Scheduling Five-Spot, WE 1/16/11 - ABC Renewals, Raising Hope, Terra Nova, The Big Bang Theory, Law & Order: Los Angeles

I actually had to be fairly discerning this week with lots of news coming out of the broadcast portion of the press tour. Lemme know if you think I missed something huge. Also, in case you're wondering, no Opinion Five-Spot this week; due to travel, I have watched practically zero TV. Aiming to get the Ratings one out sometime on Tuesday rather than the regular Wednesday. Here's your Scheduling Five-Spot for the week ending January 16, 2011:

ABC Renewals - Coming out of the ABC press tour was the news that the alphabet has renewed six veteran shows: Castle, The Middle, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice. None of these are major surprises, though some thought Cougar Town might be in trouble because of its big drops out of Modern. While concerning (and would likely be the end on a net like CBS with a less spotty recent comedy history), it's not concerning enough to discard Cougar just yet. A timeslot downgrade may be in order.

Raising Hope Season Two - On the Fox side of things was the news that Raising Hope has become the 2010-11 season's first new show to get a second season order. It's another somewhat retention-challenged show considering the largeness of lead-in Glee, but its raw numbers (pretty stable in the mid-2's since the first few weeks) comfortably win out on a net that has an even weaker recent history with live action comedy. It stays post-Glee in the second half of the season thanks to the Wed/Thurs American Idol move.

Terra Nova Preview - Fox used a May preview followed by a summer of buzz-building to turn Glee into one of the biggest new scripted hits of the last few years, and they're hoping a similar strategy will work with the heavily hyped prehistoric drama Terra Nova, which will have a two-night preview on May 23 and 24. In less publicized but similar news, the still-untitled Jamie Foxx sketch comedy show gets a single post-Idol whirl on March 31 before officially premiering during the summer more than two months later (June 7).

The Big Bang Theory Renewed... And Then Some - CBS announced during their slice of the press tour pie that The Big Bang Theory is gonna be around for the next three seasons, through at least the 2013-14 season. This three-year deal is similar to the one Two and a Half Men got a couple years ago, and it's pretty much a no-brainer for both network and studio considering the show remains one of TV's highest-rated series in first-run and fetched the richest half-hour cable syndication deal ever with TBS.

Law & Order: LA Cast Craziness - I'm not gonna write the show off, as the original Law & Order had a ton of cast turnover in its first few years and ultimately managed two decades on the air. But it probably isn't a great sign that the show dropped Skeet Ulrich, Regina Hall, and Megan Boone. Meanwhile, as far as I know, Alfred Molina's character will become the first in L&O history to operate on both the "Law" and the "Order" side, for the TV trivia buffs out there.

More Five-Spots in the Index.