Tuesday, April 3, 2007

"Crash" and burn

Now, news that's less exciting... from Zap2it:
Having had less-than-stellar results with dramas in the 10 p.m. Monday spot this season, NBC will take a flyer on unscripted comedy to close out the year.

The network has set a premiere date for The Real Wedding Crashers, a hidden-camera show based on the hit 2005 movie. The show, produced by Punk'd maestros Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg, will debut at 10 p.m. ET Monday, April 23, following the return of Heroes. It takes the spot of The Black Donnellys; there's no word on when that show's remaining episodes will air.

A group of five improv performers will take to the churches and reception halls or our fair nation, posing as guests or cater-waiters or other attendees to disrupt the proceedings, presumably to make sure that the happy couple never forgets their wedding day.

One catch: The bride and groom know what's coming. They're in on the joke and will help the "crashers" reveal the hoax at the end of each episode. Some of the hijinks will even be designed to bring families closer together, presumably in more than just horror at the behavior of the crashers.

OK, so here's another example of a network giving up on being creative and original and giving in to unentertaining, cheap reality shows. This is even worse because two very good dramas have fallen to this 10 p.m. Monday time slot (Studio 60 and Donnellys).

It goes to show that a lead-in means nothing for certain demographics. As great as Heroes is, the crowd that watches it isn't just leaving their TV on NBC. It's different from American Idol's crowd. And you can't measure the quality of these two shows without putting them in a more protective time slot. Putting them up against CSI: Miami was the shows' downfall, not their quality. Shame, NBC, shame.

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