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TwitterNews roundup: 'Southland' delayed, 'Leverage' renewed, Laura Linney's 'C Word'
NBC is holding back the premiere of its sophomore series "Southland" for four weeks in the fall.The cop show from "ER" and "West Wing" producer John Wells had been scheduled to premiere on Friday, Sept. 25. Instead it will debut on Oct. 23, four weeks after time-slot competitors "Medium" and "Dollhouse" and two weeks after ABC's "Ugly Betty."
The Hollywood Reporter's Live Feed says NBC wants to give the show, which started off well last season but tailed off a bit, a little extra marketing push in what will be a fairly competitive time period.
TNT has ordered a third season of its series "Leverage."
The show, which stars Timothy Hutton as the Robin Hood-esque leader of a team of con artists, has been a strong performer for the cable network. It's averaging 4.1 million viewers an episode this summer, an improvement over the 3.9 million it drew in its first season earlier this year.
"Leverage" wraps its summer run on Sept. 9 and will return for a few episodes in the winter to complete season two. The third season is on track to air in summer 2010.
Showtime has added another award-winning actress to its roster, signing three-time Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Laura Linney for a pilot called "The C Word."
Linney will star in the half-hour pilot as a woman who is diagnosed with cancer and attempts to "find the light side in a dark situation," as Showtime puts it. Writer ("90210," "Will & Grace") and actress ("I Heart Huckabees," "Help Me Help You") Darlene Hunt created the show.
If "The C Word" is picked up, Linney will join a roster of female series leads at Showtime that already includes Toni Colette ("United States of Tara"), Mary-Louise Parker ("Weeds") and Edie Falco ("Nurse Jackie").
Bits and pieces: "Chuck" and "Gossip Girl" executive producer Josh Schwartz is turning to sitcoms, writing a pilot for CBS with fellow "Chuck" scribe Matt Miller about a young married couple; former "Boston Legal" star Christian Clemenson will guest-star in at least two episodes of "CSI: Miami" as a medical examiner; and "Spider-Man" director and "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" exec producer Sam Raimi has signed a two-year deal with Sony Pictures TV to develop TV series.
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Related:
'Southland,' 'Friday Night Lights' and 'Parenthood' add cast members
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Laura Linney is fantastic. definitely will turn into that show.
Southland - eh not so much. Started out with such great potential and seemed to lose its footing after the first couple of episodes. Now it's been moved to wasteland Fridays. Of course they may want to keep it around to replace Leno after they cancel his arse
I could watch 24 hours of Leno over that Southland crap.. terrible show
Sad to see CBS hiring proven ratings disaster Josh Schwartz. :(
I do question that rating on Leverage.
If it had "averaged" 4.1 million viewers, it would have shown up in the Top 20 a number of times. It hasn't.
It looks like the 4.1 may have been either a combined rating (maybe adding two weeks of DVR) or the premiere rating (SeeFee pulled that one to hype Warehouse 13 and pretend it is more watched than it is). I guess it is an average of one show in that case! ;)
This week anyithng over 3.7 million would have popped in the Top 15.
It'd be great is zap2it would research that and find out what the real average was.
In any case, another bad move for TNT renewing a show that is being ignored by the public.
Rena - The 4.1 million number for "Leverage" is a live +7 rating for most of the season, and same-day ratings for its most recent weeks.
That's a pretty healthy number for a cable series.
Sorry, lemme clarify that. Live +7 for the weeks it's available (those numbers lag a couple weeks behind), combined with the same-day audiences for the most recent episodes.
yeah. Sad isn't. Southland cannot and could never come close to the quality of LIFE. Yet what do those brain dead imbeciles cancel........ I would not watch el stinko leno if you held a bazooka to my head! Bleack!!!!!
It will be fun to watch Medium beat Southland in ratings.
Thanks for the number clarification Rick. :) I had discovered it by digging a bit myself, but I very much appreciate your contribution. ;)
I do not agree that it's all that "healthy" for a cable series as it lags everything that USA is putting on (and even lags NCIS re-runs!!)
I do find it extremely misleading of TNT that they'd not give their "real" (or at least usual as far as meaningful comparisons can be made by people not receiving the Nielsen book!) ratings in their PR release.
While not "lying" per se, I find it intentionally misleading to a high degree.
In other words, while they may not be found guilty of perjury if they testified to this in court, they certainly are doing their best to mislead us and think that show is doing a lot better than it really is.
I for one am not impressed.
It also would behoove journalists
(with all due respect if you are the Rick who wrote the article :) ) to do a little bit or work and check (and give us) comparable ratings rather than leave us with meaningless numbers whose only purpose is to obscure reality.
I really don't think that's setting the bar all that high. :)
A lot of people complain that good shows are cancelled because of poor ratings and that networks should give the show more of a chance based on quality alone. So Leverage gets a chance to continue to produce great television. Why complain about misleading ratings? All that matters to me is that a show I like is getting another season. Isn't that mostly what fans want as well?
Are you suggesting that Leverage should be cancelled because it doesn't have great ratings? If the ratings are good enough and the network likes the show, why not let it continue?