SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

TV Land Alters February 2010 Schedule, 'Married' Situation Addressed; ABC Cancels Ugly Betty But Proper Series Finale Will Air, More ABC Notes

TV Land is altering its February 2010 schedule a bit, and now Married...with Children will leave the line-up starting Feb. 1 (which is next week!), instead of March 1 - a month earlier than planned. It is very strange because the series does well for them in the ratings, but it must be some contractual issues that forces them to do this. But this time it won't move back to sister network Spike TV, it will move to sister network Comedy Central starting Monday, Feb. 1. Stay with us for details on that (hoping by tomorrow we can post it). But for TV Land, there are just two days left -- tonight 10pm and 1am hours and Saturday, Jan. 30 from 1pm-5pm. So, effective Monday, Feb. 1, on weeknights another hour of Home Improvement will air in the 10pm hour and Roseanne will air for another hour in the 1am hour both replacing Married. So, Home Improvement will air 9-11pm and Roseanne from 11pm-2am. The 11pm hour of Roseanne will be replaced by Feb. 15 when Boston Legal launches though, cutting it to 12-2am. Roseanne's late night hour of 3am will be gone because of these changes, as The Cosby Show will air again from 2am-3:30am and Three's Company from 3:30am-5am (both gain an extra episode again). And finally, an hour of The Beverly Hillbillies will air in the 5pm hour replacing an hour of Andy Griffith Show on weekdays.
The Saturday Married...with Children marathon blocks will be replaced by other sitcom blocks, most notably by Sanford & Son and Andy Griffith.
View the updated TV Land February 2010 schedule, but remember more changes are to come in March as now Everybody Loves Raymond will be joining the schedule earlier than planned, as we mentioned a few days back. Stay with us for the TV Land schedule starting March 18 with Raymond added and if Married returns again on TV Land (like it always ends up doing after being dropped by Spike, or perhaps it will be different now that Comedy Central will air it). I also expect March 1-17 to be changed a bit on TV Land as well from the original schedule, too because of these February changes. So watch for that. And we'll tell you the timeslots for Married on Comedy Central by tomorrow.

ABC is ending Ugly Betty after the end of this season. The series is in the middle of its fourth season. The show will get a proper and satisfying ending though, as they still have time to shoot the series finale. However, the season order of 22 episodes has been trimmed down to 20 episodes. Here is the statement from ABC and the producers of Ugly Betty:
"We've mutually come to the difficult decision to make this Ugly Betty's final season, and are announcing now as we want to allow the show ample time to write a satisfying conclusion. We are extremely proud of this groundbreaking series, and felt it was important to give the fans a proper farewell."
ABC will air the series finale in April. Tentatively the finale will likely air Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at 10pm. The series will air all-new episodes on Wednesdays at 10pm from next Wednesday (Feb. 3) to April (except two weeks in February (Feb. 17 and 24), since the Winter Olympics will air then). The series took a dip in the ratings when it moved to Fridays at 9pm this fall and the Wednesday at 10pm move in January only slightly improved on its Friday airings. ABC has not yet announced what will replace Ugly Betty on Wednesdays at 10pm after Betty has its finale. Stay with us for that.

In other ABC schedule updates, The Bachelor: On The Wings of Love - After the Final Rose special will air immediately after the season finale of The Bachelor: On The Wings of Love from 8-10pm on Monday, March 1. But the big news is that ABC has scheduled a Bachelor wedding for last season's couple Jason Mesnick and Molly Malaney. The two-hour The Bachelor: Jason and Molly's Wedding will air Monday, March 8 from 8-10pm leading into Castle. The event will include the bride's dress fitting, planning for the big day, bachelor and bachelorette parties and the ceremony itself. Past Bachelor and Bachelorette couples and participants will be on the guest list.
Jason Mesnick was one of the final two bachelors on DeAnna Pappas' edition of The Bachelorette. He became the first single dad on The Bachelor and proposed to Melissa Rycroft in the finale last year, only to change his mind and break up with Rycroft on the air and instead propose to runner-up Molly Malaney.
ABC will air an all-new season of reality staple Wife Swap on Fridays starting Friday, March 26, 2010 at 8pm ET/PT. Wife Swap replaces Supernanny, and will lead into Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution at 9pm, which also launches on March 26. Wife Swap will likely go into the summer months as it is starting a bit late and has more than 13 episodes in the can for season six.
And finally, ABC has ordered two more episodes of surging hit Castle for this season, CastleTV.net reports. This is no surprise, as Castle is growing every week in the ratings and also has a special two-part, two-night episode coming March 21-22. So it was no surprise to me that ABC ordered two more episodes. Castle will be all-new next on Monday, Feb. 8 with a baseball themed episode featuring a cameo by L.A. Dodgers manager Joe Torre. After that, Castle takes a Winter Olympic break for repeats (and preempted on March 1 by The Bachelor finale) and returns March 8. Castle stars Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic.