Fall TV: A 'Community' without its creator Dan Harmon? Just maybe

Human beings: Imagine the Greendale Community College universe without its overlord Dan Harmon running the mothership ... because it's a real possibility.

The good news about the return of "Community" got sullied pretty quickly. For those already up in arms about "Community's" move from Thursdays to Fridays, you might be keeping those arms up. There's been speculation that its creator, Harmon, would step down as showrunner for the NBC comedy. And NBC President Robert Greenblatt did little to deny that was a real possibility.

"Those conversations are happening as we speak," Greenblatt said during a conference call Sunday with reporters.  "I guess what I would say is ... I expect Dan's voice to be part of the show somehow. I'm just not sure exactly if that means him running it day to day or consulting on it."

Could Harmon's war of words with show co-star Chevy Chase be the reason? Much has been made of the spar between the veteran actor and Harmon, which resulted after some hostile voice messages were leaked. Greenblatt tip-toed around the issue in his denial.

"I don't think so," he said. "I know that was blown up into something. I don't really think we have determined him running the show or not based on one of the actors. I think it's a larger issue that has to do with a lot of things."

Harmon, for his part, said Thursday on Twitter that should he step down, it would not be because of Chase -- who he described in more colorful terms.

"That'd be like punching a wall because water's wet. Now CELEBRATE!" he added. Harmon wasn't immediately available for comment Sunday.

It won't be the show's only reshuffling. Harmon's co-showrunners, Garrett Donovan and Neil Goldman, are leaving the show to develop and supervise new projects for 20th Century Fox TV.

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--Yvonne Villarreal

twitter.com/villarrealy

Photo: Dan Harmon, left, with Chevy Chase and the cast of "Community." Credit: Getty Images

Fall TV: NBC's `Rock Center' news magazine survives low ratings

It helps to have friends in high places.

NBC is renewing the Brian Williams-anchored news magazine "Rock Center" despite a dismal ratings performance in its freshman season. According to Nielsen, "Rock Center" averaged less than 4 million viewers this season. That's less than half of what NBC's legal drama "Harry's Law" averaged and it was canceled. Among the coveted 18-49 demographic, "Rock Center" had only 1.2 million viewers compared with 1.75 million for "Harry's Law." The difference: NBC owns "Rock Center" and its star is NBC News anchor Williams, while "Harry's Law" comes from Warner Bros.

Not only is the show coming back, it is even getting a promotion of sorts. Currently on Wednesday nights at 9 p.m., "Rock Center" is moving to Thursdays at 10 p.m., a more important time slot because movie companies and auto dealers spend heavily on that night.

The move to 10 p.m. says as much about NBC's faith in its new and returning dramas as it does about "Rock Center." Once home to critical and commercial smashes including "ER," "L.A. Law" and "Hill Street Blues," the Thursday 10 p.m. slot has become a wasteland for NBC. Last season both "Prime Suspect" and "Awake" flopped in that time period.

NBC Broadcasting Chairman Ted Harbert acknowledged the low ratings of "Rock Center" in unveiling NBC's fall schedule to reporters in a conference call. However, he noted that when he was a senior executive at ABC, it took several season for news magazines "Prime Time" and "20/20" to establish itself with viewers.

"They've done some fantastic work this year," Harbert said, citing a Bob Costas interview with former Penn State coach and accused child molester Jerry Sandusky and a special report on the one-year anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden.

Another factor in "Rock Center's" favor was that news magazines typically cost less to produce on a per-episode basis than a drama.

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-- Joe Flint

Photo: "Rock Center" anchor Brian Williams. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Fall TV: NBC to get four nights of comedy plus 'The Voice'

NBC evidently believes laughter is the best medicine: The struggling network will have four nights of comedy in the fall, plus the Season 3 return of "The Voice."

Keeping its Thursday sitcom block essentially intact with existing series, NBC will move "Community" and "Whitney" to Fridays and open up Tuesday and Wednesday for new comedies such as "Go On," "Animal Practice" and "Guys With Kids."

"I'm determined to build momentum from night to night, something that's eluded us in recent years," Bob Greenblatt, chairman of NBC Entertainment, said in a conference call with reporters Sunday.

Also, the singing contest "The Voice" will open in fall for the first time, on Mondays and Tuesdays, setting up a likely confrontation with Simon Cowell's "The X Factor" on Fox.

J.J. Abrams' new sci-fi drama "Revolution" will land at 10 p.m. Mondays, while Dick Wolf's "Chicago Fire" will round out the night on Wednesdays.

"We've got a lineup of new shows that will really get people to sit up and take notice," Greenblatt said.

The new dramas "Do No Harm," "Infamous" and "Hannibal" will be held for mid-season.

Here's the entire schedule (* denotes new series):

MONDAY

8 - 10 p.m. "The Voice"

10 p.m. "Revolution" *

TUESDAY

8 p.m. "The Voice"

9 p.m. - "Go On" *

9:30 p.m. - The New Normal" *

10 p.m. - "Parenthood"

WEDNESDAY

8 p.m. - "Animal Practice" *

8:30 p.m. - "Guys With Kids" *

9 p.m. - "Law & Order: SVU"

10 p.m. - "Chicago Fire" *  

 THURSDAY

8 p.m. - "30 Rock"

8:30 p.m. - "Up All Night"

9 p.m. - "The Office"

9:30 p.m. - "Parks and Recreation"

10 p.m. - "Rock Center with Brian Williams"

FRIDAY

8 p.m. - "Whitney"

8:30 p.m. - "Community"

9 p.m. - "Grimm"

10 p.m. - "Dateline NBC"

SATURDAY

Repeats

SUNDAY

Fall

7 p.m. "Football Night in America"

8:15 p.m. "NBC Sunday Night Football"

 

Winter

7 p.m. - "Dateline NBC"

8 p.m. - "Fashion Star"

9 p.m. - "The Celebrity Apprentice"

10 p.m. - "Do No Harm" *

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— Scott Collins (twitter.com/scottcollinsLAT)

Photo: NBC's comedy lineup includes "Guys With Kids," with Anthony Anderson (left), Jesse Bradford and Zach Cregger. Credit: Vivian Zink / NBC.

 

 

What we learned about the fall 2011 TV season at the 'upfronts'

After a weeklong stretch of sitting through the networks' presentations of their fall schedules, the "upfronts" are finally over. So what did we learn?

That Donald Trump has backed out of the presidential race (if he'd ever backed into it in the first place).

That NBC hopes that women can save TV. (From Debra Messing's Broadway musical drama "Smash" to Christina Applegate's hipster-mom comedy "Up All Night," female-skewing scripted series dominate the network's line-up.)

That ABC is seeking more balance for its male viewers. (Its new series "Charlie's Angels" (see photo at right) and "Pan Am" may feature ensemble casts anchored by women, but those women are often a) attired in wet clothes or b) involved in "sexy entanglements" with pilots.)

That CBS believes the sitcom isn't dead. (Ashton Kutcher's swooping in to save "Two and a Half Men," and the buddy comedy "2 Broke Girls" tested better than any other pilot in CBS history.)

That Fox has single-handedly spawned Singing Competition Madness. (NBC's "The Sing-Off," Oxygen's "The Glee Project," and Fox's own "The X Factor" will follow the path of a little show called "American Idol.")

That the CW's banking on some familiar faces to boost its ratings. (Reuniting with the network are Sarah Michelle Gellar of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," who's playing  twin sisters on "Ringer," Rachel Bilson of "The O.C.," who's playing a doctor on "Hart of Dixie.")  

And finally, that witches are going to destroy us all.

While you're waiting for the locusts to descend, we recommend wiling the hours away browsing the new TV schedule and watching these preview clips from the new shows that are coming your way this fall.

-- Melissa Maerz

Photo: "Charlie's Angels" Rachael Taylor, left, Minka Kelly and Annie Ilonzeh. Credit: Bob D'Amico / ABC / Getty Images.

Fall TV season: Are witches the new vampires?

Guys with fangs are so last year. This fall, witches are taking over. You'll find them on HBO's "True Blood," where Sookie will face down a coven this season. They'll be casting spells on their fellow high school students in the CW's "The Secret Circle," a drama from "The Vampire Diaries" creator Kevin Williamson. A particularly wicked one shows up in ABC's "Once Upon a Time" to place a curse on the town of Storybrook. Plus, with NBC's mystery "Grimm" riffing on various fairy tales, Hansel and Gretel's friend with the black pointy hat might soon join the others.

So where did all the soft-hearted, sharp-toothed Edward Cullens go? Since women generally watch more television than men, the networks are greenlighting more female-skewing shows for fall, including ensemble dramas lead by female characters (ABC's "Pan Am," NBC's "The Playboy Club," ABC's "Good Christian Belles") to comedies anchored by actresses (Christina Applegate's "Up All Night" and Whitney Cummings' "Whitney" on NBC, Zoey Deschanel's "The New Girl" on Fox). And viewers seem to like bad girls best: CBS' "2 Broke Girls," starring an insult-slinging Kat Dennings, tested better than any comedy or drama in CBS history, and two of the season's most highly anticipated shows, "Good Christian Belles" and ABC's "Apartment 23," originally had titles that featured a word that rhymes with witch. For networks seeking female viewers and mean girl heroines, witches offer the perfect double threat.

Plus, for advertisers seeking younger viewers, there's that whole built-in audience of goth girls, who'll no doubt love to watch "The Secret Circle" hero Thomas Dekker -- or as some might call him, the Man-Witch. Teenage girls have always loved witches -- during the '90s, they flocked to "Charmed," "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch," "The Craft" and Winona Ryder's version of "The Crucible" -- and it's easy to see why: Those stories verify the feeling that high school is filled with total monsters, that popular girls are casting spells on their hangers-on, that if some pale, creepy kid with long fingernails gets close to you, you'll just die.

Still, while witches are somewhat timeless (there's a reason each one is, like, 10 billion years old), they also seem particularly attractive to a generation of girls drawn to the tough-minded, self-sufficient heroines like Katniss of the book and coming film "The Hunger Games" or the arrow-slinging killer in "Hanna." At a time when parents have their kids under constant supervision, through Facebook and FourSquare and cellphone check-ins, "The Secret Circle" offers a world in which rather than being hyper-managed by parents and teachers, young women can literally control everything around them with the only counsel coming from a book of spells. It's no accident that right before the heroine of "The Secret Circle" discovers that she's a witch, her mother dies, leaving her to make her own decisions.

No doubt these stories appeal to adults too. And that's especially true on "True Blood," on which the witches apparently wield the power to make Eric's shirt disappear.

-- Melissa Maerz

Upper photo: "The Secret Circle." Credit: CW. Left photo: Actors who play TV witches: Katerina Graham, Melissa Joan Hart, Elizabeth Montgomery and Kevin Alejandro. Credits: CW / ABC / Nick at Nite / HBO

Fall TV season: Watch a sneak preview of Fox's 'The X Factor' [Video]

Fox unveiled its fall schedule earlier this week at its upfronts presentation in New York, officially announcing the new singing competition, "The X Factor," that will bring acerbic star-maker Simon Cowell back to the network.

The show, based on a hit British format, will also reunite Cowell with his one-time "American Idol" fellow judge, Paula Abdul. Also on the judging panel: British pop star Cheryl Cole and former record executive Antonio "L.A." Reid.

Singer/performer Nicole Scherzinger and British TV personality Steve Jones will host the competition, launching in the fall as one of the most buzzed about new series on any network. It will air on Wednesdays and Thursdays, potentially keeping those time periods warm for "Idol's" return in the spring.

 

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Fall TV season: Watch sneak previews of CBS' '2 Broke Girls,' 'How to Be a Gentleman' [Video]

CBS unveiled its fall schedule Wednesday at its upfront presentation in New York, announcing a pair of comedies -- Michael Patrick King and Whitney Cummings' comedy "2 Broke Girls" and "How to Be a Gentleman," starring Kevin Dillon, Dave Foley and Mary Lynn Rasjkub -- about unlikely friends living and toiling together.

In "2 Broke Girls," scrappy, hard-working Max (Kat Dennings) meets up with down-on-her-luck trust fund baby Caroline (Beth Behrs) at the diner where they're both waiting tables. They become friends, move in together and hatch a business idea -- built on cupcakes!

The comedy comes from "Sex and the City" alum Michael Patrick King and stand-up comedian Whitney Cummings ("Chelsea Lately") and co-stars Garrett Morris, Jonathan Kite and Matthew Moy. It'll air on Mondays after "How I Met Your Mother" and before the high-profile, reworked "Two and a Half Men" with Ashton Kutcher taking over for the deposed Charlie Sheen.

 

The "Odd Couple"-esque "How to Be a Gentleman," inspired by the book of the same name, follows a fussy etiquette columnist and a rough-around-the-edges personal trainer. The refined writer, under threat of unemployment, hires the bad-boy lug to teach him about being a manly man. Hilarity ensues?

David Hornsby plays the fastidious Felix-like character, and Dillon stars as his ripped and rude Oscar. Foley, Rhys Darby and Rasjkub also star. Executive producers include Hornsby ("It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia") and Adam Chase ("Friends"). It will be paired on Thursday nights with "Big Bang Theory."

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Fall TV season: Watch sneak previews of CBS' 'Person of Interest,' 'Unforgettable,' 'A Gifted Man' [Video]

CBS unveiled its fall schedule Wednesday at its upfronts presentation in New York, announcing three new dramas: crime series "Person of Interest" from J.J. Abrams and "Unforgettable," and a medical show with supernatural overtones called "A Gifted Man."

"Person of Interest" reunites "Lost" creator J.J. Abrams with one of the mysterious-island show's stars, Michael Emerson. The crime thriller, also starring Jim Caviezel and Taraji P. Henson, centers on an elite former CIA agent who teams with a shadowy billionaire to prevent violent crime before it happens. The well-capitalized vigilantes work outside the criminal-justice system but forge an advantageous link to the NYPD. Among the creative executives on the show with Abrams: "Lost" alum Bryan Burk and Oscar nominee Jonathan Nolan ("Memento," "The Dark Knight").

 

In "Unforgettable," formerly known by an even worse name for a crime show, "The Rememberer," Poppy Montgomery plays a former police detective with an uncanny ability to, well, remember stuff. It's actually described as a "rare condition" in the show's bible, but if you ask us, it must be fantastic to never lose the car keys.

What sticks in the mind of Montgomery's Carrie Wells is "every place, every conversation, every moment of joy and every heartbreak." Everything, that is, except details of her sister's now-cold murder case. She reunites with a former love, returns to solving crimes and sets about finding her sister's murderer.

The drama, which will air Tuesday nights after a double dose of "NCIS" and "NCIS: Los Angeles," also stars Dylan Walsh ("Nip/Tuck"), Michael Gaston ("Inception") and Kevin Rankin ("Trauma").

 

"A Gifted Man," leading off Friday nights this fall, continues in the network's "Ghost Whisperer" vein with a medical drama about a gifted surgeon whose ex-wife speaks to him from the dead. And when she does, the charismatic doctor to the rich, Michael Holt, played by Patrick Wilson, changes his approach to medicine.

Jennifer Ehle stars as the idealistic (dearly departed) free-clinic doctor who encourages Holt to take over her urban facility for the underprivileged. Julie Benz ("Dexter") and Margo Martindale ("Justified") also star in the show from Susannah Grant ("Erin Brockovich") and Jonathan Demme ("Silence of the Lambs").

 

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Fall TV season: Watch a sneak preview of CW's 'H8R' from Mario Lopez, with Snooki, Kim Kardashian

The CW unveiled its fall schedule Thursday at its upfronts presentation in New York, announcing a new reality show, "H8R," that brings celebrities face to face with their biggest non-fans.

The unscripted series will air with the first all-stars edition of "America's Next Top Model" on Wednesdays.

Earning points for originality and Internet buzz from potential viewers, "H8R" puts presumably thick-skinned stars (including Snooki and Kim Kardashian) in a battle to win over regular folks who hate them. Mario Lopez will host and executive produce the show, from executive producers Lisa Gregorisch-Dempsey and Jeremy Spiegel (both of "Extra").

[Warning: The video below has some explicit language.]

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Fall TV season: Watch a sneak preview of Kevin Williamson's supernatural 'The Secret Circle' [Video]

The CW unveiled its fall schedule Thursday at its upfronts presentation in New York, announcing another supernatural-tinged drama, "The Secret Circle," based on the popular young-adult novels from "Vampire Diaries" writer L.J. Smith.

The mystery thriller, which centers on a coven of powerful witches, comes from "Vampire Diaries" creator Kevin Williamson and will air with that hit CW show on Thursday nights.

After a tragic accident leaves her an orphan, Cassie Blake (played by Britt Robertson) moves to a small harbor town in Washington where she finds out she's descended from witches and has magical powers. She and her new friends are the next-gen Secret Circle and they're headed for a showdown with some evil forces.

In addition to Williamson, executive producers are Andrew Miller, Leslie Morganstein ("The Vampire Diaries," "Gossip Girl") and Gina Girolamo. Stars include Natasha Henstridge, Thomas Dekker and Phoebe Tonkin.

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Fall TV season: Watch a sneak preview of CW's 'Hart of Dixie' from 'Gossip Girl's' Josh Schwartz [Video]

The CW unveiled its fall schedule Thursday at its upfront presentation in New York, announcing a new fish-out-of-water medical drama, "Hart of Dixie," starring "The O.C." alum Rachel Bilson.

The series, which will be paired with "Gossip Girl" on Mondays, will make a full prime-time block from writer/producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. (The two created "Gossip Girl" and "The O.C.").

"Hart of Dixie" transplants Bilson's sophisticated, type-A Dr. Zoe Hart from Manhattan to the fictional small Gulf Coast town of Bluebell, Ala., to practice medicine and learn life lessons. Also starring: Jaime King as a sweet-on-the-outside Southern belle, Scott Porter and Cress Williams.

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Fall TV season: Watch a sneak preview of CW's 'Ringer' with 'Buffy's' Sarah Michelle Gellar [Video]

The CW unveiled its fall schedule Thursday at its upfronts presentation in New York, announcing a new drama, "Ringer," that marks the TV return of "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer's" Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Gellar stars as a marked woman on the run who takes on her twin sister's identity, only to realize her sibling's life isn't danger-free either. After witnessing a professional hit, Gellar's Bridget reunites with her estranged twin sister and slips into her sibling's shoes/marriage/penthouse after she mysteriously disappears. Gellar plays both roles, Bridget and Siobhan, whose wealthy, idyllic life looked a lot better from the outside.

The thriller, originally developed for CBS, also stars Nestor Carbonell of "Lost," Tara Summers, Kristoffer Polaha and Ioan Gruffudd. It will air with "90210" on Tuesdays.

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