To the wonderfully talented executives at NBC:
You can move ER to another night, you can hire Star Jones to anchor the NBC Nightly News (take that, ABC), you can even cover every open schedule spot with an episode of Deal or No Deal; however, there is one thing that I'm asking... no, pleading... no, demanding you not to do. Do NOT split up My Name is Earl and The Office!
For once in God knows how long you have two shows on Thursday night that are a near-perfect match for each other. One leads very smoothly into another. I can't remember when there was a pair of win-win shows together on Must-See-TV. This may fall on deaf ears; networks are notorious for moving successful shows to other nights to boost ratings. However, if you split Earl and The Office, you risk losing a strong viewer base for whatever may allegedly replace ER that evening.
So, when you present your upfronts on Monday, please make sure you don't split up these two gems on your schedule. If you want to move them, go ahead. But, move them together.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-12-2006 @ 10:24AM
HH said...
I'd say the last time there were a pair of win-win shows on Thursdays was 1994-ish, with Seinfeld and Friends (first half of season 1) back-to-back...
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5-12-2006 @ 10:25AM
DanGarion said...
The only thing better then this would be if they added Scrubs to the mix so they had all three together, talk about must see....
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5-12-2006 @ 10:36AM
Ben said...
I have to agree with Dan, adding scrubs would be awesome. I think that might be asking for a little too much. Just don't split MNiE and The Office!
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5-12-2006 @ 10:50AM
dirtgirl said...
if the network gods are listening to our prayers, they will put the new Aaron Sorkin drama in the 10pm slot and make a perfect evening of must-see TV.
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5-12-2006 @ 11:05AM
SamMalone said...
I agree, these shows just work well together. Maybe it's that one seems so far from my reality, while the other is almost too real.
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5-12-2006 @ 12:27PM
smashthesymbols said...
What I'd love to see on Thursday is a lineup of My Name Is Earl, The Office, Scrubs, a like-minded new comedy and the new Aaron Sorkin show. That'd get me to tune in for the entire three hours, and I never do that.
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5-12-2006 @ 12:34PM
Aaron said...
The break up is inevidible, two great shows, they are just itching to move one of them to wed, or tues, to boost the ratings on another night. If the execs actually WATCHED tv, maybe things would be different.
At least its not FOX, they probably would have cancelled both shows by now.
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5-12-2006 @ 5:46PM
Chris said...
What NBC really needs to do is find some way to save "Arrested Development" and bring it over to NBC and put it with "The Office" and "Earl."
Thursday
Arrested Development 8:00
My Name Is Earl 8:30
The Office 9:00
Scrubs 9:30
E.R. 10:00
But of course AD moving to NBC will never happen.
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5-13-2006 @ 4:19AM
TVsMatt said...
#7, you're half right. The typical NBC thing to do is move it to a few different nights, in horrible timeslots (like 10pm on Saturday night) - often without much warning then when the ratings sink halfway through the season they'll annouce that theyre cancelling it because no one's watching. Two victims that quickly come to mind are The Pretender & Quantum Leap. I'm sure if i thought about it I could come up with tons more but that would just make me seem more like Pierre Bernard on Conan O'Brien. :)
.mf.
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