There was a time when the 9pm CT hour of NBC’s Thursday night lineup was filled with some of the best dramas of all time, part of what was once billed as Must See TV. As Alan Sepinwall pointed out tonight on Twitter, between 1981 and 2009, that time slot was filled by “Hill Street Blues,” “LA Law,” and “ER.”
That’s 3 ground-breaking shows in 28 years. Since then, Sepinwall adds, the network has tried 10 different shows and none of them have stuck: “Southland,” “The Jay Leno Show,” “The Marriage Ref,” “The Apprentice,” “Outsourced,” “Prime Suspect,” “The Firm,” “Awake,” “Rock Center,” and “Do No Harm” (the latter didn’t even make it to a third episode).
Now NBC has a new show, “Hannibal,” that’s ready to take a shot. The network has given it a 13-episode order, but whether America wants to see a show based on the character made famous in “Silence Of The Lambs” remains to be seen. It’s ironic that a show about a human who eats humans would get a slot on a network that eats itself.