(Subscriber Report) Ed Martin Live at TCA: ABC Ends TCA with a Bang: Paula Abdul on "Dancing with the Stars," "V" Moves from Midseason to November and More

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The Summer 2009 Television Critics Associationtour ended Saturday on a high note, as ABC presented a very full day of panels for eight new fall shows and one new summer reality series (Shark Tank). In the middle of it all, ABC Entertainment Group President Steve McPhersonmade what may be the most newsworthy remarks by any network executive since the tour began: ABC wants Paula Abdulon Dancing with the Stars!

"I definitely have reached out to her," McPherson told TCA members, sending a wave of new energy through the room during the final few hours of a 12-day marathon of press conferences and set visits. "We're friends from way back, so I gave her a call, first and foremost, just to say I was sorry about [her departure from American Idol] and also that we'd love to see her on ABC."

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Admitting that he was "a little stunned" by the announcement of Abdul's departure from the show that has made her one of the biggest television stars in the country, McPherson said ABC "would love to have her on Dancing" as "a contestant or participant of some sort, a judge." He said Abdul is "a huge talent," adding, "I think there's a sensitivity and there's kind of an emotion to her that balances out Idol. We'd love to get a piece of that."

The tweets were flying as fast as reporters could type them. Of course, there had been much to twitter about all day – and there had been much for reporters, columnists and critics to absorb for thoughtful commentary, as well.

Given all the trash talk directed against broadcast television these days, it was reassuring and revitalizing just to sit through ABC's very full TCA day. (Some would say too full, but that's what happens when a network cuts its TCA time in half. A two-day schedule with a little breathing room and a sprinkling of additional sessions for some of ABC's returning series and a couple of ABC Family shows would have better served the Disney ABC Television Group, but I'm not complaining. The last day of a long TCA tour is typically exhausting and a bit of a slog, but ABC had almost full attendance throughout, and there wasn't a single session that flopped.)

The day began with Modern Family, the single camera comedy series most often cited by critics as their favorite new fall show. (Fox' Glee is a close second.) It went over as well at TCA as it did at ABC's upfront presentation last May (when the network screened the pilot in its entirety for advertisers). The stars on stage included television veterans Ed O'Neill(Married with Children) and Julie Bowen (Boston Legal). That was followed by a panel for ABC's new summer series Shark Tank, executive produced by Mark Burnett. He wasn't there, but the five hugely successful business people who make or break people's professional dreams on the series were, and they proved to be a snappish bunch. (I would have preferred a session with Regis Philbinmarking the tenth anniversary of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, but the Shark panel was a lot of fun.)

Patricia Heaton of Everybody Loves Raymond was up next promoting her very promising new family comedy The Middle. She was followed by Kelsey Grammer, on hand to talk about his new family sitcom, Hank. (This show wasn't a hit with critics, but Grammer had full command of the room anyway, especially when he let fly about the way CBS chief Les Moonves, whom Grammer playfully described as "selfless and ego-less," once treated the supernatural drama Medium, which Grammer is an executive producer of, and which has recently moved from NBC to CBS.)

The day was so packed even lunch was a work period. The network ran the full pilot of the science-fiction drama Flash Forward, the new show ABC seems the most excited about. The cast – which includes Joseph Finnes, John Cho(Star Trek) and Lost co-stars Dominic Monaghanand Sonya Walger– took questions after. I don't think this show is going to be the slam dunk ABC would like it to be, but it will certainly be one of the most talked about and written about new series of the fall.

McPherson's news-making session was next, followed by one for the new Jerry Bruckheimerprocedural detective drama The Forgotten. This show went over like a lead balloon with critics at ABC's upfront, but the network since that time has beefed up the cast with Christian Slater(fresh off his own lead balloon, the NBC flop My Own Worst Enemy), and all of a sudden it feels like a winner. Bruckheimer and Slater did well on stage.

Courteney Coxand her co-stars from the new comedy Cougar Town were up next, though they didn't get to say very much. That's because they were sharing the spotlight with their executive producer Bill Lawrence(Scrubs), a man who never fielded a question from a journalist that he couldn't spend ten minutes answering. The press loves this guy: They can write an entire column or blog entry off his answer to a single question.

A panel for the light supernatural drama Eastwick followed. This new take on the story from the 1987 movie The Witches of Eastwick may prove to be ABC's weakest new fall show, but it was helped enormously by a strong session and the boundless appeal of co-stars Rebecca Romijnand Paul Gross.

The final session of Saturday afternoon yielded the second biggest news of the day (after the McPherson-Abdul thing): ABC has moved the premiere of its science-fiction thriller V (like Eastwick a new take on an old franchise, in this case the mid-Eighties NBC alien-invasion series of the same name) from midseason to November 3, the start of the new season's first sweeps period. This is an incredible vote of confidence and show of support by ABC; it even surprised those of us who have been calling V the network's most exciting new drama. No star of any new series on any network has worked harder in recent weeks to promote his show at Comic-Con and TCA than V's leading man, Scott Wolf.

As do all broadcast networks, ABC ended the day with a party featuring the stars of its new (and some of its returning) shows. Young stars from several ABC Family and Disney Channel series were also on hand. It was the least elaborate network party of the press tour, but the turn out was still strong.

Indeed, there was much to celebrate: After an extremely difficult couple of years, when it suffered repeated blows from the writers strike, network budget cuts and the gutting of so many newspapers across the country, the TCA had survived and thrived. It may not be as puffed-up as it once was (few things are these days), but it proved to be as important and productive as ever. It is still the very best way to prime hundreds of television critics and journalists for the TV season to come and now, with the addition of all those bloggers and tweeters, more people than ever are reading about the TCA tour and being made aware of the broadcast and cable networks' upcoming programs. When the network-TCA partnership functions properly it is a promotional platform like no other and a big win for both sides. ABC certainly reinforced this when it chose to end its TCA presentations with that big announcement about V. The network did more than simply get the word out: It found a way to get a group of journalists who were already intrigued by the show to be even more interested in it. They started writing about it on Saturday and likely won't stop for months to come. Like I said, it's a win for both sides.

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