Striking Back: Two Networks Revamp Their Prime-Time Schedules

By Lisa de Moraes
Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Two more of the Big Four broadcast networks put out their Prime-Time Strike Schedules yesterday, in hope striking Hollywood writers would see them in papers and on Web sites as they resume talks with studio reps today.

NBC, for instance, announced it will bring back "Law & Order" next month, on Wednesdays at 10 p.m., where it will be paired with "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."

Yes, these are the "CI" episodes that already aired this season on the NBC-owned cable network USA, but unless you're one of the mere 3.7 million viewers who've caught the episodes on USA -- and odds are you're not -- they're "new to you." Last season, on NBC, "CI" clocked nearly 9 million viewers.

NBC also has a bench full of reality programming too depressing to mention, so we'll just say it includes "American Gladiators."

And CBS announced it will run "Big Brother" three nights a week starting in February. Yes, that's right, the Mensas-in-a-house competition series originally developed as mind-numbing summer fare has been upgraded to ratings-sweeps programming in the teeth of the writers' strike.

"Big Brother" will replace "The Amazing Race," which will have wrapped another edition; "Kid Nation," which also will have concluded its first, and if there's a God in heaven its last, edition; "The Unit," which does not repeat well; and "Cane," which would not repeat well because it's not doing well in its initial telecasts.

CBS will debut its new comedy "The Captain" on Mondays in late January, replacing its most promising new comedy in a while, "The Big Bang Theory," which, sadly, ran out of episodes, and CBS will by late next month have repeated most of them. Plus "The New Adventures of Old Christine" will return to replace "Rules of Engagement," which is an act of mercy or we don't know what is.

And, saving the best for last, "Jericho" nutcases, um, fans -- it's back! Tuesdays at 10, starting Feb. 12. Get your blogs ready!

ABC had intended to get out its Prime-Time Strike Schedule at the same time, so as to present a united front, but sadly had not firmed up said schedule by press time. Of all the networks, ABC seems to have the most scripted midseason product in the can, including seven episodes of "Cashmere Mafia," 13 episodes of "Eli Stone," seven episodes of "Miss/Guided," a dozen episodes of "Notes From the Underbelly," 10 more episodes of "October Road" -- which along with "Underbelly" has already returned to the lineup -- and, of course, those eight episodes of "Lost."

Fox, the network best situated to withstand a long writers' strike thanks to "American Idol," issued its Prime-Time Strike Schedule mere days after the Hollywood writers' strike started on Nov. 5.

The network announced it had yanked the return of the serialized action drama "24," possibly for the season, and gave its two best time slots -- the post-"Idol" slots -- to the reality series "Hell's Kitchen" and the new "The Moment of Truth." Instead of the scripted series "House" and " 'Til Death," which had been scheduled to get the plum slots, Fox will try to nurture the two reality series into the next generation of strike-proof programming. Reality show writers are not covered by the striking Writers Guild of America.

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In other Hollywood Writers' Strike News: After getting outmaneuvered by his nemesis Conan O'Brien last week, Jay Leno has let it be known that he, too, will step up and pay the staff of his NBC late-night show out of his own pocket, like that nice Conan.

NBC officially laid off most of the employees on both shows last Friday.

"NBC regretfully informed the people who work on 'The Tonight Show With Jay Leno' and 'Late Night With Conan O'Brien' that their services are not needed at this time due to our inability to continue production of the shows," the network said in a statement to the news media issued over the weekend.

Conan pulled a fast one on Leno when he announced, right before NBC's announcement, that he would pay this week's salaries of his pink-slipped staffers. That totally upstaged Leno, who had let it be known he had arranged for his pink-slipped staff to receive their annual Jay Leno's a Nice Guy Christmas Bonus earlier this year to help offset the layoff.

This caused at least one disgruntled "Tonight" staffer to run crying to TMZ.com, waving his/her offending 100-buck bonus check.

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NBC also contemplated laying off the staff of its third late-night show, "Last Call With Carson Daly," which, instead, returned to the air last night, sans writers.

So how does "Last Call" sound without writers?

"It's good to see the batteries in the applause sign still work after a month," host Daly said at the top of last night's show.

"There's really a couple of reasons why we are back, the main reason being, and I don't know how this happened, but we ran out of repeats. A month is a long time. I was watching the show . . . I made a stupid joke about the band Creed and it dawned on me that people might think that Creed reunited, and I thought, well, now I have to come back on the air. I can't have people running around thinking that band got back together -- they're not together."

Daly said he expects to fill the show with more bands and "I'll call my mom a lot."

Last week, when Daly was taping the shows that will air this week, he sent an e-mail to friends and pals asking them to submit jokes for a bit on the show; the e-mail found its way to TheSmokingGun.com.