episode order-related stories
Posted Nov 10th 2009 12:01AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Industry, Programming, Cancellations, Reality-Free
I don't want to say that I'm psychic or anything (I'm not, though I can bend spoons), but I had a feeling that
Eastwick wouldn't last beyond one season after I saw the new shows at the ABC upfront. I don't know why or how I thought that, probably a combination of the plot, the time slot, the network it was on, and how programming on the networks is these days, but I just didn't think it would last.
And now it looks like it won't.
ABC has declined to order more episodes of the series. This isn't an official "cancellation" but it's a very bad sign for the show.
There's more news coming from ABC too, and this is actually surprising: they've ordered 5 more episodes of
The Forgotten. That's a show I thought would be gone quick too. It still could be, since ratings aren't great (though better than
Eastwick's) and it hasn't exactly been critically-acclaimed.
Posted Nov 5th 2009 8:10AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Industry, Programming, NCIS, Reality-Free
Michael Ausiello is reporting that
CBS has reduced the number of episodes of Numb3rs for this season from 22 to only 16. What does this mean for the show? Well, it means that sometimes numbers aren't good even on
Numb3rs. It also means that this pretty much guarantees that this will be the last season for the show. Ausiello thinks that CBS will put
Flashpoint in the time slot when the episodes run out.
So, are all of you people who tried to save
Southland going to mount a similar campaign for this show? I didn't think so.
Continue reading CBS adds to NCIS and subtracts from Numb3rs
Posted Feb 4th 2009 2:04PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Industry, Programming, Reality-Free
Back when I was a kid, besides walking several miles in the snow to school, we never heard the insider-ish, behind the scenes details of what was going on behind the scenes of a TV show. We hardly knew that shows were even coming up, not until we got the super-duper fall preview issue of
TV Guide. We didn't have any preconceived notions of the shows, we didn't know about any episode orders or set tension or anything like that. Shows just premiered, they stayed on or they didn't, and then we moved on.
That's not the case nowadays, of course. TV fans on the web (thanks to sites like, well, this one) know just about everything about a TV show months before it airs. And here's another little bit of information about a show before it airs:
ABC has again dropped the number of episodes it wants for the Rob Thomas remake of
Cupid.
Continue reading Honestly, why are they even bothering with another Cupid?
Posted Jan 5th 2007 7:02AM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, ABC, OpEd, Ugly Betty
(S01E11... or, is it 04?) Why? Why do networks do this? "Swag" was originally supposed to air as the fourth episode of
Ugly Betty. Instead, ABC pushed it into the number eleven position. Brilliant strategy. Take a show that's part telenovela and air it out of sequence. The result was a poorly edited version of an otherwise entertaining episode. The tags that were filmed later with Betty, Christina and the janitor, along with the occasional "remember when such and such was happening" voice-overs, were clumsy and unnecessary.
Continue reading Ugly Betty: Swag
Posted Dec 18th 2006 7:01PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Animation, PBS, Children, Pickups and Renewals
Buster the Bunny has taken a lot of crap from the religious right. Star of
Postcards from Buster, the animated rabbit was at the center of a well-publicized, anti-PBS flare-up in 2005. The controversy concerned an episode of the show entitled "Sugartime," which introduced kids to a family working in Vermont's maple sugaring industry. That family was famously helmed by two moms. Cue upset Bush administration officials and conservative Christian organizations - neither of which wanted their children exposed to "that lifestyle." The episode was pulled by a number of PBS stations. Buster was abandoned by its sponsors, and a second season of the show was thrown into question.
Continue reading Buster the Bunny not backing down
Posted Nov 9th 2006 3:54PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, NBC, Industry, OpEd, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Pickups and Renewals
Good news for
Studio 60 fans. Despite
persistent rumors of the show's forthcoming cancellation by NBC, a
"back nine" has been ordered - meaning that nine more episodes will be produced to finish out the season. Whether the show makes it past a first season remains to be seen, but it will be given a shot to build an audience.
While I appreciate a literate show and Mr. Sorkin's banterfests, I think a handful of problems persist over at
Studio 60. Starting with, does anyone really care about the Harriet-Matt relationship? I'd much rather see "Josh Lyman" and "the guy from
Friends" at the core of the show. They've got better chemistry, and the show is much more fun when they're on the screen together.
Continue reading More Studio 60 episodes ordered
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