The Path To Zen

Everything You Need About NBC Series LIFE starring Damian Lewis & Sarah Shahi

As you probably know NBC had a “Sophomore Dramas” panel at the TCA, panel where were present Mediaweek’s Marc Berman, the Programming Insider, and Alan Frutkin, senior reporter. From their report, here’s what’s about LIFE :

Rand Ravich on the writers’ strike:

“Coming up to the strike, it got a little crazed and we were hurrying to get as many episodes done as soon as possible. And then, given more time now, we could actually plan for a longer season and plan out our story arcs more carefully.”

-The Reality:
The unfortunate prediction is not to expect much out of CHUCK, LIFE or LIPSTICK JUNGLE next season. CHUCK generated only minor interest among adults 18-49 anchoring Monday, and there is no reason to think that will change next season. Moving LIFE to Friday at 10 p.m. is a suicide mission. And LIPSTICK JUNGLE opposite CBS’ CSI: NY and ABC’s potentially blossoming DIRTY SEXY MONEY on Wednesday will have its work cut out.

Continue reading "Mediaweek On The NBC Panel Front At TCA"…

TelevisionWithoutPity is organizing the 2008 Tubey Awards, asking all of you to vote in a very large set of categories. Looking back at last season, they have no less than 60 different categories you can vote in, so the votes will go on for six weeks, each week introducing a new group of categories you can vote in.

TELEVISIONWITHOUTPITY.COM ANNOUNCES THE TUBEY AWARDS

Honors The Best, Worst, Most Improved And Just Plain Weird Of The 2007-2008 TV Season

NEW YORK July 20, 2008 TelevisionWithoutPity.com, Bravo’s popular website for TV junkies, will unveil The Tubey Awards, a unique opportunity for TV junkies to choose the best, worst, most improved and just plain weird characters, series, moments and more from the 2007-2008 television season. The Tubey Awards are aimed at viewers who love TV when it’s good but love to hate it even more when it’s bad. The announcement was made today by Mari Katsunuma, Vice President, Digital Strategy, Bravo.

Unlike traditional television awards, The Tubeys will go beyond recognizing the best shows and performers with fun, quirky categories that speak to what discerning TV fans are really talking about. Starting today, fans can vote for 60 categories online on TelevisionWithoutPity.com. New categories and nominees will be unveiled weekly through August 31 and fans will have one week to cast their votes before the next set of categories are revealed. Winners will be announced in mid-September.

“The Tubey Awards were created as a tongue-in-cheek outlet for true TV lovers and are meant to reflect what fans consider worthy (or not) of recognition,” said Katsunuma. “The awards serve as the platform for recognizing all of the good, bad, and ugly that television has to offer.”

The votes are now opened, and it is important for every LIFE fan to go vote and support the show right now. And I really mean right now, because LIFE only appears in two categories, Best Sew Show and Best Drama, and those two are up in the first week. You only have up to July 27 to vote for the first categories, and that will be your only chance to vote for LIFE, so go cast your votes now !

Continue reading "2008 Tubey Awards: Vote for LIFE !"…

Here’s the music info found for The Fallen Women :

- At 16:30, Reese goes into the club to look for Charlie, talking with a model : Face The Day, by Ren Stewart. Can be found on The Steiner Theory.

- At 21:45, Crews & Reese arrest Roman : Land Of Jail, by Gram Rabbit. Can be found on Music To Start A Cult To.

- At 35:10, Crews, Reese and the SWAT team rescuing the guy from the dog cage : Haiku Ten, by Sigmatropic. Can be found on Sixteen Haiku and Other Stories (Buy the MP3).

- At 40:40, End of episode: Charlie getting a “tip” about his partner, looking at his wall, … : In The Sun, by Donna De Lory. Can be found on In The Glow (Buy the MP3).

Air Date: Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Time Slot: 10:00 PM-11:00 PM EST on NBC
Episode Title: (#105) “THE FALLEN WOMAN”

10/24/2007 (10:00PM - 10:59PM) (Wednesday) : A WOMAN WEARING ANGEL WINGS FALLS OUT OF A HOTEL WINDOW, PLUMMETING TO HER DEATH - When a woman wearing angel wings falls to her death Detective Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) and Danni Reese (Sarah Shahi) must figure out if she was pushed or if she jumped. After interviewing a long line of witnesses about the fallen angel, they come across Jasper Williams (Steven Porter) who claims to be the angels wife. Jasper reveals his wife was part of a Russian scam targeting American men who marry Russian brides. Crews and Reese find themselves trying to track down the Russian ringleader of this scam, a man who appears to be untouchable. Crews also learns Constance Griffiths (Brooke Langton) was involved in a physical altercation with one of her clients. Adam Arkin and Brent Sexton also star.

[ Source: NBC ]

Networks are constantly trying new ways to sell ads everywhere, and their biggest concern now becomes whether or not viewers will actually watch those ads. Because with time-shifted viewing more and more viewers simply skip through the ads. Hence the raise on new techniques, starting with product placement of course.

Other techniques were tried last season, some successful some not. One of those techniques was used for ads during LIFE, and it worked. According to AdWeek :

Not every new technique has worked as planned. One early NBC trial involved posing trivia questions leading out of the comedy SCRUBS. Viewers had to watch the commercial pod in order to learn the answer.

Retention levels weren’t raised, the network discovered. But a MasterCard spot in the mystery drama series LIFE, which offered new clues related to the content in the program, had a positive effect on DVR viewing: 25 percent of those watching in playback mode stopped skipping through ads to watch the MasterCard commercial, according to the network’s research.

So I guess those kinds of ads will be more prominent next season, especially in shows like LIFE with a serialized mystery going on…

If for some reason you still haven’t pre-ordered the DVDs for the first season of LIFE from places such as Amazon, you can now simply do so from NBC Universal Store — according that you live in the US that is.

And if you do, it might be worth it since NBC list the DVDs available for only $19.98, while Amazon still has them for $24.99, down $4.99 from the “official” price they list as $29.98 (which was the SRP)

Interested ? Go pre-order from the NBC Universal Store right now!

And if you missed it, we’ve already listed more information about the DVDs, including artwork and special features available.

[ Thanks to damian-lewis.com for the notice ]

As I was looking for something completely unrelated to LIFE on Amazon.com’s Unbox, their video download store, I of course did a quick search for LIFE and ended up finding this pretty cool promo for the show, since you can download the entire first season for $17.51 there (or $1.99 per episode, picking the episode(s) you want).

The video is actually pretty cool, and I like how they played out the duality in Charlie’s behavior regarding the whole conspiracy that sent his behind bars. Plus, we take all the promos we can, right?

[ Thanks to pers_pineapple for the link; and a mention of this site ]

As we all know, due to the writers’ strike that hit television in late 2007-early 2008, the first season of LIFE has been over since last year, and will not return for months - season 2 premiere is scheduled for October 3rd.

Almost a full year will have pass between last season’s finale and next season’s premiere, and a lot of things happened during those months. While we can all be pleased that the strike didn’t kill the show and NBC did renew it for a second season, this new season won’t only have a new timeslot not working for it.

As you may have already heard before there will be changes coming this new season. Not only visible on-screen changes, but also behind the scenes, in the making of the show. But after a first season that, while maybe not being extremely popular, was a great artistic success, this new season will not see the return on the same writing team. Yes, it is true that 3 writers left the show.

Continue reading "Did LIFE lose writers ? Should I be worried ?"…

Today the 10 finalists for a nomination in the Best Drama Actor has been made public, and here’s the sad truth : Damian Lewis isn’t on that list either!

After snubbing LIFE in the Best Drama category, Sarah Shahi in the Best Supporting Drama Actress, now we get yet another one lack of consideration as not only is Damian Lewis not on the list of finalists, but I can’t believe names like James Spader, Eddie Izzard or Patrick Dempsey being there. I mean, again, no offense but based on the work they do on their shows and not what they may have done in the past, or how much the public love them, Damian Lewis deserves to be up there, no question!

Of course this isn’t really a surprise, unfortunately LIFE didn’t receive a huge public success, even though those who watched quickly become in love and addicted with the show (I believe), and let’s not forget that if the awesome Hugh Laurie is on the list, the Academy never gave the guy an Emmy, despite the terrific work he’s been doing on HOUSE for a few years already…
Continue reading "Well, sadly, no Emmy love for Damian Lewis either…"…

What They Saw was written by Jonathan Shapiro and directed by David Straiton.

The episode first aired on October 17, 2007, and was watched by 7.66 million viewers, with a 2.8/rating, 8/share amongst adults 18-49. Still loosing viewers, LIFE managed to stay put on the demo. It was again third both in viewers and amongst adults 18-49.

S01E01 on 26/09/2007 : 10,15 million viewers, 4,1/rating, 11/share
S01E02 on 03/10/2007 : 8,80 million viewers, 3,0/rating, 10/share
S01E03 on 10/10/2007 : 8,14 million viewers, 2,8/rating, 9/share
S01E04 on 17/10/2007 : 7,66 million viewers, 2,8/rating, 8/share

[ Source: Nielsen Media Research data, from Marc Berman ]