Word: network
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...There really isn't much more to know about network TV than that. There is an old saying that it is wiser to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally, and it's just a shame that whoever coined it did not live long enough to get a big corner office in Burbank. Even NBC's unconventional moves this year are conventional. "Father of the Pride," an expensive, computer-animated sitcom about a family of lions in Siegfried and Roy's Vegas revue, comes from the people who brought you "Shrek" and "Shrek 2," which puts in the great network tradition...
...exception is "Joey," which NBC is so excited - and/or anxious - about that they screened the entire pilot, something NBC president Jeff Zucker said the network had only ever done for "The Cosby Show" and "The Golden Girls." (Both, I assume, were meant as flattering comparisons.) Why take such an extraordinary step? Because you want to create the impression that "Joey" - on which more paychecks than usual are riding - is itself extraordinary...
...Joey got respectful but not thundering applause from the friendly crowd. And that may have been all that Zucker wanted: confirmation that NBC had, simply, not screwed "Joey" up. Welcome to network TV, home of big dreams...
...Elsewhere in the two-and-a-half-hour presentation (yes, two and a half hours - the network's strategy is to sell ads through exhaustion) NBC crowed about its recent merger with Universal, home of a movie studio and cable channels from Bravo to Telemundo. "Imagine... two media powers, visionaries from the start..." intoned Katie Couric in a dead-serious filmed intro, as she, Sean Hayes, Jay Leno and Jesse L. Martin tried to convince advertisers of the synergistic possibilities of having Donald Trump and the guy who yells "gooooooooooooooooooal!" during Spanish-language soccer broadcasts under one corporate roof...
...While Jesus may be returning on NBC, here's who will not: "Whoopi," "Happy Family," "Ed" and sundry other shows you forgot the network had aired in the first place. Which brings us the one true innovation from this year's upfronts: following Fox, which is debuting many of its new shows in June, NBC will begin rolling out its series in late August, following its broadcast of the summer Olympics. With any luck, many of the shows you're reading about this week could be canceled before the beginning of fall. Who says nothing ever gets better in television...