Borrowing from ima63's post at AEB - I don't think there are any spoilers in there, if there are, I sincerely apologise:
quote:
From the NY Times:
From Life Support to Miraculous Recovery for ‘ER’ By BILL CARTER Published: October 12, 2006 This should be an axiom of television programming if it isn’t already: Never take your most popular show off the air for three months in the middle of a season.
That was what NBC intended to do this year with “ER,” its long-running hit on Thursday nights at 10 p.m. Eastern time. Of course NBC never expected “ER” to be its most popular show again.
But after three weeks of what can only be described as a stunning ratings performance by that 13-year-old medical drama, NBC has reconsidered its plan to shelve the series from January to April in favor of an untried drama called “The Black Donnellys.”
“I will confirm that ‘ER’ is not going to go away until the spring,” said Kevin Reilly, president of NBC Entertainment. “We are going to keep ‘ER’ in its time period for at least 22 episodes this season.”
The “at least” is also significant because rather than thinking of ways to supplant “ER” this season, NBC and the show’s creators are considering expanding the series to 24 or 25 episodes to cover more weeks of the season with original episodes.
The entire strategy for the future of “ER” is up in the air. David Zabel, who runs the show as executive producer, after the long tenure of John Wells, said the plan had been to get through this truncated season and then end the series after one more season next year.
In a telephone interview this week he said that idea was being rethought. “As long as we can keep doing what we’re doing, I don’t see any reason the show can’t keep going on,” he said.
Rather than relegating the series to part-time status this year, Mr. Zabel said, he is all for expanding it. Networks often order additional episodes of their most popular shows to limit the number of in-season repeats.
Mr. Reilly said NBC had initially concluded that “ER” was faring worse and worse with repeats during the season and wanted to give “The Black Donnellys” a chance to grab some of the audience available in the Thursday time slot. Yesterday’s decision to continue “ER” had nothing to do with the quality of “The Black Donnellys,” said Mr. Reilly, who called that new show excellent.
The remarkable turn of events for “ER,” which was presumed to be making a few last turns on the stage before heading for the exit, is entirely due to what the show has accomplished in the season that began last month.
“ER” has been asked to perform an operation that might seem far-fetched even in its own emergency-room plotlines. It has been assigned the job of saving a sagging network’s life on the most important night of the week.
NBC, which once dominated Thursdays — the night for which advertisers pay the most to reach viewers because of weekend events like movie openings and car sales — has been severely injured by the scheduling of the most formidable shows that two competing networks have to offer.
This season, with ABC adding the hottest show on television, “Grey’s Anatomy,” to Thursday nights at 9, facing off against what had previously been the most-watched show on television, CBS’s “CSI,” NBC has taken a ferocious beating in that hour. That meant that “ER” confronted a seemingly impossible task at 10 p.m.: recruiting an audience back to NBC on that show’s merits alone.
And that is exactly what “ER” has done. It is somehow among the top-rated shows this season despite these facts: In raw numbers ABC’s 10 p.m. show, “Six Degrees,” inherits 24.2 million viewers watching the preceding “Grey’s Anatomy” while “ER” inherits only 9.9 million viewers watching NBC’s “Deal or No Deal.” “ER” lifts that number to 15 million viewers while its ABC counterpart plummets to just 10.7 million.
The performance is even more impressive for “ER” in ratings for the 18-to-49-year-old audience that NBC uses as its main measuring stick of success. By that measure “ER” is the No. 4 show on television this season.
One key to the comeback by “ER” was CBS’s decision to move its resident hit in that time period, “Without a Trace,” to Sunday nights. “Without a Trace” had begun to beat “ER” consistently last season, one reason the NBC show faced so many intimations of mortality.
But Mr. Reilly argued that the consistent quality of “ER” has brought back viewers and attracted some new ones. “It never stopped being compelling television,” he said. “It still has that adrenaline rush and emotional impact.”
A subtle advantage that may not have been apparent originally has been the complete turnover of the show’s cast. Not one of the original actors, who included George Clooney and Noah Wyle, remains. “But younger viewers don’t know that group,” Mr. Zabel said, pointing out that a female fan in her early 20’s would probably have been a child in bed at 10 p.m. when the series started.
Now the show has added a familiar star, John Stamos, as a cast regular, which Mr. Reilly said was expected to give the show an additional boost. He plays a paramedic studying to be a doctor.
Mr. Zabel agreed with the prediction, saying, “John is a charming, dynamic character who brings us a color we didn’t have.” But he noted that the continuing stars Goran Visnjic and Maura Tierney have also taken off as lead characters on the series, although that has happened largely under the radar.
“They’re still the new guys,” he said, “even though they’ve been on the show for seven years.”
********************************* Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ A smile is something special, a ribbon is something rare, So I'll be special and I'll be rare, with a smile and a ribbon in my hair.
Hehe! I don't know how old I was when it started and I can't be bothered counting back but I think I started watchin in season 6 or 7! I always remember my mum watching it, but I would leave the room because there was too much blood and ickyness for my liking, then one day, I got hooked!
That's good news though!
Spreading the Carby Love
I spend 23 hours a day wondering whether we’re wrong for each other, wondering whether the baggage we both bring would be enough to sink a small ship...But in the 24th hour, I realise I’ve been thinking about her for 23 hours and it always comes back to, there's something about her that I can’t stay away from. Something about her, that makes me wanna…love her.
*~*~*So what am I? The butterfly or the tornado?*~*~*
How can Zabel say that younger viewers don't know the original cast of ER? Lots and lots of younger viewers have seen the repeats on C4 , E4, More4 in The UK, and also on loads of channels all over the world. There are many repeats on often in the the US. There are also the old videos of the first two series plus all the more recent DVD's and that's just for those under the late 20's. Anyone who started watching ER from series one who is say 16 - 18 will hardly be ancient now. Work it out. You could have known all the old crew from the start and still be under 30. I thought ER was a show for all ages anyway. It doesn't exclude oldies like me. If ER only appealed to the very young it would be a different show. It appeals to all ages and most of its core fans have known it from the start, even if, for the younger fans that means through repeats or DVDs. I think that was a silly thing for Zabel to say.
As for the new ER - well bits of it are still like the old one. It's the same set.It's even the same medical stories, often recycled, and some of the lesser characters e.g. Haleh, are still the same, and lets face it, Zabel might pretend they seem new , but, as he says himself, MT and GV have been around for 7 years now.
