Monday, March 5, 2012

Schedule Five-Spot, WE 3/4/12 - Anger Management, The Finder, Shark Tank, Jane By Design, Saving Hope


Here's the Schedule Five-Spot for the week ending March 4, 2012:

FX Summer - The big cable schedule announcement was that FX will have a jam-packed comedy Thursday starting on June 28. The Wilfred/Louie block that inhabited the night last summer returns intact, but it'll be surrounded by much-ballyhooed Charlie Sheen sitcom Anger Management (which premieres with two eps starting at 9:00, but will usually be original just at 9:30) and Russell Brand late night show Strangely Uplifting (at 11:00).

The Finder - Fox's shuffling of spring dramas continues, as the network found a new timeslot for The Finder, once presumed dead. That's the good news. The bad news is said timeslot is Friday 8/7c, meaning the show will be moving from post-Idol to one of the toughest situations in TV. The only positive is that it would appear to have potential to serve as solid counterprogramming in a reality-jammed hour, but first it has to prove it has any audience to begin with.

Shark Tank - ABC has extended their order for Friday reality show Shark Tank from 13 to 15. This doesn't require any more production, as the eps will come out of  segments that would've otherwise been unaired. With its current ratings, plus its solid repeat figures from the summer, there's really no reason why this shouldn't be leading off Friday every week for ABC.

Jane By Design - ABC Family gave newbie Jane By Design an eight-episode extension, rounding out what they call a "full season" order of 18 episodes. Take that with a grain of salt considering Switched at Birth's "full season" is 32 episodes, but it could be worse. While the show is the weak link among ABC Family's currently airing dramas, it is doing a little better than the summer runs of The Nine Lives of Chloe King and The Lying Game, so it's no major surprise.

Saving Hope - NBC is getting back into the cheap summer dramas business with Canadian co-production Saving Hope, a medical drama starring Erica Durance of Smallville fame. NBC took last summer off from the cheap specifically-for-summer drama business (though they did air some burnoffs like Love Bites), so Saving Hope will represent their first effort in this arena since 2010's major flop Persons Unknown.

The Five-Spots are my recaps of what aired, what got renewed/cancelled and what rated well or poorly last week in TV. For more Five-Spots, see the Index.

No comments:

Post a Comment

© SpottedRatings.com 2009-2022. All Rights Reserved.