TV Q&A with Rob Owen

Friday, April 10, 2009

This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about "True Blood," "Mad Men" and coverage of the Stanton Heights shootings. As always, thanks for reading, and keep those questions coming.

-- Rob Owen, Post-Gazette TV editor

Q: What has happened to Sarah Shahi on "Life"? I mean the actress, not the character. Is she pregnant or sick or what?

-- Robert, 65, Dormont

Rob: The actress is pregnant and has not been appearing on the show as often. She was in the season finale that aired Wednesday.

Q: When will season two of "True Blood" on HBO be airing?

-- Rob, 35, Tampa, Fla.

Rob: It premieres June 14.

Q: Any updates on "Mad Men" season three? I read that AMC and Matthew Weiner reached an agreement over the winter, but do you know if they've started filming and if the show begins airing in July?

-- Jen, 32, Economy

Rob: "Mad Men" is expected to premiere this summer. AMC hasn't announced when, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's once again in mid-to-late July.

Q: Have you heard whether The History Channel will have a season three of "Ice Road Truckers"? My wife, most of my friends and I all enjoyed watching it, even though the narration can be a bit over dramatic and somewhat unnecessary (e.g. "The Amazing Race"). We have checked the Web site and it doesn't give any information about a new season.

-- Frank, 52, Weirton WV

Rob: It will likely be back sometime this summer. No date has been announced.

Q: I hope you can find an answer to this question for me. It's about Dr. Charlotte King on "Private Practice." On the show, she speaks with a (bad) Southern accent. I swear she did not have this accent during the pilot or the first few shows. Is this correct? Did this character acquire an accent soon after the series started? The pilot is not available to view or I would just watch it myself. I hope you can help.

-- Carrie, 41, Franklin Park

Rob: I don't have the pilot anymore either, but I suppose it's possible that actress KaDee Strickland, a native of Georgia, put on a non-Southern accent in the pilot. But I've heard her speak in person and she has a natural Southern accent.

Per the show's publicist: "That is definitely her real accent. She's from a one-traffic-light town (literally) called Patterson, Ga. When she went in to audition for the show, she asked [executive producers] Shonda [Rhimes] and Betsy [Beers] if they wanted her to use her real accent, and they, to eloquently paraphrase, were like 'heck yes!' "

Q: Fox 53 in Pittsburgh has switched to all-digital TV. On March 27 while I was watching "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" and "Dollhouse," the picture froze, turned to blocks and the screen went black. This was on every channel that I pick up Fox. I finally had to turn "Dollhouse" off, because you couldn't even follow the story. Is this what we have to look forward to when all stations go digital?

-- Linda, 62, McCandless

Rob: According to the folks at WPGH, that gaffe was caused by "a network receiver problem." It screwed up my recordings, too, so I just watched the "Dollhouse" episode on Hulu.com.

Q: I watched the 11 p.m. coverage of all three stations of the events of Saturday. All three stations interviewed two friends of Poplawski. One was a recent friend. The other was a high school friend from North Catholic. The high school friend was sickeningly enjoying his 15 minutes of fame and went on to say what a funny guy the murderer was in high school. Why did all three stations run this interview? It was so inappropriate watching the high school friend smile and almost pose for the camera. I can't imagine the family of one of the slain officers having to watch that interview. Surely, they could have just quoted his remarks after viewing the inappropriateness of his reaction.

I notice that the stations often do this -- interviewing children (who don't know better) and morons who do have not an appreciation for the gravity of the situation they have witnessed. After good coverage by all three stations, why do they sink to the lowest common denominator and allow morons their 15 minutes of fame?

-- James, 41, Pittsburgh

Rob: I'm not sure which interview subject you're specifically referring to but I saw a few people interviewed whose knowledge of Poplawski or the situation seemed paltry at best. News organizations try their best to explain why tragedies happen as quickly as possible. Sometimes they fall short. I would hope there are times when they choose not to use interviews but you're not wrong to question the appropriateness of airing interviews with some of the subjects in this case. It's one thing to interview people live who turn out to be know-nothings, but it's another thing to recycle those interviews later on a newscast when it's clear the person being interviewed is not a knowledgeable source.

Q: Saturday was one of the worst days I can remember when three Pittsburgh police officers were shot in cold blood.

I woke up late and was bouncing around the local stations trying to find out what actually happened. I found KDKA'a news coverage to be the most informative. I don't know how many actual reporters they had on the scene but the story was well covered.

But the most informed person on KDKA was Jon Burnett. He was by far the most informed anchor about the law and guns and probably what was happening. Kudos to KDKA and their news team for up to the minute and factual reporting by all reporters and anchors

-- Michael, 54, South Fayette

Rob: I noted in a blog post Saturday morning that initially KDKA was a little late-to-the-game and schizophrenic -- offering coverage, then cutting into cartoons, then going to coverage again -- but once the station settled on coverage, KDKA really stepped up its game. And I agree that Burnett did a good job talking through the waiting with anchor Brenda Waters.

Q: I, along with the entire city of Pittsburgh, have been extremely saddened by the news of the three fallen officers in Stanton Heights on Saturday. I have found no problem with the content of the news itself, but with the music played during teases and closes.

I understand it sounds trivial, but the music WPXI picked out for their teases on their special report Saturday evening sounded like cheap military music rather than a somber, heartfelt piece of music that would add to the value. The same can be said for WTAE; they chose to keep their regular music for teases and closes when it just doesn't fit with the quiet, calm pace their newscasts have taken. In the larger scope of things, this is trivial, but why don't our TV stations play appropriate music when the city is in mourning?

-- Christian, 16, Freeport

Rob: The music in local newscasts made no impression on me this past weekend, positive or negative.

Q: I was watching the coverage regarding the three slain police officers on April 4. It was on "NBC Nightly News" that evening but they assigned the story to an unknown reporter instead of using staff from WPXI. They didn't send him to Pittsburgh, but he reported from New York City instead. We have some outstanding local reporters and I was disappointed that none got their moment in the national spotlight, despite the nature of the story. Is it the networks' policy not to use local stations' staff for these stories or is it a cost consideration?

-- Kevin, 53, Ross

Rob: I don't know that it's policy, but it's business-as-usual for networks to send their own people or to report the story from elsewhere. One exception: Live coverage when networks are more likely to take the feed from a local station. Saturday morning CNN carried WTAE's feed featuring Andrew Stockey at the scene.

Q: I really enjoyed your article on Keith Jones last week. I will miss him.

Can you tell me why the article a couple of days ago was hateful. I know you didn't write it, but why did the reporter have to end it with the fact that Keith had been off the air for a DUI? That was not necessary.

-- Terry, 73, New Kensington

Rob: How can reporting the facts possibly be considered hateful? The DUI was something that put Jones in the news. When reporting his departure, it's something you can't ignore. Same with reporting his arrival in Tampa.

I got the sense Jones was not thrilled to have that brought up again, but as a reporter he understood why it was. I didn't mention it in my column only because we'd dealt with it the week before.

Q: Do local newscasters typically employ agents or do they tend to search for work and/or negotiate contracts on their own? And do they belong to a union, such as AFTRA?

-- Mike, 44, White Oak

Rob: It depends on the individual and whether they choose to have an agent. Some do, some do not.

As for union representation, AFTRA covers on-air personnel at WPXI and KDKA. Employees at WTAE quit their AFTRA representation in the late 90s and have no union affiliation.

Q: Ever since the Post-Gazette changed the style of the TV booklet, they've refused to include the Food Channel and Travel Channel in their morning and late-night listings. WHY? Surely more people get those channels than TRUTV or WGN! Is there any way to change this?

-- Melanie, E. Pittsburgh

Rob: The Post-Gazette has never carried listings for Food or Travel in daytime or overnight, regardless of the format of TV Week. There's simply not space for everything and we tried to keep all the daytime/late-night channels we had previously when going to the newer format.

First published on April 10, 2009 at 12:00 am