CW: A female 'Geek' on 'Beauty,' Chris Rock news
Posted: Friday, July 20, 2007 11:56 AM by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
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TV
The CW arrived Friday at the TV Critics' Association summer press tour, and entertainment president Dawn Ostroff kicked things off with a free-wheeling session discussing everything from CW reality shows to a little "Veronica Mars" mourning.
First, let's tackle the reality show tidbits:
--"Beauty and the Geek" will return on Sept. 18, with one tiny twist. In addition to a full complement of beautiful babes and geeky men, there will be one beautiful man paired with a supposedly geeky girl. (She looked geeky only in Hollywood's sense of the word, in other words, as soon as she takes off her glasses she'll probably be a babe too.) Why not do a whole show about handsome men and geeky women? I have my theories about that, namely, that unattractive smart women are not interesting to Hollywood, and that the beefcake men would be more likely to completely dismiss and be cruel to unattractive women than the reverse.
--"America's Next Top Model" won't be going anywhere for a while. Tyra Banks has been signed to do the show through 2009. The next "cycle" will start Sept. 19 in L.A., but the cycle after that will move back to New York, where the first three seasons were shot.
--"Pussycat Doll" winner Asia Nitollano is not, in fact, going to be the next Pussycat Doll. She's "pursuing a solo career," which made one critic ask what's the point of these shows if the winner doesn't really become anything. (Have you seen the "Top Model" winners actually becoming Top Models? Me neither.) But the show will be back, with the Pussycat Dolls this time helping select women for a new group called Girlicious.
--Two appalling looking new reality shows are on the way. "Farmer Takes a Wife" is kind of like "Bachelorettes in Alaska," where city women head to a rural area and proclaim that all they really want is to settle down with a real, salt-of-the-earth guy. I'm betting a) the relationship doesn't work out, and b) that we've already seen all the cliches of spoiled urban girls milking cows on "Simple Life."
The other reality show, "Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants," takes adult daughters and their well-preserved mothers (who all appear to have been high-school sophomores when they gave birth) and has them compete in beauty pageant type competitions. Critics howled when it was announced that the ceremony kicking one team off each week is called the "de-sashing," and a giant pair of ceremonial scissors was shown.
My favorite question of the session came when a critic asked Ostroff if she was proud of the "vision of life" that The CW's reality shows present to women. Let's see...that would be look beautiful ("Top Model"), look beautiful ("Beauty and the Geek"), look beautiful ("Crowned") and look beautiful so you can get married ("Farmer Takes a Wife"). Unsurprisingly, Ostroff said yes, that she thought the shows were "aspirational in many ways." Unless you aspire to contribute to the world in a non-looks-centered way, I guess.
Ostroff also offered some tidbits about CW's scripted shows:
--Like NBC, The CW will try and incorporate environmental issues into its shows, with each show featuring one green-themed episode. The only one filmed so far: "Everybody Hates Chris" has an episode called "Everybody Hates Earth Day." Heh.
--Some new characters are coming to "Smallville" and "Supernatural." Laura Vandervoort will play Supergirl on "Smallville." And on "Supernatural," Sam and Dean will be joined by two female evil-hunters, played by Katie Cassidy (daughter of ex-"Partridge" David) and Lauren Cohan.
--News for "Gilmore Girls" fans: Scott Patterson (Luke) will be joining the CW's new comedy, "Aliens in America." He's replacing previously cast Patrick Breen, and will play the father of a nerdy Wisconsin kid who blossoms when a Muslim exchange student comes to live with the family.
--Chris Rock has always been heard in voiceover on the show based on his childhood, "Everybody Hates Chris," but now he'll get an acting role, too, playing a school guidance counselor in the season premiere.
--"Buffy" fans waiting for a possible TV movie about Spike will have to wait a little longer. The CW has not had any conversations with "Buffy's" Joss Whedon about the film, said Ostroff, adding that the network "would love to be in business with Joss."
--Ostroff didn't talk much about departed shows "Veronica Mars" and "Gilmore Girls." Of "Gilmore," she did say that as the ratings continued to drop (they fell 25% in the show's final season), she and star Lauren Graham talked and decided it was best to end the show. As for "Veronica Mars," she said the show had "no stronger champion," and that the network "really tried to bring more viewers in" but was unable to do so.
