The TV Critics Association summer press tour began its first full day of activity Wednesday with the usual concerns about its future.
A confab of journalists with television networks and stars seems old-fashioned in the days of Skype and failing newspapers.
Just before the two week event started at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, two major networks had dropped whole days of their presentations at the last minute; cable networks have done so regularly, most recently Al Jazeera America. It canceled its inaugural press panel that would have helped start the day.
What was left Wednesday was highlighted by two figures who showed the power of comebacks. Keith Olbermann, who famously parted with MSNBC and then Current TV, spoke about his return to “the Worldwide Leader of Sports” with late night talk show on ESPN2.
Contrary to recent reports, the outspoken Olbermann isn’t contractually obligated to not talk politics, which filled his last couple of shows.
“There is no such clause referring to content about anything that we might do on the show,” Olbermann says. “There’s nothing preventing me from doing it — but common sense.”
Olbermann says he wanted to get back to talking sports.
There is one element from his old show that he’ll reuse, though.
“We will be having a segment called “The Worst Person in the Sports World,” because people kind of like that one.”
“Olbermann” starts Aug. 26 on ESPN2.
Dan Harmon, who was fired from his own creation “Community” last season, only to be returning next season, was on hand as well, but to talk about an upcoming animation project, “Rick and Morty.”
Still, Harmon was encouraged to compare life at Adult Swim (where he got encouragement and freedom) and NBC (where they were worried by what other people said).
“I pitched ‘Community’ because I wanted to do a mainstream network sitcom the way someone might want to write a sonnet or haiku,” he said.
Why would he go back to a place he’s described as so controlling, as he will for its final season in the fall?
“If I had not gone back,” Harmon says. “the worst case scenario is 30 years of wondering what would have happened if I had gone back? If I go back, the worst case scenario is one shitty season. Who cares?”
Early in the day Rob Lowe and Ginnifer Goodwin talked about their roles as JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy in the upcoming National Geographic film “Killing Kennedy.” But depending on transcriptions provided from their panel could prove unreliable. The actor who played Robert Kennedy, for example, is quoted while talking about the attorney general’s fight against organized crime, chaining one crucial consonant.
“He felt like it was his fault Jack was killed because he was investigating lobsters,” Jack Noseworthy was saying.
Well, the family was from Cape Cod.