Eye on Winter: CBS Unveils Midseason Schedule

As expected reality programming is the name of the game with the networks clearly reacting to the threat of a protracted WGA strike.

On day 30 of the continued writers strike, CBS unveiled its midseason schedule, which included both reality fare as well as the return of several scripted series.

MONDAYS
Freshman comedy The Big Bang Theory, which wrapped production in light of the strike, will be benched as will comedy Rules of Engagement. Filling in for these on Monday evenings is the return of The New Adventures of Old Christine at 9:30 pm, after Two and a Half Men and the launch of single-camera comedy The Captain (starring Fran Kranz, Jeffrey Tambor, Chris Kline, and Raquel Welch as the denizens of a famous Hollywood landmark apartment building) will slot in between Two and a Half Men and How I Met Your Mother at 8:30 pm.

TUESDAYS
Struggling dramas Cane and The Unit will be pulled and replaced by the first in-season run of reality franchise Big Brother and the seven-episode second season of drama Jericho. (FYI, Big Brother will also get a Wednesday edition at 8 pm and one on Sunday as well.)

WEDNESDAY
Big Brother will take over for Kid Nation at 8 pm and then be followed by game show Power of 10 at 9 pm, which will run for six weeks.

THURSDAY
No change as a new edition of Survivor is on deck to launch at 8 pm on February 7th.

FRIDAY
No change here, either, with freshman drama Moonlight continuing to air on Friday evenings.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (CBS); Biggest Loser (NBC; 8-10 pm); Beauty and the Geek (CW); America's Funniest Home Videos (ABC); Bones (FOX)

9 pm: NCIS (CBS); Reaper (CW); According to Jim/According to Jim (ABC); House (FOX)

10 pm: Victoria's Secret Fashion Show (CBS); Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC); Boston Legal (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

8 pm: Beauty & the Geek.

On the season finale of Beauty and the Geek ("And the Winner Is..."), it's the return of all of this season's teams for a reunion as the winner of Beauty and the Geek 4 is unveiled after America's votes are tallied. (Come on, Dave and Jasmine!)

Comments

Anonymous said…

I'm really looking forward to the return of Old Christine. And I saw the pilot for The Captain and found it to be surprisingly funny and enjoyable.

12/04/2007

Have a Burning Question for Team Darlton, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, or Michael Emerson?

Lost fans: you don't have to make your way to the island via Ajira Airways in order to ask a question of the creative team or the series' stars. Televisionary is taking questions from fans to put to Lost 's executive producers/showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and stars Matthew Fox ("Jack Shephard"), Evangeline Lilly ("Kate Austen"), and Michael Emerson ("Benjamin Linus") for a series of on-camera interviews taking place this weekend. If you have a specific question for any of the above producers or actors from Lost , please leave it in the comments section below . I'll be accepting questions until midnight PT tonight and, while I can't promise I'll be able to ask any specific inquiry due to the brevity of these on-camera interviews, I am looking for some insightful and thought-provoking questions to add to the mix. So who knows: your burning question might get asked after all.

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What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season ...

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In Defense of Downton Abbey (Or, Don't Believe Everything You Read)

The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Which means, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute, that in order to judge something, one ought to experience it first hand. One can't know how the pudding has turned out until one actually tastes it. I was asked last week--while I was on vacation with my wife--for an interview by a journalist from The Daily Mail, who got in touch to talk to me about PBS' upcoming launch of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey , which stars Hugh Bonneville, Dame Maggie Smith, Dan Stevens, Elizabeth McGovern, and a host of others. (It launches on Sunday evening as part of PBS' Masterpiece Classic ; my advance review of the first season can be read here , while my interview with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and stars Dan Stevens and Hugh Bonneville can be read here .) Normally, I would have refused, just based on the fact that I was traveling and wasn't working, but I love Downton Abbey and am so enchanted with the proj...

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