Videoage International March/April 2021

12 March/April 2021 V I D E O A G E TV Critics Show T he U.S. Television Critics Association (TCA) Winter Press Tour was a much quieter affair this year. From January 26, 2021 to March 3, a slew of virtual panels went live for networks and streaming platforms, mostly mid-season network updates with trailers and premiere dates, question-and-answer ses- sions with talent and showrunners, and other programming items. The TCA Winter Press Tour is usually held in-person at the Langham Huntington hotel in Pasadena, California. The event brings together invited TCA members, journalists, and press for a defined two-week schedule. The event is one of two annual affairs put on by the U.S. association, the second being the summer tour. The official tour began on January 26 with the NBC TV network introducing a trio of new series — Debris, Kenan , and Young Rock — but a couple of ad-hoc single-day presentations, including a CW TV network session for Walker , preceded this year’s opening by a few days. The list of “official” TV network outlets on the tour included NBC, CBS, The CW, and ABC, as well as PBS. Meanwhile, the CTAM (Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing) portion of the tour, which was held primarily in the middle of February, included updates from AMC Networks, Apple TV+, NBCU’s Peacock, and WarnerMedia’s HBO and HBO Max, among others. By now, the press critics, like so many people globally, have acclimated to Zoom events, and put up with the usual frustrating glitches. While critics had once complained about being sequestered in a hotel for so long during press tours, there’s a thought that that complaining will cease in the future and that that sort of “normalcy” can’t come soon enough. During the CBS presentation on January 27, Kelly Kahl, president, CBS Entertainment, admitted that 2020 was “pretty crappy,” but revealed that everyone had learned a lot. “Who knew we, or anyone, could successfully operate a broadcast network fromhome?” he asked. He was amazed that they could even put on a successful Upfront presentation “without 3,000 people at Carnegie Hall.” Kahl promised “more originals for the second half of the year,” and touched on the “enormous hurdles, both external and internal, that we needed to jump over to get these shows back into production and back on the air.” CBS, according to Kahl, is continuing to look for shows that appeal to its core viewers, “as well as broadening the aperture of what CBS shows can be,” in what was undoubtedly a nod toward competition from streamers. Thom Sherman, EVP Programming for the net, said that CBS was “deep into the development of new projects. We recently filmed some pilots that were paused from last season due to the COVID production shutdown, but we’ll also film some new ones. We are evaluating scripts as we speak… In a break from old models, we might even order some projects straight to series like we did with The Equalizer and Clarice .” The latter is considered by Kahl to be a “classic CBS drama.” In addition to the aforementioned two series, the network also presented Tough as Nails . On January 26, NBC opted not to hold an executive session, preferring instead to showcase talent from new shows. Tuesday, February 2, saw the arrival of PBS, which skipped a day (Wednesday), allowing journalists to make the most of the Golden Globe Award announcements, before rounding out the week on Thursday and Friday. Paula Kerger, president/CEO of PBS, reminded everyone that the PBS network of 335 member stations had helped its viewers “navigate the twists and turns of 2020, from our special programming to keep people informed about the pandemic to our nationwide effort to support children and educators during school closures.” Suggesting that PBS was also “America’s home for documentaries,” Kerger revealed that the public broadcaster was “focused on sharing important and often untold stories, the kind of stories that open hearts and expand minds,” before announcing a revelatory portrait of The Joy Luck Club author via Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir, and a look at the life of dancer/ choreographer Twyla Tharp in Twyla Moves, both of which will be under the American Masters umbrella during this coming season. Of course, hardly any worthy PBS presentation can resist a Ken Burns mention, and did so for his latest project, Hemingway , about the late author. As an incentive to other producers and directors currently outside the PBS ring, the pubcaster is putting out an open call “for content creators of diverse backgrounds” to submit long- and short- form films and Kerger promised to “provide funding for the top entries.” Notably absent from the latter part of the TCA Winter Press Tour were sessions with channel and network executives. PBS and CBS execs showed up for the early part of the tour, but no one from NBC, ABC, FOX, or The CW Zoomed in later on. However, outlets such as CuriosityStream, Entertainment Studios, YouTube, and Hallmark/ Crown Media did step up to the executive plate. That said, no one had anything of earth- shattering interest to say, though Byron Allen, the former comedian and TV host, who is the founder, chairman, and chief exec of Entertainment Stu- dios, did have a fascinating tale to weave. The entity owns the Weather Channel, as well as 65 shows airing on 10 networks and streaming services. Allen revealed that the 21-year journey to the present was not an easy one. His home went “in and out of foreclosure probably 14 times.” Early on in his journey, he had about 50 employees to support; today he has close to 1,400. Another TCA panelist, singer Demi Lovato, was also ready to reveal personal history. She’s the subject of a four-part documentary miniseries on YouTube, Demi Lovato: Dancing With the Devil , which will cover her personal ups and down. The TCA debut for Peacock (the NBC streaming service), mirrored the bird itself with a panel of news and sports presenters (Gadi Schwartz, Mehdi Hasan, Zerlina Maxwell, Michael Smith, and Michael Holley) squawking, for no apparent reason, about ATMs, whether a car was needed in New York, and who amongst them had a passport or driver’s license — not what anyone wants at a press Q&A for a new outlet! Delicately dancing over the Hallmark “kissing brides” boycott and subsequent criticism from late 2019 and early 2020, Wonya Lucas, president and CEO of Crown Media Family Networks, explained that the expansion “in our programming is nothing short of seismic. The significant achievements made in the D&I (Diversity & Inclusion) space in 2020 laid the groundwork for us to branch out in our storytelling to approach the complexity of what it means to more broadly represent the human condition.” Lucas also pointed out that Hallmark will “deliver 66 original movies, including a slate of 40 new original holiday movies, across the Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.” That’s in addition to new seasons of the channel’s scripted series When Calls the Heart, Good Witch , and Chesapeake Shores . Marvel Studios’ first TCA presentation was hosted by its president and chief creative officer Kevin Feige. He revealed that development of the brand’s TV shows would follow “the way we’re developing our movies. In other words, when we start with a movie, we hope there’s a part two. We hope there’s a part three. But we aren’t factoring that into the part one. We are trying to make something that hooks people enough and that people will enjoy enough...and that they want to see the story continue. So that is the way we’re proceeding on television as well.” (By Mike Reynolds in Los Angeles, with contributions from Luis Polanco in New York City) . TCA Found Out That U.S. TV Nets Can Be Run From Home