Yesterday, Fox took part in the Television Critics’ Association presentation, delivering numerous inside scoops on some of your favorite shows. The event featured writers, producers and a few actors, such as the delicious Wentworth Miller (pictured).
Let’s get right into the action!
Peter Liguori, Fox’s entertainment president, admitted that his network “does an outstanding job from January through August… the whole ball of wax is really about improving our fourth quarter.” Sounds like he wants some hits until American Idol and 24 save the day in January.
The solution appears to be scheduling shows with periodic, longer-breaks; just how Prison Break premiered before baseball playoffs, came back strong after the World Series and then took a long hiatus while Jack Bauer saved the world again.
This explains the 16-episode order and November premiere of The O.C. (although nothing from the panel explained why the show has sucked a huge one for the last two years). Liguori said the drama will play continually through March – and if it manages to weather the Grey’s Anatomy vs. CSI Thursday-night war, it may even get extended to 24 episodes. In other words: no chance.
Liguori also reiterated that So You Think You Can Dance? and Hell’s Kitchen have both been picked up for another season. The Gossip was way ahead of him on that one!
Tidbits regarding Prison Break were then revealed. With the felons now fugitives, viewers shouldn’t expect to see much of Stacy Keach’s Warden Pope; production’s moved from the Joliet, Ill., penitentiary to the wide open spaces of Dallas (which can double for the many different locations needed for the second season).
The inmates will be spreading out too, as they enter what creator Paul T. Scheuring called their ”respective endgames.” Scheuring later said he had only planned on two seasons, but now sees the first two seasons as the first chapter of a trilogy. We assume that means more money will equate to more episode.