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NBC unveils a 52-week season
« on: May 19th, 2004, 1:50am » |
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NBC unveils a 52-week season
By Ellen Gray
[email protected]
IF YOU DIDN'T already know that Donald Trump was NBC's new best friend, yesterday's announcement of the network's new fall season made it clear.
Make that the fall, winter, spring and summer seasons.
The Donald's expected to dominate the first three of those, thanks to a deal that will bring the network 34 original episodes of "The Apprentice" - broken into two different competitions - in 2004-05.
Matt LeBlanc, too, will be working a little harder next year, with "Joey," which replaces "Friends" Thursdays at 8, scheduled for 24 episodes instead of the 16 he and his castmates agreed to for this, their final season.
But then, he's reportedly making only half his $1 million-per-episode "Friends" salary for "Joey."
Though many network suits have talked for years of a 52-week season, NBC, which plans to launch its fall season the day after the Olympics ends - on NBC, naturally - thinks it's found a way to pay for it.
And so yesterday the network announced a schedule to advertisers in New York that included series that will premiere throughout the 2004-05 season, in hopes of getting them to commit to ad space on shows they might not see until a year from now.
That schedule, which abandons all but one of the series launched last fall - yes, "Las Vegas" will survive - includes time-slot sharing for at least two current series, "Average Joe" and "The West Wing," similar to what ABC has done in recent seasons with "NYPD Blue."
"Average Joe" will move to 8 p.m. Mondays, splitting the slot later in the season with "The Contender," one of two boxing "reality" shows expected for next season. This one's from Mark Burnett ("Survivor," "The Apprentice") and Sylvester Stallone.
"The West Wing will likely split its 22-episode season into two half-seasons, with "Revelations," a new drama starring Bill Pullman as a scientist trying to avert the apocalypse, sandwiched in between.
Other new dramas for the fall include "Medical Investigation," based on true stories from the National Institutes of Health, "Hawaii," a cop show set on the island home of "Idol" hopeful Jasmine Trias, and "LAX," a series set in, well, an airport, that stars Heather Locklear and Blair Underwood. Among the dramas ordered for later in the season is "Law & Order: Trial by Jury," the fourth series in the franchise.
NBC, which hasn't launched a major hit, comedically, since "Will & Grace" (unless you count "The Apprentice"), will grace us with just two this fall: "Joey" and "Father of the Pride," an animated series from the makers of "Shrek" about Siegfried & Roy's white lions (developed long before one of them nearly killed Roy Horn). Among the voices: John Goodman and "Dick Van Dyke Show" creator Carl Reiner.
Waiting in the wings are a few other comedies, including the much-dreaded American version of the British comedy "The Office."
Because "Coupling" taught them nothing.
Outta here (though some are long gone) are "Whoopi," "Happy Family," "Frasier," "Good Morning Miami," "Ed," "Friends," "Coupling," "Miss Match," "Boomtown," "The Lyon's Den" and "The Tracy Morgan Show."
In other NBC business...
...Dennis Farina will join the cast of "Law & Order," recently renewed for two more seasons. He'll essentially replace the departing Jerry Orbach as a police detective. Orbach's character will join the midseason "Law & Order: Trial by Jury"..."Scrubs" has been renewed for two more seasons..."Last Call with Carson Daly" has been renewed for three more years.
And in some non-NBC business...
...CBS finally announced a deal for the return of "Everybody Loves Raymond" for a ninth and final season that will include just 16 episodes.
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