Tuesday, May 19, 2009

NBC renews 'Chuck,' announces fall schedule - Upfront Week

NBC just put out their schedule release, and "Chuck" is on it -- albeit not airing until March (post-Olympics), Mondays at 8. More details of the whole schedule over at NJ.com. I'm going on the NBC conference call in a few minutes, and I'm going to talk with Chris Fedak after that, so look for one or two more posts on this later today.

33 comments:

Felipe said...

yay for Chuckles! but what are we going to do until February??? And why didn't they move it to Friday night? Monday 8/9c is more brutal than ever. In any case, good for Chuck!

Dean Winchester said...

Curious that FNL doesn't show up on the mid-season schedule...

You're Fard! said...

Great news about Chuck. With Chuck and Southland both coming back, it's as if NBC was a competently run network or something. Weird.

That said, I'm really disappointed to hear about Earl...not the world's greatest show, or the most consistent, but a fairly enjoyable 30 minutes once a week. Jay Leno'd better uncover some hitherto hidden funniness to justify this outrageous over-investment of time.

(Verification word: hyperf. Well said.)

DonBoy said...

And only a half-season or so for Heroes, it seems, now at 8ET in the fall, giving way to Chuck in the winter.

Eric Fingerhut said...

Yeah, um, where's Friday Night Lights? They couldn't fit it in instead of Southland encores?

Mrglass said...

Yikes, NBC should learn to use the 'Enter' key, this schedule is hard to read.


"TUESDAY 8-10 p.m. - "The Biggest Loser" (two-hour edition) 10-11 p.m. - "THE JAY LENO SHOW" WEDNESDAY 8-9 p.m."

This from the network that used to air 'Friends' and 'Seinfeld'. That's just sad.

Alan Sepinwall said...

The formatting was my mistake, not theirs. It's fixed now.

FNL will apparently air in the summer, which is a much bigger gap between it and the DirecTV run than last time.

Dave Wills said...

any word on LIFE?

Alan Sepinwall said...

Life is kaput. Ben said so at the infront.

Anonymous said...

MARCH!??!?

What the heck. That's a Sopranos' length wait. Not even Lost or BSG makes you wait that long.

Anonymous said...

March? Chuck me.

jn613 said...

Alan, how much can we believe Silverman when he says Chuck can continue into the summer, seeing as he was on record earlier saying Chuck would likely be changing nights but it's not? Also, you quoted him as saying that they won't lower Chuck's costs, but what about aforementioned cuts to writers and actors? Thanks for keeping us up to the minute!

Anonymous said...

This has been an interesting journey with Chuck.

Chuck is on the bubble? Boooo. But the network execs like it? Yaaay. It all come down to $$. Booo. Subway's help helps. Yaaaay. It's coming back for the third season. Yaay. But we're going to have to say byebye to a cast member and two staff writers. Boooooo. Not putting Chuck on Mondays? Yaaaay. Official schedule is out, and Chuck is back on Monday AND will return Mid-Season. BOOOOOOOOO.

Art Fleming said...

Great, now i destroyed my living room for nothing.

jcpdiesel21 said...

I'm disappointed that Chuck will stay at its usual timeslot on Mondays when it returns in March. I was actually looking forward to a move to Fridays. Oh well. 13 episodes, budget cuts, a wait until March... I can handle it all if it means that I get to see more of Chuck's adventures.

I'm very surprised to hear that NBC will not be airing the next season of Friday Night Lights until the summer. That's a RIDICULOUSLY long wait, more than a year! And airing it during the summer is not going to increase viewership.

Farm Girl Pink... said...

From looking at that schedule... NBC is going to keep Leno no matter how bad he bombs? Can one assume that even if they can't get 2 million viewers to watch every night... they will keep him on?

I am surprise to see that they killed off "My name is Earl" for those god-awful SNL shows. Even Earl has won Emmy's... and it gets the boot.

As it stands I have only watched 4 shows on NBC this entire year... Chuck, Life, Medium and Earl. And now three of them are gone. Thanks NBC for freeing up time for me to devote my time to watching FX original shows at 9pm!

Andrew said...

Alan, with all of your pull in writing the schedule, you couldn't have Chuck start in the fall?

I am surprise to see that they killed off "My name is Earl" for those god-awful SNL shows. Even Earl has won Emmy's... and it gets the boot.

Earl is really being replaced by Community (with Chevy Chase and Joel McHale), but the SNL Thursday Updates will fill in a few weeks until 30 Rock comes back on a delayed schedule.

marenamoo said...

Is the LA Times actually quoting Silverman stating that your Chuck article was instrumental in bringing Chuck back? Way to go, Alan and congratulations on the weight attached to your column - a real coup.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/05/nbc-announces-its-fall-and-midseason-lineups.html

Matter-Eater Lad said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mel said...

Why the delay on 30 Rock????

7s Tim said...

Art Fleming-- your poor living room... you should have ben patient...

Chuck is back, i can be patient.

only think i'm disappointed about is Mercy coming on at mid-season-- they shut down my job for a night so they could shoot, and i could use a day off sooner rather than later, and was really hoping something like that could get hooked up

Dave Wills said...

damn thanks for the quick response alan, i really enjoyed charlie crews

Alan Sepinwall said...

More from Silverman and Fedak here, and you can keep discussing "Chuck" here.

FlopEJoe said...

Whoo to the hoo for Chuck!

Personally, I find the SNL, half hour news things painful to watch. Not sure if it makes me think of the skits that go too long or Seth needs at last a week to get his patter down.

Karen said...

Chuck back on Monday nights. Sigh. So much for watching season 3 as it airs, unless having it come back mid-season means it won't conflict with House. Assuming House isn't moving, and right now I've forgotten if it is. Or assuming I don't decide to ditch House for Chuck. Or assuming the Husband and I don't finally get our act together and put some comfy chairs in front of his computer upstairs and watch the eps online.

Still have season 2 from Netflix to look forward to, eventually, anyway.

Unknown said...

"The Jay Leno Show"...Five times?!

Ugh! Why couldn't NBC just produce a schedule like the CW does? Just announce your two hour schedule and just delete Leno from the list. All it does when i see his name up there, is remind me of how far NBC has fallen!

(SIGH)

DolphinFan said...

I'm kind of stunned that My Name Is Earl was cancelled, because it's been a long time since a show I really liked was cut down before it was obviously ready to go. Does anyone have information as to why The Karma List became The Bucket List?

Anonymous said...

Alan, can you ask these network honchos why it seems no new shows have a person of color as its lead?

What year is it? 1955?

Sean said...

God, seeing "The Jay Leno Show" 5 nights a week makes my eyes bleed. If this is as fantastical a failure as I think it's going to be, NBC is royally screwed.

Interesting that they're staggering Heroes and Chuck into 2 halves of the same season; its going to make my Monday nights easier to digest, so I can catch Fox, NBC and Gossip Girl on same night.

I'll miss Life and Earl.

Anonymous said...

So glad to hear that Chuck is coming back and kudos to you Alan and to the fans for pushing the powers to do right by the show. Heck of wait though. I'm mourning Charlie Crews and Dani Reese like they were members of my family and am totally blue about Sarah Connor being terminated. Good news too for fans of Dollhouse.

Pamela Jaye said...

As it stands I have only watched 4 shows on NBC this entire year... Chuck, Life, Medium and Earl. And now three of them are gone. Thanks NBC for freeing up time for me to devote my time to watching FX original shows at 9pm!.

Brother keeps bugging me to read his favorite Chuck fanfic. Can't!
NBC lost Medium (even if I won't watch what I've recorded till 2012) which leaves me two NBC shows (Chuck, 30 Rock) but for me, this too is all right: I might just have time to catch up on email, facebook & twitter!

Carrie said...

No new Friday Night Lights until next summer? It's like they WANT us to resort to "other" methods to watch the show.

This schedule is just so strange. I'm sort of excited to see if this Leno experiment works out or not. (Don't worry, I'm hoping it's a major flop.)

Unknown said...

I have a suggestion about how to keep the Chuck fans seriously engaged over the next several months. This past Tuesday at the official press release regarding the renewal of Chuck, Mike Pilot, President for Sales and Marketing at NBC Universal said, “We were thrilled when Subway…expressed a desire to expand their relationship with the series in a creative way.”

That being said why not give the fans a chance to expand their relationship with the show in a creative way by competing in a contest for the best dialog or scene suggestion for one of the upcoming shows in season three? The winner would have his or her suggestion included in some way by the show’s writers. Perhaps he or she could even be flown out for the filming of the episode. This would allow the fans to truly have some creative input with the show beyond buying $5 subs at Subway.