She's got 'Game'

At left: Mara Brock Akil at TV critics' tour this summer.

Like Joan Clayton, the flawed, ambitious TV heroine she created, Mara Brock Akil knows about wanting something so badly that you risk making a fool of yourself.

It was 1992 and the Raytown South graduate had a journalism degree in hand from one of the nation’s finest schools. She could go to any newspaper and soon have a comfortable life. Instead, she took a job as a manager at the Gap. 

“I chose not to go pursue journalism because I thought it was more important for me to stay hungry,” Akil said this summer while promoting “Girlfriends,” the show she created for UPN. It begins its seventh season Sunday on a new network, the CW (7 p.m. CT Sunday).

To non-fans, “Girlfriends” may sound like just another of those “urban” sitcoms that were staples of the old UPN and WB networks, better known for the stars whose careers they launched (Jamie Foxx, Steve Harvey) than for producing moments of memorable TV. 

But that’s never been the case with “Girlfriends,” a show that — long before “Grey’s Anatomy” was a twinkling in Shonda Rhimes’s eye — dared to depict the turbulent love lives of hard-working, intelligent women living in America today.

TV Barn's TV Picks for this weekend

I'm away, so I can't post TV Barn's TV Picks here on Friday morning.  Instead, look for them at Yahoo! TV, where they're also posted.

Fox chief: We're the real chicken-noodle network

Roger Ailes sure is making headlines this week. Besides gearing up for the 10th anniversary of Fox News Channel, which he took from obscurity to giant-killer in half that time, Ailes unmildly defended his "mild-mannered" reporter, Chris Wallace, over that dustup with President Clinton, saying that an assault on Wallace is an assault on all journalists.

Leaving aside whether a $14,000-a-year camera-slinging reporter in Lubbock feels a sense of solidarity with Mike Wallace's privileged kid, both of these stories are more like pseudo-news. Nothing changes because they happened. But what's going on between Ailes and the cable companies who carry Fox News -- now that's news. 

"Discovery Atlas" dazzles, fizzles

You certainly can't say that the Discovery Channel's spendy, visually striking, made-for-high-definition travelogue “Discovery Atlas” looks like basic cable. Five years in the making, this country-by-country tour of the globe uses just about every camera shot imaginable -- from the ever-trendy satellite views to intensely gorgeous close-ups -- in order to convey the grandeur and significance of just living on planet Earth, whether one is a humble farmer, a world-class athlete, a monk or a nutty billionaire.

The first four installments begin with “Discovery Atlas: China Revealed” at 8 p.m. CT Sunday night, simulcasting on Discovery HD for those of you with hi-def TVs. In all, 30 two-hour movies will be produced for “Atlas,” making it “the most ambitious entirely-HD project ever made,” in the immodest words of Discovery chief and former BBC executive, Jane Root.

But after watching this week's film and previewing next week's on Italy, I found myself asking the Peggy Lee question, “Is that all there is?”

TV Barn's TV Picks for Sept. 28

Which TV-land hall-of-famer played the wacky maid on the before-its-time sit-bomb "That's My Bush"?

A) Ann B. Davis
B) Inga Swenson
C) Marcia Wallace
D) Marla Gibbs
E) Polly Holliday

Bye, bye, OLN

There are two ways to look at OLN's decision to rebrand itself as "Versus," starting this week.

1. The channel was called Outdoor Life Network, a plainly absurd name for a channel that carries bull riding and, as I write this, "championship darts," which are indoor (")sports(").  OLN's name recognition is low, and with U.S. cycling gone from hot to cold faster than you can say Lance Armstrong, no one really cares if it changes its name right now anyway. The head of the network said Versus "is immediate shorthand for competition and has a range that can suit everything from stick and ball sports, to bull riding, to field sports." (Previous case studies: WE, Hallmark, Spike.)

2. It hasn't been called Outdoor Life for years. The channel rebranded as OLN long ago and at least it is recognizable. "Versus" -- what the hell's that? It's a dropped shoe waiting for the other shoe to drop. Comcast would have been better off just keeping the letters instead of starting back at zero. (Previous case studies: ESPN, GSN, TLC.)

It's right over there....

In case you missed it, I've started a linkroll in the sidebar to stories I'm reading on other sites.  Saves me the effort of having to full-on blog about it.  The linkroll is courtesy of del.icio.us, a service that's been around for years but of course, which I'm only discovering now.

Those of you who missed the TV Barn Ticker can rejoice.  Those of you who didn't ... can rejoice anyway.  I won't mind.

TV Barn's TV Picks for Sept. 27

Which character sings on the "My Name Is Earl" soundtrack album?

A) Crabman
B) Joy
C) Nescobar-A-Lop-Lop
D) Patty the Daytime Hooker
E) Willie the One-Eyed Mailman

Fall preview, continued

Download aaron0925.mp3

The "Family Guy" viral mishap: Blame Canada!

It all started on Sunday when someone posted a clip from "Family Guy" to YouTube -- an occurrence, I soon discovered, that happens about 100 times a day. This one was a 28-second clip (below) where a character drops the F bomb.  The poster leaves this note:

I couldnt believe it when i heard it the f word on family guy. Someones in trouble

Monday morning, Lew Irwin's "Studio Briefing" sent the alert to thousands of readers, who (since only a fraction of them actually watch or TiVo the Fox network) took it as gospel: Some said "f----ing" on the "Family Guy." Paul Harris and I even yakked about it for a couple of minutes on Monday.

But it's not true.  As alert TV Barn posters who did watch Fox that night noted, the scene was bleeped. In the U.S. of A., that is.

The first tipoff that something was screwy was the fact, as Paul and I noted, that "Family Guy" is not a live broadcast. In fact, like just about all cartoons not named "South Park," it's produced months in advance. The chance of getting anything controversial on the air without standards and practices not knowing would seem to be nil.

Then, another tipoff.  The guy who posted it to YouTube is, judging from his other videos, deep into DVD-ripping technology. Could it be the guy never saw the broadcast, but somehow got his hands on a DVD screener submitted to Fox with the curse word included?

Or was this just an elaborate stunt posed by Seth MacFarlane and his merry pranksters, whose contempt for the FCC is well known?  (Last season, an episode of "American Dad" was virtually calculated to push the edge of the envelope for so-called broadcast "decency." It was more violent than a Peckinpah film.)

UPDATE: We have our answer in the comments!

TV Barn's TV Picks for Sept. 26

Paul Rader, the dad on "Runaway" has been framed for ...

A) arson
B) murder
C) bank robbery
D) embezzlement
E) adultery

Winter Haven no more

We learned this weekend that the Cleveland Indians are moving their spring training facility back to Arizona next season. For the past 13 years the Tribe had played their spring ball in Winter Haven, Florida, where my folks lived. Before that, as you can see at the left, it was for decades the winter home of the Boston Red Sox. In commemoration of this news, here's a small gallery of pix I took last year at a Dodgers-Indians game at Chain o' Lakes Park in Winter Haven that also happen to be some of the last shots I took of my mom.

REVIEW: "Help Me Help You"

Help me help you decide what to watch during the 8 o'clock hour tonight, which is sardine-can-packed full of good shows. Tonight's tip: Unless you can record four shows at once, don't bother with “Help Me Help You,” a mildly amusing sitcom that is promising -- including the sense that it promises to go nowhere fast.

F-bomb on "Family Guy" (AUDIO)

(By the way, I'm still looking for that "Family Guy" video, so please drop the URL in the comments if you find it. -- AB)

This afternoon on my KMOX show, Aaron Barnhart and I talked about an F-bomb controversy that's swirling around "The Family Guy." Then he previewed more new fall season shows, including "Heroes," "Runaway," and "Ugly Betty." Link: Paul Harris Online: Aaron Barnhart, TV Barn Radio.

"Nobody's Watching" strikes again

I'm posting this mostly to see if I can embed YouTube video successfully into my blog. If you see the familiar YouTube screen, I guess it worked. This is the latest from the "Nobody's Watching" guys. The first minute is the funniest. It's gotten about 800,000 views over the weekend -- better than some sitcoms on FX.

'Studio 60' star: Cancer patients don't find me inspirational (AUDIO)

This summer, I bumped into Evan Handler at the NBC party. He was there with his wife, Elisa Atti, because he's one of the costars on "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," which airs a new episode at 9 CT tonight.  (And tonight's episode is a good demonstration of the rule-of-thumb that you should judge a new series by its first two shows.)

Handler, as you may know, survived a virulent form of leukemia in his 20s, wrote about it in a book called Time on Fire, did a one-man show called Time on Fire, and has served as cancer spokesman for M.D. Anderson (where I was treated in 2001) and Livestrong Foundation.

What you don't know is that he has a hard time connecting with cancer patients, mostly because the ones he'd visit in hospitals were relentlessly upbeat, something he most definitely is not. That's evidenced by the title of his upcoming book, It's Only Temporary: The Good News and Bad News About Being Alive. At the time we talked, he had just sent it to his editor. Two months later, there's no sign of it at Amazon. I don't know if that's good news or bad news or only temporary.

Anyway, here's our unedited 6-minute talk in Pasadena, California, late one July evening this summer. Download WS_10067.mp3

Non-made-up news item of the day

PAKISTANI PRESIDENT PERVEZ MUSHARRAF TO APPEAR ON
"THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART"
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26 AT 11:00 P.M.

NEW YORK, September 25, 2006 -- General Pervez Musharraf, President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, will appear as a guest on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Tuesday, September 26 at 11:00 p.m. (ET/PT).  President Musharraf will discuss his sensational memoir, In the Line of Fire (Free Press), which goes on sale today, as well as his and Pakistan's role in the war on terror and provide his views on the current state of affairs in the Middle East.

REVIEWS: "Heroes" and "Runaway"

In “Heroes” several people scattered around the world don’t realize they are connected to one another by their superpowers. In fact, it’s just starting to dawn on some of them that they even have superpowers.

It kicks off our second full week of the television season, along with another new series, “Runaway,” on a new network, the CW.

TV Barn's TV Picks for Sept. 25

"A flash of lace and there's the face, the one the whole world's dreaming of ...." Where in TV-land can you find this dashing damsel?

A) "America's Next Top Model"
B) "The RuPaul Show"
C) "Suddenly Susan"
D) "Veronica's Closet"
E) "Wonder Woman"

New pecking order in late night: Jay, then Conan

Here are your final late night numbers for the 2005-06 season, presented with a minimum of NBC spin.  After all, when your ratings are as dominant as NBC's are, why embellish?

My headline is provocative, since the only demographic "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" leads "Late Show with David Letterman" is in 18-34-year-olds. And recall that when Letterman was at NBC, he had the reputation for drawing the smaller, yet more advertiser-friendly, audience in late night than Johnny Carson.  Conan's lead-in still does very well with younger viewers, but Letterman is not so fortunate.

With Conan beginning to do five tapings a week, and with originals typically doing better in the Nielsens than repeats, look for O'Brien to widen his lead with his current and — more importantly — future audience of younger viewers, and look for him to creep closer to Letterman in 18-49 (with some help from the revived "Nightline").