TCA Tidbits: Angry puppeteers, fancy sportsdocs, and a porn-purveying Diane Keaton
The A.V. Club doesn't have a critic out in Hollywood for the Television Critics Association summer tour that's been taking place all this week, but we've been watching it from afar, thanks to the regular Tweets and columns from the likes of Alan Sepinwall, Daniel Fienberg, James Poniewozik, Mo Ryan, Aaron Barnhart and James Hibberd. Here's some of the news/reports that have caught our eye:
Diane Keaton to play porn magnate!
HBO and fledgling production company Grady Twins have announced an as-yet-untitled, still-in-development sitcom from former Buffy/Mad Men writer/producer Marti Noxon, starring Diane Keaton as a noted feminist who plans to revive interest in gender issues by publishing a female-friendly adult magazine. Noxon says the character was inspired by her own mother, who came out as a lesbian and became a fierce advocate for women's rights when Noxon was a teenager. No word yet on whether HBO has a place on the 2010 schedule for this show, or even when the pilot will be shot, but the premise is certainly promising, and the kind of thing that could really only be done on pay cable.
Big names for ESPN documentary series!
As announced earlier this year, sports columnist Bill Simmons has been given a pile of ESPN's money to executive produce a series called "30 For 30," for which thirty filmmakers will helm thirty hourlong documentaries that explore, in depth, some of the less-frequently revisited stories from the past thirty years of sports. The series will debut in October, and frankly the talent and topics involved look pretty impressive. ESPN is promising Albert Maysles on a particularly ugly Ali-Holmes fight, Alex Gibney on humiliated Cubs fan Steve Bartman, Ron Shelton on Michael Jordan's minor league baseball adventure, Barry Levinson on the Baltimore Colts moving to Indianapolis, Barbara Kopple on the Steinbrenner family, Peter Berg on the arrival of the Kings in Los Angeles, Ice Cube on the arrival of the Raiders and how it impacted the gang community, Steve James on Allen Iverson's teenage crime, Mike Tollin on the USFL, Dan Klores on Reggie Miller's dominance of the Knicks, Spike Jonze on a BMX superstar, and more. Expect regular TV Club coverage of this series once it gets underway.
Puppet provocation!
Comedy Central held a panel to promote its new series starring the popular ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. Well, popular that is except to TV critics, whose blow-by-blow of how painfully unamused they were by Dunham made their Twitter feeds especially fun to follow earlier this week. Dunham, who could clearly sense their disinterest, responded first with mild self-deprecation, then hostile self-deprecation, then just hostility. A second-hand summary can't do the scene justice. Read James Hibberd's hilariously harrowing report here.
If any more items of interest emerge during the waning days of TCA, we'll round them up over the weekend.