Chuck returns to NBC with a special two hour  airing on Sunday January 10, 2010 from 9p-11p before returning to its regular time slot, Mondays at 8pm on the following night.

As expected Heroes will shift back to 9pm following a two hour block between 8p-10p on January 4.

Chuck Returns (Video Message from Zach + A Clip from Season 3)

Maureen Ryan has more details on what to expect for Chuck in season 3.

Here’s the press release from NBC:

Read the full story

LOST will return Tuesdays at 9pm starting February 2, 2010.   I’m not sure yet what this means for the 8pm and 10pm schedule (though the betting seems to be on V taking the Tuesday 10pm slot after the Olympics) or what will happen once Dancing With the Stars returns in March, but sooner or later (hopefully sooner) ABC will reveal its mid-season plans and we’ll update you.

The Groundhog Day return will feature 3 hours of Lost - a one hour recap plus a two hour premiere.

Update: Here’s the press release from ABC:

Read the full story

Update 3:25p: a big fat TOLDJA! coming soon from Nikki Finke!  James Hibberd reports NBC has ordered 3 more episodes of Trauma.

Update 3:50p: Thanks to E! Online/Watch With Kristen’s Jennifer Godwin  for alerting me that it’s 3 additional hours, not four.

original post:

We’ll probably have to wait for the mid-season schedule announcements or some official word from NBC, but Nikki Finke is reporting that NBC will order additional episodes of Trauma (and that all the reports on blogs that it wouldn’t order more episodes were wrong!).

Finke cites improving ratings as the reason more episodes will be ordered, but if the rumor is true, it seems way more likely that NBC would order additional episodes only due to lack of bench strength and desperation.   The show reportedly costs a lot to make, and the recent ratings improvements have been small, rather than “wow, where did THOSE ratings come from?” 

In fact, the only ratings improvements we have seen have been in preliminary numbers which, when finalized showed no ratings improvements.  Monday night’s Trauma scored a 1.8 adults 18-49 rating in the preliminary numbers, and a 1.8 in the finals.  It’s better than a 1.7, but…

Stay tuned…

Update: on the point of lack of bench strength the commenters are speculating that any additional episode order for Trauma can only mean bad things for Parenthood (though with only 3 extra hours being ordered it doesn’t seem likely it has much to do with Parenthood).

NBC realizes that Sunday Night Football is just about the only thing it has going for its fall schedule, so in a choice between what to sacrifice, a regular season NFL game on Sunday Night Football, or the typical schedule date (late September) for the Emmy Awards, the Emmy Awards lost.

NBC will host the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards to Sunday, August 29, 2010, the network said Wednesday. The move allows NBC to steer clear of a scheduling conflict with its Sunday Night Football franchise, and also means that the Emmys will have less original competition on the other broadcast networks.

via Broadcasting & Cable.

This year’s Emmy Awards ratings on CBS (on September 20) were up from the historic lows last year, but still received a ratings beat down from the Sunday Night Football Cowboys / Giants game.

Heather Locklear returns to Melrose Place tonight to reprise her role as Amanda Woodward. What will she do for the ratings? More importantly, what does she need to do to save the show?

Read the full story

Update: I favor Julia’s theory in the comments below that this move is really about keeping Cold Case in primetime on a night where CBS anticipates some schedule delays due to overrun from having the national broadcast of the late afternoon NFL game on Sunday.

James Hibberd reports that CBS will be doing an experiment next Sunday moving Cold Case to 9pm and Three Rivers to 10pm to see if it improves either or both shows’ ratings.

Hibberd also reports that CBS is still considering both ordering new scripts for Three Rivers, as well as  ordering new episodes (5) and could be waiting to see the finals from Sunday before making a decision after Three Rivers hit season highs in the preliminary numbers.

Clearly CBS is attempting to learn something. But whether it is that Cold Case’s ratings are or are not due to the Three Rivers lead-in or merely finding out whether Cold Case fares better against Desperate Housewives than Three Rivers, potentially improving both, or whether CBS just wants to be able to say “hey, see, we tried Three Rivers when it wasn’t against Desperate Housewives so don’t say we didn’t try…” (update: Desperate Housewives isn’t even on next week. ABC will be airing the “American Music Awards”).

NBC’s Trauma is dead, but Mercy continues to survive, at least for now. Is there any hope Mercy might not be canceled and instead be renewed for fall 2010?

Read the full story

It appears that Fox doesn’t think its “patience” with Dollhouse is going to save it from fan blowback.

And last week, Fox chucked Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse on the scrap heap. Though the network has promised to air all 13 of the show’s commissioned episodes, loyal Dollhouse fans aren’t likely to go gently into that good night. “I’ll still get hate mail and death threats,” says Preston Beckman, executive VP of strategic program planning at Fox.

via Broadcasting & Cable

And in a bit of Dollhouse blowback imagining, Ben Grossman of Broadcasting & Cable has some “What They Said, What They Wanted To Say” :

What They Said: “Dollhouse got cancelled. F-ck you, Fox. F-ck you so hard—YET AGAIN for doing this to Joss and all of us!!!”—One of America’s great thinkers (and the show’s dozens of devoted fans), on Twitter.

What They Wanted to Say: “Hey ma! Can we get some meatloaf? The meatloaf! We want it now! The meatloaf! F-ck!”

via Broadcasting & Cable.