By Lisa de Moraes
Tuesday, May 16, 2006; C01
NEW YORK, May 15
Explosive!
Banner year!
We hit the gold mine!
No shuck and jive!
Not the same old, same old!
Heavy lifting at 9 o'clock!
That's NBC entertainment chief Kevin Reilly describing to reporters his new fall prime-time lineup -- a drama-laden roster that includes two new series, airing on consecutive nights, both of which riff on NBC's own "Saturday Night Live."
Sometimes there comes along a concept "so unique NBC only has two of them," Alec Baldwin cracked onstage Monday at Radio City Music Hall during NBC's afternoon dog-and-pony show for advertisers.
Baldwin plays the new, arrogant head of television and microwave programming at NBC/GE/Universal/Kmart in Tina Fey's homage to Tina Fey, "30 Rock." (That's also NBC's address in Manhattan, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, FYI.)
It's a new Wednesday sitcom about the female head writer of a show that bears an uncanny resemblance to "SNL" (on which Tina Fey is head writer). In "30 Rock," the Tina Fey character is played by -- who else? -- Tina Fey.
Turns out, it's hard to play yourself on TV, even when you write your own lines. In the clips shown to advertisers, she's a little stiff, but Baldwin and Tracy Morgan killed in clips shown to advertisers, and in person onstage.
Not so NBC's other "SNL"-ish series, Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60 at Sunset Strip," which is getting the Thursday 9 p.m. hour, opposite CBS's "CSI."
The show's clips did not go over well. When the A-list ensemble cast took the stage, they died, too, right from the start, when "West Wing" alum Bradley Whitford joked, "It's been almost 24 hours since I starred on an NBC series," and Matthew Perry said they all were there to lower people's expectations about the show. Which was, of course, supposed to be a joke, only they did.
Sorkin's new show bumps "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office" to the Thursday 8 p.m. hour, replacing "Joey," which has been canceled.
According to Reilly, who for sentimental reasons still refers to Thursday as NBC's "flagship" night, network suits mulled another four-comedy-into-"ER" format on Thursday, but decided against it because "I think our competitors would look and say: 'They've got four comedies there; let's go after them.' "
Which was funny, because that happened early in this millennium.
Besides, Reilly noted, some people will wind up calling "Studio 60" a comedy, in much the same way people call "Desperate Housewives" a comedy, at least at Golden Globe and Emmy time.
Hey, works for us.
Aaron Sorkin and executive producer-director Tommy Schlamme "have put together a piece of work here that really makes you proud to be in television," Reilly told the press, who reacted with dreamy "if only I had a buck for every time a network suit said that" looks.
One reporter wondered how NBC planned to deal with Sorkin's widely covered issues with deadlines and controlled substances. Sorkin has already delivered five scripts, Reilly responded.
"He's back, he's in good health and he's one of a kind," Reilly said.
Another big Thursday change: "ER" will tag-team its time slot with a new drama. That's so the medical drama will not repeat next season; NBC will instead broadcast 13 originals in a row, take the show off the air and fill the 10 p.m. hour with a new mob drama from Paul Haggis called "The Black Donnellys." When that's run its course, original "ER" episodes will return in the spring.
In its 12th season, "ER" is still holding its own when original episodes air, but it goes into cardiac arrest in reruns.
Former Thursday resident The Donald and his "Apprentice" move to Sunday, but will be shelved until the wrap of NBC's new Sunday night football franchise.
NBC's only other new sitcom on its fall schedule is a buddy comedy, "Twenty Good Years," which stars John Lithgow and Jeffrey Tambor. It promises to be an exercise in competitive scenery-chewing, based on the clips. Reilly called it "a big broad comedy, and nobody does broad like John Lithgow."
NBC's small-screen adaptation of the football-as-religion flick "Friday Night Lights" kicks off Tuesdays at 8. Reilly called it " 'The OC' with guts" -- "guts" being a euphemism for "jocks."
At 9 that night, "Kidnapped" is NBC's stab at the very hot serialized-drama genre; each season, star Jeremy Sisto will attempt to rescue a kidnap victim. Reilly noted that NBC does not have the luxury of running this show without repeats, in response to a reporter's question about viewers' impatience with reruns of serialized dramas.
There were few surprises in the Friday, Saturday and Sunday lineups. Though, after football wraps, Sunday night will kick off at 7 with "Dateline," followed by Simon Cowell's next reality series, "America's Got Talent," which marks the return of the variety show to prime time. Regis Philbin hosts the show, after which "The Apprentice" is going to Los Angeles. At 10 p.m. Sundays, Jeff Goldblum stars as a cop who sees dead people in "Raines."
Once again, "Scrubs" waits on the bench for midseason, as does "Crossing Jordan" and two new sitcoms. "The Singles Table" is about a two guys and two chicks who meet at a singles table at a wedding; the other, "Andy Barker, PI," stars Andy Richter as a private eye.
This is probably a good point to tell you that NBC's new fall lineup will, in all likelihood, have changed by the end of the week.
NBC is traditionally the first broadcast network to unveil its fall prime-time plans to advertisers in Manhattan during what's called Upfront Week, because advertisers use the information to buy time in programs up front.
Like many things that now seem arbitrary and capricious -- why do they slice most of the ears off of Doberman pinschers? -- the NBC-first tradition made good common sense long, long ago. Once upon a time, boys and girls, NBC was king of the hill and the other networks waited until Tuesday through Thursday to unveil their new slates, so as to have time to scramble and adjust those slates to get fragile new series out of the way of NBC's ratings behemoths.
These days, as it hovers in fourth place, it is NBC that will make adjustments -- like to its new Monday lineup should ABC announce Tuesday that it is going to move the Sunday hit "Grey's Anatomy" to Monday at 9, as expected.
But for one day, at least, the new drama "Heroes" will have had NBC's Monday 9 p.m. hour.
"Heroes" chronicles the lives of ordinary people who, during a total eclipse, discover they have super powers -- the young dreamer who can fly, the young man who can make time stop, the convict who wakes up outside his prison cell. And, of course, the high school cheerleader who is totally indestructible. Which, oddly, was a recurring dream I had in high school.
A good chunk of NBC's dog-and-pony show was devoted to its TV360 digital components for the fall schedule, part of what NBC/Universal TV CEO Jeff Zucker called the company's "360-degree approach to programming on air, online and on the go."
Advertisers are keen to follow consumers to the Web, particularly since the encroachment of digital video recorders throws into question the value of the ads in television programming.
To that end, NBC is launching a new broadband comedy channel, dotcomedy.com, featuring content from NBC's late-night shows, including the first 10 years of "Late Night With David Letterman" -- "the good years," Zucker quipped -- as well as content from "The Office, " "Dream On, " "Coach," "Leave It to Beaver" and "The Munsters."
NBC will also launch a firstlook.com franchise for its various networks, including NBC, USA, Sci Fi and Bravo, on which up to four episodes of that network's series will debut prior to its telecast on the linear network.
Also on NBC.com will be actual sketches from Tina Fey's new faux sketch comedy show featured in her new sitcom "30 Rock." On the broadcast, viewers will see the sketches only briefly.
Imagine if when you watched the old "Dick Van Dyke Show," you had been able to go online and see episodes of the show Rob Petrie worked on, Zucker explained.
