ABC is exercising its prerogative--and its contract--to keep the comedy series about vapid Beverly Hills high schoolers on its airwaves, and off rival UPN's, as long as possible.
Not that ABC is any great fan of the show--it canceled the series this spring. (UPN, doing that scrappy, upstart-network thing, gladly snapped up the castoff and plopped it onto its fall schedule.)
ABC's sudden devotion to Clueless is apparently a matter of principle--that, and maybe it's a little tired of seeing its discards get somebody else ratings. Come the fall, ABC's long-running "T.G.I.F." Friday-night comedy block nearly will have been picked clean--with veterans Family Matters and Step by Step moving to CBS, and Clueless UPN-bound.
The reason the Clueless situation is trickier than the two CBS defections is that UPN is planning to launch its "fall" shows as early as August, otherwise known as "late summer." Reruns on the big networks typically run through mid-September.
Now, ABC could do the neighborly thing and let Clueless go free early, allowing it to join UPN's August premieres. But the TV ratings game isn't about making friends. The net is expected to air its reruns until its deal with show producer Paramount Network Television runs out--and then, and only then, will Paramount-owned UPN start running season number two.
Clueless is a spinoff of writer-director Amy Heckerling's 1995 sleeper hit of the same name. The sly update of Jane Austen's Emma shot Alicia Silverstone to stardom. (She wouldn't be Batgirl on 2,000-plus movie screens everywhere this weekend without it.)
But its TV version, starring Rachel Blanchard in the Silverstone role, wasn't as hot a property. It ended the 1996-97 TV season ranked a so-so No. 51 out of 164 shows. While that wasn't good enough for hit-starved ABC, it was great for the even more hit-starved UPN. (The sitcom was watched by twice as many people each week as the highest-rated UPN show.)
UPN plans to air Clueless Tuesdays at 8 p.m.