Fox hits it big with 'Empire'

Fox had high expectations for its new series Empire, which premiered Wednesday night to nearly 10 million viewers.

Consider those expectations met.

The entire Fox team supercharged this show on some crazy level, as far as making it sexy, Hollywood heavyweight Brian Grazer, an Empire producer, told me Thursday. They actualized the hype in a world where its so hard to make anything distinctive.

On Empire, Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson lead an ensemble cast in this tale of a dying music mogul (Howard), his conniving ex-wife (Henson) and their three sons (Jussie Smollett, Bryshere Gray and Trai Byers) battling for control of the family empire.

Empire also snared a 3.8 among adults 18-49 beating its American Idol lead-in (3.2) and tying ABCs How to Get Away With Murder (Viola Davis) as the seasons best series premiere in that much-ballyhooed demo.

Weve created really engaging characters and offer the audience a lot of surprises, Grazer says. Theres nothing predictable within the lives of these characters.

Its like an upscale version of Dynasty.

Michael UriePhoto: Marion Curtis/Startraksphoto

Urie goes to h**l (Mich.)

Former Ugly Betty star Michael Urie is directing a new Web comedy series called Whats Your Emergency with some high-octane guest stars, including Uries former Betty co-star, America Ferrera, Alan c*****g, Richard Kind and David Krumholtz.

The six-episode series, which premieres Jan. 27 on Stage17.TV, takes place in town called h**l, Mich. chronicling the misadventures of the towns inept 911 call center.

So how did Urie get all those A-listers to appear?

Ive slept with all of them, he jokes. Kidding, not ALL. Actors love to be in perilous situations, and few can resist playing near-death emergencies especially when theyre funny ones. Basically we sent them the pages and they were like, h**l yes. Ill choke on a peach pit for you!

Series regulars include Broadway vets Sierra Boggess, Reed Birney and Debra Monk.

More TV news: Morgan Langley, the executive producer of Jail: Las Vegas premiering Saturday on Spike TV (9 p.m.) says youd be surprised at how many of the troublemakers featured on the show, which chronicles a real-life Sin City jail, agree to be on TV.

Everybody signs a release [to be shown on TV], he says. Believe it or not, they sign up enthusiastically and often ask us if we can e-mail them when their segment is going to air. Nowadays were living in the reality TV universe.

This marks the first time that Jail will spend an entire season (22 episodes) at one facility. Vegas is like Americas Jail with tourists and bizarre stuff, Langley says. It was a challenge convincing them we could do an entire season without stepping on too many toes.

Source: http://nypost.com/2015/01/09/fox-hits-it-big-with-empire/

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'Empire' scores big ratings for Fox. But can it soar while other TV musicals ...

Empire, Foxs new drama starring Terrence Howard as a hip-hop mogul and Taraji P. Henson as his ex-wife and competitor, is looking like a potential triumph for the network: About 10 million people tuned in the premiere on Wednesday night. According to Entertainment Weekly, that figure ties How to Get Away With Murder as the most-watched freshman show debut of the season.

While the numbers may have gotten a bump with the premiere of American Idol, its still a big win for the TV musical genre. Music-themed shows used to be all the rage, mostly due to the red-hot popularity of Glee, but the category has cooled off dramatically: Smash was canceled, while Nashville is quickly fading.

Now, Empire shows theres still an appetite for a musical series though as we have seen time and time again, its easy for this kind of show to go awry. Here are some ways that Empire (executive produced by The Butler team of Lee Daniels and Danny Strong) can avoid the pitfalls that turn a great singing series into an unwatchable one:

* Keep music a priority.

Seems easy, right? So many times, unfortunately, the songs seem like an afterthought as the writers prefer to concentrate on ridiculous drama. Empire which also hopes for a boost by selling the shows soundtrack on iTunes has some catchy songs already from music executive producer Timabland, and should stick with them instead of drowning in too many soap-opera story lines.

* Try to get the music executives to stick around as long as possible.

Speaking of Timbaland, producers should urge him to stick around for awhile, as hes proven he knows what will stick. One of the biggest blows to Nashville was when superstar producer T. Bone Burnett (and husband of the shows creator, Callie Khouri) left after Season 1. While some songs remained pretty solid, the overall quality notably suffered.

* Dont introduce too many side characters and plot lines.

We cannot overemphasize how important this is. Nashville started a downward spiral in its third season by introducing all kinds of indistinguishable, tertiary characters (sorry, Gunnars ex-girlfriend-who-lied-about-having-his-baby, we just cannot begin to care about you). It distracted from the main arc of the story, and the show is now shedding viewers in the process.

Empire seems similarly at risk of sprawling all over the place, as viewers already have to keep track of a large number of plot lines: Lucious Lyon (Howard) trying to run his label while grappling with a terminal illness; his ex-wife, Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) getting out of jail; the battle between his three sons, Andre, Jamal and Hakeem, who all want to run the company; competition between Jamal and Hakeems albums; Cookie managing Jamals career; Lucious shooting his best friend at the end of the episode. And so on. While all of those stories could go somewhere, on other shows such plots have wound up detracting from the music and making everything more complicated.

* Dont over-explain the song significance.

During a big scene in the Empire pilot, Jamal a talented singer whose homophobic father has never accepted him sings a song in the club called Good Enough. Cue the multiple flashbacks of Lucious doing horrible things, such as punishing little Jamal for trying on his moms high heels by dumping him in a trashcan. Obviously, the song was inspired by that sort of trauma, but its much more powerful than when the show lets the music speak for itself.

* Actually share secrets about the music industry.

Some of the most fascinating scenes on Nashville have to do with insider details about the music biz, and the boardroom scenes on Empire had a lot of promise as well. For some reason, the Nashville writers have drifted away from those kind of scenes. But part of the fun of music shows is getting a look into the gritty details of the industry, and writers could take advantage of that.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2015/01/08/empire-scores-big-ratings-for-fox-but-can-it-soar-while-other-tv-musicals-flail/

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