After its second straight low rated outing, The Paul Reiser Show has been pulled off the schedule by NBC. In its place, the network will be running repeats of The Office for the rest of the season. There's no word on when (or if) the remaining episodes of the show will air.
The Paul Reiser Show was one of three shows that NBC ordered at their upfronts last season and never got a place on the midseason schedule (the other two being Love Bites and Friends with Benefits). One likely assumed that those three shows were never going to see the light of day, but with the underwhelming performance of Perfect Couples, NBC gave Reiser a last second place on the schedule. Perfect Couples was pulled with two episodes remaining on its first season and Reiser debuted his second sitcom earlier this month. The show was often described as "Curb Your Enthusiasm for mainstream audiences" and even had a Larry David cameo at the end of episode one, but the show wasn't as big of a critical hit as the rest of NBC's Thursday night lineup and its poor numbers finished putting the nail in the show's coffin.
The Paul Reiser Show starred, of course, Paul Reiser as a fictionalized version of himself dealing with the aftermath of sitcom success. The show also featured Andrew Daly, Ben Shenkman, Omid Djalili, and Amy Landecker.
Did you watch either episode of The Paul Reiser Show? How do you think repeats of The Office will do in its place? Are there any shows on cable that could be "cleaned up" for broadcast and actually work?
I watched both episodes, having only done so because I had 30 minutes to kill between Community and Bones. I thought it was far more relaxed than the yelling and screaming monstrosity that was Perfect Couples. Still, it was bad… really just terribly bad.
LOVE "Outsourced" but it's a shame it's on NBC because people simply don't trust that network to keep any shows, good or otherwise, so it's difficult for any of us to make a commitment to any of their programming. I was a fan of the Highly Praised show "Southland" and they dropped that! Thankfully TNT picked it up, but it just goes to show NBC doesn't have a clue.
I've got to agree about NBC alienating people when they constantly yank shows at random without any kind of closure. Who can be bothered to schedule the time for another show when it will likely leave you hanging without notice? We can always catch up with it on the Internet if it happens to get a second season, but then NBC doesn't get paid. See how that works, NBC? I really can't imagine that it's more profitable to play a rerun than simply airing stuff that's already been recorded anyway. That's equivalent to closing up shop for the day. People will simply watch something else. It's not like our TV's and DVR's are stuck on one channel, thank God.
I didn't know Southland was almost canceled. THAT is an NBC mistake. Never missed an episode. Quality and substance always get highest priority on my list.