I have not come to refute the claims of editor-in-chief Jeff Giles, because it would be pointless. NBC is slowly finding out just how pointless, in fact, as they proceed to take a pounding from their advertisers and affiliates for their penny wisdom. “Jay Leno is beloved,” they said. “Jay’s fans are loyal, ” they said. What NBC brass feared was losing Leno to ABC, who probably would have snapped him up right quick, dumping Jimmy Kimmel like, well, like Sarah Silverman dumped Jimmy Kimmel (What, too soon?) With the costs rising by the year for scripted programs, the nighttime dramas leading the charge with more explosions, dead body mannequins and pricier locations, the Peacock network sought to kill two birds with one formerly skunk-haired stone. Talk shows are cheap. Run one five times a week and tell David E. Kelley to take his tired crap elsewhere. And with Jay, you get an instant audience! Win-win!

Only now, NBC has to wonder if the sponsors clamoring to back out of the 10 PM timeslot, and the money they represent, is more or less than the expenditure they would have otherwise incurred. Jay Leno, it seems, has become an albatross around the network’s neck, and if you think the added pressure would have caused him to step up his game and liven up the show, you probably were thinking this was originally a pretty good idea. No, the show still sucks.

But give Jay the teeny-tiniest break here. What would they have run in that slot if they hadn’t taken the big gamble? As I’ve said many times before: lawyers, cops and doctors. If for no better reason, give the big man a pat on the back for at least momentarily derailing the same old hackneyed, worn out and blood-drained train of thought that has plagued these “wonderful” nighttime dramas lo these many, many moons. It has been a long time since St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law and Hill Street Blues and, unlike the diehard loyalists, I don’t think the last couple seasons of ER were anywhere near the level of the first three. But there’s no doubt in my mind that without Leno shoving his chin into that ten o’clock dike, the dam would burst forth with edgy cops with hearts of gold, horny doctors still adherent to the Hippocratic Oath and lawyers who’ll do anything to win, but they won’t do that (No, no, they won’t do that.) (more…)