It's Friday, Friday

NBC has announced next year's schedule and it's a head scratcher.  They're going with more comedy, but the order is odd.

On Tuesday and Wednesay they're breaking in four new sitcoms, but not mixing them with more established shows.  Are these slots a test to see what'll eventually wind up on Thursday?

Speaking of which, they're breaking up the (critically acclaimed with decent demos but hardly the old powerhouse that made the network #1) Thursday lineup. Community, my favorite show, is out.  Instead, in the 8 pm death slot, up against Big Bang Theory, is Emmy winner 30 Rock.  I guess that's because it's only got a 13 episode order and they need a sacrificial lamb while they figure out what to put there (while giving the show a chance for a decent funeral).  It's followed, in a slot not much better, by Up All Night, which could just as easily have been canceled.  Is this another holding pattern until they figure out what to do?

Then at 9 you've got the tentpole, as it were, of The Office.  The ratings are a bit down and the show hasn't been the same since Steve Carrell left, but it looks like NBC hopes to keep this thing going, and not spin it off into The Dwight Schrute Show, even as some actors and producers move on.  This is followed by Parks And Recreation, which the network also hopes will go on, even if it's never had huge ratings.

At 10 pm, Awake has been put to sleep. In its place, in the slot that for decades has represented top TV drama, they've put in a news show, and a very low-rated one at that, Rock Center With Brian Williams.  Do they owe Williams something?  (I'm happy to see the show has been picked up since I have a friend who works there.)

Finally, in the Friday wasteland, they start the night with surprise pick-up Whitney.  I guess that makes it even easier to ignore, but it's now followed by Community. It's hard to find two sitcoms more temperamentally opposed.

Nevertheless, it's great Community is on at all.  No doubt its small but intense following will watch it no matter where it goes (though whether they'll watch on the night it's broadcast is a different question), but with a 13 episode order, it seems, once again, that NBC is leaving a good show out to dry.  Should Dan Harmon et al start planning right now to make sure their 13th episode will be a proper viking funeral?