FYC: The Network Sitcom Makes a Comeback

By Christopher James

ABC's breakout hit "Abbott Elementary" isn't the only network success this season.

When was the last time anxiously awaited new weekly episodes of a network TV comedy? It’s been nearly a generation since comedies like Roseanne, Friends and Seinfeld ruled the airways. It’s even been a decade since critical darlings like The Office, 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation amassed their devout followings. Ratings for network TV comedies have continued to dwindle while critics and the Television Academy lost interest. In the past 10 years, only five shows have been nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys: 30 Rock, The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, black-ish and The Good Place. In short, the writing was on the wall that the network sitcom was dead.

Everybody loves a comeback, though...

Click to read more ...

The First Lady, Ep. 1 - 'That White House'

by Eric Blume

Showtime's limited series The First Lady kicked off its premiere episode last week. It's a bit of a mixed bag out of the gate. The episode consists of several 10-minute-ish scenes covering each of our protagonists:  Michelle Obama (Viola Davis); Betty Ford (Michelle Pfeiffer); and Eleanor Roosevelt (Gillian Anderson).  A ticker on the bottom of the screen whisks us backward and forward between these women whose stories are about forty years apart from each other. 

There's not a great deal of grace in this back-and-forth execution, feeding us small glimpses of each lady in semi-satisfying increments that don't seem to have a meaningful connection between them outside of generic "I'm my own person" theme.  It's probably easiest to tackle these three stories independently, because episode one doesn't give us much of a linking thread or powerful throughline yet, and because there are pleasures to be had within the confines of this awkward setup...

Click to read more ...

Touring 'The First Lady' Suites

By Abe Friedtanzer

Showtime’s new anthology series The First Lady debuted this past weekend. The series looks simultaneously at three First Ladies throughout history: Eleanor Roosevelt (Gillian Anderson) in the 1930s and 40s, Betty Ford (Michelle Pfeiffer) in the 1970s and Michelle Obama (Viola Davis) in the 2000s and 2010s. The Film Experience will be covering its run (more soon on invididual episodes). 

The network is rolling out a very specific type of red carpet to celebrate the series as it begins airing. Reporting for The Film Experience I was able to visit one of the First Lady Suites, which is a transformed presidential suite at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Los Angeles. This is also happening in New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C. This was quite the lavish and detailed visual experience.

I snapped a few photos to complement my written descriptions of the visit…

Click to read more ...

Awards Calendar 2022/2023

If you're eyes rolled when you saw this headline that means you still need more recovery time from the fiasco that was the 2021/2022 awards season. But time marches on and now we must draw our attention to the next wave of awards shows. We'll update this post periodically and republish.

APRIL 2022
28th Tony Eligibility Ends

If a show hasn't officially opened by this date, it's not eligible until 2023. The following shows are expected to be eligible: 13 original plays (Birthday Candles, Chicken & Biscuits, Clydes, Dana H, Hangmen, Is This a Room, The Lehman Trilogy, The Little Prince, The Minutes, Pass Over, POTUS or..., Skeleton Crew, Thoughts of a Colored Man), 7 play revivals (American Buffalo, For Colored Girls who..., How I Learned To Drive, Lackawanna Blues, Macbeth, The Skin of Our Teeth, Trouble in Mind), 7 original musicals (Diana, Flying Over Sunset, Girl from the North Country, MJ, Mr Saturday Night, Mrs Doubtfire, Six), and 4 musical revivals (Caroline or Change, Company, Funny Girl, The Music Man). It is our dream to one day get press invites to ample theater so we can do a once weekly column on that as a cultural sidebar.

MAY 2022
3rd Tony Award Nominations Announced
31st Emmy Eligibility Ends

The eligibilty period began on June 1st, 2021 (The debut seasons of Disney+'s Loki, Netflix's Sweet Tooth, Apple TV's Physical, AMC's Kevin Can F*** Himself, and Starz' Blindspotting and the second season of Hulu's Love Victor will thus be eligible despite feeling very 'old' by voting time) and ends on this date. If a show has aired enough episodes (six) to be considered a series by May 31st, 2022 its 'hanging episodes' (airing after this date but before the balloting ends in June) still count. The Emmys have fixed some of their rules so now if a film has qualified for the Oscars or has had a mass theatrical release (more than 70 theaters) on a single day, it is no longer eligible for the Emmy, so that should end the double-dipping that used to occur. More film festivals are now including TV programming but festival screenings do not interfere with Emmy eligibility... 

Click to read more ...

The 2021 Emmy Winners + Trivia and Notes

by Nathaniel R

Did you watch the show last night? Despite the monotony of the nominations -- the Television Academy just has to do better and they must install specific juries to determine nominations since people naturally only have a couple handfuls of shows and naturally vote on the series as a whole rather than that season -- it was a night where the wealth was magically spread. At least a little bit...

Click to read more ...