Fox faces decisions on fate of its shows
‘House,’ ‘Terra Nova’ are among those series in limbo
PASADENA, Calif. — Fox met with TV critics Sunday to tout its upcoming shows, but most wanted to know about its current series, including veteran drama House and freshman fantasy Terra Nova, where decisions must be made soon.
And the network addressed The X Factor, which completed its run with half the audience of
Idol amid criticisms of host Steve Jones and judge Nicole Scherzinger.
Entertainment chief Kevin Reilly also ruled out one proposed new series: “There will not be a Glee spinoff,” he said, “but those (main) characters who graduate will set us up for a cool season” next season, and current stars including Lea Michele will return.
“It’s hard to imagine the network without House,” he told the semiannual gathering of TV writers, but falling ratings and high costs make it harder to justify after eight seasons. “Should it be the last season, it’s not going to be an unceremonious finish.”
Terra Nova is another question mark. “We’ve done a good job of avoiding these big decisions,” Reilly joked, but he emphasized outsized expectations for the costly series, filmed in Australia, and says it was the fall’s second-highest-rated new drama among young adults. “If the show hadn’t worked, I still wouldn’t be apologizing.”
But a large crop of producers and somewhat schizophrenic storytelling posed hurdles. “There were a lot of chefs in the kitchen, that did make it a bit of a challenge, (and) I wish it was creatively more consistent,” he said. But the show is profitable and sold well in overseas markets. Given a lengthy production schedule, to make a fall debut, “we won’t be able to drag our feet on it too much longer.”
Reilly declined to confirm speculation about replacing some X Factor personalities. “There are changes, but I can tell you I have no idea what they’re going to be.” Hosting, “as we know, is a much harder job than meets the eye. Everyone now has come to realize the value of a Ryan Seacrest. Whether Steve’s the guy or not, it comes under the heading of growth in general.”
Reilly also praised low-rated Friday series Fringe, happy to not “turn our backs on genre fans.” But “the hesitation in my voice is it’s an expensive show — at that rating on that night, it’s impossible to make money, and we’re in the business of making money.” Though he said that doesn’t amount to an early cancellation, signs aren’t good. But “please don’t start the letter-writing campaign right now, I can’t take it.”
Now, those upcoming shows:
Unlocking ‘Alcatraz’
What if 300 prisoners and guards on the infamous Alcatraz island suddenly disappeared when the prison was shut down in 1963, only to reappear 50 years later?
That’s the premise behind Alcatraz, the latest drama from J.J. Abrams ( Lost, Fringe, Person of Interest), premiering Jan. 16 (8 ET/PT). Sam Neill stars as a former guard obsessed with tracking the returnees, who seem not to know why they’ve resurfaced to commit crimes in present-day San Francisco. Sarah Jones is an FBI agent, and Lost’s Jorge Garcia, whose character wrote a book on the prison, is enlisted to help stop them.
Abrams is no stranger to series that promise stand-alone episodes and then become densely layered in a way that can be off-putting to casual viewers. As he also said ini- tially with Lost, Fringe and Person of Interest, “People can watch the show without saying, ‘Wait a minute, those frustrating impenetrable things will happen,’ in shows I won’t mention.”
He said Alcatraz “was designed very much as an episodic show with overarching mythology stories that we will get to over time” but said that in every episode, “one of the worst of the worst” prisoners comes back, providing a more selfcontained storytelling device.
He said Garcia was the first to be cast on Alcatraz (as well as Lost), and in an eerie coincidence, the actor’s girlfriend was somewhat obsessed with the prison even before Abrams pitched it.
“It feels a little like a ghost house, like a haunted house,” Abrams said. “This place does not feel like any other prison that I’ve either visited or served time in.”
A ‘Touch’ of mystery
Does Kiefer Sutherland still have the Touch? We’ll soon find out.
One of Fox’s signature stars thanks to a long tenure on 24, Sutherland returns in the fantasy drama that gets a sneak preview Jan. 25 (9 ET/PT) before returning for a spring run. In Touch, he’s the father of an autistic boy whose mysterious ability to see connections and patterns allows him to predict the future.
Chances are even Jake (David Mazouz), the child at the center of Touch, couldn’t have predicted Sutherland would be back on TV so soon. He was on Broadway doing That Championship Season when a friend told him to read the script. “I said, ‘You know what? I’m not ready to do that yet,’ ” he said. “I wanted to set some time apart from the amazing experience in 24.”
When he read the script, he changed his mind.
A main draw was that his character was so far from taciturn, worldsaving Jack Bauer.
“The character was so vastly different and the tone of the piece was so vastly different that that was part of the appeal,” he said. “I just emotionally responded to the piece in such a strong way.”
Fans, however, should know that Sutherland still loves Jack, and he’s still committed to a 24 movie: “Hopefully we will be shooting at the end of April, beginning of May.”