ABC, Fox just doomed ’Kingdom,’ ’Wonderfalls’

Apr. 1, 2004 12:00 AM

It sounds like an innocuous announcement: ABC is moving Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital to 8 p.m. Thursday beginning next week, while Fox is trying a first-run Wonderfalls in the same slot tonight to see how it’ll fare.

It doesn’t take a fortuneteller to figure it out. Wonderfalls is going to get killed. So is Kingdom Hospital. Because scheduling a show on Thursday nights at 8 is TV’s equivalent of pushing a baby carriage into the path of an oncoming train.

But thanks to the quirks of TV ratings and how they’re read - they make Sanskrit look like Dick and Jane - it’s possible Wonderfalls will survive. Extremely doubtful; if the show were a patient, its condition would have to be considered critical. But it’s probably looking at better odds than Kingdom Hospital.

It’s true that more people watch TV on Thursday nights. But at 8 p.m., most are watching two shows: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation on CBS and The Apprentice on NBC. Going up against those two shows is like finding yourself in a buffet line behind a couple of sumo wrestlers. Not a lot of scraps left.

The thing is, Wonderfalls is the best show of the lot.

No matter. This is TV we’re talking about. Ratings, which translate into advertising money, are what count. And Kingdom Hospital and Wonderfalls fare poorly on the ratings front which is why they find themselves in this predicament.

CSI is the most watched show on television. (It didn’t air last week because CBS broadcast the NCAA basketball tournament.) The Apprentice is a Top 10 show week in and week out; last week, it finished No. 2. In a given week, the two shows together might attract 50 million viewers. Going up against them isn’t a gutsy programming move. It’s suicide.

In Kingdom Hospital’s case, it’s not such a tragedy. The show is a Stephen King project based in part on a Danish miniseries about a hospital built on "uneasy ground," which means lots of ghosts roaming about. It’s mostly a mess, but at least it’s different. ABC gets points for that, and the network has to take points where it can get them these days.

Wonderfalls is a different story, another good idea Fox can’t seem to get people to watch. The delightful tale of a Brown University graduate who whiles away her time at a Niagara Falls gift shop until inanimate objects - toy animals, mostly - start talking to her, deserves better than the anemic audience it attracts (only 4.3 million watched its March 12 première). Caroline Dhavernas, though quite attractive in the starring role, isn’t a classic TV bimbo babe. She brings a realism to a fantastical story that makes it all the better.

Some argue there’s a chance that Wonderfalls will hold on to enough of lead-in Tru Calling’s young audience, meager though it may be, and that the numbers will satisfy Fox enough to let the show live a little longer. There’s also a chance that your lottery ticket is worth a truck full of cash.

Take that approach with the future of Kingdom Hospital and Wonderfalls. Hope all you want. Something good may happen. Just don’t plan your future around it.