Question: Any news on Scrubs?
Answer: You mean aside from talk that ABC will almost certainly pick up the show should NBC cancel it? Let's see… Markie Post is returning as Elliott's mom on April 18, and on April 25, one of the world's funniest people, ex-Hot Properties stitch Nicole Sullivan, pops in as a former patient of J.D.'s. BTW, the fantasy bit last week in which J.D. visited that pound for stray Grandpas? One of the funniest things I've seen — ever. And don't even get me started about last night's revelation that J.D. and Turk watch Gilmore Girls. I swear, sometimes I think Bill Lawrence is making this show just for me.
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In other pilot news, Skeet Ulrich will star in Jericho, CBS' drama about a small town isolated from the world after a nuclear disaster.... Gail O'Grady has joined Kevin Williamson's CW sudser about a teen whose family moves to Palm Springs, while Hot Properties costar Sofia Vergara has been cast on ABC's new comedy from Donal Logue.... John Billingsley (Star Trek: Enterprise) and Owain Yeoman (Kitchen Confidential) have been added to ABC's Nine Lives, about strangers who bond during a bank robbery.... John L. Adams (The Dead Zone) will play newscaster Angie Harmon's cameraman in Secrets of a Small Town, from Charles Pratt Jr. (Desperate Housewives).... And, in short order, Mark Feuerstein (Good Morning, Miami
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Question: Is it just me, or are some of the new and mid-season shows just rip-offs of current/past shows? Last year, when Jake in Progress was debuting, ABC touted it as being "same city, opposite sex." (In other words, the same concept of another very successful show. Personally, I thought Jake was a cute, clever show and I look forward to its return.) Like Sex and the City, Jake is basically about the adventures of an attractive, successful person navigating the dating scene. Then, in the fall, we got Freddy, which is about an attractive, successful person navigating the dating scene. And let's not forget the regrettable Hot Properties. Now, the same network is touting yet another show, Emily's Reasons Why Not, which is about — you guessed it — an attractive, successful person navigating the dating scene. This doesn't even address CBS' shows How I Met Your Mother and the ridiculously named Love Monkey. I realize there are only so many premises to be used in sitcoms, and it seems ...
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Question: Can you explain the logic behind Friday-night ratings? It seems to me from following dailies for a few weeks now that nothing does exceptionally well on Fridays. So when a show like Threshold wins its slot but takes fewer viewers than its lead-in and follow-up, why is that considered a failure? Now ABC has canceled Hot Properties, which is a Friday show. And while I didn't watch it, just looking at the numbers, it looks about right for how many people have nothing to do on a date night. I know few 18- to 35-year-olds who aren't out in the clubs, on dates or elsewhere on that day (save those of my friends who throw a sci-fi Friday party). So wouldn't logic dictate that even though a show has fewer viewers on Friday, it's to be expected in the culture we live in? Please help me understand what the networks expect to get on these nights.
Answer: It's a good question, but a hard one to answer. Fridays are becoming the new Saturdays in terms of lowered expectations season after
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On the heels of reports that CBS' Threshold, pulled for the remainder of November sweeps, has halted production, comes word that Fox's Reunion and ABC's Hot Properties each have had the plug pulled after 13 episodes. Thus far, there is no word on whether Reunion will wrap up its central murder mystery before vanishing; Hot Properties will air through December.
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