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Ratings, success and quality: What's with Point Pleasant and The Inside?
Zap2it takes a look on "Point Pleasant" (by Marti Noxon, and possible soon with James Marsters) and on "The Inside", the new show by Tim Minear and Jane Espenson! |
FOX Series
by Daniel Fienberg
If any other network had a fall like FOX's, executive heads would be rolling and the media would be writing obits. However, as the pundits and moneymen know, FOX's year doesn't start until "American Idol" returns. After spending September through December in gloom, things are rosy again at FOX. Suddenly "24" is delivering solid numbers and "Idol" is beginning to the fatten the bottom line, "House" looks like a modest hit instead of just a critical favorite and the network can almost ignore the fact that its two biggest spring dramas -- "Point Pleasant" and "Jonny Zero" -- already look like failures. After a fall of programming that -- baseball aside -- kept FOX closer to The WB and UPN than to CBS, FOX will probably be right in the mix for the adults 18-49 crown by May.
[...]
 Point Pleasant
Premiered: Wednesday, Jan. 19
Airs: Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET
Premise: The daughter (Elisabeth Harnois) of the Prince of Darkness washes up in the seaside town of Point Pleasant. Not surprisingly, where the Devil's spawn goes, chaos follows, impacting both the young residents of Point Pleasant (Sam Page, Aubrey Dollar, Cameron Richardson, Terry Burke) and their hot-blooded parents (Richard Burgi, Susan Walters, Dina Meyer). Grant Show is also on hand as the Devil's leading advocate.
Our Prophecy: All FOX needs "Point Pleasant" to do is perform better on Thursday nights than "North Shore" did. So far, though, the occult drama has hemorrhaged oodles of viewers whether its lead-in was "American Idol" or "The O.C." Are horror fans shying away from this moody series because of lingering resentment toward Marti Noxon from her "Buffy" Queen of Pain days? Or are they turned off by the cast of generically attractive actors mouthing bland platitudes about the nature of good and evil? To its credit, "Pleasant" has shown minor creative improvement since its muddled pilot, but it still isn't likely to outlast its original order.
[...]
The Inside
Premieres: To Be Decided
Premise: Tim Minear ("Angel") took over a "21 Jump Street" clone starring relative unknown Rachel Nichols and transformed it into a small screen "Silence of the Lambs" starring Nichols as a new FBI agent with a traumatic past assigned to LA's Violent Crimes Unit. Peter Coyote, Jay Harrington and Adam Baldwin co-star as her partners in crime-fighting.
Our Prophecy: With a strong cast and a crack creative team that also includes "Buffy" writing star Jane Espenson and "24" ace Howard Gordon, "The Inside" may actually be a good show. Clips shown to critics make this look darker and more mature than anything FOX has on the air right now and FOX seems to enjoy tearing out Minear's still-beating heart (see "Wonderfalls" and "Firefly"). Either way, it's probably doomed, but in the most noble way possible.
| | [by roadi (Zap2it) ] [0 comments]
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