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Page 1 of 10March 14, 2012

By Pamela McClintockIn an unusual turn of events, AMC Entertainment CEO Gerry Lopez has joined the rallying cry to overturn the R rating for language that was assigned to Lee Hirsch’s documentary Bully.

Hollywood support also is growing. Meryl Streep and her daughter Mamie Gum-mer will co-host a screening of the film in New York, and Johnny Depp has offered his help. The Weinstein Co. will release Bully, which centers on the bullying epidemic in U.S. schools, on March 30 in theaters.

Lopez’s stand is note- worthy because exhibitors generally are on the side of the ratings system, which is administered both by the MPAA and the National Asso-ciation of Theatre Owners.

Lopez criticized hard-and-fast rules that limit the use of the F-word. It can only be used once in a movie that’s rated PG-13. Violence and sex are more subjective. Hirsch did not want to cut his film, noting the language reflects reality.

“To automatically default Bully is a mistake,” Lopez said. “Automatic default to a rating … is a mistake. The message, the movie and its social relevance defy that kind of formulaic, conven-tional thinking. AMC will

Support Grows Behind Protest of Bully Rating

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Inside:warner bros. developing mandrake picPAge 2

discovery axes bear gryllsPAge 4

eastwoods get e! reality showPAge 6

judge pares housewives suit PAge 7

tv reviews: missing, planetPAge 8

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Leo Hirsch’s documentary Bully has galvanized a national movement, since the very audience it was made for will be restricted in seeing it.

movie newsPage 2 of 10March 14, 2012

show this movie, and we in-vite our guests to engage in the dialogue its relevant mes-sage will inevitably provoke.”

Bully has galvanized a national movement, since the very audience it was made for will be restricted in seeing it.

Michigan high school student Katy Butler, a victim of bullying, started a peti-tion that has been signed by 300,000 people — including one of Lopez’s sons.

On Capitol Hill, more than 20 lawmakers have signed a bipartisan letter to the MPAA urging that the rating be overturned. And on Tuesday, Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) tweeted that she too supports lower-ing the rating to PG-13. As with Lopez, it’s unusual to have lawmakers asking that a rating be lowered.

Other notable names joining the cause include Justin Bieber, who recently tweeted that he’ll help the Weinstein Co. in any way he can, and New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees. A T-shirt being de-signed by Tommy Hilfiger based on the Bully poster will be sold in Hilfiger stores, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting Facing History and Ourselves.

Barrymore pic set for releaseBy David RooneyNeW YORK — Barrymore, the film based on the celebrated 1997 Broadway production that won a Tony Award for Christopher Plummer as

best actor in a play, will be shown theatrically in Canada this spring, and throughout the U.S. and internationally in the fall.

The 82-year-old Plummer became the oldest Oscar winner in history when he took home supporting actor honors in February for his work in Focus Features’ Beginners. He reprised his

role in Barry-more in a lim-ited run at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre last year, which was captured on film both

on stage and on location by director-adapter Erik Can-uel. The film premiered in September at the Toronto International Film Festival.

In William Luce’s bio-play, set in 1942, Plummer takes on the role of John Barrymore, part of the legendary American multi- generational acting dynasty. Faced with the diminished luster of his box-office power, he looks back over a life of highs and lows as he attempts to mount a comeback by recreating his Broadway triumph in Richard III.

Produced by Garth Drab-insky, the film version will be released by New York-based alternative content distrib-utor BY Experience. Exec-utive producers are Steve Kalafer and Peter LeDonne.

In addition to Beginners, Plummer was seen recently in David Fincher’s U.S. re-make of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. He is set to next appear in the Stephen Frears feature Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight.

warners Bros. to conjure up mandrake picBy Borys KitWarner Bros. has picked up movie rights to the classic comic strip Mandrake the Magician and is developing a feature film with Atlas Entertainment producing.

Created by Lee Falk in 1934, Mandrake told of the adventures of an illusionist who had the power to hyp-notize his foes at great speed. With his companion Lothar, an African strongman, he fought evildoers ranging from gangsters to masters of disguise to aliens. He also had a twin brother who used his power for evil instead of good.

Mandrake is one of those characters that Hollywood has long tried to nail down in a viable movie adaptation. Columbia Pictures made a 12-part serial in 1939, and a TV movie aired in the 1970s, but nothing has made it to screens since.

Disney had the rights to the character for a while, but most recently the prop-erty was held by Baldwin Entertainment and Hyde Park, which in the late 2000s developed incarnations with directors Chuck Russell and Mimi Leder and actors Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Hayden Christensen.

Atlas became involved with the project in 2009, and even developed a script with David and Janet Peo-ples (12 Monkeys).

Warner now wants to give the character a 21st century

makeover, the same way it did for Sherlock Holmes, and is on the hunt for new writers.

Sarah Schechter is over-seeing for Warners. Charles Roven and Andy Horwitz are shepherding for Atlas.

Rocky Shepard of King Features Syndicate and Atlas’ Alan Glazer are executive producing.

aBBey creator fellowes to pen Gypsy adaptationBy Borys KitUniversal has hired Oscar-winning scribe and Down-ton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes to write its film adaptation of Gypsy.

Barbra Streisand and Joel Silver (making his first foray into Broadway musi-cal movies) are producing the feature project, which is an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Lau-rents’ Tony Award-winning musical.

The play and movie are based on the memoir by Gypsy Rose Lee, a bur-lesque dancer, and the relationship with her mother, Momma Rose, who has since become the prototype of a “stage mom” in pop culture. The first film version, starring Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood, hit screens in 1962.

The new project was initially looking like it was going to be set up at Warner

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Plummer

Fellowes

movie newsPage 3 of 10March 14, 2012

Bros., which made the original movie, but a deal never took and Gypsy quietly made its way to Universal last year.

Fellowes won an Acad-emy Award for Gosford Park. His recent movies include The Tourist, which starred Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, and Romeo and Juliet, which is now in production with Hailee Steinfeld.

laBute short Bff to Bow at triBecaBy Gregg KildayBFF, a short film from writer/director Neil LaBute, will have its world premiere at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festi-val, set to run April 18-29.

The festival has scheduled a program of 60 short films from 25 coun-tries that in-cludes 26 world premieres.

The 2012 slate will be presented in nine thematic programs (five narrative, three documentary and one

experimental). Performers and interview subjects in the movie include Jamie Lee Curtis, Rachel Dratch, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Fassbender, Jesse Tyler Fer-guson, Rachael Harris, Hugh Masekela, Sting and Lily Tomlin.

In addition to La Bute, returning di-rectors include Julia Bacha, Matthew Bonifacio, Shawn Christensen, David Darg, Sasha-Waters Freyer, Mar-tin Laporte, David B. Levy, Charles Lim, Bryn Mooser, Jay Rosenblatt and Joel Schlemowitz.

“We’re thrilled to have so many international short films in this year’s selec-tions, particularly from countries whose work may be new to our filmgoers,” said Sharon Badal, Tribeca Film Festival head of shorts programming.

Works selected for the Tribeca fest shorts slate are eligible to compete for com-bined cash and value-in-kind prizes totaling more than $10,000 for Best Narra-

tive Short, Best Documen-tary Short and Student Visionary Award.

And, for the second year running, the recipient of the Tribeca Film Festival’s Best Narrative Short award will qualify for consideration in the short films category of the Academy Awards with-out the standard theatrical run, provided the film other- wise complies with the Acad-emy’s other rules.

former mGm marketinG exec mcGrath diesBy Mike BarnesDavid Mcgrath, a senior mar-keting executive at MGM in the 1960s, died Feb. 29 in San Diego after a lengthy illness. He was 74.

McGrath handled the marketing campaigns for such films as Doctor Zhi-vago (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), 2001: A Space Odys-sey (1968), Ryan’s Daughter (1970) and scores of others.

McGrath came to the studio after serving in the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover,

who reported to his father, J. Howard McGrath, attor-ney general for Harry Tru-man from 1949-52. His FBI service was primarily pro-tecting the family of Robert Kennedy.

At MGM from 1962-72, McGrath worked his way through the ranks of the studio, achieving success at the box office with his cam-paigns on numerous films. He was responsible for orga-nizing the migration of the marketing department from its New York headquarters to the studio in Culver City.

Following the move to California, McGrath left the business to return to his Rhode Island farm, where the 1950s films starring Francis the Talking Mule had been filmed. He headed up Rhode Island Savings and Loan, where his mar-keting skills grew the S&L to the biggest in the state, then left banking to do char-itable work and professional cooking.

Survivors include his son, Brian. Donations in his memory can be made to the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation.

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television newsPage 4 of 10March 14, 2012

By Marisa GuthrieNeW YORK — Discovery Channel has terminated its relationship with Bear Grylls, the British television per-sonality and star of the net-work’s Man Vs. Wild. The severing of the relationship, which began back in 2006 when Wild launched on Dis-covery, comes after the net- work has allegedly been un- able to get Grylls to partic-ipate in two unannounced projects he was contracted for, said sources. The sixth season of Wild wrapped in August.

“Due to a continuing contractual dispute with Bear Grylls, Discovery has terminated all current pro-ductions with him,” a net-work spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.

A representative for Grylls confirmed that the Wild star has parted ways with Discovery.

“Bear Grylls’ goal has always been to make life-empowering shows for his many fans around the globe, and he has taken great risks to bring Discov-ery such award-winning programming over seven seasons,” said Heather Krug in a statement to THR. “Unfortunately, Bear and Discovery have not been able to come to mutual agree- ment on new programming, and he disagrees with Dis-covery’s decision to termi-nate current productions.

Bear has loved the Man Vs. Wild journey and looks for-ward to producing further cutting-edge content again soon for his loyal audience.”

This is not the first time Discovery has had a dis-agreement with its talent. In 2010, the network sued Deadliest Catch Captains Jonathan and Andy Hill-strand for allegedly failing to complete work on the spin - off Hillstranded. The $3 mil-lion lawsuit prompted the Hillstrands and Captain Sig Hansen to quit, though a month later the dispute was settled, the suit was dropped and all three returned to work on the show.

Grylls, 37, has parlayed his fame as an extreme out-doorsman into an inter-national media career. He’s written nearly a dozen books, many of them survival guides. His memoir Mud, Sweat and Tears — due to be published in the U.S. in May — already is a best-seller in England and Australia. He’s landed

numerous endorsement deals including with Dockers and Degree deodorant. There’s a Man vs. Wild video game, he has an iPhone app, and his clothing line is sold at REI and Walmart.

Grylls’ exploits on Wild (which averaged 1.1 million viewers on Discovery last season) have earned him nu-merous celebrity admirers. Jake Gyllenhaal, Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller have tagged along on some of Grylls’ adventures. But the show, which also airs in the U.K. on Channel 4, was beset with early controversies when it was revealed that several of Grylls’ escapades of derring- do were enhanced or staged and that Grylls spent nights in local motels while he was purportedly left alone to fend for himself on a deserted island.

In 2007, the show was briefly taken off the air in the U.K. and Discovery began airing it with a dis-claimer allowing that Grylls was not in fact left alone to survive in the wild. In sub-sequent episodes Grylls directly addresses the crew, and in the interest of trans-parency, each season fea-tured a making-of episode.

But Grylls’ rugged pub-lic persona has increasingly belied his personal wealth. A former member of the British Army’s Special Air Service, Grylls lives with his family on a private island

in Wales (where there is no electricity). He also has a home in Malibu and a house barge on the Thames. In a recent New York Times profile, Grylls said he only hired a publicist last year and maintains that he’s “still always the scruffiest person at any meeting.”

Grylls headlined an urban-disaster-preparedness show for Discovery called Worst Case Scenario, which bowed in 2010. He’s also done mul-tiple specials for Discovery including 2007’s Bear’s Mis-sion Everest, which had Grylls attempting to fly a powered paraglider higher than the famed mountain range.

The network had multiple additional projects in devel-opment with Grylls, though he was not part of Discovery’s upfront presentation to ad buyers last April in New York. Nevertheless, he has been a marquee personality for the network domestically and internationally. In October, he addressed media buyers (via video) at a Discovery Networks upfront presenta-tion in South Africa.

lionsGate joins with Giustra for tv ventureBy Lacey RoseLionsgate is back in business with Frank Giustra.

The studio behind The Hunger Games and Mad Men is teaming with its founder and former chair-man’s Thunderbird Films to form a new TV partner-ship to produce broadcast

Discovery Parts Ways With Wild Star Grylls

Discovery had many additional projects in development with Bear Grylls, who had become a marquee personality for the net.

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television newsPage 5 of 10March 14, 2012

and cable fare. The 50-50 venture will be called Sea to Sky Entertainment, named after the Canadian highway (Lionsgate was named after a Canadian bridge), and already has deals in place with The War Room’s R.J. Cutler and Gone Baby Gone author Dennis Lehane.

“The TV business is where I want to be,” said Giustra, known in recent years as a global financier and philanthropist who has given millions to Bill Clin-ton’s foundation. “Back in 2000, Lionsgate’s very small TV business was generating $8 million in revenue; now it’s a $400 million to $450 mil- lion business. So you can see what can be done if executed properly.”

The one-time investment banker-turned-mining mag-nate launched Lionsgate in 1997 to capitalize on Vancouver’s growing film industry. He stepped down as CEO in 2000 and sold most of his stake in the com-pany three years later. “I left because I had a hunch that we were about to see a com-modities boom, which we

did, and so I started to focus on creating a number of companies in gold and other resources,” said Giustra, who returned to the company’s board in 2010.

The new Sea to Sky pact comes mere weeks after Giustra became a major shareholder in Vancouver-based Thun-derbird, a production, distribution and financing company that he has publicly committed to ramping up on the TV side. Lions-gate and Thun-derbird will jointly manage the venture, which is designed to share production and distribution costs for all scripted projects picked up to series. In addi-tion to mitigating risk, the arrangement will allow the company to diversify fur-ther into more network fare and other global-minded productions.

“Doing a deal like this enables us to stretch and

reach and diversify,” said Lionsgate CEO Jon Felt-heimer, who has been a champion of such partner-ships including those with Televisa and with Para-mount and MGM in the pay-cable venture Epix.

Still in its infancy, Sea to Sky has optioned the rights to the upcoming book An Uncommon Youth, a first-person account of the events surrounding the John Paul Getty III kid-napping in Italy in 1973. Anne Thomopoulos (Rome, Camelot) will produce the project, which is being pitched as an eight-episode limited series for international co-production. The team is particularly enthused about the project’s potential inter-national appeal, given a storyline focused on a wealthy American family living in Europe as the drama unfolds.

Among the other projects in the pipeline: an hourlong drama from Lehane, for which details are being kept tightly guarded, and a development and pro-duction deal with Cutler, with whom Lionsgate is already in business with on

ABC drama pilot Nashville. Many more deals — a com-bination of one-off projects and larger pacts — will fol-low, with about eight to 10 scripts expected annually.

“One of the beauties of forming this venture is that it allows us to make some different bets and bigger bets on people with whom we enjoy working,” said Lionsgate Television COO Sandra Stern.

Lionsgate Television president Kevin Beggs added that while the deal allows them to stretch fi-nancially, it won’t change how they land on projects: “We go through the same checklist that we do on all of our shows: Will it work internationally? Is there a packaged-media play? Is there a streaming play? Is there a rerun life?”

For its part, Lionsgate has seen its stock price soar since unveiling its $412.5 mil- lion acquisition of Twilight studio Summit Entertain- ment in early January. At Tuesday’s market close, com-pany shares were trading at $13.71, with a value of more than $1.7 billion. thr

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television newsPage 6 of 10March 14, 2012

eastwood family set for reality tvBy Lesley Goldberge! is looking to the Eastwood family to become the next Kardashians, greenlighting the unscripted Mrs. Eastwood & Co. to series.

The NBCUniversal cable network will put the lives of Clint Eastwood’s wife Dina and daughters Francesca and Morgan under the micro-scope with 10 episodes of the half-hour series set to bow May 20, E! said Tuesday.

Produced by Bunim/ Murray Productions (MTV’s The Real World), Mrs. East-wood & Co. will follow former TV news anchorwoman Dina, Francesca and Morgan at their homes in Los Angeles and Carmel, Calif., with the actor-director occasionally appearing onscreen. The series also will focus on Over-tone, the South Africa-based six-man vocal group Dina Eastwood discovered while visiting the region for the filming of her husband’s 2009 feature Invictus.

Dina Eastwood, Jonathan Murray, Gil Goldschein, Jeff Jenkins and Russell Jay will serve as executive producers.

“People might be sur-prised by how we live our lives and our unconventional approach,” Dina Eastwood said Tuesday. “I also believe that it’s hard not to fall in love with my band, Overtone.”

Added Clint Eastwood: “I’m really proud of my family. They are a constant source of inspiration and entertainment.”

Said E! president of enter-tainment programming Lisa

Berger, “This refreshing group delivers on the net-work’s promise to present fascinating personalities who have compelling stories and unique points of view.”

Francesca Eastwood, 18, is the daughter of Clint East- wood and actress Frances Fisher. She appeared in her father’s 1999 feature True Crime and in 1995 drama The Stars Fell on Henrietta. Morgan Eastwood, 15, is in high school.

The series order comes as the Kardashians continue to be a ratings draw for the network, most notably with the January finale of Kourt-ney & Kim Take New York ranking as the third-best showing for the net in total viewers, adults 18-49 and its prime metric, women 18-34.

NBCUniversal cable enter- tainment chairman Bonnie Hammer told The Hollywood Reporter in December that she wanted to transform E! into a more “aspirational” network and expand beyond living with one or two fran-chises. “One of the first things we’ll do is to expand beyond the confines of how Holly-wood defines celebrity, trends and aspiration,” she said.

“I think it will have its own life expectancy,” Ham-mer said of the lucrative brand that the family has built onscreen and off, “and we’ll just go along with it and help hone what’s right for E! and what’s not right for E! as we develop a whole other world.”

Falling among the for-mer are mom Kris Jenner’s two youngest daughters — technically Jenners, not Kardashians — and what Hammer hopes are “two, three, even four” new Kar-dashian spinoffs.

history channel orders its first scripted seriesBy Marisa GuthrieNeW YORK — History has ordered Vikings, its first foray into scripted series, which revolves around the legendary Norsemen of medieval times and is set to bow on the cable network in summer 2013.

The net has committed to a full season of the series from Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios and creator Michael Hirst, who has adapted nu-merous historical dramas for TV and film including The Tudors and Elizabeth. The announcement came Tuesday from History president and G.M. Nancy Dubuc and Roma Khanna, television group president of MGM Studios.

The project is casting and is set to begin filming later this year in Ireland and other locations in Northern Europe.

It is a bold play for the channel, which has become a top-rated ad-supported cable network on the strength of its male-targeted unscripted slate including Pawn Stars and Ice Road Truckers. But the net is slowly branching into scripted territory with its first scripted miniseries, Hatfields & McCoys, starring Kevin Costner and Bill Pax-ton and set to premiere on Memorial Day.

Dubuc described the project as a “crossroads” for History.

“People think they know about the Vikings — we see references to them all the time in our popular culture, from TV commercials to football teams — but the reality is so much more fas-cinating and complex, more vivid, visceral and powerful than popular legend,” she said. “We will explore the mysteries of the Vikings, the adventures they took and the people who led them. And we will start to understand a past that is very much part of our col-lective DNA today.”

The series will cast the Viking legend as a family drama, chronicling the ex-ploits of historical figure Ragnar Lothbrok and his band of Viking brothers as Lothbrok rises to become king of the Viking tribes.

Vikings is an Ireland-Canada co-production from World 2000 and Take 5 Pro-ductions. Shaw Media will be the broadcast partner in Canada, airing the show on History Television in Canada. MGM will distrib-ute outside of Ireland and Canada. thr

Clint Eastwood is joined by his daughters Francesca, left, and Morgan and wife Dina after receiving a lifetime achieve-ment award at Cannes in 2009.

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leGal newsPage 7 of 10March 14, 2012

By Alex Ben BlockAn important portion of Nicollette Sheridan’s case against ABC and Desper-ate Housewives creator Marc Cherry was dismissed by the judge Tuesday morning as part of a discussion about instructions to the jury.

L.A. Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White issued a directed verdict dis-missing the battery claim in the case, meaning Cherry — whom Sheridan says struck her in the head on the set of the show in September 2008 — is no longer a defendant.

Sheridan’s attorneys clearly were unhappy about the judge’s action, but lead law-yer Mark Baute said the move doesn’t really matter. The jury still will be asked to rule on the question of whether ABC’s decision to kill off Sheridan’s Edie Britt character was retalia-tion that rises to the level of wrongful termination.

The judge said Sheri- dan’s claims did not meet the standard to proof for battery. Cherry hit Sheri-dan during a rehearsal on Sept. 24, 2008, in an alter-cation that was described by both par-ties during testimony in the two-week trial.

Cherry appeared in the hall out- side the courtroom after the ruling and spoke to the media for the first time, making only a brief state-ment: “Obviously I’m thrilled by the judge’s decision. But I’m going to withhold further com-ment until this matter is resolved completely.”

Earlier on Tuesday, despite strenuous pro-tests from the attorney for Cherry and ABC, the judge allowed a surprise witness

to testify that he saw an e-mail in fall 2010 that said ABC and Disney planned to delete all e-mails relating to Sheridan and the killing of her character from the computer hard drives of show producers.

Michael Reinhart, a con-struction coordinator on Housewives for all eight seasons, said he was “dis-turbed” by the e-mail but immediately deleted it and tried to forget about it. But he said that proved impossi-ble; after sleepless nights, he said he felt he had to come forward before the trial ended and tell Sher-idan’s legal team what he had seen and remembered.

During a preliminary dis-cussion before the jury was brought in, Reinhart was asked why he chose to come forward. “To possibly equal-ize an inequity I felt because of what I perceived was in the e-mail,” he said.

Under questioning by Adam Levin, lead attorney for Cherry and ABC, Rein-hart said he could not recall the exact words in the e-mail, except that it included “delete,” “hard drive” and “producers.”

Levin tried to suggest it could have been an e-mail about preserving docu-ments, but Reinhart said he didn’t remember it saying anything about preserving.

Levin asked if it was possible he had misunder-stood the contents of the e-mail, and Reinhart said, “Yes, it is possible I mis-understood it.”

Reinhart agreed to turn over his computer to the defense so they can do a forensic examination to see if they can find the e-mail he said he received, even though he said he deleted it and then killed it out of the system.

Closing arguments were to begin Tuesday afternoon and continue today. Each side has been allocated two hours to sum up their case before it goes to the jury.

Click here for more trial coverage. thr

Cherry

One Charge Dismissed in Housewives Trial

television reviewsPage 8 of 10March 14, 2012

missinGBy Tim GoodmanFrom Alias to Revenge, ABC has a nice history of taking rote concepts and making them cool or tapping in to our love of guilty pleasure. It’s as if the network is giv-ing viewers a free pass on expecting gravitas, so long as it makes the hour go by pretty quickly.

Now it’s offering up Miss-ing, a 10-episode series star-ring Ashley Judd as a former CIA agent whose 18-year-old son disappears in Italy, and she shakes off 10 years of stay-at-home-mom rust and goes after him.

It’s simple: Mom must find her boy. And each episode is shot (like a movie) on loca-tion in a different European city, so there’s a visual treat. Also, Judd gets into fights, shoots guns, crashes Vespas and falls off bridges about every four minutes.

But the best part is that creator Gregory Poirier (National Treasure: Book of Secrets) has promised the 10th episode will resolve the season and set up a new challenge for season two — should it get picked up. Poirier said he hates series that promise to solve a mystery then make you wait until the second season (if only he were running AMC’s The Killing).

So that leaves viewers with a fairly risk-free propo-sition: Watch a show filmed in amazing cities (a luxury Alias didn’t have) that has Judd kicking ass, and you will be rewarded with an answer to the mystery.

That’s not to say you’ll

get the mind-bending twists you got on Alias, but it also means you won’t get the mind-bending twists on Alias (which made it impossible to follow).

On the other hand, Judd’s character, Becca, is more difficult to embrace than Jennifer Garner’s. Maybe it’s because the fan-tasy of Alias was clear: hot woman changes clothes to become killing machine. It was so ridiculous that every-one could be on board with it. Here, Judd has chopped her hair, making her look more severe. And she plays the “I’m a mom!” angle so hard that it almost becomes annoying. Maybe because Missing seems to be going for more heft, it takes lon-ger to accept (the first two episodes don’t come close to the dramatic intensity it might be shooting for). It’s easier as a viewer to give in to the nonsense if it has more gloss and is clearly nonsense.

Eventually, Missing stops demanding that it be taken so seriously. Your eyes are in for a treat, and Judd grows

on you. Some of the hokey plotting fades into the back-ground after that.

That’s not to undersell it. Sean Bean plays Becca’s husband, who also was in the CIA and will be seen mostly in flashbacks. More could be mined from their past when he reappears. Becca’s son, Michael (Nick Eversman), isn’t around much — just a few calls to his mom and then tape of him being kidnapped. More central are Dax (Cliff Curtis), who runs CIA operations in Paris and is tracking Becca but also trying to help her, and Giancarlo (Adriano Giannini), an Interpol agent and former flame of Becca’s.

If you want an hour of escapism and entertain-ment each week — and why wouldn’t you? — credit ABC for making an hour disappear into thin air.

Premiere date: Thursday, March 15, 8 p.m. ET/PT (ABC).Cast: Ashley Judd, Sean Bean, Nick Eversman, Cliff Curtis, Jason Wong, Adriano Giannini, Tereza Voriskova, Joaquim de Almeida, Laura Donnelly.

frozen planetBy Tim GoodmanAnyone who ever watched Planet Earth or Life needs absolutely no nudge toward the brilliance that is Frozen Planet, an upcoming co-production from the BBC and Discovery. Once you’ve seen these supercommitted, time-intensive, lovingly crafted explorations of the natural world, there’s just no going back.

These are the kinds of series that are tailor-made for high definition and pro-vide some of the most com-pelling nature and wildlife moments you’ll ever see. Frozen Planet, thankfully, keeps up that tradition.

The seven-part series, which kicks off on Sunday, was filmed over four years and focuses on the Arctic and Antarctic regions. From penguins and owls to killer whales, elephant seals and a whole lot more, Frozen Planet is one of those instantly rivet-ing series where you marvel at the beauty and majesty of it all but also spare more than a passing thought for the effort involved.

The camerawork here is phenomenal. On the ground, in the air, underwater — the viewer consistently gets the sense that a very dedicated group of people made this come together. In fact, there will be a behind-the-scenes “making of” episode that’s not to be missed. It’s not just camera operators being blown around in 80 mph winds at 60-below that rivets, but also getting closer than comfortable to polar bears

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Ashley Judd goes to great lengths to find her son on Missing.

television reviewsPage 9 of 10March 14, 2012

and being in the right spot when four or five killer whales decide to pop straight up out of the water next to the ice floe they’re on. Some of the nature in Frozen Planet is so strangely foreign, you’ll think it’s CGI.

The making-of segment also neatly encapsulates why work on this epic took four years (or more) to come to fruition. While the produc-ers and camerapeople got an inordinate amount of beautiful and stunning foot-age, it didn’t happen like magic. Time-lapse photog-raphy is a major component of Frozen Planet, and you’d be hard-pressed to find an instance where the process was more effectively used. But it ob-viously took plan-ning and a ton of patience. The first four days of film-ing didn’t even get under way because two partic-ipants were trapped in a remote outpost while winds hitting upwards of 200 mph lashed at their meager (but well-grounded) shed.

More than once, those in-volved in the making of Fro-zen Planet confess to being

a little scared or concerned — whether of flying in bad weather or the chance of getting caught in a storm that could kill them, the obstacles to filming in two of the harshest places on the planet were enormous.

But for the viewer, the efforts pay off wonderfully. The HD cameras capturing the making of snowflakes or flying over the least dis-covered parts of the world or tracking icebergs bigger than any skyscraper open up a world never before seen. Mere description can’t do justice to some of the more amazing aspects. For

instance, time-lapse photog- raphy catches the creation of a saltwater icicle that creeps slowly to the ocean floor, freezing as it goes then freezing everything it touches. It’s like watching ice as lightning — underwater.

There’s also, as one might expect, numerous cute ani-mal encounters (particular-ly baby polar bears), but if you’re watching with family members, keep in mind that animals eating animals on the food chain is a requisite part of these shows, as are a variety of mating rituals.

One of the greatest and most memorable scenes is

an event with killer whales that was recorded here for the first time on television — according to the producers of Frozen Planet, scientists first witnessed the behavior in orcas in 1975. Here, we see it happen over and over again with stunning pre-cision: Three or four killer whales swim in unison toward an ice floe with a seal on it. Just before they get to the ice, the whales use their tails to create a powerful wave that knocks the seal into the water. When the producers finish covering the orca story lines, you’ll come away with newfound appreciation of how damned smart those whales are.

Narrated by Alec Baldwin, Frozen Planet kicks off with a two-hour premiere and runs each Sunday through April 15. Here’s hoping the BBC and Discovery are out somewhere else, spending years waiting for the best shot at the right moment so we at home can swoon on our couches at the wonder of it all.

Premiere date: Sunday, March 18, 8 p.m ET/PT (Discovery).

FROM page 8

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A polar bear pays the film crew a visit

on Frozen Planet.

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Week 25 March 14 ABC CBS NBC FOX CW

MON8:008:309:009:3010:0010:30

2.1/6 7.72.4/7

The Bachelor 2.5/6 8.2

8.12.3/6 7.72.6/6 8.32.8/7 8.61.4/4 Castle

1.4/4 6.6 R6.8

1.3/4 6.5

1.8/5 6.92.0/6 How I Met Your Mother R 6.12.1/6 2 Broke Girls R 7.02.1/5 Two and a Half Men R 7.91.8/4 Mike & Molly R 6.91.6/4 Hawaii Five-0

1.5/4 6.7 R6.9

1.4/4 6.4

5.0/13 13.85.5/16

The Voice 6.2/16 16.8

15.86.2/16 17.36.3/16 17.16.5/16 17.22.9/8 Smash

2.7/7 7.88.3

2.5/7 7.3

1.8/5 5.61.9/5 Alcatraz

1.9/5 5.8 S6.0

1.9/5 5.71.8/5 Alcatraz

1.8/4 5.55.5

1.7/4 5.5

0.3/1 0.80.3/1 America’s Next Top Model

0.3/1 0.9 R1.0

0.3/1 0.80.2/1 Hart of Dixie

0.2/0 0.6 R0.6

0.2/0 0.6

SAT8:008:309:009:3010:0010:30

0.9/3 3.70.6/2 Wipeout

0.7/2 2.9 R2.7

0.8/3 3.10.9/3

20/20 Special:My Extreme Affliction 1.0/3 4.1

3.91.0/3 4.21.1/3 4.21.0/3 4.2

0.8/3 3.90.7/3 Pac-12 Basketball Tourn. Champ. S 2.90.6/2 NCIS: Los Angeles

0.6/2 3.1 R S2.9

0.8/2 4.20.9/3 Criminal Minds

0.9/3 4.2 R3.9

1.2/4 5.41.1/3 48 Hours Mystery 5.0

0.6/2 3.80.6/2 Harry’s Law

0.6/2 4.4 R4.3

0.6/2 4.50.6/2 The Firm

0.6/2 3.53.5

0.6/2 3.50.6/2 Law & Order: SVU

0.7/2 3.5 R3.2

0.8/2 3.8

0.6/2 1.90.6/2

Q’Viva! The Chosen0.6/2 1.9

1.90.6/2 1.80.6/2 1.80.6/2 1.9 NO PROGRAMMING

Page 10 of 10March 14, 2012

tv ratings

TUE8:008:309:009:3010:0010:30

1.3/4 4.61.3/4 Last Man Standing R 5.51.5/4 Cougar Town 4.31.5/4 The River

1.5/4 4.24.3

1.5/4 4.20.9/3 Body of Proof

0.9/3 4.7 R4.7

0.9/3 4.7

1.9/5 11.62.4/7 NCIS

2.4/7 14.5 R14.1

2.4/7 14.91.9/5 NCIS: Los Angeles

1.9/5 12.1 R12.2

1.9/5 11.91.5/4 Unforgettable

1.4/4 8.3 R8.8

1.3/4 7.8

1.6/4 4.91.8/5

The Biggest Loser2.0/6 6.0

5.82.0/5 5.92.1/6 6.02.2/6 6.40.9/2 Decision 2012: Super Tuesday

0.8/2 2.6 S2.8

0.6/2 2.3

2.1/6 4.52.1/6 Raising Hope 4.71.6/4 I Hate My Teenage Daughter 3.73.0/8 New Girl 6.01.7/4 Breaking In 3.6

0.6/2 1.30.7/2 90210

0.7/2 1.31.4

0.6/2 1.20.5/1 Ringer

0.5/1 1.31.3

0.5/1 1.2

WED8:008:309:009:3010:0010:30

1.7/5 5.11.5/5 The Middle R 5.21.5/4 Suburgatory R 4.62.4/6 Modern Family R 6.22.0/5 Happy Endings 4.51.5/4 Revenge for Real: Murder

1.4/4 5.0 S5.1

1.3/4 5.0

2.2/6 8.83.1/9 Survivor: One World

3.2/9 10.810.4

3.4/9 11.21.5/4 Criminal Minds

1.5/4 7.1 R7.0

1.6/4 7.31.8/5 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

1.8/5 8.3 R8.3

1.8/5 8.4

1.2/3 3.61.6/5 Whitney 4.21.5/4 Are You There, Chelsea? 3.60.9/2 Law & Order: SVU

1.0/3 3.5 R3.2

1.1/3 3.71.0/3 Rock Center With Brian Williams

1.0/3 3.53.6

1.0/3 3.4

5.7/16 18.75.1/15

American Idol 5.7/16 18.7

16.95.7/16 18.96.0/16 19.46.1/16 19.6

0.6/2 1.40.7/2 One Tree Hill

0.7/2 1.51.5

0.7/2 1.40.6/2 America’s Next Top Model

0.6/1 1.31.3

0.6/1 1.3

THU8:008:309:009:3010:0010:30

1.3/4 4.11.3/4 Wipeout

1.3/4 4.5 R4.6

1.3/4 4.41.3/3 Grey’s Anatomy

1.4/4 4.1 R4.0

1.4/4 4.11.4/4 GCB

1.3/4 3.8 R S3.9

1.2/4 3.6

3.5/10 14.45.1/15 The Big Bang Theory 15.03.9/11 The Big Bang Theory R S 12.43.4/9 Person of Interest

3.4/9 15.715.7

3.3/9 15.62.9/8 The Mentalist

2.8/8 13.814.1

2.6/8 13.5

1.8/5 4.01.4/4 30 Rock 3.41.8/5 Parks and Recreation 3.72.5/7 The Office 4.91.7/4 Up All Night 3.41.6/4 Awake

1.6/4 4.34.4

1.5/4 4.2

3.6/10 12.34.6/14 American Idol

4.9/14 17.316.3

5.2/14 18.12.4/6 The Finder

2.3/6 7.17.7

2.1/6 6.5

0.4/1 0.90.4/1 The Vampire Diaries

0.4/1 1.0 R1.0

0.4/1 1.00.3/1 Supernatural

0.3/1 0.8 R S0.8

0.3/1 0.8

FRI8:008:309:009:3010:0010:30

1.3/4 4.51.4/5 Shark Tank

1.4/5 5.15.3

1.4/4 4.91.2/4 Primetime: What Would You Do?

1.2/4 4.04.0

1.2/4 4.01.3/4 20/20

1.3/4 4.54.6

1.3/4 4.4

1.8/6 10.61.8/6 Undercover Boss

2.0/7 9.48.5

2.3/7 10.31.8/6 The Mentalist

1.8/5 11.3 S11.1

1.8/5 11.61.7/5 Blue Bloods

1.6/5 11.011.1

1.6/5 10.9

1.3/4 5.01.0/3 Who Do You Think You Are?

1.0/3 4.94.9

1.0/3 4.91.5/4 Grimm

1.5/4 5.05.1

1.5/4 5.01.3/4 Dateline

1.3/4 5.04.8

1.4/4 5.1

1.1/3 2.71.0/3 Kitchen Nightmares

1.0/3 2.5 R2.5

1.1/3 2.61.2/4 Kitchen Nightmares

1.2/4 2.9 R S2.8

1.2/4 2.9

0.3/1 1.00.3/1 Nikita

0.3/1 1.0 R1.1

0.3/1 1.00.4/1 Supernatural

0.4/1 1.0 R1.0

0.4/1 1.0

chart0.0/00 Program Name 00.0

18-49 Rating/Share Title of Show Millions of Viewers

R=Repeat D=Debut S=Special Winner of time period

SUN7:007:308:008:309:009:3010:0010:30

2.3/6 7.81.2/4 America’s Funniest Home Videos

1.4/5 6.56.1

1.5/5 6.92.8/8 Once Upon a Time

2.9/8 9.39.1

3.0/8 9.452.6/7 Desperate Housewives

2.6/6 8.48.5

2.5/6 8.22.3/6 GCB

2.3/6 7.17.3

2.3/6 6.9

2.1/6 10.21.6/5 60 Minutes

1.7/6 10.59.9

1.8/6 11.22.9/8 The Amazing Race 20

2.9/8 9.69.9

2.8/7 9.371.8/4 The Good Wife

1.7/4 9.99.8

1.7/4 9.92.1/5 CSI: Miami

2.1/5 10.710.6

2.2/6 10.9

1.5/4 6.70.8/3 Dateline

0.9/3 4.84.3

1.0/3 5.21.1/3 Harry’s Law

1.1/3 9.08.8

1.1/3 9.31.9/5

The Celebrity Apprentice 2.0/5 6.5

6.21.9/5 6.02.1/5 6.62.3/6 7.1

2.0/6 4.31.3/4 The Simpsons R 2.81.6/5 The Cleveland Show 3.42.3/7 The Simpsons 5.01.9/5 Bob’s Burgers 4.02.8/7 Family Guy 5.72.2/5 American Dad 4.6

NO PROGRAMMING

WKS.AVGSSSN. TO DATE

1.6/5 5.52.5/7 8.3

2.0/6 9.53.1/8 12.1

1.8/5 6.02.7/7 7.8

2.4/7 7.03.3/9 9.1

0.4/1 1.10.8/2 1.8