Question: It seems that ABC's plan to burn off the unaired episodes of Knights of Prosperity and The Nine in August flatlined after just one Wednesday night. By the second week, they'd replaced the shows with According to Jim and Primetime repeats. Now, I'm a realist about the business side's effect on the artistic side, and I understand that a loyal, vocal online fan base represents but the tiniest fraction of the viewing audience, but in the case of Knights, there were only two episodes left — just 60 minutes of fairly worthless mid-August real estate spread over two Wednesdays. So was it really that significant a financial benefit to the network to run According to Jim repeats instead of previously unaired Knights episodes that had already been bought and paid for, and now won't see the light of day, even online? This decision takes the cake, especially in a weak ratings month like August.
Answer: It does make you wonder whether a network is aware of the long-term impact of jerking
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Question: Does ABC plan on ever finishing the run of a new sitcom? Last year, they gave Emily's Reasons Why Not a one-night trial, along with the returning Jake in Progress. They also pulled Crumbs after five episodes, after it averaged 7.5 million viewers on Tuesdays. That's much better than any of ABC's comedies have averaged this season, besides Dancing with the Stars-fueled Help Me Help You, which was pulled with four episodes left to air. Then, the network pulled Big Day with only one episode left to air, The Knights of Prosperity with four episodes left, In Case of Emergency with two episodes left and Notes from the Underbelly, which will only air seven of its 13 episodes. Do you think this shows an overall lack of confidence in new sitcoms?
Answer: Whew. You're certainly paying a lot more attention to that wasteland than I am. In most cases (though not for Knights of Prosperity, which deserved better), for ABC to take these shows off the air early is kind of like a mercy killing.
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Question: I am having a hard time understanding how the networks are scheduling programs. To me, it just doesn't seem like the audience for Heroes is going to stick around to watch Studio 60 or The Black Donnellys. I don't think these shows mesh at all together. On ABC, they decided that the order of the Wednesday comedy block should be George Lopez, The Knights of Prosperity, According to Jim and In Case of Emergency. Again, I don't see how the audiences of each of those will stick around to watch the other shows. George and Jim are more family-oriented, and Knights and Emergency lean to adults. Unfortunately, shows like Studio 60 and Knights, both of which I like, are not getting fair chances by getting better scheduling. I'm curious about your thoughts on this.
Answer: I don't really agree where Studio 60 is concerned. While it's true that Heroes cult fanatics aren't the perfect target audience for Studio 60, it was still a powerful lead-in, and NBC kept Studio 60 in the same time
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Ray Romano can breathe easy — for now. ABC has pulled The Knights of Prosperity from the schedule for the foreseeable future, even though four episodes remain unaired and there's an outstanding order for nine additional scripts. Most recently, the Donal Logue starrer drew an audience of 4.2 million, hemorrhaging nearly two mil from lead-in George Lopez.Filling Knights' Wednesdays-at-8:30 slot starting this week will be a rerun of According to Jim, followed on March 14 and 21 by episodes of Lopez.
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I guess Eugene will forever be pulling the tangerine out of the toilet. No, the show hasn’t been officially cancelled, but it has been pulled from the schedule. Despite being a mere four episodes away from airing its full 13 episode order, ABC has replaced it with airings of According to Jim and George Lopez. In my first write-up, I said I had a crush on this show, so I guess that whole thing about loving and losing is true. It’s just too bad that it happened so close to the end. And because how else can I end this, but with a Rolling Stones reference, allow me to bypass the usual favorites of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” and look instead to these lyrics of "Salt of the Earth":Let's drink to the hard working people/ Let's drink to the lowly of birth/ Raise your glass to the good and the evil/ Let's drink to the salt of the earth.Bonne chance, Eugene, Squatch, Gary, Louis, Rockefeller and Espera...
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Somewhere in the television universe George Costanza is still yelping about how he always wanted to be an architect. Well, Art Vandelay, meet Oswald Montecristo. For me to equate anything with Seinfeld should be taken as a sign of the highest respect. And no, Mr. Montecristo, I am not just kissing your butt.How amazing was that video? Just the fact that they used “Mr. Roboto” to seem cutting edge was evidence of how far off the mark they were, and the “Directed by Peter Jackson” at the end was the icing on the cake. How much you want to bet Louis added that part in? He strikes me as the only one of that bunch who would have seen Lord of the Rings.Oh, Louis “I am their bitch! They are physically superior to me!” Plunk, what a sad, sad intern you are. If you hate dogs (hi, Dad!) that scene was your worst nightmare. If you love dogs, that scene was possibly the greatest thing since Best in Show. Of course, Louis received two conflicting pieces of advice: ...
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Question: I have enjoyed the episodes I've seen of The Knights of Prosperity. Since it probably won't last on ABC because there's no good show to pair it with, what would be the chances of it ending up on CBS? I know usually shows don't successfully jump networks, but with David Letterman as a producer, maybe it would have a chance. Wouldn't it be great? I think Knights would fit in nicely with CBS' Monday comedies.
Answer: Do you? CBS tends to have its best comedy success with more traditionally produced half hours, with studio audiences, laugh tracks, etc. Knights, being serialized and filmed in single-camera, is way more offbeat than the CBS norm, and seems to me a better fit with what NBC is doing on Thursdays. The Letterman connection certainly worked when it came to Everybody Loves Raymond, but it's worth remembering that when Knights' creators developed Ed (also from Worldwide Pants) it was for CBS (then called Stuckeyville), which passed, and the final version ended up on NBC.
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It feels like I got shot in the ass. I spent my whole write-up last week talking about how I wished we could have had more of the ensemble. So what does this show do? They lock the six of them in a room together and give us almost a full 22 minutes of pure madness. I swear I knew nothing of this ahead of time.First of all, I loved that they opened the show with Squatch and Louis singing Whitney Houston’s “Didn’t We Almost Have It All?” As always, the song choice was completely appropriate considering they thought they had lost everything. Some shows go for subtle; this show doesn’t. Of course, then Rockefeller showed up with the news that was “so off the chain that the chain itself was nothing but a distant memory.” Speaking of distant memories, how many of you noticed that everything the Knights did in the apartment prior to locking themselves in the panic room was something Mick himself did in the first episode’s E!-type profile? Well, h...
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Maz Jobrani, The Knights of Prosperity
Seven episodes into their first season, The Knights of Prosperity have yet to rob Mick Jagger. Fortunately, ABC's ensemble comedy has nabbed more than a few laughs. Maz Jobrani, who plays Gourishankar "Don't call me Gary" Subramaniam on the show, is a big part of that. TVGuide.com spoke with the actor and comic about being "knighted," and his part in Comedy Central's upcoming Axis of Evil Comedy Tour.
TVGuide.com: What exactly is Gary's specialty in the Knights of Prosperity crew?Maz Jobrani: Well, there are a few things. Obviously, he's the driver of the getaway car. He's the womanizer whenever that comes in handy. He also comes up with ideas that are way out there. He thinks outside of the box. And though his ideas are pretty c
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There are not many advantages to being single on Valentine’s Day. This year, however, I got to spend time with the people I love most in this world: the Knights. Bobby Cannavale was outrageous, but I’m thinking that because the episode was pretty much built around him, it didn’t leave as much time for our ensemble. Maybe that was the problem. I love the banter between the six of them, and we didn’t have nearly enough of it.I wish Enrico had taken Eugene’s advice to “have a nice time in the city. Make sure you get one of those Sex in the City tours. Those chicks had crazy sexy bad mouths, huh?” Of course, in true Sex and the City tradition, they did end up in a fabulous club, which allowed us to see the boys pull on even more new personalities. For me, the best was a toss-up between Louis inexplicably trying to sneak in with some Asian girls and Eugene’s bizarre Russian Viktor who must have been channeling Borat with his, “We are collabora...
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