot of potential.  We don’t understand their logic of not giving it a chance to run a complete season next Fall.  The show couldn’t have been particularly expensive to produce and it certainly wasn’t losing money. Was the problem really that it wasn’t retaining enough of AI‘s audience as the lead-out?  How much were they expecting, really?  It’s not entirely the same audience.

But fear not, as it looks like FOX may be reconsidering this rather hasty decision and it is possible that we may see BI in FOX’s 2011 – 2012 schedule after all.  Check out this related post for all the details about all the latest developments for BI.

Folks, don’t forget that the major network up-front media events are on Monday, May 16th.  This is the day that we will find out the fates of all this season’s shows that haven’t already been decided and we’ll also find out what new shows will be on the schedules for the 2011 – 2012 season.  You can find out the schedules for all of the events, here.

Perfect Couples (NBC – Thursday, 8:30 p.m.)

“Perfect Couples” is a romantic comedy that follows three flawed pairs trying to get it right.

Dave (Kyle Bornheimer, “Worst Week”) and Julia (Christine Woods, “Flash Forward”) are the “everyday couple,” messed up in all the “normal” ways. Dave struggles to keep both his wife and his needy best friend, Vance (David Walton, NBC’s “100 Questions”) happy. Vance and the volatile Amy (Mary Elizabeth Ellis, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”) are the high-passion, high-drama couple who bring out the best and worst in each other.

The third duo features Rex (Hayes MacArthur, “She’s Out of My League”) and Leigh (Olivia Munn, “Attack of the Show,” “The Daily Show”). Rex is a reformed party guy who has channeled his jock energy into a competitive drive to be the ideal mate. Leigh, a self-anointed relationship guru, has formed the perfect union with Rex, and now considers it her duty to mold the other couples in their image. – NBC

3 out of 10

You will NOT see Olivia Munn looking like this on Perfect Couples.

We freely admit it: the only reason that we even bothered to watch Perfect Couples is because it stars former G4 Attack of the Show hottie, Olivia Munn.  It was partly curiosity to see if she could actually act (she was always very funny on AOTS) and partly because of the very likely chance that she might wind up in her bra and panties or at least a bikini at any moment which is generally the fall-back position for network television nowadays when it comes to generic scripted television.

Needless to say, we were disappointed on both counts.  Munn kept her clothes on throughout the entire pilot and to make matters worse her acting appears to leave a lot to be desired.  Now, we are being generous with that assessment by using the term “appears” because, she may not be a bad actress at all, it may just be an issue of incredibly bad writing because everyone’s performances were terrible.  Munn’s problem is that she has no real résumé to refer to outside of AOTS and the majority of her dopey lines were simply repeating the lines of her character’s husband.

Aside from what we will refer to from this point forward as the “Munn Disappointment,” there’s really nothing good about this show.  As noted, the writing is horrible.  The jokes don’t work, the timing isn’t there and it is completely predictable.  The characters are horrible cartoon versions of real human beings and completely unbelievable.  The show literally feels like aliens have come to Earth and this is what they think American couples are like based on something they read in a magazine or saw in a really awful romantic comedy that most likely starred Matthew McConaughey.  It tries to be clever and relatable and fails miserably.

Perfect Couples: Written by aliens? Perhaps.

You may have noticed the over-abundance of Olivia Munn pics in this piece in various states of undress.  Unlike the producers, we decided that we needed to do something to make Perfect Couples interesting and actually utilize its only asset.  This show is pretty bad all the way around.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any short trailers for this so if you watch the video you’ll be forced to endure 4 minutes and 31 seconds of propaganda by the cast about how great this show is.  Don’t believe them… especially when Christine Woods tells you that you know couples like this.  You don’t.  You’ve never seen any couples like this ever because they don’t exist.

Watch full episodes of Perfect Couples, here… if you must.

Retro Review: ‘Smallville’ Season 1, Part I (Season 10 Premiere on The CW – September 24, 2010, 8:00 p.m.)

8 out of 10

“Somebody saaaaave me!” Boy, Remy Zero said it accurately, indeed. The Superman Mythos after the explosive Death of Superman and The Return of Superman Comic Book storylines needed a shot in the arm. Waning book sales and iffy stories combined with the disinterest of Superman as a whole had thrown a huge red flag up for DC and Warner Brothers combined. After numerous failed attempts at re-igniting that elusive spark, DC and Warner Bros. had much egg on their face that included an omelet made of Nicolas Cage as Superman…ugh… I shudder to think.

Then in comes Alfred Gough and Miles Millar with a brilliant premise: how about a restart (I despise using the term “reboot”) to this iconic superhero? Let’s start way back but not so far back as to not have Clark Kent, our powerful protagonist, involved in a journey to his destiny of becoming the world’s most renowned hero. Let us begin in Smallville, Kansas and do an origin story that will take us on a great and revealing trip. And with Smallville heading into its final season in just a few weeks, I think back excitedly on what a ride it’s been!

The WB show was touted as a Sci-Fi, fantasy tale but at times does play out like a soap opera. That’s OK, though, because we always know what is to eventually come which no basic Soap on TV can do for its viewers. When particular characters like Lex Luthor and Clark Kent interact we can’t help having that small grin on our face and that thought on our minds that these two guys are going to totally throw down and kick each other’s asses in the future. It’s this aspect that makes Smallville so appealing.

Season One begins, well… in the beginning. In the Smallville pilot we are introduced to the Kents played by the hot Annette O’Toole (Sorry, ever since Paul Schrader’s Cat People I have always had a crush on her) as Martha and John Schneider (Hee Haw!, Dukes of Hazzard) as Jonathan. These are the salt-of-the-earth farmers who will (thanks to the meteor shower that brings that most-famous of all aliens) raise Clark Kent (Tom Welling). It is not easy as we are a witness, too, as the season advances. After the 14 year-old Clark discovers the spaceship that brought him to earth buried in the barn, he begins to question his destiny, and refuses to immediately accept it.

We are soon introduced to Jeremy Creek (Adrian McMorran), our first of many “meteor freaks” who are usually just normal people who are or were infected adversely by the kryptonite.

Clark, of course, becomes enamored with Lana Lang played with plucky enthusiasm by the oh-so cute Kristen Krueck.

Clark then saves Lex Luthor, portrayed by Micheal Rosenbaum (who steals just about every scene he is in) from an almost fatal car accident. Needless to say, Clark stays busy even as he discovers he’s the newest alien on the block. This is just the beginning of where this great ride begins and there is definitely more to come…

The CW Official Smallville page

Watch some full length episodes of Smallville on Hulu.

FYI, Amazon has the complete first season of Smallville on DVD for just $19.99 (67% off of the list price of of $59.98).