ABC Hails "Chief"
President Bush's approval ratings are down. President Allen's are up.
Commander in Chief, ABC's freshman White House drama starring Geena Davis as the more popular Oval Office resident, has gotten its expected full-season pickup.
Also being asked to stay around through May: Invasion.
Commander in Chief is TV's most watched new show, bolstering ABC's Tuesday nights with an average of 16.4 million viewers through its first four air dates. The show's roughest patch has come off camera, where creator Rod Lurie was replaced by TV vet Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue) as the day-to-day executive producer.
Invasion's roughest patch came before the season started, when Hurricane Katrina sent ABC scrambling to pull series promos that had featured a storm. After a big premiere week, the series has tailed off, averaging 12.2 million through Wednesday, but remained tough against CBS' CSI: NY and NBC's Law & Order.
Still, to ensure a second season will follow its first season, Invasion might want to work on its transition game. ABC is losing nearly 10 million viewers each Wednesday from the time when Lost goes off, and Invasion comes on.
With the pickups of Invasion and Commander in Chief, 12 of fall's 31 new shows have been reupped through the spring. Only four freshman series have been axed.
In other TV news:
Living with Fran, Fran Drescher's post-Nanny contribution, has been pulled, but not yet canceled, by the WB. In its place, the WB will air additional episodes of What I Like About You, ensuring that more people than ever won't watch the sitcom. Elsewhere, on the WB, reruns of Supernatural will be slotted into Sunday nights in place of the benched Blue Collar TV. The red states could not be reached for comment. The WB will plug another hole--Just Legal's barely used 9-10 p.m. Monday time slot--with Related. The sibling drama will maintain its Tuesday night presence via reruns. NCIS: CBS' overnight sensation, three seasons in the making, hit a series-high 17.1 million Tuesday night. Fox summer series So You Think You Can Dance has been renewed for a second season. The competition show will hit the dance floor again in Summer 2006.






0 Comments
Now loading...