How Dare NBC Make Us Wait Seven Months for New 30 Rock?
NBC has announced its fall TV schedule, and dropped in an immensely disappointing piece of news: the 30 Rock season premiere date is TBA. They say maybe winter; it's currently May.
The replacement show sounds sorta interesting. It's Community, a single-camera sitcom about community college starring the adorable and lovable and funny Joel McHale (from The Soup). Another installment of that SNL Weekend Update Thursdays will bounce along in the Thursday 8pm slot for a while, hoping to boost Parks & Recreation's 8:30 numbers. Once Community has, in theory, found its footing and the SNL outpost runs out of economy jokes, 30 Rock will return. Sigh. Right now that sounds like a pretty long wait. Why did that damn Peacock have to see its shadow?
Update! An NBC publicist tells us:
The plan for "30 Rock" is to launch its season fairly shortly after the usual fall debuts. We don't have a particular date set, but it's likely to be in the range of three, four or five weeks into the traditional season. There's currently no expectation that the debut would be delayed into the winter.
Hmm. That doesn't actually say that much though, does it? Empty promises, NBC! "Three, four, or five weeks" could still mean mid-November, depending on when this so-called "traditional season" begins. So we're still bummed. We want this shit the day after Labor Day, people!
The other glaring thing on the schedule is just seeing printed, day after day after day, The Jay Leno Show in the 10pm slot. In theory this whole thing sounded infuriating—for us, for Conan, for Boston—but now seeing it actually crammed into the schedule there... Well, it just seems like it's going to be a disaster. Either no one will watch it or everyone will, leaving Conan adrift and lonely there behind the boring buffer of local 11 o'clock news. Only time will tell how it plays out.
In other TV news: Privileged, Without a Trace, and My Name Is Earl have all been canceled. And the Gossip Girl spinoff really has been shot down, as rumored.