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CNN Live At Daybreak

America's New War: Hollywood Reworking Fall Season

Aired September 26, 2001 - 08:54   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The fall television season is in a state of flux since the September 11th terrorist attacks, and for some shows it's back to the drawing board.

Joining me know to talk about it is Matt Roush, senior television critic for "TV Guide".

Good to see you again.

MATT ROUSH, "TV GUIDE": Good morning.

ZAHN: Well, your life has been an upheaval, everything that was on the schedule has been taken off.

ROUSH: Well, a fall season is confusing just by the nature of it coming on the air, 30-odd new shows, shows changing time periods, and now with all of this terrible distraction of the news and the disruption of the fall season by at least a week, and nobody knows what is happening on any of their shows. Plus, the shows themselves have had to do some soul-searching in the terms of the types of stories they're telling, the types of jokes they are telling and what is actually appropriate to tell on television. This was a fall when we were going to get a few new spy thrillers on TV and all of a sudden they're wondering if that's even...

ZAHN: I don't think so.

ROUSH: ... even if it's appropriate, yes. And what is exploitative, you know. Is it going to trivialize our fears? Who knows what these show are going to be.

And the one show right in the focal point is the "West Wing," the show about a fictional White House at a time when the real White House is so much in the focus of our thoughts and minds right now. And so Aaron Sorkin, who used to be a playwrite, he is basically -- the first episode is being pushed back a week, and the new first episode is going to be sort of a very cerebral, very, hopefully, talkative, I suppose, a show in which the characters, the people in the White House, are addressing this issue of terrorism and perhaps bigotry and all the other things that are coming to the forefront in the wake of this. Aaron Sorkin knows that his shows has to be a platform for this kind of discussion, so he's written a special episode, they rushed it into production, it's being filmed right now, it;s going to go on next Wednesday, and we really don't know what to expect. ZAHN: So, basically, they have to blow up old shows. This is going to cost them a lot of money, if the events of two weeks ago are going to dictate the content of shows which thrive on this kind of breaking information.

ROUSH: And Thursday night there's a new series kind of like the West Wing of the CIA called "The Agency," and they had to suspend the entire first episode, put a new episode that we have not seen in its place because the first episode dealt directly with a terrorist cell of bin Laden's. And how do you fictionalize that right now? The answer is you don't. So i don't know if that episode is ever going to be seen. So, yes, we're talking about a lot of rethinking in Hollywood right now in terms of what we're going to want to watch on television.

ZAHN: What about the show "Third Watch"? Have they made some changes to address what happened?

ROUSH: We are not sure because they film in New York, they've had to suspend production for a short time anyway because all of the madness in the city. And the fact is, though, the show is about firefighters, it's about police on the street of New York City, and they have to find some way to reflect what happened to their own community within the fictional context of the show. We are not quite sure how they are going to do it, but that is a particularly acute situation for that show to know how to deal with it. I would assume that they will take the high road in terms of honoring the people who have lost their lives, but it is a very tricky situation for so many of these shows on TV.

And as we watch TV, what is clear is that we're all so very happy to have the comedies that we love coming back on the air. "Frasier" came back last night, which of course had a tragedy in its own family.

ZAHN: Lost its producer.

ROUSH: One of its creators died in one of the planes.

And the numbers have been big for "Everybody Loves Raymond," came back on Monday and it was watched in huge numbers. There is a sense that we are ready to turn to TV as sort of our comfort food to a certain extent, always of course prepared to turn to TV for the information that we've been getting the last couple of weeks as well.

ZAHN: Well, we're going to have to follow your directive, because I can tell you, for those of us that can actually stay up passed 8:30 at night, this -- the fall schedule is going to be extended and there will be a lot of pages...

ROUSH: Well, being at "TV Guide" is going to be extremely challenging right now, let me tell you.

ZAHN: Well, keep your eye on the map.

ROUSH: There you go.

ZAHN: Matt Roush, good to see.

ROUSH: Thank you.

ZAHN: Thank you for stopping by.

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