ABC yanks 'Hank', puts Nathan Gamble out of work
Taylor
would rather run a second consecutive night of "It's the Great
Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" than broadcast your fifth episode, immediately
after which the network airs your Thanksgiving episode three weeks
early.
Which is to say absolutely no one was surprised when ABC on Wednesday
finally put its Kelsey Grammer sitcom "Hank" out of our misery.
By the time ABC finally pulled the plug on "Hank," the producers were
working on a 10th episode, and so far we've only suffered through
five.
On the bright side, ABC says it has no immediate plans to air the
remaining episodes.
In case you missed it -- lucky you -- Grammer played a self-made
multimillionaire named Hank Pryor who married a woman named Tilly from
Rubesville, Virginia, who came from a family whose members had all
been dropped on their heads from a great height. Grammer's character
made his fortune building a retail sporting-goods empire -- you betcha
-- but then lost everything in this economic downturn so he packed up
Tilly and their two revolting sitcom children and moved back to
Rubesville so Hank could be a fish out of water.
ABC is going to fill the Tuesday 8 p.m. half hour with holiday
specials and reruns of its more successful comedies. A month ago, ABC
announced it had picked up the other three comedies of its all-new
Wednesday comedy lineup, which had attracted more viewers than
"Hank" (which had been averaging under 7 million viewers). Those three
series -- "The Middle" starring Patricia Heaton (7.3 million),
Christopher Lloyd's "Modern Family" (11 million) and "Cougar Town"
starring Courteney Cox (9 million) -- are among the most surprising
success stories of this new TV season, what with ABC not being known
for developing strong comedies. Remember "According to Jim"?
Now the real fun begins as we wait to see whether Grammer will savage
ABC for the cancellation. ABC's the only network Grammer has not
nicked in recent months. Over the summer he chastised CBS CEO Leslie
Moonves for his handling of "Medium" -- which CBS produces and for
which Grammer is one of the executive producers. Grammer also did not
appear to think much of NBC suits for the way they treated "Medium"
when it ran on that network. And he wasn't too complimentary of Fox
execs for dumping his sitcom "Back to You."