Category: ABC

ABC shows mostly doing well

Surprisingly, ABC has the fewest shows in danger of cancellation in the wake of Charlie’s Angels getting the ax. The shows in the most trouble are PAN AM and BODY OF PROOF, but those shows average around 1.8 to 1.9, with PAN AM on a steep decline after a 3.3 in its debut.

While the network is flying high thanks to EX-H20G, PAN AM and BODY OF PROOF follow shows that are much higher-rated and so viewer attrition could spell doom for these shows even if they dip no lower than they are now.

Angels fall

ABC has finally put everyone out of their misery, letting the cancellation ax fall on the horrendous CHARLIE’S ANGELS remake stinking up prime time on Thursdays. Only three episodes have aired and the network has promised (Lord knows why) that the other five episodes already made will make it to air, but production has been shut down permanently.

The business funding was in place for a thirteen-episode order but with ratings in the 1.1 to 1.3 range, there was simply no reason to draw it out any longer. While the McG silver-screen relaunch did okay box office a few years ago, no one seemed to have an appetite for this version’s lightweight plots and sexed-up portrayals.

And for that, we can all be a little more grateful come Thanksgiving.

Marvel and ABC to bring back HULK?

His jade-jawed over-sizedness didn’t quite wow on the silver screen, but now Marvel Television, owned by Disney, and ABC, also owned by Disney, are working hard to bring His Ragefullness back to the small screen.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno brought The Incredible Hulk to life on CBS, a show that featured the “Walking Away Theme,” or, as I like to call it, “The Saddest Closing Theme Music To Any Television Show Ever!”

Hopefully the new version will feature a bit more in terms of super-powered threats, because to be very honest, it was the lack of those that made HULK a bit of a bore for me growing up. I mean, the Hulk is the strongest one there is, right? Even Hulk say so!

So why, then, were abusive husbands or corporate salespeople fighting against the release of generic Phentermine the biggest threats he ever faced, on the old CBS version?

Riddle me that.

Original lizard queen set to return to V

V was a somewhat surprising hit for ABC last season when they rebooted the former NBC franchise of the 1980s. And while Morena Baccarain’s Anna is pure pleasure as a modern form of evil lizard queen, there’s good news for fans of the 1980s original.

Jane Badler, who played Diana, won out a wildly competitive round of casting to reprise her old role. In the reimagined reboot of the character, Diana is actually Anna’s mother, and she’s been kept in a dungeon for about 15 years. It will be intriguing to see Baccarain share the screen; the villainistic chemistry promises to be something special, at least on paper.

Badler’s about 25 years older now and more of a connoisseur of safe diet pills that work than she used to be, but she still knows how to slither it up. V returns to ABC’s schedule in November.

V renewed!

After back-to-back weeks of improving ratings, ABC has granted sci-fi thriller V a second-season renewal. That means more lizardy goodness in store for fans next fall, and a guaranteed post-LOST life for series star Elizabeth Mitchell.

In the meantime, the alphabet network isn’t sending out any high-hopes vitamins to the show they bet on to replace LOST, FlashForward. Ratings have been dismal and sinking, rather than rising, but ABC remains firm in their stance that they’ve not decided on the show’s cancellation just left.

Another presumed-dead series, Scrubs, apparently still has the slimmest of slim chances at renewal, though Twitter posts by former series star Zach Braff have indicated the prospects are less than zero for renewal. Still, with most of the expensive stars now gone, Scrubs was a half-decent performer in the ratings and less expensive than it had been to produce.

Better Off Ted, unfortunately, is dead.

FlashForward struggles in Thursday return

ABC’s hoped-for LOST successor, FlashForward, returned to TV this past Thursday, but drew a meager 6.5 million amid heavy competition from the opening rounds of NCAA March Madness, NBC’s comedy lineup and reruns of Bones and Fringe on Fox. While no one expected FlashForward to blow away March Madness’ numbers, getting bested by NBC and nearly matched by Fox reruns is not the best way to return a show the network hopes will ease viewers’ grief over the impending end of LOST.

FlashForward is a drama exploring the mystery behind a worldwide blackout by everyone on Earth, and the glimpses of the near future they gained while unconscious. While there are no barcode scanners behind the scam, the show is like LOST in that it uses its concept to explore larger intellectual themes; the primary question behind FlashForward has been, “Is our future predetermined, or can we make choices that affect a real change to our0 future.

Chalke’s post-Scrubs job appears

Following a couple of flirtations with becoming the titular mother on How I Met Your Mother, actress Sarah Chalke now has her post-SCRUBS career lined up; she’ll star as a freshman congresswoman who is politically successful but unlucky in love in the new ABC comedy FRESHMEN.

The role is not all political backroom deals and Paris vacations; the comedy will place Chalke at odds with the imbalance between her personal and political life. The show is the product of left-wing political blogger Arianna Huffington and former FRIENDS scribe Greg Malins.

Despite that origin, with the appealing Chalke in the lead role, once can only hope the focus of the show is more on the funny and less on the political stances.

FlashForward won’t until March

FlashForward, arguably the freshest ABC drama this year, is on a three-month hiatus following last week’s episode. The word coming down from ABC is that by allowing for the big gap, FlashForward can air with no repeats or long delays between fresh episodes once it returns; in the meantime, ABC can avoid reruns and try out other shows waiting in the wings for the Winter Season.

Sure, the news is about as welcome as first communion invitations among the faculty at UC-Berkeley, but few people question such a move when Fox or USA do it; so why not ABC?

In all honesty, ABC is worried about FlashForward’s ratings decline; the show is shakey at best for a second season order, but given the limited-run nature of the concept, maybe it’s better off as a one-season-and-done proposition. After all, once The Date comes and goes and we see how things turn out for the cast, wouldn’t a second global blackout be a bit of a stretch?

Eastwick gets the axe at ABC

The well-cast and witty EASTWICK, a dramedy in the vein of CHARMED, only with slightly older stars, is doomed; ABC has decided not to extend its initial order of 13 episodes of the freshman show. While I’ll admit the role of Darrel Van Horne was filled by an actor rather unworthy of Jack Nicholson’s shoes, the three women in the cast had developed a sharp comic chemistry.

Rebecca Romijn was appealing, Lindsay Price was the most promising new talent, and Jamie Ray Newman was the most relatable character in the show, though a bit too trim to be believable as a mother of five. I mean, what kind of fat burner is she using?

Anyway, all three women should go on to bigger and better things soon, and perhaps Paul Gross will find a role that Jack Nicholson hasn’t made impossible to walk into.

New Scrubs starts on December 1

The new, recast version of Scrubs will arrive on ABC starting December 1, so someone tell Donald Faison to hold off on that bulk order of hair vitamins; he’ll continue playing the hairless Doctor Turk for at least another season.

Beyond Doctor Turk, John C. McGinley’s Docter Cox will also appear on the series, but the rest of the original cast will, at best, be only occasional guest stars. The new Scrubs will feature the work of Eliza Coupe, Michael Mosley, Kerry Bishe and Dave Franco as the new emotional centers of the show.

Scrubs renewal possible?

Although many of its familiar cast members may move on, ABC is seriously considering picking up Bill Lawrence’s comedy, Scrubs, for a ninth season – a possible second season on ABC after seven seasons on NBC. The network’s in-house studio, ABC Studios, produces the veteran comedy and with the likely exits of Zach Braff, Judy Reyes and probably more, the costs of production are sure to go down.

Of course, a renewed Scrubs could benefit from its new lease on life by focusing on the inexperienced interns introduced this season, which would return the show back to the roots of its comedy core: inexperienced doctors learning what medicine is all about. While the cast exit could make Scrubs: The Next Generation seem like a comedy on the best diet pills, it could also move on to produce a second generation of stars.

The real question is whether the show can hold its core audience without Braff and company around to anchor it.

Fox may be lost to TV after Lost

Matthew Fox, who plays Dr. Jack Shepherd on ABC’s Lost, believes the show, when it concludes in spring 2010, will be the last “TV thing” he ever does. The actor, whose previous TV work was on Fox’s Party of Five, hopes to move into movies full-time, rather than acquiring a job installing, say, gas tankless water heaters.

Of course, many a star before Fox have uttered the same words and nearly all of them come back to TV eventually. Perhaps the movie career doesn’t take off and they need the work. Perhaps ten years goes by and they change their minds.

Or perhaps, Matthew, some drug-addicted, frazzled-looking doctor will turn up on your door one night screaming, “We made a mistake, Matt. We… we have to go back. We have to go back to prime time television!”