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TMCNet: ABC bets on a future for 'Cavemen'

[October 02, 2007]

ABC bets on a future for 'Cavemen'

(Baltimore Sun, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Oct. 2--How many cavemen does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Regrettably, we all may hear the answer tonight on ABC, as the alphabet network unveils what may well be the most anticipated new show of the TV season -- if, by anticipated, one means in a watching-the-train-wreck-unfold sort of way.

Cavemen, based on those undeniably witty but also enchantingly brief GEICO ads, supposes that cave dwellers still live among us, like the rest of humanity in every way outside their hirsuteness, but subjected to unending (and, the producers hope, hilarious) prejudice. The commercials find humor in juxtaposing the well-spoken and emotionally fragile cavemen against their brutish image.

Funny commercials are one thing; extending the humor for 30 minutes is quite another. For many TV fans, the question is not how good the series will be, but how awful -- and how long it will last.

"If this makes it through six episodes, I will be surprised," says Earle Marsh, co-author of The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, about to come out in its ninth edition. "The audience has to care about somebody. They can care-like, or they can care-hate. But they have to develop some kind of emotional attachment. And unless we have an incredibly sympathetic and lovable caveman, it's not likely the show is going to catch on."

Bad advance buzz is nothing new, and many TV series have thrived in spite of it. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for instance, was not only based on a movie no one saw, but it centered on a teenage girl who killed vampires; few TV executives gave it a chance. But the show became a big-time critical and popular hit for the fledgling WB network.

"You have any idea what the pre-release publicity was in 1962, before CBS put out The Beverly Hillbillies?" asks Marsh. "It was terrible. But for whatever reason, the show struck a chord, and it became a big hit."

But shows such as these are far more the exceptions than the rule. More typical are shows like My Mother the Car (with Ann Sothern as the voice of a 1928 Porter), Cop Rock (singing and dancing cops, murderers and crackheads, courtesy of the usually reliable Steven Bochco) and The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer (a sitcom about a black butler to Abraham Lincoln). The shows sounded awful, were awful and didn't survive past their first season.

"The only explanation I can give you is that it's like someone who has a child who is truly unattractive, but in their eyes, it's their child, and it's beautiful," says Marsh. "They want so desperately to believe, that they don't look realistically at what they've done."

Of course, Marsh is quick to point out that, like the rest of us, he hasn't seen anything yet -- except for the ubiquitous 15- and 30-second GEICO spots. It's hard to say exactly what audiences are in for. The opening episode was not made available for critics; an ABC spokesman told the Los Angeles Times last week that the show's creators were still tweaking it, and had not yet applied the "finishing touches."

But an earlier version of the pilot suggests only a major overhaul could save the show from sinking into sitcom ignominy. When it was shown during the summer's Television Critics Association press tour, many who saw it cringed at what they viewed as its clunky racial allegories -- as if Cavemen was somehow meant to reflect racial stereotyping that has bedeviled blacks for generations.

The cavemen, for instance, are thought to be athletically and sexually superior, something that, in the early pilot, leads to lots of yucks at a high-society engagement party, in which a perky blond socialite is introducing her caveman beau.

Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times was among the many TV critics who were baffled by the summer press event where the initial Cavemen pilot was discussed.

He wrote in July: "After 45 minutes of watching the cast and producers of Cavemen field questions from TV critics, ... it was obvious: Even they don't know why this series should exist."

Executive producers Will Speck and Josh Gordon, who directed the original ad campaign, said last month that changes are being made. For one, the show's setting is being moved from Atlanta to San Diego. The pilot now centers on a caveman trying to hide from his two buddies that he's dating a Homo sapiens woman.

In addition, one of the leads has been recast, and new writers and consultants have been brought onboard.

Cavemen is still about how people treat minorities, according to the producers, but is not meant to reflect any real-life group.

"We're creating a new fake group and having fun with what people think about cavemen," Gordon said. "For us, the primary focus is for people to think the show is funny and something different, much more so than thinking ... about what everything is standing for."

New York Daily News TV critic David Bianculli isn't buying it, comparing the idea that Cavemen is being retooled to "playing bait and switch with really smelly bait. ... Cavemen are extinct. This show will be, too."

Still, maybe the producers are on to something. Hey, anything's possible.

"I don't think it will do well," Marsh says. "But then again, I thought the Mets were going to make it to the postseason. So what do I know?"

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

To see more of The Baltimore Sun, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.baltimoresun.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, The Baltimore Sun
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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