Kevin Reilly, president of Fox Entertainment, just came onstage and announced:
* The scheduling process for “Dollhouse” was considered very seriously, and the thought is that moving “Sarah Connor” to Fridays as a lead-in makes a good combo; additionally, there’s a solid promotional platform the night before, with “Bones” being moved to Thursday nights. Long story short, they’re committed to 13 episodes, and they’ll see how it’ll play out.
* He confirmed conclusively that “Prison Break” will end after this season, but that “they’re gonna finish strong.” There are four episodes and are contemplating doing a few more, but no formal decision has been made on that. “We didn’t give it the hook,” he said. “It’s just played out.”
* He described “Fringe” as “a keeper,” though he also referred to it as “a bear, creatively, because it’s so ambitious,” and doesn’t really expect it to take off just because it’ll be airing after “American Idol.”
* “Moment of Truth” has a season’s worth of episodes – 24, he reckons – sitting on the shelf, and “we’ll come back to it at some point,” but “we had other options, and we had other things that we wanted to put on more immediately. We have it as a tool when we want to go for it.”
* The idea of doing a show about a high school glee club (“Glee”) was one that came about predominantly because of one reason: it was created by Ryan Murphy, of “Nip/Tuck” fame.
* He hopes to have Paula Abdul stay with “American Idol” for the long haul.
* He described NBC as “the crazy ex-wife I can’t get away from,” but gave them credit for signing up Jay Leno and described it as “a smart, strategic move for a troubled place.”
* “Bones” works everywhere they put it and has only been growing, thanks to its base. If it does what they hope it will do for them on Thursday, however, they’ll lock it down there.
* He smirked that “Do Not Disturb,” if nothing else, made a lot of lists this year, and that they’re mostly sticking with their animated sitcoms, though they’re ordering five half-hour pilots and will see whether or not one of them will end up on the fall schedule. “It doesn’t make sense to order comedy for the sake of comedy,” he said. “Even if I have a show that we love, if we don’t think it can be protected on the fall schedule, we won’t put it on there.”
