Hollywood Heights (TV series)
Hollywood Heights is a family drama, which aired on Nick at Nite and TeenNick from June 18 to October 5, 2012. Loosely based on the Mexican telenovela "Alcanzar una estrella (To Reach a Star)", the series follows aspiring singer-songwriter Loren Tate (Brittany Underwood), whose life changes forever when she crosses paths with her rock star idol Eddie Duran (Cody Longo). "Hollywood Heights" was executive produced by six-time Emmy Award-winner Jill Farren-Phelps, and co-executive produced by Hisham Abed and Josh Griffith, who also served as head writer. The series was announced in  May 2012 as an international co-production between Sony Pictures Television and Televisa, the Mexican production company which owns the rights to the original telenovela. As with the Latin American telenovela format, "Hollywood Heights" would run every weeknight at 9 p.m. EST through October. Nick at Nite previewed the first episode several times starting on June 11, 2012, before the 80-episode limited series' official premiere on June 18, 2012. The show initially ran on weeknights at 9 p.m. (EST). In May, the network had announced that actor James Franco would appear in a multi-episode story arc as Osborne  Oz Silver, an eccentric and ruthless movie mogul. Franco's first appearance was on June 29, 2012. Halfway through the series on August 13, 2012, it was moved to Nick at Nite's sister channel TeenNick at 8 p.m. EST. The series was not renewed for a second season. Plot. Loren Tate (Brittany Underwood) is a high school senior dreaming of a career as a singer-songwriter—and of hunky rock star Eddie Duran (Cody Longo). Eddie, meanwhile, is not happy with the direction his career has taken—toward shallow pop music rather than the soulful material he prefers. Following  Eddie's manager and label pushing him to give them new songs for a new album, Eddie uses it as an opportunity to launch a new contest in which he can collaborate with a fan on a new song (that is hopefully more to his musical liking). Meanwhile shy Loren, is very hesitant to enter Eddie's contest and fears that any song she writes isn't good enough for her idol. But with Loren's cool single mom, Nora (Jama Williamson), and sassy best friend, Melissa (Ashley Holliday), egging her on, she enters and wins Eddie's songwriting contest , and worlds collide. As Loren is increasingly dazzled by (and welcomed into) Eddie's celebrity world, he is realizing how unhappy he is, trapped in a machine of his own making and at the mercy of his many fans and demanding manager Jake (Brandon Bell). Meanwhile, Loren and Melissa navigate the intrigues of high school life and mean girl Adriana (Hunter King); Melissa's brother Phil (Robert Adamson) gets mixed up with the wrong people; Eddie's father, 1980s musician Max Duran (Carlos Ponce), hopes to end his son's relationship with the duplicitous climber Chloe (Melissa Ordway), who is  cheating on Eddie with the ambitious Tyler (Justin Wilczynski), a struggling actor that worked with Eddie but now despises him for his success and who has mysterious ties with Chloe's hidden past. Episodes. In the tradition of Latin American telenovelas, "Hollywood Heights" was conceived as a limited series, in this case 80 episodes, with its storylines resolved by the end of the run. The first 40 of these were broadcast on Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite, with the series moving to TeenNick for the remaining 40. Background. The original telenovela was first broadcast on Canal de las Estrellas in 1990 , and later on Univision in the United States. "Alcanzar una estrella" won a TVyNovelas Award for "Best Telenovela of the Year" in 1991. The telenovela's success led to the making of a film, "Más que alcanzar una estrella", and a sequel telenovela, "Alcanzar una estrella II", starring Sasha Sokol and Ricky Martin. TeenNick had already embraced the daily soap opera format starting with the tenth season of the Canadian teen drama "" in 2010, airing four episodes weekly. The teen supernatural mystery series "House of Anubis" (based on a Dutch/Belgian series) followed in 2011, with serialized daily episodes airing  on Nickelodeon (and later TeenNick). These successes led to "Hollywood Heights", which would run for 16 weeks with, in the tradition of telenovelas, a resolution of storylines. Ed Martin of MediaPost.com called it "in every way a major experiment for Nick at Nite, from production to scheduling to publicity and promotion." Broadcast. Nick at Nite previewed the first episode of "Hollywood Heights" several times starting on June 11, 2012, before the 80-episode limited series officially premiered on June 18, 2012. The show initially ran every weeknight at 9 p.m. (EST), but halfway through the series on August 13, 2012 , it was moved to Nick at Nite's sister channel TeenNick at 8 p.m. EST. Reception. Robert Lloyd of the "Los Angeles Times" noted that the series was produced by executive and creative personnel "whose combined credits include what seems to be every major network soap opera of the last 50 years as well as 21st-century reality soaps such as "The Hills" and "The City"." He wrote, "If "Heights" is not particularly novel—it is, after all, based on a series two decades old—neither does it reek of must and mildew. Nor do the musical performances seem contrived , or rather they seem authentically contrived, staged as they would be staged by a performer like Eddie, who deals in thumping aspirational party anthems." Lloyd added, "what I've seen, if not exactly appointment television for a person of my age and interests, is pretty appealing; by the standards of most other TV shows about teens and pop stars, it is well observed, well informed and (so far) plausible." Joe Caramanica of "The New York Times" wrote, "Even though the melodrama, highly structured scripting and stilted camera shots are indebted to the telenovela form, "Hollywood Heights" owes the most to  the rat-tat-tat rhythms of "Gilmore Girls"." Of James Franco's performance Caramanica wrote, "Mr. Franco chews more than his share of scenery, which turns out to be a necessary strategy. In an environment like this, in which all the performances have soft edges, and no one is steering the scenes too aggressively, acting out is the only sort of acting that gets noticed. His frazzled energy isn’t realistic but is instead fantastical and a running commentary on the stiltedness of the rest of the proceedings." Ed Martin of MediaPost.com noted that creatively the series "so far has  been a bit on the safe and sterile side, even more than "Degrassi" and certainly more than the often quite edgy fare on ABC Family." "Variety"'s Brian Lowry wrote that though "Hollywood Heights" was "tailored to [Nickelodeon's] demo with a musical component and teen-tempting leads ... For a show with a pop undercurrent that proclaims itself 'sizzling', "Heights" is pretty tepid and lacks a hit song’s most basic element: A catchy hook." Suggesting that daily episodes were difficult to reasonably keep up with, Caramanica still called it "comfort TV with narrative soul." Martin agreed that daily episodes  may be too much of a demand to place on potential viewers in the new media world of ever-increasing competition and ever-shrinking attention spans.