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ION Television December 2008 Highlights; CBS Picks Up More Episodes for 'Gary', 'Worst', While NBC Adds More 'Medium'

ION Television has announced its December 2008 schedule and highlights, and there will be no regular changes to the line-up...but there will be plenty of holiday movies and holiday episodes! ION's holiday airings start on Friday, December 12 in the RHI block with the 2007 TV-Movie, A Grandpa for Christmas. Other RHI holiday movies in the weekend RHI block include Silent Night, Hogfather, Night They Saved Christmas, and more. ION will also have a holiday TV-movie week the week of December 22-25 from 4-6pm these four nights with more holiday fun such as the ION premieres of 2008 films My Santa My Dad and The Elf Who Didn't Believe. Four holiday episodes of Hangin' with Mr. Cooper will air Dec. 17-18 in its regular 6-7pm time slot and four M*A*S*H holiday episodes will air the weekend of Dec. 20-21 from 6-7pm. And during the week of December 22, you can catch two classic Boston Legal Christmas episodes, including "The Nutcracker." The Thursday Total Theatre Warner Bros. movies are not in yet, so we don't know what is airing there yet. We will update you on that and if any more things change on our message board as soon as we know. So view our ION Television December 2008 highlights.

CBS Wednesday comedy Gary Unmarried, starring Jay Mohr, will have an additional seven episodes at least this year, bringing the total from 13 to 20 episodes. Two additional scripts were also ordered, so if it does well, we could see up to 22 episodes this season. Meanwhile, CBS has ordered three more episodes of struggling Monday sitcom Worst Week from 13 episodes to 16 episodes. The untraditional sitcom is a critical darling but has not capitalized out of the #1 sitcom, Two and a Half Men. 4 scripts were ordered previously, so one more script has yet to turn into an episode order. CBS still has Rules of Engagement coming in midseason, so if Worst Week doesn't pick-up, you'll see Rules there by February or March. Remember February sweeps doesn't start until March 5 this year because of the transition to digital TV in mid-February.
NBC has ordered 6 additional episodes of Medium, its veteran supernatural drama starring Patricia Arquette. The order brings the total from 13 episodes to 19 episodes for its fifth season. NBC recently canceled Monday drama My Worst Own Enemy and Friday drama Lipstick Jungle, so both will be out of here in January, which is when Medium will more than likely launch. Originally the show was set to launch Sundays at 9PM after Sunday Night Football concludes, but now that will likely change. As soon as NBC announces its revised midseason schedule, we will let you know. I bet it will return to its original Monday at 10pm slot followed the sinking Heroes.