Question: What’s your take on WB’s decision to move Angel to Wednesdays at 9 pm in January)? That’s four time-slot changes in four years. If the show was doing so well on Sundays, why move it again? — C.F.
Matt: I have mixed feelings about this. Angel’s Sunday time period was so overcrowded I’m personally relieved to have one less show to worry about keeping up with on the night. (Maybe some of Angel’s fans will drift over to Alias, thought that would be a pretty small spike.) But I doubt Angel will do much better in an equally overstuffed Wednesday time period, where competition will include The West Wing, The Bachelorette, The Amazing Race, early installments of American Idol, The Bernie Mac Show and even The Twilight Zone. The reason for this move is that WB obviously feels that yet another cheap reality show (High School Reunion, from the producer of The Bachelor) will do better on Sundays than Angel. The trend this midseason is toward an emphasis on junky “reality” and away from scripted unreality. I anticipate a lot of unhappy reaction before all of this plays out.
No no no! It should stay on Sunday, so both of the fantasy-scifi-y shows are on together. Yeah, I know, no one else watches Charmed around here, but… The WB used to be better at pairing shows up: Buffy and** Roswell** for sci-fi night, and Dawson’s Creek and Felicity for drama night. Sci-fi and drama don’t work very well together, didn’t the learn anything from Angel’s slot last year, or DC/BOP this year?
I’m all for it. I’ve been having Angel/Alias issues for months now, and now Fox has gone and put Andy Richter back on at the same time too.
There is absolutely nothing that appeals to me on Wednesdays. That’s actually when I usually get around to watching whatever I taped on Sunday and Tuesday (the great Buffy/Gilmore quandary).
So I was thinking, great! no more Sopranos/Angel problem… and now they’re moving it AGAIN! Stupid pigf-ckers. Now I have to deal with West Wing vs Angel. Double GRRR ARGH!
I’m bummed. I don’t want to have to choose between Angel and West Wing. Heretofore, neither show was a problem. There was nothing oposite either one that I had any interest in. (Sopranos sounds good, but I don’t have HBO or whatever high price thing its on.)
Anyone else think that this is part of the WB’s devious plan to sink Angel? There is still some bad blood between the WB and Fox over the nasty negotiations for Buffy a couple of years ago. I have a feeling that management at the WB are trying to cut Angel’s ratings in order to give them an excuse to cancel it at the end of the season. And the best way to lower a series’ ratings is to move it around the schedule so that viewer have a hard time finding it.
Now, I think I remember reading that UPN has agreed to take Angel in the event of a WB cancelation. So Angel has a chance of surviving a WB cancelation. And that would open the door to Angel-Buffy crossovers–in the event that Buffy continues into an 8th season (doubtful, I know!)
