A daily news blog by Pavan of SitcomsOnline.com with news scoops of sitcoms and more on TV and DVD. This blog is updated DAILY no matter what! Since August 2005 everyday--non-stop!
Nick at Nite this November will celebrate Thanksgiving with George...George Lopez, of course! But first the regular schedule remains pretty consistent with October, with Malcolm in the Middle and Everybody Hates Chris having the 8-10pm block Sun-Thurs, followed by George Lopez in the 10pm hour Sun-Fri, The Nanny from 11pm-1am every night, more George Lopez in the 1am hour Mon-Fri, Roseanne from 2-6am every night, and The Nanny in the 6am half-hour every weekday. Variations include Glenn Martin, DDS on Mondays at 8pm & Saturdays at 10:30pm, Malcolm in the Middle weekends in the 1am hour, Everybody Hates Chris gets the Nickelodeon hour on Fridays at 9, while George Lopez gets it Saturdays at 9, and finally Everybody Hates Chris airs in the 10pm half-hour on Saturdays. As for specials and stunts, we have an encore of Mr. Troop Mom starring George Lopez airing this Sunday (Nov. 1) from 9-11pm. And during Thanksgiving Week (Nov. 23-29), it's nothing but George Lopez, as Nick at Nite celebrates the holiday with their favorite family! So spend time with your family watching the Lopez family all-week long from 9pm-6am (Mon-Thurs), 10pm-6am (Fri, Sun), and 9:30pm-6am (Sat). View the full November 2009 schedule and highlights! Meanwhile on Nickelodeon, on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 26) we get Nick Jr. specials from 6:30am-11:30am which includes Barbie: 3 Musketeers, followed by iCarly, True Jackson, SpongeBob, and Mr. Troop Mom movies. SpongeBob and The Penguins of Madagascar get a marathon, including premieres at 8:00pm on Friday, November 27. On Saturday, November 28, all-new Nicktoons episodes from 9:00am-12:00pm & iCarly premiere from 8:00pm-9:30pm. And finally on Sunday, November 29, it's the all-new Merry Christmas Drake & Josh movie from 8:00pm-10:00pm.
Fox has ordered a sixth season of American Dad!, the animated series featuring security-obsessed CIA agent and devoted family man Stan Smith (Seth MacFarlane). Recently honored with an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Animated Program, American Dad! airs Sundays (9:30PM ET/PT) on Fox. The series ranks in the Top 10 programs of the season among Teens, Male Teens, Men 18-34, Persons 12-34, Adults 18-34 and Men 18-49. The renewal means that all three series from Seth MacFarlane -- Family Guy, The Cleveland Show, and now American Dad! -- have pickups through next season (2010-2011). Currently American Dad! is in its fifth season on TV, but is still airing episodes produced for season four.
ABC's sophomore drama Castle and The CW's freshman drama The Vampire Diaries are the latest series to have their initial 13-episode order extended to the full 22 full-season order. Both were not surprises and are doing well in the ratings. Castle is in its second season, but the show only received a 13-episode order for this season after launching with 10 episodes last March. Also, the CW has ordered more episodes of Melrose Place, ordering five additional episodes instead of the full back nine. The series has really disappointed in the ratings, but they are obviously waiting to see how much of an impact Heather Locklear will have when she joins the show reprising her character Amanda Woodward starting Nov. 17. Castle and Vampire Diaries join Modern Family, Cougar Town, The Middle, FLASHFORWARD, Glee, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Good Wife, and The Cleveland Show getting full season orders. The only official cancelation has been The CW drama The Beautiful Life: TBL. Hank, Eastwick, Community, Mercy, Trauma, Brothers, and the forgotten still have not heard their fates yet beyond the original 13 episodes, as well as sophomore drama Dollhouse. I expect a few of those to get picked-up at least. ABC's Hank will be preempted next week (Oct. 28 at 8pm) for the classic special It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Meanwhile, Fox has announced some schedule changes. After this Friday, the line-up of sitcom Brothers, 'Til Death, and drama Dollhouse will be pulled for November sweeps. So starting Friday, Oct. 30 repeats of House and Bones takes over the night. Freshman sitcom Brothers will air Sundays at 7pm now with new episodes, while 'Til Death has been benched completely...again. And after just four airings, Dollhouse will be benched, but it will return in December to Fridays airing back-to-back at 8pm & 9pm starting Dec. 4. It is not expected Dollhouse will get more than 13 episodes, so it should be finished for good in January.
Our good buddy Eric from JustMyShow.com is back with an all-new podcast! It shot up the charts after being featured in a few classic episodes of Family Ties, now Billy Vera is at JustMyShow.com to talk about the #1 hit "At This Moment" and much more. Billy Vera wrote and performed that #1 hit, which was featured in a few classic episodes of Family Ties. He talked about music and the song, but also about the show and how it helped it take off. In addition, Eric has a bonus chat with Family Ties producer Michael Weithorn (who went on to co-create The King of Queens) about both the song and the episodes. You can hear a comment or two from him in the show and the rest in the "bonus audio" section. Also in the "bonus audio" section are comments from Billy about The King of Queens and Empty Nest opening themes, both of which he performed. So, head on over to JustMyShow.com for all of this!
The Cleveland Show - Sundays 8:30PM ET/PT on Fox Premieres Sunday, September 27, 2009 at 8:30PM ET/PT
Rather than attempt to explain the premise of The Cleveland Show myself, I thought I would let the words of the show's main voice actor, Mike Henry (voice of Cleveland), explain it.
"Cleveland has kind of had enough in Quahog - he kind of realizes that he wants his own friends, his own sidekicks, his own stories. So he sets out to California to make it in a way that we'll have to keep a secret until the show starts, and then he ends up somewhere else, which we'll also keep a secret until the show starts. But he basically goes home – he goes to his hometown in Virginia and rekindles an old high school flame."
The above explains this show far better than I could. I'll go ahead and warn you, though, that if you're one of the people who detests both of Seth MacFarlane's comedies (Family Guy, American Dad), you can stop reading *now* as, though the show generally has a cohesive pilot (that, as a bonus, usually makes sense) it is still very clearly a Seth MacFarlane show.
Cast Details:
A word of caution here: Because of the animated nature of this show, none of the cast will be physically present in any episodes, and many characters may rotate in-and-out based upon the needs of the episode. Also, as is common in animation, one voice actor may provide the voice for multiple characters.
Mike Henry (Cleveland, Rollo) performed stand-up and improv and acted in commercials for several years before meeting Seth MacFarlane in 1995. Henry was a writer and producer on Family Guy for the series' first six seasons. He voices many of the characters he created, including "Cleveland," "Cleveland Jr.," "Herbert," "The Performance Artist," "Consuela" and "The Greased-Up Deaf Guy." His additional acting credits include Scrubs, Gilmore Girls, Yes, Dear, American Dad! and Robot Chicken. Henry and his brother are the creators of the internet-based series Kicked in the Nuts.
Sanaa Lathan (Donna) was recently seen in Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys alongside Perry, Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard. In 2004, Lathan earned a Tony Award nomination for her performance in the revival of the Broadway classic, A Raisin in the Sun. She later reprised her critically acclaimed role as "Beneatha Younger" in the television adaptation of the play alongside Sean Combs. Lathan's most recent credits include her NAACP Image Award-nominated roles in Something New and Nip/Tuck. She previously starred in Out of Time, Alien vs. Predator, Brown Sugar, Love and Basketball and The Best Man.
Reagan Gomez-Preston (Roberta) and her mother, at age 14, made a trip to Los Angeles with Dateline documenting their journey for an episode about young actors. Within a few of weeks of landing in Los Angeles, she had booked the remake of Freaky Friday with Shelley Long. Shortly after, Gomez-Preston landed a starring role on the Robert Townsend series The Parent Hood, and with his guidance and support, she co-wrote one of the series' most-watched episodes on teen rape. Her other TV acting credits include Love, Inc., Carmen: A Hip Hopera, ER, That '70s Show, JAG and One on One. Her feature film credits lead roles in Never Die Alone opposite DMX, Love Don't Cost a Thing and Beauty Shop with Queen Latifah. Gomez's additional film credits include the independent films Doing Hard Time and Trois 3: The Escort.
Kevin Michael Richardson (Cleveland Jr., Lester the Redneck) is no stranger to animation. He has voiced hundreds of characters for films, commercials and video games, including Family Guy and American Dad! Richardson was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for his work as The Joker on the animated series The Batman. He has also voiced characters on The Boondocks, The PJs and The Penguins of Madagascar. His feature film roles include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Matrix III and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Richardson starred in the television series The Knights of Prosperity and recently appeared in the drama series The Cleaner.
Recurring Cast Members include Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, American Dad!) as Tim the Bear, English Father, Jason Sudeikis (Saturday Night Live), and Arianna Huffington (author & columnist).
Pilot Plot:
Episode #1: "Pilot" (Airs September 27, 2009)
After Peter (Peter Griffin, from Family Guy) destroys his house one too many times, Cleveland has had enough and decides to move to California with his son Cleveland Jr. Along the way, Cleveland decides to stop in his old hometown of Stoolbend, VA where he meets an old high school love interest and hits it off.
Analysis:
Here's the thing about this: As a self-contained episode, this program was OK. The episode feels something that would be consistent in tone and quality from the early years of Family Guy, before the show got consumed with cutaway gags and time-filling jokes that run on for too long. It really does harken back to a time before Family Guy lost its way.
On paper, I should really like this show. But there's this nagging feeling I keep having when watching. Perhaps it's because they took the 2nd least interesting character from Family Guy (really, is there any character less interesting than Meg?) and gave HIM his own show. This, at least in the first cut of the pilot, is even referenced in a line by Stewie before Cleveland & son drive off into the sunset, with Stewie remarking in shock that it's *Cleveland* getting his own show?
Also, a note: The first quarter of the episode – the expositional cold open - at least in the version I viewed, *is* set-up as seemingly your usual Family Guy adventure. It has the same musical transition, your usual Family Guy characters (Quagmire, Joe, Peter, Stewie, Brian, et al.), and doesn't become The Cleveland Show until the main theme hits a few minutes in. You'll know when the transition occurs as the show suddenly shifts from full-frame to widescreen in a nice effect.
Pilots often aren't the strongest episodes of a series, and do tend to get better. This episode left me neutral, so there IS room to grow from here.
Conclusion:
I was a huge fan of the show that Cleveland Show is replacing. I absolutely adored King of the Hill, and it's the second show cancelled largely due to Fox's own ineptitude (the list would have been three had they not backpedaled on Family Guy itself). When Fox wants a show to die, it schedules it in the 7-8 PM hour on Sunday nights. They did this to Futurama and they did it to King of the Hill. King of the Hill was one of the best animated comedies I've ever seen, and I can say there WILL be a contingent of viewers who, missing King of the Hill and wary of Seth MacFarlane's growing stranglehold of Fox, will be unusually cool to The Cleveland Show due to its origin and timeslot alone.
But, there's a lot of potential here, and it'll be interesting to see in which direction things go. The Cleveland Show is a nice detour from the madness that is your average episode of Family Guy, but I've yet to see evidence of how they're going to sustain this show beyond a few episodes. Yes, there are new characters to play off of. But you can't really get away with simply making the show a clone of Family Guy (nor American Dad!), and I'm not sure if Cleveland is an interesting or dynamic enough character to be the focal point of a weekly television series. Of course, they've turned simple background characters into stars of popular spin-offs before - that's the genesis of half of 1970s television right there! Still, I'm neutral at best about the ability of this show to be interesting, good, or funny long term. Consider me "cautiously optimistic."
ION Television will be adding another hour of Ghost Whisperer starting Monday, Oct. 5. Ghost Whisperer currently airs Mon-Thurs at 8pm and also Wednesdays at 9pm. The series has done so-so in the ratings and is not doing as well as Criminal Minds or NCIS. But still they will add another airing on Mon-Thurs. The new airing will be Mon-Thurs at 7pm, so it will now air back-to-back on Mon-Thurs from 7-9pm, and yes Wednesdays it will be a triple shot from 7-10pm. Ghost Whisperer at 7pm will be replacing Reba, which will move to 4-5pm, as we mentioned. So Reba won't get to air for two hours after all. Anyway, as for Ghost Whisperer, if this doesn't help its ratings, I can see ION removing the 8pm hour and airing something else. View our full ION Television October 2009 schedule.
Brothers - Fridays 8:00PM ET/PT on Fox Premieres Friday, September 25, 2009 at 8:00-9:00PM ET/PT
BROTHERS is a comedy about a former NFL hot shot who learns that even though you can always go home again, doing so might be more difficult than you think.
MIKE TRAINOR (Michael Strahan) seemingly has it all - he's a good-looking, wealthy and recently retired NFL player living the high life in New York City, but he's about to get sidelined. When Mike gets a phone call from his mom, ADELE (CCH Pounder), who orders him home to Houston, he quickly realizes that the more his life has changed, the more his family has stayed the same.
His brother CHILL (Daryl Chill Mitchell), whose life changed drastically after a car accident left him in a wheelchair, is struggling to keep Trainor's, his sports-themed restaurant, afloat. Even though the publicity from his famous brother might help business, Chill doesn't want help from Mike. The rivalry between the brothers is exactly the same as they were when they were kids. If they can stop their bickering, put aside their differences and learn to be teammates, Mike and Chill might just turn out to be each other's biggest asset.
Wedged between Mike and Chill are their parents. Their father, whom everyone refers to as COACH (Carl Weathers), is the local high school football coach and the conservative, opinionated alpha male of his clan. Coach thinks he runs the show, but it's actually Adele who calls the shots. Saucy, stern and a schemer, she is the mastermind behind this family.
And when she learns that Mike's business manager took off with all his money, she orchestrates a plan to keep Mike in Houston, save Chill's restaurant and bring the family back together under one roof again.
Adele's plan helps Mike realize that his family -- however dysfunctional they may be -- is the only one he's got. And although he may not have a penny to his name, as long as he's surrounded by people who love him, he'll always be a rich man.
BROTHERS is created by Don Reo and produced by Tantamount Studios and Impact Zone Productions, Inc. in association with Sony Pictures Television. Eric Tannenbaum, Kim Tannenbaum, Mitch Hurwitz and Don Reo serve as executive producers. Ted Wass directed the pilot written by Don Reo.
Michael Strahan (Mike Trainor) - Super Bowl Champion and Fox NFL Sunday co-host Michael Strahan retired from football in 2007 after completing 15 seasons with the New York Giants and leading the team to their dramatic Super Bowl victory over the previously unbeaten New England Patriots. Strahan had an outstanding final season and lead one of the top defenses in the league. In 2005, he was among the league's leaders in total sacks, and earned his seventh trip to the Pro Bowl. In 2001, Strahan completed what is widely considered to be one of the greatest seasons ever for a defensive player. As the charismatic leader of the New York Giants, Strahan was named the 2001 NFL Player of the Year by Sports Illustrated and the Defensive Player of the Year by the Associated Press. He was also one of only four players to lead the NFL in sacks for two seasons.
Strahan's additional television credits include Pros vs. Joes, which pits amateur contestants against professional athletes in a series of athletic challenges; the family-oriented cable series "Backyard Stadiums," where he and his co-host visited various neighborhoods to build batting cages, putting greens and outdoor recreational centers. He also hosted "Sack and Renovate," giving viewers an inside look at the renovation of his 100-year-old home and revealing his own passion for antiques.
Daryl Chill Mitchell (Chill Trainor) was born in Bronx, NY, and grew up on Long Island with his five brothers and three sisters. Mitchell first garnered public attention as a member of the rap group Groove B Chill. The Hudlin Brothers, who directed one of Groove B Chill's videos, cast the group in the 1990 feature film House Party, where Mitchell had the opportunity to work alongside Martin Lawrence and Tisha Campbell. He enjoyed the experience so much that he decided to turn his focus from music to acting.
Mitchell followed House Party with appearances in the feature films Boomerang, House Party 2, Sgt. Bilko and Home Fries. His more recent films include The Outside Man opposite Denzel Washington, 10 Things I Hate About You, Galaxy Quest, Lucky Numbers, Black Knight and The Country Bears. His television credits include The John Larroquette Show, Veronica's Closet, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Law & Order, The Cosby Show, Here and Now, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and I'm With Stupid. In November 2001, Mitchell was temporarily sidelined by a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. However, it never halted his momentum, and once he was in control of his wheelchair, Mitchell went back to work as a series regular on the series Ed. Mitchell's character, Eli, was known for using the phrase "Roll...or fold," and Mitchell adopted that saying to express his take on life.
CCH Pounder (Adele Trainer) - Award-winning actress CCH Pounder has earned a long list of credits and accolades throughout a career that spans nearly three decades. Most recently, Pounder appeared in the feature film Orphan and the sci-fi television series Warehouse 13. Other recent credits include the cable series The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and the independent feature Rain, which garnered praise at the Los Angeles Pan-African Film Festival.
For seven years, Pounder portrayed "Det. Claudette Wyms" on the critically acclaimed series The Shield, a role that earned her an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, 10 NAACP Image Award nominations for Best Actress in a Drama Series, the Minorities in Business Prism Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Drama, two Golden Satellite Awards for Best Performance by an Actress in a Drama Series, the Genii Excellence in TV Award from the Southern California Chapter of American Women in Radio and Television and the LOOP Award from Lupus LA. Pounder's other honors include Emmy nominations for Best Supporting Actress for her role as "Dr. Angela Hicks" on ER and for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her work on The X-Files. In addition, Pounder earned a Grammy nomination for Best Spoken Word Album for Grow Old Along With Me: The Best Is Yet to Come, and she won an AUDI, the Audio Publishers Association's top honor, for the album Women in the Material World.
Carl Weathers ('Coach' Trainor) was born in New Orleans and attended San Diego State University, where he established himself as a football star. After graduating in 1970, Weathers played professional football as a free agent for the Oakland Raiders, as well as the Canadian Football League's B.C. Lions. He retired from the sport in 1974 in order to turn his attention to acting.
Weathers' big break came when he was cast to play the iconic role of "Apollo Creed" in the film Rocky and reprised the role in Rocky II, Rocky III and Rocky IV. His additional film credits include Predator opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, Happy Gilmore opposite Adam Sandler, Action Jackson, The Comebacks, Force 10 from Navarone, Death Hunt and The Sasquatch Gang. Weathers' television film appearances include The Defiant Ones (which he also co-produced), Shadow Warriors, OP Center and The Hostage Heart. His TV series credits include Arrested Development, The Shield, In the Heat of the Night, Street Justice, Fortune Dane (which he also executive-produced), McCloud, Starsky and Hutch, S.W.A.T., Tour of Duty, Good Times, Barnaby Jones, Kung Fu, The Six Million Dollar Man and The Streets of San Francisco.
Pilot Plot:
I received the first two episodes for review.
#1 Pilot (Airs September 25) Mike Trainor seemingly has it all he's a good-looking, wealthy and recently retired NFL player living the high life in New York City. With one phone call from his mom, Adele, Mike's life changes in an instant. He comes home to Houston to find that his brother Chill, whose life changed drastically after a car accident left him in a wheelchair, is struggling to keep his restaurant afloat and that his father's memory is not as sharp as it used to be. When Adele reveals everyone's secrets, the family decides it's time for a fresh start. Directed by Ted Wass Written by Don Reo
#2 House Rules/Anniversary (Airs September 25) Mike's date spends the night at his parents' place propelling his mom, Adele, to set specific house rules for her very grown sons. As all the family members try to find their way living together again as adults, Mike and Chill are taken aback at their new assigned daily chores and strict limitations on overnight guests. Meanwhile, Coach forgets his and Adele's anniversary and lands in the doghouse, forcing him to come up with a creative way to make it up to her. Guest Cast: Jazsmin Lewis as Monica; Shvona Lavette as Janine
Analysis:
This is Fox's only new live-action comedy and the only African-American sitcom currently on broadcast tv. It's a multi-camera comedy that is filmed in front of a studio audience. It will air on Friday nights at 8:00pm ET/PT.
In the "Pilot" episode, we are introudced to the Trainor family. Chill goes to pick up his brother at the airport. Mike talks to 'Coach' in the basement. Mike and Chill play some basketball in wheelchairs. Adele asks Mike to make a special appearance at Chill's restaurant. There are some serious talks between various family members. There's a nice mix of humor and heartwarming moments in the pilot.
The second episode, "House Rules/Anniversary," isn't quite as funny as the pilot. It opens with a scene at The Gutter bowling alley. Mike meets Monica who gives him some bowling shoes. Adele and Chill are shocked when they see Monica at the fridge dressed only in a football jersey. This casues Adele to set some house rules. Mike is embarrassed to tell Janice that he is living with his mama. Carl plays some foosball with Carl and Mike in the game room. Coach forgets that it's his wedding anniversary and Adele is not very happy about it. He creatively makes it up to her.
Houston is the location of the show, although you really wouldn't know it by watching the first couple of episodes. They probably could use some more exterior shots or references to the city. The house looks quite nice and the sets are spacious. It just seemed unusual that they have such a small kitchen table in an otherwise large kitchen. Carl has a nice game roon with green carpeting that has yard markers like a football field. The Trainor's set looks your typical bar/resturant with a large photo of Strahan in his football uniform.
Conclusion:
This show looks pretty funny from the first couple of episodes, especially the pilot. Michael Strahan has some natural instincts and on-screen charisma. He is basically playing himself on the series. Comedic timing isn't always easy, but he appears to have it down already. Daryl Chill Mitchell brings over 20 years of comedy experience and has some funny scenes. CCH Pounder is not known for comedy, but she really steals the show with some hilarious lines. She reminds me a bit of Jo Marie Payton from Family Matters. Her character is very strong and brings an authoritative presence to the show. Carl Weathers is known for more serious and action-oriented roles, but he has shown he can do comedy from his appearances on Arrested Development. The cast certainly seems like they have some good chemistry and act like they are a real family.
The show is airing on Friday nights at 8pm ET/PT. I don't think there will be as much pressure on it airing on that night in that time slot. Fox NFL Sunday has given this show a lot of promotion. I'm sure we will be seeing the gang from that show making guest appearances at some point in the season. Kim Kardashian and Mike Tyson will also be guest starring. There are quite a few jokes about Michael Strahan's teeth, Chill's wheelchair and handicap, white people, Coach's memory problems and references to the Rocky franchise in the first few episodes. They are funny in these episodes, but will they get old in later episodes? I guess they won't soon run out of material and can get creative to work these types of jokes in each episode. I think they will need to develop some better storylines in future episodes instead of just randomly tossing in the jokes. If you need some good laughs and occasional warmth, the show is definitely worth checking out on Friday nights.
Now back to some news! Last month we gave you WGN America's fall schedule, they made a minor change to this. Punk'd was set to launch this week at 5am, but was replaced by Funniest Pets & People...but that delay was only supposed to be a week for Punk'd. Now WGN America has "punk'd" America (ha!) by not going to air it at all! Effective Monday, Sept. 28 America's Funniest Home Videos will air in the 4am ET hour (Mon-Wed) and Reno 911 will air Tues-Fri (and Sundays as planned) at 5am. Toni On! New York will air at 5am on Mondays. Punk'd was also scheduled to air Thursdays at 9pm ET following WWE Superstars, but now we get America's Funniest Home Videos instead. The same goes true for Sundays at 11am ET, with AFV instead of Punk'd. We are not sure what happened with Punk'd, maybe Ashton planned this? View the full WGN America Fall 2009 schedule by Sept. 28. And stay tuned in the coming weeks for more WGN America news, including classic TV marathons for the major holidays this holiday season starting with Halloween!
Cougar Town - Wednesdays 9:30PM ET/PT on ABC Premieres Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 9:30PM ET/PT
Courteney Cox stars as Jules, a recently divorced single mother exploring the honest truths about dating and aging in our beauty and youth obsessed culture. While most women in their twenties go through life experiencing the challenges and often humorous pitfalls of meeting men, Jules took on the responsibilities of marriage and raising a son. Now in her forties, she embarks on a journey to self-discovery whilst surrounded by fellow divorcees and singletons eager to live or re-live a time gone by.
Along for the journey are her friends and family: Laurie (Busy Philipps), the younger, feisty co-worker who encourages her to get out there and have some fun; Ellie (Christa Miller), the sarcastic, unapologetic confidante content with her life and marriage to her average, but loveable husband, Andy (Ian Gomez); ex-husband Bobby (Brian Van Holt), a classic under-achiever who'll test her patience as they attempt to raise their teenage son, Travis (Dan Byrd); and newly divorced neighbor Grayson (Josh Hopkins), who proves to be a catalyst of sorts for Jules.
Courteney Cox (Jules) gained overnight fame as neurotic yet loveable Monica Gellar on the Emmy Award-winning comedy Friends. She teams this season with Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence on the new ABC comedy Cougar Town. They will serve as executive producers through their companies, Coquette and Doozer, respectively. She most recently created, starred, and produced in FX's comedy Dirt. Cox made her acting debut in 1984 on the daytime soap As the World Turns, and later that year was cast by Brian de Palma for Bruce Springsteen's video, Dancing in the Dark. She landed her first well known work as an actress in 1987 when she was cast as the bright, perky girlfriend of Michael J. Fox on Family Ties. Following the series, she appeared in several feature films, including the box-office success Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, opposite Jim Carrey. In 1996 Cox starred in Wes Craven's horror/comedy Scream, which grossed over $100 million at the box office. She went on to reprise her role two additional times for the Scream trilogy. Additional film credits include 3000 Miles to Graceland, Mr. Destiny, Cocoon: The Return, Zoom, November, The Longest Yard and Barnyard. Cox was most recently seen in Disney's family comedy Bedtime Stories, opposite Adam Sandler.
Busy Philipps (Laurie) had a memorable performance as tough but sympathetic rebel teen Kim Kelly in the critically praised series Freaks and Geeks, from Judd Apatow and Paul Feig, Philipps crafted one of the most compelling young characters in contemporary television. After roles on Dawson's Creek and Undeclared, in 2004 she took a lead in the Shawn and Marlon Wayans comedy, White Chicks. In 2006 she starred in the UPN sitcom Love, Inc., from Friends showrunner Adam Chase. Next, she joined the cast of ER for one season as the devout Christian med-student, Hope Bobeck. Most recently, Philipps has been seen in standout roles in the films Made of Honor and He's Just Not That Into You. While eight months pregnant with her first child in summer of 2008, she filmed a five episode arc on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Dan Byrd (Travis) had a memorable arc as Sylar's protégé apprentice, Luke, on NBC's drama Heroes. Last year he starred on the short lived but critically acclaimed CW series Aliens in America. Other television credits include the CBS drama Clubhouse, the lead role in the TNT miniseries Salem's Lot, with Rob Lowe, Sci-Fi Channel's miniseries Firestarter 2: Rekindled, with Dennis Hopper, and the Lifetime Original Movie Just Ask My Children, starring Virginia Madsen. He also made guest appearances on Joan of Arcadia, The Guardian, Boomtown, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Judging Amy and State of Grace. On the film side, he recently began production on Screen Gems' comedic retelling of The Scarlett Letter, Easy A, opposite Emma Stone and Amanda Bynes. Byrd has wrapped production on the independent coming-of-age drama Norman, opposite Emily VanCamp and Adam Goldberg, in the title role. He got his big break starring alongside Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray in the Warner Bros. teen romantic comedy, A Cinderella Story. Additional feature film credits include Universal Pictures' Lonely Hearts, opposite John Travolta, FOX Searchlight's The Hills Have Eyes and 28 Days, opposite Sandra Bullock.
Christa Miller (Ellie) has her first role on television in Kate & Allie, which starred her real-life aunt, Susan Saint James. n 2001 Miller's husband, writer-producer Bill Lawrence, conceived the comedy-drama Scrubs. Miller was given a guest role as Jordan Sullivan, the bitter ex-wife to Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley). Originally the character was intended to appear in only one episode, but in Season Two the role became recurring and she has appeared every year since. Miller also had a leading role in the 2008 TV miniseries The Andromeda Strain. She appeared in episodes of Northern Exposure, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Party of Five and Seinfeld. She had a major role on The Drew Carey Show from 1995-2002 as Kate O'Brien, and was the voice of Cleopatra in the short-lived animated show Clone High. Her film credits include Deceived and Love and Happiness. She also starred with Kellie Martin in the acclaimed made-for-television movie, A Friend to Die For.
Josh Hopkins (Grayson) was most recently seen as Dr. Noah Barnes on the ABC drama Private Practice. He also recently appeared on CSI: Miami and in the film Pretty Ugly People. Prior to that, he appeared in the CBS drama Swingtown. Hopkins made his debut as a season regular on Fox's critically acclaimed series Ally McBeal, portraying Raymond Milberry, a rival lawyer and potential love interest to Calista Flockhart. Additional television credits include Ghost Whisperer, ABC's Brothers & Sisters, with Calista Flockhart once again, the CBS drama Surrender, Dorothy, with Diane Keaton, the CBS mini-series Robert Ludlum's Covert One: The Hades Factor, the TNT original movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, opposite Noah Wyle and Anthony Michael Hall, Fox's New York Undercover, The WB's Jack & Jill and Kate Brasher. In addition Hopkins starred opposite Rebecca Romijn in The WB romantic comedy, Pepper Dennis.
Ian Gomez (Andy) is a familiar face to film and television audiences. He was most recently seen in the multi-camera Lifetime comedy, Rita Rocks, and in the ABC single-camera sitcom Jake in Progress. He starred as the popular character Javier on the series Felicity, as the shameless self-promoter Larry Almada on The Drew Carey Show, and as Danny Sanchez on The Norm Show. Gomez has also starred in such feature films as My Life in Ruins, I Hate Valentine's Day, Connie and Carla, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, Chasing Papi and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. He developed his improvisational skills which he showcased when he guest starred on the hit improv series, Whose Line Is It Anyway? Other television credits include guest starring roles on George Lopez, Curb Your Enthusiasm, NYPD Blue, Murphy Brown and the television movie Get a Clue.
Brian Van Holt (Bobby) starred in the critically-acclaimed HBO series John from Cincinnati, created by David Milch, portraying the lead role of Butchie. Van Holt's many feature film credits include Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down, as Task Force Ranger Jeff Struecker, who led the convoy to a fallen soldier in Mogadishu, Somalia; he starred with Nicholas Cage in Windtalkers as a U.S. Marine officer assigned to protect a Navajo code-talker in World War II; he was the enigmatic soldier Dunbar, opposite John Travolta and Sam Jackson, in Basic, directed by John McTiernan; he then segued to Swat, with Colin Farrell and Sam Jackson and many more.
Pilot Plot:
#1 "It Takes a Village Idiot" (Airs September 23) A recently divorced single mother in her 40s explores the honest truths about dating and aging in a society dominated by youth and beauty, along with her friends, her ex-husband and the cantankerous divorced man living next door. Recurring is Carolyn Hennesy as Barbara Coman. "Pilot" was directed and written by Bill Lawrence.
Analysis:
The hilarious mind of Bill Lawrence (Scrubs) is bringing you this show, so of course there will be laughs. Courtney Cox returns to broadcast television in a very funny and sexy comedy vehicle. I never liked Friends and thought it was vastly overrated. But I'm sure many Friends fans will want to watch Cox return. Who knows there could be some Friends stars popping-up for guest appearances. Anyway, as for the show itself...it is funny, quirky, sexy, and maybe even risque. I first saw the pilot this summer and there were rumors it was very risque. Other than maybe a scene or two, it seemed tame compared to some other shows, particularly on premium cable. If you watched the 2007 movie Cougar Club, then this show is nothing in terms of risque. That was a very wild movie! Cox plays Jules, a divorced mother of a teenage boy (Dan Byrd). She works as a real estate agent with Laurie (Busy Phillips). Laurie is a bit younger than Jules, so Jules I think tries to keep up with her and be "hip." Jules does have a best friend her own age in Ellie (Christa Miller), but with Laurie in the picture...Jules is showing off her bad side by hitting on younger men. Ellie is married to Andy (Ian Gomez). One of Jules' neighbors is the new bachelor Grayson (Josh Hopkins) who just got divorced and now has a different women each night...and they are all young, much to to the dismay of Jules. Jules' ex-husband Bobby (Brian Van Holt) stops in from time to time to take his son.
The pilot centers around Jules being lonely. She seems attracted to Grayson, but she just doesn't like him with these younger women. Jules and Laurie go to a night club where Jules meets a much younger man...and the funny stuff happens. With her son Travis hanging out with his father, Jules has the house to herself. One of the risque scenes I was talking about earlier happens by the pool...but it doesn't go too far because back comes her son and ex-husband! After that, Travis is just embarrassed and gets even more embarrassed when some kid is stealing real estate signs with a sexy picture of her mother...to well pleasure themselves. Wild stuff...but funny!
Ellie and Andy don't have much to do in the pilot, but I think their characters will be important to Jules, as she needs someone her own age. The recurring character of Barbara (Carolyn Hennesy) is hilarious! She plays one Jules' co-workers and she seems like a cougar herself, as she was also at the nightclub where Jules and Laurie went to. This show is much more than Jules sleeping around with younger guys, it has substance and it could be a sense of reality with women in their 40s who are divorced. Even if you're not a women in your 40s, you'll like this show!
Conclusion:
What a fun show! This has to air at 9:30pm, since it is a bit risque for network TV. That isn't to say it is vulgar or anything, but a few scenes in the pilot might be a bit weird to have in an earlier timeslot. It is going to follow a family comedy in Modern Family, but that show will have more adult viewers than kids, so I think this show was placed correctly. I haven't seen any subsequent episodes yet, so I am not sure if there will be any more risque scenes like that...but from the plotlines, we are still in for some good fun and laughs! If you like Scrubs, then you'll want to watch this since Bill Lawrence created this. And if you're a fan of Friends and Courtney Cox, then for sure you'll want to watch! I have always liked Cox. She was great on Scrubs last season and in many other roles like one of her earlier roles in Family Ties.
There isn't much more to say, but you need to watch the show. We need sitcoms to make a big comeback and ABC so far is 2 for 2 in the reviews (Hank and The Middle reviews to come next week). If you missed our Modern Family review yesterday, please read it! Tune in to ABC Comedy Wednesday starting tonight! You're going to be in for a fun, sexy, and of course funny ride in Cougar Town, Florida! Meowwwww!!!
Fox has ordered a full season of the critically acclaimed one-hour comedy Glee after just two episodes this fall. The show hasn't even aired during the actual season yet and Fox has picked-up a full season. Glee, the genre-defying new musical comedy series, follows an optimistic teacher who against all odds and a malicious cheerleading coach attempts to save McKinley High's Glee Club from obscurity while helping a group of aspiring underdogs realize their true star potential. The critically acclaimed series stars Dianna Agron, Chris Colfer, Jessalyn Gilsig, Jane Lynch, Jayma Mays, Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Matthew Morrison, Amber Riley and Mark Salling. Guest stars this season include Victor Garber, Josh Groban, Kristin Chenoweth and Eve.
Pretty soon it will be that time of year again...the start of the new TV season. So let's get ready for that with annual network preview specials to inform us on what is new and returning! See our Fall 2008 preview from last year.
First up we will look at ABC. ABC's Fall 2009 preview special has been titled ABC Fall Preview Open House. It will premiere this weekend on local ABC affiliates (NY: WABC Sun Sept. 6 at 2:30pm). It can be aired between September 5-20, 2009 (affiliate exclusive clearance window is September 5-6, then it will air on ABC cable networks after Sept. 6). The fall preview special is about ABC's new Wednesday night comedies and the most talked about new drama this season, Flash Forward. The special will also include material about the two new 10pm dramas: Eastwick and The Forgotten as well as the returning hit drama, Castle. This fall preview special will introduce viewers to character descriptions, storylines and recaps of last season and provide a sneak peek at the new season ahead! ABC: Start here! The special will be available on abc.com soon as well, if you miss it on your local ABC station or an ABC-owned cable network. The CBS Fall 2009 preview special, simply titled CBS Fall Preview will be a primetime special previewing CBS's new fall lineup, to be hosted by the stars of the hit comedy series How I Met Your Mother, will be broadcast tomorrow (Wednesday, Sept. 2 from 8:30-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. The special will feature sneak peeks of the five new additions to CBS's primetime schedule this fall: the drama series NCIS: Los Angeles, The Good Wife, Three Rivers, and Medium and the comedy series Accidentally on Purpose. Hosts Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan and Cobie Smulders exchange humorous banter throughout the special, which was taped on their series' sets, in the midst of introducing various video previews. They also utilize comical means to drive home the point that How I Met Your Mother is moving to 8:00 PM on Mondays. The NBC Fall 2009 preview special (titled The NBC Primetime Preview) has aired on their cable owned networks & local NBC affiliates (in NY on WNBC Sun Sept. 6 at 12:30pm) and is also available online on nbc.com, but as of now it will air on NBC itself. Joel McHale, star of the all-new NBC Thursday comedy Community, hosts a special preview of NBC's new upcoming season. The lively 30-minute cavalcade will feature exclusive, behind-the-scenes views to be delivered across a wide gamut of NBC Universal media platforms beginning August 8 through September 27. The program will run an estimated 306 times over broadcast and cable platforms. The annual Fall program will be offered to NBC's 232 television stations (check local listings) as well as other channel entities such as USA, Syfy, Bravo, UniHD, Chiller, mun2, MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen, Sleuth, NBC2Go, on-demand and broadband (search "NBC Fall Preview" on TVGuide.com). NBC stations can also run it on their websites while NBC.com is also running it as well. In addition, the program will be screened on selected American Airlines flights (estimated to be shown on approximately 11,000 flights). Watch now online. The Fox Fall 2009 preview special has already started airing on local Fox affiliates (in NY WNYW Sat Sept. 5 at 3pm). It will only run on local Fox affiliates this year and not on Fox in primetime. Actress Jane Lynch hosts a comprehensive look at the upcoming shows on Fox's fall schedule, including returning favorites like House and American Idol, new shows like Brothers, and the highly acclaimed comedy series Glee. The CW aired its Fall 2009 TV preview special called The CW Fall 2009 Preview Special this past Sunday (Aug. 30) at 6:30pm, but your local CW affiliates (in NY WPIX Sun Sept. 6 at 1pm) are still airing encores this week...so be on the look out (search "CW Fall Preview" on TVGuide.com)! From the set of The CW's new drama, Melrose Place, returning stars Laura Leighton and Thomas Calabro gives viewers a sneak peek into the world of vixens, vampires, models and more. New series featured include Melrose Place, The Vampire Diaries, The Beautiful Life and the midseason drama, Life UneXpected. In addition, The TV Guide Network will run the Fox and CW primetime fall preview specials starting Sept. 14 at 7:30pm with Fox on Monday and The CW on Tuesday.
Looking quite remarkable for his age in dog-years (approx. 280!), Scooby-Doo will celebrate his 40th Birthday with a two-day Labor Day Weekend marathon on Boomerang. Saturday and Sunday will each feature seven hours of classic Scooby-Doo episodes from two of the earliest animated series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (1969) and The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972). When Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? premiered on broadcast television (CBS) Saturday morning, Sept. 13, 1969, television audiences took their first journey on what would become literally hundreds of mystery-solving comedy capers featuring a teenage gang of amateur detectives and their cowardly, yet beloved great Dane. Today, having recruited generations of fans young and old across the globe, Scooby-Doo will celebrate his milestone 40th birthday over Labor Day Weekend on the commercial-free Boomerang network with two seven-hour marathons, 2-9 p.m. (ET), Saturday, Sept. 5 and Sunday, Sept. 6, as we mentioned on the Boomerang Fall 2009 schedule. To commemorate the special event, Scooby and the gang--Freddy, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy--on Saturday will solve 17 classic supernatural mysteries, including their very first from the original premiere episode, "What a Night for a Knight." Then on Sunday, Boomerang will devote another seven-hour marathon, 2-9 p.m., to showcase The New Scooby-Doo Movies, the second series in the Scooby-Doo canon and the only series to feature hour-long episodes. The hallmark of this series is its animated celebrity guests, and during the special presentation, Scooby and the gang meet the casts of other great Hanna-Barbera cartoons such as Josie and the Pussycats and the Harlem Globetrotters.
Today on the fall schedules barrage on the blog we will dish out cool marathons on WGN America! Their full fall schedule will come at a later date, but we just couldn't wait to give you details on their fall marathons! First up on Sunday, Aug. 30 we have a marathon of The Honeymooners! Following baseball, the classic sitcom will air from 5:30pm-10pm ET (2:30pm-7pm PT) and continue after the news from 11pm-2am ET (8pm-11pm PT)! The marathon will preempt the regularly scheduled Outta Sight Retro Night programming. Marathon episodes for The Honeymooners are a mix of lost and classic 39 episodes: "Game Called on Account...," "Ralph's Sweet Tooth," "Principle of the Thing," "A Dog's Life," "Here Comes the Bride," "Loudspeaker," "On Stage," "Bensonhurst Bomber," "The Safety Award," "Mind Your Own Business," "Alice and the Blonde," "Love Letter," "The Adoption," "Norton Moves In/Dinner Guest," and "Catch a Star." No word yet if The Honeymooners will return to the regular WGN America line-up. Next up on Sunday, Sept. 6 from 4-10pm ET (1pm-7pm PT), are you ready for some football? Celebrate the return of football with a marathon of the sitcom Coach! What better way to celebrate than to air Coach? The Jerry Lewis MDA telethon will air after the news starting at 11pm ET (8pm PT). We don't have episode info yet for Coach's marathon. Then remember the series I kept saying that will be celebrating an anniversary this fall on WGN America? Well that series is The Cosby Show! WGN America will go all out for The Cosby Show's 25th anniversary with a marathon and more! First up on Wednesday, Sept. 16 from 8-10pm ET (5-7pm PT) catch the 2002 reunion special The Cosby Show: A Look Back for the first time on WGN America. Then on Sunday, Sept. 20 we get a marathon and yet more! From 5:30pm-8pm ET (2:30pm-5pm PT) catch classic Cosby Show episodes with an all-new half-hour special at 7pm ET (4pm PT) titled The Cosby Show: 25th Anniversary Special. Thursday, Sept. 20, 1984 was the EXACT day The Cosby Show premiered on NBC, so WGN America will also air three other series that aired on NBC that night! From 8-10pm ET (5-7pm PT) catch an episode each of Family Ties, Cheers, and Hill Street Blues! What a nice and creative idea to celebrate this anniversary! We don't have episode info for this day yet, but wouldn't it be cool if the exact same episodes from that night aired? Now Cheers already airs regularly on Sunday nights, but will Family Ties and Hill Street Blues also join? You'll have to stay tuned! But wait, we're still not done with The Cosby Show! More classic episodes will air after the news from 11pm-2am ET (8pm-11pm PT). What a night! We will certainly have the WGN America Fall 2009 schedule very soon, so stay with us! One hint: Wednesday nights in primetime will be '80s night with some nights having movies and some nights having TV series. Movies include Police Academy, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Octopussy!
After 13 seasons of beer, barbecue, bickering and bonding, the Hill family delivers a Southern-style send-off in a one-hour series finale episode of King of the Hill airing Sunday, Sept. 13 from 8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT on Fox. The King of the Hill finale will air after Fox NFL Sunday, so the lead-in will be big. On the back-to-back series finale episodes, "The Boy Can't Help It"/"The Honeymooners," Bobby becomes quite the ladies' man when several girls in his class consider him a potential date for the Homecoming dance. When he realizes the girls are just playing with his emotions and are not really that interested, he asks his pal Connie to the dance. Also in the episode, Hank is shocked when his mother announces she is marrying a man she has only known for a few weeks. Soon after, the newlyweds celebrate by purchasing an RV and heading to Hank's. When Hank's mom and new stepfather have a heated argument, she takes off with the RV and Hank is left to rescue his mother once again.
Just a reminder tonight Bio TV premieres Biography: Three's Company tonight at 10pm ET with an encore at 2am ET. I just got an advanced copy and watched it. It is about the behind the scenes of the show--the sex, how it was developed, casting, history, and the cast after the show. I liked how they used clips of the unaired pilots, but that isn't anything new anymore. Interviewed were Matt Rousch (TV Guide), Robert Thompson (Professor, Syracuse University), Charlton McLivain (Professor, NYU), Fred Silverman, Larry Gelbart (Pilot #1 writer), Dom Taffner, Nancy Ritter, Richard Kline, George Burditt (producer), David Graham (casting director), George Sunga (producer), Carol Summers (script supervisor), and Priscilla Barnes. It was nice to hear Larry Gelbart talk in detail on camera about this. I don't think he has done any of the other specials on the show. David Graham was also new to these specials and it was interesting on his casting take. This special said John Ritter wanted to stop the show after eight seasons. Everything else was pretty much the same from what we have known. Still worth watching and recording!
We continue our look at Fall 2009 schedules and today it is Spike TV's turn. Spike TV will continue to air nothing but CSI and CSI NY on the regular schedule until Sept. 28. Starting Sept. 28, as of now, Married...with Children will return to the schedule airing weekdays 9-11am. Currently it was only airing Sunday mornings because of the CSI daily marathons. A double shot of Spike's Most Amazing Videos will air at 11am and 12pm. CSI NY follows at 1pm and 2pm, with CSI at 3pm and 4pm. We get yet more CSI NY at 5pm and 6pm and yet more CSI at 7pm and 8pm. From 9pm-1am we get originals, movies and other various programming. Late nights will have the returns of Star Trek: Voyager and Unsolved Mysteries airing at 1am and 2am respectively. However, these will be only Mon-Wed nights as movies and originals air Thursday and Friday nights. Also airing Mon-Wed nights is Spike's Most Amazing Videos at 3am. View the full Spike TV Fall 2009 schedule. As always with schedules, especially from Viacom, it could change...so stay with us.
Fox is up today at the summer 2009 TCA press tour. Among the key announcements so far are: Superstar chef Gordon Ramsay is bringing his culinary expertise to homes across the U.S. as he invites viewers to cookalong with him from the comfort of their own kitchens during Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live. Based on the U.K. smash hit, Ramsay will star in a live one-hour special airing Tuesday, Dec. 15 at 9:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed where he'll be giving America a one-on-one cooking lesson, providing viewers with a real-time demonstration and step-by-step instructions on how to cook a delicious three-course meal in just 60 minutes and he's going to do it all LIVE. In addition to the previously announced seventh season order, Fox has picked up an eighth installment of Hell's Kitchen, the sizzling series that puts aspiring chefs through a rigorous culinary boot camp as Ramsay searches for the one worthy of a life-changing grand prize. Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Anne Hathaway, Jackie Mason, Neve Campbell, Chris Martin, Sarah Silverman, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, Bob Costas, Chuck Liddell, Angela Bassett and the late Eartha Kitt are among the guest voices on the upcoming 21st season of The Simpsons. Also, beginning Monday, Nov. 9 and continuing through Sunday, Nov. 15, fans can watch Fox shows to find Simpsons 20-year tributes and clues featured in primetime programming and in on-air promos. Viewers who spot the clues can log on to fox.com for an opportunity to win daily prizes and to enter to win an ultimate grand prize. Additional details to be announced.
TV Land has announced its September 2009 line-up. Is it their fall line-up though? We're not sure yet. Because this only covers Aug. 31-Sept.27. So TV Land could have something in store starting Sept. 28. There aren't much changes to the schedule. But before we get to that, we have to tell you The Andy Griffith Show will air Mondays 6-10pm and Sunday nights 4-6am now for all of August and a few times on Tuesdays (Aug. 4 and 25) from 6pm-7:30pm. Now that that is out of the way, we can tell you about September. There are only a few changes, mainly in primetime. Weekdays from 7-9pm will now be The Andy Griffith Show starting Monday, Sept. 14. It will lead into marathons on Mon-Thurs from 9pm-12am with more Andy on Mondays, Roseanne on Tuesdays, M*A*S*H on Wednesdays, and The Cosby Show on Thursdays. M*A*S*H's regular 5-6am Wednesday airings will be preempted for more Three's Company as a result of this change. Everything else is the same as August, except Little House is back Sundays 4-6am instead of Andy...for now. I say for now because the August Andy Griffith changes happened after the September schedule was released. TV Land PRIME original series How'd You Get So Rich and Make My Day will have their season finales on Wednesday, Sept. 9. Weekends will still have classic marathons that have a classic show and Andy Griffith paired up. Those shows include Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza, and Brady Bunch. Speaking of Brady Bunch, that is their 40th anniversary marathon. It's unbelievable that it has been 40 years since that "one day when that lady met that fellow" but it's true and TV Land is celebrating in grand style for one whole week. Beginning Monday, September 21 to Friday, September 25 catch episodes from 7pm-9pm and then if that isn't enough of this bunch, catch even more episodes on Saturday, September 26 and Sunday, September 27 from 10am-6pm to round out the celebration. It's the best of the Bradys all week long and it will be positively groovy!! That's not all for anniversaries! The Cosby Show is turning 25! Join TV Land PRIME Thursday, September 24 from 9pm-12am and say Happy 25th Birthday to The Huxtables as PRIME celebrate the years of laughter The Cosby Show brought to our TV screens. This quarter-century milestone marathon features extra-special episodes that highlight memorable moments from the series and pays special tribute to America's favorite sitcom family. Finally, catch premieres of this month's movies on Labor Day (Monday, September 7 from 9am-6:30pm) if you can't wait for them every Fridays at 9pm! All-month long the network will air new movies and you can see them on Labor Day first...Private Benjamin, Airplane II, The Bodyguard and Field of Dreams. So is this the fall schedule? Will something new be added on Sept. 28? We're not sure yet. But stay with us! And as usual, this schedule is subject to change, since TV Land always changes something. So again stay with us for that, if it happens. View the full TV Land September 2009 schedule and highlights.
ABC has altered its schedule a bit. Late yesterday just hours before The Bachelorette finale, they decided to air an instant special encore of The Bachelorette finale for Tuesday (July 28) from 8-10pm, preempting the season finale of The Superstars and an all-new episode of comedy Better off Ted. So if you missed the drama of the Bachelorette finale, you can watch it again leading into the special all-new After the Final Rose special. So with The Superstars season finale now on Tuesday, Aug. 4 from 8pm-9:30pm, the Scrubs repeats will no longer air...but it will air at 9:30pm on this date. The final two episodes of the season of Better off Ted were originally supposed to air July 28 and Aug. 4 at 9:30pm, will now air for an hour on Tuesday, Aug. 11 from 9-10pm following Night 3 of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. One other note, ABC will encore the pilot episode of summer hit Dating in the Dark on Monday at 9pm, shifting the all-new episode to 10pm. The show will air new episodes at 10pm starting the following week now. See the announcement we made on this last night in a list form. Also at ABC, we announced on Friday on our message board that Shark Tank is scheduled to air additional airings on Sundays on August 30, September 6 and 13, 2009 at 9:00 PM ET/PT. Shark Tank is also still scheduled to air on Sundays on August 9, 16 and 23, 2009 at 9:00 PM ET/PT after Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, as planned. However, Shark Tank is no longer scheduled to air on Tuesdays, effective August 25, 2009 in the 8:00 PM ET/PT slot. Tuesdays at 8PM starting Aug. 25 is now TBD. Shark Tank will move to Tuesdays at 8PM this fall now, likely Sept. 22 or 29. 13 episodes have been ordered and six will air in the "summer" season.
Fox has made some changes to its fall line-up. They are moving the premieres of So You Think You Can Dance and Glee up a week to Wednesday, Sept. 9, while pushing comedies Brothers and 'Til Death back slightly. Brothers will now premiere with back-to-back episodes in the 8pm hour on Friday, Sept. 25, while 'Til Death will take over the 8:30pm Friday slot the following week on Friday, Oct. 2. Fox will air more Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader episodes Fridays at 8pm now on Sept. 11 and 18. If you missed the special pilot of Glee this past May, Fox will re-air it on Wednesday, Sept. 2 and again on Friday, Sept. 4 at 9pm. Glee will also encore its first two episodes on Friday, Sept. 11 and 18 at 9pm.
Fox has set the fall premiere dates for its new and returning series. The 2009-2010 season will kick off Wednesday, Sept. 16 with the sixth season premiere of So You Think You Can Dance at 8:00PM ET/PT, followed by the series premiere of Glee at 9:00PM ET/PT, the biting new one-hour comedy for the underdog in all of us that features a soundtrack of hit songs from past and present. Then on Thursday, Sept. 17, fan favorite Bones returns at 8:00 PM ET/PT and the second season of Fringe at 9:00PM ET/PT return. Brothers, the new family comedy starring Michael Strahan, premieres Friday, Sept. 18 in the 8:00PM ET/PT half-hour, followed by the return of comedy 'Til Death at 8:30PM ET/PT, and the second season premiere of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse wraps the night off at 9:00PM ET/PT. The actual season begins on Monday, Sept. 21 with House jumpstarting its sixth season with a special two-hour premiere from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT. Tuesdays at 8:00PM ET/PT will continue to be Hell's Kitchen until that wraps up on Oct. 13. Sunday, Sept. 27 marks the return of "Animation Domination" with the amazing 20th season premiere of The Simpsons at 8:00PM ET/PT, the series premiere of The Cleveland Show at 8:30PM ET/PT and the season premieres of Family Guy at 9:00PM ET/PT and American Dad! at 9:30PM ET/PT. The second week of the season will see the second season of hit drama Lie to Me will premiere Monday, Sept. 28 at 9:00PM ET/PT following House. So You Think You Can Dance will air two nights per week when the original dance competition has its time period premiere Tuesday, Sept. 29 at 9:00 PM ET/PT, and later expands to two-hour performance shows beginning Tuesday, Oct. 27 from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT, when Hell's Kitchen wraps. In addition, new Saturday late-night entry The Wanda Sykes Show (working title) debuts Saturday, Nov. 7 at11:00 PM ET/PT. Fox will also have the MLB Playoffs with the ALCS this year and of course the World Series. ALCS is on Friday, Oct. 16; Saturday, Oct. 17; Monday, Oct. 19; Tuesday, Oct. 20; and if necessary on Thursday, Oct. 22; Saturday, Oct. 24; and Sunday, Oct. 25. The World Series airs Wednesday, Oct. 28; Thursday, Oct. 29; Saturday, Oct. 31; Sunday, Nov. 1; and if necessary on Monday, Nov. 2; Wednesday, Nov. 4; and Thursday, Nov. 5. So baseball will be preempting something at least once. View the premiere dates in a list form.
This July on ABC Family will not see any regular schedule changes to the daytime line-up, but we have plenty to talk about. New single-camera comedy 10 Things I Hate About You launches on Tuesday, July 7 in the 8:00PM ET/PT half-hour. It will be followed by an episode of That '70s Show at 8:30PM ET/PT. 10 Things I Hate About You will have a special encore the same night at 9:00PM ET/PT if you missed it an hour earlier. Other regular encores every week are: Wednesdays at 12am, Thursdays at 4:30pm, and Saturdays at 10am. Then on Tuesday, July 21 the multi-camera sitcom Ruby & the Rockits launches! It will air Tuesdays at 8:30PM ET/PT (replacing That '70s Show repeats) following 10 Things I Hate About You. Ruby & the Rockits will have a special encore the same night at 9:00PM ET/PT if you missed it a half-hour earlier...also 10 Things I Hate About You will have an encore at 9:30PM that night. Other regular encores every week for Ruby & the Rockits are: Wednesdays at 12:30am, Fridays at 4:30pm, and Saturdays at 10:30am. View full details on these two original comedies, from our previous story. Can these two comedies do better than Roommates and Sophie? Other original programming is the movie Labor Pains. Lindsay Lohan stars as an assistant at a publishing company who pretends to be pregnant in order to avoid being fired by her boss. It premieres Sunday, July 19 from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT. Along with Lohan, the film includes an all-star cast with Cheryl Hines, Chris Parnell, Luke Kirby, Kevin Covais and Janeane Garofalo.
Today we take a look at the new sitcoms that made the fall schedules. There will be a total of 10 new sitcoms this season, including 1 that will air at midseason and 1 animated comedy. 5 will be single-camera. 4 will be multi-camera. Some familiar faces returning to sitcoms include Kelsey Grammer, Melinda McGraw, Macey Cruthird, Patricia Heaton, Neil Flynn, Ed O'Neill, Sofia Vergara, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Ty Burrell, Julie Bowen, Courteney Cox, Christa Miller, Ian Gomez, Jenna Elfman, Ashley Jensen and Daryl "Chill" Mitchell. Comedy legend Chevy Chase will appear on an American sitcom as a regular for the first time. Former New York Giants great and current FOX NFL Sunday analyst Michael Strahan will appear in a new FOX sitcom.
ABC
Hank - Wednesdays at 8:00PM EST/PST on ABC
Kelsey Grammer stars in this timely comedy as Hank Pryor, a titan of industry who suddenly finds himself out of work, almost out of money and around a wife and kids for whom he's never made much time. Despite his recent setbacks, however, Hank is confident he's on the road back to the top. He knows he is destined to return to greatness. And he is — just not the greatness he imagines.
The series is produced by Bonanza Productions Inc. in association with McMonkey Inc., Grammnet Productions, Werner Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television. It is written by Tucker Cawley. Tom Werner, Tucker Cawley, Kelsey Grammer and Mike Clements serve as executive producers. The pilot was directed by James Burrows.
The Hecks are a middle class family living in the middle of Indiana, just trying to keep their heads above water. Emmy-winner Patricia Heaton stars as a wife and mother of three in a comedy about raising a family and lowering your expectations.
The series is produced by Warner Bros. Television. Eileen Heisler and DeAnn Heline are executive producers/writers and Werner Walian is producer. The pilot was directed by Julie Anne Robinson.
Modern Family - Wednesdays at 9:00PM EST/PST on ABC
Today’s American families come in all shapes and sizes. Shot from the perspective of an unseen documentary filmmaker, this comedy takes a modern look at the complications that come with being a family in 2009.
The series is produced by Twentieth Century Fox Television. Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd are executive producers. The pilot was directed by Jason Winer.
Courteney Cox stars as a recently divorced single mother exploring the honest truths about dating and aging in our beauty and youth obsessed culture.
The series is from ABC Studios. Bill Lawrence is executive producer/writer/director, Kevin Biegel is writer/co-executive producer, and Courteney Cox and David Arquette are executive producers.
Accidentally on Purpose - Mondays at 8:30PM EST/PST on CBS
ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE is a comedy starring Golden Globe Award winner Jenna Elfman as Billie, a single woman who finds herself "accidentally" pregnant after a one-night stand with a much younger guy, and decides to keep the baby... and the guy. A newspaper film critic, Billie is barely surviving a humiliating breakup with her charming boss, James (Grant Show), who's still trying to resume their relationship. Suddenly expecting a child with her "boy toy," Zack (Jon Foster), Billie and Zack make an arrangement: to live together platonically. Billie's party girl best friend Olivia (Ashley Jensen), and Abby (Lennon Parham), her conventional, younger married sister, eagerly look forward to the new addition and offer their own brands of advice and encouragement. But when Zack and his freeloading friends, including Davis (Nicolas Wright), start to turn her place into a frat house, Billie isn't sure if she's living with a boyfriend, a roommate, or if she just has another child to raise. Lloyd Braun, Gail Berman, Gene Stein and Claudia Lonow are the executive producers for CBS Television Studios. Pamela Fryman directed the pilot.
From Emmy Award-winning directors Joe and Anthony Russo ("Arrested Development") comes "Community," a smart comedy series about higher education -- and lower expectations. The student body at Greendale Community College is made up of high-school losers, newly divorced housewives, and old people who want to keep their minds active. Within these not-so-hallowed halls, "Community" focuses on a band of misfits, at the center of which is a fast-talkin' lawyer whose degree has been revoked (Joel McHale, "The Soup"), who form a study group and end up learning a lot more about themselves than they do about their course work. In addition to McHale, the series also stars: Gillian Jacobs ("The Book of Daniel"); Yvette Nicole Brown ("Rules of Engagement"); Danny Pudi ("Greek"); Alison Brie ("Mad Men"); and comedy legend Chevy Chase ("Saturday Night Live"). "Community" is a Krasnoff Foster Entertainment, Harmonious Claptrap and Russo Brothers production in association with Sony Pictures Television and Universal Media Studios. Russ Krasnoff ("The Soloist"), Dan Harmon ("The Sarah Silverman Program"), Joe Russo ("Arrested Development"), Anthony Russo ("Arrested Development") and Gary Foster ("The Soloist") serve as executive producers. Joe and Anthony Russo directed the pilot that was written by Dan Harmon.
Emmy winner James Burrows ("Will & Grace," "Friends") directs "100 Questions," a new comedy series written and executive-produced by Christopher Moynihan ("For Your Consideration") that provides hilarious answers to 100 questions about love. Charlotte Payne (Sophie Winkleman, "Peep Show") is looking for love and has rejected multiple marriage proposals -- but she has yet to meet Mr. Right. When she joins a popular online dating site, she gets a little help from her dating counselor Ravi (Amir Talai, "The Ex List") - who requires her to take a 100-question compatibility test. The questions aren't easy for Charlotte to answer, and each one requires her to recount a poignant and humorous time in her life with friends Leslie (Elizabeth Ho, "Women's Murder Club"), Jill (Joy Suprano, NBC's "Law & Order"), Mike (Christopher Moynihan "For Your Consideration") and Wayne (David Walton "Quarterlife"). The test becomes a journey of self-discovery for Charlotte who begins to realize what she truly wants in a relationship. Ron West ("Psych"), Kelly Kulchak ("Psych") and Michelle Nader ("King of Queens") join Moynihan as executive producers. The series is produced by Universal Media Studios and Tagline.
Starring Michael Strahan ("FOX NFL Sunday") and Daryl "Chill" Mitchell ("Ed," "Veronica's Closet"), BROTHERS is a new half-hour comedy about a former NFL hot shot who learns that even though you can always go home again, the trip back might be tougher than you think. MIKE TRAINOR (Strahan) seemingly has it all he's a good-looking, wealthy and recently retired NFL player living the high-life in New York City, but he's about to get sidelined. When Mike gets a phone call from his MOM (CCH Pounder, "The Shield") who orders him home to Houston, he quickly realizes the more his life has changed, the more his family has stayed the same. His brother CHILL (Daryl "Chill" Mitchell), whose life was altered drastically after a car accident left him in a wheelchair, is struggling to keep his restaurant afloat with the help of his loudmouth associate, ROSCOE (Colton Dunn, "MADtv"). The dynamics between Mike and Chill are the same as when they were kids, and their sibling rivalry hasn't lessened with age. If they can stop their bickering, put aside their differences and learn to be teammates, the brothers might just turn out to be each other's biggest asset. Wedged between Mike and Chill are their parents. Their father, whom everyone refers to as COACH (Carl Weathers, "Rocky"), is the local high school football coach and the conservative, opinionated alpha male of his clan. Coach thinks he runs the show, but really it's Mom who calls the shots. Saucy, stern and a schemer, she is the mastermind of the family. And when she learns that Mike's business manager took off with all his money, she orchestrates a plan to keep Mike in Houston, save Chill's restaurant and bring the family back together under one roof again all without anyone realizing what she's up to. Mom's plan helps Mike realize that his family however dysfunctional they may be is the only family he's got. And although he may not have a penny to his name, as long as he's surrounded by people who love him, he'll always be a rich man.
The Cleveland Show - Sundays at 8:30PM EST/PST on FOX
THE CLEVELAND SHOW is a new animated series that follows everyone's favorite soft-spoken neighbor, CLEVELAND BROWN (Mike Henry), to his hometown in Virginia as he settles down with his high school sweetheart, her unruly kids and his own 14-year-old son, CLEVELAND JR. (Kevin Michael Richardson). Many years ago, Cleveland was a high school student madly in love with a beautiful girl named DONNA (Sanaa Lathan). Much to his dismay, his love went unrequited, and Donna wound up marrying another man. Cleveland once told Donna he would always love her, and if this man ever done her wrong, he'd be there when she called. Well, this man done her wrong. Donna's husband ran off, leaving Donna with a teenage daughter and a young son. Now she's open to Cleveland and has offered him another chance at love. Unattached after the Loretta-Quagmire debacle and true to his word, Cleveland joyously reunites with Donna, and he and Cleveland Jr. move to Virginia to join their new family. Once in Virginia, there are a few surprises in store for Cleveland, including ROBERTA (Reagan Gomez-Preston), a rebellious new stepdaughter; RALLO (Henry), his new 5-year-old stepson who loves the ladies; and a collection of neighbors that includes a loudmouth redneck, LESTER (Richardson); a hipster wanna-be, HOLT (guest voice Jason Sudeikis); and a religious pair of talking bears, TIM (Seth MacFarlane) and his wife ARIANNA (guest voice Arianna Huffington).
Sons of Tucson - Sundays at 8:30PM EST/PST in January 2010 on FOX
In the tradition of "Malcolm in the Middle" and "The Bernie Mac Show," SONS OF TUCSON is a family comedy about three brothers who hire a charming, wayward schemer to stand in as their father when their real one goes to prison. What begins as a business relationship evolves into something more complex and compelling: a family unlike any we've ever seen. The three brothers find their dad-for-hire, RON SNUFFKIN (Tyler Labine, "Reaper"), at the local sporting good store. Ron will be forced to draw on a wide array of skills and a vast bag of tricks as he steps into the patriarch role to take care of the boys of the Gunderson family. ROBBY GUNDERSON (Davis Cleveland, "How I Met Your Mother"), 8, is a loose cannon who doesn't respond well to authority; GARY GUNDERSON (Frank Dolce, "Doubt"), 11, is a bright and street-savvy leader who is every bit the con man his father is; and BRANDON GUNDERSON (Troy Gentile, "Entourage"), 13, is a gentle free spirit who simply goes along for the ride. MAGGIE MORALES (Natalie Martinez, "Saints & Sinners"), Robby's second-grade teacher and the object of Ron's affection, might just be the only stable figure in the lives of this quirky quartet. While SONS OF TUCSON is grounded in the day-to-day challenges of a single-parent home, nothing in the Gunderson household is quite what it seems. An ongoing chess match between Ron and the boys will keep both parties on their toes, as neither side can afford to give up too much power or independence.
Sundays 7:00PM NFL Overrun/Animated Repeats 8:00PM The Simpsons 8:30PM The Cleveland Show(NEW!) 9:00PM Family Guy 9:30PM American Dad!
Mondays 8:00PM House 9:00PM Lie to Me
Tuesdays 8:00PM So You Think You Can Dance
Wednesdays 8:00PM So You Think You Can Dance Results 9:00PM Glee(NEW!)
Thursdays 8:00PM Bones 9:00PM Fringe
Fridays 8:00PM Brothers(NEW!) 8:30PM 'Til Death 9:00PM Dollhouse
Saturdays 8:00PM Cops 9:00PM America's Most Wanted
January / Spring 2010:
Sundays 7:00PM Repeats 7:30PM American Dad 8:00PM The Simpsons 8:30PM Sons of Tucson(NEW!) 9:00PM Family Guy 9:30PM The Cleveland Show
Mondays 8:00PM House 9:00PM 24
Tuesdays 8:00PM American Idol 9:00PM Past Life(NEW!)
Wednesdays 8:00PM American Idol Results Show 9:00PM Human Target(NEW!) / Glee (spring)
Thursdays 8:00PM Bones 9:00PM Fringe
Fridays 8:00PM Brothers(NEW!) 8:30PM 'Til Death 9:00PM Dollhouse
Saturdays 8:00PM Cops 9:00PM America's Most Wanted
NOTES: For fall, Fox has ordered one new drama, one new comedy, and one new animated comedy, with a fall version of summer hit So You Think You Can Dance. For midseason, Fox has ordered two new dramas and one new comedy. The new event drama, Human Target (Wednesdays at 9 in January), will premiere with a special preview Sunday, Jan. 17 at approx. 8:00 PM ET/PT following the NFC Divisional Playoff game. 24 will also launch its season that night from approx. 9-11PM ET/PT. On Saturday, Nov. 7 from 11:00 PM-Midnight ET/PT, Wanda Sykes returns to Fox to host The Wanda Sykes Show (working title). And at 12 midnight ET, for a half-hour each Saturday night will see an animated comedy encore from "Animation Domination." On the shelf but not scheduled yet is a second year of Kitchen Nightmares. More coming...
Back to some other news of the day, ION Television will bring back reruns of ER starting Monday, June 29. The series has been on and off the schedule because of low ratings. Now ION will give it another shot, airing it weekdays at 5PM replacing an hour of M*A*S*H, which moves to the 4pm hour now replacing drama Quantum Leap. Quantum Leap will now be off the schedule. No other changes will be made, as of now, starting June 29...so this is a preview of their July schedule. We are not sure if any other changes are being made in July, but we will let you know in our official July write-up very soon. ER last aired in March and April on Monday nights at 8pm. We won't have as many news stories this week due to the upfronts, but we'll try to have something different as a secondary story each day. Tomorrow could be hard since we have two announcements (ABC and CBS). We have some WGN America and Sci Fi schedule news we want to share with you later this week...so come on back for that and of course network fall schedules! Fun week!!
We interrupt our regularly scheduled Saturday blog DVD review for an update on the network upfronts. This is probably the busiest TV weekend of the year--the weekend before the network upfronts start. Latest buzz on scripted series:
ABC: Picked-Up/Close to Being Picked-Up Dramas: Flash Forward, Happy Town, The Associates (David Hemingson Project), Eastwick, The Forgotten, V. (all confirmed) Picked-Up/Close to Being Picked-Up Sitcoms: Modern Family, Cougar Town, The Middle, Awesome Hank. (all confirmed) Still Could Be Picked Up Dramas: Inside the Box Still Could Be Picked Up Sitcoms: Romantically Challenged, The Law No Shot: Canned, No Heroics, Limelight, See Kate Run Bubble Current Series Renewals: Castle, Better Off Ted, Samantha Who, Scrubs (all pretty much confirmed) Possible Current Series Canceled That Had a Chance: Surviving Suburbia, The Unusuals Comments: ABC is going full frontal on comedy it seems. Scrubs, Better Off Ted, Samantha Who? are all returning, with just the latter not really official yet, but it has a great shot since repeats are going to air Fridays at 9pm starting June 5. Sam and Scrubs could be in a format change too, from single camera to a mix of single/multicamera. And ABC has already ordered new comedy Modern Family last week and Cougar Town was ordered last night. Unofficially it is also ordered The Middle & Awesome Hank last night and possibly Romantically Challenged & The Law will be ordered on the day of the upfront for midseason. My moles tell me it will happen. Lots of comedy!! That's what we like here at SitcomsOnline. Now of course all of these comedies are not for the fall. Some will be held for midseason for sure. New drama wise, ABC is very high on Flash Forward, and on-air promos are already airing. ABC unofficially set series orders for Happy Town, Eastwick, The Forgotten, The Associates and V. V could be used for mid-season as a 6-hour event (good counter-programming vs. the Winter Olympics maybe?) and The Associates is also likely midseason. Inside the Box also still has a good shot of coming to ABC for fall or midseason, but has not been ordered just yet. Current drama wise, Castle was renewed for a second season. That was the only drama that had a real shot that was not renewed yet. Reality wise, ABC has ordered a season second of True Beauty, likely for midseason with The Bachelor.
CBS: Picked-Up/Close to Being Picked-Up Dramas: NCIS: Legend (wt), The Good Wife. Picked-Up/Close to Being Picked-Up Sitcoms: Accidentally on Purpose, Waiting to Die Still Could Be Picked Up Dramas: Three Rivers, Washington Field Still Could Be Picked Up Sitcoms: Happiness Isn't Everything No Shot: A Marriage, Big D, The Karenskys Possible On the Bubble Current Series Renewals: The Unit, Flashpoint, Old Christine, Cold Case, Rules of Engagement, Gary Unmarried, Without a Trace Possible Current Series CanceledThat Had a Chance: Eleventh Hour Comments: CBS is tight-lipped. No official pick-ups at all. Just the buzz is that NCIS spin-of and The Good Wife are locks to being picked-up drama wise., with Three Rivers, Miami Trauma, and Washington Field also in the running. But usually with CBS something comes out of left field on the day of the upfront. Comedy wise, it's the same thing as dramas, no official pick-ups, but Accidentally on Purpose and Waiting to Die are heating up in buzz with Happiness Isn't Everything also on the radar. As for current series that were not renewed yet, only Ghost Whisperer got officially renewed, as there was word it could have been moved to ABC since CBS didn't want to pay full license fees. Cold Case, Gary Unmarried, Flashpoint, Old Christine, Rules of Engagement, The Unit, and Without a Trace are still not picked-up. What will make the cut? I don't think all of these will make it. Amazing Race, Big Bang Theory, Survivor and Two and a Half Men have no worries along with Ghost Whisperer since they were officially renewed, and CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Criminal Minds, How I Met Your Mother, The Mentalist, NCIS, NUMB3RS are locks for a pick-up of course. Everything else is gone including Eleventh Hour.
NBC: Picked-Up Dramas: Trauma, Parenthood, Day One, Mercy. (all confirmed) Picked-Up Sitcoms: Community, 100 Questions. (all confirmed) Still Could Be Picked Up Dramas: None. Still Could Be Picked Up Sitcoms: Off Duty No Shot: Adler/Hurwitz Project, Legally Mad, Lost & Found Bubble Current Series Renewals: Chuck, Law & Order, Medium Possible Current Series Canceled That Had a Chance: My Name is Earl Comments: NBC's pick-ups came at infront on May 4, so we have nothing new to report really. It's just the on the bubble current series we still need to know. It is looking good for Chuck, Medium, and Law & Order but My Name is Earl looks like will be canceled. Medium is being reported it was renewed, but that is unofficial. Can we expect another new series or two to be picked-up on Tuesday when NBC announced the schedule? Yes, but the only other option really is off-beat comedy Off Duty, since NBC passed on the other pilots. The only thing we really need to see for NBC is a schedule and the one I predicted could very well be something similar.
FOX: Picked-Up/Close to Being Picked-Up Dramas: Human Target, Glee, Past Life. (all confirmed) Picked-Up/Close to Being Picked-Up Sitcoms: Brothers, Sons of Tucson, The Cleveland Show. (all confirmed) Still Could Be Picked Up Dramas: Maggie Hill Still Could Be Picked Up Sitcoms: None No Shot: Absolutely Fabulous, $2 Beer, Eva Adams On the Bubble Current Series Renewals: Dollhouse Possible Current Series Canceled That Had a Chance: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Comments: Fox is also pretty much set in terms of new series pick-ups. For dramas, they will launch Glee this Tuesday for a sneak peek, and have picked-up Human Target and Past Life. Maggie Hill is probably the only other drama that could see a pick-up on the day of the upfront. Comedy wise, Fox is actually picking-up two live-action comedies, but they could be held for midseason. Brothers and Sons of Tucson are the comedies, they join animated comedy The Cleveland Show which will for sure be in the fall on Sunday nights. No other new comedies will be picked-up. Fox also has a few seasons of 'Til Death they could use at some point. In a surprise move, Fox renewed Dollhouse for 13 episodes and it will likely remain on Fridays this fall. The series has terrible ratings, so I don't understand this move. Dollhouse's pick-up means death for Sarah Connor Chronicles. And Fox has thrown us a wildcard. They have picked-up a fall version of So You Think You Can Dance. It will likely launch after the World Series, I would guess, as Hell's Kitchen's summer version will spill into the fall. It's just an actual schedule for Fox we need now. Fox also ordered reality series Someone's Gotta Go for next season, not sure if it is fall or midseason.
The CW: Close to Being Picked-Up Dramas: Melrose Place, Vampire Diaries Close to Being Picked-Up Sitcoms: None. Still Could Be Picked Up Dramas: The Beautiful Life, The Body Politic, Gossip Girl: Lily Still Could Be Picked Up Sitcoms: None. No Shot: Perhaps Light Years Possible On the Bubble Current Series Renewals: Privileged, The Game Possible Current Series Canceled That Had a Chance: Everybody Hates Chris, Reaper Comments: The CW is the last network to go at upfront, so they have not announced official pick-ups just yet. Melrose Place and Vampire Diaries are a lock it seems for fall. With Beautiful Life, Body Politic, and Lily battling for mid-season or a third slot in the fall. On the bubble current shows Privileged and The Game are also battling for a slot. What won't make the cut? I think The Game looks like the odd show out. Lily also could be out, but they should order 6 episodes only just in case they need it come midseason. Still too early for The CW, should know more during the week.
Check back periodically as we get more updates all-weekend long! I don't sleep during upfronts week!
Join us all next week (May 18-21) bright and early for the fall schedules. I assure you we will be among the first ones to post the fall line-ups for each network. Fox will be first on Monday, it'll be interesting how they schedule shows now that So You Think You Can Dance is coming in the fall as well.
And now back to our regularly scheduled blog programming:
It is Saturday, so that must mean it is time for weekly Blog DVD Review! Today we have we take a look at Warner Home Video's animated series Freakazoid! - Season 2. Freakazoid! was an animated series on Kids' WB. See Seth Thrasher's Blog DVD review of Freakazoid! - Season 2:
Freakazoid! - Season 2 (Warner, $26.98) is on DVD for the first time, and you'd have to be crazy not to buy it! Contained in this amazing bundle of plastics and fibers and metals that makes up this DVD set are the final eleven episodes of one of the craziest, and funniest, and most overall enjoyable cartoons I've ever had the pleasure to view. And, as one of the twelve people known to have watched the show when it originally aired in The WB's Saturday morning cartoon block in the mid-90s, I can speak with great aplomb as to what a quality show you're getting with your money. The season starts off with a bang, with Dexter actually managing to get a date with Steff, only to have the Lobe interfere and potentially blow it. The fun with Freakazoid & the Lobe continues into his next adventure on the next show, when it's Freakazoid's birthday -- which, per the Superhero Codebook, means *he* has to do favors for the others. This sets up a scenario in which every last other superhero is out of town, and Lobe has a plan. The crazy hits keep coming all season, with Freakazoid getting bogged down at a sci-fi convention, Steff getting turned to stone, and so much more madness. In the amazing series finale, Lobe figures out how to destroy Freakazoid once and for all -- but to do so he needs to build his evil device out of wood. Having no talent, he kidnaps master carpenter Norm Abram (This Old House), who voices himself in the strangest cartoon guest appearance ever. Knowing this is the end, the show goes out with a bang making for an enjoyable 22 minutes in one of the most enjoyable series ever. Really, though, how can you go wrong with a cartoon that had recurring voice actors like Ed Asner and Ricardo Montalban -- not to mention the best host in late night TV, Craig Ferguson. Also appearing this season in a guest spot is Leonard Maltin. Since it's not yet possible to stream these episodes directly into your brain, there must well be packaging that the episodes arrive on. And oh, what wonderful packaging it is. Millions of carbon and hydrogen atoms bonded together just for the benefit of this amazing *HARD plastic!* case. Their sacrifice makes it possible for you to effectively store your DVD set on a shelf near you. The artwork features a giant picture of America's 7th favorite blue skinned superhero pointing to himself and smiling. I'd be happy too if *I* had superpowers so it'd be quite a disappointment to find him unhappy. Background of the artwork is green and features a computer chip-like design, heavily stylized for the purposes of cartoons. Rear cover features more green fun, only this time...Freakazoid has a jetpack! Disc art features more green, with Freakazoid doing a little flexing on disc 1, with Lobe doing some flexing of his own on disc 2. Interior package art features the disc one information, Freakazoid, and Fan Boy on the left panel, with all the villains hiding behind the 2nd disc (the one with Lobe on it). With a cartoon from the mid-1990s, you're unfortunately not going to get 3D stereovision with 17.2 panaural sound...partially because I just made both things up. What you do get is an animated picture mostly free of defects. I did detect some compression artifacts around the lines on the picture, but I was sitting two feet from a 32" HDTV when doing so. For normal use you're probably not going to notice anything amiss. More importantly, you get 5.1 surround sound. Because of the wonderful musical accompaniment that comes with mid 1990s Warner cartoons, the 5.1 surround sound is wonderfully appreciated, and during a few scenes in the cartoon is enough to make you melt. The chapter stops stop chapters. More importantly than that, they're located after the episode's opening titles, as well as after each act -- where commercial breaks would normally be placed. When we say special features, we're not implying these features should be riding the short bus, it means that they're a bonus, above and beyond the call of DVD duty. First up is "A Full Season's Worth of Commentaries (in Five Minutes or Less)"and features the creative minds behind the show talking about the season, what went into it, and all the other sorts of things you'd expect. Ideally it would have been nice to do actual commentaries, but pressed for time this is certainly better than a kick in the pants. There's also the demo version of the music to the Hello, Dolly parody Bonjour Lobey -- it's good stuff worth a listen. The true highlight is probably the final feature (say that 81,931 times fast) -- a look into the making of the show's final episode. The feature runs nearly the length of a full episode, and taking a similar tone as the series explores the workings of the last episode. Let's be serious for a minute. For the basis of pure enjoyment, season one is honestly the better of the two in my opinion. The episodes are just...funnier. But season two is still better than the vast, vast majority of cartoons. Since this set is already out, hopefully you already own it. If you don't already own it, then hopefully you started the order process while reading this review -- I know you can multi-task, come on. If not, you should probably do so now. The review will still be here when you get back. There is probably even a link to buy it below. Needless to say, I recommend this set.
Fox usually has a hard time in the fall, and depend a lot on American Idol and to a lesser degree 24 in January. This year is likely to be the same thing, but if Glee hits big after American Idol next week, Fox could have two hits in the fall and have a much better fall than usual, as House is the only big hit in the fall for fall. Here is the SitcomsOnline.com Fox 2009-10 preview:
New Series Already Picked-Up: Glee (drama), The Cleveland Show (animated sitcom) New Series We Think That Are Almost Good To Go: Sons of Tucson (sitcom), Brothers (sitcom) and Human Target (drama) New Series Perhaps Picked-Up for Mid-Season: Maggie Hill (drama) and Masterwork (drama)
OUR FALL 2009 PREDICTION:
Sundays 7:00PM NFL Overrun / Animated Encores 8:00PM The Simpsons 8:30PMAmerican Dad! 9:00PM Family Guy 9:30PM The Cleveland Show (NEW!)
Mondays 8:00PM House 9:00PM Human Target(NEW!)
Tuesdays 8:00PM Fringe 9:00PM Brothers(NEW!) 9:30PM Sons of Tucson(NEW!)
Fridays 8:00PM Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? 9:00PM Don't Forget the Lyrics! / 'Til Death
Saturdays 8:00PM Cops 8:30PM Cops 9:00PM America's Most Wanted
Comments: As I keep saying, it'll be once again a tale of two seasons within a season for Fox. Their mid-season line-up will probably be a lot different from fall, since 24 and American Idol come in January.House will likely still lead-off Mondays, leading into a new drama, perhaps Human Target. If that doesn't hit, they could always replace it with 24 in January. As for Tuesdays, I think the J.J. Abrams drama Fringe will likely be on a short leash and will kick off the night leading into two comedies, with one of them being the Michael Strahan comedy Brothers, which could get big promo push on Sundays with the NFL on Fox. Fringe will leave I think in January when American Idol comes, and perhaps a new drama will be used at 9pm (like Masterwork or Maggie Hill) or the comedies can stay if they hit. On Wednesdays, I think they will start with Glee but they really don't have anything to pair it with in the fall. It is perfect for American Idol. The best best would be something light, like Kitchen Nightmares. Since Hell's Kitchen will be airing in late summer, a new season of that wouldn't be airing in the fall I would think. Maybe in January again? If so, it would be on another night. And if Glee hits, it could remain in this slot all season and be a lead-in to American Idol Results. Good combo. I think Bones would likely remain on Thursdays at 8pm, but something more compatible needs to air with it, as currently the show following it at 9pm has a totally different audience. I think Lie to Me at 9pm on Thursdays is probably the best option. 5th Grader and Don't Forget the Lyrics will probably return to Fridays for the fall, with 'Til Death mixing in at some point unfortunately. Saturdays...do I need to ever talk about that? Fox will never change that. As for Sundays, animation domination will continue of course with the addition of The Cleveland Show, the Family Guy spin-off, but Sit Down Shut Up is likely dead after horrible ratings. And so many series are goners next season we think: Prison Break, Dollhouse, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Do Not Disturb, King of the Hill, Sit Down Shut Up, The Moment of Truth, Hole in the Wall, Osbournes: Reloaded. I think Secret Millionaire is worth trying again in December. Everything else seems to be returning for Fox. So, we have the usual...Fox hopes to do decent in the fall and explode in the winter/spring. Will American Idol fall more next season? It very well could.
Remember, next Monday (May 18) is the actual date when we will find out Fox's plans for the 2009-10 season. So, come on back next Monday and we will let you know the details and you can see how much we were right (or wrong). Stay tuned next week for the official fall line-ups for all the networks. Discuss your thoughts on our prediction and feel free to make suggestions of your own!
A few weeks ago, TV Land aired Married with Children for a mini-marathon since they were honoring it at the TV Land Awards, the ratings must have been decent for it because now TV Land will air another mini-marathon this coming Thursday (May 14) from 10pm-1am ET/PT featuring classic episodes preempting the regular M*A*S*H. TV Land is borrowing the episodes from Spike TV, which is a sister station that airs the show regularly. They are owned by Viacom. The episodes will be from seasons two-four. In the second season opener, the Bundy's go to a sleazy, dumpy motel in Dumpwater Florida. Trouble heads their way when an axe murderer, who hates tourists, arrives. Then in the conclusion, Peg is kidnapped by the axe murderer and it's up to Al to save her. Other episodes include: A nice weekend away for the Rhoadeses and the Bundys turns into misery for the men when Peg, Kelly, and Marcy all have their periods at the same time; Al grows his hair when his barber dies, and fears he is turning into a "sissy" just because he has to go to salons; Marcy's dead aunt's ashes end up in the Labor Day hamburgers, in the classic Labor Day episode; and Al's pride and "do-it-yourself" beliefs annoys the rest of the family when Al decides to fix the leaking roof himself. TV Land should air this series regularly in primetime, it sure beats some of the shows that are airing there, including all the reality originals. Married would work well with the upcoming Roseanne. Whoaaaaaa Bundy!
Nick at Nite is total day's number-one basic cable network with Adults 18-49 and Women 18-49 for April, and ranking second only to sister-channel Nickelodeon among total viewers. April 2009 also marked Nick at Nite's most-watched April in its history with Adults 18-49, Women 18-49 and total viewers. And also, year to date, Nick at Nite is the number-one network with Women 18-49 and is number one with Adults 18-49 (tied in rating with USA Network). The April 2009 dates were from 3/30/09-4/26/09 and Nick at Nite averaged a 0.6 rating and 697,000 viewers A18-49 and 1.6 million total viewers for the month. With Women 18-49, Nick at Nite averaged a 0.8 rating and 464,000 viewers W18-49 (up 14% year-to-year). Among Men 18-49, Nick at Nite averaged a 0.4 rating and 233,000 viewers M18-49. And in prime time, Nick at Nite averaged a 0.7 rating and 1.7 million total viewers on average per night in April in primetime. Nick at Nite airs 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET/PT in primetime. And that's not all! For the entire 2009 so far (12/29/08-4/26/09), Nick at Nite is averaging a 0.6 rating and 691,000 viewers A18-49 and 1.5 million total viewers for the year. With Women 18-49, Nick at Nite is averaging a 0.8 rating and 442,000 viewers W18-49 (up 14% year-to-year) for the year. Among Men 18-49, Nick at Nite is averaging a 0.4 rating and 249,000 viewers M18-49 for the year. And in prime time, Nick at Nite is averaging 1.7 million total viewers on average per night for the year in primetime. Nick at Nite's success are from shows like George Lopez and Family Matters, with The Nanny joining the line-up this Sunday!
As we alerted all of you on Sunday on our Twitter page, three classic TV moms were judges on a cook-off on The Rachel Ray Show yesterday. So if you missed that, then you missed our alert. Follow us from now on so you don't miss a beat! Anyway, we have a video clip from this cook-off for you to see. And oh the three classic TV moms are Mrs. Brady, Mrs. Partridge and Mrs. C! Classic '70s fever indeed! Brady Bunch, Partridge Family and Happy Days were three excellent classic family comedies. All three moms look very good still! Watch the video clip!
Meanwhile, the busy network month of pick-ups continues, with Fox. You won't have to wait until May 18 for the fate of one show at least because Fox has renewed creepy thriller Fringe from J.J. Abrams. Fringe has captivated audiences this season, winning its Tuesday time period weekly among key demographics and ranks as the No. 1 new series in primetime among Adults 18-49, as it has followed House in the fall and American Idol this winter/spring. One thing Fringe couldn't do well was hold a good percentage of those huge lead-ins much. The series has always had a huge lead-in, and that could change this fall with House expected to stay on Mondays. Could that break this series this fall? We shall see, but it get a chance to be tested! Fringe stars Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Kirk Acevedo, Blair Brown and Jasika Nicole. The series is produced by Bad Robot Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television.
The weather is getting warmer out there in most of the country, so we are going to look ahead all this week to the month of June! Yes, May is still on the horizon but we here at SitcomsOnline like to plan ahead, which I'm sure you all like! We start out our "June schedule week" with plans for TV One June 2009! And they will add two new sitcoms to its regular line-up! On Monday, June 8 at 7:30pm, a new comedy joins the TV One prime-time line-up. The Holly Robinson-Peete short-lived family sitcom Like Family takes over the weeknights at 7:30pm timeslot to add some fresh laughs in the comedy zone. Like Family (2003-04) is a sitcom about two families -- one black, one white -- who share the same house and work together to overcome their differences to create a home. Also joining the line-up on Monday, June 8 will be the classic '70s sitcom That's My Mama!We told you previously the show will have a special Mother's Day marathon on May 10, but now it is ALSO joining the weekday line-up as well a few weeks later! Mama and her family will air weekdays at 5:00pm kicking off the early evening sitcom line-up. Due to these two new additions, there are quite a few changes to the weekday line-up. In the weekdays at 6am hour we now get Divorce Court, replacing Amen. At 7am Living It Up with Patti LaBelle replaces an episode of All About the Andersons, but that slides to 7:30am replacing Comics Unleashed. In the 8am hour, we now get two episodes of Amen, replacing an episode each of Comics Unleashed and Sharp Talk with Al Sharpton. The 9am and 10am hours remain the same with original encores. Weekdays in the 11am hour will now be Half & Half replacing original encores. The daytime marathons continue from 12pm-3pm, while Divorce Court's afternoon airings are moved in the 3pm hour replacing Bill Bellamy's Who's Got Jokes. The Tom Joyner Show will air in the 4pm hour replacing Divorce Court. Then the sitcom line-up starts at 5pm as we mentioned with That's My Mama replacing Good Times at 5pm, followed still by Sanford & Son at 5:30pm, and Good Times at 6pm. Not to worry, the 5pm Good Times is now at 6:30pm replacing Half & Half. All of Us replace Eve at 7pm, and the aforementioned Like Family launches at 7:30pm replacing another Half & Half. Then we still have Martin and Living Single in the 8pm hour, followed by another Living Single a 9pm, but now 9:30pm will be Half & Half instead of All of Us. Back-to-back episodes of The Jeffersons remain in the 10pm hour, while Martin and Sanford & Son still share the 11pm hour. The late night schedule also gets a bit of a change, at 12 midnight we now have Eve instead of another Jeffersons, while at 12:30am we have Living Single instead of Good Times. 1-3am will still feature a movie. Then the really late schedule also gets changed, in the 3am hour will be The Jeffersons and Martin instead of back-to-back Living Single. At 4am Half & Half remains, but the 4:30am Half & Half is replaced with Martin! And finally the 5am hour will still have Get the Hookup. So that's the entire schedule! We still have highlights to give though. On Saturday, June 20 beginning at 12 Noon (following the Saturday morning sitcom block from 6am-12pm) through 8pm (with an encore from 12am-6am), Our Music Month is in full effect as TV One presents the "Half & Half: Must Be the Music" marathon consisting of episodes of the sitcom with guest appearances from some of the music industry greats including DMX, Tyrese Gibson, Musiq Soulchild, Faith Evans, MC Lyte, Ginuwine, Eric Benet, and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis. On Sunday, June 21 beginning at 3pm through 8pm (encores from 2am-6am), TV One airs a Fathers Day tribute in the form of an "All of Us: Fathers Day" marathon consisting of episodes of the family sitcom dealing with father/son episodes and situations of characters Robert and his son Bobby. Finally, yes this is in July, but technically it part of June for TV One. On Friday, July 3 beginning at 8pm, the zany antics of Martin Payne will keep viewers in stitches as TV One presents the "Martin: Independence Day" mega-thon, a 24-hour laugh-a-thon consisting of some of the funniest and most talked about episodes of the sitcom Martin featuring comedian Martin Lawrence in some of his classic best moments and alter-ego character. It is certainly going to be fun in the sun this June on TV One!
We have a lot of network notes for you. We announced them all on our message board yesterday, but we want to put it all in one space in case you missed it. President Obama is having a news conference live on Wednesday at 8pm ET for an hour. This means yet again the networks have to scramble and juggle programming. ABC and CBS had to change the most, especially CBS. We'll start with ABC, though. In the eastern and central time zones, Scrubs and Better Off Ted have to be preempted because of the Obama news conference. Everything else will air as normal, including the 100th episode of Lost at 9/8 central. In the mountain time zone, the news conference is at 6pm MT, so that won't affect primetime programming. Scrubs and Ted will follow at 7pm MT but will be repeats though since they are not airing in the east/central zones. Same goes for Pacific. Repeats of Scrubs and Ted will air at 8pm PT. Because of this change, ABC will move the planned new episodes of Scrubs and Ted to a special night of Tuesday, May 5 in the 8pm ET/PT hour replacing two episodes of According to Jim. Poor Jim has had so many preemptions already and won't get to air its finale in the season now. Four episodes got preempted so ABC will have to air those sometime in the summer. Jim is still airing tonight and as of now on May 12. I would just pull it on May 12 and bring it back in the summer for its final 6 episodes. We'll let you know what happens to Jim. View the changes in a list form. Moving on to CBS, they will have more changes than anyone. They also will air the Presidential News Conference on Wednesday at 8pm ET. In the eastern and central time zones, special airing of Rules of Engagement and Old Christine at a special time, will have to be preempted because of the Obama news conference. Everything else will air as normal on this night. In the mountain time zone, the news conference is at 6pm MT, so that won't affect primetime programming. Old Christine and Gary Unmarried will follow at 7pm MT but will be repeats though since they are not airing in the east/central zones. Same goes for Pacific. Repeats of Old Christine and Gary will air at 8pm PT. In other changes, CBS has pulled Harper's Island out of the Thursdays at 10pm slot effective immediately. A repeat of Criminal Minds will air this Thursday (April 30), followed by a repeat of CSI on May 7. And on May 14, the final Thursday of the regular season, will see the season finale of CSI NY on a special night! Programming for the 10pm hour for the summer season, effective May 21, is to be announced right now. As for Harper's Island, it will be still on the air...it will be moved to Saturdays at 9pm replacing crime repeats. The series will air from May 2 through July 11, except on May 16 a special Mentalist repeat will air. And because of the Obama news conference on April 29, the sitcoms get affected. The Rules of Engagement special night and time is now on May 13 at 8pm, followed by a new Old Christine at a special time of 8:30pm. Because of that the season finales of Old Christine and Gary Unmarried, which were slated for May 13, will now be May 20 against American Idol. And the two-part Criminal Minds season finale on May 20 moves from 8-10pm to 9-11pm, since the CSI NY finale at 10pm has been moved to Thursday, May 14. Besides the Harper's Island changes, all of these changes are because of the news conference! View the changes in a list form. NBC is not really affected by this. NBC will air the Presidential News Conference at 8PM ET this Wednesday (April 29). A Law & Order repeat was scheduled in that slot. In the Mountain and Pacific time zones they will get Dateline at 7pm MT and 8pm PT instead of the Law & Order repeat. Why not just air the repeat there? No big loss for NBC. Fox announced it is NOT airing the news conference! They will have a little scroll on the bottom saying you can watch it on Fox News Channel or Fox Business Channel. They will air an all-new episode of Lie to Me as scheduled. This is the first time Obama's conferences have been not aired by one of the big four. But they are making some changes to Sundays. Effective this Sunday (May 2), new animated comedy Sit Down, Shut Up is being banished to 7pm replacing the American Dad! encore, which moves to 7:30pm. So this means King of the Hill moves from 7:30 back to its old 8:30pm slot for new episodes! This is not good news at all for Sit Down, Shut Up, which only after two airings has not done well in the ratings. 3 more episodes are left, as Fox is only airing 5 of the 13 for some reason. View these changes in a list form.
It went through three names, two leading ladies, and two networks, yet The Hogan Family managed to last six seasons and is well remembered as one of the great family sitcoms of the '80s. Our good friend Eric is back with another retro interview on his wonderful interview website, JustMyShow.com! Listen to on and off camera insight as Eric hangs out with Mark Hogan himself, Jeremy Licht! For six seasons, Jeremy Licht played the role of Mark Hogan on The Hogan Family. His other credits include the ABC TV movie The Comeback Kid starring John Ritter and appearances on TV hits such as St. Elsewhere and Hotel. These days, he spends his time working as a financial advisor with his company JL Capital Management. It is a very fun interview and Eric also has a bonus clip of him asking Jeremy on when on earth the Hogan Family is coming to DVD?! Life is such a sweet insanity, indeed! Head on over to Just My Show to listen to this new great interview!
Lifetime Networks unveiled its 2009-10 program slate that encompasses the most powerful line-up of original series and movies in Lifetime Television and Lifetime Movie Network's history, headlined by the sixth season of cable's hottest unscripted competition series, Project Runway. Project Runway, featuring host Heidi Klum, mentor Tim Gunn and judges Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, is set to make its long-awaited return to television on Thursday, August 20, at 10:00 PM (ET/PT) with 14 hour-long episodes. The series, the highest-rated unscripted competition show on all of cable, will seamlessly lead into Models of the Runway at 11:00PM (ET/PT), beginning August 20, an all-new, half-hour companion series will center around the drama, anxiety, tears and joys of Project Runway's models as they compete for money and a major magazine cover shoot. In other unscripted news, new shows Cook Yourself Thin debuts on May 4 at 5:00 PM (ET/PT), and DietTribe is scheduled to return for its second season later this year. As we mentioned, Lifetime's hit drama series Army Wives returns for its third season at 10:00 PM (ET/PT) on Sunday, June 7. Joining Army Wives this summer will be Drop Dead Diva, the spirited new comedic drama, starring newcomer Brooke Elliott (Hairspray, Wicked) and Margaret Cho (17 Again). It will air at 9:00 PM (ET/PT) starting Sunday, July 12. Lifetime has many original dramas in development. However, they have not been picked-up as series just yet. In development are: Mona Lisa Smile, based on the feature film of the same name; Mystic Pizza: Another Slice, a two-hour, back-door pilot based on the hit film; Marry Me, a limited-run anthology series that starts with a couple who meets in the pilot and concludes with a wedding in Episode 13; Queens of the Rodeo, a comedic drama with the exciting and dangerous rodeo circuit as the backdrop; The Fallen (working title), based on T. Jefferson Parker's novel of the same name; and Murder in Suburbia, formatted from the popular British series. Rita Rocks, its first original comedy in a decade, stars Nicole Sullivan as an overworked wife and mother trying to find time for herself, will return for its second season in the Fall. Lifetime has three other original comedies in the works, but have not been picked-up as a series yet. In production for pilots are Sherri, loosely based on Sherri Shepherd's (The View) personal family experiences; The Valerie Bertinelli Project (working title) is about a newly divorced mother (Bertinelli) who must maintain a balance between her family and running her ex-husband's struggling hardware business; Alligator Point, is from Kelsey Grammar and stars Cybill Shepherd following the life and times of an eccentric group of Floridians whose lives change when a "Yankee" becomes part of their disjointed family. We will let you know if any of these three gets picked-up as a series joining Rita Rocks. As for daily strip schedule, this fall Lifetime will begin airing two high-profile, off-net properties nightly, the popular dramas Grey's Anatomy and Medium. Currently, they both air once a week. They join a strong schedule that already features such top acquired product as Wife Swap, Desperate Housewives, Reba, Will & Grace and Frasier. Cybill joins the daytime line-up on May 4. Finally, in September 2010, Lifetime will also begin stripping the hit off-net comedy How I Met Your Mother, which currently fills one hour of the network's schedule per week on Mondays. View more on Lifetime and LMN's upfront, which includes all the original movies they have in the works for 2009 and 2010.
We have a lot of network notes for you today. First off, ABC will air a repeat of Grey's Anatomy this Thursday (April 23) at 8pm leading into the return of all-new episodes at 9pm. The repeat will be the last original episode that aired, so fans can remember what happened, if they need refreshing. This means In the Motherhood and Samantha Who? will not return to the slot now since yesterday we announced Ugly Betty was coming back a week earlier than planned (April 30). So updating my story from yesterday, Motherhood will now have three episodes still remaining to air, as it will have 4 of its 7 aired (though they had only planned to air 6 anyway). Samantha Who? looks like will only air 13 of its 20, with seven still left in the can, but ABC could certainly use those next season, which is more than likely to happen despite the ratings falter on Thursdays. In other ABC notes, ABC has announced the celebs and athletes for the new summer series The Superstars! The eight athletes are Jennifer Capriati (tennis), Brandi Chastain (soccer), Robert Horry (basketball), Jeff Kent (baseball), Kristi Leskinen (X Games), Lisa Leslie (basketball), Bode Miller (skiing) and Terrell Owens (football). The eight celebrities are David Charvet (actor), Maksim Chmerkovskiy (Dancing with the Stars), Dan Cortese (host/actor), Paige Hemmis (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition), Julio Iglesias, Jr. (singer), Joanna Krupa (model), Ali Landry (model/actress) and Estella Warren (actress). The series is based on ABC's classic Wide World of Sports, which pitted athletes from all different sports against each other to determine the best athlete in the world. The Superstars pairs the celebrities with the athletes to compete in varying sporting events. Participants found out who their selected partners were only when they met for the first time at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. The six-episode series premieres Tuesday, June 23 at 8:00PM on ABC. The team pairings for The Superstars will be Terrell Owens & Joanna Krupa; Jeff Kent & Ali Landry; Robert Horry & Estella Warren: Bode Miller & Paige Hemmis; Kristi Leskinen & Maksim Chmerkovskiy; Lisa Leslie & Dan Cortese; Jennifer Capriati & David Charvet; and Brandi Chastain & Julio Iglesias, Jr. Every week a team will be eliminated until one team is ultimately crowned the winner. Competitors' athletic prowess and strategy will be put to the test to excel in events including swimming, biking, running and kayaking, in addition to other head-to-head athletic challenges everyone must try to conquer. Find out more on the celebs and athletes.
Moving on to NBC, they have pulled drama Kings from Saturdays even after just one airing. Repeats of Law & Order: SVU will air instead at 8pm (it was at 9pm), with Southland encores moving to 9pm (from 10pm), and now Law & Order repeats will close out the night at 10pm. Then after May sweeps ends, Law & Order: Criminal Intent repeats will air for a few weeks at 8pm before Kings returns. 7 episodes of Kings remain and NBC promises to return the series on Saturday, June 13 at 8pm to finish them off. That date was originally the plan to end the series, now that will be the return date. The series will last through July 25, bearing any more changes of course. Finally Fox has changed its summer schedule a bit again. New series Mental will now air Tuesdays at 9PM starting May 26 following summer repeats of House. Mental was previously scheduled to launch on Friday, May 29 at 9PM. It will still air Fridays, but now they will be encores of the Tuesday episodes. However, the Tuesday airings will only last through June 23. The Friday encores will become the new night for new episodes for Mental starting July 3 through August 14. Fox has also announced that it will return reality show The Moment of Truth on Wednesday, July 29 airing Wednesdays at 9PM, following So You Think You Can Dance. Dance ends its season in early August (Aug. 5 & 6), though, so Truth will then have repeats of Bones as its lead-in starting Aug. 19. August 12 will see two episodes of Moment of Truth from 8-10pm. View the complete Fox summer schedule.
Finally, we leave you today with some sad news. Wendy Blair died of cancer on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 in North Hollywood. Blair enjoyed a long career in the entertainment industry, having served as the first female junior executive at CBS Television City in the mid-1950s. Known for being analytical and extremely organized, she worked as an associate producer and producer on a number of popular television series. Among the series she worked on as an associate producer are Three's Company, and both of its spin-off series The Ropers and Three's a Crowd, as well as several variety shows and specials for companies including Dick Clark Productions and Sid and Marty Krofft Enterprises, such as Dr. Shrinker. Her other producer credits include pilots and series such as What a Country! in 1986, I Married Dora in 1987, Mutts in 1988, and Where's Rodney? in 1990. She later segued from working in production to serving as the manager of business operations for The Smothers Brothers and was active in this role until the beginning of 2009. Now, Joanne McCracken has taken over. Blair was a member of the Directors Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America and was a founding member of the Association of Associate Producers (which later merged with the PGA). Blair was devoted to her family and family traditions. She will be deeply missed, especially by Three's Company fans and The Smothers Brothers followers. She was only 70.
Sit Down, Shut Up - Sundays 8:30PM ET/PT on Fox Premieres Sunday, April 19, 2009 at 8:30PM ET/PT
There is a new kid on the block on Fox's Sunday night animation lineup, and this time it comes from Emmy Award-winning writer Michael Hurwitz of the series Arrest Development. Sit Down, Shut Up is an animated comedy about the staff of Knob Creek High School, a high school in a small Florida town, and much like in the drama series Boston Public, we find that the teachers can have as many (if not more) problems than their students. There is the acting principal Sue Sezno, and as the name suggests, she always says no. Of course, the upbeat vice principal Stuart Prozakian is always there to counter-balance her at all times. And there is an entire ensemble cast of teachers with their own respective problems.
Will Arnett (Ennis) is best known to sitcom fans in his role as Gob Bluth on the series Arrested Development, but has also had many film roles including roles in Ice Age: The Meltdown, RV, and Monster-in-Law. He has also recently completed filming two upcoming films, G-Force and When in Rome.
Jason Bateman (Larry) is known to sitcom fans from the series Arrested Development and the 80s sitcoms Silver Spoons and The Hogan Family. He has also played roles in the films The Ex, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and Starsky & Hutch. He has recently signed a deal to develop, direct, and write original content for 20th Century Fox Television.
Kristen Chenoweth (Miracle) was recently nominated for an Emmy Award for her role in the series Pushing Daises and also has credits from the series Ugly Betty and The West Wing. She will soon be in the upcoming David E. Kelly legal drama Legally Mad.
Will Forte (Stuart) has spent several years on the series Saturday Night Live, and is considered to be a rising comedy star by many critics. He has also been in the films Baby Mama and Beerfest.
Tom Kenny (Happy) is no stranger to fans of animated series, as he is the voice of the very popular character SpongeBob SquarePants. He has also played roles in the Nickelodeon series CatDog and Rocko's Modern Life, and countless other animated series. In addition, he has made appearances at comedy clubs across the country and on the late night talk shows.
Nick Kroll (Andrew) is an up-and-coming actor that has starred in Cavemen, Best Week Ever, Worst Week, The Life and Times of Tim, and Reno 911. He is also a writer that co-authored the book "Bar Mitzvah Disco" and was a contributing writer on Chappelle's Show. He has also done some standup comedy at the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival as well as the Bonnaroo Festival.
Cheri Oteri (Helen) is known for her years on Saturday Night Live, and has also appeared in many films including Scary Movie, Inspector Gadget, Liar Liar, and Shrek the Third, among many others. She has had several guest appearances on series such as Just Shoot Me, Strangers with Candy, and Boston Legal.
Kenan Thompson (Sue) is another Saturday Night Live actor (currently in his fifth season) that is also known to a generation of youth that grew up on Nickelodeon in the 90s from the series Kenan and Kel as well as All That. He also starred with Kel Mitchell on the feature film Good Burger. Other major film credits for Thompson include Snakes on a Plane, Fat Albert, D2: The Mighty Ducks, and Rocky & Bullwinkle.
Henry Winkler (Williard) is the true "veteran" of the cast, known to fans all around the world as "The Fonz" from the hit sitcom Happy Days. He has also served as a producer for series including MacGyver, Hollywood Squares, Sightings, So Weird, among others. In 2003, he began writing a series of children's novels entitled "Hank Zipzer: The World's Most Amazing Underachiever," which are inspired by his struggle with learning challenges. He has also appeared on Arrested Development.
Pilot Plot:
For the review, we had the first and second episode of the series. The series is scheduled to air 5 of its 13 produced episodes for now, all in five consecutive weeks.
#1 "Pilot" (Airs April 19) - Knob Haven High School is facing some serious budget problems, and Sue Sezno knows the way to repair the budget problems: by soliciting donations from alumni. But the alumni will only be willing to do that if they can win the upcoming football game.
#2 "Miracle's Are Real" (Airs April 26) - Miracle Grohe decides to spread some spring cheer by giving her fellow colleagues some flowers (which actually turn out to be hemlock), placing the school into another financial crisis. The school carnival is the way to make this money, but this causes a bit of trouble between Sue Sezno and Helen Klench.
Analysis:
Catchphrases, stereotypes, and clichés. That is all that I saw in the two episodes that I received to review. The series lacks substance, and without that substance, it can't go very far. Over and over again, we are reminded in both of these episodes that Sue Sezno always says no, that Stuart Proszakian used to be a prison clown, that Ennis Hofftard is a womanizing jock, that Miracle Grohe has a baby that she carries with her at all times, that Willard Deutschbog is having a miserable life... I think that pretty much drives home my point. But where does the series go from that point? I can't see any real direction for the series in these two episodes.
It doesn't help either that the ensemble cast on the series is big--way too big in fact. There are basically nine different characters that make up the core cast of the series, and the writers have attempted to place every single one of these characters in a plotline in each episode. It would have been better to have had each episode focus on one major plot with just a few of the characters, but instead, with the series as it is, all we really have time for is several mini-plots that just reinforce the catchphrases, stereotypes, and clichés.
Both of the first two episodes basically focus on the same thing: budgetary problems at the school and how to fix those financial issues. One has to wonder if this is pretty much the direction that many or most episodes will go in. So far, it doesn't appear that there is much variety in the plots of the episodes, which doesn't matter anyway because the series doesn't have time to develop much of a plot with all of the characters and the catchphrases, stereotypes, and clichés. There were a few "chuckle" moments in the episodes, but there really wasn't anything that caused me to burst out into laughter. It is a shame, really, because I can see that with the characters and background of the series, that this could have the potential to be that kind of series.
However, one thing that I did think was a little nice and creative was the use of live action backgrounds for some of the scenes in the series. It reminded me a lot of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and it is surprising that this style hasn't been used that much in other animated sitcoms.
Conclusion:
I honestly believe that this will be another one of the many Fox series that doesn't make it, although I could be wrong about that. Unlike the other animated series on Fox, this series is just too full of catchphrases and stereotypes to a point where it becomes outright obnoxious. The series really sounded good when I read about it, but there is some disconnect between the concept and what we actually have here. Not only is the series inconsistent with the other animated series on the Fox Sunday night lineup, but matters are only made worse by the fact that the series isn't that funny.
Still, I feel like the series could have the potential to be a good series under the right circumstances, but there is no way this show could go on for years--or even more than a handful of episodes for that matter--by repeating catchphrases, clichés, and stereotypes all the time. The series could work well if it had well-written storylines that were funny or even outright absurd (such as the ones on Family Guy), but the series just isn't meant to make it in the form that it is seen on the premiere episodes. I've been wrong about these things before, but I have a feeling that the series will be off the air before many episodes are even aired.
Now back to the news. ABC Family's original sitcoms Roommates and Sophie are not doing that well in the ratings. They air Mondays back-to-back starting at 9:00PM ET/PT. Now ABC Family is removing the encore airings that air late Tuesday nights at 12:00am & 12:30am, and replacing them with Whose Line Is It Anyway? starting this Tuesday (April 21). So if you watch these shows and like them, watch them live on Monday nights because now there will be no encore airings.
GSN announced that it will make television history with The Game Show Awards - the very first awards show exclusively aimed at celebrating excellence in the genre of games. The two and a half-hour, star-studded extravaganza will premiere on June 6, 2009 starting at 8PM ET/7PM CT only on GSN, and will honor classic and contemporary game shows, with special tributes to pioneers Bob Barker (The Price is Right), legendary game show producer Mark Goodson, and host Monty Hall (Let's Make a Deal). In keeping with the participatory nature of game shows and GSN's programming, fans will be able to vote for their favorite nominees online at GSN.com in several categories, including best/favorite host, model, announcer, contestant, catch phrase, sound effect and others. View the full details an categories for the first annual Game Show Awards.
Stay tuned next week as we give you some classic TV sitcom appearances on game shows on GSN, in case you never saw them...and a sitcom is coming to CMT for a special weekend.
Today we have all network news, including some scoops! As we first announced on our message board on Friday (and then later on Twitter), we have gotten the early portion of the ABC summer 2009 schedule! We already knew about The Bachelorette airing on Mondays (it launches in-season on May 18 after the Dancing performance finale), and will air 8-10pm on Mondays starting the following week (May 25). It is unknown right now what will air at 10pm on Mondays, but ABC does have Here Come the Newlyweds on the roster for a possible pairing. The next night will be Tuesday, May 26 as ABC brings back the family game show Opportunity Knocks for at least two weeks airing May 26 and June 2 at 8pm. Then the NBA Finals come, so not sure what ABC will do yet. ABC has six episodes on the shelf, so at least two will see the light of day. ABC will air the miniseries Diamonds on two nights--Sunday, May 24 and Tuesday, May 26 from 9-11pm. Diamonds is a Canadian production starring Judy Davis. Diamonds weaves together five storylines to form the plot, focusing on the daughter of a U.S. Senator who is murdered at a diamond mine in Sierra Leone (in Africa). It is a Hollywood event limited series from start to finish, especially with its stellar ensemble including Judy Davis who won an Emmy for the last role she played which aired on ABC (Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows). James Purefoy (Rome) also stars. ABC has another Canadian miniseries in the works for later in the summer called Impact. Impact is a four-hour disaster epic and stars David James Elliott, Natasha Henstridge, Steven Culp and James Cromwell. Then on Wednesday, May 27, ABC will launch the second season of last summer's big hit Wipeout! It's back with all the big balls and more for 16 episodes this summer! Wipeout will lead into new animated comedy The Goode Family airing back-to-back in the 9pm hour. The series has 13 episodes to air. The 10pm hour will likely be new episodes of The Unusuals, as that series (which launches this Wednesday) will have only 5 episodes airing of its 10 in the regular season, so the final 5 could air in the summer following Wipeout and Goode Family. As previously announced, Thursday, May 28 will be The Scripps National Spelling Bee from 8-10pm. Saturday, May 30 will see the return of Pushing Daisies! The series has three episodes left and will likely be stripped for the next two weeks as well in the Saturdays at 10pm timeslot concluding the series. ABC could also air the final three episodes of Dirty Sexy Money and the final four of Eli Stone as well in the slot thereafter. We'll let you know for sure when we do. Sunday, May 31 could see game 7 of the NBA Western Conference Finals in primetime, if it is necessary. The 2009 NBA Finals will air from June 4-18 on Thursdays, Sundays and Tuesdays for up to seven games, if necessary. A second year of the half-hour series Jimmy Kimmel Live: Game Night will lead into all of the games once again. We don't have any other June details or late summer news, so stay tuned for that. Lots of stuff still to come, such as the second season of I Survived a Japanese Game Show and new stuff such as Wide World of Sports Superstars, with possibly the 10th anniversary return of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire this August! In other ABC updates, they will air a clip show of Lost on Wednesday, May 13 at 8pm leading into the two-episode season finale from 9-11pm, while ABC will air a performance recap show of Dancing with the Stars on Tuesday, May 19 at 8pm leading into the two-hour grand finale from 9-11pm.
Fox has given Bones two special nights. Because of the all preemption by American Idol and President Obama, Bones will have to air on two special nights to catch up on its episode order. The first special night will be Wednesday, April 15 at 8pm, preempting Lie to Me, which has also had its share of preemptions. The second special night will be Monday, April 20 at 8pm, replacing a scheduled House repeat. So, yes that will be three new episodes of Bones in a matter of 5 days, as it will still air and be all-new on its regular night and time of Thursday, April 16. We gave you the Fox summer 2009 schedule before, but they have added a new series and moved the premiere of one by a week. New medical drama Mental now premiering Friday, May 29 at 9:00 pm ET/PT. Mental follows Dr. Jack Gallagher (Chris Vance), a dynamic, young psychiatrist who serves as Director of Mental Health Services at a Los Angeles hospital. It was previously scheduled to launch on May 22, but now a House repeat will air instead. In other summer updates, More to Love, the inspirational new dating competition out to prove that love comes in all shapes and sizes, is set to premiere Tuesday, July 28 at 9:00 pm ET/PT on Fox. Executive-produced by Mike Fleiss, the unscripted series follows a single average guy with a big waist and an even bigger heart as he romances several confident and secure plus-size women. The series will follow episodes of Hell's Kitchen.
Meanwhile NBC has pulled Law & Order: Criminal Intent Wednesday repeats after one airing effective this week. The repeats had replaced the recently pulled Chopping Block. Instead now NBC will air repeats of the original Law & Order. After the Life season (or series?) finale this Wednesday, repeats of Law & Order: SVU take over starting the following week (April 15). So, the night will be turned into an all Law & Order series night, with repeats of the original at 8 and repeats of SVU at 9, leading into new episode of the original at 10pm. This could be a test for the fall to see how Law & Order and Law & Order SVU do from 8-10pm, back-to-back, even though they will be repeats right now.
Two weeks ago we gave you the WGN America's spring 2009 line-up, but now there are some changes and additions! First, I want to give you the marathons they have added. The first marathon is an afternoon marathon of Matlock on Sunday, April 5 from 1pm-5pm ET, yes four episodes of Ben Matlock representing clients. Then the following Sunday on Sunday, April 12 from 1pm-5pm will be In the Heat of the Night. For this event, we get two episodes followed by a 1995 TV-movie called In the Heat of the Night: Grow Old Along with Me (1995). The next marathon is a primetime launch of the classic animated series The Bullwinkle Show! The marathon will be Friday, April 17 from 8-10pm ET (5-7pm PT). As we mentioned last time, the series will regularly air Saturdays at 12am ET (9pm PT) starting April 18. Great to see this series back on national TV! The four episode marathon will be the first four parts of the story arc "Wossamotta U" from the fifth season. The regular airings will start with the second season episode "Rue Britannia, Part 1." The final marathon they have scheduled so far is probably the best one because it is for a show that doesn't air on the regular schedule! On Sunday, April 19 during the classic block "Outta Sight Retro Night" hours we will get The Munsters! Yes, from 5pm-10pm and 11pm-2am ET. WGN America will preempt Cosby Show, ALF, WKRP, Newhart, Honeymooners, Bewitched, Jeannie, and Hillbillies for one night for Herman Munster and gang! The last time the series aired on WGN America was for a Halloween marathon. Check out the episode schedule for this marathon! As for the regular changes starting week of April 13, what we gave you before it pretty much right...but there are a few changes now. The weeknights at 1am ET hour will no longer be a rotating wheel. We will now get Star Trek: The Next Generation (except Thursday nights is still the delayed Scrubs airings). Four nights a week of Star Trek: TNG, so the Tuesday primetime airings will be replaced by movies or baseball games now. The only other changes are to late nights. Tuesday late nights from 4am-5:30am ET will now be Moesha instead of a second night of Corner Gas. But as of now, when Moesha leaves at the end of June (looks like it is expiring), the second night of Corner Gas will return in July. Replacing the Thursday airing of Moesha at 5am ET starting the week of April 13 will be Reno 911. Since Reno 911 will be replaced at 1am hour, the airings will be moved to Friday late nights from 4am-5:30am ET replacing Funniest Pets & People. And the fifth airing of Reno 911 is still Sundays at 5am ET. As I said, July will see more late night changes. Sister, Sister will also be removed after June as well it seems. Because its Wednesday 4am-5:30am ET block will be replaced by Funniest Pets & People starting in July. Thursdays and Fridays in July will see a bit of a change, too...4-5am ET will be Reno 911 and 5am ET will be Funniest Pets & People. Why the change? Because new reality series Around the World for Free concludes at the end of June, so the Bob & Tom Show encore won't air at 4am ET on Thursdays anymore. I know...confusing. That's all we have for now. Stay tuned for more WGN America news, since we were told to expect more sitcom marathons in the summer and possibly new shows on Sunday nights in the fall!
Fox's summer 2009 season begins this May with season five of So You Think You Can Dance and the premiere of new medical drama Mental. Fan-favorites heat up the summer with the next installment of culinary competition Hell's Kitchen and all-new episodes of Don't Forget the Lyrics!, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, Cops and America's Most Wanted. So You Think You Can Dance kicks off with a two-night, four-hour premiere Thursday, May 21 and Wednesday, May 27 both from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT. Once the auditions conclude, weekly performance shows will air Wednesdays from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT, and weekly results shows will air Thursdays from 9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT. Mental will debut Friday, May 22 at 9:00PM ET/PT. The series follows Dr. Jack Gallagher (Chris Vance), a dynamic, young psychiatrist who serves as Director of Mental Health Services at a Los Angeles hospital. Leading into Mental, will be the return of Don't Forget the Lyrics! as it returns to lock-in the lyrics with all-new episodes starting Friday, May 22 at 8:00 PM ET/PT. Then six weeks later, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? heads back to the classroom for summer session and all-new episodes starting Friday, July 3 at 8:00PM ET/PT. The summer gets even hotter when the next installment of Hell's Kitchen kicks off with a special two-hour premiere Tuesday, July 21 from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT. The intensity continues Tuesdays beginning July 28 in its regular hour of 8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT as Chef Gordon Ramsay narrows down the field of competing chefs until only one remains standing in the kitchen. Finally, Cops and AMW will be new all summer long on Saturdays. And as previously announced, Teen Choice 2009, the annual special that celebrates the year's hottest teen icons in film, television, music, sports and fashion, will air Monday, August 10 from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT.
NBC has chopped its last meal for Chopping Block. NBC has pulled the Wednesday at 8pm cooking-reality competition series from the schedule after just three airings. The series has gone down in the ratings in each episode and was pulled after just a 1.8 HH rating and just 2.58 million viewers. Those are Saturday numbers! The show will be replaced by repeats of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which was scheduled to air repeats starting April 29, so it is coming 5 weeks earlier than planned. No, these will not be the new season of Criminal Intent, that starts on NBC in June on Mondays. But USA Network will air the new season first starting April 19.
In the Motherhood - Thursdays 8:00PM ET/PT on ABC Premieres Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 8:00PM ET/PT
Megan Mullally (Will & Grace) and Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm) come to ABC in the new comedy In the Motherhood, which takes a look at the importance of family and friends while trying to juggle motherhood, work and love lives in an overly complicated modern world. The story focuses on Rosemary (Mullally), Jane (Hines) and Emily (Jessica St. Clair), who represent mothers we all know. Rosemary is a free-wheeling mom who plays it fast and loose when it comes to parenting her teenaged son, Syd. Married numerous times, but currently single, Rosemary lives by her own rules. Much to the amazement of the other moms, her nontraditional parenting style has yielded a son much more responsible than she. Rosemary's best friend, Jane, is a recently divorced working mother of a pre-teen, Annie, and a baby girl, Sophie, who is just trying to keep her career and home afloat. Having just returned to work after giving birth eight months ago, Jane struggles to find a happy balance - lucky for her she has her "manny," Horatio (Horatio Sanz, Saturday Night Live), to help out. Jane's younger sister, Emily, sees herself as the model stay-at-home-super-mom for her two young children, Esther and Bill. Emily's home is a work of art, and her kids are polite and sweet-everything has its place in her world. Married to Jason (RonReaco Lee), Emily takes parenting as seriously as any mother could. As for the men in their lives, Horatio, Jane's "manny," communicates with Jane's infant daughter through sign language and believes the baby is the only person who really "gets" him. He's a good-hearted lug who is also much more than a babysitter to the three ladies. Then there's Jason, Emily's husband, who is the uptight breadwinner, ready at any given moment to open a vein for his family. He likes his food to be organic and his wife, home and children at the top of their class. Basically he's an ulcer waiting to happen.
Cheryl Hines (Jane) is a two-time Emmy nominee for her role as Cheryl David on HBO's Golden Globe Award-winning series, Curb Your Enthusiasm. She is also establishing herself as one of Hollywood's most sought after film actresses with starring roles in a number of critically acclaimed feature films and box office hits. This past summer she was the female lead in the animated comedy Space Chimps, with Saturday Night Live's Andy Samberg, and she co-starred in the Sundance hit, Henry Poole Was Here, opposite Luke Wilson, Adriana Barraza and Radha Mitchell. Hines has a number of feature films scheduled for release in 2009, including the the romantic comedy Labor Pains, directed by Lara Shapiro and co-starring Lindsay Lohan, Chris Parnell, Luke Kirby and Connie Britton and The Ugly Truth, directed by Robert Luketic and co-starring opposite Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. She recently completed production on her feature film directorial debut with the indie, Serious Moonlight, with Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton, from a screenplay written by the late Adrienne Shelly.
Jessica St. Clair (Emily) got her start as a comedian and writer at New York's Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, where she performed in several critically acclaimed stage shows co-written with Jason Mantzoukas. Called "the next Nichols and May" by Daily Variety in their "Ten to Watch" list in 2003, their shows were a hit at HBO's Aspen Comedy Festival and were later developed into pilots for both HBO and Comedy Central. St. Clair is currently developing a pilot for HBO with fellow UCB alum Lennon Parham. St. Clair had a recurring role on the comedy Worst Week and can be seen later this spring in the new Showtime series The United States of Tara. She will also be featured in the upcoming feature film She's Out of My League. Other credits include Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration, guest starring roles on ABC's Samantha Who? and Notes from the Underbelly, and Comedy Central's The Showbiz Show with David Spade. She is also a regular panelist on VH1's Best Week Ever.
Horatio Sanz (Horatio the "Manny") was born in Santiago, Chile, and raised in Chicago, Illinois, he honed his craft in his hometown both as a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade and company member of Chicago's legendary Second City. When he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live at the beginning of the 24th season, Sanz became the long-running sketch comedy show's first Latino cast member. After only one season, he was promoted from featured player to full cast member. On the show, he made his mark with original characters ranging from pothead Gobi in "Jarret's Room" to A/V teacher Mr. Banglian on "Wake Up, Wakefield" and "Uncle Rick" to Amy Poehler's "Kaitlin." Popular celebrity impersonations ranged from Aaron Neville and Ozzy Osbourne to the Axis of Evil's Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il.
RonReaco Lee (Jason, Emily's husband) is best-known for his role as mechanic Tyreke "Ty" Scott on the popular television series, Sister, Sister. He has also had recurring roles followed on The Shield, ER, Girlfriends, Committed and All About the Andersons. Guest starring roles include Monk, Boston Public, Moesha and Home Improvement. He most recently had a recurring role on the comedy Worst Week.
Megan Mullally (Rosemary) is best known for her two-time Emmy and four-time SAG Award-winning role as Karen Walker on Will & Grace. Making her television series debut in 1986 with Elaine Stritch and Ellen Burstyn on The Ellen Burstyn Show, she has since appeared as Stanley Tucci's wife in Paul Mazursky's award-winning HBO bio-pic, Winchell, starred opposite Juliet Stevenson in Lifetime's The Pact, and recently guest starred on the 2008-09 season premiere of 30 Rock, episodes of The New Adventures of Old Christine and Boston Legal. She has also hosted her own syndicated daytime talk show, The Megan Mullally Show. On the big screen, Mullally appeared in Anywhere But Here, with Susan Sarandon, and starred in Marc Forster's Everything Put Together -- an entry in the 2000 Sundance Film Festival's main competition. She recently completed production on a remake of the 1980 film, Fame. Other feature film credits include Stealing Harvard, Speaking of Sex and Rebound.
Pilot Plot:
I received the first two episodes airing for review. So, I will base my thoughts on the show on these two.
#1 (Prod #101) "It Takes a Village Idiot" (Airs March 26) Jane is finally back in the dating pool after a long, dry spell but afraid that she won't remember all of the romantic basics of courtship. Meanwhile, Rosemary discovers the special attention and perks that pregnant ladies are afforded and passes herself off as one -- with Horatio in on the ruse -- and Emily finds that honesty is not always the best policy when she decides to share the truth about certain childhood myths with her preschooler son. Guest starring are Charlotte Foley as Annie, Sayeed Shahidi as Bill, Yara Shahidi as Esther, Tiffany Haddish as Teddy, Ken Marino as Shep, Tig Notaro as Rhoda, Rachel Harris as Blair, Annie Mumolo as person no. 1 in coffee place, Bob Rumnock as man from another table, June Diane Raphael as Liz, Keri Shahidi as Alexis, Meredith Roberts as Hadley, Sacheen Padilla as BJ, Jeff Snyder as person no. 2 in coffee line and Steve Little as guard one. "It Takes a Village Idiot" was written by Jennifer Konner & Alexandra Rushfield and directed by Richard Shepard.
#2 (Prod #103) "Vacation" (Airs April 2) Jane's vacation week alone with baby Sophie turns out to be anything but relaxing, Rosemary tries to unionize Horatio's fellow nannies to help them get the perks they deserve, and Emily and Jason's "stay-cation" at home gets a thumbs-down from their kids. Guest starring are Charlotte Foley as Annie, Sayeed Shahidi as Bill, Yari Shahidi as Esther, Rachael Harris as Blair, Leslie Grossman as Maggie, Soledad St. Hilaire as Eugenia, Sarah Baker as Doris and Abby Miller as Abby. "Vacation" was written by Paul Corrigan & Brad Walsh and directed by Beth McCarthy-Miller.
Analysis:
Decent start for the show. It is clearly more mainstream than quirky & niche, so that should help this show. It certainly is not funnier than Better Off Ted in its lines, but the show is still funny in a more traditional way, even though this is single camera. ABC originally had the episode "Vacation" set-up to air first, but after Obama announced he was having a news conference on Tuesday, that forced Fox to move American Idol from Tues-Wed of this week to Wed-Thurs this week, now going head-to-head with In the Motherhood's premiere. So then ABC switched episodes. This series doesn't rely on previous storlylines from previous episodes, so it works and any episode can air first really. Both episodes I saw set up the characters well and you'll know who is who. The second one airing is clearly the better episode, I think. Maybe that is why ABC moved it to the second week, so it doesn't have to face Idol? Hopefully the premiere tomorrow gets a good sampling and does even better the following week because viewers need to give it more than just one episode.
As for the show itself, it isn't quite there yet for me...but it has great potential. It really fits Samantha Who's style, so they should work well with each other. As I said, the second episode airing is the better episode...so please stick around. Quick recap, we have three main stars. Jane is the main character. She has a sister named Emily. And a best friend named Rosemary. They are all mothers. Jane is divorced and has a preteen daughter and a baby. Emily is happily married (to a black man) and has two young children. And Rosemary has been divorced many times and has a teenaged son...who I have not seen yet in these episodes. To help Jane with the baby, she has a "manny" named Horatio. He seems to be friends (or a lover?) to Rosemary. That isn't really explained yet. All the characters are likeable and in the first two episodes they all have their own subplots but appear with each other as well. Rosemary has the craziest plots. In the first one airing, she fakes being pregnant to get free stuff. And in the second episode she brings all nannies together to go on strike. She certainly is the funniest, but she isn't being a "mother" per say here. Maybe in future episodes we will see that, as we haven't seen her teenaged son yet. Emily has the most traditional family, even though she has an interracial marriage. She certainly is the youngest of the three mothers, and the hottest, but she starts off very slow in her delivery...but gets better by episode two.
Jane and the "manny" have good chemistry, but perhaps not better than Rosemary and the "manny." There was a great Who's the Boss? joke with Jane and the "manny." It's been playing in clips on promos, so it has been seen. The supporting players are all good. The "manny," Emily's husband, the kids, and Jane's boss played by the great Rachel Harris. She is always hilarious in anything. She probably was the best thing about the sitcom Notes from the Underbelly.
Conclusion:
This series is based on the internet series of the same name (and that starred Leah Remini, Jenny McCarthy and Chelsea Handler). I've never watched those, but they have been higly touted. So I think this will work. I'm sure all mothers or parents can relate to this and will tune in. I'm neither and even I liked it. There is just something missing for me, but I do see great future potential here. It is said that real-life stories are put into this. So that is very good to hear and parents may want to watch. There is something here for all kinds of moms/parents: a divorced mom looking for love, interracial marriage, raising children, raising a teenager, raising a baby, and an entire family. I'm sure I'm missing something, too. In future episodes, you'll see Stacy Keibler on a TV show the moms watch. Cannot wait for that!
So if you're a parent/mom, check this show out. Don't just watch the premiere and that's it...give it a chance. I didn't think the first one airing was that good, but the second one is better and future plotlines sound even better. Fans need to be more patient with TV shows these days, especially sitcoms. So stick around for a few episodes, you might like it. As of now, only 6 of the 13 produced are airing...so give it a fair chance. If you've watched the internet series, then for sure tune in here to compare. So have you ever locked yourself outside the house with the baby inside? Or have gone on a vacation at home and called it a "staycation?" Then you'll want to tune in here! They're glamourous...but their moms!
DIRECTV champions quality television programming once again and inks a rare deal with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution to bring three critically acclaimed drama series back to television via DIRECTV's 101 Network Wednesday lineup. Smith, The Nine and Eyes will return to primetime with never-before-seen episodes, commercial-free and in HD, only on DIRECTV's 101 Network and DIRECTV on DEMAND. Beginning Wednesday, April 8 (10 p.m. ET/PT), Smith the action-adventure crime drama starring Emmy winner Ray Liotta, Academy Award nominee Virginia Madsen, Golden Globe nominee Simon Baker, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Franky G., Chris Bauer and Academy Award nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo will return with seven episodes, including four never-before-seen episodes. The Nine will premiere on Wednesday, May 27 (10 p.m. ET/PT), a week after the season finale of Smith. The Nine is the compelling drama series that delves into the lives of nine people who forge a common bond when they live through a 52-hour hostage standoff during a bank robbery. The series will return with 13 episodes, including four that were never broadcast. The Nine stars Lourdes Benedicto, John Billingsley, Jessica Collins, Emmy nominee Tim Daly, Dana Davis, Camille Guaty, Chi McBride, Kim Raver, Scott Wolf and Owain Yeoman. Eyes will join The 101's Wednesday summer lineup as the lead-in to The Nine, beginning in July (9 p.m. ET/PT). The one-hour detective drama stars Tim Daly as Harlan Judd, owner of Judd Risk Management, a 21st century private investigation firm that makes clients' problems go away quickly and quietly while operating at the absolute fringe of the law. So that means two Tim Daly shows will air back-to-back! Created and executive produced by John McNamara, the series will return with 12 episodes, including seven that have never been seen before. Eyes also stars Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon, A.J. Langer, Laura Leighton, Ugly Betty's Eric Mabius, Rick Worthy and Natalie Zea. Smith and The Nine originally aired in fall 2006 on CBS and ABC, respectively. Eyes originally aired on ABC in spring 2005. DIRECTV's 101 Network is the only place viewers will be able to catch these shows in their entiretycommercial-free and in HD.
Fox adds a second season of Kitchen Nightmares to its menu of unscripted series starring famed chef Gordon Ramsay. In Kitchen Nightmares, Ramsay steps out of his own five-star establishments and into some of the country's most unsuccessful restaurants to help turn them around or close their doors forever. It aired until this January on Thursdays on Fox, and is expected to return sometime this summer for more episodes.
WADL TV-38, Detroit's Urban TV station will be adding some exceptional new programming that will include legendary favorites to the station's spring line-up. The new additions to the classic TV programs will include: I Love Lucy, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, The Brady Bunch, The Honeymooners, The Beverly Hillbillies and The Andy Griffith Show. WADL TV 38 features Detroit's only local dance show Dance Party, and nationally known programming such as Cribs, American Chopper, RENO 911, Dave Chappell's Show, and Cheaters. In addition, the station already specializes in classic programming such as Good Times, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Fat Albert, The A-Team, In The Heat of the Night and up and coming to the lineup, Steve Harvey, Brian McKnight, The Brady Bunch and many others. Currently the classic TV line-up on weekdays starting at 4PM is The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, The A-Team, The Rockford Files, Fat Albert, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, A Different World, In the Heat of the Night, Good Times, M*A*S*H, The Odd Couple, Magnum P.I., Hawaii Five-0, and What's Happening Now!! So, the new programming will start Monday, March 30. Weekdays starting 4PM: Fat Albert, The Brady Bunch, Beverly Hillbillies, I Love Lucy, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Sanford & Son, Fresh Prince, A Different World, The Honeymooners, In The Heat of the Night, The Jeffersons, Good Times, M*A*S*H, The Odd Couple, Magnum P.I., Hawaii Five-0, and What's Happening Now!!
President Obama is as it again...with preempting primetime programming. This time it will be on Tuesday, March 24 at 8PM ET. I'm all for Obama, but come on this is crazy. Eastern/Central time zones will be mostly affected by this. I'll detail it by network. First up ABC will air the Presidential News Conference with Obama live at 8pm ET/5pm PT. So in the eastern/central time zones, the return of According to Jim will be totally preempted. Dancing with the Stars: The Results and Primetime: What Would You Do? will air as scheduled following the news conference. Out in the mountain and pacific time zones, everything will air as normally scheduled, including According to Jim...but they will be repeats instead ("The Blankie" and "Cabin Boys"). So if you're in the east/central time zones and love According to Jim, you'll have to watch the repeats on abc.com the next day, or if you get ABC onDemand on your cable system. Not sure how this will affect ABC's finale date of May 5 for According to Jim. Will it be pushed back a week or will they air two episodes on a special night to catch up? I was looking forward to the return, because Constance Marie (George Lopez) was going to guest star and the second episode was directed by Penny Marshall. CBS will air the Presidential News Conference with Obama live at 8pm ET/5pm PT. Following the address, they will air all-new episodes of NCIS and The Mentalist at special times of 9pm and 10pm ET/PT. Without a Trace will totally be preempted. Not sure yet what will air at 8pm PT/7pm MT, but that could go back to local affiliates or CBS could air a NCIS repeat there leading into a new NCIS. NBC will air the Presidential News Conference with Obama live at 8pm ET/5pm PT, pushing The Biggest Loser an hour back from 8-10pm to 9-11pm ET/PT. So, Law & Order: SVU is totally preempted. For mountain/pacific time zones at 8pm PT/7pm MT you will see a special Dateline episode leading into The Biggest Loser at a special time. Finally, most affected by Obama is Fox. Fox will have to totally scrap a two-hour American Idol Tuesday. They will air the Presidential News Conference with Obama live at 8pm ET/5pm PT. A House repeat will follow at 9pm ET/8pm CT. House will also air at 9pm PT/8pm MT. King of the Hill repeats will fill the hour at 8pm PT/7pm MT. The regular Tuesday installment of Idol will be moved to Wednesday 8-10pm ET/PT, so that means an episode of Lie to Me will have to be preempted that week. And the regular results of Idol Wednesday will have to be moved to Thursday, March 26 from 8-9pm ET/PT preempting Bones. Instead of this mess, couldn't Fox just have aired Idol 9-11pm ET on Tuesday and air it in its normal time in the mountain/pacific time zones instead of causing mass confusion? I know Fox doesn't schedule at 10pm, but the local affiliates wouldn't mind, I'm sure.
I'm on my way to a quick trip to Houston in literally minutes, so I'll see you back live on Sunday when I return...but please do come on by tomorrow (great story!) and Saturday (blog DVD review) as I have already done those stories for those days set to post on their own. Ain't technology grand?
Next Monday (Monday, March 23), CBS will preempt The Big Bang Theory for an all-new episode of How I Met Your Mother at a special time of 8:00PM ET/PT. Big Bang was scheduled to be a repeat anyway. Mother will also still air in its normal 8:30PM ET/PT on this night, but that will be a repeat broadcast. It will be interesting if CBS is seeing how strong Mother is at 8PM in comparison to Big Bang. Both comedies have been down the last two weeks thanks to the return of Dancing with the Stars. Two and a Half Men will also be a repeat at 9PM, but Rules of Engagement is all-new at 9:30PM.
Fox has removed Hole in the Wall from the schedule yet again. Effective this Sunday, Fox will now air repeats of American Dad! and King of the Hill at 7PM & 7:30PM in place of the half-hour showings of Hole in the Wall which certainly was a hole in the Sunday night schedule, perhaps effecting the animated comedies to lower numbers from 8-10PM. In other Fox programming news, the variety series of specials, The Osbournes: Reloaded, will now launch as a 40-minute airing instead of an hour on Tuesday, March 31 from 9:20-10PM, so yes American Idol will be from 8PM-9:20PM on that night, just what we needed, more Idol. Fox has ordered six Osbournes variety specials, so each are 30-minutes, so four will remain after these two half-hours air. Not sure if Fox is cutting anything from these or if they will run with limited commercials.
Award-winning actor and activist Ron Silver, who was Emmy-nominated for his recurring role on the hit television drama The West Wing, died on Sunday after a two-year ordeal of esophageal cancer. His portrayal of White House strategist Bruno Gianelli on The West Wing was perhaps his best known part in recent years, but he earned another Emmy nomination for the murder thriller Billionaire Boys Club, a TV miniseries from 1987. He had a recurring role on the TV hospital drama Chicago Hope and a regular role on the sitcom Veronica's Closet, and he won acclaim for playing lawyer Alan Dershowitz in the film Reversal of Fortune. Among his other TV credits include guest-starring on sitcoms such as Rhoda, Big Eddie, Trying Times, and regular roles on short-lived sitcoms The Stockard Channing Show and Baker's Dozen. He guest starred on many TV dramas as well such as The Practice, Crossing Jordan, Law & Order, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, Wiseguy, Hill Street Blues, The Rockford Files, McMillan & Wife and a regular role on the short-lived Skin on Fox. He was also known for his work on Broadway. Broadway theatre bosses will dim the lights of New York's theatreland on Wednesday as a mark of respect. He won a 1988 Tony Award for his performance in David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow. Theatre marquees will be dimmed for one minute at 8pm on Wednesday, which is the traditional starting time for evening performances of Broadway shows. Ron will certainly be missed. He was only 62.
ABC has announced it will return According to Jim on Tuesday, March 24 and air it in the 8-9pm hour with two back-to-back episodes. The series aired 6 episodes during the holidays and didn't do too well, but that was during a low-rated month. Now the series has 12 episodes left and these will be the final 12 for this long-running sitcom. They will air them in six weeks through Tuesday, May 5, which will be the series finale (they will be preempted on April 7 for Charlie Brown Easter). According to Jim will replace Homeland Security, USA, which will have its final Tuesday broadcast next week. The show still has 5 episodes left in this season's order, and will likely air elsewhere. With the return of According to Jim, ABC will have comedy hours three nights a week in the 8-9pm hour from Tuesdays through Thursdays. Scrubs returns with new episodes and Better Off Ted launches Wednesdays starting March 18 in the 8pm hour, then Jim returns Tuesdays starting March 24, and Thursdays will see the launch of In the Motherhood and the return of Samantha Who? starting March 26. According to Jim and Scrubs are both ending their runs after eight seasons a piece this season and ABC is trying to create a comedy block for next year, so the end of these two will provide a start. Both series will have their series finale on back-to-back nights (May 5 and May 6). Dancing with the Stars will probably give the comedies a good push for promotion, as the new Bob Saget sitcom Surviving Suburbia will premiere a few weeks later on Monday, April 6 at 9:30pm, giving ABC another comedy. ABC hasn't had this many sitcoms since like 2002 and 2003, when their promotion were called "ABC Happy Hour" and "Comedy Rules." For the sake of sitcoms, let's hope this works and I could certainly see a four-comedy night return to ABC next fall...with hopefully all traditional multi-camera sitcoms. Surviving Suburbia is a good start! As for you Jim fans, here are the episode titles the first two weeks: March 24 - "The Ego Boost" and "The Yoga Bear." March 31 - "Kyle's Crush" and "The Meaningful Gift." Then jumping a month later on May 5, the series finale "Heaven Opposed to Hell" will have many guest stars! Kimberly Williams-Paisley returns and Dan Aykroyd, Erik Estrada, Lee Majors, and Mitch Rouse are among the guests who also return.
In a broadcast first, Glee, the new one-hour musical comedy series from Ryan Murphy, will get a special preview following American Idol's performance finale on Tuesday, May 19 from 9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT on Fox. The show will then premiere in the fall (date to be announced). So the series will get a special preview before returning about four months later. Will this work? It won't have an Idol lead-in in the fall, that's for sure. We shall see. Glee is an uplifting series with biting humor that features a soundtrack of hit music from past to present, so it should blend well with American Idol. But before Glee, Fox will hop aboard the "Crazy Train" when Ozzy, Sharon, Jack and Kelly Osbourne turn another television convention upside down and inside out with their new series Osbournes: Reloaded premiering after American Idol on Tuesday, March 31 from 9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT. The variety series features audience interaction, rowdy comedy and hilarious stunts that will shock and amuse. Outrageous sensibility and brash humor are at the core of the series filmed on location and in front of a studio audience that never knows what to expect from the First Family of Rock. Following the premiere, Osbournes: Reloaded will return to the Fox schedule as a series of one-hour specials to air later in the season, as six episodes were ordered in all. So this means Fringe won't return until April 7. The creepy drama series has 7 episodes left from its 21 episode order and hasn't aired since Feb. 10. So with the Glee premiere and the preemption on March 31 for the Osbournes, the Fringe finale will likely air out of sweeps with no American Idol lead-in on May 26. And if Osbournes does very well, Fringe could be preempted more likely. So Fringe has to watch its back, as the show really hasn't done that well in the ratings.
NBC is proud to announce a new comedy-reality series created by superstar comedian and producer Jerry Seinfeld's Columbus 81 Productions. Mr. Seinfeld has partnered with Ellen Rakieten, a 23-year veteran of The Oprah Winfrey Show on this project. This marks Jerry Seinfeld's first regular TV venture since starring in the sitcom Seinfeld. This new series titled The Marriage Ref (working title) will feature opinionated celebrities, comedians and sports stars who will candidly comment, judge and offer different strategies for real-life couples in the midst of a classic marital dispute. No word yet when it will air exactly, but look for it sometime in the 2009-2010 season. More info will come soon, such as how many episodes were ordered. As of now, Jerry will create and produce the series, and not appear on it...but don't be surprised if he appears on it once or twice.
Fox has ordered two additional seasons of The Simpsons, which will bring the longest-running series in primetime television history through its 22nd season. The 44-episode pickup ensures the series will reach an astounding 493 episodes. Since its debut on January 14, 1990, The Simpsons immediately struck a chord with viewers across the country as it poked fun of itself and everything in its wake. With its subversive humor and delightful wit, the series has made an indelible imprint on American pop culture and has become one of television's most iconic families. "Best. 20 Years. Ever.," a year-long global celebration honoring all things The Simpsons, launched in January 2009 and will culminate on January 14, 2010, the 20th anniversary of the series' debut. CBS has ordered two more editions of Survivor to be broadcast during the 2009-2010 season. These will mark the 19th and 20th editions of broadcast television's longest-running reality competition series. Jeff Probst, who won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality Competition Series, will continue as host. The groundbreaking reality series, which premiered in May 2000, has aired Thursdays at 8pm since February 2001.
Earlier this week we gave you Hallmark Channel's March line-up, now Hallmark has edited February a bit. We are not sure if this will affect March yet, but I think it will. As of now, we don't have details on if March will be altered, but we do have what will happen starting Monday. They have made last minute changes to be started on Monday (Feb. 9). Weekdays 4-5pm ET/PT will now be another episode of Little House on the Prairie replacing I Love Lucy. Lucy will remain weekdays 8-9am, though. The rest of the changes are on weekends. Saturdays 6-9am ET/PT will now be three episodes of Little House on the Prairie replacing the three-hour block of I Love Lucy. And that's not all on Saturdays...Saturdays 1-3am will now be back-to-back episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger replacing more I Love Lucy. Get the pattern yet? If not, keep reading. Sundays from 9-10am will now be another extra episode of 7th Heaven, so that series will air from 9am-3pm now on Sundays. The 9am hour will replace two episodes of I Love Lucy. However, all is not lost for Lucy on Sunday mornings, it will remain at 8:30am. And finally Sunday nights from 1-3am will now be more Walker, Texas Ranger replacing... you guessed it, I Love Lucy. So if you're keeping score, I Love Lucy now will only air weekdays 8-9am and Sundays at 8:30am...ouch. So what will this mean for the March schedule we announced earlier this week? Not sure yet. If I were to guess, some of these changes happening Monday will be carried over to March (I doubt Lucy will air 3pm in March), but we'll let you know as soon we know! So for now, the March schedule we announced is still happening...but expect I Love Lucy to be reduced from the original March plan. The Hallmark sitcom curse continues...can The Golden Girls break that in March?
President Obama is planning a Presidential News Conference on Monday (Feb. 9) at 8PM ET/5PM PT. So this will affect the Eastern/Central time zones programming on network TV. The press conference is expected to last between 40-60 minutes. So in the eastern and central time zones, the 8pm hour will be different. At 8PM ET on CBS, the all-new episode of The Big Bang Theory will be moved to 9:30PM ET/PT for the entire nation, replacing Worst Week's season finale. That season finale will now be on Feb. 16 at 9:30pm ET/PT. How I Met Your Mother was also slated to be all-new at 8:30pm, but since the press conference will be between 40-60 minutes, CBS will air a repeat of Mother instead, joined in progress if the press conference ends before 9pm. Out west at 8pm PT (7pm MT), a repeat of Old Christine will air on a special night, followed by a repeat of How I Met Your Mother at 8:30pm PT/7:30pm MT. Over at NBC, they will also air the press conference. They will have to preempt an all-new episode of Chuck at 8pm ET. If the press conference ends before 9pm ET, then they will air a Heroes repeat joined in progress. Out west, a repeat of Heroes will air in its entirety at 8pm PT. ABC will devote the full 8pm ET/5pm PT hour to the press conference. In east/central, The Bachelor will air an hour later from 9-11pm ET (8-10pm CT), as True Beauty will be preempted. Out west, The Bachelor will air in its normal time of 8-10pm PT (7-9pm MT), followed by a repeat of True Beauty at 10pm PT/9pm MT. The regularly scheduled new episode of True Beauty will air on a special night of Tuesday at 10pm ET/PT, preempting Primetime: What Would You Do? for the week. Fox will preempt an all-new episode of House on Monday and move it to the following Monday in its normal time (another Obama address pending), while a 24 repeat from the previous week will air at 8pm PT/7pm MT out west. That is not all for Obama. He is also planning a Presidential Address to Congress on Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 9pm ET/6pm PT. All the networks have committed to that. ABC will preempt two Scrubs repeats on that night to air the Presidential Address to Congress from 9-10pm ET. That will air 6-7pm PT, so ABC will likely air those Scrubs repeats out west. NBC will cut The Biggest Loser in half that night and will air the second hour the following night at 8pm, no idea what NBC will air out west at 9pm PT/8pm MT yet. CBS will preempt a scheduled The Mentalist repeat at 9pm ET that night to accommodate the address but it will air out west. Fox will make the most drastic change for this night. A Bones repeat will air at 8pm ET leading into the Presidential Address to Congress at 9pm ET. Not sure what is airing out west at 9pm PT/8pm MT, but I would guess another Bones repeat. Since American Idol was scheduled to air two-hours that Tuesday night, Fox will move those two-hours to Wednesday from 8-10pm ET/PT. So Lie to Me is totally preempted that week (Wednesday Feb. 25). The second night of American Idol will be shifted to Thursday that week at 8pm ET/PT, preempting Bones. Idol will lead into an all-new Hell's Kitchen. And believe it or not, Obama also plans a short address on Monday, Feb. 16 as well. So far no networks have committed to that one. We will keep you up to date of everything on this, so keep checking back.
Celebrate Valentine's Day with the Bundys in a Married with Children marathon on Valentine's Day (Saturday, February 14, 2009) from 1pm-8pm on Spike TV! It's "Love, Bundy Style!" Join the Bundys for some tough love. The weird love of Al and Peggy is perfect for Valentine's Day. And you'll also see Bud and Kelly go on dates and find love. Elsewhere on Spike, earlier in the month, catch a CSI marathon on Super Bowl Sunday. Forget football! Catch up on all your favorite CSI 2-part episodes. It's an all day Super CSI Sunday Marathon on Sunday, February 1 from 12pm-4am.
Universal's digital cable station Sleuth will add the Richard Dean Anderson '80s series MacGyver to its line-up in February. MacGyver will launch on Monday, Feb. 2 and will air weekdays at 7am and 4am, replacing one of the daily JAG airings. Richard Dean Anderson will certainly "fix" the Sleuth schedule, if you know what I mean. Earlier this month Sleuth went under a big makeover and airs mostly series that are reran on sister station USA Network such as JAG, Monk, The Dead Zone, NCIS, and Walker Texas Ranger while adding Canadian series such as Cold Squad and DaVinci's Inquest. The Guardian also airs on Sleuth weekly. A few weeks after its launch, MacGyver will get a 24-hour marathon on Sunday, February 22 from 6am to 6am.
Fox has pulled Hole in the Wall from the schedule after just one episode from its return. The series returned this past Sunday to only 3.39 and 3.32 million in the 7pm hour. Hole will be replaced by Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? for the next week weeks (Jan. 25 and Feb. 1). As of now, Fox says Hole will return on Feb. 8 once the NFL season is over, though I doubt that. 5th Grader airs Fridays at 8pm but only until Jan. 30, so maybe the show will move to Sundays at 7? Stay tuned... Meanwhile, ABC has made it official. The Bachelor is will expand to air in the 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT slot every week until the show has its finale on Monday, March 2. Second year sitcom Samantha Who? is no longer scheduled to air in the 9:30 PM ET/PT half-hour until further notice, as the series has been preempted the last two weeks. The Bachelor has built each week since its premiere on Jan. 5 and has done very well in the ratings. No word if Samantha will be placed elsewhere on ABC. An option is with Scrubs on Tuesdays or will ABC wait and hold it until Dancing returns? We'll let you know.
Fox is up today at the TCA winter 2009 press tour. They started with a Simpsons 20th anniversary themed breakfast! Big pink donuts! Cool! The Executive Session followed and we found out some stuff. The biggest news is that Fox's Prison Break is being canceled after this season. The series will come to an end and will likely have stories wrapped-up with a true finale. However, the series will be moved to the graveyard...airing Fridays at 8:00PM starting Friday, April 17, replacing the likely also canceled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Six episodes are in the can to air for Prison, but Fox could shoot two more to wrap things up for good. Looks like no mention of a spin-off, too. Fox also has scheduled its Mitch Hurwitz animated comedy Sit Down, Shut Up on Sunday, April 19 at 8:30PM, replacing King of the Hill. It seems we have seen the last of King of the Hill, as Fox is labeling its last airing on Sunday, April 12 a "series finale," which is odd because many episodes still remain in the can despite Fox canceling the series a few months back. Could the series be moved to ABC after all? We shall see. Fox also has game show The Moment of Truth ready to go, but hasn't scheduled it. Perhaps it could air in the summer. And it seems it is true that sitcom 'Til Death has been renewed for NEXT season (2009-10) for another 22 episodes. Sony gave Fox a cheap deal they couldn't resist. Fox only has aired four episodes from this season's 24 episode order. Fox did air three leftovers from last season as well, so seven episodes in all have aired this year before Fox pulled the series in early October due to low ratings. My guess is the 20 that remain for this season will be burned off in the summer, as it seems Fox wouldn't waste their in-season schedule for this series again. This is clearly a financial deal, as the series would have enough episodes for syndication. In other news, medical procedual House will celebrate its 100th episode on Feb. 2. That was fast. Panels for Lie to Me and 24 followed. The upcoming Sunday animated comedy Sit Down, Shut Up followed with a lunch presentation. After the lunch, panels for American Idol, Osbournes: Reloaded Variety Series, Dollhouse, FX's Rescue Me, House, and the upcoming musical drama Glee followed. It is still early...we will have constant updates here, if anything major is announced. So keep checking back multiple times a day this whole week!
And in a scheduling note, President Bush is scheduled to have a 15 minute farewell speech in primetime on Thursday (Jan. 15) at 8PM ET. So because of this Fox will move the season premiere of Bones back a week to January 22 to 8PM and airing a second episode at 9PM. It is unclear still what will air following Bush's short speech this Thursday. However, Kitchen Nightmares will still air and be all-new this Thursday, but will be preempted next Thursday for Bones' two-hour stunt. CBS will be on 15-minute delay for East/Central stations. So, a repeat of CSI will start at 8:15/7:15c, a new CSI won't start until 9:15/8:15c and Eleventh Hour won't start until 10:15/9:15c. In Mountain and Pacific time zones, the shows will air in their normal timeslots. As of this writing, the other networks have not announced what they will do yet. Keep checking back though.
Cheryl Holdridge, the beautiful blond actress who first gained fame as a Mouseketeer on TV's The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s, has died. Holdridge died Tuesday (January 6) at her home in Santa Monica after a two-year battle with lung cancer. After The Mickey Mouse Club, the actress played Julie Foster, Wally's girlfriend, on Leave it to Beaver and guest starred on series such as The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Donna Reed Show, Dr. Kildare, The Rifleman, Bachelor Father, My Three Sons, Bewitched, Dennis the Menace, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Wagon Train, and reprised her role as Julie Foster on the '80s revival of Leave it to Beaver called Still the Beaver. Cheryl hasn't acted much since the '60s, but will be remembered for her work on these '50s and '60s TV series from classic TV fans. She will be missed. She was only 64.
We gave you Hallmark Channel's January 2009 highlights last month, now we have some changes in store for Sundays! Sundays from 10am-3am has been changed totally! Effective Sunday, January 4, we will now get a block of 7th Heaven from 10am-3pm, that's five straight episodes of the Camden family on family day...Sunday! This will basically replace a movie, Diagnosis Murder movie, a Perry Mason movie, and a Matlock movie. Regular movies will now air from 3pm-1am, yes, five straight movies will air. These movies will basically replace the four Murder, She Wrote episodes in the evening. Finally, we get more I Love Lucy! As I Love Lucy will also air Sunday nights from 1-3am now replacing the Matlock movie. So to recap the times for I Love Lucy now...Saturdays 6-9am & 1-3am, Sundays 8:30am-10am & 1-3am, weekdays 8-9am and weekdays 4-5pm. Whole lotta Lucyyyyyyyy!
Fox has announced the American Idol schedule through March 10 (3/11-5/20 dates and times will be announced at a later date). As we know, Idol launches Jan. 13 and 14 with a two-night premiere from 8-10pm both nights. Then it will regularly air 8-9pm on both Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but there are times when it will be expanded to 8-10pm and two special Thursday airings will air on Jan. 29 and March 5. March 5 is the first night of March sweeps, as this year there is no February sweeps due to the transition to DTV on Feb. 17. Why is this Idol schedule important? Because it looks like Bones will be preempted on Thursday, Jan. 29 now, since Idol is airing that night leading into the season premiere of Hell's Kitchen. Bones will return the following week (Feb. 5), though. Bones moves to the Thursdays at 8pm slot on Jan. 15 leading into the final two episodes of Kitchen Nightmares on Jan. 15 and 22. Also, only 4 episodes of Fringe will air after American Idol through March 10 it seems. Fringe is slated to air for four weeks in a row on 1/20, 1/27, 2/3, and 2/10, then Idol expands to two-hours the next four weeks AT LEAST, so Fringe will probably not return until the end of March sweep. The news is better for new drama Lie to Me out of Idol, Idol will only be two-hours on a Wednesday on Feb. 11, so Lie to Me will air for three straight weeks then be preempted then air again for another three weeks at least, maybe more. Meanwhile, Fox has ordered 13 episodes of Glee, an inspiring musical comedy series from Ryan Murphy. The one-hour series follows an optimistic high school teacher as he tries to transform the school's Glee Club and inspire a group of ragtag performers to make it to the biggest competition of them all: Nationals. The show will debut in 2009 and features a soundtrack of hit songs from past to present. It could be the perfect fit out of American Idol, so Fringe and Lie to Me need to do very well, if not then Glee will fit like a glove likely out of Idol. View our previous story on Fox's 2009 midseason schedule for the rest of the schedules besides Tues-Thurs.
It was only yesterday when we announced TV Land has ordered an addition original series for 2009, now TV Land has ordered two more. TV Land has ordered two more nonscripted original series, placing series orders for How'd You Get So Rich?, produced by Mark Burnett and featuring Joan Rivers, and a British format adaptation of First Love, Second Chance. TV Land has ordered six half-hour episodes of How'd You Get So Rich?, in which Rivers will visit big estates across the country and interview their well-heeled occupants. The series is executive produced by Mark Burnett and Zoo Productions. Produced by Granada America, First Love, Second Chance reunites long-broken-up couples to see if any chemistry remains. TV Land has ordered six episodes of this 60-minute series. It is unclear when these series will actually launch, but it will be sometime in 2009.
In the '80's television sitcom Married With Children, David Faustino played girl crazy little bro Bud Bundy. Entertainment Tonight has the Bundys together again -- but has Bud been replaced by Seth Green? It's all a part of David's new Web comedy Star-ving coming to Sony's Crackle.com in January for 13 episodes. The funnyman plays a former child star, down on his luck in life and love but thinks everything's about to change when a Married With Children, big screen adaptation is announced. Ed Asner (Mary Tyler Moore Show) also will be in this series. For more info on this, tune into Entertainment Tonight...tonight. Check local listings for time and channel in your area.
Fox has announced the final season of Emmy Award-winning sketch comedy series MADtv. Now in its 14th year, MADtv will air its 326th and final original episode in May 2009. MADtv airs Saturdays (11:00 PM-Midnight) on Fox. Since its debut in October 1995, MADtv has earned four Emmy Awards and 41 nominations, as well as many other awards. The politically incorrect, fast-paced late-night series is best known for its signature characters, celebrity impersonations and pop-culture parodies. The current MADtv cast is Bobby Lee, Keegan-Michael Key, Nicole Parker, Crista Flanagan, Arden Myrin, Johnny Sanchez, Erica Ash, Matt Braunger, Eric Price and Lauren Pritchard. MADtv has also helped launch the careers of several well-known actors and comedians including Michael McDonald, Alex Borstein, Orlando Jones, Mo Collins, Debra Wilson, Frank Caliendo, Artie Lange, Nicole Sullivan, Will Sasso, Stephnie Weir, Aries Spears and others. The Saturday-night staple has featured wildly popular impersonations of Whitney Houston, Connie Chung, Kenny Rogers, Britney Spears, Ellen DeGeneres and Morgan Freeman. Over the last 14 seasons, MADtv has featured guest appearances by numerous celebrities including Ryan Seacrest, Queen Latifah, Jessica Simpson, Susan Sarandon, Carlos Mencia, Regis Philbin, Neil Patrick Harris, Shakira, Carmen Electra, Nicole Richie, Mandy Moore, Pamela Anderson, LL Cool J, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Tyra Banks, Jessica Alba, Serena Williams, Jay-Z, Halle Berry, Kathy Bates, Don Cheadle, Rebecca Romijn, Missy Elliott and Jeff Probst, among others. Fox has not announced a replacement, if there will be any. The hour could go back to local stations for programming.
This December on TV One they are going all out in celebrating with holiday episodes of sitcoms and more, including the launch of Half & Half on Kwanza and classic sitcom The Jeffesons and Sanford & Son on New Year's Day. But first we have to talk about some schedule changes. The weekday 7-9am block has changed and will now be actual series programming rather than original repeats. Starting Monday, December 8 following Amen from 6-7am will be All About the Andersons at 7am, followed by back-to-back episodes of Comics Unleashed from 7:30-8:30am and the sitcom Good News at 8:30am. 9am-11am will continue to be originals, while 11am-4pm continues to be the daily marathons. Also on this date, TV One launches its HD channel TV One HD! To the highlights we go, Saturday, December 13 is the beginning of the TV One "12 Days of Christmas" Promotion that features a mix of holiday series, movies, and specials to keep viewers filled with joy and Christmas spirit leading up to Christmas Day. First up is a Christmas Sitcom marathon on December 13 beginning at 7am through 10pm featuring Christmas-themed episodes of Amen, Martin, Roc, Wanda at Large, Living Single, Eve, The Hughleys, Good News, The PJs, All of Us, and Good Times. On Sunday, December 14 from 3-6pm, you can catch a block of Amen Christmas episodes leading into the animated Christmas special Santa Baby at 6pm about a little girl who gets a wish for Christmas returns to TV One for the holidays and stars the voices of Patti LaBelle, Gregory Hines, and Eartha Kitt. This special has an encore broadcast on Sunday, December 21 at 7pm (and Saturday, Dec. 20 in the daytime at 12pm). From Monday, December 15 through Friday, December 19, TV One devotes the 8pm-12am timeblock exclusively to "The 12 Days of Christmas" themed programming including sitcom episodes of Martin, Living Single, Good Times, Amen, Cedric the Entertainer Presents, All of Us and For Your Love from 8-11pm, original Christmas specials at 11pm, and the holiday film The Kid Who Loved Christmas starring Sammy Davis Jr. premiering Friday, December 19 at 10pm. On Saturday, December 20 beginning at 6am, the holiday fun starts bright and early as TV One continues the "12 Days of Christmas" programming with a holiday marathon mix of sitcoms, holiday specials, movies that will give viewers the warm and fuzzy feel of holiday time at TV One. Sitcoms airs from 6am-12pm, 2pm-7pm, and late nights from 3-6am. Catch holiday episodes of Where I Live, Amen, All of Us, Eve, Cedric the Entertainer Presents, Good Times, The PJs, and Living Single on this day. From Monday, December 22 through Wednesday, December 24, the TV One "12 Days of Christmas" themed programming begins each night at 5pm and continues all night with sitcoms, movies, and specials to keep viewers Christmas Cheer at a high level as we get closer to the biggest holiday of the year. Sitcom episodes airs from 5pm-1am these three days. Catch episodes of Good Times, Roc, The PJs, Cedric the Entertainer Presents, Wanda at Large, Parent'hood, Martin and Eve from 5-8pm, with blocks of All of Us (Mon), Good Times (Tues), and Martin (Wed) from 8-10pm. The fun continues from 10pm-1am with holiday showings of For Your Love, Cedric, Eve, Living Single, The Hughleys, Good Times, Roc, The PJs, and Martin. On Thursday, December 25, TV One gives viewers 24 hours of Christmas on Christmas Day itself starting at 6am with themed movies, music, and specials keeping the holiday cheer at a high and then beginning at 5pm, the annual TV One sitcom Christmas Day Marathon closes out our "12 Days of Christmas" promotion with Christmas-themed episodes from sitcoms For Your Love, Roc, Martin, Good Times, Living Single, Parent'hood, Wanda At Large, Cedric, The PJs, All of Us, Eve, and The Hughleys. TV One sure knows how to showcase sitcom Christmas episodes! I hope you all got that! One thing missing is Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, as it has left the line-up. It was airing Saturdays 7-8am but was replaced by Parent'hood on Dec. 6 and holiday specials/marathons for the rest of the month. No word on when it could return. We're not done with TV One! Three shows will launch with big marathons! On Friday December 26 (Kwanza), beginning at 8pm, TV One introduces Half & Half to its sitcom lineup with a 24-hour Mega-thon that will keep viewers laughing all night long as they are introduced to the characters in the latest series added to the TV One sitcom landscape. Half & Half, starring Essence Atkins, Rachel True, Valarie Pettiford and Telma Hopkins, is a sitcom about two 20-something half-sisters who share the same father. They are completely unlike each other, but they live in the same apartment building, creating a situation of conflict and love especially with their often feuding mothers. Half & Half joins the TV One weeknight lineup on Monday, December 29 airing back to back episodes in the 7pm & 7:30pm timeslots Monday-Friday. It will replace an episode each of Martin and Eve. Half & Half will also air in the 4-5am hour replacing All of Us and Good Times in the hour. As a sneak peak to January, TV One has acquired two classic '70s sitcoms: The Jeffersons and Sanford & Son! On New Year's Day, Thursday, January 1, beginning at 10am through 6am, the classic sitcom The Jeffersons makes its bow on TV One in a New Year's Day marathon taking viewers on a trip down memory lane with George & Weezie (Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford) and the hilarious cast of characters that will keep viewers laughing and reflecting all day long. The Jeffersons joins the TV One weeknight lineup on Monday January 5. More on that in our January highlights next month. Finally, on Friday, January 2 beginning at 9pm through 9pm on Saturday, January 3, TV One premieres another classic sitcom Sanford and Son to its sitcom landscape in a 24-hour Mega-thon that introduces viewers to cantankerous junk dealer Fred Sanford (played by the late Redd Foxx) and his son Lamont (played by Demond Wilson) who run a junk business in a Los Angeles Watts neighborhood. Sanford & Son also joins the TV One weeknight lineup on Monday January 5 (more on that next month). Recently President-Elect Barack Obama mixed up these two sitcoms by saying "I'm coming Weezie," when discussing McCain's Health Care plan. So maybe now Obama will know the line is "I'm coming to join you Elizabeth." Both The Jeffersons and Sanford & Son are NOT exclusive to TV One, so TV Land will continue to air both series as well, but TV One will give them better timeslots obviously. Discuss all of TV One's December programming in our TV One December 2008 Highlights.
We were among the first to report the Lost season 5 premiere date and time on our message boards on Friday, but if you haven't heard, Lost will launch its fifth season on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 with an "all-night event." The first hour will be a recap one-hour clip show from 8-9pm ET/PT, followed by the two-hour season premiere from 9-11pm ET/PT. So, the promos that aired on Election Night on ABC were correct about the two-hour premiere. Lost will then air Wednesdays at 9pm ET/PT starting the following week, as the show returns to Wednesdays after moving to Thursdays last winter. ABC has not announced what it will do at 8pm and 10pm on Wednesdays yet, but adding Lost to anchor Wednesdays is a good move. I'm guessing Private Practice will follow Lost, with new docudrama Border Security USA could lead off the night. Dirty Sexy Money is possibly on the move to another night and the jury's still out on Pushing Daisies. ABC is expected to announce their midseason winter schedule this week. We will bring it to you first either here or on the message board...depending on the timing. So keep checking back!
In other network news, NBC has picked-up the back nine episodes of sophomore crime drama series Life, giving it a full 22 episodes, despite low ratings. Life joins Kath & Kim and Knight Rider in surprising NBC full season orders. Life moved back to Wednesdays last week, but this time at 9pm, after disappointing in its Friday at 10pm slot. Speaking of Knight Rider, NBC is looking to change the direction of the series and we will get the direction back to the style of the '80s series...making it a show about a man and his car going out and helping regular people. Finally! This new style was dumb and a disgrace to the franchise I thought, and it is no wonder the ratings are bad. NBC is expected to start the changes on episode ten, which will be part one of a two-part episode. Episode ten will air in January (possibly after an NFL game), with episode nine as the fall finale on Nov. 26 (good riddance to this new style). Due to this change, three major stars, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Yancey Arias and Bruce Davison are leaving the show after 13 episodes. There are no immediate plans to add new regulars to the show, as now the show will focus on the five remaining characters: Mike (Justin Bruening), Sarah (Deanna Russo), Billy (Paul Campbell), Zoe (Smith Cho) and of course K.I.T.T. The producers also are looking to do stunt guest castings. Maybe more Hoff? Could this save this revival series? Meanwhile, Fox has ordered a full season of the Family Guy spin-off series The Cleveland Show...and it hasn't even premiered yet. The show will now launch in Fall 2009 rather than this coming Spring. No reason was given for the delay in airing, but my guess is it would be better to launch in the fall. No word on what will happen to the other Fox animated series that was set to come, Sit Down, Shut Up. I would think that is still slated for this Spring. We'll let you know, as soon as we do.
Fox has announced the winter portion of its 2008-09 midseason schedule. The wait is almost over as Fox announces premiere dates of new and returning series as well as revisions to its 2008-2009 midseason schedule. January starts with the not-to-be-missed blockbuster premieres of 24 and American Idol. We announced already 24 would launch with a two night premiere. American Idol returns for Season Eight with a two-night, four-hour premiere event as well, on Tuesday, Jan. 13 and Wednesday, Jan. 14 from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT. All-new episodes of House, Bones, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Hole in the Wall will air on new nights in midseason. Get real on Mondays with all-new episodes of House leading into real-time drama 24, as Emmy-winning medical drama House moves to Mondays 8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT and has its time period premiere Jan. 19 followed by the time period premiere of 24 9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT. It looks to me Fox is afraid how 24 would do with a rookie or a declining series like Sarah Connor as its lead-in, so Fox is moving House yet again to help (or save?) 24. Fringe will air in its regular time period Tuesdays (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) after American Idol starting Jan. 20 to try and become a "real" hit. Lie To Me, the compelling new drama from the producers of 24, debuts Wednesday, Jan. 21 from 9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT after American Idol and stars Tim Roth as Dr. Cal Lightman, the world's leading deception expert who studies facial expressions and involuntary body language to discover not only if someone is lying, but why. Fox obviously believes in this show over its other new drama...and that drama was much highly touted at upfront, so something must have went wrong creatively. Bones moves to Thursdays from 8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT beginning Jan. 15 followed by the final two all-new episodes of the season of Kitchen Nightmares in its 9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT time period. On Thursday, Jan. 29 from 9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT, Chef Gordon Ramsay steps into another kitchen to serve up a fifth course of Hell's Kitchen, the unscripted series that puts wannabe restaurateurs through a rigorous one-of-a-kind culinary boot camp. Fox is moving Bones once again...what has moved more--Bones or House? On Friday, Feb. 13, Fox presents a thrilling new action-packed lineup featuring the return and time period premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles from 8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT and the highly anticipated series premiere of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse from 9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT. Dollhouse reunites Whedon with Eliza Dushku, who stars as a member of a highly illegal underground group of individuals who have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas. Current game shows Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and Don't Forget the Lyrics! will air on the night until Feb. 13. Saturday remains the same, as does Sundays except Hole in the Wall will return and air Sundays 7:00 and 7:30 PM ET/PT beginning Jan. 18. Current batch of Animation Domination will remain the same this winter. Fox has not announced when Prison Break and 'Til Death will return, but it is likely they will return sometime in Spring 2009. My bet is Prison Break will take over one of the Friday slots when returning for its final episodes. Also, Fox has yet to announce premiere dates for their two new animated series (Sit Down, Shut Up & The Cleveland Show), but that will also likely be in the Spring. Check out the full Fox Winter portion of its 2008-09 mid-season schedule, it includes all dates for the BCS games.
Meanwhile at ABC, due to so many series coming this midseason on ABC, they have cut the episode orders for upcoming new procedual dramas Castle and The Unusuals from 13 episodes to 10 episodes. Nothing is wrong creatively wise, but ABC has a lot of stuff coming. Scripted series wise this winter, ABC has Lost as well as six new scripted series launching in midseason, the aforementioned Castle & The Unusuals, hourlong Cupid and comedies In The Motherhood, Better Off Ted and The Goode Family. Not to mention the return of long-running sitcoms Scrubs and According to Jim. They could be joined by the Bill Lawrence (Scrubs) produced comedy starring Courteney Cox (Friends), called Cougar Town, which was fast-tracked last week with a pilot order targeted for midseason. Unscripted wise look for The Bachelor to return and new reality series True Beauty and docudrama Border Security USA. ABC also could return Here Come the Newlyweds, or maybe they will save it for summer. ABC has however canceled upcoming single-camera sitcom starring Alyssa Milano called Single with Parents and it won't launch this midseason due to creative reasons. ABC released the following statement: "Unfortunately, we could not agree on the creative direction for this show and have decided not to move forward with this project." That is too bad because I thought the cast was great and the clips they released were funny. They need to put Alyssa Milano on one of their current series, preferably a drama like Lost or Grey's Anatomy.
Two websites have announced new interviews. Legendary TV producer Leonard Stern talks about the classic TV series Get Smart and his participation in the DVD release of Get Smart: The Complete Series Gift Set, in an interview on the Internet radio show TV Time Machine (http://www.tvtimemachine.com/), hosted by TV historian Jim Benson. From 1965-1970, Leonard Stern served as executive producer and frequent writer and director on Get Smart, starring Don Adams as Maxwell Smart Secret Agent 86 and Barbara Feldon as Agent 99. Mr. Stern talks extensively about providing commentary for the current DVD release of Get Smart: The Complete Series Gift Set, his views on last summer's Get Smart movie starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, and the amazing longevity of his classic TV spy spoof. So check out tvtimemachine.com for this interesting audio interview! Last week if you all recall, we interviewed Lydia Cornell (Too Close for Comfort) on our Seven Questions feature, and now our buddy Chris Mann of Retroality.TV has also interviewed Lydia! The interview was posted in time for Election Day and covers lots of political questions for Lydia that we didn't go into. It is very interesting, and you can call it a "spin-off" of our interview! He also asks her lots of questions related to Too Close for Comfort. Chris does a great job, as usual! Go and check out his interview; it is the feature story on his website this month!
Hallmark Channel has made a schedule change that will start this coming Monday (November 10). Cheers will leave the line-up from 4-5pm and be replaced with more Little House on the Prairie. So, this means Cheers only lasted two weeks in its weekday slot with a second Little House returning to the hour. As of now, Cheers is totally off the line-up, because if you all recall when Cheers started on weekdays, its weekend airings were removed. We will keep you up to date if anything else comes out of this, but as of now, no more Cheers on Hallmark. If I were to guess, it could return in January when they launch I Love Lucy. This network has had trouble launching sitcoms besides M*A*S*H, which is a shame because they have two coming in 2009 (I Love Lucy, Golden Girls).
As for TV Land, we already told you about the late afternoon change that started this past Monday (Nov. 3) with Hogan's Heroes at 4pm and Leave it to Beaver at 5pm, now more changes are happening next week. Originally we stated, Scrubs was set to move Nov. 10 from 9-10pm to 10-11pm, but it seems that is not happening. Now on that week, we will get a week-long Cosby Show marathon! The Cosby Show Marathon airs Monday, November 10 through Thursday, November 13 form 8pm-2am and Friday, November 14 from 8pm-10pm and 12am-4am (it is preempted Wednesday, Nov. 12 from 10p-10:30p for Myths & Legends). A few changes are also coming starting that week for at least the rest of November. In the 7am hour, back-to-back episodes of Scrubs will replace two episodes of M*A*S*H. So, Scrubs is out of primetime. In the weekdays at 1pm hour, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will replace Beverly Hillbillies for the rest of the month at least. And in late nights, for the week of November 10 from 2-3am will be Sanford & Son replacing Extreme Makeover: Home Edition encore (weeks of Nov. 17 and 24 it will be more Cosby Show in the hour). Finally, Three's Company is back regularly starting Nov. 10, at least for the rest of November, airing weeknights from 3-4am ET/PT! So what will happen to TV Land PRIME after Cosby Show's marathon week? Cosby Show will now air 8-10pm from Mon-Sat for at least through the end of November, with 3rd Rock from the Sun now staying in its 10-11pm Mon-Thurs slot. Replacing Extreme Makeover: Home Edition at 11pm will be ... CSI, from sister station Spike TV (which airs it at 3pm and 8pm weekdays)! CSI will also air at 12 midnight, replacing M*A*S*H. This is for at least the rest of November (weeks of Nov. 17 and 24), we do not know yet if CSI will still be airing in December. For the final two weeks in November at least, this is how TV Land PRIME looks: 9PM Cosby Show, 10PM 3rd Rock from the Sun, 11PM CSI. With more Cosby Show leading in at 8PM and more CSI leading out at 12AM, as Scrubs and Home Edition are relegated to daytime...again for at least the end of the month. So it seems M*A*S*H is not airing AT ALL the final two weeks of November and Beverly Hillbillies has been reduced to weekend blocks and in the Thanksgiving marathon. I don't expect CSI to air beyond these two weeks, but we'll see. Will these changes be in effect in December? We shall soon find out! For now, view the full updated TV Land November 2008 schedule, so you don't get confused.
ABC has released part of their January plans. They have released Mondays. Originally it was supposed to be True Beauty (new Ashton Kutcher/Tyra Banks produced reality show) from 8pm-9:30pm followed by The Bachelor from 9:30-11pm. Now it will be The Bachelor from 8-9:30pm, followed by sitcom Samantha Who? staying put at 9:30pm despite no Dancing and True Beauty in the 10pm hour. This new night will launch Monday, January 5. On that date The Bachelor will have a two-hour premiere leading into the premiere of True Beauty. So, Samantha Who? will air in between those two starting Jan. 12. No other ABC January details are in yet, but we could expect Lost, as last night we saw promos saying "two-hour premiere in January." If I were to guess, Lost will air on Wednesdays. Also, last night promos for unscripted docudrama series Border Security USA started playing, and we could expect that in January as well, perhaps with Lost. ABC premiere of Scrubs and animated comedy The Goode Family are among the other items that could launch in January on ABC, with on the bubble shows like Eli Stone and Pushing Daisies perhaps benched. I want to clarify, that Scrubs is not coming Dec. 2 as I mentioned earlier in the week, the original plan of According to Jim remains starting Dec. 2. As for Fox, they have announced they will launch 24 with its usual two-night/four-hour event on Sunday, January 11 and Monday, January 12 from 8-10pm. Then starting January 19, it will air in its 9-10pm slot. No word on what will air at 8pm, it could be new series Dollhouse though. American Idol obviously will return in January as well, perhaps Tuesday, Jan. 20. We will keep you up to date.
Happy Halloween! Don't forget to tune in to the best Halloween marathon of the day in WGN America's Munsters marathon from 4pm-12am ET. Nick at Nite also has a Halloween marathon tonight with Halloween episodes of Home Improvement, George Lopez and Family Matters from 10pm-1am tonight. Be scared of laughs!
ION Television has announced its November 2008 schedule finally and ER is now officially off the line-up. ER hasn't aired since October 6, with ION making changes each week that it would not air...and now it is official, it is gone. Mondays at 10pm replacing ER will be another episode of NCIS, which will still also air Mondays and Tuesdays at 9pm. Replacing ER Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 10pm will be more Boston Legal. Boston Legal will still also air Mon-Thurs 8pm and Wednesdays 9pm. It seems ER was a dud for ION in the ratings. In other changes, ION has added an additional airing for Warner Bros. movies, airing now also Fridays 5-7pm ET. in addition to Thursday in primetime. Warner movis for November are Casino, Antitrust, Young Guns II, and yet again Above the Law. RHI Weekend movies include the premiere of Archangel tomorrow night from 8-11pm ET and the premiere of The Color of Magic on Sunday, November 23 from 7-11pm ET. RHI movie encores include recent movies such as Final Approach, Lone Rider, Prairie Fever, and two McBride movies. On Sunday, November 9, in addition to its regular 6-7pm airing, M*A*S*H will also air 7-8pm leading into the encore of Archangel from 8-11pm. ION has not yet announced what they will do for the Thanksgiving week (November 24-30). If they are doing anything out of the ordinary, we will let you know. For now view the ION Television November 2008 schedule and highlights.
Fox has canceled King of the Hill after thirteen production seasons. What do I mean by "production seasons?" Well, right now it is actually in its 13th season, but they are still airing episodes form the 12th season. These animated series produce episodes well in advance and all way far ahead in production. For example Fox still has a lot of episodes from the 12th cycle to air and could start some of the 13th cycle by the end of this season. The 13th cycle has 13 episodes, and so these will be the final 13 episodes. Most of these will air NEXT season (2009-2010), so while King of the Hill has been canceled, it still will have episodes airing next season, unless Fox decides not to air them for some reason (which I doubt). I guess it all depends on how the new mid-season animated comedies Sit Down, Shut Up and The Cleveland Show do. Meanwhile, Fox has renewed American Dad! for a fifth production season. The series is currently airing episodes from late in its third production season (but it is in its fourth season). Episodes from the fourth production season start airing in early December, so they'll air most of the fourth production season this season. So American Dad! will be on the air until at least through the end of 2010. Good news for fans, as the series has not made head way in the ratings. Anything beyond the fifth production season all depends on how new mid-season animated comedies Sit Down, Shut Up and The Cleveland Show do.
ABC is bringing back the Jim Belushi sitcom According to Jim for an eighth season this December. Starting Tuesday, December 2, 2008, According to Jim will air back-to-back new episodes for the entire month at 9:00pm & 9:30pm ET. On December 2, it will follow the holiday classic Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town, but it is unclear as of now what its lead-in will be for the rest of the month (likely to be holiday specials though). We will have more on all the network holiday specials at a later date on our annual network Christmas/holiday specials post. As for According to Jim, it was renewed for an eighth season pretty late and ABC has ordered 18 new episodes, including a Christmas episode! ABC will likely air them all in December and January. As of now, Scrubs and new animated comedy The Goode Family are slated to launch in the hour in January, but that could change. Scrubs promos already have started airing, saying "coming soon to ABC.
As for 'Til Death, Fox has pulled the comedy effective immediately and there are no signs of a return in November or December. Effective next Wednesday (Nov. 5), repeats of House will air in the slot in November. In December, Fox will launch new six hour reality-game show Secret Millionaire on Wednesday, December 3 from 8-10pm, before airing Wednesday (Dec. 10 and 17) at 8pm the following week, so Bones will move from 8 to 9pm. Secret Millionaire will also air Thursdays at 8pm on Dec. 11 & 18 followed by special Thursday airings of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? at 9pm, as Kitchen Nightmares will have its season finale on Dec. 4. So no sign of a return for the low rated Brad Garrrett sitcom 'Til Death. We'll keep you up to date.
Newport Television's Fox affiliate WAWS Jacksonville, Florida and The CW affiliate WLMT Memphis, TN will offer Retro Television Network's programming lineup of classic TV shows on digital subchannels soon. RTN is a television network that provides each affiliate a customized feed with classic hit shows, in addition to local programming including news, weather and sports. RTN is specifically designed to go on a broadcast digital channel. Shows currently on RTN include 21 Jump Street, Adam 12, Airwolf, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The A-Team, Kojak, Knight Rider, Leave it to Beaver, Jack Benny, Kate & Allie, Bachelor Father, Harry and the Hendersons, That's Incredible, McHale's Navy, Dragnet, and more!
Nick at Nite has released its November 2008 highlights and schedule, and once again there are no changes to the line-up. We do have a stunt for Thanksgiving though. They will air a marathon of Thanksgiving episodes on "Thanksgiving Nite" from 9pm-12am ET/PT. Viewers will get to see how Nick at Nite's favorite families celebrate Thanksgiving. They invite neighbors, they go to a NFL game, they go away on vacation, they help homeless shelters, and they go to a massage parlor...huh? You'll see all that on Thanksgiving night as Nick at Nite presents Thanksgiving episodes of Home Improvement, George Lopez and Fresh Prince! That's it...nothing else is out of the ordinary in November, so expect to see the regular line-up on other days in November. See the Nick at Nite November 2008 Schedule and Highlights.
Effective immediately CBS has removed first year Friday drama The Ex-List off the Friday line-up. This Friday, the first Friday of November sweeps, CBS will air a repeat of NCIS in the Ex-List timeslot of Friday at 9pm. The timeslot is very weak and at times Ex-List wins its slot in total viewers, but this past Friday the show was very weak in 18-49 losing to first place Supernanny on ABC. Last night Game 5 of the World Series on Fox was suspended after 5 1/2 innings because of rain in Philadelphia with the score tied at two. The game was supposed to resume tonight at 8pm, but due to still bad weather conditions, the game won't resume until Wednesday night at 8:30pm. Wednesday night was supposed to be game 6 in Tampa Bay, but that will be moved to Thursday night, if it is necessary. If Philly wins the continuation of the suspended game, the series is over and they are the champs, winning 4 games to 1. If Tampa Bay can win the next two games, game 7 will likely be on Friday now. Stay tuned... Also, ABC will not air the Obama Ad on Wednesday at 8pm. ABC was in discussion to air the ad, but now they are not going to. CBS, Fox, and NBC will air the ad. So, ABC will be the only network airing scripted programming in the half-hour with the very creative series Pushing Daisies...tune in!
Lost '80s Week continues tonight at 8pm ET (5pm PT) on WGN America with another Three's Company spin-off, this time ... The Ropers! See how Jeffrey Tambor got his start. Tomorrow night WGN America will air the '80s sitcom Too Close for Comfort, and we will have an interview with Lydia Cornell (Sarah on Too Close for Comfort) tomorrow right here on the blog! It will be of course in our Seven Questions format and she gave us so much, that we have an additional segment where Lydia talks about things for the first time! How was her working relationship with star Ted Knight? That's just SOME of the things you'll read tomorrow! You'll want to read this!
ION Media Networks, Inc., owner and operator of the nation's largest television station group, today announced plans to launch its suite of networks – ION Television, qubo, and ION Life – in high definition in 2009. ION Television, the Company's flagship general entertainment network, will be available in high definition (HD) as ION Television HD beginning the first quarter of 2009. The HD simulcast of the newly branded "Positively Entertaining" network will serve to fully enhance consumers' overall viewing experience. Viewers can look forward to a mix of compelling television series, theatrical and made-for-television movies and specials on ION Television HD. The newly rebranded ION Television network features hit programs from CBS Television, NBC Universal, RHI Entertainment, Sony Pictures Television, Twentieth Television and Warner Bros., among others. The network's fall 2008 lineup is led by off-network hits including NCIS, Boston Legal, and ER. Critically acclaimed miniseries and original productions from RHI Entertainment will be made available in high quality HD, as will blockbuster theatrical movies such as Batman Returns, GoodFellas, Analyze This, and You've Got Mail. ION Television in HD will be launched from its newly designed, state-of-the-art transmission platform via expanded satellite transponder capacity. That national distribution will then be delivered over-the-air via DTV broadcast, cable, telco-TV and satellite. The network will feature native and up-converted HD programming, and will be carried on all 60 of ION Media Network's television stations around the country. Now you can watch Denny Crane and the gang in HD like it is supposed to be!
On Saturday night if you were expecting to watch Game 6 of the MLB ALCS between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays on TBS at 8PM ET, you missed the beginning because of an outage. TBS had technical difficulties that prevented it from showing the first 20 minutes of the game and also the end of the pregame show before it. In place of the game, TBS showed an episode of sitcom The Steve Harvey Show. A crawl on the screen ran repeatedly, saying: "We are experiencing technical difficulties." The game started at 8:08 p.m., but the broadcast didn't begin until 8:28 p.m., when Carlos Pena, the seventh batter of the game, walked in the bottom of the first inning. TBS then showed a replay of a home run by B.J. Upton, the previous batter, that put the Rays ahead 1-0. So what happened: TBS had experienced router failure in Atlanta (their headquarters), which caused transmission problems. Steve Harvey Show wasn't the only filler TBS used while trying to restore its feed, lost toward the end of the pregame broadcast. At that time, TBS ran an abbreviated episode of Dick Clark's Bloopers special (with Elise Neal of The Hughleys) from 1999. I saw that and it was very funny and featured lots of flubs from newscasts and TV stations (how appropriate for TBS today!), but turned it off when Harvey came on. I personally didn't get back into the game until the third inning, thanks to this flub. But at least sitcoms got more exposure! We'll let you know the ratings, if we get them for Harvey.
Second season action series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has been picked-up for nine more episodes, giving it a full twenty-two episode order for the season. This was a surprise move by Fox, because the show has gone down in the ratings by a lot this season averaging just under 6 million viewers and in the low 2's in the 18-49 demo. The show does get a little boost in the seven-day DVR ratings, giving it just under 7 million viewers, but still a far cry what it did last year. The show launched out of huge Cowboys-Giants NFL playoff game that drew 40 million, for its series premiere last winter. The series did 18 million for its premiere. The show then obviously dropped after that to just above 8 million on average, but did much better than it is doing now. The show could be used with American Idol or the return of 24 in January to help bring it back to life. But Fox would give a better slot to Fringe and the upcoming new series Dollhouse probably instead. No word on Prison Break, but this will likely be its last season.
Tired of waiting for some of your favorite Universal series to continue on DVD? Now Netflix is giving you the entire run of many series that are not yet complete on DVD from Universal! Shows include Coach, Charles in Charge, Leave it to Beaver, Gimme a Break!, Kate & Allie, Dragnet '67, Adam-12, Emergency!, Kojak, Simon & Simon, McMillian & Wife, Quincy, seaQuest DSV, The Rockford Files, Airwolf, Murder She Wrote and Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. Wow you can watch every episode of Leave it to Beaver! Even season 6! Now you don't have to wait for Universal to complete the series and all the rest of these! All you have to do is to be a Netflix subscriber and you can watch all these episodes instantly on your computer in a nice streaming quality! Don't like that? Get the Netflix Ready Device so you can download these episodes to a device and play them on your TV! I know many of you would like to own the episodes on DVD, but this is a start in watching them.
It's time for more wheelings and dealings...it's network notes! CBS has given a full season order to its new drama The Mentalist, the season's top new freshman series in viewers and adults 25-54 so far. No surprise. The Mentalist is averaging 16.14 million viewers (No. 7 among all primetime programs), 5.3/12 in adults 25-54 and 3.8/9 in adults 18-49. The series stars Golden Globe Award nominee Simon Baker as Patrick Jane, an independent consultant with the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI), who has a remarkable track record for solving serious crimes by using his razor sharp skills of observation. The series joins Fringe and 90210 for full season orders for rookie series. Meanwhile, NBC's veteran drama Medium returns sometime this mid-season (or earlier I bet) and NBC has ordered three additional episodes. Last season the show had 16 episodes, so we are not sure what the original episode order was for this year. Could be 13 or 16 and you can tack on three more for Patricia Arquette's series. ABC's Eli Stone will have 4 more episodes this season as well. The show was ordered for 13 episodes in its second season, so you can tack on four more to that at least, pending the ratings being decent enough. ABC has been pleased with the quality and direction so far, thus their decision in adding four more. And if you haven't seen the season premiere yet, you missed out on an excellent season premiere with guest Sigourney Weaver. Catch it on abc.com if you missed it and don't forget to tune in for the second episode this Tuesday at 10PM ET, with special guest star Katie Holmes! As I said before, I saw this episode already from a review screener and she is excellent. Gina Torres and Katey Sagal also guest star. Have faith in Eli! Finally, it seems that Fox will also air the half-hour political ad from Presidential Candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday, October 29. CBS and NBC have already signed on to air it. However, Major League Baseball would have to push back the start of game six of the World Series, if necessary, so Fox can air the Obama. The game was scheduled to have first pitch at 8:20pm, but Fox and MLB could move it to 8:35pm if necessary. ABC is in discussions as well to air it, but maybe on a different night like Tuesday instead, since they air an hour-long sow (Pushing Daisies) in the time period. CBS has two half-hour sitcoms and will preempt Gary Unmarried on the night and shift Old Christine to 8:30 for this night. NBC will preempt Knight Rider altogether and air a TBD show at 8:30.
BET will be adding another sitcom! This time they will add the sitcom One on One to their weekday line-up beginning Monday (October 6). The show will air weekdays at 3:00pm & 3:30pm ET/PT, creating a sitcom block from 3-6pm on weekdays with Steve Harvey and Smart Guy still airing in the 4 and 5pm hours. One on One will also get a weekend marathon on Saturday, October 11 from 2-5pm (following a Smart Guy marathon from 11am-2pm) and on Sunday, October 12 from 1-4pm. The show will regularly on Saturdays from 12-2pm and Sundays from 1-3pm. The new Saturday schedule is now 9-10am Just Jordan, 10-11am Romeo!, 11am-12pm Smart Guy, 12-2pm One on One, 2-3pm Steve Harvey, 3-4pm Girlfriends, and 4-5pm Judge Hatchett. The new Sunday schedule is now 12-1pm Steve Harvey, 1-3pm One on One, and 3-4pm Girlfriends. One on One will also get a special block on Columbus Day (Monday, October 13) from 2-6pm. About One on One: Intelligent and outspoken, the in-your-face 17-year-old Breanna Barnes (Kyla Pratt) loves attention. Anywhere there's a crowd, you can bet she's at the center of the action. Breanna's sportscaster dad, Flex (Flex Alexander), is a fun-loving ladies' man who not only wants to be a responsible parent, but also wants to be his daughter's best friend. Flex is happy giving Breanna the freedom to make her own choices, but only if she is willing to accept the consequences.
Nick at Nite, driven by hit family programming like George Lopez and newcomer Family Matters, scores its second consecutive quarter as total day's top cable network with Adults 18-49 (from 6/30/08-9/28/08). Nick at Nite soared in third quarter 2008 with high double-digit gains among its A18-49 and total viewer (P2+) audience, and has delivered 11 consecutive months of double-digit growth since last year. Nick at Nite is ranked number one with A18-49, for third quarter 2008 (3Q08) in total day, averaging a 0.6 rating and 667,000 viewers 18-49 and up 20% over last year. With P2+, the network delivered 1.5 million total viewers, up 22%. Nick at Nite ranks as the number-one basic cable network for W18-49 in total day this quarter (0.7 rating and 416,000 18-49 women viewers, up 17% over last year). In prime time, Nick at Nite averaged a 0.7 rating and 1.7 million total viewers (P2+), up 40% over last year. Family Matters, which joined the network's schedule in 3Q, is Nick at Nite's number-two program in total day, only behind George Lopez. Family Matters averaged a 0.7 rating and 775,000 viewers A18-49 at 11 p.m., up 40% over last year's time period. George Lopez is the network's highest-rated program and has experienced growth of 40% in rating since launching in September 2007. George Lopez averaged a 0.7 rating and 768,000 viewers A18-49 at 10 p.m. for the quarter, up 75% over last year's like time period. Home Improvement remains a growth engine for Nick at Nite, and averages a 0.6 rating and 654,000 viewers A18-49 in total day for 3Q08. Its ratings have grown 20% since launching on Nick at Nite in September 2007.
Fox has announced that Fringe is the second new show this fall to be picked-up for a full season, joining The CW's 90210. Both shows launched a few weeks before the season. Fringe has benefited from airing behind House, which is down big from last fall, but still strong. Fox has ordered an additional nine episodes for Fringe, bringing the series to a full season order of 22 episodes. New episodes return Tuesday, October 14 because next week is the second Presidential Debate.
Scorecard for New Series: Picked-Up for Full Season: 90210, Fringe Canceled: Do Not Disturb On Verge of Being Picked-Up: The Mentalist On the Fence: Hole in the Wall, Worst Week, Gary Unmarried, Knight Rider, Opportunity Knocks, Privileged Still Yet to Premiere: The Ex-List, Life on Mars, Kath & Kim, 11th Hour, My Own Worst Enemy, Stylista and The CW's MRC Sunday Block
Fox has pulled Do Not Disturb for next week. The sitcom about a hotel airing Wednesdays at 9:30pm on Fox has only aired three times to very low ratings. The show has not even gone past 5 million ever, and has gone down each airing: 4.65, 3.9, and 3.58 million. Fox will air a repeat of 'Til Death at 9:30pm this coming week (Oct. 1). 'Til Death has not done much better either in its three airings (6.06, 4.89, 3.72 million), but it will likely build at 9:30 at least following original episodes of itself. Do Not Disturb is not "officially" canceled though. As of now, it is slated to air October 8 at 9:30pm with the actual pilot episode, which was not aired first. IF that airs, that might be the last airing in a while or ever because Oct. 15 is a Presidential Debate, Oct. 22 is a World Series game and on Oct. 29 another World Series game, if necessary. So did we see the last of this show or will we see it again on Oct. 8 for possibly the final time? We shall find out. Certainly not good news for this show in anyway. Stay tuned! Other new shows in jeopardy right now are NBC's America's Toughest Jobs, Fox's Hole in the Wall and The CW's Privileged. Still too early to tell on other series after just one airing, like Gary Unmarried.
BET has made some more changes. Judge Karen and Judge Hatchett will move back to 10-11am after a short run from 11am-12pm. Smart Guy remains 9-10pm. 11am hour will now be another Judge Hatchett followed by an episode of Girlfriends. Steve Harvey and Smart Guy remain 4-5pm and 5-6pm weekdays. A Different World will air everyday next week in the 3am hour. On Saturdays, Smart Guy is extended from 11am-1pm, moving Steve Harvey to 1-2pm on Saturdays.
The debate is on tonight, as McCain said he will be there. So tune in tonight at 9pm ET on ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox for the first debate between Obama and McCain. And don't forget the Sunday premieres of Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters on ABC, as I have seen them already...view my thoughts on the premieres.
On Monday, September 22 at 7pm, it's a comedy reunion blow-out as TV One presents the premiere of Living Single: The Reunion Show that has the cast of the widely successful sitcom about a group of six African American friends living in (or near) a Brooklyn brownstone reuniting for an all-new evening of laughs, memories, and backstage tales that will have viewers wanting more. Join Kim Coles (Synclaire), Erika Alexander (Max), Kim Fields (Regine), John Henton (Overton), and T.C. Carson (Kyle) as TV One takes this trip down the Living Single memory lane. There will be an encore showing at 11pm as well later that night after the Living Single's first day marathon episodes as well as on Friday, September 26 at 12am. Living Single will air weeknights at 8:30pm, 9pm and encore 3-4am after the marathon week, starting Sept. 29. The marathon week will be week Sept. 22-26, 7pm-12am each night. Head on over to our TV One September/October thread for more details and for discussion.
BET has made some schedule changes to its fall schedule that starts Sept. 22. We originally announced the changes happening, but BET has now altered weekdays 9am-8pm just a bit. Airing 9-10am now will be more Smart Guy followed by a double dose of Girlfriends from 10-11am. Judge Karen and Judge Hatchett will now premiere in the 11am hour, rather than the 10pam hour. The shows will still air in the 11pm hour in late night. Then The Steve Harvey Show moves to 12 noon and 12:30pm, which means it will air there seven days a week since it was already airing in those slots on weekends. A Movie follows at 1pm with BET Now and Rap City moving to 3 and 4pm, in Harvey's old 4pm hour. Smart Guy episodes remain 5-6pm and 106 & Park is now two-hours from 6-8pm. For more details, head on over to our BET September thread for details and to discuss.
Fox has finally announced what will air in the other 25 minutes this Sunday to go along with the 95-minute encore of last night's Fringe premiere. On Sunday, Sept. 14 from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT Fox presents a Sunday night like no other. The evening kicks off with an exclusive first look at an extended scene from the highly anticipated film The Day The Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves, followed by a preview of 24: Redemption, the two-hour special event airing this November on Fox. Immediately after the exclusive previews, the series premiere of Fringe will encore, followed by an exclusive preview of the not-to-be-missed, heart-pounding first four minutes of Fringe's second episode. So three previews will air in those 25 minutes that are needed to be filled. Fringe encore will likely start at 8:15ish.
Do Not Disturb - Wednesdays 9:30PM ET/PT on Fox Premieres Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 9:30PM ET/PT
Do Not Disturb is a workplace comedy set at one of New York City's hottest and hippest hotels: The Inn. Named one of the Big Apple's "10 Best Places to Stay," The Inn is just that -- the "in" place to be, with its chic décor, stylish staff and celebrity clientele. Behind the scenes, however, the upstairs/downstairs dynamic tells quite a different story.
The hotel's top-notch reputation and sophisticated look is due in large part to NEAL (Jerry O'Connell) -- at least in his opinion. Neal is the egotistical, womanizing general manager who will do whatever it takes to make sure the hotel is considered the best party in town. RHONDA (Niecy Nash) is the head of Human Resources who also keeps Neal's demands in check. She's brash, fabulous and brutally honest and runs the HR department from her bullpen downstairs with a set of rules that are all her own. Rhonda does her best to keep the back of the house in line and the front of the house out of trouble.
At the front desk handling check-in while wearing 6-inch Manolos is NICOLE (Molly Stanton), an aging model who is svelte, cynical and slightly starving. The downstairs staff includes MOLLY (Jolene Purdy), a reservations clerk who dreams of pop-singer stardom as much as she craves to be part of the action upstairs; LARRY (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), the head of housekeeping, who spends more time on the phone cleaning up his messes at home than he does cleaning up after the guests upstairs; and bellman GUS (Dave Franco), a roadie for a rock band who was left behind when the band left town.
I don't know who several of these people are, to be quite sincere. It's not meant to be an offense, but I just don't recognize a lot of the names. There are a few I DO recognize: Jerry O'Connell's TV credits include the series Crossing Jordan, Carpoolers and Sliders. Molly Stanton did the soap Passions and was on the short lived WB sitcom Twins, a generally poor show with a fairly good cast. Robert Wagner is a fairly recognizable name as he has appeared on stage and in screen in many productions (TV's Hart to Hart). Don't recognize anyone else in the cast list, including star Niecy Nash, which is a double-edged sword.
Pilot Plot:
Apparently, the episode I was sent (titled "Work Sex" running 21:54) isn't the pilot but rather the episode Fox is leading off with. The pilot must've really stunk. In "Work Sex," an article about the sexual exploits of the staff -- the staff meaning the Neal character -- appears in a local generic New York magazine. The Rhonda character chides Neal hard for his actions, causing Neal to try to fly the straight-and-narrow when presented with an attractive co-worker. Meanwhile, in typical cliché fashion, Rhonda gets caught up in some office romance herself. Meanwhile, the character Molly (not to be confused with Actress-Molly) helps Nicole (the actress Molly) with her stalled modeling career. Which is guffawingly ironic since character-Molly happens to be...you guessed it...plus-sized. Maybe South Park was on to something a few years ago when they talked about manatees and "idea balls." Actually, the Molly/Nicole stuff provided me some of the biggest chuckles of the episode -- though at no point did I outright laugh. Meanwhile, Gus helps Larry with his love live. And for those of you playing Sitcom Cliché Bingo, yep, Larry's gay.
Analysis:
I couldn't even make it to the analysis before throwing the show under the bus. Seriously, this is the episode they're leading off with? Was the supposed pilot actually WORSE? And they canceled Back to You in order to air this? Really, for goodness sakes? You know if something I see later in the season impresses me I'll be perfectly happy to admit to being wrong. And if the show catches ratings fire of course I'll backtrack since I like to look good. But really, the episode I saw here just wasn't very good. It was taking every played out cliché in the book and just throwing them at the wall. I always reserve the right to change my mind, but what I saw here actually managed to lower my opinion of the show drastically.
It's nothing personal against the folks on the show -- for the roles they're given, they do the best they can though the characters are your usual sitcom throwbacks. The real problem here is the paper-thin writing. It's nothing new. It's all material that we've seen before on a hundred different shows from where I sit. Here's the thing, though: It's still not the worst sitcom on the air. There are other shows on other networks that fit that bill well enough. But at best its background noise that once or twice in 21 minutes might get a chuckle out of you and at worst it's a half-hour jam packed with as many sitcom throwback plot devices and gimmicks as the writers could draw out of a hat.
Conclusion:
When the dirty work needs to be done, that's why I'm brought in. And in less than a thousand words, I hope I've explained exactly why this show just isn't very good. The only bright spot is that it's not very bad either. It is 21 minutes of filler to keep as background noise in between commercials. Which is the minimum you can ask of a TV show anyway. Who knows, if it stays on the air long enough, it might even figure out how to be genuinely funny.
I'll tune in midseason (if it's still on) and give it another look, assuming the show doesn't dive into the CW-inhabited ratings basement within the first three shows. And who knows, the show might catch ratings fire -- that aforementioned show on another network has managed to stay on the air a really long time despite being really bad. But if a great show like Back to You can die on the vine in a year and a thoroughly decent show like ‘Til Death is probably 13 episodes from oblivion, then this show is probably D.O.A. It should at least run for longer than Happy Hour did though -- which at least is a positive. I appreciate that some network is willing to still run multi-camera sitcoms, but come on, try making one of them good (And when you DO make a good one, don't cancel it after one season you fools).
On to some news... Gold! Retro Television Network (RTN) announced today that WMAK-Knoxville, Channel 7, plans to add RTN programming to its lineup beginning Monday. RTN is of course the first completely customizable, national television network to provide a 24/7 digital feed of hit shows to each of its affiliates. The network's unique design allows each affiliate to remain in complete control while RTN runs the local and national master control from its central hub. RTN also offers customizable news and weather for each market, hosted by network-provided talent.
This September BET will launch Judge Karen and Judge Hatchett, as we previously announced, but they will also launch a new sitcom! Since Diff'rent Strokes and a few others leave after this Friday (don't forget the Strokes farewell marathon this Friday from 9am-6pm!), a sitcom void was needed. BET has acquired the rights to air the '90s sitcom Smart Guy from Buena Vista! T.J. Henderson (Tahj Mowry) is a high school sophomore. He isn't just a regular one though. He is a ten-year old tenth grader! After being promoted to high school, T.J. deals with the usual problems of fitting in as a genius, while being a little kid in a big school. Also stars Jason Weaver, Omar Gooding and Essence Atkins. The sitcom was last seen in reruns on The Disney Channel from 1999-2003 with a marathon appearance in fall 2004 for back to school. The series originally ran from 1997-99 on The WB. BET will launch Smart Guy on Saturday, September 6 with a marathon of the first 10 episodes from 11am-4pm before moving to its regular airing of weekdays at 5:00pm & 5:30pm ET/PT after The Steve Harvey Show starting Monday, September 8. Other BET portions of the schedule will include Girlfriends airing from 9-10am weekdays starting September 1 and starting September 22 BET will launch Judge Karen at 10am and Judge Hatchett at 10:30am. Back-to-back Hell Date will air in the 11am hour, as the morning "Blackbuster" 10am-12pm movie will be gone. Steve Harvey and Smart Guy round out the daytime weekday series schedule from 4-6pm. Music and rap programming will primarily air elsewhere weekdays, however 11pm and 11:30pm will now will be Judge Karen and Judge Hatchett as well starting Sept. 22. The midnight "Blackbuster" movie follows, as A Different World will now only air sometimes in the 3am hour. As for weekends, there will be no changes until the weekend of Sept. 27 when Romeo! shifts from the 11am hour to the 9am hour, while Just Jordan remains in the 10am hour, and two hours of Smart Guy airs from 11am-1pm starting Sept. 27 on Saturdays. On Sundays, starting Sept. 28, Judge Karen will air from 1-2pm, no other changes will be made. Stunts for the month include a marathon of sister station TV Land's original series Family Foreman starring George Foreman on Sunday, Sept. 14 from 1-4pm featuring all six episodes. Check out the generic BET September Fall 2008 schedule, if you want to see it in a list form.
Retro Television Network (RTN) announced that it has entered into an agreement with New Age Media to launch RTN affiliates in five new markets. The new affiliates will air on digital streams of WQMY in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Pennsylvania; WPXT in Portland, Maine; WTLH in Tallahassee, Florida; analog station WYPN-CA in Gainesville, Florida; and a new television station in Columbus/Tupelo, Mississippi. The RTN affiliations are anticipated to sign on in early 2009. These are the first announcements of new RTN affiliates since RTN was sold to Luken Communications...but the first of many to come, so stay tuned!
It's time for another round of network notes! NBC has announced it has picked up nine additional episodes of its sophomore drama Chuck (Mondays, 8-9 p.m. ET) to provide the series with a full-season 22-episode order for 2008-09. The new season launches Monday, September 29. Fox has announced that Hole in the Wall, the body-bending, global game show, will now air a special preview episode on Sunday, Sept. 7 from 8:00-8:30 PM ET/PT following Fox's first NFL doubleheader of the season and as previously announced on Tuesday, Sept. 9 from 9:35-10:00 PM ET/PT following the series premiere of Fringe on FOX. Hole in the Wall will have its one-hour series premiere Thursday, Sept. 11 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on Fox and will air in that slot thereafter. Fox has still not announced what will air Sunday, Sept. 14 from 9:35-10pm following the Fringe pilot encore. And finally, like I predicted, the season finale of ABC's High School Musical: Get in the Picture will now air on Monday, September 8, 2008 from 8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT and not September 15 as previously reported. The finale will lead-in to the previously announced CMA special from 9-11PM ET/PT. As a result of that change, The ABC Monday Movie of the Week Batman Begins will now air on Monday, September 15, 2008 from 8:00-11:00 PM ET/PT.
Well the fall 2008 TV season is upon us and that means it is time to watch the network Fall 2008 preview specials! As we do every year, we will let you know when these fall preview specials will air. See our Fall 2007 one from last year. First up is ABC. Last season ABC had three fall preview specials specially designed for their affiliates and abc.com. One of the three last year was for ABC's then new Wednesday line-up. This year ABC will be focusing on that night as they relaunch the night with the same shows but due to the strike, all three of those shows haven't aired since the end of 2007. This year's special, titled The ABC Wednesday Night Starter Kit, gives us a recap and preview of what is to come on Pushing Daisies, Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money. This half-hour special has started airing already on local ABC affiliates since the weekend of August 15. Check local listings for time and day in your area. If you're in the NYC market, WABC will air it this Saturday (August 30) at 2:30PM. So what if your local ABC affiliate aired this special already and you missed it? Not to worry the ABC cable networks will air it, too. SOAPnet will air it a few times...on Saturday, August 30 at 4:30PM, Saturday, September 13 at 4:30PM and Friday, September 26 at 5:00AM. ABC Family Channel will also air it on Thursday, Sept. 4 (early Sept. 5) at 12:30AM ET/PT. So plenty of chances to watch this, but if you still somehow miss it, it is online on AOL Video. As of now, ABC will not air this special itself, though. They will also as of now not air a full preview special previewing new series, but that could change. We will let you know if it does happen. Finally, ABC.com has a Starter Kit of everything you need to know about your favorite ABC shows in order to catch up in time for the new season. Shows include Dirty Sexy Money, Samantha Who, Eli Stone, Pushing Daisies, Private Practice, Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives, and Brothers & Sisters.
Moving on to NBC, they also will do an affiliate special. Their affiliate special has not aired yet anywhere, so no one has seen it yet. Titled NBC Primetime Preview special, the special premieres this weekend, weekend of August 30. Zachary Levi of Chuck hosts this half-hour special that will preview NBC's new series and returning series. If you're in the NYC market, WNBC will air it twice: Saturday, Sept. 6 at 5:00AM and Sunday, Sept. 7 at 12:00PM. Like ABC's special, NBC will air this special on their cable networks as well. CNBC will air it on Monday, September 1 at 12:30PM and Sunday, September 7 at 8:00PM. USA Network will air it on Sunday, Sept. 7 at 2:30PM and Saturday, Sept. 13 at 10:00AM. Sci Fi Channel will air it later in the month on Sunday, Sept. 21 at 11:00PM and Thursday, September 25 at 3:30PM. Like ABC, as of now, NBC does not plan to air this special on the network itself.
CBS will have a fall preview special this year! Last year they didn't have one at all. This year CBS will air one and in primetime on CBS, too. Titled, CBS Fall Preview, this special will give viewers an exciting preview of CBS's 2008-09 primetime programming. The special will air on Friday, September 5 at 9:00PM ET/PT following the Stand Up To Cancer special airing on ABC, NBC and CBS. Following the special CBS will an encore episode of The New Adventures of Old Christine at 9:30.
As of now, this year Fox is not scheduling a primetime preview special on Fox itself, but the affiliate special is still airing. Titled, Fox Fall Preview Special, this special takes a look at what is to come to Fox this season. It will begin airing this weekend, so be on the lookout. In the NYC market, WNYW will air it this Saturday night at 1:00AM and again on Sunday (Aug. 31) at 3:00PM, both in place of M*A*S*H airings. Now, Fox does have a slot open on Sunday, Sept. 14 at 9:35PM-10:00PM, so I wouldn't be surprised if this special actually airs on Fox in that slot. We'll let you know, but for now check your listings!
Finally, The CW is also doing an affiliate special and the special has started airing already. Titled, CW Fall 2008 Preview, this special is a preview of new series and returning favorites, including 90210, Gossip Girl, Privileged and Stylista. The special is hosted by Privileged stars Anne Archer and Joanna Garcia with Bob Saget introducing the MRC Sunday block that include series such as Valentine (with Christine Lakin, Autumn Reeser, etc) and his own sitcom Surviving Suburbia. The special will be airing quite a lot it seems. In NYC, WPIX will air it this Friday (Aug. 29) at 5:00PM, Saturday, August 30 at 7:30PM and Sunday, August 31 at 4:30PM. Check local listings in your area, as it doesn't seem The CW will air this on the network itself.
Last week we did a story on what is coming up on local stations in the New York market and we didn't have the full weekday schedule for WNBC and WPIX just yet...but now we do! First up is WNBC. Their 11am-5pm schedule will be revamped on weekdays. We already told you new talk show The Bonnie Hunt Show is coming to 2pm and back-to-back half-hours of Deal or No Deal will air at 4pm, but we guessed at other slots, and we were primarily right! NBC soap Day of Ours Lives is indeed on the move to its old 1pm slot again, while Martha Stewart Show moves to 11am. In the 12pm hour now since Crosswords is on production hiatus is Style by Jury and Inside the Box, from the same studio...Program Partners. Finally, WNBC will air Monk on Sunday nights at 12:35am replacing Showtime at the Apollo, which is gone. Take a look at the full WNBC Fall 2008 schedule. As for WPIX, we told you Judge Karen starts Sept. 8 weekdays 1-2pm and how the CW Daytime line-up will change on Sept. 22, but we were not sure if the sitcom line-up from 5-8pm and 11pm-4am would change...and guess what? It will a bit! Starting Sept. 22, in the 5pm hour now will be My Wife & Kids at 5pm (coming from 5:30pm) and George Lopez moves from late nights at 1:30am to a much better 5:30pm slot! George is doing very well in syndication and on cable on Nick at Nite, so expect to see it in better time slots on local channels this fall if your local channel was airing it in a late night slot this season. So, According to Jim which was airing at 5pm, will be on the move to late nights at 1am. The 1am slot replaces Frasier which slides to 1:30am where George Lopez was. Now if you get WPIX's digital station LATV, you can watch George Lopez's secondary airings at 6:30pm! That started a few weeks ago, so tune in. Everything else on weekdays primarily remains intact. Weekend additions is Star Trek and Stargate Atlantis, as we mentioned previously, on Saturday nights from 12-2am...sliding Chappelle's Show to 2-3am. Then starting Nov. 1, new first-run syndicated series Legend of the Seeker joins WPIX on Saturday nights at 8 and 9pm. It'll be like Xena and Hercules all over again! anyway, view the full WPIX Fall 2008 schedule. We have a lot of members on our message boards and they are posting various schedules for other markets like Boston, Fort Wayne, Sacramento, New Orleans and others, so if you want to help and post your market, head on to our message board!
Nearly three weeks ago we gave you WGN America's Fall 2008 schedule, but now there has been a slight change, nothing drastic but they are changing the schedule a bit on Sundays. Originally there were no schedule changes in September on Sundays, but now WGN America will change Sundays starting Sept. 14 and a little bit more on Oct. 5, which was the original date of changes happening on Sundays. On Sept. 14 Whacked Out Sports will air at 1pm ET for an hour leading into Cubs baseball games at 2pm ET. After the game ends, Funniest Pets & People will now air in the 5pm ET hour leading into The Cosby Show now in the 6pm ET hour. The Outta Sight Retro Night will continue to air from 7-10pm ET (with WKRP, Newhart, and Honeymooners hours) followed by the WGN News at 9 at 10pm ET. Then more classic TV will be added as Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie will join the Sunday line-up earlier than planned and in a better slot too, Sundays in the 11pm ET hour for Bewitched and 12am ET hour for I Dream of Jeannie sliding Scrubs to 1am ET. Remember this is just Sundays. The weekday line-up starting Sept. 8 will remain the same as we previously announced, such as Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie in the 9am ET hour weekdays. There will be no changes to Saturdays in September as we previously said. Saturdays will still change starting Oct. 4 as we originally mentioned, with changes such as Bewitched airing at 12 noon ET, I Dream of Jeannie at 1pm ET, NewsRadio at 6pm ET and Coach at 7pm ET. So nothing changed there. However, Sundays starting Oct. 5 will be altered just a tad now because of the changes on Sept. 14. Originally this is where the Sunday overhaul was going to take place, but now the changes will just be Whacked Out Sports kicking it off at 11am ET followed by a double dose now of The Beverly Hillbillies at 12 noon ET. The rest of the Sunday line-up is generally the same as the one that will start Sept. 14. We will have much more on WGN America in the near future as they have classic TV marathons planned for all upcoming holidays starting with Halloween, so stay tuned! For now, view the entire WGN America Fall 2008 Schedule so you see the new Sunday schedule and the rest of the schedule as well if you missed it!
Two-time Golden Globe winner Valerie Bertinelli (One Day at a Time) is returning to the world of sitcoms. She has just signed to star in a new comedy pilot for TBS from writer/executive producer Dave Caplan, whose credits include TBS's highly popular sitcom The Bill Engvall Show, as well as past ABC sitcoms George Lopez and The Drew Carey Show. The as-yet-untitled sitcom centers on a single mother trying to run a business while raising two children. The premise of the show is inspired by events in Caplan's own life. Caplan wrote the pilot script and will serve as executive producer along with Original Film's Neal Moritz and Vivian Cannon. Bertinelli will also serve as producer. The project comes to TBS from Sony Pictures Television. The Caplan project follows the life of a woman (Bertinelli) who manages to get through the day with surprisingly good humor despite very difficult circumstances: Her husband walks out, leaving her with two kids and a struggling lumberyard. It will take every ounce of energy she has to keep both her household and her business afloat, while facing obstacles at every turn. Stay tuned for more news on this! Fox has announced the series premiere of new J.J. Abrams drama Fringe will premiere from 8pm-9:35pm now instead of 8-10pm on Tuesday, September 9. The 8pm-9:35pm premiere will still have very limited commercials. Airing for the last 25 minutes from 9:35-10pm will now be a special sneak peek of the new Fox reality series Hole in the Wall. Hole in the Wall is still scheduled to air in its regular Thursday night slot at 8-9pm starting on Sept. 11. Fox will encore the premiere of Fringe on Sunday, September 14 as well from 8pm-9:35pm, but the time slot after that is still to be determined, but it is likely Fox will show a Fall Preview Special there. ABC is moving forward with its plans for a male-based Supernanny spinoff called Supermanny. The network will air a pilot episode of Supermanny in the fall. The spinoff's format will remain similar to the original, with a child-development expert lending a family in crisis some tough-love guidance. But instead of professional nanny Jo Frost leading the living-room intervention, gruff Chicago child therapist Mike Ruggles will step in. Supernanny moves to Fridays at 9pm ET this fall on ABC and it is likely the Supermanny pilot will air in that slot sometime this season as a backdoor pilot.
We gave you a little taste of Spike TV Fall over a month ago, but now we have full details! This Labor Day, catch a Labor Day CSI Marathon on Monday, Sept. 1 from 9a-10p, including a whole new season of CSI episodes, for the first time on Spike. Then, spin-off CSI: NY will air 5 days a week! Because one hour a week wasn't enough, CSI: New York moves to a Monday-Friday strip, a prime-time block, and a late night strip, all beginning the week of Sept. 22. Spike TV is kicking it off with a week- long, all-day marathon the week of Sept. 22 (Monday-Friday that week from 9a-9p, Tuesday from 9p-12am, and Mon-Fri at 12m) including 2 new seasons of CSI: New York episodes for the first time on Spike. Starting week of Sept. 29, CSI: NY will be regularly scheduled Mon-Fri at 8pm, Tuesdays from 9p-12am, and Mon-Wed at 12am. Married with...Children comes to Spike TV, beginning Saturday, September 27! Spend some time with Al, Peg, Kelly and Bud all-week long during Spike TV's "Monday thru Bundy" marathon! Saturday, September 27 and Sunday, September 28 from 9am-11am and 1a-2am! The marathon kicks into full gear on Monday, September 29 through Friday, October 3 from 9am-3pm each day! Also on Thursday, October 2 you can catch it in the late night from 12a-2a and the same goes for on Friday, October 3 from 12a-1a. Married...with Children will settle into its regular time periods of Mon-Fri 11am-1pm & Thursdays 1a-2a starting October 6 and Saturday and Sunday mornings 9am-11am beginning right after the marathon ends on Saturday, Oct. 4. Then in October another new show is coming! Unsolved Mysteries explores unsolved cases in which you, the viewer, can help solve a case. The show includes cases from a variety of categories: Murder, Missing Persons, Wanted Fugitives, UFOs, Ghosts, Fraud, Legends, Science/Medicine, among others. The new Unsolved Mysteries programs will consist of re-creations of the events, along with interviews with the subjects, participants and authorities, documentary footage and news footage. Entirely new graphics, special effects, music and title sequences were created for the Spike broadcasts, along with new narration and host stand-ups by Dennis Farina. The show will air Monday-Friday from 5pm-7pm starting Monday, October 13 and Sundays from 1pm-6pm! Check out the full Spike TV Fall 2008 schedule.
More fall schedules will return Monday as I am headed for a short vacation. Todd will take over the next few days with mini-DVD reviews from our review team. See you all Monday and come back this weekend as well to see those reviews and our Sunday ratings wrap-up! Off to the Catskills I go!
TV Land has made a chance to its line-up starting Aug. 25. The 9-11PM marathons will be removed starting Aug. 25, thus the evening line-up from 4pm-1am will be altered a bit. And the late night line-up that started this week, will remain intact this week and hereafter in September. This new 4pm-1am line-up will also carry over into September. Hogan's Heroes, Beverly Hillbillies, and Andy Griffith all move an hour earlier from 5-9pm to 4-8pm, as The Cosby Show moves into 8-9pm earlier than planned...as it was slated for mid-September. The Jeffersons follows from 9-10pm that week, but that will change to Scrubs starting a week later when Scrubs joins. From 10pm-12am it is a block of M*A*S*H and more Cosby Show in the midnight hour. Everything else will remain the same as the changes that happened Aug. 4. To view the full list of changes starting Aug. 25, click HERE. Also, you might want to see how TV Land September 2008 schedule looks now with these new changes. It seems Just Shoot Me and Murphy Brown will be totally gone in September with these new changes that happened Aug. 4 and Aug. 25. At least Three's Company and Brady Bunch will air every morning in the 4am hour!
Fox has announced a slight change to its fall line-up on Thursdays. Hole in the Wall, the body-bending, mind-twisting, global game show phenomenon from American Idol producers FremantleMedia North America, will now air Thursdays at 8PM ET/PT starting Thursday, Sept. 11 on Fox. The show was previously not scheduled in a slot, but was likely coming mid-season. The game show The Moment of Truth which was previously scheduled in the Thursday 8:00 PM time slot, will now premiere mid-season for its second season. ABC's wildly popular new hilarious competition series, Wipeout, has been picked up for a second season. Twenty-four thrill-seekers will compete in the world's largest extreme obstacle course designed to provide the most spills, face plants and wipeouts ever seen on television. A hit summer series for ABC, Wipeout dominates Tuesday's 8:00 PM hour in Total Viewers and across each of the key Adult demographics (AD18-34/AD18-49/AD25-54). In its six telecasts to date, Wipeout has consistently ranked as the No. 2 show of the week in both Total Viewers and Adults 18-49. Four new episodes remain in the first season and they will air starting Tuesday, Aug. 26 once the Olympics are over. The first season concludes on Sept. 16. There is no word yet how many episodes were ordered for season two and when we can expect them to air...possibly in mid-season or next summer, if I were to guess! Big Balls and Jill Wagner! In other ABC news, game show Wanna Bet? is scheduled to move from its Mondays at 9PM slot to Tuesdays at 9PM on Tuesdays, August 12, 19, 26 and September 2, 2008 at 9:00 PM ET/PT following Wipeout (which returns with new episodes on Aug. 26). Thus, Samantha Who? encores will now air move to Mondays at 9:00 & 9:30 PM ET/PT for the rest of the summer. Though, on August 18, the movie Bewitched will air from 9-11PM ET/PT. Finally, America United: In Support Of Our Troops is scheduled to air on Sunday, September 7, 2008 from 9:00-11:00 PM ET/PT on ABC. A star-studded "Bob Hope USO" style variety show featuring heart-warming profiles of families overcoming obstacles, top-tier performances, sexy celebrity cameos, hilarious comedy and touching acts of wish-fulfillment all with the positive, non-controversial message of "thanks" for our troops and their families.
Just a few weeks ago we gave you details on FX's summer changes...and now we have their fall schedule! As we have mentioned many times already, Bernie Mac is joining FX's line-up. The four-year deal starts Monday, September 8, 2008 with a launch marathon from 12:30pm-8pm ET. Bernie Mac will then join the weekday line-up on Tuesday, September 9 airing weekdays at 8:00am & 8:30am ET and 4:00pm & 4:30pm ET (although sometimes it will be 4:30pm ET & 5:00pm ET depending on the FX movies). The morning airings will replace The Practice, which will now just air weekends at 7:00am & 8:00am. We urge you to view the full FX September 2008 schedule so no confusion arises. Other September higlights include a Labor Day (Sept. 1) marathon of That '70s Show from 7:00am-5:30pm ET. The Shield will have its season premiere the following night at 10pm on Tuesday, September 2. FX will launch their new series Sons of Anarchy starring Katey Sagal on Wednesday, September 3 at 10pm with a special 75-minute premiere until 11:15pm ET. FX will launch a new season of its comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia on Thursday, September 18 at 10pm.
In June 2008, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) announced that it intends to soon change the way Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, the beloved children’s television program, is distributed to member stations. PBS will cease transmitting the program as part of their daily syndicated lineup beginning in September. Instead, PBS will provide member stations with a single Neighborhood episode on weekends. This unfortunate decision essentially silences the special nurturing voice of Mister Rogers in the daily lives of today's children. Local public television stations, who make the final decisions about which programs to offer and when to air them, can still opt to broadcast Mister Rogers' Neighborhood each weekday, but they are much less likely to do so without the program being included in PBS's syndicated feed. A campaign is underway for you to save Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on your local PBS station. It is sad if they just air it once a week on weekends. Many generations have learned from him since the 1960s and it has been tradition having it on daily on PBS. So save Mister Rogers by heading on to SaveMisterRogers.com!
Fox has ordered a fifth season of summer show, So You Think You Can Dance for next summer. Created by Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe, the original dance competition follows amateur dancers as they compete in everything from Hip-Hop, Krumping and Popping to Salsa, Quickstep and Jive to be named America's favorite dancer.
TV Land has acquired the hit '90s sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun for this Fall. All 139 episodes of the 1996-2001 NBC series will be coming to TV Land starting Saturday, October 25. We don't have any other details than that yet. The series stars John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Wayne Knight, and Jane Curtin. The series was last seen on ABC Family Channel. It didn't air much on there, mainly airing weekends on and off in 2004 and 2005, before briefly returning for a bit in 2006. ABC Family's contract has now expired. The show really hasn't been seen much since Sept. 2004, that is when the local channel contract expired. 3rd Rock From the Sun is about a group of aliens that have come to Earth to learn about its population, customs, etc. To avoid detection, they have taken on human form which gives them human emotions, physical needs etc. WITHOUT the understanding of what they mean or the inhibitions normally present in humans. Their leader takes the position of a college professor, their military expert as his sister, their intelligence expert, supposedly oldest of group takes form of his teenage son. The uninhibited reactions turn everyday events into unusual situations. We will let you know more on 3rd Rock From the Sun coming to TV Land in the coming months. Speaking of TV Land, we will have their September line-up for you shortly...hopefully by the end of the week. As you all know, Scrubs is coming Sept. 1 and The Cosby Show fully moves to TV Land on Sept. 15. In other TV Land news, the second season of the original series TV Land Myths & Legends has been pushed back to October 8. It was originally slated to start August 27, as we mentioned in the TV Land August highlights. So after Family Foreman concludes after its August 20 finale, there is no original series on Wednesdays on TV Land until October 8.
It is the second and final day for the Fox portion of the summer 2008 TCA press tour. We have some tidbits from yesterday that we need to mention today. Fox will have two development seasons this year at least. The first one will happen in December. Kevin Reilly said about eight shows are in development for that period. Expect some announcements for pick-ups then. The regular development season in the spring will still happen also. As for the rumored Prison Break spin-off, Fox is still planning one. However, it doesn't seem it will be introduced within the show but rather as its own series. The plan is to call it Cherry Hill and it'll be about a women's prison. Fox also discussed a bit about the 24 prequel and upcoming season along with the planned Osbournes variety series. Finally, there is still no end in sight for The Simpsons, so it'll likely extend beyond next season, which will be its 20th season. Oh and Fox is going to move its upfront date next year from Thursday to Monday it seems. Today at the tour will be all FX really. FX only has the morning half. On the panel will be casts and crews of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Damages, Sons of Anarchy, and The Shield. Some FX notes...FX has placed a 13 episode order for the new half-hour comedy series Testees (working title) and will air Thursdays at 10:30pm following It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia starting October 9. Speaking of Sunny, FX intends to produce 39 more episodes in addition to the 13 currently in production. The series' fourth season premieres on Thursday, September 18 at 10 p.m. FX will order 19 additional episodes of Nip/Tuck and the series will end its historic run in early 2011. FX and Sony Pictures Television closed a deal with Michael J. Fox for a four-episode arc for the fifth season of Rescue Me. The 22-episode fifth season begins in the spring of 2009 and he will appear in the season five opener. Finally, Damages' second season starts in January 2009 with new cast members Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Timothy Olyphant. Ted Danson will return in season two for several episodes. The rest of the day is a TCA day with lunch being sponsored by the new upcoming syndicated talk show The Bonnie Hunt Show followed by a set visit for AMC's Mad Men. After that it is the evening program with dinner and cocktails. The Championship Gaming Series (CGS) World Championship Kickoff Event for media will be held Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 7:30 p.m. at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. The CGS is the first global professional video gaming league where head-to-head competition is televised live and in HD on DIRECTV's 101 Network. They are sponsoring the evening program. Coming up tomorrow is ABC Day 1!
Also coming up tomorrow on the blog is our annual Emmy Awards Preview with our predictions of the nominees. The actual Emmy nominees will be announced the following day, Thursday. We will also have more news, so make sure you come back tomorrow! This is a big week!
The broadcast portion of the summer 2008 TCA press tour started Saturday with PBS, and among the series they announced were a revival of the classic '70s children's series The Electric Company, returning in January 2009 and a new children's series launching Sept. 1 called Sid the Science Kid. Also, of note from PBS was a comedy special coming in January 2009. Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America is a landmark six-part series that will chronicle the funniest moments in American entertainment, from the pratfalls that entertained immigrants in the early 1900s to the most biting satire and stand-up today, to illuminate how comedy has been a mirror of our changing society. Among those interviewed: Sid Caesar, George Carlin, Dick Gregory, Carl Reiner, Joan Rivers, Shelley Berman, the Smothers Brothers, Jonathan Winters, Mort Sahl, Steve Martin, Jason Alexander, Phyllis Diller, Cheech Marin, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin, Lorne Michaels, and a Who's Who of other groundbreaking comic minds. Should be good. Today and tomorrow Fox and Fox cable networks are up. Today it is all about the Fox broadcast network. The cast and crew of many hit Fox series and upcoming series will be on hand today on the panel. They started today with a Prison Break themed breakfast called Prison Break-fast. Then it was on to the panels with casts and crews of many Fox shows and entities: So You Think You Can Dance, Fringe, Fox News, Do Not Disturb, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, 24, Secret Millionaire, and a panel featuring producers of Fox's animated series. As of this writing nothing new was really learned. Fox did say the 250th episode of King of the Hill will air in May 2009 and Erica Ash, Matt Braunger, Eric Price and Lauren Pritchard have joined MADtv for its 14th season. Earlier, we found out that Sanaa Lathan, Nia Long and Kevin Michael Richardson were joining the animated Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show. Keep checking back in this spot for new updates or for sure in tomorrow's Fox day 2 notes.
Don Most and Anson Williams, who of course starred as Ralph Malph and Potsie on the long-running sitcom, Happy Days, have reunited to produce a potential new series, Take 2. In addition to executive producing the series, the pair also star in the pilot episode. "Each episode of Take 2 is like a short independent film," says Williams, "and will reunite different iconic duos of the present and past, but in all-new stories, as completely different characters. They'll still have the established on-screen chemistry that audiences know and love -- but I think people will be stunned when they see just how different they can be." "I thought about Lemmon and Mathau or Tracy and Hepburn. The reason they worked together over and over again was because they had chemistry on-screen. In our favorite TV shows growing up, you saw that same kind of chemistry -- Ralph and Potsie, Will and Grace, Laverne and Shirley. Why not utilize that already established chemistry -- bring together these beloved stars - in these provocative scripts that Frederick Stroppel had written?" We will have more information on this series should it go forward and get picked-up for a series. Best of luck to them! Read the full press release. Check out clips on YouTube.
Sid and Marty Krofft's classic '70s shows are now on MySpaceTV! H.R. Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost, Electra Woman & Dyna Girl, Lidsville, Sigmund & the Sea Monsters, Dr. Shrinker and The Bugaloos, will make their exclusive global home on the social-networking platform. The license extends to put condensed versions of Krofft-produced TV episodes as well as taped messages from the Kroffts themselves. In addition to the condensed episodes, which they are calling "Kwikies," which run 3-5 minutes, the Kroffts are also making available highlight clips. MySpace subscribers will also make theme music from the shows available. Too bad the whole episode won't be on MySpace, but it is better than nothing. Head on over to the Krofft section to watch these condensed episodes. This is similar to Sony's Minisode Network.
Hallmark has licensed CBS Consumer Products' Classic TV catalog for various products. The agreement opens the door to more than 150 properties -- among them The Beverly Hillbillies, The Love Boat, Taxi, Beverly Hills, 90210, Happy Days and Rawhide -- not only for greeting cards but also for party goods, collectibles and other gift categories. The CBS property will be labeled Television City, as most of the shows from the CBS-Paramount library did not air on CBS itself. Several shows are also celebrating anniversaries next year: The Twilight Zone (50th), Rawhide (50th), The Brady Bunch (40th) and Happy Days (35th)...so expect some sort of tribute cards, collectibles or other products by Hallmark for them. Initial licensees include Hallmark, which will be producing cards featuring many classic TV titles. A Television City logo will be included on Hallmark products and in marketing outreaches. Television City shows are in the process of being licensed for use in other categories and already have been tapped by University Games for board games and Steve & Barry's and NTD Apparel for T-shirts and other clothing. I know I will be asked this question, so I will just say it right now...no, these Paramount shows will not be available on television on The Hallmark Channel, this is just for Hallmark products, like cards and collectibles.
MyNetworkTV will launch The Tony Rock Project Wednesdays this fall following episodes of sitcom Under One Roof this fall. 8 episodes have been picked-up thus far. Tony Rock Project is a sketch comedy show starring Tony Rock, the brother of Chris Rock from Everybody Hates Chris, that will fuse reality (streeter interviews, hidden camera footage) with comic examination of race, class and power. Other new MyNetworkTV shows for the fall are Magic Secrets (Mondays at 9), Funniest Moments (Wednesdays at 9), and WWE Smackdown! will move to the network in October. The network will also air Saturday movies now, in addition to their Thursday movies. Check out the MyNetworkTV Fall schedule. Today they announced Arsenio Hall will host Funniest Moments.
Take back the first season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles this August on Fox. Beginning Sunday, Aug. 10 at 9:00 PM ET/PT, encore episodes of the entire first season will air for two weeks Sunday through Wednesday at 9:00 PM ET/PT through Aug. 24. The action-packed season finale cliff-hanger that left Cameron's fate unknown will encore on Sunday, Aug. 24 at 9:00 PM ET/PT. The Season One reboot kicks off the countdown to the Season Two premiere Monday, Sept. 8 at 8:00 PM ET/PT on Fox.
Fox was slated to start the fall season the week of August 25, but now Fox has changed their minds and will start the fall season on September 1, still a full three weeks ahead of the actual start of the 2008-09 season. Fox premiere week will kick off the 2008-09 season with special two-hour premieres of Prison Break Monday, Sept. 1 from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT; Bones Wednesday, Sept. 3 from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT; The Moment of Truth Thursday, Sept. 4 from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT; and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Friday, Sept. 5 from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT. Premiere week will also see the season premieres of Cops and America's Most Wanted on Saturday, September 6. As for new series, Fringe, the highly anticipated new thriller from J.J. Abrams will debut with a two-hour premiere Tuesday, Sept. 9 from 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT. New sitcom, Do Not Disturb, the new workplace comedy starring Jerry O'Connell and Niecy Nash, will premiere Wednesday, Sept. 10 at 9:30 PM ET/PT. Other fall premieres include: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Monday, September 8 at 8:00PM, as Prison Break will slide over to 9:00PM. Returning sitcom 'Til Death will have its season premiere Wednesday, September 10 at 9:00PM in between Bones and Do Not Disturb. Kitchen Nightmares will have its season premiere on Thursday, September 11 at 9:00PM, as The Moment of Truth will air at 8:00PM. Don't Forget the Lyrics! will have its season premiere the next day, Friday, September 12 at 9:00PM following Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Fox Saturday late night will have its season premieres on Saturday, September 13 with MADtv at 11:00pm and Talk Show with Spike Feresten at midnight. House will have its season premiere on Tuesday, September 16 in its new slot of 8:00pm, leading into Fringe. And finally, the Fox Animation Domination comedies will have their season premieres in the actual traditional premiere week (Sept. 22-28) on Sunday, September 28 with The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Family Guy and American Dad! from 8-10PM.
TBS's original sitcom, The Bill Engvall Show starring Bill Engvall launches its ten-episode second season on Thursday, June 12 at 9:00PM, but before that happens CBS has struck a deal with TBS to air an episode from season one on CBS this coming Monday (June 9). The season one encore (episode three How Bill Met Susan) will air on CBS at 8:00PM in place of the normally scheduled The Big Bang Theory. Why is CBS doing this? They are not sister stations with TBS, so one wonders what the reason is? Variety reports that this is strictly a marketing swap. In exchange for CBS giving its show wider exposure, TBS will cede promo time to CBS to promote its fall 2008 schedule. So it is a win-win situation for both networks, as TBS gets more exposure for The Bill Engvall Show and CBS gets to showcase its fall promos on TBS. TBS got 4.1 million last season for the series premiere of The Bill Engvall Show. Can CBS's encore do better and can the season premiere on TBS do better as well (opposite the NBA Finals on ABC)? Only time will tell...
Finally, we leave you today with some good news. A 50-foot portrait of the legendary John Ritter (Three's Company, 8 Simple Rules) was dedicated as part of the existing Hollywood High School "Portrait of Hollywood" mural at 9 a.m. today in front of the mural at 1521 N. Highland Avenue, at the corner of Highland and Hawthorne. If you all recall or didn't know, when John was a guest on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live back in April 2003, Jimmy told John that he will not rest until John's photo was added to the Hollywood High mural. John of course went to Hollywood High for high school from 1962-1966 (then he later went to USC for college from 1966-1971). And now John has finally gotten his photo added to the mural at Hollywood High! Attending the event was: Amy Yasbeck Ritter, Jimmy Kimmel, mural artist Eloy Torrez, Los Angeles City Council president Eric Garcetti, and Councilmember Tom La Bonge. Also attended was representatives from the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles, Legacy Partners and Gatehouse Capital, which combined forces to fund the $74,000 mural. The event also marks the creation of a $500,000 endowment fund for Hollywood High School's Performing Arts program, provided by a collaboration of Gatehouse Capital. Great news! And we can't wait to see a picture of this! To discuss this news, and to see a photo of John's "pretend mural" on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2003, click HERE!
Sundays 7:00PM NFL Runover/Animated Repeats 8:00PM The Simpsons 8:30PM King of the Hill 9:00PM Family Guy 9:30PM American Dad
Mondays 8:00PM Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 9:00PM Prison Break
Tuesdays 8:00PM House 9:00PM Fringe(NEW!)
Wednesdays 8:00PM Bones 9:00PM 'Til Death 9:30PM Do Not Disturb (aka: The Inn) (NEW!)
Thursdays 8:00PM The Moment of Truth 9:00PM Kitchen Nightmares
Fridays 8:00PM Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? 9:00PM Don't Forget the Lyrics!
Saturdays 8:00PM Cops 9:00PM America's Most Wanted
January / Spring 2009:
Sundays 7:00PM King of the Hill 7:30PM American Dad 8:00PM The Simpsons 8:30PM King of the Hill/Sit Down, Shutup(NEW! Spring) 9:00PM Family Guy 9:30PM American Dad/The Cleveland Show(NEW! Spring)
Mondays 8:00PM Dollhouse(NEW!) 9:00PM 24 (special two-hour prequel movie on Sunday, Nov. 23 8-10pm)
Tuesdays 8:00PM American Idol 9:00PM Fringe
Wednesdays 8:00PM House 9:00PM American Idol Results Show 9:30PM TBD New Comedy
Fridays 8:00PM Bones 9:00PM 'Til Death 9:30PM Do Not Disturb
Saturdays 8:00PM Cops 9:00PM America's Most Wanted
Fox will kick-off the Fall season week of August 25. Coming in mid-season are new series: drama Dollhouse (January, Mondays at 8), reality series Secret Millionaire (January, Thursdays at 9), animated comedies Sit Down, Shutup(March, Sundays 8:30) & The Cleveland Show (March, Sundays 9:30). To recap, Fox will launch one new drama (Fringe) and one new comedy (Do Not Disturb) in the fall. One new drama (Dollhouse), two animated comedies (Sit Down, Shutup & The Cleveland Show) and one new reality series (Secret Millionaire) will launch in mid-season. One additional comedy will be announced later for mid-season.
Discuss Fox's 2008-09 line-up here. You'll find the official press release there, too...with more detailed information.
5:30PM UPDATE: As with ABC, I got to see the actual Fox upfront presentation. Didn't get to see CBS or The CW. Here is an outline of what happened at Fox's upfront presentation. They could have another drama or two it seems for mid-season, but they haven't completed production yet. Lie to Me (from the people who made 24) or Courtroom K (from the people who made House) are the top contenders, as crew interview clips were shown at upfront. They haven't decided yet what comedy will air post-Idol next season, but it seems Outnumbered or Boldly Going Nowhere are the best bets. Outnumbered clips were shown, it seems like the new Fox Malcolm in the Middle. And I have to say how eerie similar Fringe seems to be of Lost. Same creator (J.J. Abrams), same type of premise (airplane), except they are not on an island, you see a cow come out of nowhere (we saw cows in the jungle on Lost), and what...Lance Reddick is in it (the mysterious Matthew Abaddon on Lost)?? Hmm...a connection?
(4.5/5 stars)
