Our Little Genius Flunks Out Before Airing

Our Little Geniuswill not premiere next week at executive producer Mark Burnett's request.

The scheduling change is apparently related to a question of integrity. A Fox spokesperson would not elaborate on Burnett's statement, which said:

"I recently discovered that there was an issue with how some information was relayed to contestants during the pre-production of Our Little Genius. As a result, I am not comfortable delivering the episodes without re-shooting them. I believe my series must always be beyond reproach, so I have requested that FOX not air these episodes."

Fox lines up midseason premieres

Little Genius — hosted by Kevin Pollak — put up intelligent children to compete for hundreds of thousands of dollars for their families. In place of Genius, Fox is airing an encore of the 450^th episode of The Simpsons. American Idolwill follow with a 90-minute episode, instead of the original 75-minute episode that was scheduled. The following week, Human Target, Fox's new action-drama, will encore its pilot episode on Tuesday, Jan. 19 after Idol.

"Even though we were incredibly pleased with the quality of Our Little Genius, we respect and appreciate his due diligence and the decision to pull these episodes," Fox said in a statement. "We agree there can be no question about the integrity of our shows."