By RICK KUSHMAN
Friday, November 10, 2006
There's good and bad news Sunday about Helen Mirren and PBS' stellar series of detective movies, "Prime Suspect."
The good news is that we get a new, two-parter (Sunday and Nov. 19, check local listings). The downside: It's called "Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act" and it is, indeed, the last installment in the story of Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison.
The films, which started in 1992, have been one of television's enduring high-caliber runs for their starkness, complexity, emotional resonance and, most of all, because of their star, Mirren.
Mirren is on a roll lately, winning an Emmy for HBO's "Elizabeth I," and drawing great reviews for her performance in the new feature film, "The Queen." She first came to the attention of the larger American audience with "Prime Suspect."
Throughout its run, she's been resolutely cynical, troubled and self-destructive, yet always appealing and oddly heroic. She made her Jane Tennison exasperating, larger-than-life and intimately human, and there hasn't been a moment in the seven movies when Mirren has not been exhilarating to watch on screen.
In Sunday's story, Tennison is struggling to deal with her worsening drinking problem, her dying father and her reluctant retirement. She takes on one last case involving a missing teenage girl, and bonds with a classmate who reminds Tennison of the girl she once was.
This is a complicated, sometimes painful movie with plenty of misfortune and sadness, but Jane Tennison/Helen Mirren is, as always, so mesmerizing you can't look away.
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We have a couple new peeks at the future of TV _ which we get so often, it might as well be the now of TV.
First, NBC has started streaming what amounts to be director's cuts of "The Office" on its Web site _ www.nbc.com _ with scenes that were deleted from the on-air episodes. Lots of shows have aired deleted scenes or extras, but never as part of a whole streamed episode. (The expanded version will stay on the site for a week.)
"The Office," which has won an Emmy for best comedy, has been one of the shows that's gotten a big push from digital exposure. NBC has said its popularity as an iTunes download helped the network decide to keep the series.
So, the upshot? It's not just TV ratings anymore that affect network decisions, and shows aren't being produced just to appear on the air. Soon _ probably very soon _ everything that runs on the networks will just be the simple, economy versions of shows.The other future peek is CBS' deal with Comcast and General Motors to have GM sponsor the network series that CBS offers on demand, including the three "CSIs" and "NCIS."
Viewers can watch these shows through Comcast's On Demand feature, and instead of sitting through the usual commercial breaks, will see just three spots _ one before the show, one in the middle, and one at the end.
The one future of television that most people in the industry predict is the one with viewers ordering all their shows On Demand and rarely worrying about actual airtimes and dates. The bigger questions involve the role advertising will play, whether people will still get 16-plus minutes of ads per hour, whether viewers will be able to pay more for shows without ads, and more. This deal is a look at one likely model, a compromise of sorts for viewers and flat-out sponsorships for advertisers.
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Got a few mark-your-calendar notices, though whether you care is your business.
First, CBS announced that "The King of Queens" returns on Dec. 6, and, yeah, I thought it had been canceled, too. At least it's not "Yes, Dear."
The comedy will run on Wednesdays through December, temporarily taking over the time slot for the new show "Jericho."
CBS also announced that "Jericho" will take a mid-season break _ just like ABC's "Lost" _ so the show with a continuing post-apocalyptic storyline won't have to fill time with the repeats that drive off fans. The last "Jericho" for the fall will air Nov. 29, then it will come back with a recap on Feb. 14 and a new episode on Feb. 21, or as the networks call it, an "all-new" episode, because, apparently, sometimes they run shows that are only partly new.
Finally, Fox announced that "American Idol" returns for season six on Jan. 16 and 17 with back-to-back, two-hour shows featuring those ever-popular wacky auditions. Oh, those kids.
That's a Tuesday and Wednesday, by the way, and come right after "24" starts its own season with back-to-back, two-hour doses on Jan. 14 and 15. Fox is expecting a big January.
If "Idol" sticks to its schedule, the show will narrow the field to 32 by Feb. 20 and that's when America gets to start voting again.
(Contact Rick Kushman at rkushman(at)sacbee.com)
