Question: Back in the early '80s, Hill Street Blues was moved from one night to another and sometimes went missing before it found an audience. Someone had faith in Blues. After Blues found success, it ushered in a period of quality drama and, with Bill Cosby's help, took NBC to the No. 1 position in the ratings. With quality programs on NBC like Studio 60 and Friday Night Lights getting critical acclaim but not finding an audience or a working time slot, what will it take for quality programs to find a champion to keep them on the air for more than a few episodes? NBC's ratings haven't been this low since its inception, and they're still dropping. They have nothing to lose by keeping these quality programs on the air, yet they put on reality programs like The Real Wedding Crashers, which drop the rating points even further. Quality programs are like fine wines: It takes time for them to mature, while garbage will always remain garbage. What will it take for NBC to take a stand on ...
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Question: I read on NBC.com's Studio 60 page that the show is returning at 10 pm/ET on Thursday, May 24. Is the network just burning off the unaired episodes, or is there hope? I know it didn't live up to expectations, but it's hard not to enjoy something written by Aaron Sorkin and starring Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry, even if the show reused a lot of themes previously seen in Sports Night and The West Wing. Also, any news on whether Men in Trees fans have to wait until the fall to watch the final episodes now that October Road has aired its season finale?
Answer: Given the fact that NBC will have made its fall schedule announcement nearly two weeks before Studio 60 reemerges from hiatus, I'll be shocked if it's anywhere on the schedule (even as a backup contingency), and I think it's safe to assume that the postseason airings are a burn-off (not unlike when ABC briefly revived Six Degrees on Fridays) ...
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Amanda Peet by Art Streiber/NBC
As previously reported, NBC is bringing back Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, albeit on Thursday, May 24, the day after sweeps ends. Still, if all goes well, steadfast fans of 30 Rock's more serious big brother will get to see the first season's five unaired episodes.Pondering the surprising fate of a show with such a solid pedigree — crafted by Aaron Sorkin, and populated by the likes of proven TV draws Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford — Amanda Peet shrugs off talk that S60 tried to be too smart for the room. "It was definitely very ambitious," she tells TVGuide.com, "but a part of me wonders if, had it been an unknown writer-creator instead of Aaron Sorkin, we would have had more time to find our tone and focus. Because we were under a microscope from the moment we arrived, it was very difficult for the creators to feel free to follow the strengths of the show and see that through."Peet can next be seen starring alongside two other members of the Underappreciated TV Show...
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Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry by Mitch Haaseth/NBC
Gotta give the folks over at TVTattle.com props for catching this one. The Peacock has super-stealthily "announced" (via some don't-scroll-to-the-right-and-you'll-miss-it text at NBC.com) that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip will return Thursday, May 24, at 10 pm/ET — aka the day after the May-sweeps rating period closes. By my math, Jordan (the Amanda Peet character, remember?) is now about 11-months pregnant.
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Question: Is it just me, or does it seem like the days are behind us when a show creator/writer with a pretty good quality track record like David E. Kelley or Aaron Sorkin could snap their fingers and get a network to commit to a new show? Will the ratings troubles for The Wedding Bells and Studio 60 make it more difficult for talented people like Kelley and Sorkin to get show commitments in the future? And when new fall shows are announced next month, do you think the networks will focus more on the pedigree of the producers, the name recognition of the actors involved or the show concepts that can be described succinctly to the audience?
Answer: As I often say, if it's more about the deal than about the show, that's a recipe for disaster. Every successful TV producer is well acquainted with failure. (I'm surprised you didn't mention J.J. Abrams, whose name was associated with recent duds like Six Degrees and What About Brian.) So I doubt it will be any more difficult for talents like
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Question: Now that The Black Donnellys has gone to black, any chance that Studio 60 will at least finish its run of unaired episodes anytime soon?
Answer: Not that I can tell. Donnellys will be replaced (presumably for the rest of the regular season) by the reality-stunt show The Real Wedding Crashers, not by a scripted series at all. (Hold your applause, right?) If the unaired Studio 60 episodes are shown on NBC, it's looking more and more like it will happen in the off-season. But really, who knows ...
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You could get whiplash trying to keep track of shows’ comings and goings during a network mid-season as chaotic and badly managed as this one is turning out to be. Some thoughts about the latest news, much of which surfaced in the trades and some of which has yet to be confirmed by the networks:First, the no-brainer: 7th Heaven is officially being laid to rest. Again. The family-friendly drama, which was brought back from cancellation a year ago when the new CW decided it needed to launch with as many familiar franchises as possible, is now gearing up to say goodbye to the Camdens once more, when the 11th season wraps May 13. This was hardly unexpected. The show went decidedly under the radar when the CW moved it from Mondays to Sundays, where it was stranded amid a sea of repeats and second-runs of shows like America’s Next Top Model. It was time to go a year ago. This is just sad.Now on to this spring’s roster of mid-season losers. Hope you didn’t get too attac...
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Question: Ratings and scheduling analyses, by both critics and viewers, often talk about the effect of pairing shows together (e.g., whether Studio 60 was/is a good show to follow Heroes). Is there any real evidence that such a scheduling symbiosis really exists? In this day and age of zillions of channels, multiple TV listing sources, DVDs and video recorders, I find it hard to believe that there are that many people who make TV viewing choices so passively, sitting stupefied in front of a TV set just waiting to see what comes next. It's not that hard to change a channel. It's not that hard to pick what you want to watch, regardless of what comes before or after, and it's not that hard to record a show no matter when it's on. Perhaps I'm being naive?
Answer: The glut of TV is precisely why networks still have to think strategically about scheduling, even in a DVR universe (which hasn't spread to the entire viewing population, despite what you may have heard). First people have to find
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Question: I've been watching TV for the better part of 40 years, so I have a pretty good idea of just how the TV season goes. The new season starts in September and runs through May, with all new episodes and some repeats during the holiday season. Or at least that's how it used to be. I say that because now, in February and again in March, I can't help but notice all the repeat shows that are on. I don't recall this happening before. Take Saturday Night Live as an example. They did two repeat shows, followed by two new shows, and next Saturday they are going back to another repeat. What is going on here? On a side note, NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was very entertaining, and then suddenly it's gone and replaced by The Black Donnellys. No word on what happened to Studio 60. Even the show's website didn't provide any answers. Any light you can shine on these matters would be appreciated.
Answer: SNL has always staggered originals with repeats throughout the season, or at least has
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Question: Regarding Studio 60: While I thank NBC for giving it such promotion before and during the early season, they basically screwed the show by running it on Mondays at 10. They had to know that many in the initial audience would be coming from The West Wing and that it would be competing directly with Monday Night Football in half of the country. I think that if it had another day/time, the ratings would have been 70-100 percent higher. I recall the sharp drop in The West Wing's ratings during the final season when it was moved to Sunday at 8 pm/ET, in competition with ESPN's Sunday Night Football. What are the chances that NBC would effectively apologize for that time slot by renewing Studio 60?
Answer: The Monday time slot may not have been ideal — if you recall, NBC's initial plan was to air Studio 60 on Thursdays as the lead-in to ER, until ABC surprised everyone with the Grey's Anatomy move. But NBC did the show a favor by not jerking it around (until the recent hiatus, of
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