An Office Wedding, and NBC Cancels Southland

TV’s most romantic couple, Jim and Pam, tied the knot last night in an episode of NBC’s The Office that looked to be as much fun for cast and crew to make as it was for me to watch. When the show has expanded to an hour in the past, it’s felt forced, as if deleted scenes had been tacked back on to pad the hour because the story being told couldn’t actually support the extra length. The wedding episode, though, was perfect in every way, from the opening scene in which the entire office broke into chain reaction vomiting (not the most traditional way to start a wedding episode) to Jim’s tear-jerking toast gone wrong (he unintentionally revealed Pam is pregnant in front of some very conservative family members) to the delightful, You Tube-inspired dance down the aisle that capped the hour. Other highlights: Andy spending the night on Pam's hotel room floor after tearing his scrotum while doing the splits; Dwight being less grating than usual, even as he acted the womanizer; Oscar’s outrage at being mistaken for the slovenly Kevin’s boyfriend; and Michael’s well-intentioned but misbegotten attempts to speak at the rehearsal dinner. Congratulations to the happy couple, and to The Office, for producing an hour that was pure bliss from beginning to end.

In other NBC news, the network has decided to cancel police drama Southland two weeks before its sophomore season was set to premiere. Variety reports that the show’s expensive license fee was the culprit, a figure the net couldn’t justify when episodes of Dateline NBC, a much cheaper show, would likely perform as well as, if not better than, Southland in the ratings. And so Dateline will remain in that Friday 9pm time slot, one less hour of scripted programming on a schedule already dominated by the under-performing Jay Leno Show.

NBC is truly a network in trouble. Heroes is down for the third straight year, now hovering just above five million viewers (it had about 14 million at its season-one peak); new dramas Trauma and Mercy aren’t exactly providing good medicine; the once dependable Law & Order: SVU has seen its audience drop significantly since moving to the earlier 9pm time period; and the net’s Thursday comedy block is a shadow of its former Must See TV self. The only thing currently working in NBC’s favor is Sunday Night Football, but that’ll be gone come January, and the net has never been able to translate strong NFL numbers into any real success on Sunday night in winter and spring (two hours of The Celebrity Apprentice—needless overkill to be sure—is the closest thing they’ve had to a hit on the night in years).

What’s the solution to all this negativity? Consider NBC to be the pit that organizers are trying to turn into a park on the network’s own failing comedy Parks and Recreation. By taking away its 10pm options and killing off shows like Southland before they’ve even gotten a chance to prove themselves, the network is only widening the pit. To fill it back up, Leno’s gotta go, quality has to start trumping ego, and NBC programmers have to treat their airwaves as more than a commodity. Viewers are often accused of being sheep-like in their habits, but they know when the wool is being pulled over their eyes. Time to take out the shears, NBC, before you end up losing all sense of dignity.