I checked out of the TCA television critic’s press tour a day and a half early, missing out on the final network to present, ABC, but plenty of TV writers have stayed to the bitter (except for the network-provided chocolate-chip-cookie swag) end. Here’s what they have to report.
* As I wrote earlier this summer, ABC this season will be the network of manxiety, with three comedies (four if you count Suburgatory) about the supposed woes of emasculated modern men. One of them, Work It, goes all the way to having its stars dress in drag to land a job (a la Bosom Buddies). New ABC chief Paul Lee said the cross-dressing makes the show like Monty Python. Um, yeah. And the use of cinema-verite devices makes America’s Funniest Home Videos like Frederick Wiseman.
* Speaking of men and women, we’ve seen at press tour that this is the Year of Empowering Women. Where “empowering women” equals casting them in sitcoms with “girl” in the title, a remake of Charlie’s Angels or dramas about Playboy Bunnies and ’60s flight attendants. The latter, ABC’s drama Pan Am, actually has a solid if not groundbreaking pilot, and the makers presented it to TCA yesterday. The empowering part? I suppose the fact that Austin Powers isn’t involved helps.
* And ABC and producer Marc Cherry made official the rumors: this will be Desperate Housewives‘ last season. In which presumably the producers will definitively explain the mysterious power of the glowing light source beneath Wisteria Lane.
