Scheduling Five-Spot, WE 1/23/11 - NBC Shakeups, USA Pickups, Shark Tank, Flashpoint, Countdown

Here's your Scheduling Five-Spot for the week ending January 23, 2011:

NBC Shakeups - Probably deserves its own Five-Spot, but too much else this week. Rapid fire: Parenthood stays on Tuesdays after some recent increases. Harry's Law will air more of its 13-ep order on Mondays than originally planned. America's Next Great Restaurant is thrown out of the Wednesday fray and to Sundays at 8/7c. The Marriage Ref and cast-overhauled Law & Order: Los Angeles are now officially in limbo alongside several other NBC midseason shows: Love Bites, Friends with Benefits, The Paul Reiser Show.

A Legal Mind and Necessary Roughness - USA Network has picked up new shows A Legal Mind and Necessary Roughness, the former a legal drama about a "brilliant but unmotivated college dropout" who takes up the profession, the latter about a "tough, sexy Long Island divorcee who gets a job as the therapist for a professional football team." No word on their scheduling yet (I'd guess at least one premieres this summer) but it means two more additions to the already huge USA scripted lineup.

Shark Tank and Take the Money and Run - I'm thrilled to see one of my very favorite unscripted programs Shark Tank return to the schedule, but not so much that the journeyman reality show gets the Friday 8/7c spot (beginning March 25) and will have to self-start yet again. Meanwhile, Winter Wipeout's replacement in the Thursday 8/7c hour will be competition reality newbie Take the Money and Run, beginning April 14 and running for six weeks.

Flashpoint - Easily the crown jewel of the recent trend in summer scripted co-productions has been Flashpoint, the CBS drama which is still kicking after nearly three years. Canada's CTV is picking up an 18-episode season, but only seven of those will go to CBS (joining six previously unaired eps to comprise a 13-ep summer season). The rest will debut in the US on the ION television network, where they'll join the entirety of the 51-episode CBS/CTV run as part of a syndication package on the net.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann - Kinda try to avoid cable news since I'm not quite as savvy about its ratings, but the big shakeups keep coming! The end of Keith Olbermann's eight year run in MSNBC primetime was pretty jarring, as it seemed to come out of nowhere and the reasons behind it remain pretty unclear. For now, we know that The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell heads to 8:00 and The Ed Show to 10:00. What's next for both MSNBC and Olbermann? Your guess is as good as mine.

More Five-Spots in the Index.