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PILOT REVIEW: Rock Center with Brian Williams

ROCK CENTER WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS










Hosted by Brian Williams
Featuring Harry Smith, Kate Snow, Ted Koppel, Meredith Viera, Richard Engel, Nancy Snyderman, Matt Lauer, Ann Curry, and Natalie Morales

Rock Center with Brian Williams is the first new primetime newsmagazine to debut in years. Featuring NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and pretty much every other NBC correspondent, Rock Center features a mishmash of serious stories, human interest stories, and in-studio guests (Jon Stewart on the pilot tonight).

THE GOOD: Brian Williams is likable and a personality that's fit for a primetime newsmagazine as he always wants to be looser than he is on the Evening News. Plus, he loves to be on TV and that's apparent from this debut. Like any show, it will rise and fall in quality based on the intrigue of the story and that will be the case here. It was smart to get Jon Stewart as an interview guest because he can always make for interesting TV.

THE BAD: There seemed to be a little too much packed into the pilot. They didn't seem to have time to explore everything with as much depth as they might have wanted to. Brian Williams is likable but his mocked arrogance sometimes wears thin (talking about Rock Center's 25th anniversary in 25 years). And just as this was a good thing, the show will rise and fall based on the stories of the week.

BOTTOM LINE: TV has seen some throwback success this year with sitcoms, Tim Allen, etc. Maybe a newsmagazine may work. But more than likely it will skew old as the TV landscape is not the same as it was in the 90s when newsmagazines were all the rage. With the constant cable TV news available, it may not be able to make much of a dent.
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