A Door Slowly Opened . . . The End!

Lorne Michaels, Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan, from left, talk up the upcoming NBC show "30 Rock" with TV writers in Pasadena, Calif. The show is one of two on the network's fall schedule that are based on its "Saturday Night Live." (By Reed Saxon -- Associated Press)

PASADENA, Calif., July 22

Serialized dramas that end prematurely are no different from any other show that gets whacked after a few episodes -- people who are invested in the show get angry, NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly told critics yesterday, stating what's probably obvious to everyone except, it would appear, TV critics.

For nearly two weeks now, critics have grilled TV executives at Summer TV Press Tour 2006 about the special consideration they're not giving viewers of serialized dramas that get canceled.

Shows like NBC's "Heist." It appears critics think networks and studios have a responsibility to produce mop-up episodes on serialized dramas that attract too few viewers to be economically viable.

"In the case of 'Heist,' although I thought it was very promising, it didn't take, and we wrote personal letters to the two viewers that were watching, so we were covered," Reilly said, showing a nuts-to-you spirit we hadn't given him credit for in the past.

"These are our customers," Reilly continued. "We don't like [ticking] off the customers. And, by the way, I get the e-mails, okay? I wake up in the morning and I get 'Dear Moron.' That's not unique to serialized shows," he said. "Any show that gets canceled has people who are upset or people who are angry who have invested in it. That's the nature of what we do."

Reilly also stoutly denied NBC would be offended by any digs at the network Aaron Sorkin might take in his new NBC series "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," about a show a lot like NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and the network bean counters who love/hate it.

"The accuracy -- we thought, 'My God, he's moved into the building,' " Reilly said of the pilot episode, which begins with an on-air rant by a soon-to-be-sacked producer regarding TV shows in which people are forced to eat worms (NBC's "Fear Factor") and pretend to be Donald Trump (NBC's "Apprentice").

"Aaron has the ability to capture an authentic environment, and we laughed at anything that came -- cut close to the bone, and we appreciated the quality," Reilly insisted.

We don't think any of the nearly 200 critics in the room actually bought it, but it was a noble effort.

After that, he said he wasn't sure any of the show's barbs were actually aimed specially at NBC -- surely he's seen "Fear Factor" and "The Apprentice" -- and that Sorkin was "looking at this backdrop as a broader context to make social commentary [about] the culture at large and pop culture in particular."

Yeah, he had lost critics too, by then.