Fall 2010: NBC Likes Writers Again

With NBC announcing so many of its new series pickups over the last few weeks, there wasn’t much to be decided but the actual placement of its shows on the fall schedule. The network got a head start on its official upfront presentation, which takes place tomorrow, by making said schedule public today, probably so that it doesn’t have to share as much Monday evening/Tuesday morning headline space with Fox, which also announces its fall plans tomorrow. The key observation: After last fall's Leno debacle created less real estate for scripted shows, the network has done an about face and scheduled dramas across the board, Monday through Friday at 10pm.

Monday nights continue to be anchored by Chuck, a marginal success at best, but a show that has proven reliable for the network on what has become a tough night for them to gain traction in recent years. Progressing with an action theme, NBC welcomes two new dramas, The Event (regular guy gets embroiled in the U.S.’s biggest conspiracy ever) and Chase (Jerry Bruckheimer show about U.S. marshals tracking fugitives). It’s always a risk scheduling two unproven shows back-to-back, and the network takes a chance that audiences will be just plain fatigued if they stick around for all three hours.

Tuesdays stay exactly as they were this spring, with The Biggest Loser leading into Parenthood. This is an extreme vote of confidence for the recently-introduced family drama, once again being given the benefit of one of the net’s highest-rated lead-ins.

Wednesdays see Law & Order: Special Victims Unit sandwiched between two freshman dramas: J.J. Abrams’s high-profile Undercovers and the latest entry in the L&O franchise, Law & Order: Los Angeles. SVU had a hard time in the 9pm slot last fall so it’s a bit surprising to see it moved there again, especially when it’s made some recent strides to get back on track in its current 10pm slot. As with Mondays, the network could be asking too much of audiences if they expect them to stick around for two hours of Law & Order, not to mention that another spinoff may be seem as unnecessary overkill at this point. Undercovers, about married former spies who get pulled back into the espionage game, is a question mark; Abrams’s name alone may not be quite enough to sell a series (witness Fringe), but the concept, along with what will likely be an aggressive marketing campaign, will probably ensure some healthy initial sampling.

The network sticks with a two-hour comedy block on Thursdays, with sophomore Community leading into 30 Rock, followed by The Office and newcomer Outsourced, about an American company with a call center in India. Then at 10pm, it’s Love Bites, a romantic anthology series that will feature two new stories and one ongoing story (with My Boys’ Jordana Spiro and Ugly Betty’s Becki Newton) each week. There’s nothing here that indicates NBC will suddenly see a spike in viewership for these decidedly niche comedies, and it seems like it’s been decades since an anthology series worked. (Parks and Recreation, by the way, will be held for midseason.)

This year’s midseason entry Who Do You Think You Are? returns to Fridays at 8pm, sharing the time slot with School Pride, a reality show that doubles as an outreach project as communities attempt to fix their troubled public schools. Dateline NBC continues at 9pm, and Jimmy Smits’s Outlaw has the misfortune of capping off the evening. Given NBC’s inability to launch a drama in the Friday 10pm time period of late (anyone remember Inconceivable or Medical Investigation?), look for Outlaw—which comes from Conan O’Brien’s production company and has Smits playing a former Supreme Court Justice turned private lawyer—to be one of the season’s early casualties.

Saturdays will be the wasteland they have been in recent years, with drama repeats filling the schedule. And as always, Sundays in the fall are reserved for NFL highlight/pregame show Football Night in America and Sunday Night Football.

Out at the Peacock are Heroes (which some had speculated might get a chance to wrap things up with a shortened episode order or even as a two-hour movie, the latter still apparently up for discussion); both of its medical dramas, Mercy and Trauma; and the original Law & Order, which was unceremoniously dumped last week with no notice to give producers the chance to craft an actual series finale after twenty years on the air. That last decision just goes to show that no matter what NBC tries to do to change its fate, they're never afraid to make a move destined to piss off loyal viewers.