As we enter October it is time for the merciless axe of cancellation to start swinging. The week brought the first four pink slips for the 2011-2012 season as ‘Playboy Club’, ‘Free Agents’, ‘How To Be A Gentleman’, and ‘H8R’ were all sent packing.
‘Terra Nova’ didn’t bring the numbers that the $20 million pilot suggested were expected, while ‘Two and a Half Men’ continued to lead all shows and ABC had a good debut for ‘Suburgatory’. On cable, ‘Boardwalk Empire’ is back for HBO.
Another big week of releases includes ‘Modern Family’, ‘The Mentalist’, ‘Castle’, ‘Hawaii Five-O’, ‘Mike & Molly’, ‘Raising Hope’, ‘Happy Endings’, ‘Body Of Proof’, ‘L&O LA’, ‘The Kennedys’, ‘Dalziel & Pascoe’, ‘Dick Van Dyke’, ‘Judge John Deed’, ‘Red Green’, ‘Mad’, ‘McMillan & Wife’, and ‘Rugrats’.
The week that was brought a host of finales to each of the networks. That was overwhelmingly good news. Even those that were off the year ago pace saw a boost over the previous tougher spring weeks. Over on cable, keep an eye on those ‘Game of Thrones’ numbers.
As we are on the eve of upfronts, news of cancellations and renewals is flying in. This week we take a look at the fates of some of those bubble shows, and ponder what Ashton Kutcher replacing Charlie Sheen on ‘Two and a Half Men’ means for the CBS Monday.
Overall, the first full week of sweeps was a bit slow. The big surprise came as NBC’s ‘The Voice’ managed to improve on what was an outstanding debut the week before. Over on cable, can you imagine ‘L&O CI’ on USA beating new ‘L&O LA’ on NBC?
The final tally is in, and ‘The Paul Reiser Show’ came up just 162 episodes short of the mark he set with ‘Mad About You’. Over on cable, HBO kicked off ‘Game of Thrones’ to a less than spectacular number, but does that even matter?
