TV viewers sometimes get very passionate about their shows and take out their frustrations on, well, me.
Not just me, but all of us who report and comment on what network executives are doing with and to the shows viewers get so passionate about.
Still, sometimes the messengers get shot. Like when the irate fan got angry because I "told" her that "Miss Match" was going to return to NBC's schedule in March. Which I did write. And which didn't happen.
What happened is that NBC did indeed announce plans to bring back the show, which stars Alicia Silverstone. But then NBC President Jeff Zucker changed his mind because, gee, he's just got so darn many hit shows on his hands that he doesn't know where to put "Miss Match." (How was he to know that "The Apprentice" would be such a hit?)
"We really feel we only have two hours — Tuesday and Saturday at (7 p.m.) — and to throw 'Miss Match' against 'American Idol' (on Tuesday) or Saturday night would not serve any good purpose," Zucker said in a recent conference call with TV critics. "It's hard to bring it off the bench right now."
There are still five unaired episodes sitting on the shelf at NBC, but at this point we have no idea when (or if) they'll air.
This is hardly a unique circumstance. When ABC yanked the critically acclaimed "Karen Sisco" off the air last fall, the network's entertainment president, Susan Lyne, promised it would eventually return. Appearing before critics in January, she announced the show, which starred Carla Gugino, would be relaunched in "late March" and declared it was her "personal favorite" among the shows ABC premiered last fall.
She went on to say, "We just got the first of the new 'Karen Sisco' scripts. It's really good."
Just days later, ABC announced it was canceling "Karen" once and for all and wouldn't be producing any more episodes — because it was unhappy with the quality of the scripts.
Go figure.
The three episodes of "Karen Sisco" that never made it onto ABC have, however, been scheduled — on the USA cable network. They'll be seen Wednesdays at 7 p.m. beginning this week.
Then, on Wednesday, April 21, at 7 p.m., USA will begin airing the five episodes of "L.A. Dragnet" that ABC ordered but never aired, canceling the show after airing it only five times last fall. That would be a couple of months after ABC Entertainment chairman Lloyd Braun told TV critics, "We told ('L.A. Dragnet' executive producer ) Dick (Wolf) very early on that we were going to be patient and give the show every opportunity."
In network television, five weeks buried on Saturdays at 9 p.m. constitutes "every opportunity."
Which is not to say that the network executives are lying to us. (At least not in these instances.) I've no doubt that NBC really planned to bring "Miss Match" back, and that ABC planned to bring "Karen Sisco" back. But plans change.
Heck, these days network execs are changing their prime-time schedules with little or no notice — sometimes even substituting one episode of a show for another or even one series for another on the day they air.
I guess holding them to promises they make regarding scheduling several months down the road is waaay too much to ask.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com