TVSquad

Oh, come on!

NBC has canceled Andy Barker, P.I. After airing only four episodes, the network sent the remaining two episodes to Saturdays and Scrubs will air in its place starting this Thursday night (that was already the plan, it's just happening earlier).

This is so depressing. Did anybody see the chicken episode two weeks ago? I howled with laughter over that one. Admittedly, last week's episode wasn't that great. According to The Futon Critic, Barker had its lowest ratings last week with 1.8. I'd like to know what kind of numbers NBC had on its website, where it posted all six episodes of Andy Barker for free before it even premiered on the network.

I just knew that it wasn't going to survive because A) Andy Richter is cursed, B) People wouldn't get it, and C) NBC wasn't going to give it a chance. You have to watch closely to see past the main story of Andy, the naive CPA-turned private investigator and find the humor in the supporting characters. Tony Hale as a video store geek and Marshall Manesh as an Afghani restaurant owner had hilarious lines, but maybe they weren't obvious enough to people.

For those of you looking forward to the grand return of Andy Richter and Tony Hale to television, wait no longer. NBC has posted the first six episodes of Andy Barker, P.I. (in their entirety) on its website. You have to watch advertisements for TurboTax to see them.

The half-hour comedy series is a mid-season pick-up for NBC. Richter stars as a CPA-turned private eye when he is mistaken for the detective who used to occupy his workspace. I only watched the pilot, but the jokes are very Conan O'Brien-- which is not surprising since he created, produced and wrote the show. Tony Hale (Arrested Development) plays a movie snob who owns a video store, but is bored so he joins Andy to solve mysteries. I laughed out loud a few times- mostly at Hale's comments about Sandra Bullock and Meet the Fockers.

In case you're old school and like to watch your television the way they did when you were a kid, Andy Barker, P.I. premieres on Thursday, March 15th on NBC at 9:30 pm.

On TV, on TV!

Amy Farrington played his wife in the pilot of his NBC mid-season replacement show, Andy Barker, P.I. But Farrington has now left the show and her role will be played by Clea Lewis. You might remember the small, squeaky-voiced Lewis as one of bookstore workers on Ellen.

I hope this show is good. I liked Andy Richter Controls The Universe, though I didn't think it was as brilliant as everyone else seemed to, but it was certainly good and FOX should have stuck with it. I can understand why Quintuplets was cancelled.

Now, where is NBC going to put this show? Thursday nights some place?