Roswell mentioned in 20th Century Fox TV article

From the “Seattle Post-Intelligencer”:

Fox promises return to roots after reality bites

Wednesday, January 12, 2000

By JOHN LEVESQUE
POST-INTELLIGENCER TV CRITIC

You’ve seen the last of marauding grizzly bears on Fox. But if a grizzly bear can maraud and tap dance at the same time, Fox may still have a spot on its schedule for “When Entertaining Animals Attack.”

That’s the word from Sandy Grushow, recently named chairman of the Fox Television Entertainment Group to help the network turn itself around from one of the most dismal free falls in memory. Until recently, Grushow was head of 20th Century Fox Television, the studio that has more shows on network TV than any other. Problem is, a lot of those shows — “The Practice,” “Dharma & Greg,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” etc. — are on other networks.

Grushow yesterday said Fox will be backing away from the cheesy reality special, which he called a short-term ratings fix “that has come back to bite us on the behind.”

“We’ve begun to see the dilution of our brand identity,” Grushow said. He promised a recommitment to “the principles that brought us to the dance”: risk-taking entertainment that places a premium on being different.

Grushow and Doug Herzog, president of entertainment for Fox Broadcasting Co., said the network won’t abandon all reality programming, but they said it will be focused on “entertainment” instead of “blood ‘n’ guts shock value.”

They also announced a long-term deal with producer David E. Kelley, giving Fox first right of refusal on anything new from Kelley’s pen, and a single-series deal with “ER” and “Jurassic Park” creator Michael Crichton.

If you don’t count “Malcolm in the Middle,” which Fox actually unveiled last summer but didn’t put on the schedule till this week, the development slate is apparently so thin that Fox is promoting only one new midseason series at the critics’ winter press tour in Pasadena.
The series is called “Titus,” a half-hour comedy based on the life of comedian Christopher Titus and his dysfunctional family.

It’s eerily similar to NBC’s “Sammy,” based on the life-with-father recollections of comedian David Spade. But where “Sammy” is done in animation, “Titus” takes dead aim at political correctness with an in-the-flesh production far more risky than any cartoon.

Stacy Keach plays Titus’ father, Ken, a drunk who’s been married to five different women, including a manic-depressive schizophrenic who now resides in a mental institution or, as Ken puts it: “She’s shacked up in the wacko basket.”

Sometimes funny and often tasteless, “Titus” is the sort of programming that Herzog says Fox needs to restore its reputation as a risk-taking trailblazer.

One show that was developed for Fox but ended up on The WB last fall is “Roswell,” the love story/sci-fi drama about high school kids coming of age in Roswell, N.M.
Executive producer Jason Katims says he doesn’t think the show would have been much different had it aired on Fox, but when critics visited the “Roswell” set Monday he did seem relieved to be on a smaller network that gives its shows more time to grow.

“We’re not a huge hit,” Katims said, “but we’re doing well. The WB has been very supportive.”

A hallmark of “Roswell” is its loyalty to the legend of a UFO crashing in the New Mexico desert in 1947.

The accuracy even pervades the props in the Crashdown Cafe, where two of the principal characters work as waitresses. The Tabasco sauce, a particular favorite of Roswell’s alien element, is real, and the menu board has the usual number of greasy-spoon misspellings, such as “Lunar Lunch Speacials” and “Extraterestral Taco Salad.”

Alas, not all is as it seems.

The lemon meringue pie looks enticing, but it’s made of rubber.