What was on TV? Thurs April 28, 2005

20 years ago, George W. Bush was still trying to privatize social security, and still pretending that the Iraq war was going great. Pick a struggle! Let's see what was on TV.

9:00 Survivor on CBS

10x11 "I'll Show You How Threatening I Am"

This is a pretty solid episode. Everyone knows they need to take out Tom, but Tom knows that everyone knows. He does enough to save himself, and sweetheart Stephanie goes home instead. Everyone wanted to believe that lone Survivor Stephanie could pull off a miracle run, but Tom's hold on key members of Koror, especially Ian and Caryn, was just too powerful. And you can feel Tom closing in on the win. Not just in his gameplay, but in the moment when he wins a letter from home at the auction after declining to bid on any food and get's all emotional over his kid's drawing. Yeah, that's a winner edit right there.

10:00 ER

11x "Ruby Redux" (record Project Greenlight on Bravo)

ER went on for too long. Yet in this episode, I don't mind so much.

One of the key moments in young John Carter's storyline was when he was completely mismanaged the expectations of poor Ruby, whose wife was sick. Eager to recruit her for a surgical trial, he blithely gave Ruby too much hope. It ended very, very badly and Carter learned some hard lessons. Now Carter is about to leave ER, and so Ruby returns. And he still hates Carter's guts.

Since ER has gone through eleven seasons and even more cast changes, most of Carter's co-workers do not remember Ruby. Abby doesn't understand why he's so hesitant to deal with this guy and do his job. Ruby wants to get a surgery; it's clearly not the best decision in this case. But his experience makes him determined to ignore the doctor's advice. Eventually, Carter gets over himself. And using his many years of experience, he makes a much better pitch to Ruby this time around. He zeroes in on what matters to Ruby and explains clearly why forgoing surgery is the best option, but he gives him no false hope. It's some truly great TV doctoring, the kind that only comes after a decade of experience and character development.

Director John Gulager, for all his failures in communication and management, manages to wrap the movie with his vision intact. The producers send a scene to Dimension and they seem pleased. Further up the food chain, producer Chris Moore is freaking out about the impending breakup between Miramax and Disney. But I don't think John Gulager cared; he got everything he wanted out of this experience. It's genuinely inspiring and a true testament to the power of passive aggression. Gulager would just passively refuse to do what the studio wanted until they tore their hair out and let him do it his way. And it worked!

I'm excited to watch them do post-production. I'm a huge fan of Project Greenlight's sister show The Chair, and post-production was when that show got really exciting. But I will also miss all the line producers, assistant directors, and special effects artists who made these episodes fun. These are the unsung heroes of film and television, and it was to see them get a moment in the sun.

What Else Was On

Networks' plans for the first night of May sweeps were ruined when George W. Bush called a primetime press conference the night before. And this wasn't an emergency or anything; he mostly discussed his deeply unpopular plans to privatize social security and the failing Iraq war. All old news.

Networks were used to a week's notice for something like this, and now they were being asked to shuffle their valuable Thursday night schedules, on the first night of sweeps no less? Initially, only ABC, whose Thursday lineup was anemic anyway, agreed to air the conference. NBC eventually followed suit but asked that the White House agreed to start the conference at 8:00 instead of 8:30. Fox was next to agree. Then CBS, who had been winning the night all year, had no choice but to cave. Only ABC aired the full two-hour press conference; the other networks cut George W. Bush off at 9. CBS cut to Survivor, Fox cut to The Simple Life, and NBC cut to The Apprentice. All the shuffling led networks to postpone some of their biggest hits, including The OC on Fox, Will and Grace on NBC, and Without a Trace on CBS.

Seriously, what was the game here? The White House pissed off Hollywood, advertisers, and local TV stations all over the country. They pissed off teens hungry for their OC fix and people who though Survivor still came on at eight and missed an episode. And for what? To tell everyone they were going to privatize social security even though everyone hated that idea. To assure everyone that the war in Iraq was going great despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

I guess I answered my own question! This administration was not known for its wisdom or common sense.

This whole mess meant that CBS pushed Survivor to 9pm and ratings-watchers got to see it face off against The Apprentice. Donald Trump's show had been fading and fading in the ratings since its first season, and this was just one more nail in the coffin. Survivor won in a cakewalk (21 million vs. 12 million in total viewers, 12.6 vs. 8.2 in the demo).

TiVo Status

The TV movies Sucker Free City and Everything You Want, and two episodes of Mystery! 6 hours.

Welcome to May Sweeps!

May sweeps got off to a bumpy start when George W. and his cronies decided to piss everyone off for no reason (just another week for them then). And that mattered, because this was looking like a very exciting sweeps period. CBS and Fox were neck and neck for first place; it was going to comedown to May. It was so close that Fox head of scheduling Preston Beckman wondered if it would come down to a tie. Meanwhile, ABC wasn't too far behind after years in the basement, and NBC was hoping to recover some dignity after tumbling from first to fourth place. Things were even interesting over on the netlets. The WB had beaten UPN year after year, but they too were in a tight race going into sweeps, with UPN running slightly ahead.

The business importance of sweeps (four-week periods in which the TV ratings set ad rates for the next quarter) was somewhat overrated; it was more important to local TV station owners than anyone in Hollywood. But the bragging rights that came from finishing first in the ratings mattered a lot to egomaniacs like Les Moonves, Jeff Zucker, Rupert Murdoch, and Bob Iger, and to the people who worked for them. With the most exciting network TV season in years coming to a close, and with the race for first and even fifth and sixth coming down to the wire, networks went hard. Special events, movies, big twists, special guest stars, weird stunts, it's all here! Here's what the networks had planned for the last four weeks of the TV season.

Fox

Fox managed to squeeze ten hours of American Idol into the sweeps period, including a two-hour finale and a special featuring the worst auditions. Plenty of time for filler and pablum and product placement. Dennis Haysbert returned for the final episodes of 24's comeback season, and the network was hyping up the arc featuring Sela Ward on House. That '70s Show said goodbye to Ashton Kutcher and Topher Grace. Major drama was promised to end a divisive season of The OC. But the big headline was the return of Family Guy, which had been cancelled. Blockbuster DVD sales and strong ratings on Adult Swim convinced Fox to bring it back from the dead; its May return was heavily promoted and hyped with live shows in New York, magazine articles, heavy promotion on the network, and more. The new Seth McFarlane show American Dad would premiere after Family Guy after receiving a special preview in the post-Super Bowl slot earlier in 2005. Fox also tried to juice Friday night ratings with movies Spider-Man, Rush Hour 2, X-Men, and Shallow Hal. Attack of the Clones was also shown to coincide with the release of Revenge of the Sith.

CBS

CBS was long known as the network for geezers, but it stood a real chance at winning the season in the 18-49 demo. Finales for all its cop shows were planned, including the series finale of JAG, a two hour CSI finale directed by Quentin Tarantino, and rumors of a major death on CSI: Miami. The network's signature comedy hit Everybody Loves Raymond was saying goodbye, with major promotion planned on sister networks like Comedy Central and channels carrying the show in syndication, plus TV spots in which CBS personalities like Jeff Probst and Anthony LaPaglia said goodbye to the show. They scheduled a bunch of primetime specials in which Dr. Phil supposedly helped a woman escape an abusive marriage. New winners would be crowned on The Amazing Race and Survivor, and fans of both shows could also watch Boston Rob and Amber's wedding if they wanted. They had two award shows on tap as well in the Daytime Emmys and the ACM Awards. CBS was also the only major broadcast network with a TV movie franchise. On tap for sweeps were the ill-advised Riding the Bus with My Sister starring Rosie O'Donnell and Andie McDowell, a big Elvis miniseries, plus a tie-in Elvis docu-special. They had originally planned a movie about Martha Stewart's legal troubles, but were anxious about running it opposite Desperate Housewives. They decided to save it for fall, when Martha would be in the news thanks to her upcoming Apprentice spinoff. They instead ran Amber Frey: Witness for the Prosecution as counterprogramming for the American Idol and Lost finales.

ABC

ABC wasn't too far behind Fox and CBS in the race for first, and with all the crazy stunts they scheduled for sweeps, I think they had their eyes set on that number one spot. Dream big!

The finales of hot new hits Desperate Housewives, Lost, and Grey's Anatomy of course received heavy promotion. Lost promised to finally open the hatch in its three-part finale, and promos for Desperate Housewives promised a solution to its season-long mystery as well as death and gunplay. The Housewives also graced the May cover of Vanity Fair in a now iconic photoshoot and cover story. Alias fans were anticipating the return of Lena Olin, and promos promised a proposal. ABC scheduled special two-hour episodes of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, all with sobby sob stories. The season finale would feature former Iraq War POW Jessica Lynch, whose rescue had become a big news story, especially when she accused politicians and the media of exaggerating her heroics. ABC would also expand the franchise with the debut of Extreme Makeover: Wedding Edition.

But wait! There's more! Parent company Disney had purchased the Jim Henson Company the year before, so ABC had prepared The Muppets' Wizard of Oz starring Queen Latifah, Ashanti, and Quentin Tarantino. They'd also rushed TV biopic Trump: Unauthorized into production and scheduled it for the penultimate night of sweeps. More movies were on the schedule: the first two Harry Potters, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Sweet Home Alabama ("starring Grey's Anatomy's own Patrick Dempsey and Boston Legal's own Candice Bergen and Rhona Mitra!"). ABC would also air NBA playoff games and a special documenting Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey's USO tour. Then there were the newsmagazines. A special edition of Primetime Live promised to expose the secrets of American Idol, including an affair between Paula Abdul and another contestant, plus an hour all about older women dating younger men (we weren't calling them "cougars" yet). Meanwhile 20/20 promised to uncover the truth behind Christs' resurrection.

NBC

NBC wanted everyone to remember that they were still first among wealthy viewers and that next season they had football. Don't think too much about the whole first to fourth place in one year thing. Because they basically conceded defeat to the other networks there.

Since much of their scripted programming was struggling, they programmed a whole lot of Dateline in May. Dick Wolf delivered a huge Law and Order crossover event featuring guest stars Angela Lansbury, Alfred Molina, Rita Moreno, and Bradley Cooper. Noah Wyle was leaving ER, while ER spinoff Third Watch would have its series finale. There was also a Hercules miniseries starring Sean Astin, Timothy Dalton, and Elizabeth Perkins.

UPN

Star Trek Enterprise would come to an end with a finale featuring several stars of more beloved Trek shows. Veronica Mars would reveal who killed Lilly Kane. The new Jenny McCarthy sitcom Bad Girl's Guide would make its debut, as would a show assembled from of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline's home movies. They were also airing the movie Swordfish for some reason.

WB

It was time for our leads to graduate on Smallville and Everwood, and it was promised that someone would die on the struggling Jack and Bobby. Something called "Mobile Home Disaster" was scheduled after Blue Collar TV. And eight minutes of Batman Begins footage would air during a Smallville episode.

mobile home disaster (after blue collar tv), smallville batman begins preview, someone dies on jack and bobby, graduation on smallville and everwood