Question: I must say I am very pleased to finally know Fox's mid-season plans. However, could it be any more different from the mid-season schedule from way back in May? While the team-up of Prison Break and 24 gets me very excited about Monday nights, I am sorely disappointed in the placement of Bones. Such a great show deserves to get that American Idol boost on Tuesdays. Instead, the network does the complete opposite and pits it against a juggernaut like Lost. I realize that it still has the American Idol results show as its lead-in, but that certainly didn't make the mediocre Life on a Stick a hit last season. Also, though I never cared for the show, is Killer Instinct officially canceled now that Trading Spouses resides in its time slot? I hope you can clear these things up for me, Matt.
Answer: I'll do my best. First off, I can't for the life of me figure out why Fox even bothers to announce a mid-season schedule in May, because there are so many variables as a new season gets
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Question: With all this talk about Fox's schedule and how there isn't enough room for The Simple Life to return and how Prison Break won't return until May, don't you think it's time Fox got with the program and became the real fourth network, after 18 years (truly an appropriate age to finally grow up and be an adult). Shouldn't the network move the local 10 pm/ET news to 11 to make way for original programming?
Answer: This question has come up a lot lately, especially in the wake of the Prison Break situation, so this is a good time to remind everyone once again of the "business" side of the TV equation. In Fox's early days, it programmed a limited number of hours for regulatory reasons (most of which no longer exist). But even if Fox desired to program a 22-hour weekly schedule, which many months of the year (when American Idol is absent, say) would seem to be more than this network of The Swan, Stacked and Killer Instinct could handle, it's a fact that Fox's local affiliates ...
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Well, not exactly, but the freshman comedy has apparently done well enough in the ratings to garner a full-season pickup from CBS. NBC, meanwhile, has reportedly done the right thing and greenlit The Office for the rest of the season, and Fox has ordered three more episodes of serial thriller Killer Instinct.
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Question: What defines a show as a "procedural"? I keep hearing the critics say there are too many of them now. I remember the days when shows were in two basic categories: comedy or drama. Then someone coined "dramedy," and started coming up with subcategories: Western, medical, police, sci-fi, horror, etc. Can't we just put everything back in two categories: good and bad?
Answer: Well, there's good and bad in each of these categories, which are better known as genres, and each has its own conventions, trademarks and ardent fans. The "procedural" tag really caught on in the wake of the franchising of Law & Order and, later, CSI. It typically refers to a crime drama in which each episode deals with the solving of a crime, usually a self-contained story each week, and has minimal soap-operatics. There are variations on the formula — some are high-end like Homicide: Life on the Street and the short-lived Boomtown, and some (like this season's wretched Killer Instinct and Criminal Minds)
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Fox had the bad fortune of making its fall presentations on the final two days (July 28 and 29) of the three-week TCA press tour. Visiting critics, thoroughly engaged at midweek during ABC's portion (and killer party), were exhausted, more than a little cranky and itching to get home as Fox touted its new and returning shows — letting sister cable channel FX tease us with a discussion of the new season of Nip/Tuck, which could well upstage any of the new series premieres.
Fox deserved a more rousing reception for an ambitious lineup that, unlike last year's debacle of delayed starts and dreadful reality filler, actually has the look of a rounded and complete fall schedule. None of that tiptoeing around those intrusive baseball playoffs and World Series this year. Fox is premiering many of its shows in early- to mid-September, even the Sunday comedy lineup (which has often waited until November). There's precious little reality on
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