This has been a tough week for marginal TV shows, with three of them getting notice of their own demise.
None are surprises and only one is likely to spawn one of those "save our show" efforts -- Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" on Fox. With low ratings in its Friday night slot, it's a surprise Eliza Dushku's show got a second season at all.
"Dollhouse" was pulled from the schedule for the November sweeps to prevent its low numbers from hurting Fox's overall average. It's due back in December and the good news is that it will burn off its full 13-episode second season.
The least surprising cancellation is "Hank," Kelsey Grammer's sitcom about a rich guy who loses his big job and has to downsize. The hole in the Wednesday night lineup will be filled by reruns and specials.
Even the "Hank" pilot had the scent of death around it.
The big surprise on ABC is that Patricia Heaton, Grammer's old partner from Fox's "Back to You," has a sitcom that has survived. "The Middle" has already been picked up for the rest of the season along with two of the other Wednesday night sitcoms.
ABC's 9 p.m. show, "Eastwick," also got word this week that the network's not ordering any more episodes. That opens up the slot for "Ugly Betty," which is in jeopardy in the 8 p.m. Friday slot.
As long as we're talking about ABC, its sci-fi drama "V" didn't do quite so well in its second week. Last week's premiere had 14.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research numbers. That dipped to 10.6 million for chapter two of the alien invasion. That's still a healthy audience, but don't go calling it a mega-hit.
On TV: CNN's Lou Dobbs announced on the air Wednesday that he's leaving the news channel, because "some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond my role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving, as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day." Hmmm, when does the presidential campaign start?
- Moving quickly, CNN says John King will take Dobbs' 6 p.m. weeknight hour starting next year, replacing an opinion-based show with a news program.
- The White House's war on Fox News Channel may be ending. President Barack Obama will reportedly sit down with Fox News' Major Garrett next week for an interview.
- Speaking of Fox News, Miranda Barry, an executive vice president with Sesame Workshop, says a reference to "Pox News" in a 2007 Oscar the Grouch skit on "Sesame Street" was not a political slam against the conservative-skewing channel. Instead, it was Oscar defending his GNN (Grouch News Network) against a competitor. Some Fox News fans took offense.
- And in one last bit of Fox News news, Sean Hannity admitted Wednesday night that Jon Stewart got it right when he reported on Comedy Central's "Daily Show" that Hannity had mixed video from a Washington, D.C., rally on Saturday and one in September without noting they were two separate events.
Get ready for Sarah Palin week: The media tour for Sarah Palin's autobiography kicks off Monday on Oprah Winfrey's daytime talk show at 4 p.m. on Channel 12. That will be followed by visits with Barbara Walters and Fox News Channel.
Oprah has already taped her hour with Palin, and a video tease from the queen of daytime TV follows below.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
