Todd Williamson/INVISION/AP - From left, Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Keith Urban and Nicki Minaj are judges on Fox’s “American Idol.”
She noted that she “started off in the streets” and that this is as it should be for a hip-hop artist.
Guess what? Carey jumped in and said she, too, “never would have wanted to do this type of show — no offense to the show,” and that she started out sleeping on the floor of the studio. And that she owned only two dresses — one black and one pink.
More from Lisa de Moraes
Pulitzer Prize winner, Peabody recipient, Medal of Freedom honoree -- Lisa de Moraes is none of these, but she is an authority on the bad direction, over-acting, and muddled plot lines being played out in the TV industry's executive suites.
TV’s latest serial killers
There have been more shows on TV that are more violent than Fox’s new serial-killer drama “The Following,” Fox Entertainment Chairman Kevin Reilly told TV critics Tuesday. “Clearly, he said, “there is an appetite — people like these things,”
The network has no plans to tinker with the eagerly anticipated stomach-churner in the wake of last month’s killing of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., and other recent acts of real-life violence, Reilly told TV critics attending the press tour.
In the series from Kevin Williamson, Kevin Bacon stars as a former FBI agent brought back to track down a serial killer (James Purefoy) who has created a cult of killers around him.
In the first episode, a woman commits suicide by stabbing herself in the eye and piercing her skull with an ice pick; in another, a man is set on fire at a coffee stand.
Reilly noted last season’s No. 1-scripted TV series was the ghoulish AMC zombie drama, “The Walking Dead.”
“When you put on a thriller, you have to compete at that level. . . . We must match the intensity; otherwise, we’ll pale in comparison,” Reilly told critics, who’d asked him about the role of TV violence in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy.
“Before there was cable, Fox was cable,” Reilly waxed nostalgically, adding that it’s his goal, with such shows as “The Following,” to “get some of the Fox back in Fox.”
The new series, debuting Jan. 21, “adheres to broadcast standards,” Reilly said.
“If you put this [series] through the filter of broadcast standards, there’s nothing on that show we even had to fight over,” Reilly said. “I didn’t call [Fox’s Standards and Practices Department] and say, ‘Buckle up — this one’s pushing the boundaries.’ ”
Williamson said his new show is “not for the faint of heart.”
“It’s definitely — there’s some moments it’s squeamish,” he said. “You have to kind of look away. But it’s not the sum of the show.”
“There’s also drama and emotion and a lot of other things running through it. I take it episode by episode. . . . Some episodes, I find: Oh, wow, a lot of people died this week. Okay. So then when I sit down to write, no one dies the next week.”
Williamson said he and his writers were “traumatized” by the Sandy Hook shootings.
“So when I take pen to paper, there is a reaction to it and it sort of finds its way into what I do,” he said.
Asked how it will find its way into his work on the show, he answered: “I don’t know. We’ll find out. It just happened.”
It trivializes the issue to link the deaths at Sandy Hook to television — and to broadcast television, in particular — Reilly scolded, adding that “you can’t draw a direct linkage.”
“We have an FCC license and we take that seriously,” said Reilly, adding that Fox is open to an industrywide discussion about violent content.
But he said: “Everyone is looking for a scapegoat or wanting to put a finger on one thing that’s the problem. . . . We are just in an age of complex issues. It’s no one simple thing.”
Meanwhile, CBS, which has yet to make its presentations at the tour, should be steeling itself for questions.
Two days before Reilly spoke to the critics, NBC Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt defended his new serial-killer drama, “Hannibal,” saying he thought that his other serial-killer drama, “Dexter” (Greenblatt used to head programming at Showtime) was not as violent as CBS’s “Criminal Minds.”
To read more from Winter TV Press Tour 2013, go to washingtonpost.com/tvblog.
TV highlights: NBC’s ‘Hannibal’ wraps up its first season, and ‘Wilfred’ returns on FX.
1371685411000A trio of shows return to TV Land; plus, Heather Locklear joins TNT’s ‘Franklin & Bash.’
1371595241000
TV REVIEW | Matt Groening’s sharp satire about a junked-out Tomorrowland goes into final orbit.
1371585720000
TV REVIEWS | A docu-series drills down for more crude. Also: On ‘Our America,’ an ex-gay mea culpa.
1371510480000
TV highlights for June 18: “The Voice” finale and the “Blood and Oil” premiere on Discovery.
1371509867000CNN seeks to revamp its morning news show with “New Day,” broadcast live from New York.
1371420218000Giuliana Rancic and Nick Jonas host the 2013 Miss USA Competition live from Las Vegas on Sunday.
1371251281000Television highlights.
1371163660000
At the 2013 Cable Show in D.C., a trio of showrunners explain why it's easier to make TV for the cable world than broadcast
1371091269000“Save Me” ends its first and only season while docu-series “House of Curves” premieres.
1371079438000
The pageant co-host says the contestants are proud to be in bikinis.
1370986331000‘Pretty Little Liars’ returns and a TLC 2012 special turns into docu-series.
1370902522000
TV REVIEWS | A gripping HBO doc looks at Russia’s vicious culture wars. Also, “Vice” crew visits North Korea.
1370816100000The Post Most: EntertainmentMost-viewed stories,videos, and galleries in the past two hours
Loading...
Comments