TCA ’09: Starz Creates Friday-Night Comedy Block
Premium Network Continues Original Programming Expansion
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 1/10/2009 9:58:00 AM MT
Complete MCN TCA Coverage
Los Angeles – Starz, continuing its expansion into original programming, is creating a one-hour Friday-night comedy block starting March 20, scheduling a veteran show and a new series back to back, officials said Saturday.
And the movie network will continue its foray into original drama, with the action series Spartacus set to launch in the fall, Starz announced at the Television Critics Association tour.
“In 2009, we are committed to expand our presence in the original space,” said Bill Myers, president and chief operating officer of Starz Entertainment and Starz Media.
Starting in March Starz has scheduled its veteran half-hour unscripted comedy Head Case at 10 p.m. Friday nights, followed by the new series Party Down at 10:30 p.m.
The improvisational show Head Case features Alexandra Wentworth as a Hollywood celebrity therapist, with Steve Landesberg also in the show’s cast. Each installment offers celebrity guests who will appear as themselves, including Jerry Seinfeld and Tori Spelling this season, which is 10 episodes.
“Jerry Seinfeld is dirty in our show...a little risqué for Jerry Seinfeld,” not Andrew Dice Clay, Wentworth said during the Starz panel on Head Case, which started out in 2007 as 10-minute segments, evolving into a half-hour show last year.
Head Case’s companion show, Party Down, follows a team of Los Angeles cater-waiters stuck working for tips while awaiting their big break, working jobs at a senior-singles mixer and a video-porn awards after-party, for example.
“Each episode is a single event,” Party Down co-creator and executive producer Rob Thomas said during Starz’s panel on the comedy, which was originally sold to HBO.
Actor Paul Rudd is also an executive producer and Party Down co-creator. The comedy’s cast includes Lizzy Caplan of HBO’s True Blood and Adam Scott of HBO’s Tell Me You Love Me.
Starz last year premiered first original scripted drama, Crash, starring Dennis Hopper, which it co-produced with Lionsgate.
Crash debuted in October, and its final episode this season aired Friday night, but Myers Saturday didn’t commit to whether or not Starz would order a second season, although he sounded optimistic.
“We are very proud of that project,” Myers said of Crash. “We are excited about the future of that particular project.”
He said that Starz will be sitting down with Lionsgate in the coming weeks to discuss the future, and possible second season, of Crash.
"We will be making that decision in the near future," Myers said.
Starz’ new drama Spartacus is a 13-episode, one-hour series that is being executive produced by Spider-Man producer/filmmaker Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert of Xena: Warrior Princess and The Quick and the Dead’s Joshua Donen. Steven DeKnight of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will be the series’ head writer and show runner. Spartacus, the tale of a slave who became a gladiator hero and lead a slave revolt, will use the latest in green-screen technology, and have a graphic-novel look, like the movies
SinCity
and 300. “This next series will be a groundbreaking show not only for Starz but we think for television as well,” Myers said during the panel on Spartacus, which included Tapert and DeKnight.
“It is our reinterpretation of the famous Stanley Kubrick movie,” Tapert told the TV writers. DeKnight described it as an R-rated show, because it will depict the blood and violence of the gladiator fights.
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