WHAT: The Middle
WHO: Patricia Heaton, Neil Flynn, Charlie McDermott, Eden Sher, Atticus Shaffer, Chris Kattan, and exec producers Eileen Heisler and DeAnn Heline
PREMISE: It’s Malcolm in the Middle starring Patricia Heaton instead of Jane Kaczmarek! Liked it. Didn’t love it. (Watch the trailer)
10:39/PST: Scoop! The Janitor will return! Flynn says, “There’s a good chance I’ll pop up on Scrubs [one more time].” He adds that, “The show ended. We were free to go. But then [it] started up again… I’m now playing a different character who has a name from the get-go.”
10:42 am: Stalker alert! Heaton shops at the Pavilions on Vine and Melrose (directions) at least three times a week. She also buys her sweatpants in “the boys department at Target.” Assuming she hits Target after Pavillions, she most likely goes to the West Hollywood store (directions).
WHAT: Hank
WHO: Kelsey Grammer, Melinda McGraw, David Koechner, Sasha Pieterse, Nathan Gamble, and exec producers Tucker Cawley and Mike Clements.
PREMISE: Wall Street tycoon loses everything and is forced to relocate his family back to his hometown and start over. Haven’t seen it but sources confirm to me exclusively that it’s horrible. (Watch the trailer)
11:19 am: The pilot is being reshot. Presumably to make it less horrible.
11:23 am: Grammer’s CEO has a soul! “Hank sacrificed his [golden] parachute to make other people whole,” explains Grammer. “He took the brunt of responsibility for what went wrong with his company.” Now he’s “looking at life and his family in a different way.”
11:25 am: Grammer says the perfect storm of the writers strike and Kevin Reilly joining Fox as entertainment president killed Back to You. (Reilly passed on Back to You while at NBC.) “The guy who didn’t want our show was now running the network,” he says.
11:32 am: Comparing Hank to Frasier, Grammer says, “Frasier loved clutter and conflict. This guy is not comfortable with all that stuff. He’s a simpler man. He loves the American dream. He loves the idea of making something of his life.”
11:35 am: Grammer suggests that the stress brought on by Back to You’s cancellation likely contributed to his 2008 heart attack. “It was a tough year,” he acknowledges, “and maybe it was my time to get retooled a little bit. It ended up being a great thing in my life. I’m stronger, healthier. Things are looking good.”
11:47 am: “I don’t have an aversion to [doing one-hour dramas],” says Grammer. “I just don’t like the schedule. The work schedule is untenable.” (Sounds like someone’s been hanging out with Katherine Heigl!)
11:52 am: Catfight! Grammer, who exec produces Medium, blasts CBS titan Les Moonves for initially rejecting the show, only to spend the next four years trying to copy it a la Ghost Whisperer. Moonves doesn’t score any points for rescuing the show after NBC axed it. “When they said in a press release that Medium would be a nice spinoff of Ghost Whisperer, I thought it was sort of disingenuous to say the least,” says Grammer.
Coming up later today: Panels for FlashForward, V, Cougar Town, and more!
Comments (1-9) of 9 Add your comment
Difference being Heigl was joking around about it.
Ok so where is the article about him being ungrateful? Or does that only happen to actresses who say these things – even when they are joking? Yeah..I thought so too.
So both Tim Roth and Kelsey Grammer can complain about long hours seriously and get away with no reaction from the press, but Katherine Heigl can chat about it and get vilified? Disgraceful.
Pretty bold for CBS calling Medium a Ghost Whisperer spinoff. I have watched and liked both. They are similar but different. And The middle…ahhh! I don’t know. There was another Malcolm in the Middle crossover a few years back that looked better than this… Oliver Beene but that was a period piece so that made it different.
Cant Wait for The Middle
As a producer of a one hour series, all Kelsey is saying is he would not like to act in a one hour based on the schedule. He knows the schedule and prefers the more sane hours of working on a multi-cam series. The difference with Katherine is EVERYONE especially crew on the one-hour shows work just as long of hours (if not more) and are paid far less than Ms Heigl. She should go work on multi-cam if she wants a 30 hour work week.
Can we please let this Heigl thing die. Her name has been brought up on every blog on here by someone defending her honor. I don’t get why anyone cares??????
Mr. Grammer needn’t compare Medium to Ghost Whisperer, as Medium is by far the better show; they aren’t remotely similar in my book, any more than Gilligan’s Island is similar to Lost. Medium is by far the more creative, more mature, and better written show than the silliness GW has become.
In the interest of journalistic integrity, maybe Michael Ausiello should watch the Hank pilot himself before condemning it. Entertainment reporting has sunk to a new low for laziness.