TV NEWS ALERT! FOX: Bones Renewed For Seventh Season… Now What About House?

You didn't have to be this guy to figure out that FOX would renew Bones.

FOX Broadcasting and 20th Century Fox Television have come to terms on a new license fee agreement and the hit series Bones has been renewed for a seventh season.  We predicted this would happen as merely a defensive move if nothing else because if the uncertain fate of House.  Universal Media Studios and FOX did not reach an agreement despite a deadline of April 15th and two extensions beyond that deadline.

To make matters more precarious for FOX and the future of House on the network, NBCUniversal head, Steve Burke, has announced that parent company Comcast will be investing an additional $200 million into the struggling NBC.  This, of course, just reaffirms our suspicions that it is quite possible that UMS may just opt instead to sell the hit medical show to NBC.  The issue at play here is money.  UMS wants the same they had with FOX in season five and have FOX share in the cast salaries. FOX’s position is that though the show is still strong it’s not as strong as it was in season five when the initial deal was made.  So considering that the deadlines have passed and UMS wants more money than FOX is willing to give, who better to turn to than fellow NBCUniversal subsidiary, NBC who will apparently be rolling in cash.  Steve

NBCUniversal Head, Steve Burke

Burke had this to say about the cash infusion at NBC:

The real key to turning around NBC is not necessarily increased investment. The real key is making better shows.

So apparently Mr. Burke certainly gets it and that’s good sign for NBC’s future. Even though he is stating the obvious, it simply amazes us how his predecessors couldn’t grasp that very simple concept. So now it’s our turn to ask the obvious: what better way is there to make better shows than by purchasing already established hits in their prime?  We can’t think of many.  As we’ve noted, the addition of House to the Peacock network would be a game changer for them or at the very least a life-preserver.

Via Press Release:

FOX UNCOVERS ANOTHER SEASON OF “Bones”

Fan-Favorite Series Renewed for Seventh Season

All-New Episode Airs Thursday, May 5, on FOX

FOX has renewed the hit series Bones for a seventh season, it was announced today by Kevin Reilly, President of Entertainment, Fox Broadcasting Company.

“Bones is creatively fresh, it’s a rock-solid player every time it airs and this season it has helped us win on Thursday nights for the first time in our history,” said Reilly. “Hart Hanson and the fantastic cast and crew, as well as the millions of loyal Bones fans, make this show really special, and I’m excited to have it on our air for another stellar season.”

In the all-new “The Signs in the Silence” episode, airing Thursday, May 5 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT), a 15-year-old Jane Doe, who is hearing impaired and unable to communicate, is found on the streets covered in blood and wielding a knife, leading the team to believe she is responsible for a recent murder. Meanwhile, Angela keeps Hodgins in the dark regarding the details of her pregnancy.

Bones is a darkly amusing procedural centered on a highly skilled forensic anthropologist who can read clues left behind in victims’ Bones and an FBI agent. These unlikely partners take on homicide cases involving human remains that most forensic specialists can’t handle. The series stars Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz, TJ Thyne, Michaela Conlin, Tamara Taylor and John Francis Daley.

Bones is from Far Field Productions and Josephson Entertainment in association with 20^th Century Fox Television. The series was created by Hart Hanson. Hanson, Stephen Nathan, Ian Toynton and Barry Josephson are executive producers. Become a fan of the series on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bones and follow the series on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bonesonfox (@bonesonfox).

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.

Mr. Sunshine (ABC – Wednesday, 9:30 p.m.)

Matthew Perry stars as Ben Donovan, the general manager of the Sunshine Center, who every night navigates a never-ending series of bizarre requests, curious mishaps and employee screw ups to put on a show for 18,000 screaming people.

Working alongside him is his boss and arena owner Crystal, attractive, powerful and highly erratic; Alice, the cute, tomboyish marketing director and Ben’s friend with benefits; Alonzo, a former basketball player, handsome and unbelievably happy; Ben’s assistant, Heather, pretty, sweet, but terrifying because she once lit a boyfriend on fire; and Crystal’s son, Roman, sweet-faced, clueless and Ben’s newest employee.

“Mr. Sunshine” stars Matthew Perry (“Friends”) as Ben, Allison Janney (“The West Wing”) as Crystal, Andrea Anders as Alice, James Lesure as Alonzo and Nate Torrence as Roman. – ABC

2 out of 10

They say that familiarity breeds contempt and that particular axiom has special meaning for this “comedy” offering from ABC.  You see, everything is familiar about this show and for that we have contempt for it.  The story is familiar as it’s obviously just a cheap rip-off of NBC’s 30 Rock, the characters are familiar as they are obviously just cheap rip-offs of the characters on NBC’s 30 Rock, the stale jokes are familiar as they are obviously just cheap rip-offs of the jokes on 30 Rock, and the style of the show is familiar as it is – you guessed it – obviously just a cheap rip-off of 30 Rock.

Mr. Sunshine is unoriginal tripe.  As noted, the jokes aren’t original, they aren’t funny and there are really no likable characters.  The attempts at slapstick fail completely and the only message  we can really ascertain at the end of each episode is “don’t tune in again next week unless you want to more crap.”  We would also really like to know whose brilliant idea was it to make a sports arena as a backdrop for a show.  Have the writers been reduced to Mad Libs or are they just pulling slips of paper out of a hat for story ideas, now?  Also, actors delivering their dialogue like a machine gun doesn’t make it any funnier.

There’s one more thing that’s familiar about this show that needs to be addressed: Matthew Perry.  No offense to the guy, but we’re sick of him.  He does nothing for anything he is in.  He’s not horrible, he’s just vanilla… milquetoast… bland.  Like every other cast member on that horrible piece-of-crap show, Friends (we don’t care if you watched it… you know it sucks) they gave him a shot to do films in the 1990’s and 2000’s and like every other cast member with maybe the exception of Jennifer Aniston (we qualify Aniston with a “maybe” because although she’s had some successful films and her name is a draw because we guess she was hot at one point and married to Brad Pitt, other than Office Space, her films are crap) he has a history of box office failures and television failures.  The only films that were even worth watching that this guy has been in were  The Whole Nine Yards and Fools Rush In and the only reason why those two films were worth investing in was because one starred Bruce Willis and the other one starred Selma Hayek.  We’re sorry, but Perry simply does not bring much more to the table in 2011 than he has for the last 15 years.  If you don’t believe us, simply look at his résumé and tell us that we’re wrong.

We’re also finding the similarities to this show and 30 Rock a little creepy.  Has anyone else caught the fact that in 2006, NBC debuted two shows about what goes on backstage at a sketch comedy show, one of a highly acclaimed sit com in the form of 30 Rock and the other a highly acclaimed drama called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and that only 30 Rock was kept and that 30 Rock is now in its fifth season?  Has anyone else caught the fact that Matthew Perry was a regular cast member on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and has hardly worked since?

Here’s our theory:

Perry is trying to make up for the success that he didn’t have on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip by duplicating almost everything in 30 Rock, the show that, let’s face it, won the battle at NBC amongst the shows about sketch comedy shows.  Now, why do we suggest that this is creepy or even happening?  Well, normally we don’t wait around for end credits when watching anything on VOD but we did for this because we wanted to see who the production company was.  To our surprise it was none other than Perry’s own production company, Anhedonia Productions.  You see, Perry co-wrote the pilot and is responsible for this mess coming to ABC and we feel it is his attempt to get back to the status that he once had in the 1990’s on television.

What makes it especially creepy is the name of the production company: “Anhedonia.” Ahedonia is a psychiatric condition defined as  an inability to experience pleasurable emotions from normally pleasurable life events such as eating, exercise, social interaction or sexual activities (i.e., joy).  It is a symptom associated with schizophrenia and drug addiction, in particular with amphetamines which Perry is well-known to have had addiction problems with.  The name of the production company, Perry’s history and the show’s tagline (as seen in the poster above) “Oh, Joy.” is not very encouraging to us.  Maybe we’re looking into this too much and this is only a strange bunch of coincidences but we’d be remiss if we didn’t do the analysis.

So, is the ironically named Mr. Sunshine really an attempt at sit com gold or is it just a desperate expression of melancholy from Perry.  We don’t know but we do know that it’s pretty awful and it has no business being the lead-out for Modern Family.

Watch full episodes of Mr. Sunshine, here.