Jonathan Storm: Charlie? Charlie who? Let's talk about 'incredible' Ashton

Inquirer television critic Jonathan Storm is reporting from the television critics' press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. These items are taken from his blog "Eye of the Storm," at

www.philly.com/eyeofthestorm.

CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler did a verbal tap dance for the nation's TV critics at their annual summer meeting Wednesday, refusing to recap the network's machinations dealing with the meltdown of Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen, and praising his replacement, Ashton Kutcher, to the skies.

"Our focus is moving forward," she said, with "an extraordinary actor committed to doing his job . . . an incredible professional."

Tassler said Kutcher would play a brokenhearted Internet billionaire named Walden Schmidt, who will be introduced to viewers in a two-part story over two weeks beginning Sept. 19. Tassler refused to confirm or deny that Sheen's character will be buried as part of the show's Season 9 opening. "Mystery is a part of the marketing," she said.

Production began Monday. "When everybody walked on set," Tassler said, "you could cut the air with a knife."

Tassler said the network was confident replacing Sheen with Kutcher and CSI's Laurence Fishburne with Ted Danson. "Both actors have huge fan bases [and] bring tremendous amounts of goodwill. It's a wonderful opportunity to reveal those shows to a whole new audience." She would make no ratings predictions, but said both shows should "do very well."

CBS is the only network without an entertainment competition show, the genre that has become the most popular on television. Tassler said it was "still actively looking" for one that's a little different from the others, but she would not say if she thought scripted shows would ever regain their formerly dominant ratings position.

In light of the Sheen debacle, one critic asked if CBS had changed its policies in casting actors who might be susceptible to erratic behavior. "That would probably be every actor in Hollywood," she said.

Move over, "Playboy Club"; "American Horror Story" courts controversy. FX bused the critics a mile or two from the comfy Beverly Hills Hilton to be scared out of their wits by American Horror Story, in the Little Theater on the Fox lot Tuesday night.

Some critics were noticeably shaken by what creator Ryan Murphy called a "psychosexual thriller." Murphy and Brad Falchuk, cocreators of Nip/Tuck and Glee, gave reporters a little intro before the insanity unfurled. One viewer, at least, was so upset she wanted to go back to the hotel immediately and skip the picnic dinner and cocktails the network offered after the screening.

The series, which premieres on FX Oct. 5, stars Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights) and Dylan McDermott (The Practice) as husband and wife in a troubled marriage, and an absolutely delicious Jessica Lange, doing her first series TV, as the mysterious and clearly disturbed next-door neighbor. "Don't make me kill you again," she warns one of the crazies who pass through the place.

American Horror Story has a lot of the trappings of some of the great '70s horror movies such as The Shining, Rosemary's Baby, and Don't Look Now, including dead babies, slasher ghosts, murdered children, strange sex - you name it.

And there's a separate story line involving the lead characters' daughter, a generally lovable misfit bullied at her new high school, who gets involved with one of psychiatrist McDermott's creepiest young patients.

Nothing like this has ever made it to series TV, even at the 10 o'clock hour on a cable network such as FX, which is known for envelope-pushing, and the show is sure to generate controversy. NBC will probably be happy to have some of the heat deflected from its new The Playboy Club, a lame attempt in comparison to the daring Horror Story.

At the center is a big old house with a horrific past and a particularly spooky basement. At the start, two weird-looking twin boys go in for some vandalism, after a little girl with Down syndrome warns them not to go inside with a singsong "You'll regret it." Oh, and they do.

Our heroes, trying to rebuild their marriage by moving cross-country to start over, can't resist the place. The price is a bargain because the last owners died in the attic in a murder-suicide pact.

"Don't buy it," the critics silently screamed. "Don't go in it. Move out fast." But they never listen, and bloodcurdling horror always ensues.

Mariel Hemingway on Woody Allen and young ladies. Does Woody Allen's predilection for young ladies undermine his reputation as master director/writer and comedian?

Who better to ask than Mariel Hemingway, who was 17 when she played the girlfriend to Allen's character of Isaac Davis in Manhattan, one of his masterpieces, released in 1979?

Hemingway was at the TV critics' annual summer meeting over the weekend, along with another once-upon-a-time young Allen star, Mira Sorvino, to talk about PBS's American Masters two-part segment on Nov. 20 and 21 looking at Allen's life and his art.

It's widely understood that the characters in Manhattan were based on a real-life relationship between the director, who was 42 at the time, and a 17-year-old actress. Then, 13 years later, came revelations of the relationship between Allen and Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his longtime companion, Mia Farrow.

"It's not really a subject I like to talk about tremendously," Hemingway said, "but I think . . . it was certainly detrimental to him for a while. But again, he's just always this creative genius. . . . He's an artist. It doesn't mean he's not an odd person or that he makes choices that we don't all agree with or we don't all understand.

"But he made sense to me. I came from a creative family, and they don't follow normal rules. . . . He keeps exploring as an artist. . . . Picasso had his blue period. Woody has these periods of different kinds of films that he makes. . . . When I think of my grandfather," Ernest Hemingway, "he wrote fiction, but so much of what you write when you're an artist comes from your life."

Dr. Who, I presume? If you're BBC America, and you want a proper venue to impress a gathering of TV critics, what better spot than the rooftop pool of Hollywood's posh London Club, just off the Sunset Strip?

Not a lot of recognizable stars turned up Friday night, since most of the network's stuff is imported and original, but Idris Elba, formerly of The Wire, currently Emmy-nominated for his stunning work in the psych-mystery cop-shop thriller Luther (second installment coming Oct. 5), was chatting. He's big, handsome, and smart.

A couple of reporters went up to Matt Smith, who plays the title role in the long-running cult fave Dr. Who. (He's No. 11, for those keeping score.) Except it wasn't Smith, but a look-alike. It wasn't clear if the guy had been invited specifically to take pressure off the real star, and he wasn't explaining. Smith himself dined on the superb prime rib (fancy tacos also available, all supposedly whipped up under the direction of wild-man Brit chef Gordon Ramsay), but was declining interviews. "Let's just have a conversation," he told one reporter.