MIKE ON TV: Schooling G4 on the New Fall TV Season

http://www.g4tv.com/lv3/28503

“The new fall TV season? Bah.”

The Real-Life "90210"

I just love saying Joe E. Tata’s name. Say it with me: “Joe E. Tata.” The Tata man was at the CW’s portion of the TV Critics Association press tour on Saturday to help serve breakfast (at a faux “Peach Pit”) and to confirm that yes, indeed, Joe E. “Nat” Tata would be back slinging hash and advice as a recurring player on the new “90210.”

Meanwhile, the L.A. Times has put together this interactive map of new (and old) “90210″ shooting spots. How do the tanned “90210″ers live? Check out these sites. A sampling:

Peach Pit (played by Kokomo Cafe: 6333 W. 3rd St.): “The favorite hangout in Beverly Hills for its cool hipster residents, but now it’s more of a trendy cafe that Nat, played by the returning Joe E. Tata, still owns.”

West Beverly Hills High (played Torrance High School: 2200 W Carson St): “In keeping with the original, all exterior shots of West Beverly High are done here.”

West Beverly High parking lot and Lacrosse fields (played by El Segundo High School: 640 Main St.): “The scenes in the high school parking lot and lacrosse fields are filmed here.”

Boulevard3 (played by Boulevard3: 6523 W. Sunset Blvd.): “The famed nightclub plays itself and is used for a climactic birthday party scene.”

Peach Pit After Dark (played by Spider Club: 1737 Vine St.): “This is the Pit, the reincarnation of Peach Pit After Dark.”

There was a gasp in the room during the “90210″ press conference when one of the show’s new stars admitted that she was 1 when the original “Beverly Hills 90210″ launched. Yes, it was nearly 20 years ago.

I Want To Drink Your Low-Carb, Organic Blood In My Prius

“Only in L.A. can a vampire be the good guy!” — radio ad tagline for CBS’ new Friday night drama “Moonlight” (above), which revolves around an undead cop solving crime in our fair city.

What exactly does that mean? Angelenos are so weird that vampires are normal/good in comparison? I’m sure this tagline gets a knowing wink and guffaw in the rest of the country (“Ho, ho, they’re so right, those people in Los Angeles are so strange!”). But hearing that promo on the radio in Los Angeles, I felt a little defensive.

MIKE ON TV: Forget That Classy Scripted Stuff, Here’s Whats Up in Reality TV This Fall

Now that the fall TV season has launched, what is there to watch on the reality tip? After an intro by Kennedy, check out a mellow Mike as he runs down this fall’s top shows here.

Gordon Ramsay’s Los Angeles Kitchen Nightmare

New Fox series “Kitchen Nightmares” — which stars Chef Gordon Ramsay (“Hell’s Kitchen”) as he serves up some tough love at failing restaurants around the country — hit several spots in Southern California. (You’ll see some of ‘em — including eateries in Moorpark and Tujunga — in the coming weeks.)

But one L.A. restaurant scheduled to appear on “Kitchen Nightmares” wound up going out of business before the cameras arrived. Chef Ramsay and company were planning on making a visit to Delmonico’s on Pico in order to breathe some new life into the fading restaurant (where I’d eaten too many times to remember over the years, usually with people coming from the Fox or Sony lots).

But Delmonico’s wound up going out of business at the end of February, right before “Kitchen Nightmares” would have shot there.

Meanwhile, according to this, the Moorpark restaurant visited by Ramsay appears to be The Secret Garden.

Defending "Cavemen"

I’m going to echo my Variety colleague (and cubical neighbor) Jon Weisman on this one: I didn’t hate the new sitcom “Cavemen” either.

As Jon writes at Variety’s new “Season Pass” blog, the uproar over “Cavemen” has been so loud that you start to question your own taste if you dare admit you found some good things about the show.

Yet, like Jon, I was pleasantly surprised that the producers didn’t simply go for cartoonish, larger-than-life characters a la “3rd Rock from the Sun.” The cavemen in “Cavemen” are complex, and aren’t encountering just sitcom-y storylines.

Jon writes:

I admired that a half-hour comedy sought to pursue issues of race in its storyline. That the cavemen of “Cavemen” were an allegory for real-world minorities in the U.S. emerged this summer as a sin in and of itself, and I never was quite clear why. When exactly did racial allegory become off-limits? A critique of the effectiveness of the allegory is certainly welcome, but some people seemed offended by the allegory’s mere presence. (It certainly wasn’t the producers’ intention to claim that any minorities are in fact cavemen.) Me, I was pleased to see a show attempt to combine humor and substance, even if it didn’t entirely succeed.

Of course, the show isn’t perfect. But how many comedies are great, right off the bat, particularly in this day and age? I’d at least give “Cavemen” a try before writing it off.

As the Fall Season Approaches, It’s Not Hard to Download a Pilot Online

Of course, some fans have uploaded many of the shows themselves — pilots aren’t hard to come by these days, afterall. But others still wonder whether the networks have anything to do with it.

There’s no proof they are — and even though I seem pretty convinced they are in this video (I kinda get a little flip here), I think the bigger issue is they seem to be casting a blind eye for now to the existence of pilots readily available online. The nets are also making many pilots (such as Fox’s “K-Ville” available for streaming online, blurring the line. Anything in order to help spread word and buzz, afterall.

Here I am, discussing it with KNBC — which reps the first time Franklin Avenue has ever been mentioned in one of my TV appearances. (I discussed the same topic on G4 earlier — see here — which is what inspired KNBC to do their own piece.)

As the Fall Season Approaches, It’s Not Hard to Download a Pilot Online

http://www.youtube.com/v/xeQ_VSXKp_U

Of course, some fans have uploaded many of the shows themselves — pilots aren’t hard to come by these days, afterall. But others still wonder whether the networks have anything to do with it.

There’s no proof they are — and even though I seem pretty convinced they are in this video (I kinda get a little flip here), I think the bigger issue is they seem to be casting a blind eye for now to the existence of pilots readily available online. The nets are also making many pilots (such as Fox’s “K-Ville” available for streaming online, blurring the line. Anything in order to help spread word and buzz, afterall.

Here I am, discussing it with KNBC — which reps the first time Franklin Avenue has ever been mentioned in one of my TV appearances. (I discussed the same topic on G4 earlier — see here — which is what inspired KNBC to do their own piece.)

With So Many Pilot Episodes Leaked Online, Is It Good for the Networks?

Back so soon? Yup. Here I am on Thursday’s G4 “Attack of the Show,” discussing the growing numbers of pilots that have mysteriously appeared online, ready to be downloaded. Are overzealous marketing execs to blame (as if they’d ever admit it), looking to create some buzz by any means necessary? Or are there so many pilot tapes and DVDs out there, that they were bound to be uploaded?

Here’s the video below:

You can also check it out by clicking here.

With So Many Pilot Episodes Leaked Online, Is It Good for the Networks?

Back so soon? Yup. Here I am on Thursday’s G4 “Attack of the Show,” discussing the growing numbers of pilots that have mysteriously appeared online, ready to be downloaded. Are overzealous marketing execs to blame (as if they’d ever admit it), looking to create some buzz by any means necessary? Or are there so many pilot tapes and DVDs out there, that they were bound to be uploaded?

Here’s the video below:
http://www.g4tv.com/isv3/17410
You can also check it out by clicking here.