Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Monday, April 22nd, 2024:
PRODUCTION NOTES
* I've recently had a few readers suggest I put together an RSS feed for the web site. I worked on it over the weekend and while I'm still tweaking it a bit, here are the relevant urls if you're interested.
RSS Feed:
https://rss.app/feeds/_Taqu0cPdbAJEN3p4.xml
https://rss.app/feeds/v1.1/_Taqu0cPdbAJEN3p4.json
https://rss.app/feeds/_Taqu0cPdbAJEN3p4.csv
* I am wrapping work on a piece for tomorrow in which I'll talk about what I would do if I ran CNN. Do you have any thoughts? Reply directly to this newsletter or post a comment and I'll try and add some of your suggestions to the piece. It'll post first on AllYourScreens, but I will also link to the piece in tomorrow's newsletter.
* Speaking of AllYourScreens, I have a bunch of stuff set to post this week. Tomorrow, I'll have separate interviews with the showrunner and most of the primary cast of Apple TV+'s The Big Door Prize, which premieres its second season on Wednesday. Tomorrow, I'll have reviews of the series premiere of the PBS show The Express Way With Dule Hill as well as the season premiere of History's The Secret Of Skinwalker Ranch.
On Thursday, I'll have reviews of the new Netflix series Dead Boy Detectives (which was originally produced for Max) as well as the Netflix film City Hunter, which is based on the Manga of the same name. Friday brings reviews of the four-part documentary Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story and the Netflix original series The Asunta Case. I'll also review Netflix's South Korean series Goodbye Earth and Paramount+'s Knuckles. I wasn't able to get screeners for the latter two, so reviews won't post until the weekend.
I HAD COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN ABOUT THIS PIECE ON DONALD TRUMP AND 'THE APPRENTICE'
There are so many stories about 2016 Donald Trump that we have all memory holed. For instance, until someone ran across the story and emailed me about it, I had completely forgotten I had spent quite a bit of time reporting on the soon-to-be president's controversial off-camera behavior on the set of The Apprentice:
Last week, I spoke with Gene Folkes, who was a contestant on season ten of The Apprentice. He told me that in off-camera moments, Donald Trump would ask male contestants to rate the attractiveness of female contestants and even crew. "He would not move on without getting an answer," said Folkes. "He would keep pushing. 'Well, if you had to, would you sleep with her?" He also said that in down moments in the boardroom, Trump would point out one of the female contestants and then turn to one of the male contestants and ask him if she was hot or not.
I also spoke with two people who worked on the production of later seasons of The Apprentice and in both cases they reported hearing Donald Trump discuss the breasts of contestants during and before "board meetings" on the show. One former crew member recounted a discussion in which Donald Trump was overheard having a discussion with a show's producer about whether one male contestant had come across as "manly enough" in a previous scene. This crew member also recounted Trump telling a camera person who had trouble getting a shot that "I could be fucking X right now."
A COUPLE OF THOUGHTS ABOUT 'QUIET ON SET'
There have been several pieces in recent days recounting complaints from some participants of the Investigation Discovery docu-series Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV. I haven't written anything about those stories, in part because I feel uncomfortable doing so given that I was one of the people interviewed for the project. And also because I have no first-hand knowledge of the issues. For what it's worth, my experience with the producers was a positive one. But that's as much as I know for sure.
But I saw this piece in Deadline that I do feel qualified to comment on because while I don't know what any other participants were told (and I haven't discussed the issue with the producers), I do feel as if I have some insight into how the streaming television business works:
“I’m not too familiar with ID, but for the interview I sat down for, it was not an appropriate network for the show,” former The Amanda Show star Raquel Lee Bolleau said in an interview with IndieWire. “I had no clue it was on [ID] until one or two weeks before it aired.”
Fellow Nickelodeon star and former Zoey 101 cast member Alexa Nikolas echoed Lee Bolleau’s sentiment, saying, “I didn’t even know what ID was, honestly. When I looked it up, my first thought was our stories and the conversation that deserves to be had around them are way bigger than ID and deserve a more credible platform. A more serious one.”
The actresses say that the creators of Quiet on Set, Emma Schwartz and Mary Robertson, kept the subjects in the dark about the project. Although the docuseries ended up streaming on Max, they filmed their portions before the streamer launched.
According to the report by IndieWire, they thought the docuseries was being made by Maxine Productions, and Nikolas said she remembered HBO being associated with it in some way.
“I feel that the sensationalism was revved up because of it being on ID,” Nikolas said. “It would have been curated differently and would have been more impactful on [another network].”
I don't know what either Nikolas or Bolleau were told about the possible home for the network. All I can say is that when I was first contacted a year ago about the project, the likely home at that point was Max.
But it doesn't surprise me the project was moved to Investigation Discovery. That allowed Warner Bros. Discovery to boost the ratings of its linear network and since the docu-series would end up on Max anyway, it was a win-win for executives. I agree that ID's reputation for airing a lot of inexpensive slapped-together programming, having it premiere on that network was not ideal. I suspect that is part of the reason that the initial early press attention for the special was so muted. It wasn't until viewers began watching it that the buzz truly escalated:
“I don’t personally hold anything against anyone at ID or Max right now, but I do hold something against Maxine, because they knew what they were doing,” Lee Bolleau said, adding “About it streaming on Max, it just feels like, ‘How can we make the most money and keep this story circulating?’”
I’ll be kind as I can be and simply say that I don’t think that anyone who has spent any amount of time studying how the television works believes that the producers of the documentary were the ones making the decision on where it would air. Producers might have been asked their opinion (or not, I don’t know). But it’s just ludicrous to argue it’s only streaming on Max because the producers wanted to make the most money possible.
AND IN THE 'SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE' DEPARTMENT
I was reading an April 1957 issue of TV Guide over the weekend and there was a story about how much pressure advertisers put on TV networks to stay away from "controversial" subjects. And I thought this excerpt sounds very familiar. The cultural issues aren't racial integration in 2024. But many of excuses are identical to what was being expressed in 1957. The only difference now is that the pressure is being imposed by the networks and their media owners, not the advertisers:
Banzhaf acknowledged that Circle Theater "would never touch a script dealing with racial integration." He paused to emphasize his point. "That's because the subject has no place on an entertainment medium such as TV. It can only inflame hatred in this country. A subject like that goes beyond the realm of controversy."
Banzhaf smiled, almost grimly. "I know nobody will believe this statement, but our primary reason for turning this down is not because it will hurt our sales down South. Naturally, we will do nothing to insult our customers. But I'm convinced you cannot write a play about that subject without taking sides, and we're not in TV to take sides."
Kaiser's Watson, declaring that his company sponsors Kaiser Hour as "a commercial vehicle," says that "we don't want to get into the realm of conflict." Watson smiled. "We don't want to be pollyannas - the good guys don't have to win all the time," he said. "Let's face it, though - we have four or five big plants down South. We have 20,000 people with wives and kids working for us, and we must do business with the government. The whole darn television industry isn't worth our jeopardizing our corporation."
ODDS AND SODS
* Here is a rundown of today's global TV and streaming stories you should know.
* I like her music just fine. But please stop trying to make me adore Taylor Swift.
* This GQ cover interview with Jerry Seinfeld is quite good and among other things, he talks about his disappointments with the Seinfeld series finale episode.
WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND TOMORROW
MONDAY, APRIL 22ND:
* Ahead Of The Curve (Netflix)
* American Experience: Tragedy At Love Canal (PBS)
* CoComelon Lane (Netflix)
* Fern Brady: Autistic Bikini Queen (Netflix)
* Hip-Hop And The White House (Hulu)
* Intervention Season Premiere (A&E)
* 90 Day Fiance: Love In Paradise Season Premiere (TLC)
* Quarter Ton Teen Series Premiere (A&E)
* Restoration Road With Clint Harp Season Premiere (Magnolia)
* The Proof Is Out There: Military Mysteries Series Premiere (History)
* Tiger (Disney+)
* Tigers On The Rise (Disney+)
* Ugliest House In America Season Premiere (HGTV)
TUESDAY, APRIL 23RD:
* Brigands: The Quest For Gold Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Farmhouse Fixer Season Premiere (HGTV)
* Fight for Paradise: Who Can You Trust? Series Premiere (Netflix)
* The Express Way With Dule Hill Series Premiere (PBS)
* The Secret Of Skinwalker Ranch Season Premiere (History)
* TMZ Presents: Arnold & Sly: Rivals, Friends, Icons (Fox)
SEE YOU ON TUESDAY!