SkimIt
The television world is a strange, maddening place. All familiar rules of convention go out the window; success is not hidden under any known rock, and sometimes it springs in the most unlikely of places. But sometimes, you just have a gut feeling of what shows won't make the chopping block come spring. Here are the shows we expect to crash and burn.
Animal Practice
On paper, this new House-meets-The Office comedy from NBC sounds pretty great. Dr. George Coleman (Justin Kirk, Weeds) is a veterinarian who suddenly finds his practice taken over by his ex-girlfriend Dorothy, and even has a pet monkey named, yeah you guessed it, Dr. Zaius.
Problem is, Dorothy's role is already being recast after the pilot wrapped, and executive producer Scot Armstrong, who wrote The Hangover Part II, will be tested on how great his PG comedy can be under the strong-arm of TV censors. That, and I can already watch goofy pet monkey videos on YouTube.
Arrow
I have to admit, the trailer for this looks pretty awesome. But as a life-long comics nerd, I just have doubts that DC's Green Arrow can translate well to the legions of non-comic fans who Smallville was able to entice. Stephen Amell (Hung) stars as Green Arrow, a bow-and-arrow wielding billionaire/superhero.
But Green Arrow never was hugely successful as a comic on its own; its most famous 1970's comic run needed Green Lantern to feature as well. As soon as they realize this on the small screen, I fear it will probably be too late.
Do No Harm
Steven Pasquale (Rescue Me) stars as a neurosurgeon with an evil twin, threatening to destroy his personal and professional life in a Jekyll-and-Hyde type mystery leading our hero down a dark and bleak spiral of doom. It sounds like a great idea, honestly, but how long can they keep it up?
It seems the mystery is leading up to one big Event, rather than a series of mysteries which build on themselves and create long-lasting viewership and successive seasons. This is exactly the problem that killed NBC's The Event, which makes it all the more suspect that writer/executive producer David Schulner wrote for that show as well.
Made in Jersey
Janet Montgomery looks to clean up New Jersey's image in this hour-long drama about a working-class New Jersey woman who fights her way to the top of a big city NY law firm. I'm a huge Kyle MacLachlan fan, who stars as her colleague Donovan Stark, but the show is already running into recasting problems.
Dana Calvo will be Jersey's showrunner, but I can see this being another Aaron Sorkin-like show written slightly above its chosen demographic's collective heads -- a familiar problem of one of Calvo's previous projects, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
Guys With Kids
This could go either way. Jesse Bradford, Zach Cregger, and Anthony Anderson are three thirty-something friends who find fatherhood an unexpected twist to their familiar frat-house sensibilities.
Jimmy Fallon will executive produce, but I just can't imagine real thirty-something guys sitting down to relax after a day of baby-corralling to watch it all happen again on television. Then again, this is exactly what propelled The Office to its success.
