Networks like to issue news on Fridays in the hope that the items will be lost in the ether, and here are some updates that managed to escape.
The back half of the season for SCANDAL is going to be even more rocket-paced than the series already is, because ABC cut the show’s order by 4 episodes today for a 2013-14 total of 18. This wasn’t the usual case where a network reduces an order to lower its financial commitment to a floundering show (see below for an example of that), since Scandal is ABC’s highest-rated drama: star Kerry Washington’s real-life pregnancy is apparently making it impossible for the series to produce its full complement of hours this season. Next week’s fall finale is the season’s 10th episode, meaning that when the show returns, there will only be 8 hours to resolve this year’s boiling stew of torture, murder, betrayal, illicit sex and other assorted craziness.
There will also be less DADS in the spring than originally ordered, as FOX cut its season order from 22 to 19. Despite horrible ratings, the network had issued a full back order a few weeks ago, but then announced that the purported comedy would be losing its timeslot in February when Glee moves back to Tuesdays–and didn’t provide a return date for the series or a new slot. Dads would probably be dead altogether if it weren’t for the Seth MacFarlane connection; as it is, the show will either be used to spackle a schedule gap where needed, or simply burned off next summer.
AMC’s The Killing may have more lives than the undead, but the network’s disastrous LOW WINTER SUN wasn’t so lucky, canceled today after its one and only season. Low Winter Sun squandered the huge lead-in it received from the final episodes of Breaking Bad last fall, and AMC would only have kept it on out of sheer desperation if its entire development slate had cratered. That turned out not to be the case.
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About the Author
Mitch Salem
MITCH SALEM has worked on the business side of the entertainment industry for 20 years, as a senior business affairs executive and attorney for such companies as NBC, ABC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, and BermanBraun Productions, and before that, at the NY law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. During all that, he has more or less constantly been going to the movies and watching TV, and writing about both since the 1980s. His film reviews also currently appear on screened.com and the-burg.com. In addition, he is co-writer of an episode of the television series "Felicity."
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