March, 2009 Update: Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, Eli Stone and Life On Mars have all been canceled. For the latest prospects on current ABC shows click here.
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The Futon Critic is reporting a mid-season schedule for ABC, citing the network's advertising sales web site.
Eli Stone sticks around on Tuesdays at 10pm, but both Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money are off the schedule. Life on Mars, which originally was rumored would air after Lost on Wednesdays at 10pm looks to be replaced by new series, The Unusuals.
If true, which seems highly likely, multiple fandoms will be disappointed. Life on Mars being out, and Eli Stone being in may surprise some (and certainly the Renew/Cancel index). But as one insider explained to me earlier in the week, one advantage Eli Stone had, particularly over Dirty Sexy Money was that while it aired at 10pm, it could potentially air anywhere in the schedule, whereas Dirty Sexy Money was a show that could only air at 10pm. The thought being if the show can get some traction, it gives ABC more flexibility with scheduling than keeping Dirty Sexy Money would've.
Update just for clarification: this information, even if correct is not predictive of some things. For example, that Life on Mars isn't on the schedule below doesn't really mean much by itself. It doesn't mean it will be yanked from the schedule and as the comments below note, it's quite possible that LOM would air after Lost until March, before being replaced by The Unusuals. I think it highly unlikely that most of the shows -- whether they're cancelled or not -- wouldn't get to air all produced episodes. For some of these series, we may have to wait until May and the announced fall 2009 schedules before we really know their fates.
The Futon Critic article predicts official announcements from ABC sometime next week.
Here is the reported schedule:
Mondays
8:00/7:00c - "The Bachelor" (New Season)
9:30/8:30c - "Samantha Who?"
10:00/9:00c - "True Beauty" (New Series)
Tuesdays
8:00/7:00c - "Border Security USA" (New Series)
9:00/8:00c - "According to Jim" (New Season)
9:30/8:30c - "According to Jim" (New Season)
10:00/9:00c - "Eli Stone"
Wednesdays
8:00/7:00c - "Scrubs" (New Season)
8:30/7:30c - "The Goode Family" (New Series)
9:00/8:00c - "Lost" (New Season)
10:00/9:00c - "The Unusuals" (New Series)
Thursdays
8:00/7:00c - "Ugly Betty"
9:00/8:00c - "Grey's Anatomy"
10:00/9:00c - "Private Practice" (New Time Slot)
Fridays
8:00/7:00c - "Wife Swap"
9:00/8:00c - "Supernanny"
10:00/9:00c - "20/20"
Saturdays
8:00/7:00c - "Saturday Night Movie"
Sundays
7:00/6:00c - "America's Funniest Home Videos"
8:00/7:00c - "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"
9:00/8:00c - "Desperate Housewives"
10:00/9:00c - "Brothers & Sisters"
Sad to see PD pretty much officially gone now, but as the article suggested, it may come back later. Hope’s not over yet!
PD has to move to ABC FAMILY. Send as many mails as you can guys. It survive much longer there and fits the channel perfectly.
The way ABC has worked recently is they will announce new shows and air times. We may not get any “X canceled,” announcements. I’m still shocked on the LOM news.
Also this isn’t “final,” yet either. ABC still has to pick at time slot for CASTLE which they are still planning on airing in JANUARY according to one person I know at ABC.
eli stone over life on mars? im confused on this move ABC.
Funny how they *have to* find spot for Castle but air reality crap like Border Security on a nice time spot no questions asked. Ditch that and put Castle there, problem solved.
Alyssa Milano’s show really won’t see the light of day…
Networks rarely announce shows being cancelled, instead they just announce new schedules with some shows missing. I’m only “shocked” about LOM in relation to Eli Stone, and given the last couple of weeks, I’m not shocked at all, But you’re right Nick, until the official announcement they could change what the advertisers see multiple times (allegedly they have changed that at least once already), but it seems unlikely it will change much.
I’d try Castle in According to Jim’s hour. it’s not like ATJ is gonna be a big lead in for Eli Stone…but didn’t ABC just cut the orders for Castle and The Unusuals?
Alde, I’d hardly call “up against American Idol” a nice time slot for a reality show…or any show, really.
CASTLE, CUPID, and BETTER OFF TED have yet to be added to the schedule. If I was to guess they will air in some of those reality spots. I believe all three were cut from 13 episode orders to 10 recently.
I should swap ‘Border USA Security’ with the comedies
Robert, yes this “schedule,” from ABC changed just in the last week. You had LOM switched out with THE UNUSUALS, and THE GOODE FAMILY in place of back to back SCRUBS.
BETTER OFF TED is 30 minutes right? Perhaps it will get one of the ATJ slots.
We’ll hopefully get it laid out for us next week on which shows will be Winter debuts and which ones Spring. LOM may well air on WED after LOST in the Winter and be replaced in the Spring by THE UNUSUALS for instance.
We just don’t know yet, and using stagepass doesn’t provide the answers for that. We’ll hopefully hear all the announcements next week.
The Alysa Milano comedy was already “canceled.”
I tought that the Courney Cox sitcom was ready for January.
After next week’s scheduled airing of LOM (I don’t think it’s scheduled the following week — Thanksgiving) there will be six left assuming an order of 13. The ratings have been OK for LOM (although it dropped to a 2.6 w/18-49s after the Patriots fans in Boston watching the game on ABC were pulled out), I could see ABC running reruns and other stuff in December and saving the six episodes for the Lost launch, and then replacing it with The Unusuals after that.
In this day and age, especially with the economy I can’t imagine LOM gets yanked from the schedule before airing all its episodes — seems probable that almost all the cancelled series will air their produced shows as NBC seems to be doing with MOWE and LJ.
Eli Stone sucks, though! Also, I think LOM has a lot more upside. Even if Eli survives this initial cut, I think it’ll be cancelled anyway at season’s end. At least LOM has a fighting chance of making it.
Of the ABC shows on the bubble, Eli Stone is probably the cheapest to produce which may have been a factor as well.
My guess is Life on Mars has an expensive cast and they must be paying license fees to the UK producers.
DSM’s cast is bloated and they are probably paying top dollar for them (and the rumors are that they all hate each other).
PD’s cast is probably not that expensive, but it is (or at least was) shot with feature film like production values. Plus it’s not produced by ABC Studios.
Lisa, whatever you might think, Eli at least isn’t a copy.
The DSM cancellation is really a dagger for me. Feels like I might be the only one who feels that way. I always thought the 10pm timeslot was the reason for its low numbers (not to mention its lead-in), and it seemed to me that DSM wasn’t too racy for a 9pm slot. I really will miss that cast and pretty good writing. Oh well.
It figures, the same day I send an comment to ABC to please, please not cancel Dirty Sexy Money, this happens. I don’t even care about any of the other shows, but I’m really into DSM right now, and I haven’t missed any of the episodes so far. Couldn’t they at least TRY it in a different spot before outright cancelling it? The storyline is so exciting to watch, and the characters are all amazing in their own ways. I really hope something changes with this so that DSM is somehow not cancelled. I watch a lot of shows, on each of the networks, but this one was currently my favorite and to say that it’s cancellation is disappointing is an understatement.
It’ll be interesting to see if Private Practice can retain much more of Grey’s lead in than any other show has been able to. It makes sense that it would, but I’m not sure that it will. Anecdotally, I know many Greys fans who have said that they tried PP and can’t stand it. So who knows?
Well I stand corrected. Ditto Stephanie.