This has been the most critically acclaimed network pilot of the fall. Robert/Bob Allen (James Wolk) is a charismatic and brilliant schemer who has meticulously constructed two lives in two different parts of Texas. As "Bob," he lives in Houston and is married to Cat (Adrianne Palicki from Friday Night Lights), the beautiful daughter of Clint(Jon Voight), the patriarch of an ultra-wealthy Texas oil family. More than 400 miles away in the suburban west Texas town of Midland, he's "Robert," living a second life with his sweet, naïve girlfriend, Lindsay. There he plays the perfect boyfriend while secretly bilking local investors of their savings. While in Houston, he's a devoted husband, charming Cat and her family to cement his position in the rich family business he aims to clean out. Now caught between a father-in-law who wants to hand him the company business and a father who wants him to take it all, Bob has to weigh the risks and make a choice.


This is being described as Dallas without the cheese. A common concern of critics is they don't know how this is a network series and would be better suited for cable or as a movie. Pilot is directed by Mark Webb(500 Days of Summer).

Reviews:
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-al...foxs-lone-star
http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2010/0...ght-lone-star/
http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/09/20/lone-star/

I'm going to check this show out but I have pretty low expectations to be honest.

Again im a sucker and will check it out just like The Event

i saw the pilot while at Mohegan , it looked decent maybe I'll check it out

Most of the new network shows look really horrible. Hopefully this one turns out well.

AV Club has a good write up:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/pilot,45161/

Meh. It's pretty good for a network pilot but it just reminds me why I mostly only watch cable drama.

Decent enough I thought.

The lead guy reminds me of the dude from Early Edition. Used to love that show

Yeah I liked it. The lead reminds me of a young Kyle Chandler from Friday Night Lights.

Edit - Looks like Kyle Chandler is the guy from Early Edition.

Apparently the ratings weren't too good. The time slot sucks going against Dancing with the Stars, 2.5 Men, and The Event.

The ratings were actually horrible - the worst of the night for a scripted series on the Big 4 Networks - this really may be one of the first series canceled this season - must be hugely disappointing to FOX.

I thought the pilot was good and could have been great.

-Al

Man I wanted to watch this but now that it is going to be canceled within 2 weeks I don't see how any good can come from me watching it.

I would never have checked this out, but the reviews from Sepinwall made me.

The lead actor seems very solid. I really like him and his interaction with his girls, etc.

I thought his Dad, John Voight, and the dickhead son all were kinda iffy and lacking nuance as characters. Maybe it's just where the pilot choose to focus, but they just didn't match up with his performance.

I hope this gets more of a chance, 'cause it seems like it might have nice places to go, but I'm not as impressed as I expected to be based on the recs. I guess I should remember that Sepinwall is a Grey's Anatomy fan.

In 1-14 days, when this gets canceled, I'll come here and ask if I should download the entire series and go through it.

Maybe Al can speak to this more, but I wonder how many viewers this lost to The Event that it might get back next week when they run from that thing like it has SARS.

Fred Savage + George Clooney.

Kid is going to be a star!

I have set up a whole bunch of new shows on my DVR but this season looks like maybe one of the worst ever in terms of new shows. I wasn't even planning on Lone Star being one of the shows I gave a chance to. The premise just sounded ridiculously bad to me.

Anyway after seeing reviews that it was likely worth a shot I added it. I also hated it. This one is a one and out for me as I was not interested even a little bit by the pilot.

Jesus, it's possible it could be cancelled after one episode.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...87cbf280b96dd6

Well, since they probably already have 5-7 episodes produced already, most likely they will burn those off, so we can at least get a glimpse of where the series was headed.

It's a tough put for FOX with this kind of series - it feels much more like a 10PM series (where there is also weaker competition on most nights) - but FOX doesn't program 10PM (unlike ABC/CBS/NBC), so it's harder to find a place in their schedule for new one-hours.

Also, completely on them - the promotion for this show was pretty weak imo. I didn't have a very good sense of what the series was about, and they didn't promote it all too heavily. (I didn't see one ad "the best reviewed pilot of the new season!" type thing.)

To Dids question - people who sampled the Event who do not return next week will most likely migrate in a somewhat even distribution to other competition - meaning Lone Star and Event's audience don't overlap enough where Lone Star will pick up a disproportionate share of Event haters.

A premiere night ratings is usually a pretty strong indicator of the next couple week's audience sampling (meaning it doesn't usually grow that much, and in Lone Star's case, it would need a huge spike to justify it's existence - not going to happen).

Impact of Advertising on Ratings - the best thing on air promo and advertising for a series can do is get it an initial audience to sample. After that it's largely word of mouth and if the series is any good/enjoyable to the viewer to encourage returning. I don't think Lone Star has enough of either of those to improve ratings because of that.

-Al

Pilot is on Hulu

The other problem I see with this show is that given the premise, I'd never want to see it on Fox.

Take the same show, same basic 3 line premise and put it on any other network, and I would be more interested.

Now again, I watched it because of the reviews, but I have to imagine that my way of thinking is not totally out of line with most folks who might enjoy the show. It's not going to find the "right" audience with the tain of Fox upon it.

I could be totally wrong, but I think the promotion for this show was pretty frequent.

I don't watch tv with commercials, so again I could be off, but I streamed FOX on Sunday to watch football and this show def got more hype than any other series (maybe they just thought football fans were the target audience).

Anyway, whenever any show gets canceled the discussion is always the same: wrong timeslot, wrong network, lack of promo, too smart/serialized, bla bla bla.

They really should just scrap the series now or at best maybe move it to Friday or something. It wont bounce back. Burn off the remaining eps in the summer or something, not over the next few weeks while people are actually paying attention and deciding what they will be watching for the rest of the season.

In the alternative, couldn't Fox move the show to FX?

Well - those are usually the only issues that are salient, right? not sure what your point is. And they are real factors for a premiere night's ratings.

Also, as I noted, FOX is unique in that it only programs 2 hours of primetime a night vs. CBS/NBC/ABC. That is a real issue for them when scheduling new series - I do believe Lone Star would fare better at 10pm with less strong competition around it.

However, I think the bigger issue is (when you really think about it, and maybe something you were implying Kneeco) - regardless of promotion, time slot, network - at the end of the day, *every* broadcast network series has some kind of shot to launch - it is playing in 98% of TV homes in the case of FOX network. Usually, if a show fails to launch, it's a pretty good indicator that it would never find a large enough audience to sustain its economics.

Who knows how they will burn off the episodes - remember they have to replace Lone Star with something if they choose to air the episodes in say, the summer - and Lone Star is a fixed sunk cost to them.

Moving to F/X - they could do that if they had an overall strategy to potentially put it on FX on a more long-term basis (and shouldn't be a licensing issue, because FOX Studios is producing Lone Star) - but FOX Network has already paid for airing on the broadcast network, and even when you burn it off, it will make more money (ie lose less money) airing on FOX vs. FX cause ratings on FX would be even lower than on FOX.

-Al

That is really interesting, Dids. Could you go more into depth on this (we look at network branding quite a bit internally, and be interesting to hear your take on what the FOX Network brand means to you).

-Al

I'd guess that in general there's a perception (or at least this is my perception) that Fox shows (especially the dramas) are trashier and less nuanced, maybe a bit "dumber". When you tell me there's going to be a drama about a con man with wives on Fox, I'm picturing lots of T&A and action. Tell me that's on ABC or NBC I might expect a bit more sophistication, tell me it's on AMC or FX I might expect it to be pretty good. Tell me it's on CBS and I'll think you're lying to me 'cause they don't do that sort of thing.

Admittedly I'm a somewhat jaded liberal who in general looks at Fox crosseyed, so that might factor into it.

Well those are the only issues that are salient and are not the fault of the show, which is why they are always the ones raised the show and its fans.

Wrong timeslot/network/night/promo/lead-in/.... bla bla bla, but no one is saying "you know what, maybe people just didn't want to see a show about a con man with a heart of gold in texas".

The issues are salient, but unless you include "well, maybe we just ****ed up", "maybe our premise sucks" on the checklist, you're just rationalizing.

Completely agree with this - and sort of to my point above - sometimes, America is just not going to embrace your ridiculous half-baked idea, and that's that.

(And again, where we see the weakness of the broadcast TV model vs. cable networks - it's really difficult to hit that sweet spot of smart, broad appeal, interesting premise - and have it be a big enough hit to sustain ad economics - e.g. It's Always Sunny wouldn't have lasted 2 episodes on a broadcast network for obvious reasons)

Dids - thanks for sharing your thoughts. It does sound like you're probably a bit biased due to FOX News branding - but that is of course all part of the overall FOX brand, so you know, they have to live with that (if it hurts them).

-Al