Sunday, May 13, 2012

MUST SEE TV? Based on its fall schedule, NBC loves comedy and The Voice, with two nights of Voice being a keystone and every weeknight but Monday having at least an hour of comedy.  Of particular note:
  • Smash gets held for midseason, with high concept J.J. Abrams drama Revolution (all energy sources in the world suddenly stop working!) getting Monday's Voice lead-in.
  • Parenthood stays put on Tuesday, and Biggest Loser goes away, replaced by an hour-long Tuesday Voice into two new comedies--the Matthew Perry-fronted Go On and the Ryan Murphy-Ali Adler The New Normal.
  • Wednesday is the strangest night, with two family friendly comedies (Guys With Kids and Animal Practice) at 8, leading into SVU at 9, and a new Dick Wolf firefighter drama at 10.
  • Thursdays, kind of shockingly, remain basically unchanged in the fall--30 Rock/Up All Night/The Office/Parks and Rec make up "Comedy Night Done Right," but NBC's response to three massive drama failures this year at 10?  Dumping Rock Center With Brian Williams there.
  • Friday gets another tonally dissonant mix, with Whitney opening the night, followed by Community, then Grimm and Dateline to close out the evening.

11 comments:

  1. Full press release with links to videos here.  NBC has both Book of Mormon stars on the schedule, and man does Josh Gad's gig on 1600 Penn look dumb.

    Reality shows in the hopper include a Mark Burnett "Celebrities Apprenticing in the Military," a Howie Mandel show that seems like a combination of Yankee Swap and Prisoner's Dilemma, and "Surprise with Jenny McCarthy," in which I guess we find out -- surprise! -- that when you don't vaccinate kids there can be consequences.

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  2. Gad co-created 1600 Penn.  I'm interested in what Book of Mormon does.  They clearly don't have to star cast, but will they anyway?

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  3. Anonymous6:23 PM

    So "high concept" now means "they were high when they came up with it"?  It's come to this?

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  4. Anonymous6:40 PM

    Wow, they are just setting Community on fire there.  By midseason Fridays will go Whitney-something-two-hour crime newsmagazine, news-Leno rerun-Fallon rerun-hardcore porn rerun-Community. 

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  5. Their explanation for the Community move is two-fold:

    1.  Because Community has an uncommonly loyal audience that tends to stream/DVR the show in higher quantity, timeslot doesn't matter as much--people who want to watch Community will watch Community.
    2.  They see Grimm as a long-term player on Friday and want to give it a good lead-in in the demo, and see Community/Whitney as having the potential of giving it a better lead-in than Who Do You Think You Are and Chuck were this year,  (Personally, the solution to Grimm is to kill off the lead and find someone with charisma to take it over.  He's such a charisma void that it kills the show.)

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  6. Slowlylu7:24 PM

    Quick question (and apologies for the digression) should I be watching Grimm over Once Upon A Time? I went with OUAT initially because of the Jane Espenson connection but would be interested in everyone's thoughts. 

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  7. StvMg7:28 PM

    Shouldn't Community fans feel fortunate the show's still on the air at all? I watch Community also and am happy it got another season, but I don't blame NBC for burying it on Fridays. If the show actually had growth potential as far as its ratings are concerned, I imagine we'd have seen it by now. 

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  8. lisased10:56 PM

    Silas Weir Mitchell makes "Grimm" for me. I'd prefer him as the lead.

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  9. Nigel from Cameroon11:13 AM

    And I will not watch one second of any of their new shows...all look a cross between generic/unappealing/boring/sure to be canceled.

    And, geez, now I see I actually don't watch anything on NBC other than 30 Rock and P&R.

    You'd think a network in this much trouble would take some bolder and/or more creative steps to content. What do they have ot lose?

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  10. Andrew2:41 PM

    I'm not going to get to see Book of Mormon before Gad leaves, am I?

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