Elizabeth Guider Reports: CBS Studios’ Viewing Sessions

LOS ANGELES: On the Paramount lot where CBS Studios is holding its viewing sessions, one thing was, well, Elementary—the off-kilter take on the classic Sherlock Holmes story has been getting nods of approval from most prospective customers all week.

Some 1,200 overseas buyers are in town for the annual L.A. Screenings of new series at the various Hollywood studios, and about 250 show up each morning at CBS’s door.

"Of all the series I’ve seen so far (on several lots), this is one of the few that I’d wager will go multiple seasons," opined one upbeat, if bleary-eyed buyer Wednesday on his way out to the lunch after the four-hour session.

Serendipitously, it could be said, that buyer was among those shortly surrounded by a posse herding Lucy Liu, the actress who plays Dr. Watson in this gender-bending retelling. Pictures were snapped, pleasantries exchanged.

During her glad-handing tour of duty during the al fresco meal, Liu told World Screen Newsflash that she was drawn to the unusual script of Elementary for its multi-layered lead characters. She added that the darker elements being brought to bear as well as playing opposite Brit actor Jonny Lee Miller were pluses.

"I don’t think CBS would have had such troubled characters—like a recovering drug addict and a surgeon who let a patient die on the table—ten years ago. This script really intrigued me," she said.

Climaxing the morning session, the pilot of Elementary drew applause from the assembled buyers, a fairly rare reaction to these sessions at whatever studio.

"It was well done," said one Greek executive. His counterpart at another Athens station agreed that it was one of the stronger shows she too had seen so far.

Both reps, one from Star and the other from Antenna, said that advertising on commercial networks in Greece like theirs is "falling off by the month."

That problem is adversely affecting stations’ outlays for local production and thus likely in the short term to stimulate more program acquisitions from abroad. Neither executive wants to see Greece abandon the euro for the drachma.

An unscientific cross-section of other buyers from various territories also gave good marks to the other three prime-time dramas on offer by CBS Studios International. (A fifth entry, the CBS comedy Friend Me, was screened in the afternoon.)

"CBS has made its mark with procedurals—and now it’s experimenting with new twists and turns to the formula," suggested another European buyer.

Elementary, he said, has shades of The Mentalist, but the central relationship reminds him of the two lead cops in Law & Order: Criminal Intent. "It may not be ground-breaking but what it does, from what we saw, is damn good."

Another buyer, also European, felt somewhat differently, arguing that the show might be too "niche" for mainstream audiences and that "middle America"— or at least his understanding of that population segment—might not be so "smitten" with such an unusual relationship as that between this oddball Sherlock and his female sidekick.

The other CBS Studios contender for the Eye this fall, slotted in the coveted Tuesday night slot behind the NCIS duo, is Vegas, toplining Dennis Quaid and Michael Chiklis as a reluctant sheriff and a rambunctious mobster, respectively, in Sin City in the early ’60s.

"It’s got procedural elements and an arresting retro look. Plus, the actors know what they’re doing," said a producer from Germany, who is here to assess what’s on offer by the majors. (CBS Studios product is spoken for by ProSiebenSat.1 in Germany in an ongoing output deal.)

As for the other two dramas—Emily Owens M.D. and Beauty and the Beast—both picked up Stateside by The CW, reaction was more skewed. Several women buyers who were surveyed were enthused, by the acting in the former and by the sexy and mystifying atmosphere in the latter.

"The medical show can be shorthanded as Grey’s Anatomy meets Gossip Girl, and Beauty strikes a universal chord: There’s an audience for that kind of material in our part of the world." The buyer speaking was from Italy.

Not all broadcasters everywhere, however, buy U.S. series in bulk. Asia in particular has different sensibilities, which means it’s principally cable channels or niche players that are in the market for shows from the West.

"Ours is the number one station in the Philippines," said Roxanne Barcelona, VP at GMA Worldwide. "We buy American movies, and even though we liked what we saw this morning, U.S. series are not for us." (To the extent that GMA relies on imports, they tend to be Korean dramas and Japanese anime.) Niche players like Solar, she added, are the more likely clients in the Philippines for such product as CBS’s fiction.

In his remarks to the buyers, Armando Nuñez, the president of CBS Studios International, emphasized two things:
1) That the bar at CBS is set high and thus the chance of success for a series that makes it onto the grid increases; and,
2) That The CW (which CBS co-owns) has raised its game, with several new series which are broadening the range and deepening the themes of its content.

Ever upbeat, Nuñez told World Screen Newsflash at lunch that he was convinced the quartet of new dramas he’s licensing are all "amazing." They’re attractive to different demos and likely to travel well, he argued.

"Think of it this way," he said. "We’re like the American car industry 40 years ago. Everyone wanted one. Maybe not everyone everywhere agrees nowadays with American politics or political parties, but the world definitely loves Americana."

Apparently, too, a number of them like our dogs. Several buyers couldn’t help but blurt out that they thought CBS’s upcoming canine procedural, Scent of the Missing, (It’s a summer replacement series for which a longish trailer was shown.), had a real "(bow) wow factor."