The Emmys haven’t quite figured out how to deal with the emerging genre of reality TV. Shows like “The Amazing Race” are lumped in with an American Film Institute special this year.
And given the now-accepted presence of unscripted fare on all the broadcast networks and a number of cable channels, it was probably only a matter of time before reality TV got its own awards show.
That time, it appears, is now. ABC will air the inaugural “Reality Awards” as a two-hour special sometime in the fall. They will honor unscripted shows that aired during the 2002-03 season, including this summer.
The awards are the brainchild of veteran awards-show producer Don Mischer, who has overseen numerous Emmy Awards telecasts – including this year’s – Kennedy Center Honors shows and others. He says the impact of unscripted fare on the TV world has been “undeniable.”
PBS leads pack
at news Emmys
PBS took home the most awards at the annual News and Documentary Emmys on the strength of its long-form documentary programs.
The public broadcaster won seven awards at the 24th annual ceremony, held Wednesday in New York. CBS won five awards, while ABC, NBC, the Discovery Channel and MSNBC each won three. The awards honored the best in breaking news coverage, investigative stories and long-form documentaries of 2002.
Three of PBS’ awards were for its long-running series “Nova,” including best documentary for “Why the Towers Fell.” Programs on Galileo and Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton shared the award for outstanding historical programming.
The “CBS Evening News” won for breaking news coverage of the arrest of the Washington, D.C., sniper suspects and for an investigative piece on the Red Cross.
Other multiple winners included ABC’s “Nightline,” CBS’ “60 Minutes II,” the Discovery Channel documentary “Mortal Enemies,” “Dateline NBC” and MSNBC’s “National Geographic Explorer.”
Don Hewitt, creator and executive producer of “60 Minutes,” received a lifetime achievement award that he shared with the newsmagazine’s past and present correspondents.
Fox doubles up ‘Joe Millionaire’
Maybe they should change the name of the show to “Joe Multimillionaire.”
Fox is planning to run two episodes of “Joe Millionaire” per week in November sweeps, hoping for a double shot of the ratings gold the first edition delivered last winter.
The show will premiere as scheduled at 8 p.m. ET Oct. 20. Beginning the following week, it will air at 8 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays for four weeks, leading up to a two-hour finale on Nov. 24. Viewers will see 10 episodes in all.
Fox continues to keep details under wraps as to how it will work the “Joe Millionaire” gimmick this time.
The Tuesday episodes will replace a second edition of “American Juniors,” which the network decided last week to scrap. The official line was that the show’s producers, FremantleMedia and 19 Entertainment, didn’t have enough time to put a second competition together; meager ratings for “Juniors” during the summer probably didn’t help either.
Widespread speculation had “The Simple Life,” an unscripted take on “Green Acres” starring socialite Paris Hilton, moving into the 8 p.m. Tuesday spot, but that turned out not to be the case.
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The first Tuesday episode of “Joe Millionaire” on Oct. 28 will coincide with the premiere of “24” at 9 that night. “Joe” should provide a substantial lead-in audience to the thriller, which benefited from an “American Idol” lead-in the second half of last season.
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THE RAP ON “SURVIVOR’ CONTESTANTS
The latest edition of the reality-TV police blotter involves several contestants from “Survivor: Pearl Islands.”
Contestants Christa Hastie, Jon Dalton and Ryan Opray each have misdemeanor arrests in their pasts. In what may be a first, Hastie’s arrest is actually disclosed on her CBS bio. The others were dug up by the sleuths at TheSmokingGun.com.
Hastie’s arrest has a distinct most-embarrassing-moment vibe to it. While in college at the University of California-Irvine, the 24-year-old was charged with “disrupting an officer’s ability to perform his duties,” according to her personal information on the “Survivor” Web site. She sat on the hood of her car as it was about to be towed and refused to move.
Dalton, 29, was arrested on a DUI charge in Los Angeles in February 2002. He was fined $510, sentenced to two days in jail and given three years’ probation. Opray, 31, was charged with vandalism three years ago for damaging several yards with his truck. He pleaded no contest, made restitution to the homeowners and performed some community service.
A CBS spokeswoman tells Zap2it.com that the network was aware of the arrests. Contestants have the option of disclosing them.
The Smoking Gun also claims to have found several postings on drug-related Internet boards by both Hastie and “Pearl Islands” contestant Ryan Shoulders, a 23-year-old from Clarksville, Tenn. According to the site, Hastie made several posts to the alt.drugs newsgroup in the late 1990s asking about methamphetamines and other stimulants.
Shoulders, meanwhile, reportedly posted several times to the alt.drug.psychedelics group. The CBS spokeswoman dismisses the claims as mere speculation.
All would-be “Survivor” contestants have to pass drug tests before being allowed on the program.
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ENDLESS “LOVE’: MORE “80S, TED NUGENT COMING TO VH1
Like the serial killers in so many of the decade’s slasher movies, VH1’s “I Love the “80s” simply won’t die.
Not that anyone at the cable network is trying to kill the concept, which brought strong ratings late last year and again this summer, with “I Love the “70s.” Come fall, VH1 will break out the skinny ties and multi-hued Chuck Taylors again for “I Love the “80s Strikes Back.”
“Strikes Back” is scheduled for October and will follow the same format as its predecessors. Over 10 hours, celebrities and seminal “80s figures will reminisce about the decade’s pop culture. Items up for discussion in the second go-round include Fruit Roll-Ups, “Gremlins” and Donkey Kong.
The return of “I Love the “80s” is one of several new series and specials VH1 has planned for the fall. Another intriguing offering is “Surviving Nugent,” a special in which seven people move into wild-man rocker Ted Nugent’s house and compete for $50,000.
A number of challenges are involved, presumably all involving the Motor City Madman. Given Nugent’s penchant for bowhunting, anything seems possible.
Other shows on tap for fall include “Song Stories,” which aims to separate fact from myth regarding the meaning of song lyrics; “This One’s for You,” in which moments of heartbreak and loss are turned into professionally written songs; “VH1 – Obsessed,” which chronicles overzealous collectors and the like; and a “Behind the Music” on Britney Spears.
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JANET JACKSON GOES AROUND THE “HORNE’
Former “Good Times” and “Diff’rent Strokes” star Janet Jackson will play the lead role in ABC’s upcoming Lena Horne biopic.
Writer Shirley Pierce is adapting the script from Horne’s autobiography “Lena,” which was co-written by Richard Schickel. The telefilm will concentrate on Horne’s struggle with divorce and raising two children while breaking racial boundaries on stage and screen. Roy Campanella (“Philly,” “Boston Public”) will direct and executive produce along with the prolific duo of Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (“Chicago” and ABC’s “It’s All Relative”).
After launching her career in comedies, Jackson moved over to “Fame” and later starred with Tupac Shakur in John Singleton’s “Poetic Justice.” She has also appeared opposite Eddie Murphy in “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps.”
When she isn’t acting, Jackson has been known to sing a few tunes. The five-time Grammy winner has sold more than 50 million albums in a career that has included smash hits like “Rhythm Nation 1814” and “Control.” Jackson also earned an Oscar nomination for best song for her contribution to “Poetic Justice.”
In the tentatively titled “Lena Horne,” Jackson will record and sing Horne’s songs herself.
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TCM HONORS BRONSON
In a career that took him from domestic character actor to international star to full-fledged action hero, Charles Bronson appeared in some of the most memorable genre movies of the past 50 years. Turner Classic Movies will pay tribute to the former Charles Buchinsky, who died Saturday at the age of 81, airing four of the performer’s finest movies on Sept. 13.
Bronson, the son of Lithuanian immigrants, took advantage of his ability to play nearly every imaginable ethnicity. As a bit player, he got his start playing Native Americans in films like “Apache” and “Run of the Arrow.” His work as Bernardo in John Sturges’ “The Magnificent Seven” began a series of supporting performances in several of cinema’s greatest action ensembles where he played Mexican, Polish, Italian and several nationalities inbetween. He worked with Sturges (and Steve McQueen and James Coburn) again on 1963’s “The Great Escape” and capped that period of his career in Robert Aldrich’s “The Dirty Dozen.”
After that 1967 film, Bronson went to Europe, where he finally became a star. The Italians called him Il Bruto and the French dubbed him Le Sacre Monstre, as he was featured in films like “Adieu l’ami” and “Villa Rides.” Perhaps the peak of this career phase was his work as the Man with the Harmonica in Sergio Leone’s epic “Once Upon a Time in the West.”
Bronson’s solo breakthrough Stateside came in 1974 in Michael Winner’s “Death Wish.” As Paul Kersey, an architect who becomes a vigilante after the murder of his wife, Bronson brought a sympathetic central presence to a film that was otherwise critically savaged for its reactionary ideology. That film’s increasingly bad sequels dulled Bronson’s celebrity power, but don’t detract from a man who won a Golden Globe in 1972 for World Film Favorite.
TCM’s tribute will begin at 8 p.m. ET with “The Magnificent Seven,” followed by “The Great Escape” at 10:15. “The Dirty Dozen” airs at 1:15 a.m. and 1976’s “From Noon Til Three” (which co-starred wife Jill Ireland) will end things at 4 a.m.
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METER RUNNING FOR TORRES ON “HACK’
Four episodes as a recurring character on “Hack” weren’t enough for Jacqueline Torres. The thespian will become a series regular early in the CBS drama’s sophomore season.
Torres plays Liz Garza, a former nun who’s starting her life over as a probation officer. She begins a tentative friendship with her neighbor, ex-cop turned taxi driver Mike Olshansky (David Morse). Garza and Olshansky are in the second acts of their own lives, working to help other people in need of second chances.
“We couldn’t be more pleased to have Jacqueline on-board this season,” says Robert Singer, one of the series’ executive producers. “She’s a talented actress who brings a vitality and energy to her role. She works great with David; she definitely brings out Olshansky’s charming side. The addition of her character has already opened the doors to several great stories.”
Torres got her start on “F/X: The Series” and has made several appearances on “The West Wing,” playing a reporter. She has a variety of daytime television credits including “Loving,” “All My Children” and “One Life To Life.” She also appeared in the 1999 feature “Rum and Coke.”
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SORVINO DROPS BY “WILL & GRACE’
Oscar winner Mira Sorvino will make a rare visit to television comedy when she co-stars on an episode of NBC’s “Will & Grace” this fall.
Sorvino will appear on the Oct. 2 episode of the Emmy-winning laffer, titled “Last Ex to Brooklyn” (tweaking the name of Hubert Selby, Jr.’s harrowing novel). She’ll play Diane, one of Leo’s (Harry Connick, Jr.) ex-girlfriends, a fast-talking Vogue fashion editor. Grace (Debra Messing) isn’t annoyed by her past with Leo, but she’s really shaken up by Diane’s ties to Will (Eric McCormack).
The Harvard-educated Sorvino got her start on the CBS soap “The Guiding Light” and on the short-lived serial “Swans Crossing.” Her film career started with small, but vivid roles in Whit Stillman’s “Barcelona” and Robert Redford’s “Quiz Show,” leading up to her Academy Award-winning performance as a Minnie Mouse-voiced hooker in Woody Allen’s “Mighty Aphrodite.” Sorvino has had some difficulty parlaying that Oscar into greater big-screen success, as subsequent efforts included “Mimic,” “The Replacement Killers” and “At First Sight.”
Sorvino’s other television credits include an Emmy nominated performance in the HBO movie “Norma Jean & Marilyn” and a co-starring role in the 2001 A&E adaptation of “The Great Gatsby.”
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AP-NY-09-04-03 1636EDT
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