NBC Schedules Medium, Large Apprentice, Super-sized Office and ER Finale
Patricia Arquette (Medium), Donald Trump (Celebrity Apprentice)
Just days after unveiling "Phase 1" of its plan — which in part brought back Friday Night Lights and set a start date for Nigel Lythgoe's Superstars of Dance — NBC has followed through with the continuation of its midseason tweaking.
Of most immediate important to many of you, I imagine, is the return date — Feb. 2 — for Medium, which will air Mondays at 10 pm/ET. There, it will cap a night featuring fresh episodes of Chuck (which returns with a 3-D episode) and Heroes (which will be launching its new "Fugitives" volume).
The other headline here is an hour-long episode of The Office airing after NBC's Feb. 1 broadcast of Super Bowl XLIII.
Elsewhere....
- Knight Rider's revamp won't get much of a showcase, as the series has been targeted for an early, Feb. 25 finale. The inheritor of its Wednesdays-at-8 slot is TBD. Life returns Feb. 4 with fresh fare.
- Turning to Thursdays, ER will air a two-hour series finale on March 12, starting at 9 pm. The following week, Kings — billed as "a contemporary retelling of the tale of David and Goliath" and starring Ian McShane, Chris Egan and Susanna Thompson — makes its debut.
- Celebrity Apprentice returns for a second season on March 1, bigger and better bigger than ever. How so? The long-running series will air two-hour episodes every Sunday, in part to give the boardroom antics greater play, but also (by some accounts) to save the Peacock some green.
- Lastly, XIII, a miniseries starring Val Kilmer and Stephen Dorff, will air on consecutive Sundays, Feb. 8 and 15. The premise: Three months after the country's first female president is assassinated, a wounded man is found in forest with no memory of his identity. And ... cue the sprawling conspiracy/manhunt.
The premieres for "The Untitled Amy Poehler Project" and The Philanthropist (starring Rome's James Purefoy) will be announced at a future date, says NBC; no word on what happened to Merlin.
