Today in New York, NBC announced its new schedules for fall, winter and next summer. Here's the news you need to know:
NBC Photo: Michael Yarish
UPDATES (1 p.m.)
- There will be 28 Office half-hours to be produced next season, and 19 hours of ER.
- Two awesome redheads are better than one: Donal Logue is joining Life as Reese and Crews' new police captain boss! Cool!
- Friday Night Lights episodes will premiere in the fall on DirecTV months before episodes re-air on NBC in the winter. Good news for DirecTV, bad news for fans who are stuck with cable?
- Per the official release, "Heroes will come back with a bang owing to a major event in the fall." Will this bang be a nuclear explosion in New York City, or something else?
NBC Photo: Bill Records
RETURNING SERIES HIGHLIGHTS
- Good news: Just as I was told by one of the castmembers last month (still not pictured above), Friday Night Lights is renewed!! Whee! Look for a premiere in its usual Friday at 9 p.m. slot this winter, right after the real football season ends.
- Bad news: Scrubs is gone from the NBC schedule.
- Good news: So as we reported last week, Scrubs is going to ABC. Yay!
- ER is returning for a 15th season, as we reported back in February.
- Heroes and Chuck are back on Mondays, at 8 and 9 p.m. respectively.
- Life is moving to Fridays at 10.
NBC Photo: Nicole Rivelli
- Lipstick Jungle has been renewed! Brooke Shields and the girls will be back this fall at 10 p.m. on Wednesdays.
- Law & Order: SVU returns fall for Tuesdays at 10 p.m.; original-recipe Law & Order returns this winter for Wednesdays at 10 p.m.
- Um, where is Medium? Can someone tell me how NBC seems to have misplaced Joe DuBois? He's extremely good-looking and funny, about 6-feet tall, shaggy hair, and missing from the NBC listings. Anyone seen him? Updated! That was close. CBS Paramount, which produces the show, assures me that NBC has picked up Medium for a fifth season (Sundays at 9 p.m.), but the exact midseason premiere date is still undetermined. Whew!
NEW SERIES HIGHLIGHTS
- One of the few newly developed scripted comedies is Kath & Kim, a remake of an Australian show. It's produced by Reveille, the company Ben Silverman founded but no longer profits from as part of his gig as NBC network boss. Kath & Kim stars Molly Shannon and Selma Blair as a mother and daughter with a dysfunctional relationship.
- The new Knight Rider, which NBC premiered as a movie of the week in February, is gonna be a continuing series! Awww, I'm having childhood TV flashbacks. Remember how they had the lab in the truck? Awesome!
- Fridays at 8 p.m., look for Crusoe, a castaway series based on Daniel Defoe's famous novel, now in the public domain and ripe for TV showification.
- The Philanthropist, premiering this winter on Mondays at 10 p.m., is about a rich guy whose money is the superpower he uses to fight crime and help the helpless. The Philanthropist comes from Tom Fontana (Homicide, Oz) and Barry Levinson, so it might just rock.