Word: broadcasts
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...local police officers and friends of the missing students, all tied together by a suitably questing narrator. The trope is familiar enough, both from that oxymoronic phrase "reality TV" and from fake-umentary murder movies, such as the 1979 Cannibal Holocaust and the current Drop Dead Gorgeous. The Last Broadcast, a slick thriller assembled on a desktop computer in 1997 for--get this--$900, mixes interviews and "found footage" in its story of a cable-TV crew that goes into New Jersey's Pine Barrens in search of a legendary monster; the crew calls this trek "the Jersey Devil project...
...tripping over the ottoman, not buying a $250,000 screenplay from "the wrong Jew" in a case of mistaken identity, as Jay Mohr's smarmily obnoxious producer, Peter Dragon, does in Action's pilot. Beggars, a sharp satire set at the fictional bottom-tier network LGT, updates Network for broadcast's era of decline. Action and Beggars compare show business, unfavorably, with prostitution and the Mob. Meanwhile, the clever but self-important Sports Night treats its topic with the laugh track-eschewing gravity of M*A*S*H--though one rarely bleeds to death on a sportscast. The one exception...
...shows raise obvious Peoria-play questions. Movie Stars had a relatively strong start amid weak summer competition, while Beggars' ratings have not taken off, despite fairly positive reviews. Action, however, will prove a big test. It's got notice for bringing pay cable's profanity to broadcast, but another risky import is the deep-insider view that worked for Larry Sanders' select, limited audience. (Creator and executive producer Chris Thompson, who was executive producer of Sanders, originally intended Action for HBO.) While Action could be the best fall comedy in an anemic field, and Mohr plays Dragon with an intriguingly...
Bell is a throwback. Unlike other broadcast biggies, he doesn't bully his callers or sensationalize his material. He knows it's sensational enough, so he sells it with a soothing baritone and the coaxing, folksy manner of a modern Arthur Godfrey. He doesn't whine or blurt, even if melodrama is swirling around him. When Bell abruptly left Coast to Coast last October for three weeks and took another hiatus this April, he showed old-fashioned reserve in keeping his private anguish private...
Talk to a bunch of Manhattan hipster kids and broadcast their bizarre observations and anecdotes: it's the stuff of an irritating jeans ad or a surprisingly winsome and funny animated series. "Inspired by" actual interviews with youngsters, the engaging boho characters do, well, nothing much, yet they don't grow dull or self-consciously hip. If the rambling plots and pitch-perfect dialogue remind one of Slacker, they also remind one of little else...