Batting fourth, the league leader in hits, Fox

Well, it's officially a trend: NBC on Monday clocked in at 1 hours 25 minutes for its upfront, and everybody felt relieved. Then ABC came in at 1:29, and folks started to enjoy this. And then CBS got us in and out in 68 minutes. How low can they go? This one-downsmanship was feeling like a weeklong dare. The fact that it played right into the corporate bean-counters' hands was, I'm sure, just a coincidence.

Since I didn't make it to the CW's upfront, I have no idea if it was shorter than big brother CBS's, though I doubt it, since brevity is the luxury of the successful, and CW had a lot of 'splainin' to do after this season. But as I sat down at the House of Blues in Marina City (those iconic twin towers down by the Chicago River that look like the home of the Jetsons) to watch the Fox simulcast, I wondered if it might have the fever too. I soon had my answer. Not only did Fox have what it takes to beat CBS, it also taped a clever opening film starring "24's" Kiefer Sutherland as agent Jack Bauer, commanding Fox president Peter Liguori to bring the show in under 60 minutes (the length of an episode, get it?).

Of course, it wasn't just competition but contrition that was in Liguori's mind when he decided to bring the upfront in under an hour. Last year's presentation was a fiasco. Fox herded everyone into the New York Armory, a building noted for its lack of air conditioning and where, as Spike Feresten told me later, "it smelled like feet," then subjected us to two horrible monologues by Brad Garrett and Feresten (both of whom improved dramatically once they actually started doing their TV shows), a long and evidently drunken harangue by the co-chiefs of Fox Sports and an obligatory "Idol" performance. And other stuff I've no doubt blocked out. (For more, read my report from last year, "The Worst Upfront Ever.")

This year, the show was back at Fox's favorite venue, City Center, and everything was chopped out except for the opening parody and, amazingly, the Fox Stars perp walk that has opened every Fox upfront I've attended. This is where selected stars from every show on the Fox schedule parade from the stage into the reserved seating in the front rows as the announcer reads their names: From "Talk Show with Spike Feresten": Spike Feresten! And they still kept it under an hour. Not much to say about the perp walk except that those baby-doll summer dresses seem to be in style again. And Lauren Ambrose is hot.

Sales chief Jon Nesvig comes out and does his annual mangling of prompter lines as a flurry of charts and graphs whiz by behind him. Key points: The World Series this year is starting on a Wednesday, which is great because it gives Fox "a 15 percent usage advantage over previous years," when the Series started on poor old Saturday. And like everyone else, Fox will be unveiling a new media player next fall. I dunno — is it really that hard to design a new window for showing Flash videos?

Oh, and since "Rupert," as Nesvig called him, promised that News Corp. will be carbon neutral by 2010, Fox is doing its part. There was a slide on screen before the upfront started explaining that this upfront will be carbon neutral, and that's even when you factor in the celebrities being flown in and out of New York for one night.

And now it's time to bring out Peter Liguori. "My first big announcement," he says, is that "House" has been given the post-Super Bowl time slot Feb. 3.

Next, Liguori would apologize to advertisers for his network's lackluster performance, though I'm not sure why. Even with "24's" ratings down and "Idol" starting its slow fade, Fox had a great year. For the first time, it has the No. 1 scripted show in television to go with its No. 1 unscripted show. You know the times are a-changin' when "House" is competing with "American Idol" for the top Nielsen rating in all the land — two shows on a network that didn't exist 25 years ago, one in a format that didn't exist 10 years ago.

A lot of it has to do with "Idol," of course. This one show launched just about everything associated with hitness at the Fox network save those Sunday-night cartoons. "Idol" lifted "House" out of obscurity and put it on the road to megahitdom. And it did the same for "24" and "Til Death" and "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" And will likely do the same for Ambrose's girly-girl show next year.

Nonetheless, Liguori promises to do better this year. He assures the crowd that from now on, "we are only scheduling shows we feel passionate about," and hoo boy, we have never heard anything like that from a TV executive before. Who gets passionate about a TV show starring Kelsey Grammer?

Well, apparently the good folks at Fox, because as Liguori gets into the pilots, he starts with a comedy starring Grammer, this time as a news anchorman making his way back from a humiliating career setback. Patty Heaton plays the co-anchor who stayed behind in Pittsburgh while Grammer moved up from market to market. Christopher Lloyd is attached. Fred Willard co-stars. James Burrows directed. Steven Levitan is attached. The clip is kind of funny. And yet I had two questions: (1) Is anyone under 50 going to watch this? And (2) How can you say it's a companion piece for "Til Death," Mr. Liguori, when it doesn't air next to "Til Death" on the schedule and anyway, that show has young people in it?

More promising is the new comedy from "Gilmore Girls" creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. "The Jezebel James Affair" won't be along till midseason, but the last scene in the clip reel actually was quite moving. The patter moves right along, as you would expect from Miz Sherman, but not quite at "Gilmore's" blistering pace. Oh, and it's got a laugh track. Fox has a few months to rethink that brilliant idea.

There's a comedy from the Farrelly Brothers, "The Rules of Starting Over," that just looks horrible. "Do not pull that finger!" is an actual punchline on the show.

Quickly on to unscripted. For once Fox can't top a reality show from another network — though I imagine at this moment its Shrimpenstein of the Scriptless Series, Mike Darnell, is figuring out how to steal the thunder from CBS's "Kid Nation." There's an "Idol" spinoff, "The Search for the Next Great American Band," about which Liguori joked, "I guess we should have a show called 'The Search for Shorter Title for The Search for the Next Great American Band.'" And they're adapting Gordon Ramsay's British show, "Kitchen Nightmares" (aka Extreme Makeover: Restaurant Edition) for Fox.

The clip of "Nashville" sure looked intriguing. It's from the creators of MTV's "Laguna Beach" and it's shot just that way, an unscripted show that looks like it's a film, with lots of well-lit close ups and nicely framed wide shots. It's about young people coming to Music City to, what else, make a name for themselves. "Nashville Star" judge Anastasia Brown and music impresarios Monty Powell and Jim Cantino are attached.

On to dramas. "K-Ville" I found disturbing for the same reason as "Cane" on CBS — both shows are attempting to introduce dark, amoral characters to a network audience by pairing them with cute kids. Here, it's Anthony Anderson as a New Orleans cop who tries to keep order in his town and in his own home after Katrina ravages the Lower 9th and drives hundreds of the not-so-finest out of Nawlins for good. It's filmed with handheld cams and has an gritty and violent look and feel to it. My gut says no go. I don't think mass television will ever be able to pull in a big crowd to watch a lead character with obvious psychopath issues. (In one scene, Anderson appears to lower a punk into the river and watches him drown.)

"New Amsterdam." In 1642 John Amsterdam was impaled during a fight on Manhattan Island. But a native American woman breathed new life into him — and he remained immortal to this day. Well, if you've been reading along this week, youknow this sounds a bit like "Moonlight" on CBS, and going back to the start of the week, NBC's "Journeyman" is also about a cop with a special power, namely he can timeshift and I don't mean with TiVo. Of the three I like this one the best, though "best" isn't quite the word.

"Canterbury's Law." This is the female "Shark." And judging from the clip, it might be the role Julianna Margulies was born to play. She certainly was impressive in "The Sopranos." And she's impressive here. An aggressive, take-no-prisoners lawyer in four-inch heels, Canterbury actually gets socked in the kisser by a witness while he's on the stand. I'm sure David E. Kelley will be working one of those into "Boston Legal" next season. But this show, at least in its promotion, seems to be on a whole different level. This might be the most promising drama pilot I saw all week. And here's the best part — Denis Leary and Peter Tolan of "Rescue Me" (on Liguori's old network FX) are producing.

"Sarah Connor Experiment." This spinoff of "Terminator 2" looks, well, Terminatorish, with lots of special effects and a great deal of movie violence. Not my cup of tea but could prove a big hit. Not coming until midseason, probably so that Fox can run all the episodes without interruption.

And that's it. Liguori comes out to deliver some more lines off the prompter, and just then his cell phone rings. It's Kiefer. "Mr. President, you've got to get out of there." Actually, by my clock it's been about 57 minutes. There's time for commercials — but apropos of this year's upfront negotiations, we fast-forwarded over those and went straight to the after party.

Comments

[Roy]

The CW presentation ran 70 minutes

[Mark Jeffries]

Sherman-Palladino says she wants to do a multi-camera show, so a multi-camera show she's doing.

Of course, since Fox strangely seems to be embracing procedurals and multi-camera sitcoms, no wonder Tim Goodman calls it "CBS Lite."

[Sue Doe Nim]

." There's an "Idol" spinoff, "The Search for the Next Great American Band," about which Liguori joked, "I guess we should have a show called 'The Search for Shorter Title for The Search for the Next Great American Band.'"

You could eliminate two words by substituting "Seeking" for "The search for."

"Seeking the Next Great American Band."

It flows better. It sounds better.

Sincerely,
Sue Doe Nim

[Kate]

Aaron, help us spread the word about Jericho being canceled. Save Jericho!

http://www.myspace.com/savejerichonow
http://www.jericholives.com

[Aaron]

This is CBS. When they say a show is gone, the show is gone. I wish it weren't so but that's the fact.

I'll have to go through those 250 comments on the Jericho story — my word, what a response.

[Keith]

Margulies' stint on Scrubs (as an aggressive, take-no-prisoners lawyer in four-inch heels) sounds like a tryout for Canterbury...