[Televisionary]

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian

I decided to switch gears a bit today and take a look at two pilots that the new CW network ordered to series: Runaway , which premieres this fall, and Hidden Palms , which the CW has decided to hold until mid-season. While both deal with a mix of teen and adult actors and storylines, the two shows couldn't be more different and I would have swapped Runaway for Hidden Palms . I'm no network programmer, but Hidden Palms is easily the superior of the two series and could have used the visibility of a fall launch to gain an audience early on. Runaway From executive producer Darren Star ( Sex and the City ), Runaway is the story of the Rader family, on the run after papa Paul Rader (Donny Wahlberg) is framed for the murder of his assistant/girlfriend. When it becomes clear that his family's lives are in danger from the people who set him up, Paul packs up wife Lily ( 24 's Leslie Hope), teenage kids Henry (Dustin Milligan), and Hannah (Sarah Ramos), and eight-year-old so

There seem to be a number of trends with this season's batch of new series, whether they be numeric titles ( 20 Good Years , 30 Rock , Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip , Six Degrees , and The Nine all join fellow digit-obsessed series 24 , Two and a Half Men , One Tree Hill , 20/20 , and the blatantly-named NUMB3RS on the schedule), series revolving around strangers brought together by fate ( The Nine , Six Degrees , and Heroes ), or a genre that seems to have captivated the national imagination in the wake of Lost , 24 , and The Da Vinci Code : conspiracy dramas. This season's pilots seem to have an inordinate fixation on vast reaching conspiracies and Kidnapped , Traveler , Runaway , and Vanished all deal with conspiracies involving missing persons ( Kidnapped and Vanished ) or wrongfully accused fugitives ( Traveler and Runaway ). While I'll get to those shows later--you can catch my review of Kidnapped from a few weeks ago here --let's take a look right now at FO

I know, I know. I said I'd be reviewing the pilot for ABC's new drama Six Degrees last week, but I was so completely distracted by the CW's botched pilot of Aquaman that it's taken me this long to get back to this drama pilot. And unlike Aquaman / Mercy Reef , I really enjoyed Six Degrees , a far worthier addition to the J.J. Abrams/Bad Robot oeuvre than the ABC mid-season replacement What About Brian . Keeping with a rather familiar theme this season--fate bringing together strangers (it pops up here in Six Degrees , Heroes , and The Nine )--the pilot charts the interconnected stories of six Manhattanites who are separated until a quirk of fate slowly begins to bring them together. Before saying anything else, I have to immediately begin by saying that any show that has both the luminous Hope Davis and Campbell Scott as series regulars is already a hit in my book. But add to that Jay Hernandez, Erika Christensen, Doran Missick, and Bridget Moynahan, and you've g

It's a fantastic set up: a group of strangers, thrown together by fate, form unlikely bonds and are forced to come together when they're taken hostage during a bank robbery, a heist which might not be all that it seems. Meanwhile, outside the bank, police forces and hostage negotiators struggle to get the human shields released and take down the bad guys, who are themselves not all they seem. I wish I could say that I was talking about ABC's new drama The Nine , but I'm not. Rather the above description, eerily similar to that of The Nine 's pilot episode, belong's to Spike Lee's taut thriller from a few months back, Inside Man . During the screening of Inside Man that I attended several months ago, I was on the edge of my seat, my heart racing as I waited to discover the truth behind the bank heist plot, the fate of the hostages, and the motive of the mastermind behind the heist. No such tension here in The Nine (formerly known as Nine Lives ), a paint-by

This year's crop of comedy pilots definitely leaves a lot to be desired. There's not an Office or Earl or Arrested Development among the bunch. Poring over the pilots that have come into the Televisionary offices thus far, my hands were sweaty with anticipation when I finally received my copy of NBC's newest comedy offering, 30 Rock . I've been writing about Tina Fey's pilot (back when it was untitled even) for quite a while now and I wanted to see if the show lived up to the hype that I assigned it. I can report that it honestly does. I've watched the pilot for 30 Rock twice now and each time I've been sucked in by the absurdist humor and witty writing of this hilarious, single-camera ensemble piece. For those of you not up to speed, 30 Rock is one of two new NBC shows centering around the backstage shenanigans at an SNL -style sketch show (the other is Aaron Sorkin's recently relocated Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip ). Oh and that rather odd title?

In his film Trust , writer/director Hal Hartley once said, "A family is like a gun; you point it in the wrong direction and you could kill someone." I think Hartley's statement applies nicely to ABC's new family drama Brothers & Sisters , which follows a wealthy Los Angeles clan as they do what families do best: eat together, bicker, love one another, fight, and then fight some more. This being a television series, there's naturally more lurking beneath the seemingly idyllic surface of the Walker family than initially meets the eye. Told through the voice of outspoken daughter Kitty (Calista Flockhart), the series explores the many secrets and lies that exist in every family. Think of it as My So-Called Thirtysomething Relativity Once and Again . Or something to that effect. What got me initially intrigued was the truly amazing cast that the show's producers had managed to assemble here, a trend which seems to be keeping in touch with this season's man

Of the current batch of fall pilots in my possession, the one I was really looking forward to watching was NBC's Heroes , which many have touted as NBC's answer to drama juggernaut Lost . I can safely say that the cast and crew of the J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof-created drama doesn't need to lose any sleep at night. Lost this is not. For those of you in the dark, here's the basic pitch: seemingly overnight, ordinary people suddenly develop extraordinary powers and represent the next step in humanity's evolution, but there's something else afoot here as forces beyond their control seem to be drawing them closer together (a theme that seems to be so extremely common this season that it's the basis for no less than three pilots). The genetic mutation line is straight out of X-Men (one character even references the long-running comic book series, using Uncanny X-Men #143, in which Kitty Pryde travels to a dystopian future, as an argument for time travel); t

One of these days I really wish that a network would actually develop and program a series that is intended to only last a single season. Sort of like what Prison Break was supposed to be originally. (For a better example, take a look at the BBC's compelling and brilliant political mystery-drama State of Play. ) In doing so, a network might actually make the audience think that anything could happen, anyone could be killed or eliminated at any time. The dramatic stakes are raised because, in watching, we know that there is going to be a finality to the end. On the surface, NBC's new serialized drama Kidnapped might appear to fall into this category, but there's also a rather dynamic character played by Six Feet Under 's Jeremy Sisto who might be able to launch the series into a multi-year franchise a la Jack Bauer on FOX's 24 . Sisto plays the enigmatic Knapp, a kidnapping and ransom expert whose very purpose for being is to return victims to their loved ones. He

Well, it's crunch time here in Hollywood when the networks have to decide which pilots are going to get ordered before the May upfront presentations of their schedules to advertisers in New York. It's getting down to the wire and all over town producers are biting their nails as each waits to receive word on the fate of their latest TV opus. Those in the know will drift onto one of the ubiquitous tracking boards --the online equivalent of a gossipy coffee klutch--to find out the no-holds barred low-down on their pilots. These boards can make or break a project and, in the case of a feature script, determine whether a writer is going to end up with a seven-figure purchase price or yet another pass. Through a top-secret contact, I was able to gather some information--unsubstantiated but reliable--about many of the pilots in contention for the fall schedules of the major networks. It's far from a complete list, but below is a sample of what's being said about the current c

One of the perks of working in the television business is that you occasionally (or during the summer months frequently) get to see pilots before they air on television... in most cases, many months before they premiere. So yesterday I was therefore fortunate to view the pilot for Showtime's new drama series, Dexter , based on the novels by Jeff Lindsay. Dexter stars Michael C. Hall , whom most viewers will remember from Six Feet Under . Here, Hall portrays the title character who is vastly different from David Fisher, the character he played for several years on Six Feet Under ...well, except for the connection to death. For one thing, Dexter is a forensic investigator--his specialty is blood splatter--and for another, he's a serial killer. But before you get all uptight about it, he's a serial killer who only kills other serial killers. Gruesomely. Brutally. He stalks them, captures them, and kills them, chopping up their bodies and disposing of them while holding onto a