Day 2 of Cable at The Press Tour

GMC, STARZ, HALLMARK CHANNEL, WEATHER CHANNEL AND DISCOVERY

The second day of the cable portion of the Summer Press Tour opened with four sessions with GMC (movie Somebody’s Child, reality series The Bulloch Family Ranch, documentary/reality series I Forgive You, and movie Christmas Angel), followed by Starz, which featured Encore drama – The Crimson Petal and the White and returning drama Boss with Kelsey Grammer. Known, of course, for his record 20-season stint as Dr. Frasier Crane (9 of Cheers, 11 on spin-off Frasier), Crane is now virtually unrecognizable as deathly ill Chicago Mayor Tom Kane.

“I can’t tell you how many people come up and tell me, ‘That’s the best thing you’ve ever done!’,” said Grammer about the ratings-challenged Boss. “And there are also people who come up to me and say, ‘When are you coming back to television?’”

In the upcoming second season of Boss, which debuts Friday, Aug. 17, Kane beats back the physical symptoms of his neurological disorder with high doses of medication, but suffers from the psychological manifestations of the disease.

A Hallmark Channel working lunch followed with a variety of upcoming celebrities appearing on the cable network including Andie MacDowell and Dylan Neal, who will be featured in Cedar Cove, the cable net’s first regularly scheduled series; Home & Family hosts Paige Davis and Mark Steines, which debuts on October 1; and Patricia Heaton, Marilu Henner, Naomi Judd, Joey Lawrence, Teri Polo, Annie Potts and Patricia Richardson. Marie Osmond, who will be hosting a weekday talk show on Hallmark, appear in a taped message.

Next was a session on reality series Coast Guard Florida on The Weather Channel, while Discovery was the focus in the afternoon, with sessions on Breaking Amish on TLC, The Brokaw Files on Military Channel, Overhaulin’ on Velocity, Married to the Army: Alaska on OWN, Deadly Affairs on Investigation Discovery, Finding Bigfoot on Animal Planet and Discovery Channel’s Curiosity: Plane Crash.

“What I love about Deadly Affairs is the way they are producing the show,” said Deadly Affairs host Susan Lucci. “It has a different look than anything that I have seen. Admittedly, I haven’t seen everything of this genre, but I have watched many shows. While the dramatic reenactment is on location, I’m playing a character as well. It’s not myself. I’m playing a character, which frees things up. And I am also on location, which adds to the storytelling. And the locations and the costume changes and all of that always are organic to the storytelling.”

Coming up on the final day at The Summer Press Tour: Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will be present at ESPN’s portion.