Depending on how TV audience preferences are measured, the NBC network still appears to continue to flounder in last place among the four major TV networks. What, if anything, will change this dynamic?

Sometimes you just have to admit to having a problem.

Robert Greenblatt, chairman of NBC Entertainment, hoping for a more optimistic outcome, came up with an explanation for having a less than stellar report card.

Speaking to a gathering of the nation’s TV critics this summer, Greenblatt claimed that NBC is the “only broadcast network flat from the previous season,” leaping to the conclusion that “flat is the new up.”

If the ratings of NBC remain flat, and the ratings of CBS, ABC and FOX somehow continue to drop a few percentage points over the next few years, then maybe NBC comes out on top, but at what price?

Meanwhile, Greenblatt also asserted that Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon have pulled ahead of their competition in late night. This, of course, must be comforting news to Jay Leno who is being forced out of “The Tonight Show.”

BC’s top executive proved more informative when he said his network needs “to be in the event business,” focusing on live events that people want to watch in the moment rather than on DVR.

The notion of being aggressive on miniseries events led to the announcement that there would be a four-hour special on Hillary Clinton, starring Diane Lane, and a remake of “Rosemary’s Baby,” which Greenblatt made clear were not related events.

Since Clinton is expected to run for president again in 2016, controversy swirled around the network bumping up against equal time rules for other presidential candidates.

I remember when networks fretted about screening Ronald Reagan’s “Bedtime for Bonzo” during election season and having to grant equal time. In this case, it would have been Reagan asking for the equal time.

As for Clinton, in what is expected to be a more favorable airing of her career, Greenblatt noted that the former secretary of state would probably not announce her candidacy for two more years, likely well after the network runs its piece.

For all its trials and tribulations, NBC does have some interesting stuff coming to the fall season. After all, this is a network that has popular shows like “Parks & Recreation” and “Revolution,” to pick two disparate genres.

So why not succeed with new shows of a similar nature?

One new comedy to get a big boost right out of the gate should be Michael J. Fox’s eponymous new series. The truest words spoken by Robert Greenblatt were to observe the public’s “universal love” for Fox that almost guarantees a huge initial turnout for his show.

In a case of art imitating life, “The Michael J. Fox Show” has Fox starring as Mike Henry, a beloved news anchor who put his career on hold to spend more time with his family and focus on his health after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

Now five years later, with the kids growing up, Mike has become restless and it just might be time for him to get back to work. Coincidentally, Michael J. Fox now returns to network TV after more than a decade’s absence.

In any case, “The Michael J. Fox Show,” with Betsy Brandt in the role of wife, looks to be the rather standard sitcom fare where the husband tries to juggle home, family and career. But who can resist Michael J. Fox?

A more derivative new sitcom might be “Sean Saves the World,” where Sean Hayes stars as a divorced gay father caring for a teenage daughter, while juggling a demanding job, offbeat employees and a pushy mom (Linda Lavin).

Indeed, “Sean Saves the World” has nothing to do with Sean Hayes trying to untangle the current mess of Syria and Middle East conflicts. No, it’s Hayes doing his trademark comedy and putting on a show to make some forget “The New Normal.”

Success breeds imitation, and with the popularity of ABC’s “Modern Family,” it’s little surprise that NBC’s “Welcome to the Family” is an offbeat family comedy with an air of familiarity.

Mike O’Malley and Mary McCormack star as a couple with mediocre student daughter Molly (Ella Rae Peck) who managed to graduate high school and has been accepted to college.

Across town, Molly’s secret boyfriend is a Latino honors student on his way to Stanford. The news breaks that the teens are expecting a child, resulting in two very different families being thrown together.

Though comparisons may be drawn to “Silence of the Lambs,” the one-hour drama “The Blacklist” has a different take on a criminal mastermind playing head games with an FBI profiler fresh out of Quantico.

James Spader’s Raymond “Red” Reddington, an ex-government agent, had been one of the FBI’s most-wanted fugitives until he surrendered on the condition that he would work only with Liz Keen (Megan Boone), a rookie FBI profiler.

Show producer John Eisendrath told critics that Spader’s character is “not a psychopath,” but rather someone who is “much more of an enigma.” The thrust of the series hinges on Red’s true intentions on why he wants to hunt down a major terrorist and other assorted bad guys.

If you’ve seen the movie “Secretary,” you know that Spader has the talent to play a twisted character. He’s the right fit for “The Blacklist,” a series that looks likely to generate some buzz.

If you remember Raymond Burr as the wheelchair-bound detective in “Ironside,” you may be too old for the new “Ironside,” where Blair Underwood plays the same part, albeit with a contemporary sensibility and in a new setting.

During the TV press tour conference, Underwood explained that the new “Ironside” is a “crime drama wrapped in a character study,” and everything is re-imagined, including “new texture, new storytelling,” with different expectations.

In the gritty world of NYPD, the titular character of “Ironside” is fearless, tough and intense. Blair Underwood fills the bill for a hard-nosed detective, though no one would have ever accused Burr of being a softie.

Waiting in the wings for a debut in late October is “Dracula,” with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (“The Tudors”) ready to give the dashing count the full ladies’ man treatment during Victorian England.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

UPPER LAKE, Calif. – Lake County Wine Studio is hosting a book signing party with author Roni McFadden on Sunday, Sept. 15, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., to celebrate her second book, “The Longest Trail.”

“The Longest Trail” carries readers through a spellbinding new work by McFadden.

As a young teen, McFadden left behind the confusion and pain of her unhappy preteen years. She tells of how she went up – up onto horses, up the road to a man who could help her, and up the mountain, to where she could see clearly and breathe deeply. And, finally, up to another place where only some can go.

As she travels "The Longest Trail," McFadden evolves from a girl stumbling along treacherous and twisted paths to become a strong young woman who knows where she is going, how to get there, and understands she will have help along the way.

Having had the visions, seen the petroglyphs, felt the grinding stones, and carrying obsidian chips with her, McFadden knows the strength of the spirits of the ancients, knows their energy can be used by anyone who feels their vibrations.

Spending all of her teen years in the High Sierras riding horses and managing horse-packing tours, McFadden learned about animals, people and life.

In the time since then she has continued on "The Longest Trail," adding the wisdom of another 40 years to her perspective as she relives, and recreates those years on the pages of her new book.

As you ride with McFadden up the trail in this book, you will know the joy, fear, grief, humor, beauty and wonder she experienced in the high country, in Altadena, Calif., and all along the way, as she journeyed to this time and place.

McFadden is the mother of four and grandmother of 14. She now lives in Willits with her husband of 41 years, John.

Little did they know when moving to Northern California that the property they bought and built their house on once was part of the Ridgewood Ranch, home of the famous racehorse Seabiscuit.

Shortly after moving McFadden began a career with the equine veterinarians that have cared for the horses at the ranch for over 25 years, and through that connection she was able to write and publish her first book. ³

“Josephine – A Tale of Hope and Happy Endings” is a children's book about a great-granddaughter of the legendary Seabiscuit who becomes orphaned at four days of age and follows the filly as she is accepted by a surrogate mare.

All proceeds from the sale of “Josephine” go to The Howard Hospital Foundation and the T.R.A.I.L. therapeutic riding program at the Ridgewood Ranch in Willits. McFadden's association with Josephine and the Ridgewood Ranch enabled her to start her own small publishing company, which she named The Biscuit Press.

Although she no longer has horses of her own, she continues to work for Redwood Valley Equine, and enjoys her friend's horses. One of her greatest pleasures now, as she gets older, is watching her grandchildren grow and thrive. As she nears retirement age she feels there might be a few more books in her.

McFadden will be at the studio from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday to greet visitors and to sign sold copies of her book.

Refreshments will be provided and wine will be available for sale by the taste of by the glass. Wine tasting will feature varietals currently on sale as well as featured samplings of Olof Cellars wines and Fore Family Cabernet Sauvignon.

Lake County Wine Studio is a gallery for display of arts and a tasting room, wine bar and retail shop for the fine wines of Lake County.

The gallery is located at 9505 Main St. in Upper Lake. It is open Mondays, 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays; and Fridays, 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.

For more information call Lake County Wine Studio at 707-275-8030 or 707-293-8752.

“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.”

This maxim has been around for some time, and it bears a lot of truth about the difficulty of launching successful comedy series on network television.

Peter O’Toole’s washed-up actor Alan Swann uttered these words in the 1982 film “My Favorite Year.”

The famous quote has been attributed to many, from Edmund Kean to Groucho Marx and Joseph Stalin, though the murderous Russian tyrant is an unlikely source of humor.

New comedy series are a big part of the landscape for the FOX network this fall, and yet when speaking to TV critics during the recent press tour, Kevin Reilly, president of Fox Entertainment, had not much to say, other than to answer critical questions about “Dads.”

In fairness, Reilly did lump the comedy “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” with the mystery-adventure drama “Sleepy Hollow,” noting how “surefooted these two shows are right now, right out of the gate.”

Well, this was a rare occasion when a TV network executive was not engaging in hyperbole or deception. The aforementioned shows may be two of the best new series on the schedule.

Part of the FOX strategy is to create a strong comedy block on Tuesday nights, leading off with the half-hour new series “Dads” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” during the eight o’clock hour and ending with returning comedies “New Girl” and “The Mindy Project.”

Unlike the practice of the other major networks to launch new series during the traditional Nielsen week starting Sept. 23, FOX begins a week earlier, so look for the new Tuesday night comedy block to premiere on Sept. 17.

The spirit of “Barney Miller” lives within the new comedy “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” set in the police workplace where a diverse group of colleagues get a new captain, Andre Braugher’s Ray Holt, with a lot to prove in a far-flung district in the New York borough of Brooklyn.

Evident from the pilot episode, the key to the mayhem in the Brooklyn precinct is Andy Samberg’s Detective Jake Peralta, a gifted investigator with the best arrest record among his colleagues, but also a carefree goofball studiously oblivious to the usual norms.

A stickler for rules and regulations, Captain Holt’s arrival as the commanding officer at the Nine-Nine precinct puts a crimp in Detective Peralta’s jocular style, attempting to force him to now follow standard decorum and even wear a tie to work.

Samberg is hilarious in his efforts to not-so-subtly undermine authority while continuing to be an outstanding police officer, and his eagerness to nab crooks is fueled by a dogged competition with his comely colleague, Detective Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero).

The ensemble comedy features interesting characters, such as Joe Lo Truglio’s Detective Charles Boyle, a brilliant but bumbling workhorse who pines for the abrasive, opinionated Detective Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), with whom he stands no chance at all.

Chelsea Peretti is the eccentric and self-absorbed civilian officer manager Gina Linetti, and the always wonderful Terry Crews is Sergeant Jeffords, a linebacker of a man who lost his nerve after his wife had baby twin girls named Cagney and Lacey.

I predict “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” is FOX’s new comedy hit, but Kevin Reilly spent precious time at the press conference defending some offensive aspects of “Dads,” another comedy from the creators of “Family Guy.”

Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi are two successful guys in their mid-30s whose lives get turned upside down when their inappropriate and pain-in-the-neck patriarchs move in. Gifted actors Martin Mull and Peter Riegert, playing their dads, may not save this show from early demise.

Another comedy, not scheduled until later in the fall season, is “Enlisted,” an irreverent military-themed comedy (shades of “M.A.S.H.”) about three brothers on a small Army base in Florida and the group of misfits who surround them.

Geoff Stults is the natural born leader, Sergeant Pete Hill, who was on a path for a huge military career until one mistake overseas got him booted stateside, where his two younger brothers are stationed.

With its goofy, sarcastic sensibilities, “Enlisted” looks like a potential winner. It may even shape up to have some of the Army humor reminiscent of “Sgt. Bilko,” the great vintage TV series starring Phil Silvers, not the middling Steve Martin movie of the same title.

The FOX team gave us a military cap emblazoned with the title of the show, but this small gift has not affected my judgment on “Enlisted.” I just tell you this as a matter of full disclosure.

Now that we have run down the list of new comedies, let’s focus on a show of a different nature, one that Kevin Reilly rightly described as a winner “right out of the gate.”

That show, to premiere on Monday, Sept. 16, before being moved to a Friday night slot, is “Sleepy Hollow,” a modern-day version of Washington Irving’s classic novel in which Ichabod Crane is resurrected and plunged 250 years into the future.

In the FOX version of “Sleepy Hollow,” Tom Mison’s Ichabod Crane is a Revolutionary War hero who is brought back to life in the contemporary world of the Hudson Valley, where things are different than envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

Revived alongside Ichabod Crane is the infamous Headless Horseman who is on a murderous rampage in the present-day Village of Sleepy Hollow, creating a major catastrophe for the local police force.

Of course, no one believes Ichabod’s tales of America’s past and dire warnings about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but young cop Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) has had her own supernatural experiences and she teams up with Ichabod to embark on a mission to stop evil.

Judging by the pilot episode, “Sleepy Hollow” looks like it will draw a fan base of the younger male demographic and those who enjoy supernatural mysteries and adventure.

Waiting in the wings for a midseason replacement is “Almost Human,” a science-fiction action-packed police procedural set 35 years in the future, when police officers are partnered with highly evolved human-like androids.

Karl Urban plays a detective who survived a horrific attack and wakes up after a 17-month coma to find he can’t remember much, is outfitted with a prosthetic leg and suffers from mental atrophy and depression.

Nevertheless, instead of being on disability, he rejoins the police force, though he must be partnered, much to his displeasure, with a robot.

I have not seen a pilot of this show, but I am already thinking “Robocop.” We’ll wait and see.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

LOWER LAKE, Calif. – Lake Community Pride Foundation presents “An Evening With A Singer Song Writer's Circle” on Saturday, Sept. 14.

The concert will take place from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Lower Lake High School Little Theater, 9430 Lake St.

The show will offer four of Lake County's finest singer-songwriters – Michael Barrish, Sarah Tichava, Scott Somers and Brown Bear -- who will share their stories and their songs in an informal theater setting.

Barrish has been writing for 35 years. He has two CDs out and has won the West Coast Best Performer award at San Luis Obispo.

Tichava had her first guitar at age 15 and at 17 was singing professionally in a female folk foursome in Little Rock, Arkansas. She currently plays locally throughout Lake County as a member of the trio, "Three Deep."

Somers has been playing his guitar and writing songs since the mid-1960s. Over the course of the years his abilities have improved in being able to tackle the challenges of songwriting. Somers has experience in writing song solo or combined with other songwriters and has enjoyed the process.

Finally the last songwriter will be Brown Bear.

If you're interested in music and better understanding the fine art of songwriting, this is an evening you won't want to miss. Come on down and listen to their various stories and the music they create.

Tickets are $10 and doors will open at 6:30 p.m.

For more information please visit www.aneveningwith.org or call 707-701-3838.

UKIAH, Calif. – “YOUNG: Emerging Artists of Mendocino County,” the first exhibit of the 2013-14 academic year at Mendocino College, will present the work of ten artists under the age of 40.

Alyssum Wier, exhibit curator and Art Gallery Management instructor at the college, asked artists to respond to the following questions:

• If we define an emerging artist as someone who has entered the marketplace or exhibition arena with some degree of confidence or success, what does it mean to be an emerging artist of Mendocino County?
• In the 1960s, 1970s, and even 1980s, artists living in Mendocino County may have been working in intentional or unintentional isolation from metropolitan centers. In a new era of instant connectivity and collapsed distances from urban centers, what does it mean to be an emerging artist of Mendocino County now?
• Does living here offer a choice between isolation and connectivity?
• Do increased options for connection make it easier or more difficult to “emerge” as an artist?

In response, the work assembled for this show by participating artists Anne Beck, Hopi Breton, Genine Coleman, Tessa Crawford, Rose Easterbrook, Tobin Keller, Dietmar Krumrey, Adrianna Oberg, Andrew Power, and Solange Roberdeau may evoke the landscapes of Mendocino County (Breton, Coleman, Easterbrook, Keller, Power, Roberdeau) or it may hover in a placeless or abstract philosophical space (Beck, Breton, Crawford, Krumrey, Oberg).

Reflecting on the theme, participating artist Andrew Power of Redwood Valley states: “My relation to the remote county of Mendocino was and is a huge influence. It not only informs my work, but is a big part of my reason for working at all.”

Willits Artist Genine Coleman further reflects: “In many respects I feel that living and creating here in Mendocino gives me the opportunity to use the location as a beacon of a larger voice to be heard beyond Mendocino. I think this county has much to offer to those living beyond its boundaries in the way of example … as long as creativity is applied to the notion of ‘emerging’ this location fosters out of the box thinking as a necessary tool for survival.”

Whether from Mendocino County or transplanted here, these artists reveal through their work that they are innovative with materials, technically skilled, and emerging now.

The public is invited to an opening reception at the gallery on Thursday, Sept. 12, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and by appointment.

The exhibit runs through Oct. 27.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Sunday, Sept. 8, a concert by the Lake County Symphony Chamber Orchestra will take place at Lakeport’s Soper-Reese Community Theatre.

In a departure from its usual practice the 3 p.m. concert will be presented free of charge to the public by its sponsor, Clear Lake Performing Arts.

Classical standards will include Haydn’s Symphony No 85 – often called the “La Reine” or “Queen Symphony” – because it was a favorite of French queen Marie Antoinette.

Music Director and Conductor John Parkinson also will lead the orchestra in the “Sinfonia in C Major” by Antonio Vivaldi, which features the local symphony’s noted string section. Vivaldi was not only one of the truly great composers of baroque music but was also recognized in his day as a violin virtuoso.

Also on the program will be the Horn Concerto No 3 in E flat by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It will feature soloist Mike Thompson, principal player of the Symphony’s horn section, who is an orchestra regular even though it means commuting from his home in Garberville for every concert.

CLPA president Ed Bublitz said his board’s decision to open the doors to the concert free of charge, was to introduce both his group and the orchestra to the public.

“We’ve found many people don’t even know we have a symphony, let alone one of the largest and best in the area, and others have no idea what Clear Lake Performing Arts is, and that it was founded some forty years ago for the precise purpose of creating and maintaining this orchestra,” Bublitz said. “When people hear what a treasure we have here, we hope they will be eager to support us.”

Prior to the official opening of the concert the string players will play Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No 3 as background music, with the annual Meeting starting at 3 p.m. with a couple of business items for CLPA members to address – including voting on CLPA officers for the new year.

Nominations for seats on the board of directors will be accepted from the floor. Bublitz stresses that he is actively soliciting greater participation from the public, as well as from current CLPA members.

Seating at the concert is open on a first-come, first-served basis, so members are advised to arrive early to ensure themselves a good seat.

“We hope our members bring others who may be interested in joining us in promoting good music in Lake County,” Bublitz added.

Complimentary desserts, prepared by members of the CLPA Auxiliary, will be served, and wine and soft drinks will be available for sale.