Newsgroup: it.fan.tv.friends
Titolo: [JOEY] La NBC ci spera

NBC is banking on dimwitted 'Joey' to maintain the network's
Thursday-night dominance  
"Joey" should be called "Joey?" 
More than any other new series on TV's fall horizon, the "Friends"
spinoff is dogged by questions: 
Can it approach the ratings records scored by "Friends"? 
Can Matt LeBlanc carry a show as a lead actor? 
Will fans love Joey Tribbiani as a lead character as much as they did
when he was one of six? 
With "Joey" inheriting the "Friends" 8 p.m. time slot, will NBC retain
the Thursday-night superiority it's enjoyed since "The Cosby Show"
debuted in 1984? Or is this the beginning of the end? 
NBC executives, naturally, are answering all those doubts
enthusiastically in the affirmative. LeBlanc and the show's producers
are, at least for public consumption, cautiously optimistic. 
Ad agencies and media buyers, the people who actually place their bets
on the new fall programs, have given "Joey" some positive reviews (and
some that are lukewarm), but they look beyond the quality of the show.
They also base predictions on scheduling, on competition, on the
supposed appeal of stars, on promotional campaigns. 
Carat North America and Horizon Media, for example, both picked "Joey"
as one of the hits of the new season, while Magna Global listed it as
questionable. 
Shari Anne Brill, vice president and director of programming for
Carat, admitted she didn't really like "Joey," but added, "we're not
the public. We have to put ourselves in the minds of the average
viewer out there, and once I got over the headache, I started seeing
things through their eyes instead of my eyes." 
Recalling that she "didn't think 'Friends' was any big deal, either,"
Brill believes Joey Tribbiani is "an enduring character. The show will
probably endure. I think it'll be here next season, not that it'll
necessarily be a hit." 
Spinoffs, of course, seldom are hits. "Frasier" and "Maude" were the
exceptions. "AfterMASH" is the rule. "Joey" falls somewhere between
the creative extremes of "Frasier" and "AfterMASH," said John Rash,
senior vice president and director of broadcast negotiations at the
Campbell Mithun ad agency in Minneapolis. 
"Joey needs 'Friends,' literally and figuratively," said Rash. "It was
the reaction shots to Joey from the others, particularly Chandler,
that made him so funny." 
The writers, Rash added, "made a tactical error in the pilot" because
Joey's air-headed sister, Gina (Drea de Matteo), "did as well on the
SATs as he did, and you need a contrast." 
What "Joey" should have, added Rash, is "a character who is a friend
to Joey but looks at him with the same eyes that the audience does.
Chandler was the perfect foil, but the new show lacks a key individual
in that role. That can be developed, but it's missing in the pilot." 
Kevin Reilly, NBC's new entertainment president, acknowledged in a
press session with critics that there was widespread speculation that
"Joey" might be "awful." 
"I think it's not only not going to be awful, I think it's going to be
special, and it's going to only evolve from where it is," Reilly said.
"That was a big accomplishment." 
"Joey," he enthused, tops the list of "new shows that I'd put money on
The pilot is very good, but beyond that I can tell you that watching
the show I had the magical feeling that happens only once in a great
while. 
"I think we've defied the odds with 'Joey.' " 
What will help "Joey" is that its executive producers – Kevin S.
Bright, Scott Silveri, Shana Goldberg-Meehan – are all veterans of
"Friends." They are steeped in all things Joey and are determined to
steer him into new territory while not losing his original identity.
NBC pulled off the trick when "Frasier" spun off from "Cheers" and
hopes to do it again. 
"Our goal is to have the same guy," LeBlanc told critics. "A lot of
times when you take a character from one show and spin it off to
another show, it seems like people change that character too much and
tweak it too much. Hopefully, the guy will be exactly the same. There
will just be more of him. You'll see facets of his life that you
didn't see before." 
During all the years of "Friends," he recalled, Joey's parents
appeared only in one episode. Joey, said LeBlanc, was "the least
evolved character of the show." 
"He's still Joey," said Goldberg-Meehan, "but he's going to grow." She
expects Joey, an oft-frustrated actor, might "achieve some career
success." Maybe he'll "fall in love at some point down the line. And
the goal is to keep him Joey, but more." 
In Thursday's pilot episode, for example, Joey arrives in Los Angeles,
and we meet Gina and her son, Michael (Paulo Costanzo), who becomes
Joey's roommate. Joey also passes up one acting job, takes another on
a show that quickly gets canceled, and auditions for a third. That's a
lot of action piled into one half-hour of televisi 
Through it all, Joey remains the same genial, good-hearted, dim-bulbed
innocent he's always been. 
"It's a part of this character," said Kevin Bright. "We're not trying
to re-invent Joey. Joey's going to grow on this show. He's going to
evolve more. But there are certain things about this character that
the audience loves and we want to keep intact and are great sources
for comedy." 
Rash believes "Joey" will see a second season, but not that it will
reach the heights of popularity of "Friends." 
"It won't be 'AfterMASH,' but it won't blossom creatively like
'Frasier' did," he said. "There's nothing wrong with spinoffs if they
develop their own sense of style. To date, 'Joey' is somewhere between
those two. 
"Nothing will fill the 'Friends' vacuum, but 'Joey' will do as well as
any show to retain a core viewership. 
-- 
j./I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in 
public.
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