And you thought only movie studios were out of fresh ideas …

The upcoming TV season – and beyond - will feature plenty of shows that sound awfully familiar. Expect reboots of old TV favorites like “The Munsters,” “The Flintstones,” “Bewitched” and “The Rifleman.”

Other programs will be “inspired” by existing films, all the better to bank on brand names that are the coin of the realm for modern marketers.

“Source Code,” the smart 2011 sci-fi thriller, will be hitting the small screen, and “Hannibal” brings back everyone’s favorite flesh eater for a few more chills – and Chianti. “Romancing the Stone” will try to replicate the sexual chemistry between Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner from the 1984 film.

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When you think about AMC’s exemplary originals, your mind runs to each show’s lead actor.

“Mad Men’s” Jon Hamm. “Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston. “The Walking Dead’s” Andrew Lincoln.

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It’s precisely what’s missing from “Hell on Wheels,” the channel’s new original series debuting at 10 p.m. EST tonight. Anson Mount (“Straw Dogs”), cast as a Confederate soldier finding his way in post-war America, can’t command the screen like those aforementioned AMC stars.

And that’s a shame, since “Hell on Wheels” boasts superlative production values and a fascinating glimpse at a complex chapter in the nation’s history.

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It’s that time of year again- the Hollywood award season- whereby producers, writers, directors, actors and other craftspeople come together to honor one another in great style for their contributions to the world of media as we know it today. According to Tom O’Neil, America’s leading awards expert and founder of GoldDerby.com, 4,000 award ceremonies are held each year to honor this industry alone. And he should know he’s been tracking show results and making predictions on the competitions since 2000 while penning three books on the subject and blogging for the LA Times’ TheEnvelope.com.

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Unfortunately, with so many ceremonies to watch and so many opinions to account for, often times the lines between the intentions of the awards are blurred. But last year, I was asked to cover the PRISM Awards, a jewel of an honor presented by the Entertainment Industry Council (EIC) for the accurate depiction of substance abuse and mental health issues within television and film productions. The storylines are mostly heavy and often controversial, but more importantly, they touch the reality of average people’s lives. Actors are not measured against one another based on genre, but rather as they compare to a real person afflicted with an illness such as alcoholism, drug addiction, bi-polar disorders, etc. One Tree Hill actress, Shantel VanStaten, had this to say about the PRISM, “I think its one of the highest honors you can get. It’s not ‘oh you did an amazing job’ —  it’s ‘you did the most realistic portrayal of something that we could find’.”

The EIC was founded in 1987 by Brian Dyak, and the first PRISM Award was presented ten years later as a direct result of the progress the EIC had made. “The PRISM Awards encourage creators to make the most of their rights to free creative expression, while at the same time showing the reality of these health issues,” Dyak said of his coveted award. “As a part of the industry, EIC never wants to inhibit the creative process; however, we take pride in being the first to applaud creators who use their power and influence over their audiences wisely and responsibly, informing them while at the same time entertaining them. This is what we refer to as “the art of making a difference,” and that is what EIC and the PRISM Awards are all about.”

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The dust-up behind the scenes of AMC’s The Walking Dead, in which showrunner Frank Darabont was apparently fired, is evidence of a big struggle behind the scenes at the cable network.  It’s instructive for BigHollywood readers to learn about the politics and commerce going on at AMC because of how it relates to how Hollywood does business.   Flawed business models lead to flawed content for popular culture, and as we know, politics is downstream from culture.

At its core, AMC’s problems can be traced to the misguided decision to spin-off the company (which includes AMC, IFC, Sundance Channel, WE tv, and in-house production) from its parent, Cablevision.  Well, I say “misguided” in that it’s a sucker’s bet for AMC shareholders but probably a lateral or marginally beneficial move for Cablevision.

AMC makes its money in two ways: by charging advertisers to run commercials (37% of income), and affiliate fees (57% of income).  These are the fees that your cable or satellite company pays to each channel for the privilege of having them in the lineup.  The better or “must-have” a channel’s programming is, the higher the affiliate fee that can be negotiated and, in the case of commercial channels, the higher ad rates.

Affiliate fees thus depend on content quality.  That’s something AMC can control.  Advertising fees depend both on content quality and the economy.  AMC can control the former but not the latter.  However, as I’ve written before, you can have the best content in the world, but that does not guarantee success.  Success is random.  Thus, AMC may control content quality, has no control whatsoever over its revenues.

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–NEW FEATURE DEBUTS TOMORROW–

Hunter Duesing, who does an excellent job covering the latest in DVD and Blu-ray releases, has seen the future and its name is STREAMING. And so he will now do double duty with a weekly column that covers the latest in streaming news: what’s new, what’s available, and whatever else crosses his mind.

Look for the debut first thing tomorrow morning.

All together now: Thanks Hunter!

–”BREAKING BAD” FINAL RUN WILL RUN OVER TWO SEASONS–

Though there was a lot of drama over whether or not one of the finest explorations of how a good man can sell his soul ever produced in any medium would move to another network, what’s likely to happen is pretty much what was expected. If you remember “The Sopranos” did the same thing, breaking the final season into two parts. This works for the network in two ways. First, even though the production company and network will save money producing fewer episodes than two seasons normally demand, it keeps the buzz alive around the show and the network for an extra year. But most importantly it creates two separate DVD sets out of those fewer episodes — a part one and part two, which obviously increases profits.

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–’ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK’ REMAKE DEAD … FOR NOW–

A draft I read of this intended remake was extremely well written but also an environmental allegory and warning. If memory serves, Manhattan had become a prison due to the flooding caused by *prepare for eyeroll*  man-made Global Warming. After director John Carpenter’s own disastrous return to his 1981 classic with “Escape From L.A.,” it wasn’t as though we really needed another reason to wish doom upon a remake.

Man, I remember sitting through the dreadful “Escape from L.A.,” which I had dragged my dad to, all excited in the knowledge that Pam Grier was going to show up onscreen. Just the vision of her beautiful-ness would lift these awful two hours into something worthwhile … only to discover Carpenter cast her as a man, or something.

Regardless, you can’t replace Kurt Russell.

You can’t.

No one working today comes close to his mixture of menace, masculinity, unspoken intelligence and charm. He’s a one-of-a-kind who created an iconic role for the ages and you might as well have someone else try to play Cool Hand Luke or Bullitt.

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–SEASON FOUR OF ‘BREAKING BAD’ FINALLY PREMIERES

Unfortunately, I don’t have AMC and refuse to pay another $30 just to get it along with 50 lame-ass channels I’ll never watch, so I’ll have to wait for DVD. But wait for DVD I will and with the idea in mind of voraciously eating up each and every episode in a weekend binge.

From the performances to the directing to the writing, the story of a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher who goes into the meth business with fairly good intentions, is some of the best television I’ve seen since “The Sopranos” and “The Wire.”The arc of the characters, especially the main character, Walt (played brilliantly by Bryan Cranston), his wife, and his partner Jesse, is what keeps you glued year after year. Even as they surprise you, the show is so well written and layered that in the end whatever they do makes perfect sense.  

Essentially, “Breaking Bad” is a study of evil; an examination of how there are no half-measures when it comes to dealing with the devil. You can’t dip your toe in a dirty business and expect to hold on to your soul.

With no threat of being accused of hyperbole, I can assure you no dramatic film aimed at adults released in the last five years has been half as good as any episode of “Breaking Bad.” Television is where Hollywood shines right now.

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This Sunday, the 62^nd Primetime Emmy Awards will be handed out to some of the best shows and actors from the past year. Although some shows and performances were snubbed, there are numerous nominees that are worth rooting for during the award show which will be hosted by Jimmy Fallon. In the midst of a lot of previously-nominated shows and performers, there are also some newcomers and previously-overlooked nominees that are worth getting excited about.

In the best drama category, the highly-acclaimed and perennial winner “Mad Men” will be facing some mildly tough competition. It will be up against HBO’s “True Blood,” Showtime’s “Dexter,” AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” ABC’s “Lost,” and CBS’ “The Good Wife.” Even though “Lost” just aired its final season, many expect that “Mad Men” will walk away with its third consecutive best drama award. Several of last year’s nominees for this category were snubbed this year (“House,” “Big Love,” and “Damages”) along with at least one departing show that had previously won this competition (“24”).    (more…)

When, and why, did American television and cinema viewers first fall in love with the Sociopath protagonist? Perhaps the audience was always there, nascent and ready to be born. My current favorite Sociopath television show is AMC’s Breaking Bad, the story of an ordinary, albeit resentful and self-loathing, married man who breaks out of his bourgeois cocoon to become a Methamphetamine dealer. His bourgeois name is the aptly constructed “Walter White,” representing the plain vanilla nature of his high school Chemistry teacher life in small town New Mexico. His alter ego name is “Heisenberg” (after Nobel winning German physicist Werner Heisenberg), chosen by White, to represent his genius in making the purest and best “Meth” ever seen in the Southwest and Mexico. 

I think Coppola’s Godfather series created the modern heroic Sociopath. We rooted for Brando’s and Pacino’s characters, although Michael Corleone became unlikable by the end of Godfather II. Coppola was the first to romanticize the familiar character of the gangster in movies. But Quentin Tarantino perfected the generalized concept of the protagonist Sociopath. His breakout film was, of course, Pulp Fiction, a so-called dark comedy with such a wide variety of watchable sociopaths one could probably make a television series around virtually every major character in the film. In fact, the two strands of modern Sociopathic television and films can be plausibly traced to either Coppola or Tarantino. In the organized crime motif, for example, there is of course The Sopranos and the unfortunately canceled series Brotherhood. But shows like Dexter and Breaking Bad are in the dark comedy mode consistent with Tarantino’s sensibility. 

Breaking Bad is in the midst of its third season. It is really hitting its stride. When the show was first promoted prior to its first season, I had no interest at all in seeing it. The premise seemed ridiculous and unappealing. Walter White is the epitome of an underachiever. He has his PHD in chemistry but is somehow stuck teaching high school students who have less than zero interest in the subject matter. He is diagnosed with cancer, which his insurance will not pay for. So he becomes a Meth dealer. This is how the show was promoted. Not only did I not want to watch it, I aggressively had an affirmative dislike for such an amoral and stupid theme. Plus who wants to watch a show where the main guy has cancer? Real life is bad enough; does one really want to watch a television show about it?  (more…)

When AMC decided to produce original programming, their first series, Mad Men, was a critical home run. It was a show set in a classic time, and AMC, which used to stand for American Movie Classics was a perfectly fine place to run it. But their second show had the strange title Breaking Bad. It was a “dramedy” set in present day, in the dusty town of Kingman, Arizona. I remember thinking at the time, so much for the classic feel. I was wrong.

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Breaking Bad is the best crime show currently airing on television. It starts with an original premise. Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston, is a low paid high school chemistry teacher in a dead end job. He has a handicapped son (RJ Mitte) and a wife (Anna Gunn) who doesn’t work. They’re barely making ends meet. And then he gets a bomb dropped on him. He’s diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Walter’s given less than a year to live.

Looking at his options and his debts, Walter realizes that he will leave his wife and son with nothing. His wife will have to go back to work, which she hasn’t done in years. His son, who has cerebral palsy, will not have much help in life. He’s in high school, but there is no money to send him off to college. (more…)