Television Notes
CAMELOT
Modern day interpretations of classic tales seems to be in vogue. First, NBC retells the King David story through Michael Green’s Kings and now Showtime and the BBC announced plans to produce Camelot telling, well, you know what.
The new show comes from Michael Hirst and Morgan O’Sullivan, the duo behind the cable network’s successful series The Tudors.
Hirst will be writing the scripts and serve as executive producer, much as he has done on the series featuring King Henry VIII. That show completed its second season in the spring and saw its rating rise 6% and the third season just wrapped production for an April debut.
Variety noted that Showtime has aggressively filled their production slate with several other originals beginning with the Diablo Cody-written show, United States of Tara which will star Toni Collette, debuting in January. Other shows range from the half-hour sitcom Nurse Jackie, starring Edie Falco, to the dark series, The End of Steve, likely to star Matthew Perry. Its L Word enters its final season in January and then star Leisha Haily is expected to be spun off into a new series.
ABC SHUFFLES
As we mentioned yesterday, ABC is placing Lost in Private Practice’s spot and there was no news as to where the Grey’s Anatomy spin-off was headed. Now we know thanks to The Hollywood Reporter. It moves to Thursday, right behind Grey’s while Life on Mars moves to Wednesday’s at 10 p.m. to get a boost from Lost.
The network also indicated Scrubs may debut in midseason Wednesdays at 8 p.m., displacing Pushing Daisies which has yet to find an audience this season and may not go beyond its 13 episode order. If so, expect to find creator Bryan Fuller once more toiling among Heroes.
No surprise, the new timeslot for Practice now means the two related shows will crossover in time for February sweeps.
Other shows in ratings trouble include Eli Stone although Dirty Sexy Money may get a new time slot to improve its fortunes.