Earlier this week, we talked about the chances of this fall's new shows making it to a second season. But a lot of the shows that don't survive won't even make it to the end of this season. Some may get yanked even before October arrives.
Looking at last season again, more than half of the 28 shows that premiered in the fall didn't last the entire season - 15 were canceled quickly. If that percentage holds up this year, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox will be looking for 17 or 18 mid-season replacements this year.A few of those replacements won't be new. Some are old shows that didn't make the fall schedule: CBS has "Paradise" and "Wiseguy" (with Steven Bauer replacing Ken Wahl); and NBC has "Amen."
And a few others are shows that did pretty well in spring or summer tryouts and received orders for new episodes: ABC has "Equal Justice"; NBC has "Blossom," "Down Home," and "Seinfeld"; and CBS has "Top Cops."
But even before the fall season begins the networks have already ordered some other backup series, which will slip into the schedule when some other show falls flat on its face. Here's a look at what we may be seeing sometime this season:
ABC
- The Boys: Half-hour musical/comedy starring the four young brothers who comprise the singing group "The Boys." (Their single "Dial My Heart" hit No. 1 on the charts.) Here, they're orphaned and taken in by their uncle and aunt. Debbie Allen is the creator/producer/director.
- The Company: Hourlong drama about a husband and wife in the CIA (Anthony Denison and Linda Purl). From the makers of "China Beach."
- My Life and Times: Half-hour drama about an 85-year-old in the year 2035 who relives episodes from his past.
- The Principal: Randy Quaid stars as a rather unusual elementary school principal and single dad who gets help with his kids from his rather unusual dad, played by Jonathan Winters.
- The Ray Sharkey Show: The man in the title stars as a man reluctantly running the family grocery store in this half-hour sitcom. From the people who brought us "Mary Tyler Moore," "Taxi" and "Cheers."
- True Believer: Treat Williams takes over the role of the idealistic attorney James Woods played in the movie.
CBS
- Broken Badges: Believe it or not, this is an hour action/adventure about cops who are on psychiatric leave.
- The Family Dog: An animated half hour produced by Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton, the director of "Beetlejuice" and "Batman."
- The Pink Panther: This one is not a cartoon - it's a half-hour sitcom based on the Peter Sellers movies.
- Sunday Dinner: Half-hour comedy from Norman Lear, the man who brought us "All in the Family," "The Jeffersons," "Maude," "Good Times," "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and a whole slew of hits in the '70s.
- The network also has an untitled sitcom starring real-life couple Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal as a pair of anchors at an ESPN-like sports network.
NBC
- Dark Shadows: Yes, it's that "Dark Shadows" - an hourlong prime-time version of the daytime gothic soap opera from the '60s. Ben Cross takes over the role of vampire Barnabas Collins, and the cast also includes Jean Simmons, Roy Thinnes and Barbara Steele. This series just missed making the fall schedule and could be the first replacement show of the season on the Peacock.
- The Disney Comedy Adventure Hour: Anthology series from that Mickey Mouse company.
Fox
FBC could barely come up with enough shows to program five nights a week, even though four of those nights Fox programmed just two hours, not three hours like the Big Three. And the fourth network better hope its new shows work, because it hasn't got much going in the way of replacements - and it's announced none.
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KILBOURNE QUITS `MIDNIGHT CALLER': Wendy Kilbourne, who plays the owner of the radio station on the NBC series "Midnight Caller," has announced that she's leaving the show because of the impending birth of her first child in November.
The parting is amicable - the producers have expressed regret but wished the actress well.
The pregnancy was written into the show last season, as the character of Devon King became pregnant by her boyfriend (played by Kilbourne's real-life husband, James Read).
Kilbourne and Read live in Los Angeles; "Midnight Caller" is shot in San Francisco.
"It is unfortunate . . . that the demands of commuting to the San Francisco location are incompatible with the needs of an infant," Kilbourne said.
She will appear in the first five episodes this season before calling it quits. There's been no word on how the character will be written out of the series.