Beach Boys, layoffs and tiny burgers

TCA -- "This is a dinosaur," the partygoer complains.

She's from an online company and is sourly looking around at GSN's dinner event last week on the Beverly Hilton’s patio. For the past few minutes she’s complained about her food, name-dropped a few reporters who’ve been laid off and is now explaining how TCA has a late date for extinction.

Clearly, not so hot social skills.

"Most of these people," she says, "are dinosaurs."

The GSN event has a beach party theme. There’s a full-size lifeguard station and games for prizes. The food is make-your-own sliders and mini-skewers. The music is a mix of Beach Boys songs.

Now, most of you will read that description and imagine a bright, cheerful soirée. It’s not. GSN’s set dressing is flimsy. The Beach Boys sound nostalgic and melancholy -- Brian Wilson singing “God Only Knows.” And the critics are downbeat, subdued, their long faces looking like the food critic from “Ratatouille.”

Yet the gloom of the critics is not due to low-budget cable network parties … exactly. For this press tour, TCA actually told the networks not to worry about making a splashy impression -- don’t spend more than you need to, it’s okay, really, we don’t need to be wined and dined, boxed lunches are fine.

So gripes about meager dinner portions tend to be half-hearted. Because the vanishing of limos rides to Spago and the substitution of make-your-own sliders reminds critics how networks have cut back their investment in TCA.

Which reminds them of how publications are likewise cutting back their commitment to send reporters to cover the tour.

Which reminds them of the staggering number of layoffs throughout the publishing industry. Downsizing that’s like some relentless horror movie villain that never stops coming after you. Every critic here has friends and colleagues who have lost their jobs. They worry they are next.

Yeah, I know. It’s a lot of symbolism to pack onto a tiny burger.

“I just want to say I feel every time we get together now, it’s like an Agatha Christie mystery,” said HBO spokesperson Quentin Schaeffer earlier that day, introducing his network’s session. “I’m wondering who is going to survive the year.”

“And it’s great to see so many of you back,” he added, like a suitor trying to cheer up his date after noting she’s overweight.

The critics shrug off his attempt at gallows humor, which is also a shift. The group’s reactions have demonstrated less of the famously touchy, TCA live-wire sensitivity that typically result in panel questions that range from hardball journalism to celebrity fawning to oddball queries. The critics this summer have been polite and low key. They’re like the obnoxious uncle who suddenly grows quiet. It makes you miss his rude habits. It makes you worry about him.

"Being here is like those World War II movies when the fighter pilots have come back to their base and are all hanging out together," said Sacramento Bee's Rick Kushman. “It’s like a relief. We’re out of the line of fire, we’re safe -- but only for the moment. And still … I half expect somebody to get a email during a panel laying them off and it will be like, ‘oh, no, there goes another one down.’”

About 200 critics and reporters were present for the cable portion, which isn’t much different than last year. Their badges have changed, however. The absent vets from regional papers keep being replaced by newcomers from dotcoms. To some TCA members, whether the press tour continues to survive another decade is irrelevant. The critics association is isn’t just an event. It’s a body of people, and the members who for years have defined the press tour keep falling away.

Critics huddle at the GSN’s party and wait for the next tray of appetizers to make the rounds. This was more fun when they could pretend their relationship with the networks wasn’t symbiotic. They wonder if all the networks will make it back to the base next year, and wonder if they will be here too. They talk about their publication’s Web sites and wonder: are the sites making money? Is it enough?

The Beach Boys sing: God only knows what I’d be without you…