You have just read a condensed version of the news from this year’s Television Critics Association convention, which is unfolding at this very minute in Pasadena, Calif. The TCA, as industry insiders call it, is a biannual presentation made by the television networks to the poor folks who spend their days (and nights) watching television and writing about it for a living. It’s a useful, if exhausting, tour through the endless hours of broadcasting that will soon knit themselves into the fall TV schedule. We see the pilots, hear the producers discuss their work, even party with the stars hoping to become the next Seinfeld. We just have to be careful not to believe everything we hear, or see.
You can’t really blame the networks for stretching their accomplishments to mini-series-size proportions. After all, TV is a business, and the TCA is prime time for selling their wares to the people who can help make or break a new program. Considering the millions of dollars invested in any new TV offering, it’s amazing that the networks allow us to kick the tires of their shows as much as they do at TCA. The cast and producers of every new program sit for 45 minutes on stage in front of a room of 200 or so ravenous reporters, who rarely miss an opportunity deflate those legendary Hollywood egos: How bad did it hurt to lose “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to lowly UPN? Did you provide condoms to the people on your reality show? Why in the world would Richard Dreyfuss deign to star in a CBS drama? And are you wearing underwear, Britney? More often than not, the object of the question actually gives an answer-though Miss Spears, who is appearing in an upcoming HBO music special, did not.
Which is not to say that TCA is an open sewer of embarrassing questions asked by impertinent professional couch potatoes. We reporters are usually quite respectful. We even come up with questions for shows that everyone in the room knows will never survive more than five episodes-no easy task, I assure you. In fact, we tend to be gentler with those poor folks, seeing how most of them will never be heard from again. Besides, the reporters aren’t nearly as nasty to the TV folks as the TV folks are to each other. Many of the highlights of each TCA come when the executives from one network start to shoot poisoned arrows at one another. UPN and the WB, the two mini-networks that seem to be caught in a duel to the death, got the fireworks started early this year. Referring to the fact that UPN has acquired the WB shows “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Roswell,” a WB public-relations executive came up with a new nickname for UPN-the Used-Parts Network. The next day, a UPN exec responded by saying that, considering the quality of the WB’s new lineup of sitcoms, perhaps it should hire the network’s PR staff to punch up of the network’s comedies. The reporters would never dare say stuff like that.
Not because we wouldn’t want to, but because we’d be afraid to. One of the most ingenious aspects of TCA is that the networks actually allow us pasty-faced journalists to rub elbows with their stars and wannabe stars at parties every night. It is a well-known tenet of entertainment journalism that it’s much easier to be mean to someone you’re never going to meet. By allowing us to come face-to-face with the performers at some posh restaurant or glamorous studio location, we start to feel for these actors as people, no matter how bad their show (or, for that matter, their party outfit). This can be dangerous on a number of fronts. At this year’s WB party-held on the Warner Bros. lot, just yards away from the famous “Friends” fountain-dozens of journalists made complete fools of themselves when “Gilmore Girls” star Lauren Graham arrived wearing a revealing black blouse and sexy hip-huggers. How are these guys (and they were all male reporters) supposed to remain objective about Graham’s show now that they’ve literally drooled on her? Then again, after getting up close and personal with her cleavage, they probably no longer care.
On the other hand, you have to be careful about getting too close to some stars. At last year’s ABC party, one of the network PR people came running up to me to ask if I’d be willing to talk to Jon Cryer, who was costarring in a new show called “The Trouble with Normal.” Seeing how I had recently written a nasty little piece about Cryer’s numerous TV flops-I was so bitchy that Cryer’s own father wrote me an angry letter-I didn’t think it would be a good idea to meet him. But before I could dash away to the bar, the flack was back, with Cryer in hand. He was actually very gracious about the whole thing. He even admitted that the piece was kind of funny. And I resolved at that moment never to write another mean word about Jon Cryer’s work ever again.
