For anyone who has stuck by the American version of The Office since the very beginning – or maybe I should specify the beginning of the far superior second season – the anticlimactic news that broke Monday about Steve Carell leaving the show was a bittersweet development. He’s been talking for months about stepping away from …
NBC
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NBC's Upfront: Throwing Everything at the Scheduling Wall
“Just 13 more shows to go,” joked NBC executive Jeff Gaspin, as the network wrapped up introducing around a dozen new shows (depending how you count them) for next season. The network, after The Jay Leno Show, is emphasizing its commitment to quality scripted drama. Or, judging from the clips Gaspin and programming chief Angela …
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NBC Sets Schedule, Benches Parks & Recreation
Attention, TV watchers, advertisers and Hollywood: NBC is determined to prove to you that it is once again dedicated to Quality Television. And it’s going to prove it to you by benching its best comedy. (Its best show, period, excepting Friday Night Lights, which half belongs to DirecTV.) Parks and Recreation will move to midseason …
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Law & Order Dead, Shall Never Die
It’s official. NBC released a statement saying that Law & Order is finished after 20 years—merely tying and not breaking Gunsmoke’s run as longest-running drama. But Law & Order: SVU is returning, and NBC has picked up the spinoff, Law & Order: L.A., a.k.a. LOLA. (Seriously.) And woe to the NBC employee who notes that Dick Wolf already …
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L&O, RIP?
Chung-chung! Is that a body? Reports came in from several news outlets late this afternoon that NBC is canceling the original series of Law & Order after 20 seasons. TV Guide and Deadline.com have said it’s a done deal, and the New York Times’ Brian Stelter tweeted confirmation from a former producer.
[Update: Don’t consider L&O dead, …
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Arnett Back to Fox as Network Pickups Begin
The big-network upfront schedule presentations are coming up next week, but the pickups of new series, official and reported, are starting to, well, pick up.
Fox has reportedly settled on a couple of dramas and three comedies, the latter including Running Wilde, created by Mitch Hurwitz and starring Will Arnett (and costarring Keri …
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NBC Reloads for Fall
NBC continues its long, Marshall-Plan-like rebuilding process today with the announcement of three new series pickups for next season. Two of them are series I’ve heard entertainment chief Angela Bromstad talk up in the past: Love Bites, a kind of 21st-century Love, American Style from Sex and the City writer Cindy Chupack, and …
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The Morning After: Anyone Still Traumatized by NBC?
Coming back from a vacation is a pain in the ass, isn’t it? It is for NBC, which, its second week back from its blissful Canadian Olympics idyll, is now back in the soggy late-winter reality of its usual shows and its normal ratings. (Indications are that Jay Leno’s high return ratings may also be coming back to reality, though as I …
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NBC's Olympic Coverage: Gold, Silver or Lead?
The New York Times’ Richard Sandomir takes exception to the way NBC covered the upset U.S. victory over Canada in hockey Sunday night. Which is to say: it hardly covered it at all, breaking briefly into coverage for the end of the game, which played in full on cable channel MSNBC. (Where it drew over 8 million viewers, huge numbers for …
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NBC: There Was Never a Conan O'Brien
Tonight, there will likely not be a dry eye in the house, as America says goodbye to Jay Leno. Again. This time for three whole weeks.
After The Jay Leno Show ends tonight, Jay will head back to the Tonight show beginning March 1. And what can you do in the meantime, while Tonight is on hiatus for the Olympics? Well, you can always …
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My Own NBC Clip Show
Because of the NBC Nightly News’ bizarre obsession with prioritizing actual important news, the segment I taped yesterday on that network’s late-night wars was shuffled off to the Web. For those of you still interested, you can see me holding forth for about five seconds, in front of the giant books in the fake library I retire to …
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How NBC Gave Conan His Groove Back
NBC and Conan O’Brien have finally signed the deal making the host’s split from the Tonight Show after this week official. You can read the details here. The question I want to ask this morning—and there are a lot of questions going forward from here—is: was shafting O’Brien on the Tonight Show the best thing NBC could have done …
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The Jaypocalypse Explained At Last
Taiwanese Animated Hulk-Conan smash!
[h/t The Awl.]
