By Lisa de Moraes
Friday, October 3, 2008
Fox has picked up half of its new fall scripted series for the rest of the TV season.
Fox has scrapped the other half of its new fall scripted series.
Which is to say Fox has ordered a full season's worth of episodes on its new sci-fi thriller, "Fringe," and canceled "Do Not Disturb."
Nine additional episodes have been ordered on "Fringe," an hour-long series about a hot blond FBI chick who works with this really smart guy with gambling debts and his locked-up, crazy research-scientist dad, investigating unexplained phenomena.
Fox notes that the show, from J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, is the No. 1 new prime-time series among teens and the 18-to-49-year-olds who are the ne plus ultra of broadcast TV. Most recently, it clocked 4.3 percent of the country's 18-49 crowd -- a 4 rating being the new 5 -- and 10.7 million viewers of all ages (actually, of all ages over 2 years).
"Fringe" is the second frosh series to get a full-season order so far this fall. CW already picked up "90210," which it launched way back on Sept. 2.
The pickup and the cancellation leave only Fox's competition show "Hole in the Wall" hanging among new fall shows.
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The brave men and women at NBC are putting Rosie O'Donnell on the air live, in prime time, in a variety special that will open with a topical monologue.
"Rosie's Variety Special" is widely regarded as a so-called back-door pilot for a regular series.
On the other hand, NBC started talking to the comic-actor-talker-host-political-lightning-rod a couple of months ago about giving her her own venue but is waiting until after the presidential election to take her out for a test run. And the network is slapping the special onto its prime-time lineup the night before Thanksgiving, when a lot of people are traveling.
In addition to Rosie, the special will feature musical production numbers, comedy sketches from an in-house acting company, performances from of-the-moment musicians, celebrity guests and what NBC calls a "massive" prime-time giveaway in which viewers at home and the studio audience will have a chance to win stuff or cash -- it wasn't clear in yesterday's announcement.
"We want to show people that variety can be done in a new and inventive way for 2008," NBC's alternative programming exec veep Craig Plestis said in the announcement. "It's going to be the YouTube of variety shows."
Really? Let's recap:
Celebrity host -- check.
Live -- check.
Musical production numbers -- check.
In-house rep company doing comedy bits -- check.
Music performances by hot artists -- check.
Celebrity guests -- check.
Prize/money giveaway -- check.
NBC is not the first network to take a stab at bringing back the prime-time variety show genre. ABC tried out a show hosted by Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, and Fox has made a deal with Ozzy Osbourne and his wife, Sharon, to co-host a six-episode variety show some time this season.
O'Donnell was last seen giving Barbara Walters the vapors on ABC's daytime talk show, "The View." She lasted only a brief time before she and the series parted ways. For six years before that, she hosted and exec-produced the Warner Bros. syndicated talk-variety program "The Rosie O'Donnell Show."
"This is a dream come true for any performer -- old-time variety, live from New York with a nod to Ed Sullivan, Carol Burnett and memories of Sonny and Cher," O'Donnell said in a canned comment.
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"Pushing Daisies" did just that, ratings-wise, in its return to ABC's prime-time lineup. It also set the pace for the two series that followed, causing industry navel-gazers to wonder whether ABC's decision to hold all three series back for 10 months after the writers' strike to relaunch in the fall was such a hot strategy after all.
Wednesday's long-awaited and much-publicized "Daisies" return drew just 6.3 million viewers -- the show's smallest audience ever, and 52 percent fewer viewers than caught its premiere last fall.
The return of "Daisies" in the 8 o'clock time slot cut the lame-ola factor of NBC's new "Knight Rider" in half. Nearly 8 million people opted to watch the second episode of the talking-car remake over "Daisies."
At 9, ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff, "Private Practice," returned from hiatus and clocked about 8 million viewers -- 44 percent shy of the 14.4 million who'd caught its unveiling last fall and also its smallest audience ever. ABC noted the show did well among 18-to-34-year-old women against the season finale of NBC's "America's Got Talent."
The picture was no prettier at 10 p.m. A retooled "Dirty Sexy Money" logged just 7 million viewers -- about 33 percent lower than last year's premiere.
The "Pushing Daisies" crowd was similar to that of its final audience in December, before it ran out of episodes written prior to the 100-day writers' strike began. That episode attracted about 6.8 million viewers. "Private Practice," on the other hand, came in well short of the its 2007-08 season audience of 10.4 million. "Dirty Sexy Money," on the other hand, improved on its most recent episode audience of about 6.7 million.
ABC put all three drama series on ice after last year's strike cut into their freshman seasons. The shows had not been seen since, in originals or reruns. ABC engaged in a very aggressive marketing campaign over the summer in an effort to relaunch all three shows.
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