A serious question re: summer time network TV shows

I just saw a commercial for a karaoke show on Fox called something like "So You Think You Know The Lyrics." People sing songs and get credit for knowing the words, apparently.

Having seen what passes for "reality" programming in the summer, I wonder: Are network execs TRYING to get fired by coming up with terrible ideas for shows that somehow get greenlit instead?

Can you picture these fools:

Exec: "Good God I hate my job. I have to get fired by the end of today or I'll kill myself. This oughta do it: I'll propose a karoake show in which people get credit for remembering the words."
Exec's friend: "That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. You're toast. I'll start putting your shit in boxes."

*fifteen minutes later*

Friend of Exec: "So are you outta here?"
Exec: "No. They greenlit the show, gave me a $500,000 raise and made me president of development."

 

Enjoy the show while you're sitting around, gently massaging your Freaks and Geeks DVDs.

 

BTW, BYH, 90210 flipped again on SOAP. Caught the pilot the other night. Gawd, it was awful.

Lots of Scott Gunkid, too. Funny how you block that out...

 

I'm having a Johnny and Greta withdrawal on Hidden Palms. What happens with Johnny and Greta, goddamit!?!

 

Oh I know it flipped. And it's not awful!!!

OK it is awful. But it's endearingly awful. Unlike the last three years, which were just offensively bad.

 

Hacky, I'm watching the lovely Sarah Chalke right now.

 

Right. But production-value wise, it's terrible. Brandon must have seven different hair lengths in the first three episodes, and they must have done post-production at a porn studio. (I had completely blocked out the original theme and credits).

I had also forgotten that the series started with a wet dream.

Still, it hits its stride here in a year or so.

 

Could not agree more. As I was saying with a friend recently: Anyone who saw that pilot had to figure it would never AIR, never mind get picked up, never mind air for 10 seasons and nearly 300 episodes.

It is funny, though, seeing Ondrea look "young."

 

SHE WAS FUCKING THIRTY IN THAT PILOT! No wonder they wrote her off halfway through the run... SHE RETIRED!

And was the newspaper advisor the same chick who played the professor's wife that Brandon bangs at CU? I could have sworn...

 

I was oddly drawn to Cliff. As the episodes passed, his character became more and more intriguing. But overall, it was a luke-warm show buoyed by the smoking hot Amber Heard.

See more of said Ms. Heard here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1720028/photogallery-granitz-0

 

Amber Heard is wonderful. Yes, she's beautiful. But she's got acting chops.

And Cliff (don't know his real name) is a young James Spader on the rise.

It really is/was a lukewarm show, but once you take flight down the storyline you don't want to be interrupted. Unless it was just a 6-week summer show to begin with.

But yeah, Amber Heard is wonderful.

 

As soon as I saw Cliff -- who is Michael Cassidy, by the way -- I immediately thought of a young Christian Bale, but your comparison to James Spader is more fitting. Cliff is very much like Spader in Pretty In Pink.