Pasadena, Calif.-Cable last week offered up a colorful cornucopia of programming, both fiction and reality-based shows, that reflects the diversity of America-from Hispanics to the disabled to women.
During the four-day cable portion of the Television Critics Association summer press tour here, the assembled writers at times couldn't contain their surprise at how many programs featuring minorities cable was showcasing for the coming fall TV season.
Nickelodeon alone has three new original shows featuring Hispanics, which it described in detail during its session. They are animated preschool show Dora the Explorer, Taina and The Brothers Garcia, which was touted as the first English-language sitcom with an all-Hispanic cast and creative team.
"You guys are really putting on three Latino series?" TV writer Manuel Mendoza of The Dallas Morning News asked Nick officials. "This is not a joke? What do you guys know that the other networks, particularly the broadcast networks, don't know?"
And in another groundbreaking move, in October, Nick will premiere the animated series Pelswick, about a 13-year-old wheelchair-bound boy who is quadriplegic. Pelswick was created by syndicated cartoonist John Callahan, who himself uses a wheelchair.
"That looks like it will create some buzz," TV Guide critic Matt Roush said. "It's so bold."
Ironically, one of the main topics of conversation at the tour-where networks preview their fall programming for the TV writers-wasn't who showed up, but who didn't. Spike Lee, Meat Loaf, Camryn Manheim and Ving Rhames were among the cancellations.
"There is a really noticeable lack of star power," said Joanne Weintraub, TV critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
In terms of top executives, Home Box Office chairman Jeff Bewkes and Cable News Network president Rick Kaplan were no-shows. While they weren't scheduled to appear last week, they were fixtures at past TCA tours.
There is always a bit of P.T. Barnum-like showmanship at the TCA, and last week was no exception.
For its presentation on Inside the Space Station, Discovery Channel put on display a "Class 3" space suit, which is valued at $12 million. And USA Network, for its session on the made-for-TV cockroach-attack movie They Nest, took a page out of Survivor's book. It had "bug" chef David George Gordon whip up a dish of crickets and ants for reporters.
In terms of programming, one of the main threads was the diversity that is so missing from the "Big Four" broadcast networks. Nick officials explained to TV writers their logic for adding so many Latino series to their lineup.
"We took an inventory of our shows and thought that we're doing a pretty good job reflecting images of blacks and whites and Asians, but we really felt we had underrepresented Latino kids," Nick president of film and television Albie Hecht said. "We also know it's a growing part of our audience, a growing part of America."
Jeff Valdez, executive producer of The Brothers Garcia, pointed out that Latino-oriented shows he has done for syndication have even done well in non-Hispanic markets, like Mobile, Ala.
"Even a vain man will get tired of looking at himself in the mirror," Valdez said. "People like to see different, you know?"
In addition to Nick, HBO focused on a Latino topic with its biographical drama on Cuban jazz-trumpet player Aturo Sandoval.
And Lifetime Television has two new hour-long dramas with women, including women of color, both in front of and behind the camera. They are Strong Medicine, a medical show being executive-produced by Whoopi Goldberg, and police series City Lights. Romance Classics' Cool Women, an inspirational series, is produced by Debbie Allen.
Showtime has a number of new projects spotlighting women and African Americans, including the four-hour A Girl Thing, Holiday Heart and A House Divided. The network is also doing a U.S. version of the controversial Queer as Folk, a series that has shocked British viewers with its frank depiction of homosexual life.
In addition to fictional programs, African-American talent is featured in several of cable's reality shows. Home & Garden Television's Help Around the House features Henry Harrison, while Food Network's new series, B. Smith with Style, has ex-model Barbara Smith at its helm.
"This week's cable tour demonstrated once again the richness of diversity and information that cable brings to television and the American public on issues that matter," National Cable Television Association president Robert Sachs said in a prepared statement last week.
The critics seemed particularly taken with Nick's offerings.
"Nick had a good-looking lineup," said Bill Goodykoontz, TV critic for the Arizona Republic of Phoenix. Referring to The Brothers Garcia, he added, "It's nice to see a comedy treatment for a Latino family, to see diversity. It's Latino, but it's just a family."
Beyond diversity, the other trend at the TCA was cable networks expanding and doing programming outside of their usual bailiwicks.
VH1 has moved beyond reality documentaries to scripted series and original movies, while HBO spent most of its time touting reality-type programming like Greenlight, a 13-episode cinema-veritéseries that will chronicle the making of an actual feature film. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will executive-produce the movie and TV series.
"We're seeing a point in time where cable networks are expanding their programming because they've already figured out a way to serve their core audience," said Ray Solley, head of the cable unit at William Morris Agency.
"Now that they've got the core, they say, 'We've got to grow,'" he added. "They can do a variety of shows, both reality and scripted, that can expand their brand in a slightly different way and not cannibalize or dilute it."
Solley's unit brokered deals for seven series discussed at the TCA, including Lifetime's Strong Medicine.
Two dark-horse contenders emerged as critics' favorites at the press tour.
The first was Showtime's The Chris Isaak Show, in which singer Isaak and his band portray themselves in a show that mixes fact and fiction. Appearing via satellite, Isaak's ad-libs were so funny that he had the notoriously tough TCA crowd cracking up.
When asked if his show was part of the new reality-TV craze, Isaak said, "No, we're not trying to copy or kind of hop on that bandwagon like that. Although every week, we do vote out one member."
In contrast, HBO's show from Seinfeld co-creator and writer Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm, seemed to fall flat. "I was intrigued by The Chris Isaak Show," Roush said. "He was funny. Larry David was droll, but not funny."
The second dark horse was from Discovery Kids, the weekend block on Discovery Channel, as well as the digital network: half-hour live-action comedy Kenny the Shark, featuring seven-year-old Spencer Breslin, now co-starring with Bruce Willis in the theatrical The Kid.
The Discovery series is about a six-foot tiger shark that lives in the suburbs with a human family.
Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Examiner and Goody-koontz both called Kenny the Shark the best sitcom they've seen so far.
