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'The Beautiful Life': Has The CW already lost faith?
As the L'il 5th to the Big Four TV networks, The CW has the smallest slate of new shows for the fall season: the new "Melrose Place," supernatural teen romance "The Vampire Diaries," and the Ashton Kutcher-produced model melodrama "The Beautiful Life: TBL."The network wisely used Tuesday (Sept. 8) night's premieres of "Melrose" and the new season of "90210" to repeatedly plug its new lineup ... Er, some of its new lineup. Okay, actually just "Vampire Diaries."
The CW has actually done little to promote "The Beautiful Life." Despite the show's premiere next Wednesday (9/16), critics have yet to receive a full episode to review. This is pretty rare; networks will at least send out screeners with temporary music, titles, sound and other unfinished bits in order to get shows in the hands of critics. Prior to summer press tour in July, media was provided only with twenty-five minutes of scenes. This often indicates the show's being recast or the pilot being re-shot, but in the case of "TBL," there was no recasting and no pilot to re-shoot. Just the scenes.
Initial shooting for "TBL" was delayed a week in July, though reportedly not due to co-star Mischa Barton's much publicized hospitalization. No, supposedly the sets just weren't ready.
During last night's two-hour "Top Model" season premiere, seemingly a good time to push a show about models -- especially one that's going to occupy the time slot following "ANTM" starting next week -- The CW ran only three "TBL" promos.
The CW web site front page devotes much more space to Thursday (Sept. 10) night's "Supernatural" premiere. In terms of online content, both "Melrose" and "Vampire Diaries" have been supported with webisodes, minisites and other exclusive content. "The Beautiful Life" has little but a hastily thrown together blog site which supposedly covers fashion in the show's fictional world. It features only three posts, all of which are from Aug. 26. The comments on the blog -- also all posted on August 26 -- are hilariously fake busywork by interns or publicists. My comment is awaiting moderation.
But the most telling indicator of lack of interest among The CW demos is the number of Facebook fans for the new shows' pages. "Vampire Diaries": 67,726. "Melrose Place": 61,470. "The Beautiful Life": a paltry 7,399.Even better: The link to "TBL" on Facebook on the cwtv.com page for the show doesn't work. So either no one at the network has noticed, they don't care enough to correct the link or they haven't bothered to ask why "TBL" has so few Facebook fans.
If the ratings are proportionate to the Facebook numbers, a mere 276,000 viewers will tune in for "The Beautiful Life" premiere. (Oh, I know it'll have more ... for whatever reason ...)
The biggest push for "TBL" so far has been a poster campaign that got some attention for its full nude but conveniently black-barred photos of the stars, including kiddie programmin alums Corbin Bleu and Sara Paxton. The buzz on these petered out pretty quick. For the past several weeks, you couldn't turn a corner in LA without seeing a "Melrose" or "Vampire Diaries" billboard. The "TBL" posters (no billboards) are rare by comparison.
"Melrose Place" is just dreadful yet the net pumped up the promos for it. How bad could "TBL" be? What's up, CW? Given up on this one before it's begun?
-- More of Eric Almendral's media musings can be found at ericonmedia
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Eric, Melrose has a history and that will likely allow it to survive in the beginning, TBL looks like a horrible show. I haven't seen anything but previews, but none have made me want to look at it. I think they need to improve the cast before it has a chance to succeed. I believe that cast of Melrose is far superior. I'm not sure about the Vampire Diaries, but it seems much more geared to the bimbo teen audience that the CW covets so much. As you pointed out, there is no interest in TBL, so I'm sure they'll show the episodes they've made, but I don't see it lasting any longer than it has to.
the cw does not have the money to promote more than 2 new shows, its that simple
I just hope that TBL, which has been treated as the underdog, can come out with some respectable numbers. The CW sucks.
"TBL looks like a horrible show."
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree. The preview of the pilot already garnered way more favorable reviews than both Diaries and Melrose. Go read the reviews Futon Critic and TVWOP posted. Also, TVWOP has put it on their fall best list.
The picture you have showing here, was the worst actress from 'Last House On The Left'...
She is completely devoid of any human emotion.
Mischa Barton is better off drunk or on drugs or waiting for the CW to revamp The OC to expect this crapfest to work.
Oh Sh*t!
I didn't mean to plant ideas, everyone knows The OC imploded as i expect the CW to do...
The picture you have showing here, was the worst actress from 'Last House On The Left'...
She is completely devoid of any human emotion.
Mischa Barton is better off drunk or on drugs or waiting for the CW to revamp The OC to expect this crapfest to work.
Oh Sh*t!
I didn't mean to plant ideas, everyone knows The OC imploded as i expect the CW to do...
In the end...
Pretty People
PLUS Pretty Things...
EQUALS Pretty BORING !!!
Despite your lame attempt to skew the story, it still seems to me that all this means is that TBL does not have many Facebook followers and that it appears this is a direct result of the fact that the link on The CW's website does not work.
It might also have something to do with the fact that the people who want to watch TBL HAVE A LIFE and don't need to make "friends" with a TV show on Facebook.
Seriously, who cares???
I actually do plan on watching TBL but I don't feel the need to befriend the show online.
Besides, there's no way it can be any worse than the dreadful remakes of 90210 and Melrose Place that The CW seems intent on making the cornerstone of its mini-net.
The CW needs to change course very quickly or they will not be around much longer.
When you remake 2 beloved former hits and less than 3 million people want to watch them that means you made a bad decision -- twice -- and now you need to move on and do something else. Why is it that I can see that but the "professionals" running The CW cannot?
Chad, you obviously aren't a Facebook user since you don't know the difference between a fan page and "friending" a show. This story isn't skewed at all. It's not saying "TBL" is bad. It's pointing out that CW isn't doing as much to help it succeed as it has for its other two shows this fall. House ads and proper exposure on the network website don't cost a lot of money, so it's not like they had to choose what to promote over something else. Do you really think people who are dying to watch a show about models have more of a life than those who want to check out Melrose Place or Vampire Diaries? In that case, Top Model shouldn't have 559,516 Facebook fans. Say it together now, FANS, not FRIENDS.
I'm just curious...those who say, quote, "TBL looks like a horrible show"...what exactly are you basing that on? I work for a CW affiliate and have seen extensive scenes from the pilot, and it was immediately my favorite of all the 3 new series.
I, too, have been extremely disappointed that the network has not promoted TBL as much as the other two shows, which were getting plenty of buzz on their own. As one person noted, TBL has received GREAT reviews, with one critic calling it "the best script ever from the CW."
So all of you bashers who just like to pile on for no good reason whatsoever, go take a flying leap. Or better yet, go back to the reality crap that you're ushering in by constantly knocking scripted programming. YOU alone are killing TV, just remember that.