That burning smell coming from your TV isn't from your set — it's the networks burning off bad programming during the summer months.
Next up on the TV flambe menu is "Baby Bob," the amazingly bad sitcom about a talking baby that aired in the spring of 2002. It's ratings weren't all that bad — a fact that was more a function of it being scheduled between "King of Queens" and "Everybody Loves Raymond" than anything else — so CBS ordered eight additional episodes as a midseason replacement.
The folks at CBS came to their senses (to some extent, anyway) and never put the show on during the early-, middle- or late-midseason. But they've got eight episodes of "Baby Bob" they've already produced and paid for, so . . . we're going to be seeing them Fridays at 7 p.m. for the next couple of months.
Well, CBS is going to be airing them. We won't necessarily be watching them, will we?
The network also announced that Nathan Lane's sitcom "Charlie Lawrence" (another midseason replacement show that was never aired) will debut Sunday, June 15, at 7:30 p.m. Lane stars as a gay congressman — a TV actor turned politician.
"Charlie Lawrence" is not as bad as Lane's1998 sitcom "Encore, Encore," but then so few things are. (C'mon, that show cast him as an opera singer/lady killer. You knew from the get-go that was a terrible idea.) The "Charlie Lawrence" pilot, which was screened for critics, isn't very good. And a CBS insider indicates that the other episodes are worse.
Which explains why "Charlie Lawrence" has turned into summertime toast.
TRY, TRY AGAIN: CBS isn't the only one burning off shows. ABC, which quickly yanked the reality series "The Family" back in March, has announced the rest of the series will air later this summer.
The three episodes that already aired will be condensed into a two-hour installment on Wednesday, July 30, at 8 p.m.; the six remaining episodes will air Wednesdays at 9 p.m. beginning Aug. 6.
If you were one of the vast majority of viewers who missed "The Family" the first time around, it's about a deze, dem and doze Italian-American family that is plunked down in a fabulous Palm Beach estate, where they have to act hoity-toity while stabbing each other in the back to win $1 million. What they don't know is that it's the servants on the estate who are making decisions about who wins and who loses.
It's sort of evil fun to watch.
It's interesting that so many individuals and groups (including Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., the United Mine Workers of America and the Communications Workers of America) have already protested long and hard against the idea that CBS might air "The Real Beverly Hillbillies" and poke fun at real-life hillbillies, but no Italian-American groups or politicians have raised a stink about "The Family."
Let me assure you, hillbillies couldn't possibly come off any worse than do the Italian-Americans in "The Family."
STILL ON THE DRAWING BOARD: As for "The Real Beverly Hillbillies" — which would take a real family from the Ozarks and plunk them down in a Beverly Hills mansion so they could have their lives taped for the entertainment of America — it's still something they're thinking about at CBS. But network president Les Moonves (who calls all the shots at CBS) hasn't given the project the go-ahead as of yet.
But he might.
"We're still talking about it. We're still looking at it," Moonves said. "It's still on hold."
But not necessarily because of the high-profile protests.
"I've taken a drubbing all across America for this thing," Moonves said. "You know what? It's something we're still curious about. We haven't thrown in the towel yet. We're examining it very closely."
Frankly, you can't buy the kind of publicity the show has gotten from the protests. If "The Real Beverly Hillbillies" ever does get produced, all CBS would have to do is run clips of Miller's outraged speech on the Senate floor or of the protests outside Viacom's recent annual shareholders' meeting to guarantee big ratings.
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com