By John Jurgensen
The broadcast networks have trumpeted plans to take pressure off
the traditional fall premiere season by rolling out new shows
throughout the year. The summer will test that strategy. Starting
this month, the five broadcasters are scheduled to premiere 13
scripted series over the course of the season, up from 10 last
year.
Last summer, CBS scored with "Under the Dome," a Stephen King
adaptation that benefited from the network's marketing clout and
held viewers' attention with a season about half as long as that of
a typical network show. It marked a victory in the broadcasters'
ongoing effort to reclaim the season. For years, summer had been
the province of cable channels, which took advantage of the big
networks' off-season reliance on reruns and reality shows. More
than a decade ago, USA's summer detective series "Monk" helped
spark the onslaught of original cable programming. Showtime planted
a flag with "Weeds" in August, 2005, and AMC launched "Mad Men" in
July, 2007.
Now, a new bottleneck is forming. Not only do cable channels
have to deal with increased competition from each other and the
resurgent broadcasters, there are new channels that didn't exist
last summer. Pivot, a new cable channel aimed at millennials, this
August offers a second season of "Please Like Me," a coming-of-age
comedy that sneaked onto critics' "best of" lists last year. More
channels are jumping into the fray of original programming.
"Manhattan," a July drama about the development of the atomic bomb,
is only the second original series from Tribune's WGN America.
Meanwhile, there are the buzzy offerings from streaming services
such as Hulu and Netflix, which is resurrecting "The Killing" (Aug.
1) after it was canceled twice by AMC.
After making a critical splash last summer with its first
original drama, "Rectify," Sun-danceTV is hoping to grow the show's
viewership. "There's a lot of competition and a lot of smart
scripted drama in the summer," said SundanceTV President Sarah
Barnett, "but there's still a little room there." Here's a
selection of the coming series drawing attention.
'Crossbones'
May 30, NBC
Four months after Starz set forth "Black Sails," a Jerry
Bruckheimer series about swashbucklers, John Malkovich lends his
star power to NBC's pirate story set in 1712. He plays Blackbeard,
who happens to sport a white goatee. Lording over a pirate colony
in the Bahamas, he covets an elaborate chronometer that holds the
key to British sea power. He's prone to headaches, scary visions
and such mouthfuls as, "I should be obliged to see hell visited
upon you."
'Halt and Catch Fire'
June 1, AMC
In Dallas, 1983, two restless men try to leapfrog into the PC
business by illegally reverse-engineering an IBM computer. A
Centipede arcade game, feathered hairstyles and a soundtrack of
vintage synth-pop provide period details. But the producers strive
to say something about how we live now with our technology. As one
character stresses to his partner, "Computers aren't the thing.
They're the thing that gets us to the thing." The first episode is
streaming on AMC's Tumblr page.
'Power'
June 7, Starz
If it wasn't on a pay channel, certain lyrics in the show's
theme song (by executive producer 50 Cent) would have to be bleeped
out. Omari Hardwick stars as Ghost, a New York nightclub owner who
also operates a drug ring. It is a busy life that involves removing
the expensive suit he wears to his club's grand opening to avoid
blood splatters while dealing with a low-level rival. "Power"
creator Courtney Kemp Agboh is a veteran of "The Good Wife" writing
staff.
'The Last Ship'
June 22, TNT
TNT wants a ratings boost, along with more of the buzz and
young, male viewers that go for shows like "Sons of Anarchy" (FX)
and "The Walking Dead" (AMC). The channel recently rolled out a new
tagline--"TNT Drama. Boom"--and is working with Michael Bay, an
executive producer known for explosions, on the first in a new set
of action-driven shows. "The Last Ship" focuses on a Navy destroyer
carrying survivors of--and potentially a cure to--a pandemic that
has wiped out the majority of the world's population.
'Tyrant'
June 24, FX
The estranged son of a Middle Eastern dictator returns to his
home country after avoiding it for 20 years while living in the
U.S. With his wife and two kids in tow, L.A. pediatrician Barry Al
Fayeed (Adam Rayner) gets trapped in a volatile land where his
older brother, an apparent sociopath, is poised to take control.
"Tyrant" is set in a fictional country but takes place after the
real-life uprisings of the Arab Spring. The show was created by
Gideon Raff, whose Israeli series "Prisoners of War" served as the
basis of "Homeland." Overseeing production is "Homeland" co-creator
Howard Gordon.
'The Leftovers'
June 29, HBO
Cross Tom Perrotta, a novelist known for exploring the
psychology of the suburbs, with Damon Lindelof, one of the writing
forces behind "Lost," and the result looks to be one of the most
wrenching HBO dramas since "Six Feet Under." Based on Mr.
Perrotta's 2011 novel of the same name, the series revolves around
the disappearance of 2% of the world's population. Three years
later, the people remaining, including a small-town police chief
played by Justin Theroux, struggle with the mass departure and how
to carry on.
'Extant'
July 9, CBS
Last summer CBS got out of its comfort zone with "Under the
Dome," which had a highly serialized sci-fi story and a compact
13-episode run (compared with the traditional 22). The network
hopes to replicate the success of "Dome" (returning June 30) with
"Extant." Steven Spielberg is an executive producer of the
13-episode series, which stars Halle Berry as an astronaut who
returns home after somehow getting pregnant during a solo year in
space.
'Matador'
July 15, El Rey
The fledgling network (co-founded by filmmaker Robert Rodriguez)
was able to snag this series from Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman,
whose credits include "Star Trek" and Fox's "Sleepy Hollow," when
they were between studio contracts. "Matador" features Gabriel Luna
as a CIA operative who works under the guise of a pro soccer
player. Alfred Molina stars as a team owner/criminal mastermind. El
Rey vice chair Scott Sassa says he gave these instructions to the
writers: "If you ever get stuck, take two steps toward crazy,
because that's how we're going to stand out."
'The Knick'
Aug. 8, Cinemax
After his Liberace biopic "Behind the Candelabra" won a passel
of awards for HBO, Steven Soderbergh did a miniseries for sister
channel Cinemax. "The Knick" is set in New York in 1900 and stars
Clive Owen as a doctor trying to change surgery from a gory
trial-and-error practice into a science. Mr. Soderbergh, who has
ostensibly retired from making feature films, directed the
10-episode TV series and brings some auteur cred to Cinemax, whose
handful of original shows have been more action-oriented.
'The Honorable Woman'
July 31, SundanceTV
This eight-part miniseries (co-produced by the BBC) stars Maggie
Gyllenhaal as the daughter of an assassinated arms dealer who
inherits his business. She transforms the company (laying data
cable between Israel and the West Bank) and lands a political
appointment that puts her at the center of an international fracas.
Like last summer's "Top of the Lake," a miniseries led by Elisabeth
Moss, "The Honorable Woman" could almost be considered
counterprogramming, given the many male antiheroes who have become
a cliché of cable dramas. "There's a lot of dark male stories out
there, so there's something great about signaling quickly that this
is different," says Sun-danceTV's Ms. Barnett.
Write to John Jurgensen at john.jurgensen@wsj.com
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