Like every year, the American TV networks have announced their plans for the fall season in what is known as the “upfronts.” This is the time when the industry celebrates with the winners and sheds the occasional tear for the loser.
This past season has not really seen any surprise breakout hits such as Lost or Desperate Housewives the year before. As a matter of fact, the 2005-06 season was rather humdrum.
CBS, Fox, and ABC held their ground fairly well, while NBC finished last again. Its only glimmer of hope is its new game show Deal or No Deal . Without it, NBC would not only have been dead in the water, it would have been adrift in the swamps of the Everglades and been gobbled up by one of the alien creatures on Invasion.
After announcing its plans for the fall last week, NBC has quickly realized its schedule required further tweaking and introduced some drastic, last-minute changes such as putting its hit show Medium on the backburner until mid-season. It’s even tinkered with its long-time favorite, Law & Order, by moving it out of its regular Wednesday slot, where it’s been for over a decade, to Friday nights, when no one is really home watching TV. (Could it be that NBC needs a good excuse for dropping the aging Law & Order franchise, especially now that NBC has axed two shows by Law & Order creator Dick Wolf, Trial by Jury and Conviction, in the span of just one year?)
Be that as it may, most eyes will be turned to an experiment this coming season: CW, the new network, which was created by the merger between WB and UPN. People will want to see if the new CW can do better than the eternally abysmal UPN and the sleep-inducing WB. However, the writing is already on the wall that CW will be a real snoozer: after WB made a big fuss about the demise of its 10-year-old show 7th Heaven, CW is now in the process of reviving the show for an 11th season, thus securing itself a bottom ranking in the ratings. Since CW is only hanging on to Smallville, but not Charmed, the fledgling network will probably have to take down its transmitters by next March.
Article comments
1 - Justene
Hope & Faith doesn't do it for me. I think the difference between H&F and According to Jim is that ATJ has more entertaining supporting characters in the wife's brother and sister. The talent drops off after the main characters on H&F.
Medium is one of my favorites. Why is it being held to midseason?
2 - Joan Hunt
You really have to wonder what they're passing around the old commissary to ABC execs. I don't get their decision to muck with their blockbuster Sundays. Moving Gray's Anatomy to Thursday is akin to throwing Versace in the bargain bin at Pic'n'Save.
I loved Hope and Faith but preferred their original theme song. If I wanted to listen to a SATC-ish theme, I'd tune in to SATC.
Faith Ford and Kelly Ripa had that whole Lucy and Ethel thing down pat. Ah, well...it must be the Ted McGinley curse at work.
One of these days, I will take over all network scheduling. It's the only thing that makes sense.
3 - Joan Hunt
Congrats! This article has been placed on Advance.net
4 - -E
Congrats! This article has been selected as one of this week’s Editors’ Picks.