NBC's new fall drama series "Parenthood" has been pushed to midseason because of an illness of one of the stars, Maura Tierney.
The series, a contemporary reimagining of the 1989 feature, had been scheduled to begin filming July 27. The production start of the Universal Media Studios/Imagine TV-produced show is now tentatively scheduled for late September.[...]
As a result of the delay, NBC is making a change on its fall schedule.
"Parenthood" had been slated to premiere Sept. 23 and run in the Wednesday 8 p.m. hour.
With "Parenthood" pushed, new drama "Mercy," which was to take over the Wednesday 8 p.m. slot in midseason, will launch in the fall. The cast and crew of the medical drama have been summoned to start work on the series early to have it ready for a September debut. It is not clear yet if "Mercy" will air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. as NBC is re-evaluating its fall scheduling plans.
via THR.com.
You can see up to date announcements on all the 2009 Fall TV schedules here.
I love Maura Tierney, so I hope what I’m hearing from insiders is wrong about her condition.
can chuck come up from the bench early?
chuck will be lucky to even air during the regular season. the show is a space filler… not a night anchor as Parenthood was intended to be.
I can’t believe that took so long! Based on the stories I saw, it doesn’t seem like NBC is interested in doing that. But it’s an interesting concept because with Mercy they wind up launching both the medical dramas in the fall and I’m not sure that’s a great outcome for NBC. But it could be for whatever reason NBC views Chuck as a Monday 8pm show and it doesn’t want to move it.
Shame on me for not titling this post “Parenthood sidelined until 2010, but does Chuck get the call? Nooooooo!”
Parenthood is going to bomb just like the last time they tried to do it as a series
It’s too bad this change couldn’t use to either bump up Chuck or Day One to air earlier.
Too bad NBC let its usual pinch-hitter go: Medium. Oh, well.
What are the insiders saying about her condition?
Maura Tierny, Craig T. Nelson and Peter Krause are the reasons that I’m giving this show a try anyways. I hope she’s ok.
Mercy’s trailer looked really bad.
What else is NBC re-evaluating about its schedule? It seems like putting Mercy in Parenthood’s spot would be the end of the evaluation, since Mercy was supposed to air on the same day, at the same time in the spring. What is the 9:00 show on Wednesday? Is is supposed to change midseason, too?
I’m sorry to hear about Maura Tierny’s illness. I really like her. She is the reason I plan on giving Parenthood a try.
KN, no both Parenthood and Mercy were scheduled to be lead-in for SVU. I would imagine the evaluation comes from whether or not they want to debut both Mercy and Trauma at the same time. Two new medical dramas on the schedule at the same time seems a bit much, although given how many cop shows debut on CBS every year I’m not sure that’s really true. Alternatively they might be considering pairing their medical shows up, which would mean moving Heroes or SVU.
This actually doesn’t seem like a terrible situation for NBC – I don’t think anyone was expecting both medical shows to pan out, and they’ll have a clue about the 2010-2011 season earlier. It helps that the shows look pretty different so far, Trauma being more action-oriented and Mercy being a Grey’s-style drama.
I’m happy that I won’t have to wait 6 month for Mercy, and Paranthood renewal chances just want up.
I can’t understand what makes NBC not want to move Chuck from Mondays unless either
a) they’ve already spent a lot of money developing an ad campaign targeted specifically at Chuck (which, considering their efforts last season, I’m not holding my breath)
or
b) the Subway sponsorship makes ratings against the likes of House irrelevant.
in either case though it’s unfortunate for Tierney.
Looks like NBC is debuting fall with 2 new medical dramas, Trauma and Mercy. I wonder which one will survive?
Dan–
Tartikoff’s corpse could do a better job picking hits than Jeff Zucker; the most likely answer is neither.
I fail to understand why the networks don’t come up with new ideas instead of rehashing old ones. Did NBC learn nothing from Night Rider?
I can’t wait for “V” to flop on ABC.
For the life of me, I can’t understand what is going on.
As for Chuck, if the powers that be at NBC have two brain cells to rub together, they would put reruns of Chuck on the USA Network during the dinner hour.
Look at how much the first run episode ratings for NCIS on CBS have improved since reruns of the show have aired on the USA Network in the late afternoon to early evening hours over the past few years.
This isn’t rocket science. It makes sense to air struggling programs in non-prime time hours to see if they can generate a bigger audience.
As for medical shows, why is it that NBC/Universal has three relatively new ones? You have Royal Pains on the USA Network and you also have two others coming to NBC in the Fall. It makes no sense to me. With Jay Leno taking up the 10 pm hour during the weeknights, it seems like there is less and less variety on NBC.
As for Chuck, if the powers that be at NBC have two brain cells to rub together, they would put reruns of Chuck on the USA Network during the dinner hour.
That might benefit Chuck, but it would certainly do USA no favors. NCIS reruns on USA can get over 4 million viewers. Since Chuck couldn’t manage that for a rerun in its regular time and network, I seriously doubt it could manage it off-network in a different time slot.
“As for medical shows, why is it that NBC/Universal has three relatively new ones?”
I don’t see why this is such an issue. How many procedurals does any given network debut every season? And at least these medical dramas all seem to have a different feel and vibe to them, which is more than can be said for the vast majority procedurals on television which pretty much all blend together these days.
As it is I wonder if NBC has given any thought to ‘Medical Monday’ with a Mercy/Trauma double header.