Mid-season, the Fox way

Pretty slow day for the blog, what with no column to link to and only one show I watched last night. I spent the better part of today panning "Viva Laughlin" for tomorrow's column, but I wanted to make note of Fox's latest scheduling announcement: that "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (previously known simply as "The Sarah Connor Chronicles") will debut Monday, January 14 and will be paired with "24" going forward. (You can read the full press release over at Rich Heldenfels' blog if you want.)

I don't blog about every scheduling announcement, especially one this relatively far in the future, but I can never resist taking note of when Fox's actual mid-season schedule diverges -- as it so often does -- from the one they announce every May at the upfronts. At the upfronts, "Sarah Connor" was slated to air on Sundays at 9 (the old "X-Files" slot), while "K-Ville" would be moving from Monday at 9 to Monday at 8 to accomodate the return of "24." (As you can see in the release, "Prison Break" will take another mid-season hiatus after Dec. 17 and will be back in April '08, which was roughly the plan all along.)

What this means for the Sunday schedule -- where "Family Guy" was going to move to 8:30 and "King of the Hill" and "American Dad" to the 7 o'clock hour -- isn't clear, but this is essentially curtains for "K-Ville," I would think. Meanwhile, Fox has shut down production on "New Amsterdam" (which was originally on the fall schedule but got bumped by "Don't Forget the Lyrics!") after producing seven episodes, and reduced the episode order on "The Return of Jezebel James" from 13 to seven.

Not that I liked either "New Amsterdam" or "Jezebel James" -- or, for that matter, "Sarah Connor," which could sorely do with a new star (Lena Headey brings neither the muscles nor the crazy you expect from the character) -- but it does seem odd that, while so many other parts of the entertainment industry is stockpiling material in the event of a writers' strike, Fox would reduce the amount of material coming through the pipeline. Maybe they're more optimistic than the rest of us?

Anyway, I look forward to seeing whether "New Amsterdam" ever airs or joins the ranks of "Hollyweird," "Still Life," "The Grubbs," "The Ortegas," "Rewind," "Septuplets," "Schimmel" and "Manchester Prep" on the long and distinguished list of scheduled but never aired Fox shows, and to mocking the schedule again come May... assuming the strike isn't still going on and I'm in the middle of a twelve-martini lunch at the time to drown my sorrows.