CBS Having a Good Sweeps Even Without The Reagans

Although NBC is leading by a nose during this November sweeps, CBS is the only network showing growth. Okay, it’s only 2%, but it’s better than the double digit declines experienced by the rest of the broadcast nets. And in moves that hopefully will shore up some of the remaining weeks, NBC’s scheduling in another Law & Order or two, and in place of The Reagans this Sunday, CBS is putting in a two-hour block of CSI which will probably perform as well, if not better, than the ill-fated miniseries.

And speaking of The Reagans, does anybody else wonder what kind of a movie CBS thought they'd be getting from producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron? Obviously these guys work on things that they love, among them the new version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella musical, a biography of Judy Garland, a couple of TV movies about lesbians bucking the system, and ABC’s sitcom It’s All Relative about a gay male couple and their grown daughter. Of course their credits also include an Alzheimer movie with Mia Farrow (could be relevant experience), several other show business bios including the Three Stooges (which was pretty good), Lucy (with more about her and Desi’s sex life than I wanted to know, at least!), and an upcoming production on Lena Horne. Whether or not it’s an agenda, a predilection or just coincidence, these guys tend to make certain kinds of shows. Is it any wonder that evidently The Reagans turned out to be, reportedly, a gay-friendly, neurotic, fairy tale about the First Couple? This is a surprise?

These guys aren’t David L. Wolper. They make popular stuff with a definite take that’s clearly about who they are -- a couple of gay guys. If CBS wanted a serious, somber and straight version of the life of Ronald and Nancy, they should have gone to the producers who made HBO’s The Gathering Storm, not a couple of guys who, even at casual glance, really couldn’t have considered glorifying this Republican icon as their number one goal. It’s almost a wonder that they didn’t go after former Saturday Night Live ace Nancy Reagan impersonator Terry Sweeney to play the First Lady. Getting Zadan and Meron to produce non-skewed version of Ronald Reagan’s life would be about as likely as getting Charles Busch to write one. (And speaking of Busch, he’d make a wonderful Nancy Reagan, too, I’ll bet.) It just didn’t make sense for CBS to get their panties in a wad so late in the game.

Maybe the folks in development were just trying to sneak this one past the bosses. If so, it’s pretty funny that they got as far as they did, but if not, somebody’s taste and judgment are a little suspect. That being said, let’s hope that the version Showtime will run next year is uncut and just as over-the-top as Zadan and Meron intended. I’ve read some of the script from the Salon Magazine site, and at least the beginning Hollywood sequences where Ronnie meets Nancy are pretty standard and read more like Reagan portrayer James Brolin’s turn as Clark Gable back in 1976 in the bomb biopic Gable and Lombard. I can just see Zadan and Meron cracking up over that movie, but there’s more similarity than not -- and certainly not much change in the genre -- in what they’re doing now.

While conservatives obviously wanted more respect for their hero, their biggest mistake was thinking that this was going to be a biography of a President. The Reagans turned out to be the story of a charismatic movie star who became President, and CBS turned to guys who knew how to turn out an audience-pleasing show business bio. Remember the old warning about letting the fox guard the henhouse? The moral here is, don’t send two gay, liberal producers to make a show about a President who epitomized conservative values. Don’t blame Zadan and Meron for making exactly the film they wanted to, blame CBS for not knowing what that really meant.

 
What to Check Out Tonight

If you enjoy a peek at over-the-top pop icons, you can do no better than to tune in NBC's Las Vegas tonight at 9pm and catch guest star Wayne Newton doing his stuff. If you doubt Newton's credentials as a verifiable relic of show business history, ponder that he also did a guest shot on that other Sin City-set TV drama Vega$ way back in 1981. That's legs, folks. Of course, his appearance tonight doesn't change my opinion that Las Vegas is more than a little Love Boat-y...and how did Wayne Newton miss appearing on that show, anyway?

 
Series Status Update

There's been a flurry of full-season pick-ups for some lucky shows, along with the concurrent dumping of several others. To update quickly, ABC's had a pretty good season so far, picking up all its sitcoms and even Thursday's quite engrossing drama Threat Matrix, despite its deadly timeslot. The police buddy dramedy 10-8 also made the cut. What didn't make it is last season's L.A. Dragnet which was cancelled last week, thus putting a small black spot on Dick Wolf's depressing winning streak (huzzah!). Also not yet picked up (and having plenty of trouble in its Wednesday timeslot opposite Law & Order) is the snazzy and worth-saving Karen Sisco.

NBC of course officially dumped Coupling pre-November sweeps, and certainly their own incessant braggadocio about pushing the sexual content envelope didn't help the BBC remake win any...uh, friends. In a move that shocked and disappointed many fans, NBC elected to pull the plug on Boomtown, a returning series which, though a critical darling, failed to satisfy the audience's appetite for plodding procedural melodrama. The network still seems to be on the fence about Alicia Silverstone's Miss Match (indeed, they can't even figure out where to permanently park it), but their Las Vegas has gotten a season order. So far Rob Lowe's The Lyon's Den hasn't got the good word yet either. In terms of sitcoms, both Whoopi and Happy Family will be around for the full 22.

CBS has had pretty good luck with their new stuff, only giving David Kelley's The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H. the brush-off. Fox has already peeled off their porn-eriffic Skin (after only two airings), plus the sitcom Luis. The WB has gone full season with its latest teen soap One Tree Hill, but wasn't so lucky with its update of Tarzan, which has been dumped. And over on UPN, The Mullets is on official hiatus but it feels like a cancellation, while on a happier note Jake 2.0, their boy geek version of Alias, will be around for at the least the rest of this season.

Overall, ABC's got to be happy that their revitalized situation comedy strategy is working, though of course their Tuesday night wouldn't be where it is without the John Ritter situation. NBC has had a very tough season so far, their Tuesday comedies getting clobbered as ABC's have made hay, their Thursday a mess with the whole Coupling debacle, and Friday's unexpectedly tough competition making Miss Match more of a miss than a match. And Rob Lowe's show took a hit from the revitalized The Practice...who knew! Not good for NBC, while CBS is gaining ground, especially on Thursdays. UPN is cool with black-cast comedies and wrestling, though Wednesday's Enterprise still hasn't overcome the viewer ennui and out-of-proportion critical pounding it's been taking, and the cool Jake 2.0 hasn't caught on with anybody yet.

For more up-to-date info on the status of this season's series, be sure to visit my Fall 2003-2004 Broadcast Network Television Schedules page on my main website.