"Grace Under Fire" returns to ABC's schedule tonight.
Which may come as news to a lot of viewers - the ones who didn't realize the show had gone anywhere.After four seasons on the air, the Brett Butler sitcom didn't make ABC's fall schedule when it was announced this past spring. Instead, the show was held in reserve as a midseason replacement.
Which is a fairly good indication of just how much trouble ABC programmers are having these days.
"Grace," while quite successful its first couple of seasons, has never been a particularly great show. In a lot of ways it's just another "Roseanne" - but not nearly as good.
What's supposed to be a depiction of blue-collar life is pretty much just another conventional sitcom, with Butler tossing off weak one-liners.
This week's episode (tonight at 7 on Ch. 4) finds Grace fighting a losing battle to balance her work and home life. After she finally gets a dream job at an ad agency, the long commute is keeping her away from her children - and neither she nor they are handling the situation very well.
It all leads up to the latest predictable lurch in the direction Grace's life - and that of the show.
Part of the problem with "Grace" is that there is this undercurrent of mean-spiritedness that seems to spill over from the numerous and highly public back-stage problems involving Butler and the many, many producers she has battled over the years.
And one has to wonder why ABC would continue to put up with a star who has caused as much trouble as Butler - particularly when neither the show nor the ratings are all that great.
Once again, another fairly good indication of how much ABC programmers are having these days.
Not that there's nothing redeeming about the return of "Grace Under Fire" - at least the show is no longer using the Beatles' "Lady Madonna" as its theme song.
PROGRAMMING NOTES: The reconstituted "America's Funniest Home Videos" - minus former host Bob Saget - has found a place on the ABC schedule. The new version, hosted by Daisy Fuentes and John Fugelsang, will be seen Mondays at 7 p.m. beginning Jan. 5.
- NBC has ordered six more installments of "When Bloopers Attack."
Why? Well, because the shows are cheap to produce, they can be produced quickly and they get decent ratings. And NBC has some holes to fill.
- ABC has ordered nine more episodes of "Cracker," bringing that series up to 22.
"Cracker" isn't doing much better than the show it follows on Thursdays - "Nothing Sacred" - but ABC apparently doesn't think it has anything in the works that could do better.
- As expected, the Bill Cosby-hosted "Kids Say the Darndest Things" will join CBS's Friday-night lineup on Jan. 9.
"Kids" will take over the 7 p.m. time slot. It will be followed by "The Gregory Hines Show," which is moving to 7:30 p.m. from 8 p.m.
"Family Matters" will move from 7 to 8 p.m., and "Step by Step" will stay put at 8:30 p.m.
Which leaves "Meego" as the odd man out. CBS says that this lame little show about a space alien/nanny (Bronson Pinchot) is only on hiatus . . . but the betting is that it has been canceled due to bad ratings and worse quality.
- CBS is also going back to the vaults for another show. The network has ordered "Candid Camera" as a midseason replacement series.
Peter Funt will be the host. And, yes, he's the son of original host Alan Funt.
CBS has aired a series of occasional "Candid Camera" specials since 1990, but the show has not aired as a weekly network series since 1967. (The show aired on ABC, CBS and NBC at various times between 1948 and 1967.)
"Candid Camera" also popped up in syndication in the mid-'70s and early '90s.
No air date for the new CBS version has been announced.
(And, like "When Bloopers Attack," "Candid Camera" has the advantage of being cheap and quick to produce.)
- The really, really lame sitcom "The Tony Danza Show" will return to NBC's Wednesday lineup on Dec. 3 at 7:30 p.m. - just after a repeat of "3rd Rock from the Sun" and just before an original episode of "3rd Rock."
For a clue as to why NBC would give another chance to a show that finished fourth in its time slot and is generally terrible, let's peruse the program's credits. Ah . . . here it is . . . "The Tony Danza Show" is produced by NBC Studios.
'Nuff said.