Overhaul for ’Best’
VH1 is giving its signature series “Best Week Ever” a different spin, shrinking the half-hour strip into a nightly 3½-minute digest designed to extend the franchise while also providing clients with a unique advertising environment, MediaWeek.com reports.
The cable network will inject “Best Day Ever” into its programming lineup on Monday and plans to run the miniaturized show Mondays through Thursdays at 11 p.m. Offered as an exclusive sponsorship platform, each installment of “Best Day” will be wrapped around a 30-second spot.
Twentieth Century Fox will be the sole sponsor of the inaugural run of “Best Day,” buying the 30 seconds to promote its April 29 DVD release of “27 Dresses.” The “27 Dresses” spot will borrow from VH1’s classic Pop-Up Video format, providing trivia about the movie and star Katherine Heigl.
“It’s been a good franchise for us, so why not get it on our schedule more often?” says Tom Calderone, VH1’s executive vice president and general manager. “During the writers strike, we experimented with the format, and we’ve come up with a great complement to ’Best Week’ — and one that’s a perfect fit for our pod-busting efforts.”
Riveting ’Adams’ ends
HBO will air the first six episodes (back-to-back) of its epic miniseries “John Adams” on Sunday beginning at 2 p.m., ahead of the stirring two-hour conclusion at 9 p.m.
The finale, titled “Peacefield,” chronicles Adams’ (Paul Giamatti) final years as his son, John Quincy Adams, becomes president; the death of his beloved wife, Abigail (Laura Linney); the grisly surgery and death of his daughter Abigail (Sarah Polley) from breast cancer; and his reconciliation with Thomas Jefferson (Stephen Dillane). Once friends and then enemies, the two men died just hours apart — on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1826.
The weekend’s other highlights:
• Tonight
Canterbury’s Law (9 p.m., Fox): Elizabeth (Julianna Margulies) defends a confessed rapist, Chester (Keith Robinson of “Dreamgirls”) fights for a girl victimized by a slumlord’s greed, and Molly (Kelly Dunn) gets her bar exam results in the season finale of the legal drama.
• Tomorrow
The Number 23 ( 8 p.m., HBO): Even if the HBO premiere date for this 2007 feature equals the movie’s title when totaled (fourth month, 19th day, get it?) this Jim Carrey thriller doesn’t always add up. The actor stars as Walter Sparrow, a dogcatcher whose wife, Agatha (Virginia Madsen of “Sideways”) gives him a mysterious book called “The Number 23.” Walter quickly sees strange parallels between the novel’s events and those of his own life — including the fact that everything is linked to those digits.
• Sunday
More Ghosts of Gettysburg (10 p.m., Biography Channel): More spirits and apparitions abound from the Civil War’s most haunted battlefield, in Pennsylvania. Based on Mark Nesbitt’s best-sellers, the program will dramatize fascinating and unexplained stories, many of which are told by people who claim they experienced the events. Some say the spirits have been restless ever since that bloody battle — July 1 through 3, 1863.
Compiled by Robyn-Denise Yourse from staff, Web and wire reports.
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