[Televisionary]

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

Smith fans, you might just be in luck. Just don't celebrate... quite yet. Beginning today, CBS will begin streaming the remaining four episodes of now-cancelled crime drama Smith on their broadband channel, Innertube. Those four episodes represent the installments that were produced before CBS cancelled the series. The first three episodes of Smith , which had aired in the US, will also be streamed online in an effort to get (would-be) viewers up-to-date. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Television, the studio behind Smith , will also be offering all seven completed episodes of Smith for download beginning this month on iTunes, AOL, and Amazon as well. (Additionally, CBS.com is offering synopses of the episodes that were never actually, you know, filmed, so that fans can read how the uncompleted episodes would have played.) Just don't expect any filmed resolution to the storyline. Smith was never intended to be a seven-episode series so I somehow doubt any of the story arcs begun i

In an unexpected move, CBS has stolen crime drama Smith right off of its primetime schedule. Smith , which features an all-star dream cast including Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Jonny Lee Miller, hadn't exactly caught on in the ratings like gangbusters, but it's surprising that CBS would pull the beleaguered show rather than test it in a less competitive timeslot. While CBS has yet to use the C-word (that would be cancelled, folks), it does seem like the jig is up for Smith 's team of thieves. The news comes on the heels of NBC's announcement that it would not be ordering the back nine episodes of drama Kidnapped and would shift the series, now only 13 episodes total, to the Saturday night graveyard shift. Meanwhile, the odds are that one of these series will be the next to get the axe: CW's Runway , ABC's Six Degrees , and CBS' The Class . Start placing your bets as to which will be next...

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian