Bravo has announced a Feb. 22 premiere for the Project Runway spin-off Project Jay, chronicling Season 1 champ Jay McCarroll's adventures in the New York City fashion biz.... Sheryl Crow has joined the star-studded lineup of Animal Planet's Trail Mix, a Jan. 29 special about (and I quote) "the special bond between some of the music industry's hottest acts and their horses."... CMT has acquired rebroadcast rights to NBC's Three Wishes and has the option to license any new episodes produced beyond the 10 that have aired.
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Question: Why did NBC abandon the terrific Three Wishes? There was talk of moving it to Wednesday nights at 8 pm/ET, which made perfect sense. But then nothing happened. Friday nights at 9 makes no sense, especially without a lead-in. This is the type of show that could run for years — at 8. My family loves watching it. Is it too late for another network to save it?
Answer: Probably. (Rule of thumb: Once a network cancels a show, the likelihood of anyone else picking it up is minuscule at best.) You're right on one count: This is the type of show that could run for years at 8 pm/ET. Another example is Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I doubt Three Wishes was actually less enjoyable, and certainly it was not less public-spirited, than Makeover: Home, but it was ineptly scheduled (NBC has a real gift for that), and what an outrage that it's being replaced by something called Most Outrageous TV Moments. (This may qualify as one. ...
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As we predicted earlier this week, NBC has pulled the plug on Three Wishes. The final episode is expected to air next month. Additionally, the Peacock has cut back Law & Order's episode order this season from 24 to 22 episodes, but an NBC rep insists the reduction is due to the Olympics and not to Serena's latent lesbianism.
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Sources tell TVGuide.com that NBC is on the verge of pulling the plug on Amy Grant's Three Wishes.... USA Network is developing a six-hour miniseries based on Gigi Levangie Grazer's best-selling novel, The Starter Wife.... E! Entertainment Television has given the greenlight to #1 Single, an unscripted series chronicling newly single singer-songwriter Lisa Loeb's reentry into the dating world.
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Threshold
Question: What is CBS thinking? I love Threshold and will follow it whenever it is on, but I am very afraid that if CBS shuffles it around, viewers will give up on it and we'll lose it. Do they think that this swap will be mutually beneficial to Threshold and Close to Home, or is it more geared to one or the other? I can't imagine that this will help Threshold, as it will be up against the very successful Law & Order: SVU, which seems to me to be bigger competition for Threshold than Three Wishes. I really hate this change, as Tuesday already seems engorged with good shows, while Friday was much less crowded. How can I handle three shows at once with only one VCR?! (This is also a problem in the hour before!) PS. Love the column.
Answer: Lots of questions prompted by this schedule change. Such as Sam's "Is Threshold permanently being moved to Tuesdays?" The answer: Unclear. For now, the switch has only been announced for the rest of the month, which because of preemptions in the time
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Question: Matt, I look forward to your column on Monday mornings — makes them a little more bearable! Anyway, I was noticing that I haven't seen a full-season pickup announced for Threshold. What are they waiting for?! Have you heard anything about this? It's one of my favorites on TV right now. Thanks.
Answer: What, the Friday column doesn't do it for you, too? (Joke.) Anyway, I'm still cautiously optimistic that CBS will give Threshold at least a full first season to weave its spell. When CBS announced its first wave of full-season orders, Threshold was given an additional script order, which is a positive sign. Getting the additional episode order would have been better. It probably doesn't help that NBC's Three Wishes appears to have edged past it in the younger demographics last week. At the moment, the show appears to be a victim of CBS' success elsewhere, and because the viewership dips for Threshold from the shows on either side of it — Ghost Whisperer and Numbers, neither of
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First Lady Laura Bush traveled to Biloxi, Miss., Tuesday to tape a cameo for an upcoming episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition set in the hurricane-ravaged South. Bush reportedly visited four disaster-relief shelters, where she passed out supplies and hugs to victims. Rumor has it Bush will next visit NBC's Three Wishes, where she'll ask Amy Grant to make her mother-in-law disappear.
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Jennifer Love Hewitt's Medium clone, Ghost Whisperer, hooked a solid 11 million viewers in its debut Friday. The CBS drama ranked as the night's most-watched show. NBC, meanwhile, got a decent performance out of feel-good reality show Three Wishes, which bowed at 9 pm with 8.6 million viewers. Less impressive was the 10 pm premiere of NBC's Inconceivable: The fertility-clinic soap arrived stillborn with 6.4 million viewers.
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I can't be sure, but I think this means we're supposed to get excited about reruns. NBC's frosh series are going to get repeat plays on the net's cable kin. Bravo will reair My Name Is Earl and Inconceivable (as well as sophomore sitcom The Office); USA has dibs on E-Ring and Three Wishes; and Sci Fi gets Surface.
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Question: Am I wrong for thinking something as corny as Ghost Whisperer will be roundly mocked by the critics and still do well? From Touched by an Angel, Dr. Quinn and Diagnosis Murder to, more recently, Judging Amy and The Guardian, it seems like CBS has always realized that there is an audience for a certain type of schmaltzy drama and GW seems to fit the bill. The only alteration seems to be sticking a bunch of really pretty young people in the cast to try to draw some kids in, too. I would like to see it do well for its cast and for Threshold's and Numbers' sake. Any thoughts?
Answer: Good points, and you're no doubt right. I also hope Ghost Whisperer can help, not hurt, Threshold, which will need whatever boost it can get to attract viewers on Fridays. There is a long tradition of criticproof shows that pander to the viewers' heart-strings in a way that some of us find unbearably sappy, and Ghost Whisperer at its worst falls right into that pit. But it does have attractive actors
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