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.

I'm a big fan of private eye TV shows and novels, and I've been thinking lately that they need to make a big comeback (sorry, Monk just isn't the same). Raines comes kinda close, but it's not quite the same thing. Judging from the script for the pilot of Marlowe, ABC's modern take on the classic Raymond Chandler character, it looks like it could be a return to the great private eye genre that TV fans have been waiting for.

The first thing I noticed is that, yes, the show is going to have voiceovers! Some people hate voiceovers, some people love them. I remember that Robert Parker hated the voiceover on Spenser: For Hire, when it was actually one of the cool things about the show. There's a lot of voiceover in this pilot script, and while I don't mind it, I wonder if it's too much.

(S01E01) I can't help but be afraid for this new series. I think it's great. I think people who enjoy the subtle comedy of The Office and My Name is Earl will also think it's pretty great. ("subtle", by the way, compared to a sitcom where we're told when to laugh) But it's going to take a while for this one to catch on. I can only hope that NBC will give Andy Barker, P.I. a fighting chance the same way it held on to The Office while it found an audience.

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.