[Televisionary]

ABC announced the return dates for several current series that have gone off the airwaves during the protracted writers strike and while it's good to see scripted series--including Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives, Boston Legal, Samantha Who?, and Brothers & Sisters --return to the networks, I am a little apprehensive about one small thing. ABC is moving Lost to 10 pm again. It's rare that such a breakout hit should have so many timeslot changes over the past few seasons but I have to say that I was thrilled when Season Four of Lost launched in the 9 pm hour. It wasn't so early (8 pm) that those of us who don't work 9 to 5 hours would miss the start of, but not so late that those of us who have to get up super early the next day couldn't stay awake for (10 pm). No, 9 pm seemed the perfect compromise, the ideal hour for such a thought-provoking, complex, and challenging series. I can understand why ABC would shift Lost behind the return of

Following the networks' lead, netlet CW has announced sweeping changes to its midseason schedule in an effort to combat the lack of first-run scripted programming which is currently plaguing all of broadcast television. Along with several launches, the CW plans to shift its long-standing Monday night comedy block to Sundays and move freshman dramas Gossip Girl and Reaper to new nights. The netlet will launch the second season of trashy reality competition series Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious on February 18th, bring One Tree Hill back to the lineup, and launch new seasons of Beauty and the Geek and America's Next Top Model . Reality series Farmer Wants a Wife will likely be held until after the season finales of ANTM and Pussycat Dolls . Everybody Hates Chris, Aliens in America, Girlfriends , and The Game will shift to Sundays and take over for freshman drama Life is Wild , which completed airing its initial 13-episode order. (Don't look for it to return.) "

Bad news for fans of FOX's forensic drama Bones . No, before the letter-writing campaigns begin (complete with massive mountains of Paul Smith striped socks being sent to FOX executives, no doubt), the series hasn't been canceled... but fans of the drama, currently in its third season, will have to wait quite a while for new episodes. FOX has once again tweaked its midseason schedule and announced that, in addition to a berth on Friday evenings, Bones will pop up on the Monday night lineup at 8 pm, beginning in April. While the above is hardly reason for concern, it's the fact that FOX is pushing the remaining four produced episodes of Bones , which were meant to air during February sweeps, to April 28th. Which means that anyone waiting for another fix of Brennan and Booth is going to have to cool their heels for quite some time. It also means that FOX is dead serious about digging their heels in for the long term, preparing for the eventuality that the strike will not en

Well, that's one less unscripted series to worry about clogging up air time this spring. FOX has pulled reality series When Women Rule the World off its schedule, benching the series until this summer, a move which has freed up real estate on its now 24 -free Monday night lineup. According to Variety , the decision to cut When Women Rule the World "could have come down to a sales issue. On the surface, When Women Rule the World -- which follows a group of women who control a group of men -- does not sound like something advertisers would be keen on. New midseason dramas Canterbury's Law --starring Julianna Margulies as a hard-edged attorney who takes whatever is necessary to win a case (though one to whom Damages ' Patty Hewes wouldn't likely give a second thought)--and New Amsterdam , about an immortal detective (no, not Angel ... or Moonlight ) will now launch on Monday nights. Both series will launch after Prison Break and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chron

The fat lady has sung for musical drama Viva Laughlin . Series, which died on stage in its two airings to date, has sung its last pop-inspired aria and has been yanked off of CBS' schedule, effective immediately. Network will air a repeat of CSI in its Sunday at 8 pm timeslot before giving the time period over to returning reality series The Amazing Race , which launches on November 4th. "If there ever was a season that I consider one of the best, it's this one," said Amazing Race 's creator/director/executive producer Bertram van Munster in a statement. "It's insanely funny, fast-paced and dramatic all at once. Teams are in hot pursuit of one another at every location and its reality television at its nail-biting best." This season on The Amazing Race , teams will travel approximately 50,000 miles, including first time stops in Ireland, Lithuania and Croatia. Teehee! I cannot wait. For too long, The Amazing Race has been sadly absent from my alre

For once, FOX may have done something smart. I don't often say that but it's perhaps for the best that the network most likely to cancel a new series (you might as well call them Trigger Happy TV) is holding back on several of its newest offerings until midseason, giving them a chance to creatively retool before thrusting the series into the public eye. Following in the footsteps on midseason launches for The Return of Jezebel James , The Sarah Connor Chronicles , and The Rules for Starting Over , FOX has yanked supernatural drama New Amsterdam --a police procedural based around an immortal man who has lived in Manhattan since the days of the Dutch-- off of the fall schedule . It was slated to launch on Tuesday, September 25th, at 8 pm. According to Variety , the network said the moves "were made in order to improve Fox's chances in the fall, where it has struggled in recent years." So what's taking over for New Amsterdam in the meantime? FOX has shifted its

I can't say that I'm surprised that NBC has reconfigured its fall lineup, in the wake of Ben Silverman's appointment at the network but I am pleasantly surprised to see that the Peacock has taken Chuck , one of my new favorite fall dramas, slightly out of the line of fire and moved it to another night. Chuck , from Warner Bros. Television and creators Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak, will now kick off Monday nights at 8 pm, joining returning drama Heroes at 9 pm, which leads into new fall drama Journeyman at 10 pm. Hmmm, Chuck , Heroes , and Journeyman in a row? Could NBC have cracked a way to keep audience tune-in on Mondays? Only time will tell but I think it's a wonderful combination that should have been devised from the get-go. Meanwhile, Deal or No Deal , which had occupied that Monday night timeslot, will relocate to Fridays, which also gets a makeover, as well. Deal or No Deal kicks off the night at 8 pm, followed by a relocated Friday Night Lights at 9 pm a

You've got to love when a network obviously shows so much pride in their product that they push a launch date for a series endlessly, dump the thing during the summer months (read: burnoff), and then mess around with the scheduling. In a move, post- Veronica Mars cancellation , that surprises no one, the CW has announced that it will "condense" the airing structure of newbie drama series Hidden Palms and wrap the series on July 4th. The CW will therefore air back-to-back episodes of Hidden Palms on Wednesday, June 20th and June 27th, from 8-10 pm ET/PT, with the series finale (a.k.a. Episode Eight) planned for Wednesday, July 4th. Because the CW's teen audience will doubtlessly be inside watching the network rather than, you know, watching fireworks or being outside on the Fourth. Additionally, effective immediately, the CW will drop the Sunday night replays of the teen drama, replacing it with repeats of, yes, Seventh Heaven . ( Seventh Heaven 's slot will lik

Looks like FOX has pulled Drive onto the shoulder. After announcing that it would take the rather unusual tack of intentionally breaking up Drive 's 13-episode run into two chunks (thus limiting any momentum the series would have built up), FOX has now announced that it is in fact benching the series for the entirety of May sweeps . Four hours of the freshman series, about an illegal underground cross-country race, have already aired. FOX will fill Drive 's Mondays at 8 pm timeslot with (you guessed it!) repeats of House . While there's been no official word of the c-word (that would be cancellation, people!), it's not a good sign for a series that's already had its share of odd scheduling and plummeting ratings. Oh well. It's not as if I didn't already make the turn for the exit ramp last week .

Remember Traveler , that little 8 episode action drama that was originally ordered for the 2006-07 season? The series, which stars Matthew Bomer, Logan Marshall-Green, Aaron Stanford, William Sadler, and Stephen Culp (a.k.a. poor dead Rex from Desperate Housewives ), follows two grad students (Bomer, Marshall-Green) forced to go on the run after their friend (Stanford) frames them for a terrorist act (namely, the blowing up of one NYC museum). Together, they must find a way to prove their innocence while tracking down the man responsible for the crime (the titular Will Traveler). ABC announced a few weeks back that it would burn off the series (earlier chopped from its 13 episode initial order to 8 eps) in its entirety this summer, a rather unceremonious dumping of a show that I found eminently more engaging and suspenseful than, say, the current season of 24 . To counter-balance any negativity to the summer scheduling, ABC has now announced that Traveler will in fact kick off on its

These days, to say the networks are getting as trigger-happy as a character on Lost is a bit of an understatement. With only one episode left to air, In Case of Emergency has been pulled off of the schedule, effective immediately. The news comes as a bit of surprise as the freshman series, which starred David Arquette, Jonathan Silverman, Greg Germann, Kelly Hu, and Lori Loughlin, aired its penultimate episode last night. In terms of ratings, it tied for last place in the hour with a repeat episode of The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Doll . (Ouch.) To fill the void left by the now-departed In Case of Emergency , ABC will fill its timeslot next week with a repeat of last night's episode of Lost (following a second window strategy employed earlier this season). Encores of Lost will fill the timeslot for the remainder of the season. More Lost ? Bring it on, ABC.

NBC is apparently REALLY unhappy with freshman series The Black Donnellys . Just mere days after announcing that the April 16th airing would be the series' last, the Peacock has today turned around and issued another announcement stating that, following another dismal performance this week, it would be yanking The Black Donnellys off the air... immediately. Ouch. It was clear that The Black Donnellys , created by Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco (of Crash fame), wouldn't be around for long anyway, as NBC planned to use the real estate for Ashton Kutcher's latest reality opus The Real Wedding Crashers (yes, about people hired to crash weddings as a prank!) instead. In the meantime, NBC will fill the timeslot next week with an additional episode of new comedy improv series Thank God You're Here . As for those remaining Donnellys episodes, fans can catch the last six or so eps on NBC.com but let's just say the likelihood of the series returning next season is as proba

Confused about BBC America's wacky schedule? Tired of endless Benny Hill reruns? Fret no more. Digital cabler BBC America has announced that, under new president Garth Ancier (remember him from the old WB?), it has reorganized its entire lineup , launching distinctive primetime programming blocks that target various demos every night of the week, which will also serve to modernize the channel and stabilize the schedule. On Mondays, cabler will launch an 8-10 pm block called Murder Mondays, presenting a night of scripted mystery/dramas including new seasons of Robson Green-starrer Wire in the Blood and James Nesbit-led Murphy’s Law . Tuesdays are all about male-driven action with Tuesday Nitro, with espionage drama MI:5 (aka Spooks , which was unceremoniously yanked from A&E ), drama Ultimate Force , which follows an elite army unit as they encounter life-threatening and dangerous situations, and undisclosed reality series. The girls get their own night with Wicked Wednesday,

FOX continued to tweak its late spring/early summer schedule today, with a number of scheduling-related announcements that would seem to confuse even the most seasoned TV viewer. But the most, er, intriguing development has to be that the network has opted to split the 13-episode run of upcoming drama Drive , starring a slew of familiar faces including Nathan Fillion and Amy Acker, into two sections. Drive kicks off on April 15th but, due to the series' "tight production schedule," FOX will only air the first six episodes of Drive for now, wrapping its five week run on May 7th. Subsequent episodes will then air at a to-be-determined date later in the season. (Read: summer burnoff.) Due to the fact that On the Lot , Steven Spielberg's reality series ode to student filmmakers, is set to inherit the series' Mondays at 8 pm timeslot on May 28th (following a repeat of House on May 14 and the second half of 24's 2-hr finale on May 21st), some sort of arrangement

Apologies to the two or three remaining fans of FOX's beleaguered freshman drama Standoff . Looks like you won't be seeing the professional and romantic antics of your beloved hostage negotiators next Friday night after all. In a random scheduling change, Standoff will not be returning to the airwaves next Friday as reported and written about in numerous publications. Instead, FOX will be pushing the return engagement of Standoff until well after May sweeps, landing the show a June 8th return date and will use its intended Friday night timeslot to air repeats of House . (Though at press time, FOX had still not changed the date listed on its Standoff mini-site .) Before you start worrying about Ron Livinston and Rosemary DeWitt finding work with pilot season already in full swing, FOX has been very careful to avoid speculation that the series has been cancelled. Instead, a network spokesperson was careful to indicate that a decision has not been made on the future of Standoff

It was just the other day ( Friday, if we're being precise ) that I said how much I wished NBC would come to their senses and move freshman comedy 30 Rock (a Televisionary fave), using The Office as a lead-in, rather than the much loved if somewhat underperforming Scrubs . Looks like someone at the Peacock was listening. NBC announced that it would do just that, shifting 30 Rock a half an hour earlier, to 9 pm, beginning April 5th. Wait, what's that you say? You thought the cruelly imposed hiatus of 30 Rock (intended to deny us our fix of such random oddities as Ray Ray's Mystery Garage ) was supposed to last much longer than that? Fortunately, NBC has surprised us again and will be returning 30 Rock to the schedule a little earlier than can be expected. (My prayers to Jack Donaghy were apparently answered.) April 5th will feature a 35-minute "super-sized" episode of 30 Rock (along with The Office and Scrubs ). NBC's lineup for April 5th will be the foll

After weeks of speculation, NBC has finally released firm launch dates for its midseason series, The Black Donnellys and Andy Barker, P.I. It was widely anticipated that The Black Donnellys , a crime drama about four Irish-American brothers involved with organized crime (from Crash creators Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco), would take over the Monday nights at 10 pm timeslot from struggling freshman series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip , beginning March 5th. (That said, not coincidentally, it's the night Heroes wraps up its next batch of episodes, providing Donnellys with a rather cushy launch pad.) NBC has not said how many weeks Donnellys will, er, "help out" Studio 60 , though it did order 13 eps; how long Donnellys remains will have much to do with the performance of the newbie series, though after its initial broadcast, it won't have new episodes of Heroes as a lead-in. Meanwhile, the Peacock also finally revealed an airdate and timeslot for freshman comedy A

Looks like you'll have to stay up a little later to see what happens to Jack and the other survivors of Oceanic Flight 815. Come February, ABC will shift drama Lost (still in the midst of a brutally long 13-week exile from the network ) to the 10 pm timeslot in order to avoid competition with FOX's American Idol result show. While the move is somewhat surprising (why move your juggernaut to another timeslot on the same night), it makes sense to push Lost back an hour, especially given the stiff competition from CBS' Criminal Minds and, yes, that worrisome feeling that American Idol will further erode the series' audience. Add to that the worry that no program will perform well after Lost (just look at the numbers and, um, indefinite hiatus of The Nine and the cancellation of Invasion) and it's worth the risk to move Lost into uncharted waters. Still, it's not a good sign that the series keeps moving later and later on the schedule. Hell, remember when it

It was with a bit of relief as NBC finally released its mid-season schedule... about two weeks later than promised by topper Kevin Reilly. No word on what led to the prolonged period between the intended announcement and, er, yesterday, but some rather unexpected results did manage to turn up. Let's take a look: MONDAY: NBC has kept its entire Monday night lineup intact, including the struggling Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip , which will remain at 10 pm. Many insiders had thought that the Peacock would try shifting the sinking Studio 60 in another slot, but it's staying tight for the moment, following a full season pick-up for the series, albeit at a reduced license fee. Look for a midseason drama (see below) to take over here in a few months' time. TUESDAY: Newsmagazine Dateline NBC will take over the 8 pm timeslot vacated by struggling freshman drama Friday Night Lights . Hmmm, anyone seeing shades of Reilly's announcement a little while back about programming cheap

The diagnosis is not good for 3 Lbs . After just three (yes, count 'em, three!) airing, CBS has yanked medical drama 3 Lbs. off the schedule, effective immediately. The drama, which starred Stanley Tucci, Mark Feuerstein (his series kiss of death continues!), and Indira Varma, was unceremoniously canned by CBS, which rushed the midseason medical drama onto the air. 3 Lbs replaced the crime drama Smith (which CBS also cancelled after three airings) on Tuesdays at 10 pm. Like Smith, 3 Lbs. didn't deliver the audience CBS was craving, averaging a rather unhealthy 8 million viewers. Additionally, the series' ratings were 16% below Smith . Call it a case of schadenfreude , but I can't help but smile when a cancelled cult audience series' replacement show winds up doing worse than the series it replaced. Ha-bloody-ha. In other scheduling news, ABC will air five episodes of newsmagazine Primetime on Wednesdays at 10 pm, subbing in for freshman drama The Nine , which i