Fourth Set of Pilots Coming to Amazon

Watch out for seven new Amazon Original pilots coming in 2015, continuing evidence that Amazon is serious about competing with Netflix to become the non-television network.  With new shows still rolling out from its previous three pilot sessions, where viewers get to rate each pilot and help to decide which will become a full series, the process continues with seven newly announced program ideas.  

The number of well-known TV stars participating in these new series is impressive, while the show ideas range from Virginia-based country stories (Cocked and Point of Honor) to variety shows (The New Yorker Presents) and science fiction (The Man in the High Castle).  It is shaping up to be the broadest and hopefully best pilot offering yet. 

-- Cocked:  Created by Sam Baum (Lie to Me) and Sam Shaw (Manhattan – TV series), Cocked stars Sam Trammell (True Blood) as Richard Paxson, a family man and corporate lap dog who left his family in rural Virginia twenty years before and vowed never to go back. After some unfortunate circumstances, he is forced to leave the big city and return home to help his family’s gun business—one of the oldest in the country. But no good deed goes unpunished. Older brother Grady Paxson, played by Jason Lee (My Name is Earl), who’s a bachelor, playboy and gun aficionado, isn’t so happy to have him back, and Richard’s liberal wife and two opinionated teenage children are horrified by the world they have been thrown into. Hilarity, epic fights and emotional breakdowns ensue. Cocked also stars Brian Dennehy (The Good Wife) as Wade Paxson, Laura Fraser (Breaking Bad) as Hannah Paxson, and Dreama Walker (The Good Wife) as Tabby Paxson. The hour-long dark comedy pilot is directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts (Skull Island), and Erwin Stoff (Unbroken), Shaw, and Baum are Executive Producers. 

-- Down Dog:  Blessed with good looks, a winning smile, hippie parents and a Southern California upbringing, life has been relatively easy thus far for Logan Wood (played by Josh Casaubon, I Just Want My Pants Back). In his late 30's, having coasted through romances with countless women and various random jobs, he now teaches yoga to the trophy wives, hot moms and aspiring celebrities of Santa Monica and Venice Beach. And he's damn good at it. But when Logan and his current girlfriend, a successful and attractive older woman named Amanda (played by Paget Brewster, Criminal Minds) who happens to be the owner of the yoga studio, break up, life starts to get more complicated. Down Dog also stars Lyndsy Fonseca (How I Met Your Mother), Will Greenberg (Halt and Catch Fire), Andrea Savage (The Life and Times of Tim), Amir Talai (American Dad), Kris Kristofferson (Lone Star), and Alysia Reiner (Orange is the New Black). The pilot is written by Robin Schiff (Are You There, Chelsea?), produced by Bob Cooper (RFK) and Michael Fuchs (Death in the Modern Age), and directed by Bradley Silberling (Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events). 

-- Mad Dogs:  Mad Dogs is an hour-long dark comedy created by Cris Cole (The Bill), and Executive Produced by Cole, Shawn Ryan (The Shield) and Marney Hochman (Last Resort), Andy Harries (DCI Banks), Suzanne Mackie (All in Good Time), and Charles McDougall (The Mindy Project). Based on the hit UK series, Mad Dogs follows the twisted reunion of a group of underachieving forty-something friends—a mixture of single, married and recently divorced—who are all at different crossroads in their lives. Celebrating the early retirement of an old friend at his gorgeous Belize villa, grudges begin to emerge and secrets explode as their trip becomes a labyrinthine nightmare of lies, deception and murder. Mad Dogs is a twisted tale of friendship put to the ultimate test. As an inconceivable chain of events unfolds, cracks within the group widen before the friends realize that the only people they can trust are each other, the last people they want to be relying on. The pilot stars Steve Zahn (Dallas Buyers Club) as Cobi, Billy Zane (Twin Peaks) as Milo, Romany Malco (Weeds) as Gus, Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos) as Lex, and Ben Chaplin (World without End) as Joel. Mad Dogs is directed by McDougall and is being co-produced with Sony Pictures Television. 

The Man in the High Castle:  Based on Philip K. Dick's Hugo Award-winning 1962 alternative history, The Man in the High Castle considers the question of what would have happened if the Allied Powers had lost World War II. Some 20 years after that loss, the United States and much of the world has now been split between Japan and Germany, the major hegemonic states. But the tension between these two powers is mounting, and this stress is playing out in the western U.S. Through a collection of characters in various states of posing (spies, sellers of falsified goods, others with secret identities), The Man in the High Castle provides an intriguing tale about life and history as it relates to authentic and manufactured reality. The hour-long dramatic pilot stars Alexa Davalos (Mob City) as Juliana Crain, Luke Kleintank (Pretty Little Liars) as Joe Blake, Rupert Evans (The Village) as Frank Frink, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Mortal Kombat Legacy) as Tagomi, Joel De La Fuente (Hemlock Grove) as Inspector Kido, Rufus Sewell (Eleventh Hour) as John Smith and DJ Qualls (Z Nation) as Ed McCarthy. The pilot is directed by David Semel (Madam Secretary, Heroes) and written by Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files), both serving as Executive Producers. Also executive producing are Ridley Scott and David W. Zucker, with co-executive producer Jordan Sheehan of Scott Free Productions (The Good Wife, The Andromeda Strain), and Executive Producers Stewart Mackinnon and Christian Baute of Headline Pictures (The Invisible Woman). In addition, Isa Dick Hackett will executive produce and Kalen Egan will co-executive produce on behalf of Electric Shepherd (The Adjustment Bureau). Christopher Tricarico (May in the Summer) is also Executive Producer. 

The New Yorker Presents:  America’s most award-winning magazine comes to life in this half hour docu-series pilot. The New Yorker Presents is a completely unique viewing experience that features Tony-Award winner Alan Cumming (The Good Wife) and actor Brett Gelman (Go On) in a short film based on a story by Simon Rich (Saturday Night Live) and directed by Emmy Award-winning director Troy Miller (Arrested Development); a poem by Matthew Dickman; a documentary by Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs) about biologist Tyrone Hayes based on a Rachel Aviv article; and an interview with famous performance artist, Marina Abramović, conducted by The New Yorker writer Ariel Levy. Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) is Executive Producer, joined by Dave Snyder (Death Row Stories) and Dawn Ostroff (The Fashion Fund). The pilot is co-produced by Condé Nast Entertainment and Jigsaw Productions. 

Point of Honor:  At the start of the Civil War, a Virginia family, led by their West Point bred son, John Rhodes (played by Nathan Parsons, True Blood), makes the controversial decision to defend the South while freeing all of their slaves. At battle against his northern brethren and his best friend and brother-in-law Robert Sumner (played by Christopher O’Shea, Baby Daddy), John leaves his three strong-willed sisters at home to run the plantation that is now without a free labor source. The choice to protect the life they have always known and defend the moral high ground will pit the family against one another and test their strength, courage and love. An hour-long drama shot entirely on-location in historic Virginia, Point of Honor also stars Annabelle Stephenson (Revenge) as Kate Rhodes, Riley Voelkel (The Newsroom) as Lorelei Rhodes, Hanna Mangan Lawrence (Old School) as Estella Rhodes, Patrick Heusinger (Revolution) as Colonel Palmer Kane, Luke Benward (Ravenswood) as Garland Rhodes, Adrienne Warren (Black Box) as Abby, Lucien Laviscount (Waterloo Road) as Elijah, and James Harvey Ward (Low Winter Sun) as Cutler. The pilot is directed by Randall Wallace (Braveheart), written by Carlton Cuse (Lost) and Wallace, and Executive Produced by Cuse, Wallace and Barry Jossen (Sex and the City). Point of Honor is being co-produced with ABC Signature Studios. 

Salem Rogers:  In this half-hour comedy, Leslie Bibb (About a Boy) plays Salem Rogers, an overly confident, outrageously blunt, and hard-partying former supermodel who is forced to face her past and re-enter the real world after ten years in a posh rehab center. Intent on recreating her glamorous lifestyle and modeling success, she tracks down Agatha (played by Rachel Dratch, Saturday Night Live), her former assistant who has since built a career as an author of self-help books to help her win back the spotlight. Salem Rogers also stars Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle), Brad Morris (Playing House), Harry Hamlin (Mad Men), Toks Olagundoye (The Neighbors), Brad Morris (Cougar Town) and Scott Adsit (30 Rock). The pilot is written by newcomer Lindsey Stoddart, Executive Produced by Will Graham (The Onion News Network) and directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls). Salem Rogers was submitted as part of the studio’s online screenplay submission process. 

Update:  Starting January 15th, the pilots will be available on Amazon.

Even More Reasons to Watch Parks and Recreation

If you miss the Parks and Recreation characters played by Rashida Jones and Rob Lowe since they moved away to Michigan to start a family, do not worry. You shall see them again in the last season of the show, according to TV Guide.  And an extra surprise will be the return of Jon Hamm from Mad Men for one episode.  More reasons to tune into this great show about zany local politics in Indiana.

Mozart in the Jungle Returns to Amazon Next Month

Think of it as an early Christmas gift.  On December 23rd, Amazon will make all 10 episodes of its new series Mozart in the Jungle available for streaming.  The show, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Saffron Burrows and Hannah Dunne, was part of the second slate of pilots premiered by Amazon earlier this year.  It was one of four proposed pilot that I enjoyed, the others including Transparent which is already streaming and was renewed for a second season (you can view my earlier comments here). You can still view the pilot for free at Amazon.  

Not everyone was impressed with the pilot.  Here is what New York magazine's Vulture page had to say:   

The idea of a show about the secretly debauched world of classical music is fantastic, and the dramatic potential within any rigidly stratified power structure (like a symphony) is tremendous. But Mozart’s going for comedy, and it doesn’t quite get there; the tone of the show just doesn’t make sense. A sequence about how different kinds of instrumentalists make for different kinds of sexual partners (percussionists have great rhythm, jazz musicians like “ensembles,” etc.) feels more like a bumper sticker come to life than an actual conversation anyone would ever have, and exchanges like, “Do your lips hurt after playing like that?” “They used to … but now they’re used to being abused” might as well be from an oboe-themed porno (The Big O-boe?). At one point, Hailey heads back to her massive warehouse apartment, where she discovers her roommate is mid-party. Of course everyone is a musician, and of course this devolves into a drinking game/spin the bottle/instrument-playing contest, and if there’s anything dumber-looking than fake oboe-playing, it’s fake flute-playing. Sorry, Mozart.

I am willing to see a few more episodes before I make a final decision on its merits.

Season Five Preview: Portlandia

Go here to view the season five trailer of IFC's Portlandia and prepare yourself for the insanity when the program returns on January 8th.  Season five promises arson, marriage proposals, milk, female writers, whales, and more.  Intrigued?  Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein put their hearts into every episode and find a new way to poke at current culture, from Portland to elsewhere.  For more fun, go here to see Carrie Brownstein explain the show's perspective with John Hodgman at a comedy forum.  And go here to see Fred and Carrie as their bookstore characters at another public forum.

TV Guide Criticizes Supernatural for Teasing Gay Audience

A recent article in TV Guide by Sadie Gennis, "Supernatural Has a Queerbaiting Problem That Needs to Stop," was a pretty strong article for a magazine that usually has nothing but nice things to say about the industry, including the Supernatural franchise (which her parent company produces).  

Her basic premise was that the writers of the series are not strong enough to have a bisexual lead, so they will only take Dean's teasing comments so far before pulling back.  She also states that Jensen Ackles and the whole production will crush any attempts to discuss his characters sexuality in the fan forums.  For instance:

But alas, all questions about sexuality are allegedly banned at conventions, a move which doesn't exactly incur the good faith of the LGBTQ community.  The most famous incident of the ban being put into action occurred at a New Jersey convention in 2013. A teenage girl was given the opportunity to ask the actors a question, but she got as far as mentioning the words "bisexual" (in relation to herself) and "subtext" (in relation to Dean) before getting cut off and booed, and Ackles eventually warned her not "ruin it for everybody."

I think Ms. Gennis is taking the horsing around on Supernatural too seriously.  The Winchester boys let a lot of comments fly about sexuality and pop culture all the time, and they do it with a wink.  That is what makes the show so much fun.   Homoerotic banter is pretty common in the everyday culture and Supernatural is putting it out there.  Whether some of the fan base runs with it is a separate affair.  And the very fact that the brothers acknowledge a fan base in the show and discuss the related slash they have generated is another big wink to the audience where they are almost telling us to behave because they are watching us watching them. 

Again, it is all in fun, and after 200 episodes I believe many would agree.  As Jensen would say, Ms. Gennis, don't ruin it for everybody.

The Return of Longmire?

Netflix is considering picking up the fourth season of Longmire, which is great news for fans of the show who did not like the way A&E dropped it after three seasons with no closure.  As I noted earlier, I think this was a dumb decision for A&E and hopefully Netflix will see an opportunity to revive a great program, as it did with the fourth season of The Killing (though a fifth season of The Killing is not in the works). 

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Longmire was dropped because of its audience:

A&E said it pulled the plug on "Longmire" because it appeals primarily to older viewers—the median age of the show's viewers is 60 versus 48 for the network as a whole.

That's just great.  A show that appeals to older viewers, and even pokes fun at a sheriff who doesn't own a cell phone, is dropped because not enough teenagers have time to watch quality television.  What a brilliant strategy, A&E.  The WSJ article later noted this short-sightedness:

Advertisers acknowledge they place a premium on younger viewers but some think it is shortsighted to ignore aging baby boomers and cling to those old clichés that people over the age 50 are less likely to change brands.

Let's hope Netflix is a little smarter.  

Update:  Netflix has renewed Longmire for a fourth season.   Ten new episodes should appear in 2015.  Who knows, but this may be the start of a whole new life for the show with more seasons.  Of course, even one solid season with closure is welcome.  

Don't Miss "The Missing"

Tonight on Starz you can catch the premiere of The Missing, the story of a father seeking his 5-year old son who disappeared while the family was vacationing in France.  And this is not one of those supernatural shows where the child reappears years later at the same age unable to explain what happened.  Instead, this is about a suffering parent and the criminal justice system.  I am not expecting any happy endings here, but from what I have seen I will be happy with the work of the excellent actors in this 8-part series.  

In describing the show, The Washington Post reviewer states:

As the story continually yet seamlessly toggles between the sun-dappled summer of 2006 and the bleak, late winter of 2014, viewers gradually learn the intricacy of the circumstances leading to Ollie’s vanishing — and why and how the case went cold. Ollie was never found, but Tony has come back because he thinks he has spotted a clue in a recent photograph; his efforts to rekindle his ex-wife’s interest in the case seem mostly for naught, though she also remains deeply wounded by the loss of her son.

You can view a trailer for the show here.  

Update:  Starz has renewed The Missing for a second season.   The new season will follow a new storyline with different characters.