ABC Prez Paul Lee: We're Making 'Popcorn Shows' and 'Page-Turners'
Embracing the idea of network TV as a broad-based, big-tent medium, ABC Entertainment President Paul Lee says that ABC shows ranging from Scandal and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to new fall fare such as sitcom Dr. Ken and drama Blood and Oil are “popcorn shows” and “page-turners” meant to entertain first and, if they’re lucky, enlighten as well.
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Lee addressed the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles on Tuesday morning enthusing about the “incredible originality” of ABC’s new take on The Muppets (it’s a spoof of mockumentaries) and extolling Priyanka Chopra, star of the new fall action series Quantico, as “an iconic star.”
We expect hype from executives promoting their wares, but Lee is also the kind of suit-in-shirtsleeves who takes care to touch the talking-points that critics like to hear. Thus, he said that ABC shows including American Crime and the Shonda Rhimes “TGIT” schedule (Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder) demonstrate a range of “racial make-up,” a disinterest in “the likability factor,” and “a moral complexity” that render them something more intellectually chewy that mere popcorn shows.
For fans of comic-book-derived shows, Lee said that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will have a “really interesting season” now that Skye has superpowers and must grapple with the question of whether she’s — loaded word here for Marvel devotees — “inhuman,” and that Agent Carter, when it returns, will be set “here in Hollywood” and able to luxuriate in “the glamour of late-1940s Hollywood” and the entertainment industry of the time.
Lee said near the top of his presentation that if the assembled critics and reporters took nothing else away from what he had to say this day, he wanted to emphasize that “Viola Davis should win that Emmy” for her go-for-broke performance in How to Get Away With Murder. I second that emotion.
