Confused and Irritable

I don’t know what Ezra is, but if Better Than Ezra lives up to their name, Ezra must SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Spokesman: For years, I suffered from itchy, flaky scalp. I tried every product on the market. Then I heard about Trilocaine.

Announcer: Trilocaine. Prescription medication for serious scalp itch. Possible side effects include dry mouth, or loss of appetite. Some users may experience dizziness or nausea. And 90 percent of users experience an instantaneous and horrifying sleep-paralysis containing a bleak vision of mortality. If you’re one of those 90 percent, after taking Trilocaine, you’ll slip into unconsciousness and feel yourself stepping through a looking glass into a “not-world”. There, you’ll meet your identical twin. The doppleganger points at you and laughs, a chattering skull-like laugh, then turns into a screeching falcon and flies off towards the blood-red sun.

Suddenly, you’re on a viking ship, skimming across a lake of white-cold fire. You feel nothing. An emptiness, perhaps. Somewhere, a lone snow dog howls o’er the wint’ry plains. You try to scream, but blood pours from your mouth, coalescing into the form of a hideous infant smoking a long pipe. His rage is blinding. At last, you find yourself poised before two doors. One leads to eternal joy, the other to hellish misery. Choose correctly, and you’ll drift back to consciousness… with a moist, itch-free scalp.

Another side effect is mild flatulence.

Ask your doctor about Trilocaine.

So the news is coming in that, on Monday, NBC will announce their renewals and pickups for the 2012-2013 season. Among the rumors and inside reports is the potential news that 30 Rock will be getting a shortened final season. Along with that, there is talk that Parks & Recreation and Community will both be getting shortened season orders, potentially as final seasons if any of the new shows NBC has ordered do well. Finally, The Office will probably close out next year as it’s last (if the rumored reinvention of the show doesn’t take) and is expected to be replaced by a long-discussed spinoff featuring Dwight running his family’s farm.

The news is disheartening for fans of all these shows, but probably not surprising. NBC has been bleeding viewers for years, and no matter how critically acclaimed these shows were, they just never attracted the same number of eyeballs that other networks are (at least, going by traditional neilsen ratings, but that’s a whole other rant for another day). As well, there’s just not much else fans can do. Alec Baldwin has been wanting to leave 30 Rock for a while, and it’s only getting more expensive with each renewal to have that caliber of an ensemble cast. On top of that, it’s already been put into syndication. Community and Parks are in a better spot for the moment, but only insofar as a renewal for next year. Both shows are set to reach their respective syndication marks next year, if given enough episodes. This will probably be the case, no matter how little money they’re making at the moment. However, after they reach that milestone, the future of the shows entirely rely on being profitable episode-by-episode. At the ratings they’re getting, I don’t think they are. Without the carrot of syndication to dangle in front of programming executives, there are no more excuses that can be made for keeping these shows around.

Or is there?

NBC is desperate to clean house after 2 years of trying to mix returning shows with new pilots. It’s never worked before, so they think clearing the deck and starting with an entirely new lineup is the way to go. The problem is, this has never, ever happened in the history of their network on Thursday nights, and for good reason. For reference, let’s take a look at one of their most famous transition years: 1993. Only two shows made it over from the previous year’s Thursday schedule; Seinfeld and Wings. They could have moved Wings OR Seinfeld to any other night, but kept both on Thursdays to anchor the hours, because that was the smart strategy. To NBC’s fortune, Frasier took off like a rocket, so by the end of the season they had enough hit shows to move to other nights while holding the anchor positions.

If NBC renews their entire current Thursday lineup for final seasons without plans for at least ONE of them to maybe get an extra season, just for the sake of familiarity, they are going to royally screw themselves. 30 Rock is, from what’s being said, guaranteed to end. The Office is going to end, according to inside reports and talk from the creators, but NBC isn’t worried because they have the Dwight spinoff. That’s their “Frasier”. The thing is, you cant expect the crowd who liked The Office to show back up on Thursday if its a sea of unfamiliar shows. You NEED that one show people are familiar with as an anchor, and as a lead-in for the other hour. Since it’s very likely both Parks & Rec and Community will get enough episodes for syndication next year, it will probably come down to which does better, which is cheaper, and which is more likely to make an audience come back after a long summer. NBC is going to try building up all these new comedies next year, but the past few years have taught us that we can at most expect 1 or 2 to actually make it. So what NBC needs to do is keep one of their existing shows around for a final season in the 2013-2014 year, as it transitions over to a mostly-new lineup.

In my opinion, the season after next (Fall 2013) at the very LEAST should look like:
8:00 Community or Parks & Recreation
8:30 New Show
9:00 Office Spinoff with Dwight
9:30 New Show

It’s one less time slot NBC can debut a new show in, but that schedule certainly seems a lot less intimidating to the average viewer than:
8:00 New Show
8:30 New Show
9:00 Office Spinoff with Dwight
9:30 New Show

Doesn’t it?

“Future generations will look back on TV as the lead in the water pipes that slowly drove the Romans mad.” - Kurt Vonnegut