Upfront Watch: NBC

NBC's first in the rotation to announce their schedule during Upfront Week. You can read the full release here, but I'll post the basic schedule and some quick thoughts after the jump, before I have to hop on a conference call with Reilly and Zucker...

NBC PRIMETIME SCHEDULE FOR FALL 2007-08

*New programs in CAPS (with the exception of "ER")

MONDAY
8-9 p.m. "Deal or No Deal"
9-10 p.m. "Heroes"
10-11 p.m. "JOURNEYMAN"

TUESDAY
8-9 p.m. "The Biggest Loser"
9-10 p.m. "CHUCK"
10-11 p.m. "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"

WEDNESDAY
8-9 p.m. "Deal or No Deal"
9-10 p.m. "BIONIC WOMAN"
10-11 p.m. "LIFE"

THURSDAY
8-8:30 p.m. "My Name Is Earl"
8:30-9 p.m. "30 Rock"
9-9:30 p.m. "The Office"
9:30-10 p.m. "Scrubs"
10-11 p.m. "ER"

FRIDAY
8-9 p.m. "1 vs 100"/"THE SINGING BEE"
9-10 p.m. "Las Vegas"
10-11 p.m. "Friday Night Lights"

SATURDAY
8-9 p.m. "Dateline NBC"
9-11 p.m. Drama Series Encores

SUNDAY (Fall 2007)
7-8 p.m. "Football Night in America"
8-11 p.m. "NBC Sunday Night Football"

SUNDAY (January 2008)
7-8 p.m. "Dateline NBC"
8-9 p.m. "Law & Order"
9-10 p.m. "Medium"
10-11 p.m. "LIPSTICK JUNGLE"

Some initial thoughts:

• While I'm glad they renewed "Friday Night Lights" (I think; see my concerns in the season finale post), a Friday timeslot is a guarantee the show won't ever expand its audience. A lot of teenagers are out in general, and fans of high school football in particular are out at actual high school football games. So dumping the show here -- and at a fairly late hour for what's, for the most part, a family show -- is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe this was the only way Reilly could get permission to bring it back, by putting it in a timeslot where nothing's expected of it.
• I love the Thursday comedy bloc, but it's been in the tank for months, and the only real change is the swap of "30 Rock" and "The Office." Les Moonves is gonna have a field day with this at the CBS upfront.
• Also, they're doing 30 total half-hours of "The Office" (including five one-hour episodes), 25 "My Name Is Earl"s and a combined 30 episodes of "Heroes" and a quasi spin-off called "Heroes: Origins" designed to introduce new characters outside the flow of the regular storylines. An interesting way to combat reruns, but I worry that the creative teams on these shows are going to burn themselves out doing so many. ("The Office" has shown that there's close to an hour of material in a regular episode anyway, so it's the additional half-hour episodes I'm concerned about, I guess.)
• "Law & Order" gets saved for mid-season, even though they ordered 22 episodes, and there's no word on where "Criminal Intent" will air after its initial runs on USA -- or what the casts of both the mothership and "CI" will look like.
• I've heard good things about "Chuck" (plus it's Josh Schwartz, so I'm kind of obligated to watch), and I'll watch anything with Damian Lewis in it, so "Life" will go to the top of the Pilot Watch pile when it arrives. "Bionic Woman" could be interesting, though how much of the genius of "Battlestar Galactica" is Ron Moore (not involved here) and how much is David Eick?

What does everybody else think?