On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 11:29 PM Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> A long time ago, I learned that TV producers rarely (if ever) had me in > mind when making new shows. Much as in a singles bar, I just am not in > anybody's target demographic. The original Murphy Brown was hit or miss for > me; I wasn't very political at the time, so most of the topical jokes fell > flat. But when the show was good, it was great. The Harry "I'm the change > guy" Shearer episode still makes me laugh out loud. > > The premiere of the new series wasn't very funny... but it was very > comfortable. That said, I don't know who the producers have in mind with > this series. As I recall, Murphy Brown was extremely popular with liberal > women... so is The View... so why dump on it? > > I was reminded of the Lou Grant series, which was a dramatic series based > on a sitcom character. I think the new Murphy Brown would be better as a > one hour drama (or dramedy... if you must), still able to include humor, > but allowing for more mature or sophisticated subject matter. But had they > done that, it would have been targeted towards me... and that just won't > happen. > Lou Grant wasn't a spinoff of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, it was an hour drama with the title character and actor taken from MTM. Just like L&O:SVU wasn't a spinoff from Homicide, just Richard Belzer's Detective Munch came over. Brian Teta was a producer on Dave's Late Show and became an executive producer on The View when Dave went off the air. He has posted comments in the alt.fan.letterman forum since the show went off the air and I think he is happy to still be working on TV rather than worn to a frazzle like Miles was supposed to be. Pilot shows have to do double duty, explaining who the characters are and how they relate to each other (and in this case what happened to them in the intervening years) as well as set the comedic tone and give viewers an idea of how fun it will be to hang out with these people for a half hour every week. It's going to take an episode or two to see if they will be bringing something new or just basking in nostalgia. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
