ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 6, 1996 TAG: 9612060060
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: COMMENTARY
SOURCE: JOHN LEVESQUE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
In less than five weeks, the new TV season begins.
Yeah, I know. What about the new season that began, oh, about eight or nine weeks ago?
Ancient history. Archive city. Time to sweep out the deadwood, make room for the new. Deadwood, that is.
Where ``Mr. and Mrs. Smith'' took up space on CBS, we soon will have ``JAG.'' Where ``The John Larroquette Show'' failed to find a (big enough) audience on NBC, we soon will see ``Chicago Sons.''
And plenty more are in the wings. There's ``Cloak and Dagger,'' a high-tech action and adventure series on ABC. Sounds a lot like ``Mr. and Mrs. Smith,'' which was about high-tech spies, but I digress.
Another new one is ``Prince Street'' on NBC, about New York undercover cops. Sounds a lot like Fox's ``New York Undercover,'' but I digress.
There's also ``The Naked Truth,'' the resurrected Tea Leoni comedy on NBC. In this incarnation, Leoni plays a magazine writer instead of a tabloid photographer. Sounds a lot like ``Suddenly Susan,'' which is on the same network, but I digress.
Still, it does make you wonder why we have midseason replacements in the first place. Think about it. There are more than 100 shows on network TV. I suppose it's possible to have a 114-way tie for first place in the Nielsen ratings, meaning each show would attract exactly the same size audience and all the network honchos would be happy. But that never happens.
There are shows that draw big audiences, and shows that draw less big audiences.
Consider ``Mr. and Mrs. Smith.'' During its brief run on CBS, the Scott Bakula spy show reached about 10.5 million households per week. If you figure a couple of people watching per household, you've got the equivalent of all of Taiwan watching ``Mr. and Mrs. Smith.'' I'd be impressed.
But next month it will be replaced by ``JAG,'' a combination courtroom and adventure series that aired on NBC last year but didn't make the cut this season.
CBS liked ``JAG'' enough to give it a second chance. It allowed executive producer Don Bellisario to skew the stories more toward the courtroom and away from the ``Top Gun'' sort of stuff, and CBS expects ``JAG'' to improve on the Friday night numbers that ``Mr. and Mrs. Smith'' delivered.
Yet during its 21-week run last season on NBC, the audience share for ``JAG'' wasn't much bigger - about 11 million households.
Consider another example. In its last week on the air, Nielsen Media Research said ``The John Larroquette Show'' also reached more than 10 million households.
But that's hardly good enough, because ``ER,'' the most-watched show in America, usually pulls in more than 30 million households. In the Nov. 21 episode, when Sherry Stringfield left the show, it topped 37 million.
So ``Larroquette'' gets bounced in favor of a new sitcom starring Jason Bateman. ``Chicago Sons'' will premiere at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 8, in Larroquette's old spot. It's about three brothers born and raised in working-class Cicero, Ill., who attempt to coexist in an apartment overlooking Chicago's Wrigley Field.
Blue-collar sensibilities. Midwest locale. Hmmm. Sounds like ``The John Larroquette Show.'' But I digress.
Can ``Chicago Sons'' pull in 37 million households? Not likely. But if it can do 11 or 12 million, it might win its time slot.
So the TV industry keeps rolling like a Henry Ford assembly line, cranking out new shows to take the place of old ones that weren't all that bad, but weren't good enough. Or lucky enough.
On ABC there's ``Gun,'' an anthology series that follows the travels of a semiautomatic weapon; ``It's Good To Be King,'' a comedy with Jim Belushi as manager of a Chicago blues club; ``The Practice,'' another lawyer drama from David E. Kelley; and an unnamed comedy starring Arsenio Hall.
CBS will fill the breaches with ``Orleans,'' in which Larry Hagman plays the powerful patriarch of a Louisiana family; ``Feds,'' a Dick Wolf drama with Blair Brown as a U.S. attorney; ``Life ... and Stuff,'' a sitcom starring Pam Dawber; ``Temporarily Yours,'' a comedy about life in an employment agency; and ``Coast to Coast,'' another news magazine.
NBC also is firing up ``Fired Up,'' a comedy starring Sharon Lawrence of ``NYPD Blue''; ``Just Shoot Me,'' another comedy about a woman who returns to run her father's fashion magazine; and ``The Center,'' a drama about a San Francisco crisis center.
Fox is readying ``King of the Hill,'' an animated sitcom about a family in a suburban Texas town; ``Pauly,'' starring Pauly Shore as the son of a rich businessman; ``Secret Service Guy,'' with Judge Reinhold assigned to protect the president; and ``Lawless,'' starring ex-Seahawk Brian Bosworth as a private eye.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 linesby CNB