Baywatch just wants to shoot at the beach, LA bureaucrats!
The new Baywatch series, which just finished filming its first episode, has experienced an interesting production challenge – one that isn’t uncommon for film crews filming at LA beaches.
There were rumors that production had been shut down at Venice Beach, but that’s apparently not true. They were sparked by this Instagram post.
As per new LA-focused publication LA Material (co-founded by Julia Turner from Slate’s Culture Gabfest podcast), the Baywatch revival show has not been kicked off of Venice Beach, but it has found challenges with bureaucracy related to shooting restrictions.
The knotty matter of jurisdiction is a complicating factor for any production filming at the beach. In this case, the county oversees the actual beach, while the parking lots in use belong to the city. And the notoriously demanding California Coastal Commission is also involved in aspects of this production.
“These are issues that we’ve been trying to deal with for decades,” said Teamsters political director Ed Duffy, who previously spent decades as a Hollywood location manager.
Productions have been filming on California beaches for more than a century, Duffy explained. But, he said, restrictions from the County Department of Beaches & Harbors and the Coastal Commission can be cumbersome. These restrictions “were much simpler and easier to work with” when the original Baywatch series was filming here three-plus decades ago, Duffy said.
Good morning Angels
Charlie’s Angels stars Cheryl Ladd, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith appeared together on a PaleyFest LA panel celebrating the 50th anniversary of the show (it debuted Sept 22, 1976). As you’d expect, there’s a lot of bikini talk. But, this caught my interest in the write-up at Variety:
At the height of the show’s popularity, “Charlie’s Angels” also became a marketing bonanza. But Jackson said she has seen virtually no money from that over the last 50 years. “In 2000, I got a check from Sony for 80something dollars. For merchandising from inception of ‘Charlie’s Angels’ to present day. Thank you, Sony Pictures.”
The Star Trek episodes that changed Trek (and syndicated TV) forever
If you’re even casually interested in Star Trek, there’s a really strong deep dive article at Time exploring The Best of Both Worlds. If you don’t know Star Trek: The Next Generation, this was a two-part episode that ended season three and kicked off season four.
Trek fans will know the episode well – it concluded with a shock ending that saw Captain Picard assimilated into the cyber-collective bad guys The Borg.
As a standalone clip, it’s very silly. But in-episode it was thrilling as heck. The episode was devised as a way to supercharge the building fan enthusiasm around Star Trek: The Next Generation. A ploy that very much paid off.
What was interesting about this from a broader TV industry perspective is that as a syndicated show, it made scheduling the two-parter difficult.
The Next Generation was syndicated television, sold directly to local stations across the country, where scheduling varied from market to market. At the time, Paramount was wary of multi-part storytelling in syndication. In a system where episodes might not always air consistently or in order, a serialized story wasn’t just a creative risk; it was a logistical one. Berman describes the push for a two-parter as a “continual battle.” Even with a strong rapport with the studio, he says, the idea of a continuing storyline was “verboten.”
Berman spent weeks lobbying Paramount Television executives. “We had to put up a lot of begging,” Berman recalls. They ultimately granted permission only because the two halves would straddle seasons—the finale of one, the premiere of the next—minimizing the disruption to local scheduling.
With writer Michael Piller opening the door to serialised storytelling, it became part of the tool chest for Star Trek going forward, with its many franchise extensions all employing elements of serialisation (the show that could have used it most was Star Trek: Voyager, but that show still held fairly tight to the episodic demands of syndication).
Its legacy courses through Star Trek. What followed shows how vital that franchise era became: four films with The Next Generation cast, spin-offs in Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, three films led by Chris Pine as Kirk, and a newer wave of shows that included Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, Strange New Worlds, and Starfleet Academy. The serialization Piller fought for—consequence moving forward, episode to episode and season to season—became the grammar of modern Trek. Picard’s trauma, rendered with such care across the two-parter and “Family,” proved science fiction could honor the interior lives of its characters without sacrificing scale. The Next Generation earned its place not by replacing The Original Series but by proving it could stand beside it.
News Desk
Handcuffed: Last Pair Standing has reportedly been renewed for a second season by Channel 4 in the UK. Read: Radio Times
Sony Pictures Entertainment is restructuring its film, TV, and corporate divisions with hundreds of employees set to be laid off over the coming months. Read: The Wrap
Netflix has been ordered to refund its members in Italy after a Rome court ruled that rate increases over the last few years were unlawful and violated consumer protection regulations. Read: ScreenMDM
Memory of a Killer has been renewed for a second season at Fox. Read: THR
Canada Shore has been renewed for what Paramount+ has labelled as “another epic season.” Read: thefutoncritic
All I really know about Buenos Aires is that they were wiped out by the bugs on what I can only assume was “Power Plant Day and Bridge Day.” Netflix has just opened an office there and has advised that season 2 of the very good drama The Eternaut is on the cards for 2027. Read: Deadline
Australian Today host Karl Stefanovic is believed to be making the move into commercial radio by the end of this year. Read: News.com.au
Former Victoria Cross recipient and Seven Queensland General Manager Ben Roberts-Smith has been arrested and taken into custody over war crimes committed in Afghanistan. Read: ABC
The third season of Netflix show One Piece will be titled One Piece: The Battle of Alabasta. Netflix will also debut a Lego special in September. Read: Variety
Minnie Driver will star in Paramount+ heist drama The Day, inspired by the 2018 Flemish series De Dag. Read: C21
This is a week old, but I only just stumbled upon it today… YouTube is launching topic-related streaming channels that will run 24/7 linear feeds. Back in my day we called them FAST channels. The first use of the new functionality will be for the Coachella Festival starting April 10. YouTube creators will then be able to build their own channels. Read: SocialMediaToday
Channel 4 has renewed Taskmaster for another six seasons. Read: C21
Trailer Park
The eagerly-anticipated Half Man is Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd’s follow-up series. It debuts on HBO Max April 23. Here’s a way too-long synopsis:
Niall and Ruben are brothers. Not related in blood but the closest you can get. One, fierce and loyal. The other, meek and mild-mannered. Inseparable youth. Brought into each other's lives through death and circumstance, all they have is each other... But when Ruben turns up at Niall's wedding three decades later, everything seems different. He is on edge. Shifty. Not acting like himself. And soon, an explosion of violence takes place which catapults us back through their lives, from the eighties to the present day. Capturing 30 years in the lives of these broken men, HALF MAN is a six-part limited series exploring brotherhood, violence, and the intense fragility of male relationships. After all, when things fall apart... it is sometimes the closest relationships which break the hardest.
Funny AF With Kevin Hart debuts on Netflix April 20.
Mating Season debuts on Netflix May 22.
Starring horny, lovable forest critters - a bear named Josh (voiced by Zach Woods), a raccoon named Ray (voiced by Nick Kroll), a deer named Fawn (voiced by June Diane Raphael), and a fox named Penelope (voiced by Sabrina Jalees).
Rick & Morty is back for season 9 on Adult Swim May 24.
Glory debuts on Netflix May 1.
Divyenndu, Pulkit Samrat, and Suvinder Vicky step into a gritty tale of family, ambition and rivalry.
Hulk Hogan: Real American debuts on Netflix April 22.
Before he was Hulk Hogan, he was Terry Bollea. Uncover the man behind the legend in this unfiltered documentary featuring his very last interview.
That’s the newsletter for the today.
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