The good news is that, according to Variety‘s James Hibberd, The CW has decided to bring back “Reaper” on March 3rd, which is a couple of weeks earlier than originally planned. The bad news is that it’s pretty clear that they’re doing so because they need a sacrificial lamb for the spot on the schedule against “American Idol,” and since they don’t want to keep wasting perfectly good episodes of “90210,” they’ve decided to use a series in which they clearly have limited faith.
Says Hibberd:
To make way for “Reaper,” the CW also advanced its first-season finale date for “Privileged.” The show will conclude Feb. 24, having aired fewer repeats than originally planned. The network has not yet decided whether the drama will return next season. “90210” has been wrestling with “Idol” in recent weeks. Yet it and “Privileged” enjoy the highest percentage of DVR gains among any show on any network.
I don’t want to sound like a pessimist, but while I think we can count on both “90210” and “Privileged” making it back in Fall 2009 (I can’t believe they won’t keep both shows at least into a sophomore season, given the importance of DVR stats in today’s TV), the odds of “Reaper” seeing a third year are already looking slim…and it hasn’t even premiered yet! The CW already hedged their bets with the show’s second year by only giving it a 13-episode commitment, and this maneuver stinks of someone at the network saying, “If it’s a hit, awesome, and if it’s not…well, we didn’t really expect it to be, anyway, so it’s no skin off our nose!”

ADDENDUM: Tyler Labine has been one of my Facebook friends ever since I interviewed him for Bullz-Eye, and when he changed his status this morning to indicate that he was “off to LA to get a new gig,” I immediately responded by asking, “Wow, is there really that little hope for a third season of ‘Reaper’?” He quickly replied, “No, no, just a big hiatus to fill up with gigs. Just a few movie ops. Season 3 is a definite maybe right now. I’ll keep everyone posted.” Oh, okay: if he’s hopeful, then I reckon can find it in my heart to be hopeful as well.

What, you were thinking Michelle Dessler? Nina Myers? Kim Bauer? First Lady Sherry Palmer? Mandy the bisexual assassin? Good guesses all, but none of them hold a candle to Chloe and her delightfully quirky “personality disorder,” as her supervisor Bill Buchanan succinctly put it. Once we had christened her, though, we wanted more girlfriends. Eventually we went all “Big Love” on the boob tube (oh man, do we deserve to be slapped for that one) and started appropriating women from dozens of shows to join our burgeoning harem.
With her quirky sense of humor, social ineptness and those sexy librarian glasses, Liz Lemon may be the only true-blue nerd on our list. That, of course, is anything but an insult. As the head writer for NBC’s “TGS with Tracy Jordan,” Liz doesn’t have a whole lot of free time to date, and even when she does go out, chances are she’ll figure out a way to sabotage the whole thing. But Liz’s foibles merely make her that much more endearing, even if the incessant “tick-tick-tick” of her internal clock understandably makes us a little nervous. Then again, there are worse things in life than settling down with an attractive, intelligent and successful woman who loves junk food, “Star Wars” and a good joke. Her boss, Jack Donaghy, still suspects that Liz may be a lesbian, but we’re not ashamed to admit that the mere possibility only heightens our interest in her. Plus, she kind of looks like the beautiful (if slightly crazy) Sarah Palin.



