Happy 45th Birthday, Star Trek! (Big Announcement!)

First, the big news! Star Trek turns 45 today and to honor its legacy, The ‘Tastic will be dedicating an entire section of the blog to individual Star Trek episode reviews, ‘Tastic-style, beginning in November!  Stay tuned! 

On September 8, 1966, television history was made when Gene Roddenberry’s idealistic vision of a future without war, poverty, or racism, where mankind worked together to solve its problems and better itself, appeared on our television sets and changed the course of television and science fiction history forever.  Spawning five live-action series, one critically acclaimed animated series, 11 feature films, thousands of novels, comic books, video games and billions of doallrs in merchandising and a dedicated fandom like no other over the course of almost half of a century, as Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) put it in the Roger Nygard documentary Trekkies, Star Trek truly is our 20th century mythology and now is still going strong into the 21st century.

Part 1 of the Documentary Film, Trekkies.

The franchise has had its ups and downs with audiences and even from before the first episode, The Man Trap, was aired, it faced opposition from television executives whom although enjoyed the original pilot, The Cage, starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, thought it was “too cerebral” for a general audience.  At this point Star Trek made its first bit of television history being the only show to ever have a second pilot ordered for it. Hunter refused to film a second pilot and the role was subsequently re-written and re-cast with William Shatner playing the role of the captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, Captain James Kirk.  Lucille Ball’s production company, Desilu Studios, produced the second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, and the rest is television history.

Part 1 of the first aired episode The Man Trap

As an aside, Jeffrey Hunter sadly passed away in 1969 from a cerebral hemorrhage after suffering two strokes a the age of 42. Imagine how the most recognized television franchise of all time would look today had Hunter not turned down the role in the second pilot.

Star Trek lasted on the air for three seasons and only so because of a massive fan campaign spearheaded by the legendary Bjo Trimble.  NBC wanted to cancel it after two but they were inundated with letters and studio protests and they greenlit the show for one more season.  Unfortunately, the slot they chose for it was 10:00 p.m. on Friday night which all but assured there would not be a fourth season.

Star Trek found new life again in syndication and if you ask most fans that grew up or went to college during the early to mid-1970’s they’ll most likely tell you that this is how they were exposed to it.  What’s unique about the franchise is just how many of the actors and production staff that have been on the subsequent series and in the films over the years that were actually fans going back this far.  Star Trek’s success in syndication planted the original seeds for bringing the franchise back in one form or another and eventually led to the critically acclaimed and award-winning Star Trek: The Animated Series in 1973 which featured all of the original cast members with the exclusion of Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Chekov).

Star Trek The Animated Series Opening Theme Music:

With the success of the brand in syndication, the continued popularity among the fans who would regularly attend conventions by the thousands year after year, a very popular and well-received animated series, Paramount, in 1975, decided to bring back the Star Trek franchise in the form of a major motion picture.  They then switched gears and decided that they not only wanted bring the franchise back on the small screen and update it, but they wanted it to be the flagship for their new fourth network to air in 1978.  When the plans for the network folded, all filming and production on Star Trek: Phase II ended but a funny thing happened that kept the franchise alive; a little film you may have heard of called Star Wars.

Am I crazy or is that Steven Spielberg in the backgorund?

Following the incredible success of George Lucas’ epic masterpiece, Paramount, like every other studio in Hollywood at the time, wanted to capitalize on the popularity of the science fiction space epic, and realized they could accomplish this with the Star Trek franchise, so the proposed pilot episode of Star Trek: Phase II, In Thy Image was recommissioned for feature film treatment and in December of 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in theaters.  My dad actually took me to see TMP when I was four years-old and I still remember it. Ironically, he’s not a Trek fan and I only became one 18 years later.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture, despite receiving lukewarm critical reception (I still refer to it as Star Trek: The Motionless Picture due to it’s incredibly long and drawn out special effects scenes. It’s great for going to sleep at night to, I’ll tell you that much.) and going extremely over-budget from $15 million to $46 million, was an unqualified success bringing in $139 million at the box office (roughly $412 million in 2011 dollars… put that in your pipe and smoke it, J.J. Abrams!) with fans going back to see the film multiple times.

The original cast of Star Trek would go on to do five more feature films and of course a new Star Trek series set 100 years after the original series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, would debut in 1987, last for seven seasons, become the highest rated syndicated television program in history, have four more major motion pictures made with that cast and spin-off three more television series and in 2009, Roddenberry’s original vision was re-imagined with J.J. Abrams’ blockbuster film Star Trek, the eleventh Star Trek film featuring a whole new cast of young actors reprising the legendary roles of the original cast from the original, iconic series.

So, what is so special about Star Trek that it has not only endured but still continues to find success, generation after generation, despite being written off for dead on more than one occasion?  Why is Star Trek so universally loved by such a diverse audience of people, many of whom wouldn’t consider themselves science fiction fans, per se? The easy answer that everyone throws out is always that it gives us “hope” which I believe is clichéd tripe.  The concept of “hope” is certainly an element in Trek, as it is in most Science Fiction stories but Star Trek has been so much more than that for so long.  Star Trek is about adventure, it’s about looking forward into the unknown and it’s about examining ourselves today and trying to figure where we’re going in the future. But most importantly, Star Trek is about the stories of the characters and how we, as the audience, relate to them.  These are timeless concepts in epic storytelling that know no generational bounds.

Ready to Boldly Go… With The Good Guys.

As I noted, my dad took me to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture when I was four years old and as for myself, I’ve been watching Star Trek with my own kids since the day they were born.  My five year-old daughter is very interested in Seven of Nine and the whole concept of the Borg on Star Trek: Voyager. She also loves any episodes involving Naomi Wildman because, even at five, it’s about relating to the characters and she also has always loved Star Trek: The Animated Series to the point where she wouldn’t fall asleep without it between the ages of two and three. My two year-old son who overheard me explaining the characters on Voyager in the most simplest terms of “good guys” and “bad guys” to my daughter, now points to everything related to Star Trek and says, “Good guy!”

Now, I know at the end of the day, that my kids’ interest in Star Trek at this very young age has very little to do with understanding what’s going on in the show and far more to do with just wanting to take in interest in what Daddy likes, but this is something that we’re always going to have.  It’s like baseball.  It doesn’t matter what happens, at the end of the day we’ll always have our little escape and something to talk about.  That is something that you cannot put a price on and as my friend Santos Ellin, Jr. said regarding my son’s interest in Trek, “Never let him lose that magic Shawn, it keeps you young and it’ll do the same for him. Never let his imagination falter,” and that folks is what it’s all about;  the magic of Star Trek, and it’s that magic that has inspired so many people over the years. Roddenberry passed away in 1991, but there’s no doubt that his legacy will live on for generations to come.

Think it’s just the nerds that like and have been inspired by Star Trek?  Well, yeah… I guess we are a big part of the fandom but here’s an abbreviated list of famous people (mostly non-nerds) who are known to be confirmed Trekkies.

• Angelina Jolie
• Tom Hanks
• Seth MacFarlane (had a cameo on Star Trek: Enterprise)
• Whoopi Goldberg (played Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation, lobbied for the role.)
• Eddie Murphy
• Rosario Dawson
• The late former President Ronald Reagan
• President Barack Obama
• Buzz Aldrin (and just about any astronaut)
• Mel Brooks
• General Colin Powell
• Robin Williams
• Ben Stiller
• Dr. Stephen Hawking (had a cameo on TNG)
• Former Vice President Al Gore
• Christian Slater (his mother, Mary Jo Slater was the casting director for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and cast him in a cameo role and he has his personal replica of Kirk’s Captian’s chair in the ofcie set of his show, Breaking In.)
• Mira Sorvino
• Megan Fox
• Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper
• Dr. Marvin Minsky
• George Lucas
• Kelsey Grammer (had a cameo on TNG)
• King Abdullah II ibn al-Hussein of Jordan (had a cameo on VOY)
• Jason Alexander (had a featured guest starring role on the episode of VOY, Thinktank)
• Bryan Singer (had a cameo in Star Trek: Nemesis)
• Mila Kunis
• Mick Fleetwood (had a cameo on TNG)
• Quentin Tarantino
• South Park’s Matt Parker and Trey Stone
• Karl Urban (played McCoy in Abrams’ Star Trek, pursued the role when he heard about the film being made.)
• Freema Agyeman of Dr. Who and Torchwood fame
• John Barrowman of Dr. Who and Torchwood fame
• Candace Bergen
• Daniel Craig
• Kevin Sorbo
• Robert Carlyle
• David A. Goodman (Family Guy executive producer. Wrote the Star Trek themed episode of Futurama, four episodes of ENT)
• Tom Morello of (had a cameo on VOY)
• Brad Paisley
• The late Frank Sinatra (claimed he never missed an episode of TNG)
• Jimmy Buffet
• Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
• The late Isaac Asimov
• Dr. Daniel J. Levitin
• Chris Jericho
• Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (had a cameo on VOY)
• The late Dr. Randy Pausch
• The late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Tom Bergeron (had two cameos on ENT)
• Sir Richard Branson (named his spaceships the VSS Enterprise and the VSS Voyager)
• Natalie Portman
• Tommy Lee Jones

This post is dedicated to the memories of Gene Roddenberry, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, James Doohan, DeForest Kelly and the biggest Trek Fan I ever had the pleasure to meet, Captain Eddie Chiullan.

Captain Eddie Where He Belongs... In the Captain's Chair. God Speed, Eddie.

Bob’s Burgers Renewed For A Second Season? House & Bones May Be Leaving FOX? Where’s Terra Nova? What’s Going On Over There? (Part Two)

FOX: Where We Dont Suck As Much As We Used To

Hi, folks. Thanks for coming back for part two of this very special feature on FOX where Blossom ponders losing her virginity, yet again. No, no, no, obviously we’re going to talk about FOX’s recent surprising schedule moves and what we think is going on over there. Yesterday, of course, we reported on the renewal of Bob’s Burgers for a second season and left our readers with a cliffhanger as to the significance of this renewal for the network as a whole and why we are actually pleased about the renewal despite that we don’t like the show.  So now it’s time to explain why and we’ll bring you back to when we fist heard about FOX moving Fringe to Friday nights.

It Took Five Years For "The Show About Nothing" to Become a Hit.

As noted by our two pieces on Fringe‘s move to Friday (here and here) we’ve been very critical of FOX’s history of jumping ship on shows (especially new shows) that have had a run of, not even horrible, but average to mediocre ratings.  Seriously, c’mon, FOX… Seinfeld wasn’t immediately a hit.  It wasn’t even in the top 30 for its first three seasons and in its fourth season it was #25.

Fringe... Cooler Than You and Back in Fall 2011 For Season 4.

Anyway, in these pieces, we also expressed our skepticism with FOX’s stated commitment in the past to fan-favorite shows and of course this directly related to their campaign in January expressing the same commitment to Fringe.  But, then, a few weeks ago, Virginia found out that there is indeed a Santa Claus and the announcement was made that Fringe not only had been renewed for a fourth season, but it was given a full season order… in March. We speculated as to why this occurred as EVERYONE, including us, assumed that after the ratings decline, the move to Friday and of course, FOX’s history, this show was destined for Cancellationville.

And of course, there is American Dad, a show that FOX execs have not historically supported and have been trying to replace for years and it got renewed for a seventh season… in February, again with a full season order of 22 episodes, no less.

Yes, Indeed... NBC May Be Very Happy, Very Soon.

When we heard the announcement about Fringe, we speculated as to the many reasons it may have been spared cancellation but came to the conclusion that we really didn’t care, we were just happy that the show was saved.  But now, we’re hearing that FOX is on the verge of losing House, as well.

The network remains in last-minute negotiations with Universal Media Studios, which owns the series, in hopes of signing a new deal for an eighth season. The two sides are far apart in determining the percentage each will pay for the show’s costs.

UMS, owned by NBCUniversal, has given Fox an extension on the window of negotiation exclusivity. That ends Friday. If the two sides can’t come to an agreement, UMS will offer the show to competing networks including, of course, the Peacock, which would likely be more than happy to take the series away from Fox.

So thanks to all of these developments, we’ve been dragged into the speculation game and we’re guessing that there are several issues at play here:

This Never Happened

First, FOX has some serious issues with original scripted program scheduling coming this Fall and this is just based on what we know.  Four new shows from 2010 – 2011 have already been canceled (Running Wilde, The Good Guys, Sons of Tuscon and Lone Star) and Traffic Light is certain to be canceled by May 16th.  So, that’s five down right there (and chances for The Chicago Code being renewed for a second season seem to be getting slimmer by the day) and Human Target and Lie To Me are more likely to be cancelled than not.  Add to that the fact that as of this posting  FOX hasn’t been able to come to a deal to keep the perennial hits Bones and (as earlier noted) House (the deadline for a deal for House was last Friday), the network faces potentially being down nine scripted programs from 2010 – 2011 (Even though we are still trying to forget about Sons of Tuscon as if it never existed, and of course we aren’t counting 24 which was at the end of its run).

"Holy sh*t! How the f**k are we still on the air???"

And here’s the thing about House: Universal may not come to a deal intentionally and may just turn House over to NBC who is desperate for a strong scripted drama, or strong scripted anything at this point.  Whereas FOX axed four of their new shows (with a fifth coming for sure), NBC has axed five of their new shows with at least a sixth certain to be on the way out the door (Sorry, but as much as The Event has improved by following what we suggested it needed to do, it was too little, too late…so, adiós!). Let’s also not forget Chuck, which is on its way out the door as well.  It’s so bad at NBC that less-than-positive performers such as Law & Order: Los Angeles and Harry’s Law are almost guaranteed to be renewed because, well, frankly, theyz gots nothin’ else and they certainly don’t have American Idol or Simon Cowell’s new series, The X-Factor, that is destined to be a ratings juggernaut, so at the end of the day, NBC is in way worse shape than FOX. So, here’s our bold prediction: House will be on NBC come Fall 2011 and a deal with Bones (in desperation) will be made and it will return to FOX.

"Oh look. We're still on FOX."

But the effects of losing House on FOX will be devastating and even if they keep Bones, that show has seen a sharp decline in ratings over the past two season which means there will be only one truly strong live-action veteran scripted show and that would be Glee. Can FOX really be comfortable going into the new Fall season with the The Animation Domination Block, Glee, The X-Factor and American Idol being the only programming that is guaranteed to be stable?  We don’t think they possibly could be satisfied with that situation.

So taking this a step further, based on what we know for sure about the Fall schedule and the three shows that were renewed – not only unexpectedly but early, as well – (Fringe, American Dad and now Bob’s Burgers), here’s what we think is going on and it crossed our minds when we first heard about Fringe‘s renewal:  FOX is not just uncomfortable with the new scripted programing they have ordered for Fall 2011, they’re downright nervous and they expected to have had more success with their new shows from 2010 – 2011.  They also certainly didn’t expect the possibility of looking at Fall 2011 with no House and to a lesser extent no Bones.

Terra Nova: Allegedly to debut in Fall 2011... Hmmmm.

This brings us to the Stephen Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment produced, epic Sci-Fi series, Terra Nova, which as we noted when we reported Fringe‘s renewal, has been delayed yet again and is set to debut in Fall 2011.  There are some serious issues with Terra Nova that we think FOX is starting to get as concerned about as we are. First, the delays are insane and we are not confident at all that it will debut in the Fall as promised.  Second, Terra Nova may be the most expensive show in history with the first two episodes alone costing $16 million and whereas the average episode of scripted drama costs $2.5 million, Terra Nova per episode cost will come in at $4 million and the show is rife with rumors of cost overruns although the producers deny this.

Terra Nova: This Is NOT a Sci-Fi Show And That Is Not A Time Portal!

Third, this is the biggest risk that FOX has ever taken on any series, nevertheless a Sci-Fi series, in an era where epic Sci-Fi is DEAD on network television. And we’re sure that it doesn’t help when veteran television Sci-Fi  writer and producer Brannon Braga (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise) who is exec. producing/writing Terra Nova is doing the “pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain” Great and Powerful Oz routine denying the fact that it is indeed a Sci-Fi series when you’d have to be blind not to see it:

Terra Nova, according to Brannon Braga.

But it’s not a sci-fi show.

“It’s really about this frontier family trying to survive,”

From iMDB:

Centers on the Shannons, an ordinary family from 2149 when the planet is dying who are transported back 85 million years to prehistoric Earth where they join Terra Nova, a colony of humans with a second chance to build a civilization.

Still Not a Sci-Fi Show.

No, there’s absolutely nothing Sci-Fi about that premise at all.  It’s just like Little House on the Prairie… but with time travel… and dinosaurs… and automatic weapons… with lasers.

So, if we go with the premise that FOX isn’t really sure whether or not Terra Nova is going to actually debut on the Fall 2011 schedule as planned and it finally occurred to them that this kind of Sci-Fi is highly questionable for network television and of course there’s the issue of the costs involved, we can come to only one conclusion: FOX is worried that they aren’t going to have much going on this Fall, Monday through Friday, other than Glee and The X-Factor and they’ve decided that keeping some of these shows that have established, stabilized audiences even though they’ve seen ratings drops, may be their only option.  For goodness’ sake, and we cannot stress this enough, they saved three shows that everyone expected to be canceled, and again, this is FOX we’re talking about.

We alluded to this theory yesterday, in part one, our commentary on the Bob’s Burgers renewal:

We think FOX is starting to realize that it may be better for them to deal with the devil that they know as opposed to the one they don’t…

FOXs Money Printing Presses That May Keep Your Favorite Shows On The Air

So, that’s where we think all of this is going and in our opinion, this is nothing but a positive turn of events.  FOX has lived very well over the past decade with their scripted programming, reality program and sports.  If new show, “A” didn’t work out as well or as quickly as they had hoped, they’d just dump it and replace it with new show “B” and if that didn’t work out they’d replace it with  show “C” and so on and they’d usually find gold eventually.  But let’s be honest about this; the crop of decent scripted shows out there over the past couple of years on ALL of the networks has been thin to say the least. So considering the lack of quality, sustainable shows, all the losses in shows that they’ve had in the past year,  the possible losses of their perennial hits to other networks, and a questionable Fall 2011 lineup, it appears that FOX execs have been forced to put on the big boy pants and change their strategy so that they have something that’s at least slightly stable in their lineup, and will actually work to build up those shows by subsidizing them with their juggernauts, particularly American Idol and The X-Factor.

If Only It Had Debuted In Fall 2009!

Now, although FOX may not be particularly happy about taking this approach (because of course, everyone likes the quick and easy buck), all of these developments and this new approach is nothing but positive for viewers and fans of the many quality scripted programs that FOX does have to offer, but probably wouldn’t have been given an opportunity like this if this was, oh, say, two or three years ago.   Heck, we suspect that if Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles were in its second season in 2011 instead of in 2009, it already would have been renewed for a third season by now.

This...

And this is EXACTLY why we are so happy about Bob’s Burgers being picked up for a second season (as much as we dislike it) because it’s show number four that was not only renewed by FOX but picked up early when no one expected it to be. This in turn gives up hope for the remaining three likely to be canceled shows, Lie to Me, Human Target and The Chicago Code.  We can almost guarantee that FOX will not cancel all three of these shows, in fact, they may only cancel one of them but we are going to go with the premise, based on everything we’ve laid out over the past two days that they will keep at least one of them and we think it will be a toss-up between Lie to Me and Human Target.

... Or This?

Don’t get us wrong, we love The Chicago Code and we don’t particularly like the clichéd and predictable Lie to Me but we have to be objective about this.  If FOX or any other network is going to pick up an underperforming show to keep for another season, they are going to pick one that has an established audience for at least a couple of seasons over a mid-season replacement that hasn’t been able to find any stability with their audience.  The fact that The Chicago Code is a serial doesn’t help its chances of gaining a stable audience a season later, either.  Now, obviously, Bob’s Burgers doesn’t have a multiple-season established audience BUT it did have the highest ratings of any new show premiere of the season and its audience numbers, though not great, have stabilized and it does have very strong lead-ins and lead-outs with The Simpsons and Family Guy, respectively, whereas The Chicago Code dos not.

So there you have it.  Our wild speculation on why the big change in strategy at FOX.  You can take it for what it’s worth, and call us crazy but do the research for yourself and see if you come to any other conclusions because we’d love to hear your take.   Remember folks, May 16th is the big day for FOX.  That’s when we find out who’s going and who’s staying.

Breaking In (FOX – Wednesday, 9:30 p.m.)

BREAKING IN is an offbeat half-hour workplace comedy about a high-tech security firm that takes extreme – and often questionable – measures to sell their protection services. Created by Adam F. Goldberg and Seth Gordon, the series centers on a team of uniquely skilled oddball geniuses hand-picked to work for a manipulative mastermind.

Contra Security, corporate America’s answer to “The A-Team,” gives clients a sense of security by first ripping it away. The firm is led by OZ (Christian Slater), a larger-than-life head honcho who is a man of mystery and master of manipulation. The members of the odd squad include alluring bad girl MELANIE (Odette Annable), who is in charge of lock-picking, safe-cracking and heart-breaking; and CASH (Alphonso McAuley), a fanboy who specializes in strategy, logistics and office pranks.

Oz’s newest recruit, plucked right out of college, is lovable and charming computer hacker CAMERON PRICE (Bret Harrison). Unfortunately for Cameron, cracking into state-of-the-art security systems is a lot easier than dealing with his co-workers. Between Melanie’s sex appeal and Cash’s hazing, Cameron has more than a few obstacles to overcome if he wants to cement his status as part of the team and become Oz’s go-to guy.

BREAKING IN is produced by Happy Madison Productions, Adam F. Goldberg Productions and Sethsquatch, Inc. in association with Sony Pictures Television. Goldberg, Gordon and Doug Robinson (“Rules of Engagement”) serve as executive producers, while Goldberg serves as writer. The pilot was directed by Gordon. – FOX

8 out of 10

OK… let’s start out by addressing the elephant in the room:  Christian Slater needs work and he needs it badly.  What we mean by this is that he needs a steady job because this is a bunch of absolute crap that since 2008 the shows he’s the lead on keep getting cancelled. Yes, NBC’s My Own Worst Enemy was horrible and we had to stop watching because the characters were so damned unlikable (and we don’t care that the overall Metacritic score was a 61, it was still horrible) but he didn’t make it horrible and The Forgotten was actually a pretty damned good show that unfortunately nobody watched.  That being said, we like Slater and we always have going back to Heathers (full film on YouTube, here… how cool is that?), Pump Up the Volume, True Romance (perhaps his best work), Hell… we even liked the skateboard flick, Gleaming the Cube (again… another complete film on YouTube!). He’s a good actor and he’s very charming and charismatic and is perfect for lead roles in television.

This all having been said, we sincerely hope that FOX didn’t jump the gun by premiering Breaking In in April instead of in their Fall 2011 lineup because we (surprisingly) really like it a lot and the professional critics at Metacritic can once again, be damned, for the 54 overall rating this time.  Now, we do have to admit that the relatively low “Mixed Overall” score was only based on 18 reviews and it’s usually about double that on Metacritic, so that number is kind of skewed and obviously (at least in our opinion) unreliable, but at least we can say that the Metacritic users got it right, averaging an 8 out of 10, which is exactly where we have it.

And why do we like it so much?  Simple: it made us laugh throughout the entire episode and it’s unique.  That’s all we ask for from our 22 minutes of situation comedy and that is what we rarely ever get.  Here’s our opinion of sitcoms in general as posted in our Fall 2010 Preview of Monday’s Programming focusing on the crapfest that is Mike & Molly.

As a rule, I’m skeptical of sitcoms to begin with because for the most part they are unoriginal and they all recycle the same stupid jokes decade after decade…  Seriously who does this simple-minded crap appeal to?

Bur we can’t help ourselves with Breaking In… we kind of like everything about this show.  The characters are unique and well-developed and the actors playing them do not fall into the stereotypical typecast of what you would expect.  Honestly, every character in the ensemble could have been cast for one of the other parts and it would have made complete sense on paper so it’s very refreshing that the producers chose to mix it up and not go the easy route casting the actors in the roles you would expect them to play.

Yeah, we can pretty much guarantee that this isnt the only time Slater has worn a Starfleet uniform.

The only character that couldn’t be recast would be Slater’s Oz because it’s honestly like this role was written for him.  He’s hyper and eccentric and Slater plays that very well. Not to mention what a huge Star Trek fan that Slater is (he even lobbied his own mother, Mary Jo Slater, who was the casting director for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country to get him a cameo role in that film) and there were numerous Star Trek references in the pilot. Slater even actually had them put his own personal Enterprise Captain’s chair into Oz’s office and they worked it into the dialogue.

As far as the premise of the series is concerned, this is very unique as well and of course, a goldmine for potential slapstick comedy.  The one ting that isn’t unique is the style.  It’s similar in style to Rasing Hope, Community, The Middle, and Scrubs.  Now, even though we only like two of those shows (Rasing Hope and Community), we certainly appreciate that style of quick cut-scenes and rapid fire jokes.  We took two points off for the actual plot of the pilot episode itself being a little clichéd but overall this is a very good show.

As far as FOX’s decision to air in it April, we are going to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one considering how pleased we’ve been with them lately and the fact that even though it premiered in April, it is the lead-out for American Idol, which is exactly what we have suggested that FOX should do to help new shows build audiences.

Watch full episodes of Breaking In, here.

‘The Event’: What’s Wrong and How to Fix it in Five Easy Steps

The Event Returns with New Episodes in March, 2011

As noted in our original review, we here at The ‘Tastic are big fans of the new NBC series, The Event.  Unfortunately, since its premiere, the audience numbers have dropped steadily and the show is on life-support at this point and it’s completely unnecessary. We still stand by the contention that it’s one of the best new shows on TV but we are backing off the contention that we made that it is the second best new show on TV and if we were to review it today, instead of the admittedly generous 9 out of 10 we gave it after the premiere of the pilot, we would probably rate it a 7 or 7.5 at best.  We think we know what’s wrong and how to fix it.

The problem with the show is simple: the audience needs less talk and more rock. Showrunner/executive producer Evan Katz, who is probably the greatest asset to the show, is probably its biggest liability as well. The Event has been acting as if it’s a successful genre show, with a built-in audience in the middle of its fourth or fifth season and truthfully it’s been acting like this since the mind-numbing (albeit exciting) pilot episode with the 8,000 flashbacks and flash-forwards. The ‘Tastic admits that as genre-geeks, we may have been a little bit more over-exuberant and a little less objective for The Event than we probably would have been for another type of a show.

The fact is that as cool as this show is, we can certainly understand why the confusing back-and-forth in the pilot episode probably caused a substantial portion of the audience to jump ship immediately. Now, the flashbacks have been used much more effectively, not as much and solely for the purpose of character development (similar to how Lost did it but not as significant to the plot) since that pilot and that is an improvement, however, what’s killing this show now is the fact that was alluded to before: it’s not doing anything to keep or attract audience members. The story is very good but it’s also very slooooooooooooow for the most part with the occasional highlights of frenetic action.

Again, this type of “behavior” from a show is completely acceptable and often quite typical from a popular, established genre show with a dedicated audience but it is incredibly dangerous to do with a new show especially when it’s a niche-genre show to begin with. It’s difficult enough for a standard procedural show to build an audience, but for a Sci-Fi/Action-Thriller, it needs to immediately appeal to a general audience and hook them and the producers have to be simple about how they go about doing that. They need to go with what always works: ‘splosions… lots of them… often… and repeated chases and gunfights. Get into the cerebral crap and the plodding character development later on when you’ve already got ’em hooked. Tell an easy to follow story, initially, with a couple of good twists thrown in for good measure and rock and roll, already.

The failure of The Event to play it safe and do what’s necessary for a genre show to be successful on network TV rests squarely on the shoulders of Katz and as fans of the genre, it’s coming off to us as a bit arrogant. We are big fans of Katz and his work but he is running this show as if it’s 24, season nine or Lost, season seven as if 10 million people are tuning every week without fail. Sorry, but The Event is nowhere near ready to be at that comfort-level. General audiences are skeptical of genre shows to begin, and they are particularly skeptical of Sci-Fi shows.

We love The Event and we want to see it last more than just one season. We have come up with a plan of action that if followed, may indeed save this series (if it’s not too late already).

1. You got some splainin’ to do. Stop acting as if every week, everyone already knows what’s happening. Explain it every week until at least the second season and we don’t mean just in the teaser. You’re never going to build an audience with new viewers if they have no idea what’s going on when they jump in mid-stream.

2. Simplify. We love a complex Sci-Fi story, but you need to pare it down a little bit. There are far too many sub-plots going on with this show considering how new it is. Simplify it just a tad. The joke with Lost was that it was four seasons in before fans realized they were watching a Sci-Fi show. That’s how The Event needs to position itself. Compelling stories that are easy to follow that make the audience forget that they are even watching a Sci-Fi show.

3. Less flashbacks. As noted, the flashbacks are not nearly as bad as they were in the pilot, however, they are unnecessary for the most part as is most of the character development. This is one of the more confusing aspects of the show production. Here we have a show that has been described (even by us) as the mutant offspring of 24 and Lost and is executive produced by the former executive producer of 24 (Katz) and it is obvious that the intent is to produce a show similar to 24 (which is something else we noted in our review in regards to NBC). So knowing this, the question is, why exactly are they wasting their time with so much back-story and so much character development?

This is an action-thriller. We don’t need this much information about these characters. Fill us in with the minor details as we go along. We don’t need the life story on all 500 characters of this ensemble. I found out more about Sean Walker (Jason Ritter) in the first six episodes of this season than I ever knew about Jack Bauer in 192 episodes of 24.

Leave some mystery for God’s sake. It makes the show more interesting. Here’s a prime example: It turns out that Vicky Roberts (Taylor Cole) has a son. Instead of just letting us know that she had this child and having our protagonists use the knowledge of this child to manipulate her, the writers provided us with this protracted and elaborate origins story in the form of several flashbacks explaining how she took the child as a baby from one of her assassination targets when she was supposed to kill the baby as well and she has been raising him as her own in secret ever since (with the help of her mother). This was completely unnecessary for the story and the flashbacks took up nearly an entire episode. If they wanted to drop that story in along the way in bits and pieces, in the form of exposition through dialogue, fine, awesome, bring it, but don’t waste an entire episode in a lame attempt to take the audience by the hand to guide them through a story.

It’s not only insulting to the audience, but it paints you in a corner with nowhere to go with the character’s history in case the story goes in a different direction. Just consider how long it took to tell the back-story of the characters on Lost. The audience was given snippets for years on each character until the picture was complete and not only did it work brilliantly but it left them completely open to change the characters as the story progressed.

So, between these protracted flashbacks with these elaborate back-stories and the numerous subplots, The Event is wasting a lot of screen time unnecessarily. So, from now on, no more flashbacks unless absolutely necessary.

4. More ‘splosions, please. And what we mean by this is more action in general.  This goes back what we said about “less talk, more rock.” For an action show, The Event is lacking in the action department and if the producers follow the advice as set forward above regarding sub-plots and flashbacks, they’ll have a lot more time for the action. “Action” was used four times in the preceding two sentences.  Are we making our point clear about the need for more action on this show.

Manny Coto

5. Manny Effing Coto. For those of you who don’t know, Manny Coto is one of the premiere producers and writers in television today and his particular forté is genre, specifically Action, Horror and Sci-Fi (check out Manny Coto’s bio at IMDb).  Among those of us in the know (*snicker*), Coto really gained attention when he came into the third season of the miserable failure of a series, Star Trek: Enterprise and actually gave the show some respectability with the writing.  In season four he was made showrunner/executive producer and changed the direction of the series entirely, allowing the series to end on a high-note.  Season four of Star Trek: Enterprise is widely considered to be the best of the four seasons and that has everything to do with Manny Coto.  And, yes, we expect to get hate mail from Trek fans about the “miserable failure of a show” remark.

After leaving Star Trek: Enterprise, Coto became an executive producer alongside Evan Katz for seasons five, six, seven and eight of 24. Without, a question, season five was the most critically acclaimed season of that series (winning the Prime-Time Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series) and it’s no surprise why, really.

Katz and Coto worked together for several years on a successful genre Action-Thriller and Coto has an excellent track record of bringing a new vision to a series to change its course.  It would seem to be a perfect pick for Katz to hire his old colleague to come in and see if he can do something to change the direction of this struggling show with great potential to put more asses in the seats as the great Reggie Jackson would say.

Now, we don’t know what Manny’s schedule is like, and truthfully, the Manny Coto dream may just be wishful thinking, but season five of Dexter just finished airing two weeks ago and he was an executive producer and writer for that show and according to IMDb his plate looks pretty empty as of today.  We simply can’t think of anyone else that would be better suited to change the direction of this series and potentially save it.

The truth is that the long hiatus (new episodes will not air until March 7, 2011) may be the final nail in the coffin for The Event, so this may be all be moot anyway, but we hope not.  There are promising signs that NBC still has faith in the series, particularly that a week before the new episodes air, they are dedicating two hours on Monday February 28, 2011 to a “catch up ” episode (for more information, click here).  Why that’s a such a promising sign is because it’s stealing a page out of the Lost playbook and goes back to the first recommendation we made, which is that you need to explain to the audience what’s going on until the show picks up steam and has a dedicated, solid following.  Progress, indeed.

The Event is truly a bubble-show.  In the end, we hope despite all of its problems, NBC rides with it for at least one more season.  If not, meh.  It’s just TV, after all.

You can get caught up with The Event and watch all ten episodes, right here.