"Try Xoo, It's New."

Like I said, I love sneak previews. So today despite a 7 am call time I was hyped to take part in a program development meeting the likes of which I had previously only read about in various BU COM classes. After ushering in a bunch of advertising industry fat-cats, I stood and watched as Jay Leno, Kevin Reilly, Jeff Zucker, and The Daily Show's Steve Carell spoke to the audience and previewed a number of new projects coming out between next month and next year. So here's the inside scoop:

Overall I was impressed with how NBC handled their less than stellar year so far. They used humor and humility to admit their mistakes while emphasizing the promising future and legendary past. Steve Carell was very funny and some skits involving Leno, Kevin Reilly, and Medium's Patricia Arquette seemed to go over well. As for the shows themselves? Here's some highlights and lowlights.

The Good:

The E-Ring: a new drama from Jerry Bruckheimer set at the Pentagon, this show has a seemingly great cast, including Dennis Hopper as the lead, and seems like a more intense version of The West Wing with some timely topics and a lot of potential. I think this one could be big.

Lies and the Wives We Tell Them To: I expected this to suck, but the clip shown was very funny in an old-school classic sitcom-y type of way, and this may establish itself as a show with humor in the vein of a Cheers or Just Shoot Me, though it focuses on the lives of married men who are basically fed up with their wives and kids. Sure, the title is a bit long, but this could be a hit if the show is actually as good as the clip they previewed.

Earl: Okay, this may not actually be good, since there were no clips shown, but it stars Jason Lee of Kevin Smith movie fame and also features Jamie Presley and that really big dude from Boy Meets World and The Butterfly Effect. The premise, about an asshole guy played by Lee who sets out to right all the wrongs he's done in his life, sounds kind of interesting, and Lee is usually good in a comedy setting. So I see potential.

Early Bird: The brief clips they showed from this show won over the crowd immediately, just because the premise is inherently pretty funny - basically a 20-something guy moves into a retirement home. I don't know if the initial hilarity of the premise can sustain a series, but it's something different and again, I am interested in its potential.

Notorious - Okay, by "good" with this one I mean that it may not be my cup of tea, but I can see this Curb Your Enthusiasm style show about Tori Spelling's life catching on if it turns out to actually be funny. It seems like it may turn out to actually be well done, but then agai, it might really, really suck. But I'm putting it under "good" because it has potential hit written all over it moreso than almost any other show NBC has coming up.

The Apprentice: Martha Stewart: Again, no way in hell do I want to watch this but lots and lots of ppl are going to, and it's going to be huge, like top 10 huge.

Treasure Hunters: A reality show that actually sounds cool, with a nice high concept premise of people traveling around the world solving mysteries and puzzles based on actual folklore and history. I'm not sure exactly how this show will work, but any show about finding secret treasure gets my seal of approval.

The Office: By network TV comedy standards, this is going to be exceptional. Compared to the British TV classic (see yesterday's rant ...) it will be merely decent. But some of the clips they showed were indeed very very funny.

The Bad:

Fathom: This is the one I was most looking forward to seeing - a scifi show about an alien race that lives under water. So it turns out the aliens are ... sticky white goo? Um .... okay ... And this looks like a really bad X-Files wannabe that is a really bad knockoff of that show's black oil subplot, except here the black oil is the white and it's the whole freakin' premise of the show. Lame.

The Book of Daniel: Another strange concept that unless it is miraculously well-executed just seems totally absurd and pandering to the current religion craze in Hollywood. It's about, get this: a guy named Daniel who may or may not be crazy, who believes that one of his friends, who is only seen by him, is in fact an earthbound Jesus Christ, and Daniel turns to this is-he-real-or-not Jesus for advice and life guidance. Yeah ... I mean I guess this could be kind of cool if it's pulled off to perfection, but I don't have that much confidence in this show. More likely it will be a total debacle.

Inconceivable: Stupidest name ever. Why? Cuz this is a show centered entirely around a fertility clinic, and the moral issues that surround it. Sounds ... exciting.

World of Trouble: A team of bland FBI agents solves crimes. But not just any crimes -- INTERNATIONAL crimes. Whoop-de-doo.

Filmore Middle: A comedy about a "cool" English teacher who deals with his class of "text-messaging, video-gaming, short attention span students who refuse to crack open a book." Don't you hate these shows that feature kids but sound as if the creators have no idea what actual young people are like? Who knows, maybe this will be good, but I don't know if I can get away from my text-messaging and video-gaming long enough to find out.

Four Kings: Again, MAYBE this will be a good sitcom, but the premise is very boring. Four friends on "the cusp of adulthood" move in together in a NYC apartment. Yawn.

Dante: This sitcom about a star NFL player coping with his fame seems not only bad but just insulting and playing to every conceivable stereotype about pro athletes. This is one of those shows where, barring a miracle, it won't make it past a few episodes.

Confessions of a Dog: Comedy about an obnoxious thirty-something single guy who refuses to grow up and be an adult. Very original.

Blue Skies: The promos for this show focused entirely on how star Anna Faris was going to be the next big thing in Hollywood ... based on her performance in Scary Movie 3. Okay, now I believe it.

Thick and Thin: Another one that just sounds totally obnoxious and insulting based on its truly awful premise. Basically its a sitcom about a formerly fat woman who lost weight and now looks like every other TV actress, except the big question is ... how will she get along with her friends, who are (the horror!) STILL FAT? Ugh.

All In: A sitcom in which a single mom supports her kids by being a pro poker player. This one wouldn't be capitalizing on a fad or anything, would it? Newsflash: fads don't last, and neither will this show.

To be determined:

Revelations: This is a very hyped up mini series that will surely be a hige ratings-grabber. Sure, the whole apocalypse-is-coming, millenial end-times thing is SO 1999, but the heavy religious overtones (there was this ultra-cheesy line where some guy yells something like "Can't you scientists understand? This isn't about facts or numbers! It's about GOD!") are very of-the-moment. Plus it's got Bill Pullman (playing the most stereotypical "I am a scientist who only accepts facts, not faith" character ever). This will be big for NBC, but it is also a pretty safe bet that this is the TV equivalent of one of those Omega Code movies or the Left Behind books or something. The prophecies foretell that this will be apocalyptically cheesy and heavy-handed.

NY-70: This cop drama set in the 1970's, starring Donnie Wahlberg, seems like it will be very high quality. But I think it's premise, which features the same characters from the movie "The French Connection" is going to be too complex to attract viewers and get an audience. I mean do we really need another cop show, even if this one is kind of F/X-like in its maturity-level and is set in the 70's? I think not.

9-11: So this was the really big announcement. A miniseries about 9-11, produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer featuring an as of yet unnamed A-list cast. I'm sure it will end up being well done, but personally I think this is in poor taste and way too soon to be made into such a big dramatic "event" miniseries. You could tell by the jaded reaction from the crowd that people were pretty much thinking "well you knew the networks would do this sooner or later" rather than oohing and aahing i nawed reverence at the bravery and guts it must have took to make this, as the NBC brass assuredly wanted them to. Who knows, maybe this will be the second coming of "Roots" or something. But Roots was over a hundred years removed from its subject matter, this is four. It's kind of sad that NBC's best hope for achieving huge ratings lies in an all too recent tragedy.

So that's it. I'm tired, exhausted even from today's early start time. But there's the inside info for you. Pretty cool, right? Personally I'll be checking out The Office but few if any of these other shows seem like must-sees to me at this point. But that's okay, I've got way too many other good shows to watch anyway (remains to be seen if Arrested Development and Veronica Mars will be brought back ...).

Tonight's OC: Another just-kind-of OK episode. I really enjoyed the Alex-Ryan stuff, but now of course it appears that they are gonna get rid of Alex just as she's getting pretty interesting. This Julie as pornstar subplot is boring, and Seth and Summer have nothing to do.

This weekend: Wizard World LA!

At work:

During my three hours in the ticket office at NBC today, myself and another page were looking at the ugly door in that room and decided to put something on it as others have occasionally done in the past. So I was suddenly in this total third-grade-teacher mode, after seeing all the drama and ugliness that seems to go on between pages in that room on a daily basis. So though it has to be just about the cheesiest thing ever, we put up a banner over the door with a sign saying "Somthing Nice That Someone Did For Me Was ...", inviting pages to write nice things that others had done for them for all to see. I know, I know, corniest thing ever. But as soon as we put up this banner it felt like a very good, positive thing to have done. There is often so much mean-spirited joking, gossiping, and antagonism between the pages that I'm curious to see if that simple banner can have any kind of positive influence, despite the fact that I'm sure some smartass pages will be tempted to write sarcastic answers. Even if they do, oh well, we tried. But hey, a bunch of 20-somethings have a lot of emotional similarities to third graders, from my observations, so maybe it will actually work.

Happy St. Patrick's Day ( nobody really cares aboot it in LA like they do in Boston, not that I really mind).

Happy weekend.

Later, dudes.