A daily chronicle of creativity in film, TV, music, arts, and entertainment, produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from November 2014 – March 2020. Host John Horn leads the conversation, accompanied by the nation's most plugged-in cultural journalists.
Stephen Colbert was one highlight of the dog and pony show that is TCA’s — that’s the Television Critics Association’s Summer press tour that’s been happening in Beverly Hills these last couple of weeks.
At this twice-annual conference, broadcast and cable networks, streaming platforms and everything in between present what they’ve got in the works.
Joe Adalian, the West Coast Editor of Vulture.com, joined us on The Frame to talk about the increasing importance of name-brand showrunners, the already-maligned comedy "Dr. Ken," and if there's any more news about Stephen Colbert's version of "The Late Show."
At these TCA's, it felt like there was a lot of emphasis on preexisting franchises, either shows or showrunners.
It was a weak year in terms of programming, but in terms of the shows that were there, you saw the shows that have been getting the most attention this season which had some sort of brand attachments. "The Muppets" on ABC got a lot of attention — they had a fake little stunt with Kermit and Ms. Piggy breaking up, which is something that was weeks-old but engineered for TCA, and people took that seriously.
You also had "Supergirl" on CBS, which is a show based on the movie "Limitless," and Shonda Rhimes was the big attraction of ABC's day, even though she's not debuting anything new yet. Increasingly, the networks need to have some sort of big brand to stand out.
Speaking of big brands, Stephen Colbert made an appearance to talk, maybe a bit vaguely, about his new CBS show. What did we learn about it?
I don't think it was vague at all. He didn't lay out a whole bunch of specifics, but he put on a commanding performance. This was a guy who took every question, no matter how dumb, and seemed to try to address it in an intelligent way, and I think we can expect a really grown-up talk show, one that moves away from the viral video frenzy of recent years and towards an emphasis on really good, interesting interviews with interesting people.
He said he's going to try to have a range of people on, not just the celebrities of the moment, but also authors and politicians, which is borne out by his choice to have Jeb Bush on his first show. He'll also have George Clooney, and Kendrick Lamar will be around too, so I think he's going to bring scintillating, intelligent talk back to late-night.
Finally, as is often the case, a network will show a show or series that doesn't quite land with the critics. Were there any new series that landed with a thud this year?
The one show that people can't seem to believe made it to air was ABC's "Dr. Ken" with Ken Jeong. It feels like a throwback to the worst kind of '90s sitcoms, and even though he's a talent that people have a lot of admiration and fondness for, the show itself just seems like a mess.