Oh no, Katie Couric’s Back and Other Frightening Developments

Dexter Finds It Shocking Too!

     Katie Couric steps in for a vacationing Robin Roberts this week on Good Morning America.  If ABC would add Alvin to Couric and Stephanaopoulos, they could speed up the broadcast recordings and get an album out by Memorial Day.  I’ve never heard anyone say that he or she loves Katie Couric even after her interview/showdown with Sarah Palin. And, in retrospect, don’t most literate people read only or maybe two newspapers and then check out the Internet to stay current?

On the Set of CBS This Morning

     For those missing Robin, turn over to CBS This Morning where Gayle King, Charlie Rose, and Erica Hill present better interviews and display greater depth in examining news stories.  This show deserves to take off.

     NBC just canceled Bent, a romantic comedy with a somewhat dopey premise – how long can a contractor
overhaul a kitchen?  5 episodes?  100 episodes? – but a great cast.  Amanda Peet, sharp, funny, and sexy every time I’ve seen her and especially in Please Give, one of our favorite 2010 releases, stars as a driven lawyer and mother with a husband in jail for insider trading and two suitors.  Matt Lescher plays her sensible doctor date and he’s a straight arrow with a few curves.  There’s a potentially terrific frisson between the two of them and David Walton as the contractor.  

Amanda Peet and David Walton

     Walton is one of those performers where all I can think is WTF – is anyone genuinely creative and powerful in TV watching anything?  He’s been a pinball zinging among a number of failed series and dreary movies, but he has crackerjack timing in a loose, off-hand style, and looks to burn.  WTF – female viewers aren’t turned on by this guy?  There hasn’t been a leading man like this since Ted Danson in Cheers or Warren Beatty in Shampoo or Burt Reynolds in Starting Over.

     Open your eyes, NBC execs, programmers, and P.R. twitterers, and turn around the crappiest major network by re-thinking this show (Jeffrey Tambor and Margo Harshman stand out among an excellent cast, but there are too many characters and, again, the premise is too particular to succeed for long).  You’ve got this generation’s Sam, Diane, and Frasier here and you’re letting them get away.  ABC, you know what to do with a show like this, pick it up and make it fly.  

The Cast of Smash

     Smash is not.  It also isn’t a flop, but it’s not really getting anywhere fast.  My secretary and I keep watching it because we both enjoy musical theater, but neither of us is think it’s working.  Debra Messing, Megan Hilty, Katherine McPhee, and Anjelica Huston shine – notice it’s about the women – but little else does.  Marc Shaiman and Matt Wittman are a wonderful example of a loving, sensible long-term couple in real life, but their songs are middle of the road.  When the director, played by Jack Davenport, revamped a song with an offbeat staging in a cage, the rest of the major characters hated it and that was that.  Big Mistake!  It was the most interesting number in the season to that point.  The writing is bland and it doesn’t focus enough on the sweat and sensuality of creating a show.  To see that type of backstage story, rent All That Jazz by Bob Fosse, one of the great director/choreographers.  For genuine backstage wit, wisdom, and politics see All About Eve – enough said.