BC Beat

There were indeed multiple personalities on the “United States of Tara” panel, the show about a wife and mother openly living with dissociative identity disorder. The new Showtime series stars Toni Collette, John Corbett, Rosemarie Dewitt and executive producers Diablo Cody and Alexa Junge were among the group at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. Steven Spielberg, who originated the show’s concept, opened the presentation.

Here are the highlights.

Who is the creator of the series?

Diablo Cody: Original the idea came from Stev...Read More

Fox offered its luncheon panel at the TCA press tour Tuesday on behalf new animated sitcom Sit Down, Shut Up, about a high school faculty in a small Florida fishing town. TCA members lunched on mac ‘n’ cheese, chocolate milk and other school-lunch fare on cafeteria trays in honor of the show premiering on April 19. (Click here for complete TCA coverage.)

But the conversation turned continually back to canceled cult Fox comedy Arrested Development, from much the same auspices—executive producer Mitchell Hurwitz, and cast members Jason Bateman and Will Arnett.

It’s understandable. The lunch room was essentially the original Arrested Development fan club. By all accounts, the show did not grab a large audience, but it had the critics’ full attention. It was on...Read More

Critics at TCA’s American Idol panel wasted no time asking the question on every Idol fan’s mind as the show returns tonight: When will Paula Abdul and new judge Kara DioGuardi throw down? (Click here for complete TCA coverage.)

For her part, DioGuardi said her role is not to “take care of Paula,” as one critic suggested. “I was hired to give my opinions after working with best in the music market and internationally,” she said. “I’m opinionated, feisty and strong. I think you’re gonna see that this year.”

Opinionated? Feisty? Good signs!

But Paula dismissed any tension, dashing any hopes for a primetime catfight.

“I was never quoted saying I had any problems hiring Kara,” Abdul said. “She was a strange...Read More

At this morning’s Television Critics Association panel for Fox’s Lie To Me, actor Tim Roth and others discussed how the show—in which Roth essentially plays a human lie detector—will distinguish itself from CBS’ hit procedural The Mentalist. (Click here for complete TCA coverage.)

Roth: “I haven’t seen The Mentalist. The proof’s in the pudding. I’ve heard about it because these guys talk about it. We are what we are. We’re our own thing. I don’t think we need to get too worried about it.”

Brendan Hines (Actor): Our show is based in actual science where as The Mentalist is more of a scam. And they deal with murder every week. We go more places, whether domestic drama or political power. It...Read More

Don’t call it a comeback: Ugly George never really went away. You might say he’s just between platforms.

It’s been more than 30 years since George Urban hit the streets of New York City—outfitted in a silver lamé singlet and a bulky backpack with a shoulder-mounted camera rig that looked like it was swiped from a storage closet at NASA—and began documenting his attempts to pick up chicks and persuade them to undress.

His adventures, which included many successful conquests, appeared on Manhattan Cable in the late 70s and early 80s as ...Read More

Like the rest of you I just endured a week of “Stormwatch ‘08” and this time, rather than simply being bothered by how pointless the video footage was, I did the constructive thing and tried to think of some new or at least money saving ideas to cover massive snowstorms.

Here are the ones I saw on Stormwatch—again—that I think should be retired:

Talking to one disgruntled and one still-cheerful passenger at the snowed-in airport

• Going to a hardware store to document the lack of snow shovels
• Leaning into a car going nowhere and asking how bad the road conditions are
• Interviewing Christmas shoppers while the equivalent of a jet turbine blows snow in their faces.
• Skipping the middleman and being the station’s snow guinea pig, but this time, you

That the Iraq War is no longer a high priority for TV news divisions is obvious -- if not merely in the amount of personnel and program minutes dedicated to a conflict that still involves 130,000 U.S. troops, then in how much network executives are willing to talk about their coverage on the record.

On the evening newscasts at ABC, CBS and NBC, where the bulk of the broadcast networks’ Iraq coverage is placed, program minutes dedicated to Iraq seem commensurate with the military death toll: 1,888 minutes in 2007 and just over 400 minutes in 2008, according to news analyst Andrew Tyndall. The U.S military sustained 303 casualties in 2008, according to GlobalSecurity.org. That is less than half the yearly casualties of 2004 through 2007, which was the deadliest year on record with nearly...Read More

Have you heard of Mae Laborde? No? Well, you’ve probably seen her, at least if you have been watching Fox or cable sibling FX.

 Laborde may be best known for her hilarious take on the DTV transition for a sketch on Talkshow with Spike Feresten that went viral (below), but the 98(!) year old actress has been appearing all over the tube.

 As the AP reports, Mae played Vanna White 40 years in the future on MadTV and came ...Read More

By Claire Atkinson, Business Editor, B&C

NBC Universal's Jeff Zucker was pretty candid in his "network-model-is-broken" interviews last week. The only thing lacking were the statistics to show how bad things have got.

This week General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt delivered those cold hard figures in the annual outlook investor meeting at 30 Rock, from Saturday Night Live's Studio 8-H.

Immelt's presentation featured a stunning PowerPoint slide. Earnings at the broadcast unit—which includes the stations as well as the network—were just $400 million...Read More

The second season premiere of Flight of the Conchords made its debut on Funny or Die, well in advance of its January 18 premiere on HBO. By launching it a month early online, HBO can build buzz around the show, as well as some other upcoming properties.

 If you check out the premiere episode (embedded below for your enjoyment, you can also go here) you will see that it also includes a sneak preview of the upcoming HBO comedy, Eastbound & Down.

The executive producers of Eastbound & Down? Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, who also happen to be involved, in wait for it… Funny or Die.