Even television networks shop secondhand these days.
Rather than bear the high cost of developing all their new programs on their own, four of the six networks are picking up series for next television season that started life in another network’s closet.
In the case of upstarts WB and UPN, where the idea of turning a profit is somewhere in the future, this kind of penny-pinching move isn’t surprising. WB is already enjoying success, on its limited terms, with ABC castoff “Sister, Sister.” Next season it adds another sitcom about cute siblings, the Lawrence brothers’ “Brotherly Love,” to its lineup after NBC let the show go this year.
UPN for next year grabs NBC reject “In the House,” the LL Cool J and Debbie Allen sitcom, even though UPN’s addition this year of another ex-NBC program, “Minor Adjustments,” didn’t pan out.
But according to the fall plans the networks unveiled in the past two weeks–which also included announcements that Bill Cosby, Michael J. Fox and Ted Danson will join Don Johnson in returning to series television–even the established networks are sorting through the racks at television’s version of the Salvation Army.
CBS grabs NBC’s military action hour “JAG” (which ABC reportedly also wanted). And NBC, sorting through ABC’s discard pile, finds something it likes in “The Jeff Foxworthy Show,” the flaccid vehicle for the popularizer of jokes about rednecks.
The motive for such a move isn’t always monetary. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of fit. “JAG,” a throwback to the days when dramatic series had stars rather than ensembles, blends better with the more traditional programming on CBS than with NBC’s edgier fare.
Sometimes it’s to show you’re smarter than the other guy. NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield says he and his staff carefully tracked the performance of “Foxworthy” as it bounced around the ABC schedule in this, its rookie season, and saw it doing well among young adult viewers and also holding much of the audience that its predecessors handed over.
Though it may not fit with the rest of NBC’s programs, NBC thinks “Foxworthy” is a hit-in-waiting, and if it’s correct–as it was when it picked up “3rd Rock From the Sun,” which ABC developed but never aired–then the upstaging of its competitor will make success even more sweet.
But in an atmosphere where almost every new show you throw at the wall is destined to slide off anyway, and where a show’s success or failure often seems a matter of kismet, attempted recycling makes perfect sense.
Another kind of recycling was at work in the fall primetime programming announcements of CBS (Wednesday) and ABC (Monday): the return to the small screen of actors who became stars via TV, then had only limited luck translating that success into movie stardom. Fox announced its lineup Tuesday, with the big news being the move of “The X-Files” from Fridays to Sundays. (NBC’s fall lineup was unveiled the week before and was detailed in Monday’s column.)
CBS retrenches
In its bid to recapture past glories, CBS will give us, between 7 and 8 p.m. Mondays, Bill Cosby and Ted Danson back to back, as they almost were in the late 1980s, when “The Cosby Show” and Danson’s “Cheers” led NBC to domination of Thursday night viewing.
In Cosby’s new show, called “Cosby,” he stars as a cranky downsized guy railing about the world and forcing his wife (Phylicia Rashad, again) to listen. A CBS preview clip seemed promising enough, though Cosby’s demeanor veered more toward hapless than crotchety.
Danson stars, with real-life wife Mary Steenburgen, in “Ink,” a sitcom about a once-married couple trying to continue to work together as newspaper reporters; in a real newsroom the kind of gagging cuteness they displayed in preview would get them shipped out to a distant bureau in no time.
Trying to be friendly to its traditional, older viewers again (after the debacle this season of “Central Park West”), CBS will spin “Home of the Brave” (7 p.m. Tuesdays) off of surprise hit “Touched by an Angel.” Gerald McRaney stars as the male head of a family that travels America’s highways, in search of one sappy moment after another, to judge by a brief preview clip CBS offered. “Touched” goes into the 7 p.m. Sunday, post-“60 Minutes” spot so successful for “Murder, She Wrote.”
Replacing “Touched” at 8 p.m. Saturday will be “Early Edition,” an intriguing new show about a Chicago guy who magically gets the next day’s paper delivered a day early and then uses the information to prevent evil or do good. Get this: It`s the Sun-Times.
Other familiar faces in new roles for CBS: Ken Olin of “thirtysomething” stars with Jason Gedrick of “Murder One” in a gritty-looking police drama, also set in Chicago (“EZ Streets,” 9 p.m. Wednesdays); Scott Bakula of “Quantum Leap” returns to series TV in “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” about a male-female spy team (8 p.m. Fridays); Peter Strauss, king of the miniseries, tries his hand at a maxiseries, “Moloney,” about a cop-shrink (8 p.m. Thursdays); and Rhea Perlman (“Cheers”) and Malcolm McDowell (“A Clockwork Orange”) play a back-to-college student and her self-important professor in the sitcom “Pearl” (7:30 p.m. Wednesdays).
The charming sitcom “Almost Perfect,” starring Nancy Travis as a frazzled television writer, and “Nash Bridges,” starring Don Johnson as a wisecracking cop, are the only CBS shows new for 1995-96 that will be back for 1996-97. NBC discard “JAG” will be a midseason replacement series for CBS. Missing in action: “Rescue: 911,” “The Client” and “Due South.”
Fox spots the `X’
At Fox, there was less flux, as the network will continue to try to make the gains in advertiser-coveted younger viewers that have marked its rise.
The biggest news is that Rupert Murdoch’s network is moving its Friday night hit “The X-Files” to 8 p.m. Sundays, where there are about 25 percent more viewers and a lot more advertising dollars available, and where the competition on other networks is movies.
In the moody drama’s old slot Fox will air a new series from “X-Files” creator and executive producer Chris Carter. Called “Millennium,” it stars Lance Henriksen (“The Terminator”) as an FBI veteran with the ability to enter the minds of psychopathic killers. The preview wasn’t especially enticing, but drama series tend not to show well in preview tapes.
To make way for “X-Files,” “Married. . .with Children” finally moves off of Sunday nights to Saturdays (8 p.m.), which could signal the beginning of the end for the vulgar veteran. Fox also offers “L.A. Firefighters,” a new dramatic series for 6 p.m. Sundays that looks like it’s trying to be “ER” with hoses and face soot.
In the comedy department, Fox offers “Party Girl,” starring Christine Taylor (a terrific Marcia in “The Brady Bunch Movie”) as a New York club kid (8 p.m. Mondays); “Lush Life,” about female roommates in California (8:30 p.m. Mondays); and “Come Fly with Me,” about a working class family where the husband works days, the wife nights (8:30 p.m. Saturdays).
Shows that didn’t make the cut: “Partners,” the fine freshman sitcom starring Jon Cryer; “Space: Above and Beyond” and “America’s Most Wanted.” “Ned and Stacey” was the only 1995-96 newcomer to survive.
ABC has Fox, too
ABC’s big news was that Michael J. Fox, longtime star of “Family Ties,” will return to the tube in “Spin City,” playing a New York deputy mayor (8:30 p.m. Tuesdays).
Among its raft of new shows to combat a major ratings decline, ABC also sticks former film star Molly Ringwald in a sitcom. She’ll star as one of a group of friends in a New England town in “Townies” (7:30 p.m. Wednesdays).
ABC has signed ex-movie star Jim Belushi for a midseason sitcom about a Chicago blues club manager, and two more ABC newcomers are based on movies without the movie stars: “Clueless” and “Dangerous Minds.”
ABC surprised many with its announcement that the low-rated but critically praised “Murder One” would return, and it would return without star Daniel Benzali.
ABC is also bringing back “The Drew Carey Show,” a sitcom of modest charms, “High Incident,” a police dramatic series that tries to invoke “Hill Street Blues,” and “Second Noah,” a family drama involving lots of animals and children.
“Muppets Tonight,” “Step by Step” and “Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper” didn’t make the schedule but are set for midseason replacement work.
