Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: NBC Drama to Return!

After a three month absence, NBC will return the ratings-challenged Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip to primetime on Thursday May 24th at 10pm. The show has been M.I.A. since February 19th when the network pulled it a week earlier than planned to kick off the premiere of The Black Donnellys (which itself, six episodes later, was kicked off the schedule).

It will be interesting to see how well the series performs in the Thursday night timeslot. When NBC announced their schedule a year ago, Studio 60 was scheduled to air at 9pm as a lead-in to ER. The peacock network rewrote their schedule when ABC announced Grey’s Anatomy would be in that timeslot as well.

NBC hasn’t said how long Studio 60 will remain on the air. There are six unaired episodes left in the season and I suspect, because they were expensive to produce, NBC will air them all.

Does this bode well for a second season? Not really. The May sweeps period ends on May 23rd this year and NBC will have already announced their schedule for the 2007-08 season. Studio 60’s fate will likely already have been decided by the time it returns. Stay tuned!