As the new season kicks off, Media Life takes a look at the buzz surrounding some of the first-year shows and how they’re expected to perform with previews and reviews.
This is the 14th in a series of fall TV previews.
Name of show
“Women’s Murder Club”
Timeslot
ABC, Friday 9 p.m.
Plot synopsis
Based on a series of books by bestselling author James Patterson, “Women’s Murder Club” follows four female friends living in San Francisco who combine their knowledge to solve murder cases.
The four are homicide inspector Lindsay Boxer (Angie Harmon), medical examiner Claire Washburn (Paula Newsome), assistant district attorney Jill Bernhardt (Laura Harris) and crime reporter Cindy Thomas (Aubrey Dollar).
In tonight’s premiere episode, Lindsay, Claire and Jill introduce Cindy to the Women’s Murder Club, albeit cautiously, in a case about a newspaper reporter who was pushed off a roof. But that's hardly the only drama going on. Jill is adjusting to changes in her home life, while Claire is dealing with her husband’s depression and Lindsay’s ex-husband, Tom Hogan (Rob Estes), is assuming a leadership role in her department.
Outlook
In some ways, Friday night seems a perfect berth for a show like "Murder Club," but it could be tough for this show to catch.
For sure, the night is quite different than it was last year, so in theory the 9 p.m. timeslot is up for grabs. Last year, ABC had “Men in Trees,” CBS “Close to Home” and NBC “Dateline.” This season, CBS has “Moonlight” and NBC has “Friday Night Lights.”
But already it's looking like "Moonlight" has the early advantage with a 2.4 average rating among 18-49s over two episodes. That’s not a great rating but solid for Friday nights, and the show also has a strong lead-in and lead-out in “Ghost Whisperer” and “Numb3rs.”
“Friday Night Lights” premiered with a 2.1 among 18-49s last week.
“Women’s Murder Club” skews more female than either “Moonlight” or “Lights,” so there is a chance it could find an audience in that slot. But again, being Friday night, there simply isn’t a lot of audience to go around.
Last year, ABC tried to capture females with "Men in Trees" in that timeslot and the show demonstrated enough promise that the network eventually moved it to the valuable Thursday 10 p.m. slot, where ratings picked up.
This year it could do better with "Murder Club" at 9 p.m. and "Men" returning at 10, creating a two-hour women's block.
One other thing of note: Back in 2003, NBC aired a TV movie based on Patterson’s first Women’s Murder Club book, “1st to Die,” with Tracy Pollan playing the Angie Harmon role. It got moderately good ratings.
The buzz
he sense among media people seems to be that among ABC’s new shows "Murder Club" is just average. Or, as one media researcher puts it: “It’s not obnoxiously bad like ‘Cavemen’ or ‘Carpoolers,’ it’s just not [as good as] ‘Pushing Daisies.’”
But "Murder Club" has several positives working for it, and one is the many fans of Patterson’s books (though they worry the series won't stay faithful to original storylines.) Buyers think that could get it off to a good start.
They also think the timeslot is a good fit. “I think for its audience, it’s well-scheduled. It’s going to skew older, and it’s going to skew female,” says the media researcher. “So from that standpoint, I think it works.”
What critics are saying
“From advance hype alone, ABC couldn’t wait to buy whatever writers Liz Craft and Sarah Fain, from ‘The Shield,’ were selling. Whatever these two women did to make that show sharp and gritty, they’ve used it all up. This ‘women’s’ show is such an embarrassing mess, it makes me ashamed to be a woman.” – Lisa Stasi, New York Post
“A year ago, I’d have compared ‘Women's Murder Club’ to a Lifetime series. But with the quality of Lifetime’s programming lately looking up – ‘Army Wives,’ ‘State of Mind’ - that wouldn’t be fair. Still, no matter how attractive members of the ‘Women's Murder Club’ are, I don’t think that ABC -- which is following this with the long-awaited return of ‘Men in Trees’ -- is trolling for the same audience on Fridays that it’s trying to hook with ‘Cavemen’ on Tuesdays. But if the Cro-Magnon guys want to join this ‘Club,’ they’re more than welcome to it.” – Ellen Gray, Philadelphia Daily News
“I was watching ‘Women’s Murder Club’ when I realized I didn’t need my brain to pay attention to it. People just talked and talked about nothing. So I removed my head off of my body and stared in a deep coma. Ahh. TV, bad. Coma, good. I tried to stay interested. I promise. But ‘Women's Murder Club’ looks cheap and filmed too quickly. And I’ve seen more interesting storylines on ‘Matlock.’ Seriously. ‘Matlock.’” – Doug Elfman, Chicago Sun-Times
