Question: Love your column! My question is, now that NBC has shelved Four Kings (which I actually liked), what do you think about moving Scrubs to the 8:30 pm/ET time slot that Kings occupied? Maybe they could gain the audience they deserve if they were sandwiched between Will & Grace and My Name Is Earl.
Answer: I think it's a great idea — just about everyone except the NBC programmers seem to agree — but I don't see it happening, not this late in the season. NBC just threw another ball of crap at Scrubs last week, pairing it with the miserably unwatchable Teachers, and I would imagine for much of the rest of what's left of the season, NBC will continue to either double-run Earl episodes on Thursdays (way to burn out a hot new show) or replay classic Will & Grace episodes as part of the countdown to the end. Or maybe they'll find a way to sneak even more editions of Deal or No Deal across the lineup. Who knows with this network? If Scrubs survives this season, it will be no thanks t ...
read more
The Futon Critic says NBC has given Four Kings the hook and will temporarily fill the Thursday-night void with My Name Is Earl reruns.... Bravo's eighth round of Celebrity Poker Showdown, to air this spring, aims to give New Orleans a morale boost by filming in Louisiana City.... The producers of Bubble next will bring you a "day-and-date" release of Herbie Hancock: Possibilities, hitting theaters April 14, then arriving on DVD April 18 and on HDNet April 23.... A correction from the Hollywood Reporter: Shohreh Aghdashloo will play the first cousin of the Virgin Mary in Nativity, due for a December release.
read more
Kevin James, The King of Queens
This week the networks began meeting with ad-agency execs to talk about what's in development for the 2006-07 season. That means it's time for producers of current shows with less-than-robust ratings to start worrying about getting picked up for next season. Here's what industry insiders are telling the Biz.
ABC: The network's comedies are having a tough year in the ratings, but you can't cancel all of them. Rodney, Hope & Faith, Crumbs and Less than Perfect aren't likely to make the cut. According to Jim, George Lopez and Freddie have a chance of returning. Since ABC has two more hours to program in the fall now that football has moved to NBC, shows that would otherwise be doomed have a chance. We're talking Invasion and Commander in Chief. Their survival depends on the strength of the network's new-program development.
CBS: Another season of The King of Queens depends on whether the n
read more
Question: It really irritates me that you and the rest of the mainstream media completely ignore the African-American comedies on UPN. Girlfriends/America's Next Top Model are not the only successful shows on that network. Just because you don't watch them does not mean they are not worth saving. Broad comedies are all over the rest of the networks, and they feature mostly white casts. I realize ratings play a big part, but these shows would not have lasted as long as they have if they had not been generating ratings and some kind of revenue.
Answer: True enough. There is a market for these shows, and there's no question this audience is being woefully underserved by the major networks, which is why it's important that CW not ignore that part of UPN's (and once upon a time, WB's) legacy. But critically speaking, I'm just as happy to ignore network mediocrities like According to Jim, Still Standing, Yes, Dear, Four Kings and Courting Alex as I am the equally forgettable likes of Half &
read more
Donald Faison, Scrubs
Tonight at 9 pm/ET, NBC's Scrubs presents its 100th episode, featuring — no, not the death of someone close to Clark Kent — a humorous homage to The Wizard of Oz. This week's second helping guest-stars Jason Bateman and a whole lotta angry ostriches. Is this show officially off the hook? TVGuide.com spoke with Donald Faison, aka Turk, about crafting Scrubs' weekly remedy for the prime-time blahs.
TVGuide.com: Donald Faison, pardon my French, but you are on one damn funny show.Donald Faison: Thanks, but where did you speak French in that?
TVGuide.com: Um, when I said "Faison"? So do you get that a lot, people telling you that Scrubs
read more
Reports of the death of the TV sitcom were, thankfully, premature. New critical hits like My Name Is Earl, Everybody Hates Chris and the steadily improving The Office have set a high bar for the new and returning comedies that entered the fray this month. Just getting Scrubs back on the air after an inexcusable fall hiatus is reason enough to celebrate, while some of the newbies hope to fill the romantic-comedy void left by Sex and the City and Friends. Here’s my quick take on the mid-season comedy crop. (I dismissed NBC’s generic buddy romp Four Kings in an earlier column.)
ScrubsTuesdays, 9 pm/ET, NBCHeard it before? Thankfully, yes. The antics are as fresh as ever now that this endearingly irreverent medical comedy has returned — finally — with back-to-back episodes of bawdy slapstick and barbed verbal w
read more
Dancing with the Stars' Nick Kosovich and Tatum O'Neal
Thursday's second-season premiere of Dancing with the Stars led ABC to an overall second-place finish for the night, attracting 17.33 million viewers — a 29 percent bump from the series' summer debut and the network's best regular-programming showing in the Thursday 8-10 pm block since Nov. 16, 2000. Elsewhere, NBC's Will & Grace bowed in its new time slot with 7.98 million viewers (a slight improvement over Joey), newbie Four Kings drew 8.84 mil, and the new My Name Is Earl-The Office comedy hour averaged 10 mil — close to (but not quite) Apprentice numbers.
read more
Four KingsNBC continues itsThursday-night tradition of inserting mediocre sitcoms between great ones. Remember The Single Guy? How about Jesse or Inside Schwartz or Stark Raving Mad or Cursed? Must-Not-See TV is more like it. Or Must-Wait-a-Half-Hour-Before-I-See TV. Perhaps I'm just bitter that Scrubs isn't in this time slot. I mean, how perfect would that be? NBC was brilliant to move My Name Is Earl and The Office to Thursday, but it should be Scrubs that follows Will & Grace, not this show. OK, I didn't hate it — I just didn't laugh. Not once. And that ain't good. I was glad to hear Anne Meara's voice in the beginning and at the end, but other than the "bro's before ho's" line that on
read more
Seth Green is one of Four Kings
Four Kings, the new NBC comedy (premiering tonight at 8:30 pm/ET) from Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, treads Friends-ly territory with the story of four lifelong buds — Barry (Seth Green, the Austin Powers movies; Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Ben (Josh Cooke, Committed), Bobby (Shane McRae) and Jason (Todd Grinnell) — who inherit an improbably fantastic New York City apartment when Ben's grandmother passes away. With a quartet of young actors onboard, the backstage shenanigans probably rival what you'll see on screen. "One of the games we play, involving a blue fuzzy pillow being wi
read more
Josh Cooke is one of Four Kings
Four Kings, the new NBC comedy (premiering Thursday at 8:30 pm/ET) from Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, treads Friends-ly territory with the story of four lifelong buds — Barry (Seth Green, the Austin Powers movies; Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Ben (Josh Cooke, Committed), Bobby (Shane McRae) and Jason (Todd Grinnell) — who inherit an improbably fantastic New York City apartment when Ben's grandmother passes away. With a quartet of young actors onboard, the backstage shenanigans probably rival what you'll see on screen. "One of the games we play, involving a blue fuzzy pillow being w
read more
