Schedule Five-Spot, WE 12/18/11 - The Finder, The League, EM:HE, Undercover Boss, Off Their Rockers

Here's the Schedule Five-Spot for the week ending December 18, 2011 (plus one from two weeks ago):

The Finder - One note from an otherwise slow WE 12/11/11 was that Fox rectified one of the strangest items from its midseason announcement. Previously, Fox was planning to launch Bones spin-off The Finder with no real support after a repeat of Bones on January 12. Now, Fox has moved an original into the 8:00 hour. Not only should this help The Finder, but it'll be a good indicator of where Bones (which has had big lead-ins all season) is really at.

The League - FX has renewed their fall comedy The League for a fourth season. The show still regularly loses audience from the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia lead-in, but (with finale ratings still pending) it should finish up a bit from last season, and it continues to skew more toward the 18-49 demo (an estimated 84% of its audience is 18-49) than almost anything else on TV.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition - ABC has axed their long-running unscripted franchise as a regular program but will (as with Fox and America's Most Wanted) continue it as a series of specials. The show was one of the very few remaining ABC primetime shows that originated before the network's magical 2004-05 season, though the show did build into a big hit during that season. Apparently its low-1 demos on Friday weren't good enough.

Undercover Boss - It looks like third-year reality show Undercover Boss will get (at most) four airings on Sunday before CBS ships it off to Friday to make way for The Amazing Race on February 19. In a show of confidence, CBS will then slide A Gifted Man up to 9/8c for several weeks to see if that timeslot can help the newbie's ratings. You can also spin it as a bad sign for CSI: NY, which leaves the sked for six Fridays and returns March 30.

The White Night Chronicles - NBC will have a 90-minute tribute to Betty White on Monday, January 16th, the day before her 90th birthday. Then, at 9:30, the network will offer a sneak preview of the long-on-the-shelf hidden camera show Betty White's Off Their Rockers, but the show (greenlit back in March) still doesn't actually have a regular timeslot.

The Five-Spots are my recaps of what aired, what got renewed/cancelled and what rated well or poorly last week in TV. For more Five-Spots, see the Index.