Guessing the cover: EW Fall TV Preview 2010.

It’s that time of the year again. How time flies when you’re living it. Even when you could be living it even more.

Anyway, since I already did most of the needed catch up (See the following posts from last year here and here), let’s just do a fast countdown and go directly to this year’s guesses:

– Here’s the Network Tally:

A total of 20 covers so far

ABC: 5 (Twin Peaks, Alias, Lost, Greys Anatomy and Private Practice)

CBS: 0 – a big zero.

FOX: 5 (Married with Children, Melrose Place [2x], Time of Your Life, Fringe)

NBC: 7 (Seinfeld, Friends, Suddenly Susan, Veronica’s Closet, Titans, Miss Match and Joey)

WB: 1 (Dawson’s Creek)

UPN: 1 (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer)

The CW: 1 (Gossip Girl)

THE GUESSES

Just like last year, I’ll list my possible guesses for the cover below, with pros and cons. Won’t add odds, because I suck at that assessment.

1) Hawai Five-O – CBS

Pros: Will this finally be the CBS year. After 20 years, EW have yet to grace the #1 network with a Fall Preview issue Cover. Not only a remake of a really classic show, it’s the network 3rd bet on Alex O’Loughlin, who starred in Moonlight (before it’s time, cancelled right before the most recent vampire boom) and Three Rivers. It must be one of the most buzzed new shows for this season.

Cons: EW front cover rarely features new shows with some rare and not impressive cases, also would be another year featuring a drama on the cover. Considering that last season was the season of the new comedies, maybe they’re going to be the ones featured in this year’s cover.

2) Modern Family – ABC

Pros: Beloved by public and critics, Just received an Emmy for best comedy duking it out with Glee. After such a long time wihtout so much buzz about comedies, last year was finally the year.

Cons: Huge ensemble cast, who to feature? Who gets almost a starring nod besides Sophia Vergara’s very prominent features.  OK, bad joke. Sorry for that. But, come on, it’s hard not to look if you’re a heterosexual male.

3) The Big Bang Theory – CBS

Pros: One of the biggest moves from the new fall programming was CBS, stopped being completely safe, and moving one of their highest rated shows from it’s safe spot on Monday Nights, to the so sought after Thursday Night, facing directly against what used to be the home of “Must See TV” NBC, in an already very busy night. Also Jim Parsons was finally recognized for his amazing work as Sheldon. Who to feature on the cover? Jim Parsons of Course. And it finally break the no EW Fall Preview covers for CBS.

Cons: I don’t really have any cons for this ones. Maybe only for the fact is the last show that I remembered to include in the list, and just got in time to include it in the middle of the list. But if there’s a show in this list that I would place on top of my bet list would be this one.

4) Glee – Fox

Pros: Look, here are the Gleeks again.  19 nominations to the Emmy and were basically duking it out for best comedy with Modern Family.

Cons: Same problem as Modern Family, who to feature in a big enssemble cast, but having Jane Lynch as a standout character in the show, might solve this issue. However, Fox two years in a row?

5) Chuck – NBC

Pros: A really beloved show, that seems to not be seen by enough people. An impressive cast and in my case a central couple I really want as a couple (I am among the few who don’t want Temperance and Seeley as a couple on Bones, neither do I want Rick and Kate as a couple on Castle). Having either Zachary Levi alone on the cover, or him with Yvonne would look amazing.

Cons: NBC did renew it for another season, but it wasn’t for a full fledged 22 episode season, only a 13 episode one, and the show still need to fight it out to get the back 9.  I’m already saving a few coins to get a few Subway meals. Also, almost half of the EW covers featured NBC shows, and almost half of them featuring failures.

6)The Office – NBC

Pros: It’s Steve Carrel’s last season heading the show. That’s all I have.

Cons: The Office, hasn’t been a critical darling for the last 2 seasons or so. Jim and Pam got a bit boring ever since they got married and  Rainn Wilson’s Dwight is now basically a caricature.  Despite the impressive fact thathalf the production and writing staff are part of the cast.

If there was a 7th bet I might’ve put in here is CW’s Vampire Diaries, but as most of this network’s shows will have already premiered by the time this issue is releases, I doubt it’ll feature them. Vampire Diaries is probably one of the 1st major broadcast shows to return, which will happen this Thursday, September, 9th.

As a round-up I’m basically putting my bets that a comedy will be featured on the cover, and maybe this will finally be a year to feature a CBS show.

Guessing the cover: EW Fall TV Preview 2009 – The Follow up.

And the EW Fall TV Preview 2009 issue is out, which cover was previewed via their popwatch blog, right before the release.

Yes, long shot from my 5 guesses, which were How I met Your Mother, Melrose Place, Cougar Town, Glee and Medium.

So in the countdown. a 1st for Fox in this century, and the count still goes with 0 to CBS. It’s the 5th groups cover, and 4th featuring 2 actors, and also the second one of this bunch to feature Joshua Jackson. As an actor he’s the one with the most appearances in the EW Fall TV Preview issues covers.

Very long shot, right?

That was until I picked up my copy in the stands. (Scanned my cover for better effect, you can even see a tag from the Brazilian newstand where I bought it on the bottom left, over the barcode).

So was I that wrong? The weird part is that the cover credit did credit the version you see above on the post, with Josh Jackson and Anna Torv. (and my friends actually found that copy) and not this great mosaic one I found. Wonder why there were two covers?

In case you’re too lazy here’s the tally if we consider this mosaic cover.

ABC: Cougar Town, Greys Anatomy and Desperate Housewives (The love for ABC and Courtney Cox continues)

CBS: How I Met your Mother, NCSI: Los Angeles (wow a first for the network – but doesn’t really count, is not a full feature)

FOX: Fringe (Actually the miniature of the cover with two of them)

NBC: The Office and 30 Rock (Basically the comedy powerhouses of the network)

The CW: Melrose Place (nu, 2009, whatever you like to call it, but with the old cast. Note another cover with Laura Leighton)

Showime: Dexter (Yes, a first for a cable network)

Guessing the cover: EW Fall TV Preview 2009

Entertainment Weekly is the only magazine that I still buy with some semi-regular basis, mostly because it’s the only import general entertainment magazine we can get here in Brazil. They used to take 2-3 weeks to arrive, but lately they’ve been arriving with only a week gap from the US release of each issue.

From Wikipedia:

Entertainment Weekly (sometimes abbreviated as EW) is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books and popular culture. Unlike celebrity-focused publications US Weekly, People, and In Touch Weekly, EW’s primary concentration is on entertainment media and critical reviews. Unlike Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, which are aimed at industry insiders, EW targets a more-general audience.

The magazine exists since 1990, which is about 10 years before I ever bought my first issue. I think the 1st issue I ever bought of the magazin was back in the year 2000, which featured Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis on the cover,  for the promotion of M. Night Shyamalan’s second movie, Unbreakable.

In midst of this EW stopped offering international subscription (a friend of mine tells me she used to get a subscription to the magazine here in Brazil) and there was a failed attempt to force people to buy the magazine so they can access the online content in the website. Glad that changed. EW is possibly one of the first in print magazines that learned really fast how to deal with online media, and the spread of Social Media.

Since then, probably from 2005 on, I’ve been steadily buying certain thematic issues, besides the one of the other cover story that might interest me.  The thematic issues, are always the seasonal previews for movies and tv. Some sort of a weird trend following I started in the last couple of years is trying to guess what will be featured in the cover, mostly for the Summer Movie, Fall Movie and Fall TV preview issues.

As I tweeted yesterday, I was finally able to grab myself of a copy of the latest Fall Movie preview issue, which once again, like tenth time already this year, is a Twilight themed cover. As it seems it really sells magazines. Wouldn’t mind it if happened only once in a while, but it’s getting too much (bet there will be another cover, around the time of the movie release in November). Complaints aside, the next EW issue I’m looking forward to is the Fall TV preview issue, and it’s been fun trying to guess what will be the show featured on the cover.

I have a few guesses that I’ll list further on, but then I decided to check the history of the Fall TV Preview issues. At first it was supposed to be a look back of 10 years, but then it built up to the whole publishing history of the magazine.  So I’ll be doing both in this post. The interesting part is there a few curious trends in the shows chosen for the cover. Then follow me through almost 20 years, then for my guesses for 2009:

1990: Fall TV Preview Cover: Twin Peaks (ABC)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:31,00.html

1991:Fall TV Preview Cover: Married… with Children (FOX)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:83,00.html

1992: Fall TV PReview Cover: Seinfeld (NBC)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:135,00.html

1993: Fall TV Preview Cover: Melrose Place (FOX)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:188,00.html

1994: Fall TV Preview Cover: Melrose Place (FOX)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:240,00.html

1995: Fall TV Preview Cover: Friends (NBC)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:292,00.html

1996: Fall TV Preview Cover: Suddenly Susan (NBC)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:345,00.html

1997 – Fall TV Preview Cover: Veronica’s Closet (NBC)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:396,00.html

1998 – Fall TV Preview Cover: Dawson’s Creek (WB)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:449,00.html

1999 – Fall TV Preview Cover: Time of Your Life (FOX)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:502,00.html

2000 – Fall TV Preview Cover: Titans (NBC)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:561,00.html

2001 – Fall TV Preview Cover: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer (UPN)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:612613,00.html

2002 – Fall TV Preview Cover: Alias (ABC)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:671672,00.html

2003 – Fall TV Preview Cover: Miss Match(NBC)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:727728,00.html

2004 – Fall TV Preview Cover: Joey (NBC)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:782783,00.html

2005 – Fall TV Preview Cover: Lost (ABC)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:838839,00.html

2006 – Fall TV Preview Cover: Greys Anatomy (ABC)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:895896,00.html (For some reason this issue does not appear in the EW website, but this should be the link if they fix it. Will update the cover if I find a larger size.)

2007 – Fall TV Preview Cover: Private Practice (ABC)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:953954,00.html

2008 – Fall TV Preview Cover: Gossip Girl (The CW)

http://www.ew.com/ew/inside/issue/0,,ewTax:1010,00.html (It was actually a issue with 3 variant covers, each featuring a different couple from that young cast – The one above features Penn Badgley and Blake Lively. The other two featured Ed Westwick and Leighton Meester in one, and Chase Crawford and Jessica Szohr in the another one.)

A few interesting data:

– Yes, Melrose Place (original mint) was featured two years in a row (1993-1994), yet the the series that originated it, which I assumed were also a massive success Beverly Hills 90210, was never featured in the Fall TV Preview covers.

– It rarely features new shows, but did happen in a few occasions: Veronica’s Closet (1997), Titans (2000), Miss Match (2003) – All from NBC, but Titans is possibly the most weird cover feature of the bunch.  Veronica’s Closet and Miss Match were quite understandable as featured former movie starlets Kirstie Alley and Alicia Silverstones in heading shows on tv.

– For some reason they really liked to feature spin off debuts (and I’m not counting the multiple outing of Melrose Place mentioned above, which were returning seasons): Time of Your Life (1999), Joey (2004) and Private Practice (2007). Duly noted is that both Friends and Grey’s Anatomy have been featured before, but just like in Melrose Place’s case, Party of Five was never featured.

– From the new millenium on (2001 – ), the preview issue started to be billed as double issues, starting with nothing less than Buffy.

– The covers usually featured only 1 actor per show, even if it’s an essemble show, some exceptions were:  Kyle Mclachlan and Sherilyn Fenn Madchen Amick (Twin Peaks – 1990), James Van Der Beak, Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson and Michelle Williams (Dawson’s Creek – 1998),  Matt LeBalnc and Drea De Matteo (Joey – 2004) and the variant Gossip Girls covers from 2008.

– ABC despite being the first network with a show featured, wouldn’t reappear until mid 2000s, thanks for the efforts of a certain mr.  JJ Abrams (Alias and Lost) and a ms. Shonda Rhymes (Greys Anatomy and Private Practice).

– Fox (3)  and NBC (5) basically dominated the 90s. ABC (4)  has been dominating the 2000’s so far. And Fox has yet to appear in this millenium at all.

– The WB and UPN networks were only founded in 1995, and their merge in form of The CW was realized in 2006, and have been featured in the cover once each. Although UPN was mostly a technicality, from all the Buffy network struggles from 2001, as it was not an really original new programming from them, rather a transfer from The WB. Yet, CBS one of major networks was never featured in the fall tv preview covers.

– Here’s the Network Tally:

A total of 19 covers so far

ABC: 5 (Twin Peaks, Alias, Lost, Greys Anatomy and Private Practice)

CBS: 0 – a big zero.

FOX: 4 (Married with Children, Melrose Place [2x] and Time of Your Life)

NBC: 7 (Seinfeld, Friends, Suddenly Susan, Veronica’s Closet, Titans, Miss Match and Joey)

WB: 1 (Dawson’s Creek)

UPN: 1 (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer)

The CW: 1 (Gossip Girl)

THE GUESSES

Now it’s  the fun part of guessing. Last year I guessed that they’d be featuring 90210 on the cover, as it was bringing back some of the old cast and I was just slightly off mark. Instead they had a feature story about the return of Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty the week before the Fall TV Preview issue.

I’ll list my possible 5 guesses for the cover below, with pros and cons. Won’t add odds, because I suck at that assessment.

1) How I Met Your Mother – CBS

Pros: It be finally a first for CBS, after almost 20 years. A name: Neil Patrick Harris, who hosted this year’s Tony Awards, is hosting the Emmys, and have just been confirmed as a guest judge for the Audition round at the next cycle of American Idol and we should never forget about Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog. And the show finally received its first Emmy nod this year.

Cons: Higher rated and more buzzed shows from the network filled with procedurals were never featured. Either the CSI franchise or even high rated comedies: Two and a Half Men or very much buzzed The Big Bang Theory. Comedies are less featured than dramas: Only 6 times out of 20 covers (Married with Children, Seinfeld, Friends, Suddenly Susan, Veronica’s Closet and Joey).

2) Melrose Place – THE CW

Pros: Simple, the magazine already did feature it twice in a row before, and might want to give notice of the new and refreshed version. Returning cast members from the original show.

Cons: It be the second CW feature cover in a row. They rarely feature a show debuting in the season.Also in the returning cast part, they could do the same as they did with 90210 and do separate cover feature. Also they’re starting early, I don’t expect to see the issue released until at least next week.

3) Cougar Town – ABC

Pros: Courtney Cox back on network tv and they did feature her in the Friends cover. Aparentelly the EW of the 2000s love ABC (4 out of 9 covers).

Cons: New show and not exactly that much buzz about it. And considering that last year they featured Gossip Girl and having publshing Twilight covers every three weeks or so, we might assume they’re targetting a younger audience, not really the Cougars.

4) Glee – Fox

Pros: Lots of Buzz, and it’s not starting from zero, as the premiere was shown back in may.  Fox has yet to be featured in a cover in the 2000’s, and they were much loved back in the 90s.

Cons: Not exactly a well-known or headliner stars for now, and if you consider its essemble nature, the fall tv covers rarely feature more than two people (Dawon’s Creek’s being an exception).

5) Medium – CBS

Pros: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, was also featured on the cover, when it switched to another network, and the network reasons I pointed with How I Met Your Mother, plus is an hour-long drama.

Cons: Not that much buzz. Supernatural and Smallvile have more following than Medium.

I do think that the guesses #1 and #2 are the most likely, but guess we’ll only know when the cover is revealed.

ETA: Whedonverse

And, if by any chance some EW guy (could be an intern) stumbled to my humble post.

After all these guesses what I’d really want to see is something in line with the following mock-up which was linked at Whedonesque last week. That’s a cover I want to see on the magazine.

But hey if my first guess is correct, and Neil Patrick Harris is featured, definitely a first step improvament.