Post by KRoseLynn on Apr 8, 2007 18:07:53 GMT -10
I found this while sifting through trash.
Once in a while I find a little gem like this.
It's from CNN, dated May 4, 1998.
So obviously it's out of date.
It's a plea to save Michael Hayes from being canceled.
But, I thought it was a nice little read.
Talks about NYPD Blue a little, but only to mention that David wasn't the only one to leave it.
Well, the link wouldn't work so here is a copy of it.
Marvin Kitman
Hey, Moonves, save 'Michael Hayes'
May 4, 1998
Web posted at: 3:13 p.m. EDT (1513 GMT)
By this time of year, the TV season looks like a battlefield, pockmarked by exploded and unexploded bombs. There are gaps in the ranks of the fresh troops thrown in by the networks in the ratings wars; some have been canceled, put on hiatus, or missing in action. It had been a mighty phalanx of overly hyped comedies ("Dharma & Greg"), failed shows whose shelf life had expired at other networks ("Family Matters," "Something So Right"), retrotrash ("Love Boat"), wildly heralded second and third comings of old stars (Tony Danza, Tom Selleck). Can anyone even remember the name of the show that starred Annie Potts and Tim Curry or Kadeem Hardison? The dreams of glory of the executives who oversold all of these hits are hanging on the barbed wire after the gas attack they called the new season.
One survivor hiding in a foxhole, still miraculously alive out there on the battlefield, is "Michael Hayes."
The CBS law drama starring David Caruso, when last seen, was the sandwich meat between ABC's "Drew Carey" and NBC's "3rd Rock from the Sun" on Wednesdays at 9. (Check local listings -- CBS is pre-empting the show May 6 and has not scheduled the show's next broadcast.) Before that, it had been the salami for "Frasier" and "Home Improvement" on Tuesdays at 9. Its ratings aren't as low as Steven Bochco's "Brooklyn South." But Field Marshall Leslie Moonves, recently promoted to supreme commander of programming at CBS, is reportedly mulling its fate. It hasn't been canceled yet. That won't happen until May, with the release of the new schedule.
Are you OK with this? I'm not.
Caruso as Michael Hayes
Caruso's character appeals to thinking TV audience
Caruso plays Michael Hayes, a crusading prosecutor, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He is a unique character, half-prosecutor, half-cop, kind of a Rudy Giuliani, only with a full head of red hair.
Hayes is a very complex person (for TV), steering his way through moral quandaries. He is determined to rid the city of evil, and make people safe. He wants to show that the law works; crooks get caught. The show has the kind of respect for the law you don't always see on "NYPD Blue." But sometimes he is tested by his family loyalties. He has had relatives who are on the other side of the law. He is also in touch with his blue-collar roots, his beginnings as a police officer. It's a juicy mix of ambiguities that appeals to thinking TV viewers.
"Hayes" has not been given the respect it deserves. As reader Michelle D. Soodek of Westbury, New York, observed, "Constant pre-emptions, lack of publicity and promotion and overall childish attitudes towards David Caruso are the reasons it has not received the acclaim it is due."
Caruso himself is a curious case study. Four years ago, Steven Bochco would not allow him time off from "NYPD Blue" to make a few bad movies. The way Bochco portrayed him, it was as if this lowlife were the captain of the Titanic jumping into the lifeboat, abandoning women and children. Today it seems that Dennis Franz, Jimmy Smits and everyone who has ever appeared on "NYPD Blue" can make bad movies without punitive action.
Caruso returned to 'NYPD Blue' with provisos
Caruso came back this fall, with the permission of Bochco and the added proviso that his new show would not be scheduled opposite "NYPD Blue," which automatically would have made "Michael Hayes" a must-see show. "Blue" is sinking this year even without the opposition of "Hayes." Smits was the first metaphoric rat to jump ship.
"Hayes" has been OK so far. That, as Caruso fans know, means very good. The acting, the writing, everything about it has the air of quality. It is produced and written by a team including John Romano, an ex-Columbia professor who taught thingyens to his English lit students; Michael Chernuchin ("Law & Order"); Michael Pressman ("Chicago Hope"); journalist and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi ("Goodfellas," "Casino"), and Paul Haggis, creator of "Due South" and the legendary failed quality show, "EZ Streets."
Currently "Hayes" is a show that is at the corner of "EZ Streets" and "Law & Order." But it is a work in progress, a show that has not reached its full potential under the adverse working conditions common to television dramas.
As soon as lower than expected ratings come in, the network hits the panic button. Where did the creative people go wrong? Instead of allowing a show to follow the flow of the concept -- which a network originally bought and presumably believed in -- they consciously (or unconcisously) change the natural course.
"Michael Hayes" must be saved. David Caruso is too good an actor to lose. And how can a show with such acting talent, producers and writers not be saved?
Network executives are like hit men. They can sleep at night no matter how many they kill, regardless of the consequences. They don't look back.
A plan of action
Do you know the impact of the cancellation of a "Michael Hayes"? Creative people already have enough problems taking seriously the networks' call for quality.
Now is the time for the Red-headed League -- as the supporters of David Caruso have been called -- to make their voices heard to Moonves. Here are a couple of slogans coined by Kaye O'Boyle Baruch of Holbrook, New York: "Do So For Caruso" and "Make Our Days With 'Michael Hayes.'"
Moonves' ear can be reached at: CBS Entertainment, Television City, Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. Telephone: 213-852-2600. Fax: 213-653-8276. E-mail: www.cbs.com (keyword: feedback).
But I also have another constructive plan. If I were Moonves, and wanted to show real guts, I'd cancel "Brooklyn South." Risk Bochco's ire! This is a show that is going nowhere, and where can it go?
Another overhyped blockbuster, "Brooklyn South," claimed to be the cutting-edge police story of the year. But we've already seen enough cop shows, from "Hill Street Blues" to "Homicide." Even the glamour of Brooklyn failed to make the show work for me.
"Flatbush Blue" hasn't been helped by the accents, either. Violence and gritty characterizations aren't much different when spoken in "dese" and "doze." Maybe they should have called it "Brooklyn Sout," if you know what I mean.
Cancel "Brooklyn South," if the trigger finger is itching, Les, but save "Michael Hayes." Don't let it be the second "EZ Streets." You already have that one on your conscience.
Kitman is the television critic for New York Newsday. His column appears weekdays on CNN Interactive's Showbiz section. E-mail Kitman at MarvinKitmanShow@worldnet.att.net)
(c) 1998, Newsday Inc. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate
Once in a while I find a little gem like this.
It's from CNN, dated May 4, 1998.
So obviously it's out of date.
It's a plea to save Michael Hayes from being canceled.
But, I thought it was a nice little read.
Talks about NYPD Blue a little, but only to mention that David wasn't the only one to leave it.
Well, the link wouldn't work so here is a copy of it.
Marvin Kitman
Hey, Moonves, save 'Michael Hayes'
May 4, 1998
Web posted at: 3:13 p.m. EDT (1513 GMT)
By this time of year, the TV season looks like a battlefield, pockmarked by exploded and unexploded bombs. There are gaps in the ranks of the fresh troops thrown in by the networks in the ratings wars; some have been canceled, put on hiatus, or missing in action. It had been a mighty phalanx of overly hyped comedies ("Dharma & Greg"), failed shows whose shelf life had expired at other networks ("Family Matters," "Something So Right"), retrotrash ("Love Boat"), wildly heralded second and third comings of old stars (Tony Danza, Tom Selleck). Can anyone even remember the name of the show that starred Annie Potts and Tim Curry or Kadeem Hardison? The dreams of glory of the executives who oversold all of these hits are hanging on the barbed wire after the gas attack they called the new season.
One survivor hiding in a foxhole, still miraculously alive out there on the battlefield, is "Michael Hayes."
The CBS law drama starring David Caruso, when last seen, was the sandwich meat between ABC's "Drew Carey" and NBC's "3rd Rock from the Sun" on Wednesdays at 9. (Check local listings -- CBS is pre-empting the show May 6 and has not scheduled the show's next broadcast.) Before that, it had been the salami for "Frasier" and "Home Improvement" on Tuesdays at 9. Its ratings aren't as low as Steven Bochco's "Brooklyn South." But Field Marshall Leslie Moonves, recently promoted to supreme commander of programming at CBS, is reportedly mulling its fate. It hasn't been canceled yet. That won't happen until May, with the release of the new schedule.
Are you OK with this? I'm not.
Caruso as Michael Hayes
Caruso's character appeals to thinking TV audience
Caruso plays Michael Hayes, a crusading prosecutor, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He is a unique character, half-prosecutor, half-cop, kind of a Rudy Giuliani, only with a full head of red hair.
Hayes is a very complex person (for TV), steering his way through moral quandaries. He is determined to rid the city of evil, and make people safe. He wants to show that the law works; crooks get caught. The show has the kind of respect for the law you don't always see on "NYPD Blue." But sometimes he is tested by his family loyalties. He has had relatives who are on the other side of the law. He is also in touch with his blue-collar roots, his beginnings as a police officer. It's a juicy mix of ambiguities that appeals to thinking TV viewers.
"Hayes" has not been given the respect it deserves. As reader Michelle D. Soodek of Westbury, New York, observed, "Constant pre-emptions, lack of publicity and promotion and overall childish attitudes towards David Caruso are the reasons it has not received the acclaim it is due."
Caruso himself is a curious case study. Four years ago, Steven Bochco would not allow him time off from "NYPD Blue" to make a few bad movies. The way Bochco portrayed him, it was as if this lowlife were the captain of the Titanic jumping into the lifeboat, abandoning women and children. Today it seems that Dennis Franz, Jimmy Smits and everyone who has ever appeared on "NYPD Blue" can make bad movies without punitive action.
Caruso returned to 'NYPD Blue' with provisos
Caruso came back this fall, with the permission of Bochco and the added proviso that his new show would not be scheduled opposite "NYPD Blue," which automatically would have made "Michael Hayes" a must-see show. "Blue" is sinking this year even without the opposition of "Hayes." Smits was the first metaphoric rat to jump ship.
"Hayes" has been OK so far. That, as Caruso fans know, means very good. The acting, the writing, everything about it has the air of quality. It is produced and written by a team including John Romano, an ex-Columbia professor who taught thingyens to his English lit students; Michael Chernuchin ("Law & Order"); Michael Pressman ("Chicago Hope"); journalist and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi ("Goodfellas," "Casino"), and Paul Haggis, creator of "Due South" and the legendary failed quality show, "EZ Streets."
Currently "Hayes" is a show that is at the corner of "EZ Streets" and "Law & Order." But it is a work in progress, a show that has not reached its full potential under the adverse working conditions common to television dramas.
As soon as lower than expected ratings come in, the network hits the panic button. Where did the creative people go wrong? Instead of allowing a show to follow the flow of the concept -- which a network originally bought and presumably believed in -- they consciously (or unconcisously) change the natural course.
"Michael Hayes" must be saved. David Caruso is too good an actor to lose. And how can a show with such acting talent, producers and writers not be saved?
Network executives are like hit men. They can sleep at night no matter how many they kill, regardless of the consequences. They don't look back.
A plan of action
Do you know the impact of the cancellation of a "Michael Hayes"? Creative people already have enough problems taking seriously the networks' call for quality.
Now is the time for the Red-headed League -- as the supporters of David Caruso have been called -- to make their voices heard to Moonves. Here are a couple of slogans coined by Kaye O'Boyle Baruch of Holbrook, New York: "Do So For Caruso" and "Make Our Days With 'Michael Hayes.'"
Moonves' ear can be reached at: CBS Entertainment, Television City, Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. Telephone: 213-852-2600. Fax: 213-653-8276. E-mail: www.cbs.com (keyword: feedback).
But I also have another constructive plan. If I were Moonves, and wanted to show real guts, I'd cancel "Brooklyn South." Risk Bochco's ire! This is a show that is going nowhere, and where can it go?
Another overhyped blockbuster, "Brooklyn South," claimed to be the cutting-edge police story of the year. But we've already seen enough cop shows, from "Hill Street Blues" to "Homicide." Even the glamour of Brooklyn failed to make the show work for me.
"Flatbush Blue" hasn't been helped by the accents, either. Violence and gritty characterizations aren't much different when spoken in "dese" and "doze." Maybe they should have called it "Brooklyn Sout," if you know what I mean.
Cancel "Brooklyn South," if the trigger finger is itching, Les, but save "Michael Hayes." Don't let it be the second "EZ Streets." You already have that one on your conscience.
Kitman is the television critic for New York Newsday. His column appears weekdays on CNN Interactive's Showbiz section. E-mail Kitman at MarvinKitmanShow@worldnet.att.net)
(c) 1998, Newsday Inc. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate
