Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Question: I started the fall season with a lot of cynicism toward sitcoms... so many disappointments in the past. Imagine my surprise to be adding four new comedies to my "must see" list. I had high hopes for Everybody Hates Chris and was not disappointed, but my enjoyment of How I Met Your Mother and Kitchen Confidential were unexpected. And the best surprise... My Name Is Earl had me laughing out loud and passing out copies of the premiere to friends who missed it. I thought it was one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in a long while. My question, wrapped up in all this gushing, is this: How are these shows doing in the ratings? Given the shortage of good sitcoms in the last several years, is it unreasonable to hope that all four might stick around for a while? - Sandy

Matt Roush: The only one of these I’d be concerned about from the get-go is Kitchen Confidential, which has been doing miserably paired with Arrested Development in an inhospitable time period too early in the evening - and probably on the wrong night, to boot. Your picks were the four comedies I singled out in TV Guide’s Fall Preview as favorites, and I’m hoping Fox will have some patience with Kitchen (as it has for the last few seasons with Arrested), but we’ll have to see how things shape up in late October, after baseball finishes interrupting Fox’s schedule. It’s still early days for the other newbies, but Mother is doing OK, though it would probably do better if it aired after Two and a Half Men in place of the underwhelming Out of Practice. NBC’s one piece of good news so far this season is the rollicking Earl, which slipped quite a bit in its second week, but look at the competition. From the early evidence, it seems possible that five shows will pull enough audience to succeed on Tuesdays at 9 pm/ET (Earl, Commander in Chief, House, The Amazing Race and Supernatural), which is pretty remarkable. And the best news of all: Everybody Hates Chris trumped Joey in the first week. UPN beating NBC on Thursdays! That qualifies as a home run by any network’s standards. (And the hourlong opener of Joey was flat-out unwatchable. That show is over.) So far, a very promising sign for a comedy renaissance on network TV.

Question: In an effort to find some comedy (any comedy) that isn’t against three of my favorite shows (why place Everybody Hates Chris on Thursdays?!), I tuned in to Kitchen Confidential. Maybe I am desperate, but I found it quirky and dug its different look. The basis of the its appeal has nothing to do with the fact that my long-lost favorites from other shows have made the switch to the kitchen (I love you, Will and Xander). Since finding out that it has yet to garner any real ratings, I’m wondering why Fox hasn’t promoted it more. I don’t remember how I found out about it, but I never saw a promo and I’m wondering if the reason the show isn’t getting the ratings is because Fox hasn’t really backed the show with a strong ad campaign. What do you think? - Alice

Matt Roush: I don’t track these sorts of things, but it’s fair to say that the majority of Fox’s promotion efforts for this fall went to launching (successfully) Prison Break, and everything else took a back seat. This kind of targeted strategy worked well last season for ABC where Lost and Desperate Housewives were concerned, and so far paid off with strong openings for Invasion and Commander in Chief. Other networks appear to be following suit, favoring a select few shows at the expense of others. But to be honest, I’m not sure even a promotional barrage would have had any difference for a show this offbeat airing in such a terrible time period and with no lead-in to speak of. Fox couldn’t have had very high expectations for this Monday comedy hour, and it doesn’t appear to be hurting the self-starting Prison Break. So again, let’s wait and see what Fox does in late fall and through the November sweeps.