A good news day
Rumor has it, the powers that be at CW are liking Rob Thomas’s Veronica Mars remix, where she skips past college and the show picks up a few years later with Veronica in training for the FBI. Combined with the scheduling holes left by the cancellation of Seventh Heaven and The Gilmore Girls, and since VM could be a solid partner to (very) likely new series Gossip Girl, suddenly Miss Mars is looking a lot more likely for a fourth season. People have been guessing the show dead for a while, so today’s buzz represents a powerful turning of the tide.
NOT coming back, however, is The Wedding Crashers. That would be the recent NBC show where improv actors ruined people’s weddings for fun. (Don’t worry! The bride and groom are in on it, so it’s all OK!) Bad, Ashton Kutcher. Bad! This show was second for worst idea ever only to giving those Geico cavemen their own series. (But the caveman pilot tested really badly, so there’s even more good news.)
Then, Variety reports that House scored ratings in the same league as American Idol. Sure, maybe House hasn’t been as captivating as it once was. Sure, maybe House hasn’t actually overtaken Idol’s numbers yet. And sure, House owes it’s ratings to Idol‘s lead-in. But this is a scripted show approaching the numbers of the almighty unstoppable reality octopus that has destroyed prime time on all networks. I say good trend.
So, by ignoring a lot of contrary facts, I can offer this summary of today’s news: Cool, character-driven scripted shows–2, Lame reality monsters–0.
Hooray for Hollywood. At least for today.
jane on
May 10th, 2007 at 5:57 am
They migh try just moving VM to a new night. It is competing with House, after all.
http://blog.myspace.com/tammynize
TammynizeReply – Quote
May 10th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Good point, Tammynize.
I’ve been very frustrated in the last few years by the way networks have (not) supported their shows. Was FOX surprised that Arrested Development didn’t draw a regular audience, after pre-empting it every time a baseball game came along?
Veronica suffered this year, in my opinion, when creators tried to accommodate the network by splitting the season into two or three ongoing mysteries. I’d love to see networks back off a little and leave creativity in the hands of the creatives.
Launching a show requires giving it a regular time slot, keeping it there without obnoxiously long hiatus, putting some advertising behind it, and then being patient. We’ve seen too many shows get pulled before they had a chance to find legs. NBC has reversed that trend, and now they have shows like The Office and 30 Rock to show for it.
screenwriterguyReply – Quote
May 14th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
But they do not, unfortunately, have “Studio 60″ to show for it any longer. New fall schedule out, no new “Studio 60″ on it.
AaronReply – Quote
May 14th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Lack of Studio 60 is sad, but not surprising. Meanwhile, you gotta give NBC credit… Studio 60 had low-ratings episodes for a lot of weeks, and the axe was slow to fall.
screenwriterguyReply – Quote