Now that baseball season is officially over, the real competition begins for the Fox network.
That's because coverage of the baseball playoffs forced the young-skewing network to push premieres for more than half of its new fall schedule to this week and next. That's about five weeks past the official start of the fall season, Sept. 22.
It's a double-edged sword Fox faces every year. Advertisers love the hordes of young male viewers delivered by baseball coverage; these guys also are a perfect audience for new-show promos.
But baseball also forces a scattershot approach to debuting new series, keeping the network from presenting all its fall shows in a simultaneous blizzard of hype. Some of Fox's most anticipated new series will arrive at the start of November's crucial sweeps ratings period (it begins Thursday), when many viewers have set their viewing habits.
Small wonder, then, that Fox became the first network to officially cancel a show, putting character actor Luis Guzman's Friday night sitcom travesty Luis, doomed by its poor quality and awful time slot, out of its misery. (The other Friday shows that debuted in September, comic Wanda Sykes' Wanda at Large and David E. Kelley's Boston Public, are also floundering.)
By comparison, CBS this week handed full-season orders to five of its six new shows, which all debuted in September: The Handler, Joan of Arcadia, Two and Half Men, Cold Case and Navy NCIS. Only Kelley's troubled Wednesday family drama, The Brotherhood of Poland, N.H., which stopped production last week, failed to make the cut.
Here's a look at what is to come in Fox's lineup, along with a little handicapping based on how the season has already played out. Remember, except for the TV suits whose jobs are on the line, this is for entertainment purposes only.
Tonight
8, That '70s Show; 8:30, A Minute With Stan Hooper; 9, The O.C.
ODDS FOR SUCCESS: 5 to 1.
THE LOWDOWN: The success of an early run of The O.C., launched in August as a summer series, prompted Fox to kick The Bernie Mac Show to Sunday and bump Cedric the Entertainer's lame-o sketch comedy show off the schedule, vacating the 9 p.m. hour. Still, Wednesday is the big leagues. The O.C., a drama about a poor, at-risk teen brought to wealthy Orange County, Calif., will fight for young viewers with the WB's Angel, for wealthy viewers with NBC's The West Wing and for female viewers with ABC's The Bachelor. Earlier in the night, the only meaningful competition for Saturday Night Live alum Norm Macdonald's turn as an Andy Rooney-style TV commentator in A Minute With Stan Hooper is ABC's middling comedy It's All Relative at 8:30 and NBC's hour-long Ed at 8.
Thursday
8 p.m., Tru Calling; 9, Skin.
ODDS FOR SUCCESS: 15 to 1.
THE LOWDOWN: Former Buffy co-star Eliza Dushku is thrown to the wolves at 8, facing the final season of NBC's hit Friends and CBS's potent reality hit Survivor. Her only weapon? A weak drama about a smart-yet-underachieving beauty who finds that dead people speak to her, sending her back in time, Groundhog Day-style, to solve their murders (yes, it makes no sense). For this, viewers will miss Phoebe's engagement and Rupert's domination of the game? This week's episode of Skin is a repeat of an episode you probably avoided when it first aired Monday. Expect most couch potatoes to watch CBS's CSI or NBC's Will and Grace.
Sunday
8 p.m., The Simpsons; 9, Malcolm in the Middle; 9:30, Arrested Development.
ODDS FOR SUCCESS: 3 to 1.
THE LOWDOWN: This could be the funniest night in prime time, with The Simpson's classic, belated Halloween "Treehouse of Horror" episode airing Sunday and Bernie Mac joining the lineup at 8:30 p.m. Nov. 9. Arrested Development, the network's newest dysfunctional family comedy, plays like The Royal Tenenbaums meets The Wonder Years. Hogan Family alum Jason Bateman is the sole sane member of a wealthy family brought low by criminal indictments that cut off its money, forcing some members to - gasp! - seek employment. (Producer Ron Howard is the narrator.) Sure, the 9:30 Sunday slot has killed off many a Fox show, but with the WB's Tarzan and ABC's Alias floundering, Arrested Development has a shot at a young audience that finds NBC's third Law & Order spinoff, Criminal Intent, a bit too old-school.
