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Tuesday kicks off the semi-annual meeting of the Television Critics Association, otherwise known as summer press tour, otherwise known as the death march with cocktails. Pick your moniker.
TV critics, reporters and bloggers of all stripes descend upon the Beverly Hilton for more than two weeks of panels, executive sessions, set visits and parties and many of them sit through every last one of them and still live to write about their experiences. Moreover, most of them tweet their way through it, and many snarky comments can be found at #TCA14.
Press tour opened Monday night with a welcome reception hosted by National Geographic Channels. It rolls into the real stuff Tuesday morning, starting with Ovation at 11:15 am. From there, it’s an almost endless parade of networks.
Cable networks will be showcased Tuesday through Friday, with a small break on Thursday morning for the Emmy nominations at 5:40 am PT. As mentioned, Ovation kicks off the cable portion of tour, followed on Tuesday by a TVGN-sponsored lunch and panels with Al Jazeera and National Geographic Channels. That evening, Crown Media Family Networks, which includes the Hallmark family of networks, will host an off-site evening event.
On Wednesday, Discovery starts the day at 9 p.m., followed by WGN America, which will be paneling its new show, Manhattan, premiering on Sunday, July 27 at 9 pm ET.
BBC will be showcased on Wednesday afternoon, with BBC America sponsoring another off-site event that night.
Thursday morning, post Emmy noms, is Turner’s, with Cartoon Network sponsoring breakfast and then Turner Networks holding court Thursday morning.
Robert Rodriguez’ upstart cable net, El Rey, will talk to reporters before that day’s GSN-sponsored lunch. El Rey also sponsored that night’s round of cocktails.
The afternoon is HBO’s, which will run all of its projects by critics from 2 to 5 p.m.
No break for the weary on Friday, which kicks off with Viacom and its cable nets, followed by Pivot. After lunch, Starz and AMC will present. That night’s mandatory round of cocktails will be sponsored by getTV.
Many attendees will opt out of the events of Saturday, July 12, but it’s still a packed day. DirecTV will present its new show, “Kingdom,” in the morning, followed by Amazon, which has five series to show to critics. Reelz has an hour after lunch, followed by Hulu trying to top Amazon from 3 to 6 p.m. Hulu’s also hosting that night’s cocktails and throwing in some food trucks for good measure.
Sunday, July 13, starts the broadcast portion of the tour, and many of the major broadcast companies also opt to include their cable nets on these days. NBC kicks this off on Sunday, but hasn’t made its schedule available yet. Coming to NBC this fall are such shows as “Constantine,” “A to Z,” “Marry Me,” “State of Affairs’” and “Bad Judge.”
On Monday, NBC will cede its schedule to its cable networks, including CNBC, USA, Oxygen, Esquire and SyFy. Lunch will showcase NBC’s new syndicated show, The Meredith Vieira Show, premiering this fall on TV stations across the country.
That night, lucky critics will be the first in the country to see a screening of SyFy’s much-anticipated “Sharknado 2” poolside at the Beverly Hilton.
ABC takes over on Tuesday, starting the day with ABC Family, and concluding with panels on ABC’s new fall series, “How to Get Away with Murder,” “Selfie,” “black-ish,” “Forever,” “Manhattan Love Story” and “Cristela.” (ABC has several other shows on tap for mid-season, including “American Crime,” “Secrets and Lies,” “Fresh Off the Boat” and “Galavant.”)
Wednesday, July 16, is another semi-break, with three studio visits planned. Critics will have the option to visit the “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” set at CBS Radford Studios, see a screening of “Gotham” at Warner Bros., and visit the set of “Masters of Sex” at Sony’s studios in Culver City. Critics who miss seeing “Gotham” on the Warner Bros.’ lot will have two more chances at Comic-Con on Wednesday, July 23 and Saturday, July 26. FWIW, “Gotham” gets our vote for “most-marketed new show of fall 2014.”
CBS, The CW and Showtime fill the next two days. Thursday is all CBS, with panels of CBS’ new fall shows: “Madam Secretary,” “NCIS: New Orleans,” “The McCarthys,” “Scorpion,” “Battle Creek” and “Stalker,” followed by CBS’ annual summer stars party at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.
On Friday, The CW will panel new series “Jane the Virgin” and “The Flash,” as well as one of its hottest shows, “Arrow,” and “Supernatural,” which is headed into its tenth season. Showtime takes over in the afternoon, with sessions on “Homeland,” “The Affair,” “Ray Donovan” and “Kobe Bryant’s Muse.”
TCA hands out its own version of the Emmys, the Television Critics Awards, on Saturday, July 19.
It’s back to business on Sunday, July 20, with Fox paneling its new shows “Gotham” (no screening this time, however), “Mulaney,” “Red Band Society,” “Utopia,” “Gracepoint” and “Sleepy Hollow,” which is returning for a second season this fall. Who will show up to speak at Fox’s executive session that morning is an open question since Kevin Reilly departed the network in June.
FX will follow Fox on Monday, July 21. FX’s always provocative CEO John Langraf will kick off the day, followed by a panel on FXX’s syndicated roll-out of “The Simpsons.” FX also will panel its two new comedies, “Married” and “You’re The Worst,” followed by “The League,” which is headed into season six.
That afternoon, FX will host Q&As with the stars and producers of “Tyrant,” “The Bridge,” “The Strain” and “Sons of Anarchy.”
As per tradition, PBS will close out press tour with two days of sessions. Highlights should include Ken Burns’ latest documentary, “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History,” season five of Masterpiece’s “Downton Abbey,” and “Earth - A New Wild.” No Cumberbatch on the schedule this year, unfortunately.
Those left standing can attend one final cocktail party and then head down to San Diego for Comic-Con, which officially starts Thursday, July 24.
Image of a previous year’s panel on AMC’s “Breaking Bad” courtesy Vulture.com.
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