Thanks to LAWard for sending this in! Link: from: tvguide online
Jumping Ship?
Right Shows, Wrong Networks
By Matt Roush
When I heard that Sabrina, the Teenage Witch was leaving ABC for WB next
season, it made perfect sense. ABC’s "TGIF" franchise is fading, and Sabrina
will be right at home on the teencentric network, where that coven of Charmed
cuties thrives. But this jump got me thinking about the unhappy fate this
year of several critically championed but ratings-poor series, any of which
might have fared better had they aired on different networks. This applies
most notably to ABC’s unhappily-on-hiatus Sports Night, whose production
executives have said they would eagerly shop the show to NBC or HBO, if ABC
passes.
Forget HBO, which isn’t likely to pick up any network’s castoffs. But NBC
could be a much happier home for this offbeat comedy-drama, which, like NBC’s
freshman hit The West Wing, is written by the prolifically entertaining Aaron
Sorkin. Besides, NBC’s comedies (such as Frasier and Will & Grace) tend to be
more sophisticated than ABC’s broader offerings, such as Sports Night’s more
popular but incompatible companion show, Dharma & Greg. NBC had its own
ill-fated underdog in the endearing Freaks and Geeks, an unsentimental ’80s
Wonder Years about the runts and punks who dwell in the unpopular margins of
high school. This show might still be alive if it had aired on Fox, which
nurtured That ’70s Show into a modest hit and has had miserable luck with its
own new dramas. Plus, the network is losing many of its signature hours:
90210, Party of Five, maybe even The X-Files as we know it.
This network would also be an appropriate venue for Roswell — which,
ironically, Fox initially developed — if WB chooses not to renew this
addictive hybrid of teen romance and sci-fi thriller. (Friday, where The
X-Files once flourished, is wide open.) As for Fox’s most notorious failure,
the caustic Hollywood satire Action, it should never have escaped HBO, where
it was originally intended. On pay-cable, Action might have looked like a
subversive hit, but on Fox, where battles were often fought over its racy
content, it was doomed. Their loss, no one’s gain.
