At Parade, I spoke with Adelaide Kane about her new CW period drama, Reign. She tells me that the show’s critics need to get over themselves:
I find it incredibly frustrating that people harp on the fact that we’re not historically accurate. We’re not trying to make a documentary; it’s supposed to be fun! It’s not the History Channel!
Reign‘s Adelaide Kane Takes on Mary, Queen of Scots: ‘It’s Fun — Not the History Channel!’
It’s been a rough year for Will Arnett, whose last show, Up All Night, was imploding just as his marriage to Amy Poehler was doing the same. But he’s bounced back with a new CBS sitcom, The Millers. And as he tells me in this Daily Beast profile, he couldn’t be happier:
“I’m really, really lucky,” says Arnett, 43. “The opportunity to make a really funny multicam with these people, on CBS, at this time in my life after having a few years of crushing schedules, on a schedule that’s a lot more civilized where I can take my kids to school every day, that is a fucking godsend. I have nothing to complain about.”
Arnett talks about the past, present and future of Arrested Development (and defends Season 4), gives some insight into what happened to Up All Night and also talks about a pair of upcoming films that should make him World’s Coolest Dad to his two sons. Millers creator Greg Garcia and his costar Margo Martindale also talk about him.
Will Arnett on ‘The Millers,’ ‘Arrested Development’ and More
After I’d recovered from last night’s riveting Breaking Bad series finale, I finished up this Quartz story about the daunting task ahead of AMC:
But despite the stellar ratings, AMC is now in the same position HBO found itself after The Sopranos finale aired back in 2007. With no other clear-cut heirs to Tony Soprano’s throne, the network stumbled for a couple years (with poorly-received shows such as John From Cincinnati, Hung and How to Make it in America) before finally bouncing back with hits such as Game of Thrones and critically-acclaimed series such as Girls, Veep, Boardwalk Empire and The Newsroom.
With Breaking Bad now completed and its other media darling, Mad Men, about to start its final season (more on that later), AMC has hit a similar run of bad luck.
I have my concerns about AMC’s “everything old is new again” approach to its programming slate. We’ll have to see if they can avoid HBO’s post-Sopranos funk.
Now that ‘Breaking Bad’ is over, AMC looks to break good with another show
I’ve been saying for years that there’s too many great shows on TV, but I can’t remember one night that has been packed with so many can’t-miss programs before: there’s the series finale of Breaking Bad, the season premieres of Homeland and The Good Wife, the series premiere of fall’s best new drama and much more. It’s DVRmageddon, and at The Daily Beast, I explain the best way to make it through the night and watch everything you need to see:
Did you have angst last Sunday night deciding whether to watch the Emmys, Breaking Bad or the Dexter series finale? Well, that was just a warm-up for the main event, this Sunday at 9 p.m.: DVR-maggedon, when many of fall’s most ravenously anticipated episodes—including the Breaking Bad series finale, the Homeland and Good Wife season premieres, and the debut of fall’s best new drama—air simultaneously. How can anyone possibly navigate that murderer’s row of programs? We’ve crunched the numbers, seen (almost all) of the episodes in question, and devised this handy guide to ensure you catch every show worth seeing on Sept. 29—in time to deconstruct them with your friends and coworkers on Monday.
Good luck!
‘Breaking Bad’ Finale, ‘Homeland’ Premiere: How to Survive DVRmageddon
I first met James Wolk at a Fox event held the summer before Lone Star aired its season premiere one Monday, and its series finale the following Monday. (RIP, Lone Star!) From Lone Star to Political Animals, he keeps ending up in these terrific shows that don’t make it to Season 2 (through no fault of his own).
I profiled him for The Daily Beast before the debut of his new CBS advertising agency comedy The Crazy Ones, where even star Robin Williams agrees that Wolk steals the show right out from under him:
“Oh, he can go more than toe-to-toe, he leads the way,” says Williams. “He kicked ass. Literally, I was going, ‘Damn! I’ve got to catch up!’ Which was wonderful, because it was very freeing to know that you’ve got backup. You’ve got a riff, and somebody is just right along there with you.”
In addition to Williams, I also spoke to the show’s creator, David E. Kelley, and director/executive producer Jason Winer about Wolk. And Wolk himself reflects on his strange journey in Hollywood, and bouncing back after Lone Star’s crushing failure.
James Wolk on ‘The Crazy Ones,’ ‘Mad Men,’ ‘Lone Star’ and More
One day after making my Quartz debut, I’m back with this look at the new ABC series Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, which has the daunting task of trying to save Disney’s slumping ABC. As I wrote,
ABC hopes that S.H.I.E.L.D. will rescue the beleaguered network from its ratings doldrums—for the past two seasons, it’s been last place in the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demographic among the four broadcast networks—and give it a legitimate chance to finally expand beyond the network’s female-skewing programming like Scandal, Revenge and Grey’s Anatomy.
I was also able to share some insight from star Clark Gregg and executive producer Jeph Loeb that I had picked up at TCA summer press tour. ABC and Marvel have a tough road ahead of them, but I wouldn’t bet against the company that racked up $1.51 billion worldwide with The Avengers.
Marvel’s next mission: conquer primetime television, and save Disney’s ABC Network
Shortly after I left People, my friend Mitra Kalita reached out to me about contributing to Quartz, Atlantic Media’s global business site, where she works as Ideas Editor. After 16 years at People, it took me a some time to wrap my brain around how to write about TV for Quartz’s readers. But today I made my Quartz debut, with this take on last night’s Emmys, and how Netflix was one of the night’s biggest winners, even though it didn’t take home many trophies:
No, the political drama didn’t receive best drama or best actor for star Kevin Spacey, as many had predicted. But the awards it did win—best director for David Fincher, and two other technical awards (for casting and cinematography) at last week’s Creative Arts Emmy ceremony—legitimized the streaming video service in the same way that early Emmy wins once did for then-interlopers HBO, AMC and FX.
I really enjoyed the challenge of thinking about TV — and an event covered by hundreds of outlets and watched by millions — in a unique way, and I look forward to doing a lot of this kind of writing for Quartz in the days and weeks to come!
The biggest winners at this year’s Emmys didn’t win the biggest awards
While I usually only link to my own stories, I couldn’t help highlighting this PunditTracker blog post, which looked at how I and 21 other Emmy pundits did in our predictions. The verdict?
While none of us fared exceptionally well, I’m relieved to have done better than most, placing fifth. And I was the only one who correctly picked Ellen Burstyn for best supporting actress in a movie/miniseries.
Before tonight’s Emmys, I went through 25 categories and picked the likely winners for The Daily Beast, along with the nominees I wish would actually take home the trophy.
Let’s meet back here tomorrow and find out how well (or how horribly) I did!
As he prepared to emcee the Emmys, awards show host extraordinaire spoke with me for this Daily Beast story about his best (and worst) hosting moments from over the years. One of his favorites was the magical opening number to this year’s Tonys:
I have watched a lot of You Tube performances of Harry Blackstone Jr. and his unfortunate halftime show at the Orange Bowl [in 1987] where all the tricks were exposed and everything went terribly wrong. It’s one thing to say, “Sure, I’ll do a magic trick, I’ll be in this box and I’ll reappear over here … I know how to do it,” but then doing it live, you can’t redo it. If you screw it up, everyone knows not only how it was done but it becomes its own disaster footage. So I was more wrought with nerves about that than almost anything in that number.
I don’t think he’ll do any magic tricks at the Emmys, but you never know!