Upfront Week: NBC
Turns out NBC announced their fall line up about 6 weeks ago. Being talked about yesterday:
Ryan Seacrest will host a new reality show called Momma’s Boy. Jimmy Fallon will take over for Conan O’Brien. In brief:
Renewed: Chuck, 30 Rock, The Apprentice, The Biggest Loser, Dateline NBC, Deal or No Deal, ER, Friday Night Lights, Heroes, Knight Rider, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Life, Lipstick Jungle, My Name is Earl, Medium, The Office, Sunday Night Football.
Canceled: 1 vs. 100, Amne$ia, Bionic Woman, Clash of the Choirs, Journeyman, Las Vegas, My Dad is Better Than Your Dad, Phenomenon, Quarterlife, The Singing Bee, Scrubs (moving to ABC)
New Series: America’s Toughest Jobs, Chopping Block, Crusoe, Howie Do It, Kath & Kim, Kings, The Listener, Merlin, My Own Worst Enemy, The Philanthropist, Shark Taggers, Who Do You Think You Are? Momma’s Boys, and The Untitled “Office” Spinoff
Schedule for fall/winter below. Follow the link at the top for summer scheduling and details about new series.
NBC PRIMETIME SCHEDULE FOR FALL 2008
*New programs in bold
MONDAY
8-9 p.m. “Chuck”
9-10 p.m. “Heroes”
10-11 p.m. “My Own Worst Enemy”
TUESDAY
8- 9:30 p.m. “The Biggest Loser: Families”
9:30-10 p.m. “Kath & Kim”
10-11 p.m. “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”
WEDNESDAY
8-9 p.m. “Knight Rider”
9-10 p.m. “Deal or No Deal”
10-11 p.m. “Lipstick Jungle”
THURSDAY
8- 8:30 p.m. “My Name Is Earl”
8:30-9 p.m. “30 Rock”
9- 9:30 p.m. “The Office”
9:30-10 p.m. “The Office”/ “SNL Thursday Night Live”
10-11 p.m. “ER”
FRIDAY
8-9 p.m. “Crusoe”
9-10 p.m. “Deal or No Deal”
10-11 p.m. “Life”
SATURDAY
8-9 p.m. “Dateline NBC”
9-10 p.m. “Knight Rider” (Encores)
10-11 p.m. “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (Encores)
SUNDAY
7- 8:20 p.m. “Football Night in America”
8:20-11 p.m. “NBC Sunday Night Football”
NBC PRIMETIME SCHEDULE FOR WINTER 2008-09
*New programs in bold
MONDAY
8- 9 p.m. “Chuck”
9-10 p.m. “Heroes”
10-11 p.m. “The Philanthropist”
TUESDAY
8- 9:30 p.m. “The Biggest Loser: Couples”
9:30-10 p.m. “Kath & Kim”
10-11 p.m. “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”
WEDNESDAY
8-9 p.m. “Knight Rider”
9-10 p.m. “Deal or No Deal”
10-11 p.m. “Law & Order”
THURSDAY
8- 8:30 p.m. “My Name Is Earl”
8:30-9 p.m. “30 Rock”
9- 9:30 p.m. “The Office”
9:30-10 p.m. “The Office” spinoff
10-11 p.m. “ER”/”The Celebrity Apprentice”
FRIDAY
8-9 p.m. “Deal or No Deal”
9-10 p.m. “Friday Night Lights”
10-11 p.m. “Life”
SATURDAY
8-9 p.m. “Dateline NBC”
9-10 p.m. “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (Encores)
10-11 p.m. “Law & Order” (Encores)
SUNDAY
7-8 p.m. Specials/”Dateline NBC”
8-9 p.m. Specials/”Merlin”
9-10 p.m. Specials/”Medium”
10-11 p.m. Specials/”Kings”
Posted on May 13, 2008, in Television. Bookmark the permalink. 39 Comments.
Steve Evans
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Kings is being filmed down the street from where we live. Or at least part of it. I guess I’ll have to watch it and see how they film our area.
7 of the 14 new shows you listed are nowhere to be found on the schedule. Can we conclude that they expect all of the starting 7 to fail and need midseason replacements?
ER is still going. Who knew?
Whew! It’s a good thing that “Deal or No Deal” got renewed! Because that show just hadn’t exhausted all the possibilities of its exciting premise yet.
8 are actually in the schedule above. If you check out the link in the first line of the post you’ll see that America’s Toughest Jobs, Shark Taggers, The Listener and Chopping Block are all scheduled for the Summer 2009.
As for Howie Do it – don’t know. IMDB are listing it as a new series, but maybe they’re wrong. Ditto for Who Do You Think You Are. As for Momma’s Boy – don’t know either – report on it from yesterday can be found here.
It’s also possible that the LA Times piece is also inaccurate – it is 6 weeks old.
Sorry! It’s kind of hard since nowhere is giving all the information in one place and I’m trying to put it together from several different sites.
How can ER still be going? The longest-running show that never should have existed.
Thanks for putting all this together Rebecca.
Is Law & Order: Criminal Intent canceled or being moved back to cable?
Knight Rider makes it, Journeyman didn’t. NBC…..
Agh – not more Knight Rider.
Agreed with Susan on ER. Useless.
Journeyman’s gone. That sucks. I liked it.
Chuck needs to go. LAME.
Don’t worry, superG. I’m sure NBC will redeem themselves with the Office spin off. And there’s just no way that they’re going to mess up “Kath & Kim.” It’s got Molly Shannon and Selma Blair!
L&0:CI is moving back to USA.
Chuck is one of the few good shows on NBC. It’s not great and I was always on the verge of giving up on it. But after it’s midpoint it got much better. Still not great. But better.
The Office I like but I’m really hoping they aren’t doing the spin-off like I fear. (i.e. break up a certain happy couple)
My Name Is Earl has gotten pretty bad. There were a few good episodes but it sure lost it’s soul.
They’ve already announced this will be the final season of ER. Two years ago it was supposed to be over, then suddenly got an upsurge in the ratings, I have no idea why.
The Knight Rider tv movie was horrible, I’m expecting about the same for the series.
Clark,
Rumor (completely unverified) is that the Office spin-off will involve Dwight.
I was hoping it’d involve Karen. Or Ryan.
Wait, I thought it was already completely verified that the spin-off involved Toby.
Okay, so The Google tells me that nothing has been “completely verified” yet, that the final episode is titled “Goodbye, Toby,” but that Paul Lieberstein is staying with The Office (perhaps just as a writer, not an actor).
Dwight rumors have apparently been denied.
Is Toby really a strong enough character to support a spinoff?
Has anyone else heard the rumors of a House spinoff PI show? Based on a random line from Dr. Cameron, I’m going to speculate that that character is involved in the spinoff.
I’d heard about a House spinoff too. Not about it being a PI show though.
I’ve seen spin-off rumors that it will based on Ryan at corporate, which I thinks makes the most sense. I was worried it was going to be a married Jim and Pam out on their own sort of thing.
Maybe Pam leaves to go to art school and it’s her spin off.
I like the Toby character a lot, especially how much Michael hates him for no good reason. But I don’t think he’s charismatic/magnetic enough to carry the weight of a centerpiece, like Steve Carell can. (Incidentally, I’m excited to see Get Smart – I used to love the TV show, and Steve is perfect for it. And Anne Hathaway – schwing!!!).
Isn’t the guy who plays Ryan one of the producers as well? I don’t care for Ryan much, but he seems like more of a likely candidate for a spin-off.
Several of the actors in The Office are either writers or producers or both.
There was a lot of talk last Fall about a Heroes semi-spinoff, with stories of minor heroes. Are they going to try that again?
re: The Office (USA)–
B.J. Novak (Ryan), Mindy Kaling (Kelly), and Paul Lieberstein (Toby) are all staff writers on the show. Steve Carrell has written some episodes. Most of the other cast members have done improvisation and writing prior to their work on the show, even though they are not credited as writers on “The Office.”
Incidentally, John Krasinski was high school classmates with B.J. Novak, although they attended separate ivy league colleges. Krasinski’s first acting job was in a play that Novak wrote for their school.
And to those who say that “30 Rock” is funnier than “The Office” these days, I say, “Sorry, I’m just not seeing it.”
Last I heard, the “Heroes: Origins” project was a casualty of the writer’s strike. In my opinion, “Heroes” needs focus on getting that show back on track rather than worrying about side projects. Season 2 was pretty bad.
I finally watched a full episode of 30 Rock last week and it made me laugh a couple times. It had some really funny moments. Not as enjoyable as the Office though. You just don’t care about the characters on 30 Rock.
30 Rock is the only show that consistently makes me laugh out loud. Last week when that interim CEO (Rip Torn’s character’s daughter) pulled a Hot Wheels car out of her mouth was so freaking random and hilarious that I had to pause the show to finish laughing. But the first two seasons of The Office definitely did the same thing too.
Greg, I agree season 2 was bad. But I think Heroes: Origins would have been better if only because they were one offs. Hopefully they keep that project. It’s sort of like X-files (which I was never a fan of) The one offs were usually better than the continuity episodes.
I didn’t know so many actors were also writers. That explains a lot. I have to admit the Ryan episodes have been my favorite this year. The episode where he was all coked up and rolling was hilarious.
Regarding ER I can’t believe it’s still on. I watched it for a couple of seasons back in the mid 90′s. It was OK but not great. But then that was a dismal time for TV.
Best possible spin-off of the Office: follow Creed through the various religions he runs and is a member of.
Susan M,
I’m going to repeat myself here. You can’t jump into a show for the final episode of the season and expect to care about the characters or get all the jokes. Not that 30 Rock wants you to care about the characters much. I can certainly see how if you watched just the most recent episode you’d miss most of the jokes.
Good point. I didn’t say anything about missing the jokes, though—it was way funnier than I thought it would be. I just think the characters on the Office are easier to care about.
Is there some significance to the lady with the matchbox car in her mouth? If not, I appreciated the random weirdness of it. Didn’t make me laugh though.
Yes, there is significance to her. If you knew why she was in that office then you’d find the scene funnier. However you certainly wouldn’t care about her. You might wonder how they ever got someone to play the character though.
The rumor I heard was that Andy would be the focus of The Office spin-off. You can’t have The Office without Dwight. There would be no point.
I haven’t been a big fan of 30 Rock, but the Amadeus episode a few weeks back was pure genius. Too bad that probably 3/4 of the audience had no clue what was going on.
Tim J.,
Why is that too bad? I think that often the more obscure a joke is the funnier it is, as long as you get it.
I guess you’re right, arJ. But it makes for bad water-cooler talk. I can’t say, “Hey, did you see 30 Rock’s homage to Amadeus last night? Awesome.”
Nobody gets it. Which I guess does make it funnier in a way.
Awesome “Office” season finale. Thinking Kevin had Downs Syndrome was absolutley hilarious.
Well the Office certainly set up potential spin-offs for most of the cast!
They had at the end that ‘ad’ to go to the website and see “what’s next for Toby” which really suggests he’s next.
I kept waiting for Michael to do something entirely inappropriate. I was cringing in anticipation of something that would almost drive me over the edge. (Those episodes I just can’t enjoy because they are “too much.”) But they went in a really unexpected direction.