In its Life section on Monday, national newspaper USA Today released the tentative lineup for the TV networks’ fall 2007 lineup. Included in the new television lineup are Journeyman, a rip-off of the Scott Bakula vehicle Quantum Leap; Moonlight, a reprisal of the 1980s love drama starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd (a stupid show about vampires); and Back to You, a FOX comedy starring Kelsey Grammar as a pompous Pittsburgh anchorman.
What the newspaper failed to tell you was the hundreds of programs that were not selected by the networks for the fall season. The Snyder News Network gives you a look at just a few of those unsuccessful show ideas.
CSI: New Orleans (CBS): The popular multifaceted procedural crime drama is coming to the gritty streets of New Orleans. CSI: New Orleans features a new gang of forensic scientists, except in this CSI unit, the perpetrator is rarely apprehended. Evidence is tainted, leads are ignored, and morale is at an all-time low.
Prison Idol (FOX): An ingenious combination of previous FOX standard bearers Prison Break and American Idol, PRISON IDOL features hardened criminals who strut their musical prowess in front of a panel of judges and America, with the winner receiving a recording contract from Def Jam records and most importantly, his or her freedom. The panel of music critics will include Bobby Brown, George Michael, Lil' Kim.
Kimmi (ABC): A Full House spin-off about the Tanners’ obnoxious neighbor, Kimmi Gibler.
Soundscapes (NBC): Thirty minutes of the popular Music Choice 33 channel in primetime.
Survivor: Black Beach Prison (CBS): The reality show that started it all continues in this latest installment of the popular CBS Drama. Set in the beguiling and treacherous far reaches of an oil-rich yet notoriously corrupt African nation, twenty contestants are placed in Equatorial Guinea’s Black Beach Prison to outwit, outlast, and outplay one another – as well as the prison population of one of the world’s most frightening jails.
Whale (CBS): The View’s Rosie O’ Donnell comes to series television in WHALE, a legal drama from the makers of Shark. O’ Donnell plays an opinionated, supremely hungry prosecutor who brings her enormous appetite for justice and trans fat to the San Francisco DA’s high-profile crime unit after years spent as a talking-head on a cable news legal talk show. Leading a team of new young lawyers, this whale now devours criminals and 6000 calories a day.
Saved by the Bell: The Middle Class (NBC): Nearly fifteen years after graduating from Bayside High School, the cast of characters from of this iconic Saturday morning sitcom is returning to television. But the laugh tracks that permeated the gangs’ halcyon high school years have been replaced by hardship in this darkly comedic story that’s been described as Saved by the Bell with elements of Desperate Housewives and Friends. The plotline will be published later.
Who Wants to Be an American Citizen (ABC): ABC follows Benito Gomez, an illegal immigrant who has crossed over the Rio Grande into Texas and eventually to the Texas City of Fort Worth, where he works as a cook at a Tex-Mex restaurant and as a landscaper who works below the minimum wage for several wealthy Republican donors. Who Wants to Be an American Citizen chronicles Benito’s life in America, as he struggles to ward off the INS, right-wing talk show hosts, and friends from Mexico who keep asking him to send money, and as he is exploited by Democrat politicians who would like his vote and the business people who capitalize from his cheap and reliable labor.
Tunica (NBC): A spin-off of the hit TV show Las Vegas, spotlighting the bright lights and big city of the south’s casino hub.