Say it isn't true. After all this time (not to mention brilliantly funny webisodes), could Nobody's Watching actually be dead?Sadly, it looks like that's the case, despite the Peacock ordering a live episode of Nobody's Watching a few weeks ago and setting the stage for a March launch of the live format, which could have led to a series pickup.
According to an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Tuned In Journal, an NBC source confirmed Nobody's Watching creator and executive producer Bill Lawrence's suspicious that the network wouldn't in fact go forward with the series or the live show, despite the TCA announcement last month.
Lawrence says that contracts for Paul Campbell and Taran Killam--who play the fictional Will and Derek--expire at the end of the month; Lawrence (Scrubs) also said that he would cease making all webisodes/viral videos for the Nobody's Watching site. "If I kept doing it and nothing happens," he told the Post-Gazette, "I'd have to kill myself."
Still, what exactly happened at NBC to turn the tide, AFTER an announcement was made about the show's future? "I'm thinking it was an 11th hour decision to pull the plug, but I am hoping it's not," said Lawrence.
Regardless, a spokeman for NBC has confirmed that the project, in both its live and filmed incarnations, will not be going forward after all.
A sad, sad day and a bitter reminder that, no matter how much fan support you have for a series, there's sometimes a massive disconnect between that fanbase and the network programming execs making decisions about which series are ordered and which are destined for the trash heap.
Nobody's Watching, I had hoped, was destined for greater things than that.
To Bill Lawrence, Neil Goldman, Garrett Donovan, Paul Campbell, and Taran Killam, I'd like to say thanks for the laughs, the awesome emails, and for the memories. I loved the original pilot and the viral videos they'd created for this self-aware comedy experiment.
Nobody might ever get to watch this amazing show on the air (as it should be), but I'm certainly glad that this nobody ever got the chance to tune in.
Comments
This is my true hope for genuine UGV...for more and more writers, actors, etc. to have a showcase for their talents that may otherwise go unnoticed due to the closed-door nature of TV/Movie studios!