Tagged: CBS

Medium looking good for seventh season

The Patricia Arquette drama Medium is currently looking good, according to online reports, to be renewed for a seventh season overall, which would be its second season on CBS after NBC dismissed the show a year ago. The supernatural crime drama has improved the performance of CBS’ Friday time slot considerably this season, and is a consistent if not stellar performer.

While there is no need for wedding accessories for any of the kids on the show yet, a seventh season comes as welcome news to those who appreciate the show’s fine mixture of supernatural chills and real-world criminal menaces.

Although not as sparkling and witty as Fox’s BONES, MEDIUM is nevertheless a solid favorite for my wife and I, so we’re certainly glad to hear the show will be back for another season.

HIMYM slips, keeps building

Without Britney Spears and Sarah Chalke to pump up the ratings, CBS’ comedy-on-life-support drew only a 3.4 Nielsen this week in an episode with no guest stars for How I Met Your Mother. Still, the show did build on the ratings lead-in from Big Bang Theory, which drew a 2.9.

While those numbers are on Orovo diets compared to what was considered great ratings 20 years ago, the improvment HIMYM is showing off its lead-in may be just enough to show that the show does not require guest stars every week, and that it has enough oomph to build in the ratings bar set by its lead-in.

A brief prayer wouldn’t hurt, but signs are good that HIMYM’s demise might have been diagnosed a bit prematurely. Like, say, by Dr. Elliot of a certain NBC comedy soon destined to appear on ABC, perhaps?

Silverstone is “Mother?”

OK, this could just be the grape juice talking, but the word on the street is that actress Alicia Silverstone could become the mother everyone’s been waiting to meet on the CBS sitcom, “How I Met Your Mother.” In fact, I’d almost be willing to wager a month’s worth of sleepnig on a foam mattress on it, and I’m an air mattress addict!

Here’s the clues so far: Silverstone is indeed signed to a “multi-episode arc” when production resumes on the CBS sitcom in a few weeks. The post-strike episodes have a chance of being the last ones to air, because CBS has not yet renewed the show – even though it’s renewed several others so far. Plus, the producers have promised we’ll meet “mother” this season; if the show is indeed canceled for some strange reason, this would also give producers a chance to wrap the storyline up in a tidy way.

So, all that seems to point to Silverstone being the mother in question. And here I was hoping, given the presence in the regular cast of Buffy alumn Allyson Hannigan, that “mother” would turn out to be Sarah Michelle Geller. Oh well.

Letterman returns with writers

Shortly after the new year begins, Late Show host David Letterman will be returning to the air … with writers and no extra luggage! Did the 2007-2008 WGA Writer’s Strike finally settle with producers?

Not exactly. The writers did settle with the Letterman-owned production company, Worldwide Pants, which basically gave WGA most of the stuff they were asking for. As a result, both Letterman’s Late Show and Craig Ferguson’s late night talker will be back with their writing staff in tow.

That means monologues, skits and, yes, even Top 10 lists will be part of the Letterman fare later this week when the show returns to CBS broadcast air. Some in the producers organization are grumbling about Worldwide Pants breaking ranks and settling with the writers, almost completely on their terms; it sets a precedent that could force other producers to give in to most of the demands of the WGA once they ultimately either settle individually with the union, or return to the bargaining table, a bit humbler for the experience.

Of course, the network can’t be too pissed at Letterman; if they were, they wouldn’t let his show back on the air.

That could be the key to a WGA victory in the labor conflict, but don’t expect a quick settlement. Some holdouts could still be freezing out the writers come summertime. In the meantime, when Letterman returns to the air, expect a lot of network sniping and strike-related humor to be the order of the day; Letterman is, of course, a WGA member himself, as well as serving as a producer for Worldwide Pants.

I can imagine Letterman’s first joke upon his return may go something like this:

“Thank you, ladies and gentleman. First off, let me apologize for this show’s long absence from the air. As you know, we have this strike thing going on between Hollywood writers and producers. Now, some of you may not no this, but I’m both a writer and a producer on this show, so you’d think we could settle this thing pretty easily, right? Yeah. Turns out, I’m a real bastard to negotiate with.”

CBS may turn to Showtime’s Dexter

It may need to be heavily edited for broadcast TV, but one of Showtime’s most critically-acclaimed shows may provide the Eye network with some “fresh” programming in the strike-shortened season that’s headed our way after the first of the year. CBS is considering airing the first two seasons of Showtime’s Dexter, which will expose the cleverly-written show to a broader audience that doesn’t necessarily subscribe to Showtime.

The drama, headlined by Michael C. Hall, focuses on the saga of a serial killer who works as a police CSI blood-splatter specialist by day, and preys on other serial killers by night. The first season of Dexter garnered rave reviews and the soon-to-be-completed second season has overachieved in the eyes of critics who expected a sophomore slump form the witty drama, based on the 2004 Jeffrey Lindsay novel, Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Two more novels have followed, 2005′s Dearly Devoted Dexter and 2007′s Dexter In the Dark. If the show performs well on CBS, it could be a money making move that results in diamond pendants for everyone; if it falters, it could show that viewers have little tolerance for shows that have already appeared on other networks being repurposed for broadcast network airings. Time will tell.

While the Showtime drama features a fair amount of nudity and a heavy dose of profanity compared to traditional network fare, the important aspect in picking up the show for network rebroadcast, from CBS’s point of view, is that there are 24 completed episodes completed that, so far, only Showtime subscribers – and those who bought the Season One DVDs – have seen before now.

In other news, freshman sitcom The Big Bang Theory and freshman vampire drama Moonlight have both received second-season orders from the Eye network; The Big Bang Theory is a Chuck Lorre Productions show that did well in the eight episodes completed prior to the strike; Moonlight has about 12 to 14 episodes in the can, with roughly 10 episodes aired so far. It is unclear whether the second-season orders will consist of 22 new episodes plus the uncompleted episodes from the first season, or if the uncompleted first season episodes and scrapped and storylines planned for the first season will be moved into the second-season order, once the WGA writers strike is ultimately resolved.