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Scripted Programming

Entertainment

Thoughts on Freeform’s future as a basic cable channel with a bunch of new reality TV rather than scripted content along the way

by Sports Benches

Lots of unscripted stuff coming Freeform’s way over the last 12 months with two new ones being added this week, while some in their current original scripted library, Good Trouble has just finished its book after five seasons & 88 episodes on air & Grown-ish’s 2nd half of the sixth and final season will resume on Wednesdays from the 27th March to May 22nd. Where to go to from here after this? Having reversed their plans to have While You Were Breeding on the air late last year despite having a finished production of all 10 episodes. 

All we know so far over the last two years is that they shot a pilot called AZNBBRL, a teenage drama following three Asian-American girls with a desire to follow their own way rather than their parents. But we haven’t heard much since then & it looks like that won’t be going forward & lots of people would have moved on by now since Freeform went with a different direction over time, which led to the reverse cancellation of While You Were Breeding. Freeform also added just two in-development projects throughout last year. One was Knife’s Edge (a horror drama where a Mother & Daughter is against vampires based on a book) just before the Strikes began in April & another most recent back in November was RUSH (a High School drama from Israel called The Station about their lives as first responders). Again, not much progress for both since then with no direction being finalised for Freeform’s original scripted programming over the next few months.

A few weeks ago, Craig Enrich who is the president of Disney Television Group & looks after Disney’s family of networks, said that Freeform won’t be going anywhere for the foreseeable future. He didn’t say much about what they will do about scripted stuff going forward but he did point out about the success of having reality content amongst a female focused audience & that the syndicated repeats & movie event nights are also here to stay. So there you have it, despite people cutting the cord in recent years, reality TV, repeats and movies has kept Freeform alive today until things go south & they find no other way to keep that channel going at some point in the near future. I guess RUSH & Knife’s Edge would still play a role onto the pilot stage & hope things will work out since there’s not much to offer on the comedy side, but it looks like it would be a thing of the past if Freeform think it would cost too much $$$ to chuck in a bunch of new scripted content like it used to be.

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Entertainment

After the actors’ strike was finally over, CBS replaced The Late Late Show last week with a revival of @midnight while ABC just binned both The Rookie: Feds & The Good Lawyer

by Sports Benches

Glad that the actor’s strike is finally over after 118 days between July and this week as well as six months when it comes to the strikes as a whole that affected the writers from around April until the end of September. All late night and some daytime talk shows are up and running again, as well as seeing CBS finally replace The Late Late Show franchise last week for the 12.37am timeslot with a new version of @midnight called After Midnight after James Corden left also in April this year to return back to the UK where it might not be another talk show, but this time it’s going to be a panel game show that will target a young audience alongside a young comedian at the helm named Taylor Tomlinson based on the up-to-date events off the internet.

Now ABC today has finally made their decisions regarding the last two shows that have been hanging in the balance for months, such a possible Season 2 of the Rookie: Feds & a potential spin-off on The Good Lawyer following its backdoor pilot episode of the flagship The Good Doctor medical drama show back in March this year. Unfortunately, neither of them will be going forward since it’s almost the end of this year thanks to both strikes along with the end of comedy sitcom Home Economics who won’t be getting a 4th season not long after the writers’ strike has over. That means, the only new show from this year’s pilot intake that got a series order other than rescuing 9-1-1 from FOX was High Potential, a comedy-crime police drama adopted from France whose plot involving a mother of three who has extraordinary ability to solve crimes, will still go ahead but has since been pushed back to a year from now in order to get their returning scripted shows back on the air first ASAP through March 2024. If it wasn’t for the writer’s & actors’ strikes, A full season of The Good Lawyer would’ve been on the air by now last month or early March next year if both strikes did end sooner before October which sadly took a month longer than anticipated. Plus, while fans did enjoy watching the Rookie spin-off show (The Rookie: Feds) with sound ratings, they can only focus on the main show moving forward as there is no room for Season 2 with also unfortunate thanks from the strike.

While there is nothing ABC can do about this no matter how disappointed the usual TV fan is feeling at the moment, all they can now is honour their existing strike-proof commitments between now and February before all of their existing scripted programming can come back in life. Then we’ll wait and see which next batch of in-development projects will be up for a pilot screening come mid-2024 as I expect they will choose quality over quantity when it comes to picking up series orders. So scripted programming is here to stay but their library shelf won’t fill in that much since The Golden Bachelor for the elderly and the return of Dancing With the Stars on free-to-air (this time on Tuesday nights) has been their main headline acts since this prime-time TV season. Although I still haven’t heard much detail or official confirmation about the return of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition since June/July, but as it stands, it looks like The Home Edit duo of Clea Shearer & Joanna Teplin will be hosting the show rather than Ty Pennington who hosted the original version on this network between 2004-2012.

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Entertainment

Thoughts on The Spiderwick Chronicles getting a new home at The Roku Channel with hope of While You Were Breeding also landing a lifeline elsewhere from Freeform

by Sports Benches

Well, we found one recently unaired cancelled Disney + show ahead of its premiere that saw them land a new home at The Roku Channel (streaming service) a days ago, which is called The Spiderwick Chronicles. We will now see eight instead of the originally planned six episodes going into early next year, having finished filming during the production beforehand. 

If you’d like to know a bit about the plot, it’s based on a children’s fantasy novel around the Grace’s family discovery after they’ve moved into their ancestral home (Estate). That’s great news to hear & also even better to watch all eight episodes for free too thanks to Roku where it would’ve been gone behind a paywall if that show wasn’t cancelled on Disney +. Plus, we will expect to watch it on Paramount + here in Australia since they’re the International distributor, even though Disney’s 20th Television is listed as the co-producers of the show.

All we can hope now is for While You Were Breeding, a comedy drama travel show, to get a new home too after they were given the chop recently by Freeform – despite finishing all ten episodes in production beforehand. Yes, that show was also set behind a paywall but I would love to see it on Roku or a similar paid streaming service too, especially when this year’s film strikes have changed Freeform’s way over time before they were left out of it. As said, unaired pilots or even unaired scripted programming rarely get a 2nd chance. But this can be done if appropriate & we’d like to see While You Were Breeding on the air on a different streaming service of any kind with the help of Freeform via their studios arm sooner rather than later.

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Entertainment

Thoughts on Freeform’s backflip of While You Were Breeding where they will now not be on the air despite completing all ten episodes

by Sports Benches

Image by Freepik

At the same time two days ago when ABC cancelled Home Economics after three seasons, its sister cable channel Freeform has decided not to put While You Were Breeding on the air at all next year despite finishing all ten episodes just before the five month strike began earlier in May. If the strike didn’t happen, the show would’ve started airing last month, but then the unexpected strike saw its August premiere being postponed to sometime 2024 & now it’s in the trash bin instead.

It’s an hour-long comedy show about one person’s journey (30-year-old woman named Kacey), who explores the world alone from LA that reflects her true self, which is based on a book memoir What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding by writer/producer Kristin Newman. Although one can only hope that Freeform Studios will find another home for them & air these 10 episodes. Yes, these pilot lifelines don’t come out much, especially when ABC backflipped Avalon from its straight to series order nearly a year ago after they saw the pilot episode. However, considering that the writers strike is now over, a streamer or another TV network should take this opportunity & show how scripted TV is done for all on the air.

We would’ve loved to see Freeform kept its promises to the show’s creator and its cast & crew, but sadly it’s not about the show as they no longer fit the network’s programming strategy with thanks to the strike being re-worked over time. Instead, they chose to put a few reality TV programming shows on the air this year with more to come, which is the direction they’re going alongside weekly repeated & season programming marathons. It also seems Freeform would retain just a handful of original scripted programming while adding a few brand new quality ones soon just like ABC & it would be no surprise if Freeform would be sold alone/shut down at some stage since viewers are tuning in more on their devices rather than cable.

Grown-ish is currently in its sixth and final season while The Good Summer should stick around a bit longer as we wait & see if both Praise Petey & Cruel Summer will stay on for another season alongside the new scripted pickups in a few weeks time.

For now, please support Kristin by buying/reading her book to know all about what the TV adaptation would look like which is available on Amazon here while we hope it would be on the air elsewhere sooner rather than later.

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Entertainment

Thoughts on ABC Network’s axing of comedy show Home Economics after Season 3 & High Potential being moved to Fall next year

by Sports Benches

First few days post-strike for writers to get back to work and the first thing ABC has done is not renewing comedy show Home Economics after three seasons on the air. It’s no surprise considering ABC wants quality rather than quantity of comedy content led by Abbott Elementary, having chosen not to put any of these new shows onboard for the next cycle (which was usually meant to be this Fall but now has changed after what happened over 5 months ago due to the strikes).

So it might have taken that long but Home Economics has probably reached its plateau before the announcement today as the seasons goes by. That means, we will expect to see new season episodes of The Conners, Abbott Elementary & Not Dead Yet for sometime next year before we wait & see what happens in the next cycle window.

Then moving onto the drama side of things and they still have yet to make decisions whether or not if The Rookie: Feds will get a 2nd season as well as giving The Good Lawyer spin-off show of The Good Doctor a full-season order after airing the backdoor pilot earlier in March this year. Meanwhile, ABC has set a premiere date of the American High Intellectual Potential crime comedy drama to Fall next year rather than rushing up at the wrong time during Spring or Summer. 

I’m pretty sure they’re definitely not going to do an Avalon here when they first made a straight to series order early last year for the initial 2023 mid-season window, then it was moved to Fall of this year because of Will Trent & The Company You Keep and eventually by November last year, they reversed that decision & chose not proceed Avalon into a series order following a screen test of the pilot. I also don’t think any other network would rescue a passed pilot which is rare as well.

But we could see Season 7 of 9-1-1 alongside all other existing drama shows that is returning a few months earlier than that since it was previously aired on FOX for a few years (although they kept 9-1-1 Lone Star) prior to making the move here. 

I guess it’s still too early to tell since the actors strike isn’t done yet with hope of seeing light at the end of the tunnel early next week. Well, obviously the comedy side is correct timing for the network to make as said above not long after the writers strike was finally over with Home Economics being given the chop. Now I’m not sure what ABC has said in more detail about The Rookie: Feds, so hard to tell considering they still got the main show after a few years on the air since 2018.

On the other hand, The Good Lawyer is something they liked after the screen test came back really well off the back from the backdoor pilot episode as it would be a perfect lead-in for the main show at 8 or 9pm Mondays. If the strike didn’t happen at all, then it would’ve been on the air by now. Other networks have already their plans set when it comes to the next available scripted programming cycle, but this one is a bit unusual and if the actors strike doesn’t end anytime soon; ABC would have no choice but to put that Good Lawyer idea into the bin. This is the one to keep a close eye on that would hopefully boost their Monday programming block’s performance with the audience & its storylines/content.

For now, we wish that crew the best of luck as you can go watch all three seasons of Home Economics only on Stan here in Australia as well as Hulu in the US.

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