Culture: Movies & TV: CSM reviews media alternatives - TV show testing, TV summer series, and 2 movies just released in DVD

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"Before TV shows air, they to survive ... The Lab," Christian Science Monitor Monitor, (Aug4,2k6) by Gloria Goodale

"Tubegazing: Three Moons over Milford," Christian Science Monitor Monitor, (Aug4,2k6) by Gloria Goodale.

Groovin' the Tube, by Anaximander

Three Moons Over Milford (ABC Family, premières Aug. 6 at 8 p.m.): Once again, cable demonstrates that summer doesn't have to be a dry spell for new shows. ABC Family's "Three Moons Over Milford" is a gently charming look at, oh, the end of the world - or not, depending on your point of view. A cosmic explosion has split the moon into three bits and nobody, including the scientists, knows what will happen next. So folks have to make their own decisions. Elizabeth McGovern stars as the mom of two teens (who are confused about whether they need to stay in school) and wife to a wealthy man who decides to chuck it all in and climb the world's seven tallest peaks while he still can. Grade: B+.

Summer Fun > TV and DVD, by Anaximander

CSM (Aug4,2k6), DVD Reviews gives two recent releases the once-over. 30 Days receives a B grade from Stephen Hamphries, while V for Vendetta gets a B- from David S. Hauck. Great pix of character Evey (Natalie Protman) by Claudio Carpi. Readers may recall the earlier meta-review I wrote up on reviews of V for Vendetta, a genre I called a 'meta-review.' You may also recall how Dr Fraud took umbrage at this way of approaching a movie, needing more as he always does to grind into his malice machine. But the meta-review is worth the re-reading.

What's interesting in CSM's focuses here are united around the theme of alternatives. Gooddale's first article above shows how the TV producers test shows for their common-denominator appeal, essentially asking what in this particular new series may turn off the widest possible audience torturing the experts dreams, or what will attract the largest audience? The latter, more positive construction of the question, has some dubious background presuppositions around theories of basic human drives like eating and sex. The industry has learned a bit that biotic-drives driven TV has problems in reaching the largest possible audience. Family-fare actually gets more viewers, tho some in each family may constitute a very different market demographic. So, more adult-themed (and I mean here action, forensic, and copware as much as eros-lacing) requires careful handling, and rules out a considerable audience. But innocuousness doesn't bring the largest possible, either. TV, including the networks, have to take more seriously production for niche-viewerships in any kind of non-documentary narrative episode TV-series. DVDs are a way of avoiding what the tube is currently offering.

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• culture
• TV
• showtesting
• family-fare
• meta-review
• DrFraud
• DVDs
• humandrivessex&food