The Netjumper's Curse

When first Medium’s star, Patricia Arquette, and then its executive producer, Glenn Gordon Caron, confirmed this week that CBS has indeed cancelled the Friday night drama, it was one more example of what I like to call “The Netjumper’s Curse.”

After spending its first five years over on the Peacock network, Arquette’s character, psychic Allison Dubois, had hoped to foresee a long and profitable future at the Eye, whose in-house studio also produces the show; alas, after one full season and this second, abbreviated 13-ep year, it’s all over.

The pattern is nothing new, because for almost as long as there have been TV networks, there have been TV shows which have jumped among them. So while one of the medium’s earliest hits, The Goldbergs, may have premiered in 1949 on CBS, after a couple of seasons, Gertrude Berg’s title character Molly was waving “Yoo hoo” out of a window at NBC, and later at the era’s third network, Dumont.

It may seem that Father Knows Best that a series can find new life just by switching networks, as Robert Young’s wholesome ‘50s sitcom did three times in the course of its run, landing on CBS twice. And My Three Sons played for so long – on both ABC and CBS – that the show eventually had to augment its aging cast with an extra kid named Ernie, just to keep the title making sense.

But since then, the benefits of “netjumping” have become much less clear. Many shows swapping spots on the dial have managed to eke out only one more year before succumbing to the TV fates. Looking back, some, like ABC’s long-running TGIF sitcoms Family Matters and Step By Step, had probably already run out of steam before making that one last leap. Even a network-leaping Wonder Woman couldn’t conquer that one indomitable small screen foe: early cancellation.

In TV’s most recent, and most famous case of successful netjumping, in 1996 JAG motored on over after just one season on NBC to CBS, where, with a change in cast and story focus, it dominated the ratings for nine more years. Since then, we’ve had Scrubs die on the operating table in its sole season on ABC, and who can forget the middling post-jump success of Grounded for Life? (Answer: everyone.) That’s not to say that I want to discourage networks from salvaging each other’s unappreciated treasures. Let’s just hope we don’t have to worry about it, because here’s hoping that AMC will finally nut up and renew Mad Men. And in the meanwhile, let’s pour ourselves a good, stiff drink.

ABC renews The Middle, Modern Family & Cougar Town

BREAKING NEWS: ABC's Steve McPherson has announced today season 2 pickups for its 3 successful Wednesday comedies, The Middle, Modern Family and Cougar Town. It's great news for fans of these three fabulous new comedies -- and for the shows' producers, who didn't already know. In fact, "the shows are finding out from your blogs right now," McPherson joked.

"Creatively it was a wonderful fall. Hats off to my comedy team and drama team," the ABC President said. As for Wednesday, "it was quite a challenge launching a new night. But we're really excited where we ended up with that. It gives us a foothold in comedy, and we intend to grow that."

Speaking of footholds in comedy, I asked McPherson about the network's lame launches of Scrubs and Better Off Ted this season, and how they seem to have thrown those shows to the wolves the moment they didn't magically electrify ABC's moribund Tuesday schedule.

McPherson stressed that the network is not "burning off" Scrubs and Ted, and admitted that outside of Wednesday, any comedies airing on the network would end up being their own "island," which is a distinct competitive disadvantage. I also asked why neither Scrubs nor Ted was given the deceased Hank's time slot, and McPherson countered that repeats of The Middle and Modern Family have done great for ABC, and will until such time as the network finds a suitable replacement. In the fall, he added, the network had assessed Scrubs and Ted and had decided that neither would fit well into Wednesday. (I strongly disagree -- plus, they thought Hank, a more traditional multi-camera comedy, fit well among those other 3 shows? Hey, but that's what the man said.)

I followed up by asking if, after their runs end this month, Scrubs and Ted could be considered euphemistically "on hiatus," or more bluntly, "cancelled." According to McPherson, no decision has yet been made, and will be made only then. It doesn't sound promising, but here's to hoping that the rest of ABC's spring pilots yield a few comedies which could be combined with Scrubs and Ted to form a new night, much like the network did this year on Wednesday.

Don't Miss Better Off Ted, tonight on ABC

Last Tuesday, Scrubs returned to ABC with a double-episode premiere of its new "2.0" format, set in a medical school. The ratings, unfortunately, were abysmal.

Tonight, following Scrubs, is the return of my favorite new show of last season, Better Off Ted. If you haven't yet sampled the show, set in the hilariously amoral corporate offices of conglomerate Veridian Dynamics, you're missing some of the edgiest, most pointed and yet silliest writing to be found in today's TV comedy. And some of the best performances, like standouts Portia DeRossi, as the driven and icy blonde boss Veronica, and Andrea Anders as the neurotic and moral underling Linda.

Yesterday, on Sirius OutQ's The Frank DeCaro Show, another of the show's stars, out gay actor Jonathan Slavin, who plays the hilariously put-upon lab researcher Phil, noted that ABC hopes that the pairing of Scrubs and Ted will click, since they both have such a smart comic sensibility. (I would also add that if you are/were a fan of either Arrested Development or 30 Rock, you should check in tonight with Ted.)

Personally, I wish ABC had given Ted the berth in its more successful Wednesday lineup which used to be occupied by Kelsey Grammer's now-cancelled Hank, and which now temporarily houses repeats of this season's best new comedy, Modern Family. Let's hope that Scrubs and Ted, two shows worth watching, can cause some uptick in the numbers at ABC -- although with CBS' combination of NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles and The Good Wife catching fire this season, it's going to be a tough battle.

So check out the following clip from last season's finest half-hour, entitled "Racial Sensitivity" (in which Veridian's new automatic light sensors are unable to sense the presence of black people, effectively locking them in dark rooms at work) and then, if you still can't miss your LL Cool J fix -- and who could blame you? -- set your DVRs for a season pass of Ted.

Better Off Ted
Tuesdays at 9:30 Eastern
ABC