Could you please explain to ...
Question: Could you please explain to me why Fox (what the **** were they thinking?!) pushed the season finale for
House back a week and out of both May sweeps and finale week? Not only did it lose the huge lead-in from
American Idol, but they were stuck getting paired with
On the Lot instead.
House is a pretty solid top-five show now (one of the top three scripted shows on TV), but you'd never know it the way Fox preempts it at every turn. Do you think Fox gave
House the coveted post-Super Bowl time slot to make up for these sorts of blunders, or is it just that they didn't have anything else worthy of the honor? Sorry, I know that's two questions.
Answer: Actually, it's more like a question and a gripe. One that I don't particularly sympathize with, but any time Fox messes with its schedule and
House or
Bones is affected (and during
American Idol season, both often are), you never hear the end of it. Still, it's a fact that pushing the
House finale back a week made no sense whatsoever. It didn't actually hurt the show, and it gave Fox a lift for the first postseason week on that Tuesday (no thanks to
On the Lot), but it was annoying and weird to have it air a week late. Still, to analyze it fairly, if
On the Lot had turned out to be a hit instead of an instant dud, Fox would have looked brilliant for launching the show alongside the penultimate
Idol episode. Instead, now we can second-guess them and say how stupid it was to start a brand-new show two days before the season had even ended. We weren't in the mood for something new when we hadn't even closed out the old. (And then to schedule the first two-hour episode on the Monday of Memorial Day weekend? Uh, no.) But I'm sure Fox would argue with you on your point that it treats
House with anything but gratitude and love. The scheduling of the show on Super Bowl night, as I've said before, had nothing to do with penance and everything to do with capitalism. The show's a monster hit, and Fox knows it can command top dollar on TV's most lucrative night by airing the network's hottest scripted show after the game.
